A Beautiful Addition with John Marsh

Josh: 0:01

All right. Good day fellows. Welcome to uncensored advice for men. My buddy, Kayla reached out to me and said, Hey, I got a guy. I want to introduce you to him. His name's John Marsh. John and I jumped on the call and within minutes I go, Hey man, stop chatting for one second. Let me hit record the stuff you're sharing with me is pretty interesting. I want to share it with the community. Dudes, let's welcome John Marsh to the show. Welcome buddy,

John: 0:24

Man. It's great to be here. I love the opportunity to share. My wife says I'm light in the baked beans dog. You don't want to tell any secrets to me because I'll just spill it all. Or she says, you're full frontal nudity. She said, just get your clothes back on. You just take them off immediately. I'm happy to be with you and an uncensored way to share how good our lives have been. And that there's hope for idiots.

Josh: 0:49

There's hope for idiots, man, that might be the title for the show. I had the saying yet, you and I might be twin brothers. You have more gray up top than I do, but I have the same. Like I want to stand naked and unashamed open kimono on a cold wet day. That's what, to me, that's what true community is. That's what true transparency is. That's where relationships and trust are built, but kind of give us John. I, I don't want to have a nudist. I don't have a nude off with you, but like, why don't you give us your story, man, tell us who you are and what you're up to.

John: 1:27

So my name is John Marsh. I'm in a little town called OPA Leica, Alabama. Thanks. Hope you like Alabama, about 30,000 people. My story is I grew up, my mom tried for 13 years to have a child couldn't adopted me in 18 months later, had my little brother. I super spoiled a baby, most everything they said till I was 13 years old and stepped across the line and did something to get God my parents, I thought I could never be forgiven for. I had sex with a little girl that was 12. I rode my bike over to her house and in doing so I broke a covenant that I knew once you do something wrong and you figure you can't unwind it. I started rebelling from that point. There's something about a rebellious child. I say, you know that we, what we most need, we least deserve, which is praise. Well, we're rebelling, but I rebelled 17 years old, tried drugs for the first time. About 23 years old, I was a million and a half dollars in debt, $99,000 overdrawn. I was going through a divorce with my wife because she left me for one of my employees who happened to be one of my bankers funds. It drove me to the attic of my house to hang myself hooked on meth. So, I kept hearing, kill yourself. God kept saying die to yourself out of yourself. And it sounded so similar. I kept hearing, take your life and God kept saying, lay your life down. If it gets to the place where there's no hope in your future, you have no power in your present. And that's where I was. I went up in the attic of that house and I was happy to just get it over with laid down on an old plywood floor, cried out to God. I never knew before, because I thought Jesus was some old dude that wore sandals. I thought church was about hot dogs and hot girls and he'd come and touch me and transform me like life instruct me every hair on my body stood up. For two solid hours, he gave me a injection of love and care and forgiveness that I never imagined was possible. I didn't walk an hour and pray a prayer, but I got transformed in love, got past the fence, went down out of that house and told my wife, she said, what are you doing? I said, I just got saved. She said, you're a liar. I spent a year watching my wife go out on dates with this other guys. God began to work on me, change me and I didn't quit drugs and doing wrong. They quit me today in the attic of that house, I've walked in redemptive power. Since that time on, we worked our way out of that debt and reconciled our marriage. It took us seven and a half years of repenting. One check at a time for God to build the skills, but everything were going through had a picture of where he was taking us to. We've loved this little town OPA Locka for 25 years. We've now done 280 structures, buildings, and 10 blocks started over 60 businesses to save our town. Now we steward close to $2 billion worth of redemptive real estate in 10 cities. Plus still love this 10 square blocks of opelacka. I just think if you're an idiot today, there's tons of hope. Pretty it's God loves idiots. That's his niche market. He wants somebody that they know it can't be them. We're incredibly blessed to do all we do and we're walking in something that I could only dream of and it keeps getting better. So that's our basic story. There's a lot more to 25 years of that, but that'll give you a little look into, who we are, what we care about.

Josh: 4:49

Holy moly. Wow. The first mistake you made was a domino effect that really took you down a dark path. Why was that first? Why, why did that first one cause such an issue cause such a problem that led you down that path. What was it? What was it about that event?

John: 5:16

I had thought about it in the past and I never felt like two things that made me feel like that sex and money, the money, the minute I, I, I experienced sex and the, except that, when a girl loves you in her way, it takes her clothes off and you guys come together. They acceptance, I've never experienced anything like that. I longed for acceptance and two things I said, I never was confused if a girl accepted me or not. Building companies and making money, I've never been confused if our customers and clients accepted us cause they paid. It was a longing for something that only God could give. It was gifts used in a perverted way. The word perversion is twisted truth. I twisted the truth of God's gift in my life in a perverted way. I mean, what's the difference in manipulation and motivation. It's why you do it, right? I mean the same tools are used at per use for manipulation and motivation. If I manipulate you, it's good for me. If I motivate you, it's good for we. I just use God's gift in a legislative way and it touched me and I wasn't ever the same. I also believed for some reason that couldn't be forgiven, ? And, and, and once that was there, it's like getting unpregnant, it's messy. And so you can't diverge in yourself. Only guy can be merging us. If there's something we long for his love and forgiveness and he's got the niche market on all that,

Josh: 6:51

God owns the niche market of idiots. That is so interesting to hear it sounds offensive. Right. When I look at my own life, I'm like, wow, it was because I was an idiot. It was because I got to the end of myself that I really cried out for help. That's when I realized that I can't do this on my own. That's the that's the illusion is that I've got things under control, but then I drink too much, eat too much. I smoke too much. I screw too much. I do whatever too much on that, too much kind of guy until I reached the end and I go, I am out of control. Is that what happened?

John: 7:24

Well, we're all addicts. We're just addicted to the wrong stuff. Some people is heroin. Some people it's porn, some people it's alcohol, some people at softball and some people it's church. The only thing you can be addicted to is Jesus said at the right place, we're born to be addicted. Can't get enough, love it, crave it, think about it all the time. We just pointed the wrong direction. Until I met him and he began to love me and I've found everything that I was using that was perverted became aligned. I, I think where addiction is beautiful when it's pointed the right direction and I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody, I've helped a lot of guys get off. We've helped reconcile over 200 broken marriages and we've helped guys get off of everything. The only thing I can tell them is I know you'll change when you find something better. I don't want to give you because the life I'd seen in Christians was a patched up old crappy Christian life. Hey, you could drive a junkie band, have a ugly wife and a blue Jean skirt live in a trailer and it's going to be good. It's going to be like kingdom stuff. Well, I mean, if that's what I got to sign up to, cause the God met me in heaven. Won't fat, but I really like a hot wife and a good life and nice car. I'm not sure he gives us, but he extravagantly pours on us. Everything we could dream of. He said, I'll bless you and make blessings overtake you. You don't plant corn and get apples. You reap what you sow. If you don't like what you're selling, you better look, who's doing the plant.

Josh: 8:53

Yeah.

John: 8:54

If handle our money like worldly, people will have that kind of money. They have. If we handle our marriage like worldly people, I mean, how many people I say as 5s, I focus on faith, family, fun, fitness, and finance. If you can't tell me, you got a sophisticated plan for your faith and your fun and your fitness, like you have on your finances. I'm going to ask you why not? Because you're telling me something's more important than if you look at our lives. I have a sophisticated plan of all five of those. And so think about this. Money's easy to measure. How do you measure your fitness? I mean, God gave us this amazing dirt suit to ride in. Steve jobs would've gave you a billion dollars for this thing that they could have bought yours. You are a billionaire, you got to steward this thing. How do you steward your family? I mean, it's the greatest gift of all. Imagine if you were rich and in great shape and your wife hated you and your kids say that you cause that success,

Josh: 9:53

No,

John: 9:54

Imagine it. How do you steward your faith? How are you putting your faith out into the world in such a way? He said, he said, if God wants those who will pursue him, he said, I want those who believe that I am and believe that I'm the rewarder of those who diligently seek me. What I realized is all the answers we found to get ourselves out of that million and a half dollars of debt. I tell you, we bet were $99,000 overdrawn. When I got, say that in that year, we had bounced. The thousand checks paid $19,000 in NSF days. Now many folks that can say I was a bigger idiot than you. So, so I tell them, and I said, now I needed help in my money. Cause it's so screwed up. I said, here's what it's Mike, he's going back to the first of our dockets. Imagine walking out in the middle of the sec football stadium, we're not far from Auburn. Imagine we walking into the stadium, snatching my pants down and say, when y'all guys get done laughing, I need some help. That's what it's like sharing these areas of our life, where we're broken and we need help. We've got to get transparent. We've got to get naked in a way so that God can help us. Not so you can be hurt. And so you can be helped.

Josh: 11:01

Yeah. You mentioned one sure. Way to measure acceptance. Right. Sex and money like that is a, those are easy ways. Am I getting booty? Yeah. I'm liked. Am I, is it costing me money or am I making money? Yeah, you can measure those things. I never thought of it that way before I remember I waited till I was like 21 to actually have sex. I went wild for a few good years. Right. Because in church, man, we hold up a right hand and say, I swear I will never have sex when we do, when we're 10 years old and we don't nothing about sex. Right. So it's like an easy problem.

John: 11:39

They'll tell you, it's not any fun. Which seems like a sham. I mean, people wanting to do it, right. It's like, don't play a thought, fun, God built and stuff. It's really actually a lot of fun. It's just like, it's like starting a fire in the middle of your living room. It's when it's in a fireplace, ? Sex outside of marriage has consequences, like taking two pieces of duct tape and sticking them together and trying to pull them apart. The more you do it, the less you stick.

Josh: 12:06

Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I remember, going through my wild stage and I was driving home after having two different partners in a day, right? Two, two separate girls. I hope nobody's listening to this mom. I'm sorry. Like driving home from the bar or whatever from the person's house, I remember crying and I was asking God, I was like, I feel so lonely here. I am getting booty and, and feeling like the man, like my, my guy friends were like high fiving me yet. I felt so alone and so broken. Like, I felt so lonely man, but the world would say acceptance, you're the man. You're this. You could drink a lot. You could do a lot. Money when I was making a lot of money, man, like there was times where I was working 80 hours a week, sleeping under my desk, making decent money felt alone. Wow. I've never heard you put, I've never heard someone put it that way is those are measures of acceptance. You said an addiction, I'm an addict. How do you, how did you find something better? You cried out to God, lightning hit you. It felt like, but like, is that the normal story for most people? Or what would it be experienced?

John: 13:16

I haven't experienced it ever before with anybody else or heard of it. I didn't even, again, I wasn't looking for it. Whatever our stories are not powerful because of what we can say. I mean the best testimonies are not the ones where people were so broken and the best and the worst ones are where people started serving God at eight years old. That's the wrong measurement system. I mean, I mean, do you have to poop in the pool and clean it up for it to be a good pool? This is dumb. But, but what happens is we have to live in this space of like, what happened to me was supernatural for me because of where he wanted to send me. And that's the way it always is. Whatever he wants to do through you, he will do and walk with you in it. I mean, if you wonder why I've had all these different businesses and all these different things and had all these different failures it's because he, it was where he was taking me to. If you want to know where you're going to look at what you've been through, because you comfort others with the same comfort you've been comforted with. I needed to be able to sit in front of men and women who are broken and who had just add, destroyed my marriage and drove my wife away. I had to go back and say I was wrong. God, the first thing he asked me to do is to take, while I was watching my wife go out on dates with one of my old employees to the key hole, God asked me to go ask him to forgive me for being a bad boss. This seems disproportionately stupid.

Josh: 14:41

Wow.

John: 14:41

Right? I say, God, this doesn't make any sense at all. What is wrong with you? He said, you're forgiven in the manner in which you forgive, I'm doing this for you. I'm not doing this to you. What I had to do is I had to go to him and tell you I was wrong. Will you please forgive me? Not that limp, old stuff. People say, please forgive me. That's a command. I was wrong. And what was I wrong for? Because I wasn't operating in truth, being true. Lovely. Can, these are characteristics of the kingdom and God wanted to set me free from being locked. Cause I wanted to screw a gun in that guy's ear and pull the trigger about 10 times. That's why God did it. I wouldn't be imprisoned to unforgiveness for the rest of my American forgiveness is the biggest myths. If you want to know, what's holding us back today. Forgiveness is a big one. Most people don't even know how to do it. They think it's a vaccination. One time, be a whew. Glad I did that for him to stuff. Got that stuff out of the way. It's too hard, like kicked in the nuts by NFL kicker. Well guess what? It's a second by second minute, by minute, hour by hour choice of your wheel that you're going to have to do to you die. That's what you're signing up for every day. You're going to live 30 days of hell in a day to heaven. One day it'll get the 30 days of heaven in a day of hell. But hell is after us. I still sometimes hurt from what me and my wife went through. I still have to forgive it. Isn't the same, but it's still a part of it. She has to forgive me for destroying our marriage, hurting him. My wife ended up she's everything. I dreamed up loving God and what God began to work in me. She kept seeing this other guy and I kept God kept telling me, are you going to wait on, say, God, this is so dumb. One thing I noticed something that's lost and found can be more powerful than something that was never lost when God redeemed something, it has all the power, the kingdom. What he had me do is that I didn't know how to love her because I thought loving the lady's grabbing her butt, telling her she's pretty and get naked. That was my love thing, which I couldn't believe asked it like that. She's I don't like that at all. I thought, man, how could you not like me grabbing her butt and tell her she's pretty. This seems like just common sense. Whoa,

Josh: 16:55

Whoa, whoa,

John: 16:57

No, there's more of them. There's more to marriage and sex and suffering. Those are the only two measure and things that was like, oh, sex and supper were cruising. I thought this thing was working. What ended up happening is I don't know how to love. Here's first thing I said to God. God loves the high jump bar of following you. I'm screwed. If I gotta be patient time, long suffering, no records of wrongs, hopes, all things believes, all things, trust all things. I've got to do this all the time. I'm not going to make it go ahead and kill me. And I felt the Lord showed me. He said, no, that's not what I expected from you. That's how I'm going to be two years. I'll give it to you so you can give it away. If I give it to you can give it away. So many of us are spiritually constipated. We're taking it in, not putting it out and love and forgiveness that's God's language. For if God had a currency, it would be forgiveness. He wants you to get it and give it don't be a reservoir or be a river. He began to work in me and show what he showed me. The I'm going to give you an, that we can talk about all kinds of things. Parenting. I'm a parent, I'm a grandparent. We still own five companies. We're still doing all kinds of things, but some of the best advice, I only have a few minutes to give you one of the things is how do you, how did I grow and get loved back when it was destroyed. I've taken a beautiful base and throwing it on the concrete poured, shattering, getting a million basis. And God sent him a rebuild. I said, this next will look like crap. You glue it all together. It's going to be all blue. He said, no, no. I'm building something new with the same parts. We wanted to build a new life within our life and that's what he wants to do in our lives. The question, best question I ever asked my wife is what is the one thing I could do to show you? I love you. The number one thing that I'm not currently doing, not 10. Cause she didn't the number one. She said, don't throw sweaty socks on the floor inside out. I hate it. I said, that's really the thing she said. Yes. I said, we started rebuilding our marriage on sweaty socks. She hadn't never picked up one again. And, and what I ended up, there's a lot more to that story that we found out later through therapy. But, but it was that thing, that one thing and the same thing would do. If you get kids. My number one question I ever asked my boys, I have two sons. One's 28. Now one's 20 was what is the one thing your daddy does that makes you feel the most loved? My oldest son, daddy, take me everywhere you go. He's still that way at 28 years old, a man that has his own kid. He's still, when I take him somewhere, he goes. Don't let think we know what shows people love, because we're going to say what we think, ask them what they think, write it down and do it. It's the keys to the kingdom.

Josh: 19:38

Dude. You're like a, you're like a whole box of fortune cookies. Like you crack them open. You read that one liner. You're like, man, I gotta write that down.

John: 19:47

I can't wait for you to mirror. She said, John, you speak bumper sticker. I said, they stick,

Josh: 19:53

Right?

John: 19:55

I mean, if you're simple, you have to think that way. I'm not complex. I'm simple. In simple faults and my goal is that I would be, could I be like my, my father in heaven who speaks simply and clearly put the cookies on the low shelf in such a way that it's actually actionable.

Josh: 20:12

Yeah. All right. We got to dive into this because you said it in one of your bumper stickers and it went fast, but we got to go back to it because to me this was one of the most painful things that I had to do is go through forgiveness because I was really good at making relationships. I'm really good. I'm super extroverted. I've never met a stranger. If someone p****s me off or screws with me, f**k them. They're gone next until you actually find someone that you love or a family member hurts you and you can't just say F off. Right? So I was forced into forgiveness. Like I had, I mean, 10 years later into my marriage, I had to go back and forgive myself. Some friends, my wife, my mom, my dad. I went through this whole shitload of forgiveness and it was painful and I didn't have a guide to follow. So can you help us? Cause you said the forgiveness vaccine, right? It doesn't exist. Like, boom, here's a shot. I'm better now booster number two, booster number 237 doesn't exist. So what is the blueprint forgiveness? Because I don't know.

John: 21:19

Well, and I think it starts with awareness of forgiveness needs. Like we have nuclear waste in the basement and all of our lives in our relationships. We came into marriage, it here's one way I knew it. We start a conversation. Me and my wife call our arguing now heated fellowship. When we get in heated fellowship, it, if it starts on microwave popcorn, it always ends on your mama and your daddy. You remember when, so if you start with something simple and end with something profound and they're in big things and big hurts, all that nuclear waste, you've put all the concrete over two walls. You can keep layering up, I'll buy you something. If you having a fuss that has more energy than today's first, you have unforgiveness. Second. If you're in the shower and you're arguing with somebody and you win and they're not they're unforgiveness. The first thing is awareness that you got this stuff because the key to being deceived, as you don't know it, we don't know it unforgiveness. Gyming up all this catastrophic destruction within our hearts and lives. And, and it's, it's a conversation rolling all the time in your head where they are guilty. And you're the judge. First you gotta realize that recognizing it is part of the deal. And, and here's the thing that's going to happen. You're going to suck at it. Just like working out for her, like, doing anything to go ahead and assign a period of time to suck at it. Cause you're go suck in it. And that's how you start anything. Start in and suck at it until you can get better at it. But, but here's the thing you got to practice. The number one thing, just to corner your flesh is like a daggum line. This has been eating up a big roaring line. You go, you gotta stick that guy on occasion, feeding, stale saltines. You've got to start dealing with your flesh. That's always trying to be right. And so decide not to be right. Decide to be connected. Decide not to be, powerful decide to be obedient because of obedience is greater than sacrifice. And here's how you know, it's obedience. If you won't want to do it, that's the key to obedience. It's very simple. It's like what you will use to do. Don't do that. You're gonna probably start walking in obedience. I mean, just like if I thought I wanted to smack them upside the head that frog needs me to ask him to forgive me. The other thing is the correct understanding. Let's say you attribute 99% of your problems to your wife, man. God, if that woman you gave him start in the garden. That blame game is that woman you gave me last night. He got Eve, she was probably spoken hot hand-built by God naked in the garden, they screwed the pooch on this. Say that could have been an amazing situation went right. It started our day. Our great, great grandfather was an idiot. The God knew were going to go stupid. He had this great plan that he was going to pay the ultimate price to be close to us and that he would have, if he had a refrigerator, our pictures on it were blessed and chosen, adopted, and loved extravagantly. He's paid this price he's got to serve, but so let's say your wife's 99% wrong and you're 1% wrong. You're a hundred percent your 1%. And that's the story. Get on your knees over the 1%. You go to her and don't say anything about 99%. You start being on your side of the fence was wrong. Will you please forgive me? You wait for answer now, no matter what the answer is, which will probably be yeah. And you know what else? You know what else? It ain't gonna have about six balls, 10 balls. They're like their flow throwing flaming bags of manure at you with holes in it. Just be prepared to keep saying, oh, I was wrong for that. Will you please forgive me? When you walk away, you will have relieved a tremendous amount of pressure on the system. You might feel a little stupid, but in your heart, you're going to feel lighter. And then you keep doing it. You keep going back that you've been forgiven. So you can forgive. Now, if you don't have any forgiveness to give, right, you're looking at your, I ain't got no forgiveness in this cup. Oh, now we got a problem for you. Realize where you really are in this thing because we receive it from him. If you don't feel that you have anything to forgive, get on your knees and ask God to give you, show you the forgiveness you've been freely given. I mean, because think about this. You want to know how easy God will give this stuff out. I mean, God treats forgiveness. He gives it out extravagantly because he paid so much for it with intentionality. Jesus. Think by this, you got a personal financial statement. Your network is Jesus, because that's what people like us cost. He paid the ultimate price for us. So receive it and give it away. Be like that seat hanging by him on the cross to make you believe in theology of the thief that it walking, I'll pray. A prayer that gets sprinkled or dumped. All he said was, remember me and got into heaven. I think we're going to see tons of people there. We wouldn't believe in heaven. I think the easiest thing in the world to do is get saved. One of the most difficult things that we're going to do, some of it.

Josh: 26:28

Is to what.

John: 26:29

You have to live it, to live out, to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, to being saved, to being healed, to being delivered because we walk in a dirt suit. It's lined up with the wrong story.

Josh: 26:42

Yeah. So let me ask you a question. Cause you've helped re fix 200 marriages walk a lot of people through, you said you were allowed to experience a bunch of pain and issues. That one day you can help other people, right? Like you were allowed, you were blessed with that, right.

John: 27:00

It was a privilege,

Josh: 27:01

Which sounds fricking nuts. But like, I understand that.

John: 27:04

It's an upside down kingdom, right? I mean the whole thing, everything you, oh, God says I can be ambitious and content. He said, I can be dead and alive. He said, I can give and receive that. The more I give, the more I will receive. I mean, the whole thing's upside down.

Josh: 27:26

It's a matrix,

John: 27:28

Just a matrix. But, and you've got these receptacles all over your body and you're not strong enough to stand up.

Josh: 27:37

Yeah. Your Trinity, you wear the black leather suit. I'll be needing,

John: 27:42

Oh, come on. No way, man. My wife's Trinity. She says that to me all the time. She is, I love my eight year old son when he was eight years old, our oldest he's very smart boy. I mean, and he said, daddy. I said, yeah, but what is it? He said, how did you get mama? I said, what are you doing? He's like, whoa, daddy, she's so hot. You're so not. I said, you better focus on sales a little buddy. That's the only way you get a good lady,

Speaker 3: 28:06

But.

John: 28:07

Wait, I've been truly blessed. We're 30 years married this year. I tell you, and the one thing I don't want to leave this show, not telling people, because there's so much I want to share with me. Because I have suffered greatly underneath of a lot of bad decisions, I planted corn and I didn't get apples. Okay. But, but one thing I think that they would want to hear is how do you get to the place where there's not all the buts and boobs in your mind? How do we clean our mind of all these images that are wrecking us, where we want to play our own porno movies with our spouses? How do we get to where we can live free and all that God intended. Cause he built everything to do with our bodies, but how do we get free? And that's something God showed me.

Josh: 28:48

Okay, wait, wait, wait. Before you give us the secret formula and how to get boobs and butts guys. This is your last opportunity, whatever boobs and butts you have in your mind. This is the one.

John: 29:00

Out before I tell you this, but don't worry. They can always put them back. Cause God overrule people's will, you can always put them back a new version if you want, if you think it'll help. If it would've helped, you would have already, I mean, all of us have enough, right?

Josh: 29:15

Yeah.

John: 29:16

I mean, it's not like we, haven't got a huge catalog that we could carry with us and what I praise God for today. I was unable to do without him that he allowed me to do. When I closed my eyes. I don't see nobody naked, but.

Josh: 29:30

That's right.

John: 29:31

That's.

Josh: 29:32

Right. Okay, cool. I didn't know.

John: 29:36

He's amazing. But, but that's a free thing because now who do you think I won't.

Josh: 29:41

Your wife. All right. You got to give us the Secret formula. All right. Whoever didn't want to like get boobs and butts out of their head, they've exited the show exit stage right Now. They're still here. The guys who want a pure mind towards their wife or future wife, what's the formula. How do we do that?

John: 29:59

Well, what if it would make their sex incredibly better? What if it would make their urges be more appropriate to what if it would give them more bandwidth to build things and do things and have all the energy they want? What if their best life they could imagine sexually was ahead of him and not behind them, because God had a plan for them. What if that's true? And so it isn't my formula. It's his format. I'm an idiot. He got saved every time. I don't know what to do. I just looked in the book. I mean, the books got all the stuff in it. It's not like he hid it from him. He didn't put it under a rock. If you want to grow in God, you'd need to be in God's word daily, get on your hands and knees and spend time with God daily and spend time with people that loved God is simple. He made it a system idiots could do. It's just that easy. You won't have to ask anybody what God's saying. You'll know.

Josh: 30:50

Yeah.

John: 30:51

Hearing God moving this name of this thing, if you can't do that, you are stuck.

Josh: 30:56

Getting rid of boobs and butts was.

John: 30:58

Okay and here's the thing. He, he said, this take every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Remember, we're the gatekeepers of our mind. God put us complete stewards of our mind. You get to block things out and you get to bring things in. We choose what we think going in the Bible says, as a man, think of so Izzy, you are what you think, okay? You, you live in your, what you think. I just said, God, I'd ride down the road and I'd see pictures of Ash with that other guy. I would hear those conversations I'd listened to. And they were torturing me. I was just be weeping. And I was so angry. I mean, I just, it was just de-siloing. I couldn't stop. Every time she went to the grocery store, every time she went anywhere, I was steaming that something was wrong. I just said, I'm not going to make it got two things. If you don't give me more power than I got, I'm not going to make it. If you don't show me how to clean my mind, cause that's, what's killing me. You can make arms go out of a man without armor, make bond. I see. But that means nothing to me. If you can't heal where I'm riding, which is inside my head. I believe in the scripture, he showed me that this scripture, and I only knew one scripture because I got saved. I went to the Baptist church, that's the only place I knew to go big Baptist church, me and Nash show up there. I'd take a little rabbit trail for a minute show up in this big newlywed, Sunday school room and a bunch of tables and people sit and then we're like, no. And there were like, whoa. And they're like any prayer requests. I was like, oh, cause I didn't know. You should be anxious to say stuff like that. All my end up, they're like, yeah, new couple. I was like, that's like me and her custody, each other, all the way to church. She's still seeing this other guy we're screwed up. Can y'all help us all the time everywhere. Like, oh, we had leprosy and like business and I kind of got the picture. The next guy was like, oh, what's his prayer unspoken. The next guy was like, my cousin tow and Idaho's hurt me. I thought maybe we're too screwed up for these people. I said, we need Jesus. We can't do this. We have to have like, we're too screwed up. Then people kind of fixed up. We're screwed up. We need help. So what ended up happening is bad. They gave me this little thing called a survival kit. It had you 30 days of read your Bible and these little scriptures you memorize. I did every 30 days. I want to tell you, I hadn't stopped since in 20, 28 years, 27 years, I've been in the word of God and I've been loving on and honoring God. I don't think so. I don't have time for that. So don't worry your payments. How many times do you go out without pants? Leave your pants at the house and read the word. If you got to choose, go without pants because it's more important.

Josh: 33:41

Yeah. John said the word of.

John: 33:42

God. There's nothing more important than so here's what I got. That one scripture. I remember I was there Psalms one. I seen die word. I have hidden my heart that I might not sin against me. Okay. Every time I was driving down the road, in a big set of foods, pop in my head or some other part and I'd be like, dang, like how did that come in here? When I was just thinking about whatever lunch and I realized our minds are the most complex filing cabinets for Severn to built. Whenever I pulled one up and see some butts, some boots, I'm like, I stuck a little word in there, but the file back down and through a system of just constantly taking thoughts, captive and putting a piece of word in there, that word cleaned the whole file again. And so it's just that simple. If you'll, if you care and you want to take every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ and place a piece of word in there, I promise you, whatever is plaguing you and your mind will be redeemed.

Josh: 34:41

Yeah. Super cool. Super cool. W I the matrix I got to go backwards, right? Or maybe even Quentin Tarantino. I got to go. I got to go backwards in the story . You mentioned, I heard kill yourself. What God was saying was died to yourself. I heard there was a few others that you said,

John: 35:05

Take your life. He was saying, lay your life down and see that suicide is the ultimate in my opinion guys. I've been there with the rope about to do it. And I'm really not scared of anything. Whether then the rope would hold. What it is it's a, it's a function that I believe is misinterpreted. We know we're supposed to lay our lives down. We know were built to lay our lives down so that God would give us one. We know we have to die. I mean, he says this, your crude with Christ, that word is cold crucified with Christ. And yet not. I live that's Galatians two 20, but Christ lives in me and the life I live in his flesh. I live by faith in the son of God. Do you see, we know we're supposed to be dead before we know it, but we don't know what to do with it. We misinterpret, I guess I ought to kill my, so how many people are killing themselves today? My friend, you go into a room, 20% of the people who are listening to podcasts podcast with us are facing about it.

Josh: 36:04

Yeah.

John: 36:05

I'm here to tell you it's a lie. It's a lie. Don't believe the father of lies. There's a father that loves you a piece. He's calling you when you die, you will live. If you'll lay your life down for his state, you'll surely find it. The life I long for has been hit up and wrapped up in giving myself over to the king of the universe. I mean, I can't lose for when. I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony opportunity is everywhere.

Josh: 36:42

Now, as you're doing this and this conversation, there's guys in the audience who do not have the same beliefs as you do not, about Jesus, God, all this stuff, but they might be on the five F's. They might feel like they're checking all the boxes. Maybe, maybe they're missing the F and faith, right? Like what, what do you say to a dude who has it all made? He's he's broken all those other four. F's just fine. And things are going well for him.

John: 37:14

I don't pretend to tell other people what to do. I'm not, I didn't go to cemetery or seminary. I don't know anything about that stuff. I'm an idiot and got saved. I just got into this thing and it worked for me and stuff that works. It's pretty darn easy to understand. I mean, don't take that. If you're got something, this working for you, but if you ever get to the place where you wish you felt loved, you wish you felt accepted. You wish a cup forgiven. If you ever get to the place that the way you're living is not giving you what you dreamed of. You start looking at everything else, try God. I mean, he'll meet your needs and you don't have to walk hour and pray a prayer. Do some of that church stuff, because church is primarily in the U S like a crappy country club, big do's and no fun. I didn't want what they had there. Wasn't like I said, a lot of people who knew how to make money or had hotlines or did cool stuff. So that's a big problem for me. Cause I didn't want junky stuff. So maybe they don't want that. If they'll get down on their hands and knees and just start talking to the king of the universe, that's the answer. I mean, I tell people, if you lack in what God, if you won't know, if it's real, just get down on your hands and knees and tell him how good he is till he meet you. Well, he ain't got to have his sprinkled or dunked or any of that other stuff you ain't got to wonder.

Josh: 38:31

Yeah. Hey man. You're, you're really awesome. I'm sure we'll more of these conversations during this interview, man. Are there any questions that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you.

John: 38:44

So many things? I mean, again, what maybe what am I passionate about today? Why, what what's happening in my life outside of? I mean, I don't know. I don't ever know what, I'm, like I said, I'm just full frontal nudity. I just say whatever's on my heart. I, I'm not trying to have a Christian program here. I love business. I'm talking about business as passionately as we're talking about this, or I can talk about asset redemptive, real estate, which I love. I mean, we, I believe there's four things. I do that when I do it, I have a gift on my life to do it from God. That's when I helped people grow personally, when I help them love God passionately. When I help them do good work purposefully. When I help them live intentionally, those are the four things. That's like a little rock in a shepherd boy, sling take out giants. When I do it works. And I love people in places. We love our city. We still own about 200 properties in these 10 square blocks. We're doing all kinds of stuff from boutique hotels, to restaurants, to all that. I'm traveling all over America to cool people doing the same thing. Our largest portfolio is in winter Haven, Florida, our clients, their steward about 80 blocks of downtown winter Haven, six, 10. And, and they've got about $150 million portfolio. Half of that's been raised from 60 locals. We've been helping them steward that our smallest city is a city of 800 called Bloomfield, Kentucky. And so we're there. And then we're also up in Illinois. We have a couple, that's a buying a whole town in a Lido, Illinois. I just, I mean, my prayer is always front row seats to miracles, 50 yard line seats to miracles. And it's been amazing. I, I think, I'm as sophisticated and as thoughtful about businesses. I am about pate as I am about my fitness as I am about my finances and about my fun and my family. So.

Josh: 40:44

Let's do a comparison, right? When you were laying on the plywood floor, thinking of killing your life or killing yourself, right. Like mindset there. Right. And the challenges you were facing there. Right. We've heard about that on the show now that your out of the hole financially, now that you've got 10,000 businesses, and you're crushing it and all that stuff. What mindset challenges are you evolving or are you growing or working through now? Like what, where are you learning to grow now? What, what challenges in mindset do you have now?

John: 41:21

Well, one thing is my mentor. One of my longest mentors, 26 years, he grew up in a mill village with a high school education, ran the largest real estate company in the world. He'll build 21. He told me, he said, I'll help you. When I was an idiot, it's got to answer three questions. How much is enough? What are you going to do when you get an a, and what's your living plan and your giving plan. So, you know, how much is enough? We drew a financial finish line and we're there. That's fine. We don't need any more assets. We don't need any more businesses that it may not be a lot to some people, but it was what we said. We were willing to do. Number two, we give extravagantly, we've got a giving goal every year. I feel our goal is to give away homes. That's what we love doing in our city to people. Who've never had one. What I want to do with my life. That's the question. My number one challenge right now with all the gifts and opportunities I have, what am I going to do with what I've been entrusted? What is my preferred future look like? Like I've got so many years left, whatever that is. I'm writing checks for my life now, what am I willing to write? Checks my life for? For me it must support three capital, social, spiritual, and economic capital, because that's amazing story of the good Samaritan, social, spiritual, and economic capital. For me, am I doing, can I please, my Sunday school teacher and my economics teacher with everything I do is that possible because we don't see that a lot. Right? We see people that are doing things that are in their faith and we do the things that are doing profitable businesses. What about a piece could do all that together? What if you could do good and do well? That's, that's where we want to live. And that's what I'm wrestling right now. Like all of our businesses are growing like crazy, but every time I say yes, I'm saying no to a hundred things and I don't have a lot of margin. I mean, I'm using all the time I have. I've got to figure out, is this, it's just not what I'm doing right now is not enough for where I'm going,

Josh: 43:28

Dude. You're so cool, man. Let's do this for guys who want to follow you, connect with you, learn more from you with you. What's a good place for guys to do that.

John: 43:40

To places they can see my podcast, which is redemptive, vacation.com. Think gentrification, redeemed, R a D E M P T I F I C a T I O N re-identification dot com or marsh collective as our group of companies. Those are two good places to find out about us. Cool. I can say something. We can add value. We want to do it for big farmers.

Josh: 44:07

Guys, guys, listening in. Thank you for tuning in as always reach out to our guests, say thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for skiing. Fold naked into this nudist camp as John would say, but just being transparent, man. I, I, I want to applaud the guys and gals who come on the show and share their advice. Thank you, John, for doing that guys, if you need some help, head on over to advice for men.com, fill out a quick form. I'll connect you with one of my past guests or maybe with some resources that we have, or if you have some advice to share with other guys, head on over uncensored advice for men.com, fill out a quick form. Maybe get you on the show next till then talk to you guys on the next episode. Love you guys.