Episode Eight: An Interview with Jason Hietbrink

.Jason Hietbrink, founder of Amplify Coaching, shares two struggles which shook him to his core causing him to question his identity, his worth and to be angry with God. Jason shares how each of those, which on the surface seemed terrible, actually were gifts of God's grace in his life. He is living proof of how even unwanted change can bring us to the next best chapter! 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:16

Welcome to and then it's podcast where we look at what comes after the struggle, a tough season or setback. My name is Susie Chafin. And I'm absolutely passionate about helping people transform from struggle and surviving to absolutely thriving. Today you are in for a real treat. I have the honor of sharing with you an interview with my good friend and mentor Jason heat brink. As a colleague, I know his level of professionalism, his work ethic and how he shows up always with his best. Jason is the founder of amplify coaching, and he has such a heart to serve other people. But before amplify coaching, he had some lessons to learn. Jason was at a higher ageing leadership role in his organization, he started immediately out of college, and he moved to an area completely brand new didn't know his soul and started five franchises simultaneously. He was the 10th franchisee in the company. He was there during a period of rapid, serious rapid growth where there was no systems, there was no training. And he really forged the way in creating the processes and the training necessary to replicate the growth. And he ended up being the number one franchisee in the nation for over six years, which is no small feat at all. He then moved into a number of different leadership roles in the company, but he was ultimately responsible for half the country overseeing 450, franchisees 75 leaders and 65 million in revenue. But Jason is going to share two stories which shall come to the core, but it created the pathway to where he is today. And he is living proof of how even unwanted change can bring us to the next Beck's chapter. Jason, I just want to say thank you so much for letting me interview you today. Thank you for having me on today. So I was just thinking about this record right before I hopped on with you and just was praying that hey, if if our story in any way can encourage our help anybody else, then that's just what I want to have so grateful, to be honest with you. And you know how much I love your podcast and respect. And I'm excited about what you are building here and what you're helping helping others with, with the the n then series. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. Let's dive in. Well, thank you. And you're right, as you recount some of the things that you mentioned about my past success with the organization that I was fortunate enough to start with. And it was a great organization to work for and great opportunity and was able to do a lot of a lot of great things. I absolutely was, unbeknownst to me, it was finding my sense of worth identity, from the success that I was having from the titles I held from my ability to move up within the organization. So I I remember distinct conversations with my wife at times over the years as I was moving into different leadership roles with the company. And it was just I just felt this, this tension and pressure and need to continue to rise to the next level to continue to get to the next place in the organization and climb that ladder. And not really having a good sense of why that was I just knew I had to. So what we'll come back to that again. So soon as you asked me to share about you know, what was one struggle in my life that, you know, taught me a lesson or helped me help forge you know who I am today. And you know, I know that's a lot of what this podcast is about is understanding. When we face difficult times when we face awkward moments in our life that are difficult. Sometimes it's very, very challenging to see that anything else could be on the other side of that, that would be good. That anything else could be on the other side of that that would be what would make going through what we're going through right now worth what we're going through. And I thought about that question. I'm like Nana, there are a lot of things that I could talk about. But the one that stuck out today is the one that I'll share about, which is the extreme financial loss that my myself my family went through several years ago. So I'll kind of just bring you up to speed. It's early 2014, maybe late 2013 wife and I are just thinking about, hey, we've lived in Omaha now for eight years, I guess at that time, maybe seven and a half years. And we're both originally from Lincoln, we both have family in Lincoln. At that time, our kids, I think were maybe five and two. So we're right in the thick of that, you know what that's like raising little kids, my wife was staying home with them, which was way harder than the job that I had. And we were just thinking about like, now that I'm in this leadership role, with the organization, we didn't we're not really tied to Omaha in any way. There's nothing that's keeping me here. We've sold most of the franchises that I ran. So we started dreaming, like, Where would we want to go? We could live anywhere. We could live in California, we could live in New York, we could live in New York, when I say New York, I would never want to live in New York, we could live in North Carolina. That's what I wanted to say. We had some friends in North Carolina, we thought about multiple different places. And long story short, we ended up landing on moving back to Lincoln, which for me, that was like my last resort. I do not want to go back to Lincoln's where I grew up, in my mind, that was regressing. I'm going back to my hometown. And so we made the decision, mostly because we had family on both sides, her parents, my parents, that would be within 10 or 15 minutes, it would just really made the most sense to be close to family versus moving 1000s of miles away from them. So with that decision, what went through my mind was, well, we're moving back to Lincoln. And we're moving out of this house that I love that we live in Omaha that was on a lake and it was just this incredible house. I'm like, Well, I'm gonna build, we're going to build the home of our dreams, if we're going to live in Lincoln, because if I'm going to live in Lincoln, Nebraska, I better like where I live. So we made the decision to build a house, I made a decision to build our home. And we went with a builder that I thought made the most sense, even though my wife had some reservations. This is a reoccurring lesson of mine of my life is to listen to my wife's intuition, not mine. And anyway, we we started building the house. And I remember distinctly going out the very first time after they laid the foundation. And looking at like the set the sheer size of this, the foundation of this house. And I'm like, this is enormous. This is way bigger than we imagined. Because when you're looking at drawings on pieces of paper, and it says I owe 20 by 30, and these different things conceptually, like I don't really understand what that means. But when you actually see it in real life, it's like, oh, my gosh, this is way bigger than we thought it was going to be. That's okay. Right. It's the house of our dreams. 30 year mortgage, it'll be fine. So, and our thought process is we're going to retire in this house. So speed along the building process. Again, it was a lot bigger than we had imagined. I mean, our main level I think was around 3700 square feet. We had two bedrooms upstairs. When we finished about half the basement, down below, a little over 6000 square feet is where it ended up being. But what I loved about it, like you'd walk inside, and there'd be these three, like three tears of, of Windows. So it's just a wall of windows as soon as she walked in 2022 foot ceilings. We had this incredible fireplace, we had a patio out back with a fire pit, huge yard, we bought two lots and one lot was literally to house. And then the other lot was just the yard for the kids and the dogs. In a basketball hoop you know set up that was really cool basketball hoop the basement was so much fun with the kids. We had a playroom, to the side with a chalkboard on the like the entire wall was a chalkboard like it was just the perfect house. For at that time, my seven and four year old, my wife and I, we were just I mean my wife designed like 90% of it. So she she just wanted to run one day and had this idea in her head of the house that we wanted to have and like give it to the architect. And of course there's some things with load bearing walls and things like that, that we have to adjust. But that's kind of the picture of what the house was it was. I mean, this is beautiful house. And so we're heading into the week of closing on the home. And we get this one last invoice from our builder with the final bill on the house. And that final bill was somewhere in the neighborhood of about a quarter million dollars more than what I was anticipating it being Wow. And I remember looking at that number and just thinking to myself, This can't be right. And I contacted the builder and I was like there's there must be a discrepancy here. I'm sure we've already paid some some things here. And they said no, this is correct. This is what is still left remaining on your final installment for paying off the building costs with the bank. Well, the problem was to make it worse that the House appraised just to give some real numbers to this. The house appraised for about 100,000 It was 805,000 but the house cost 1.1 million. So you do the math on that. You can only get a loan for up to what the House appraises for. So not only did we have to put the down payment in for, you know, up to the 100,000, or you know, the 20% of 100,000. But on top of that, we had to make up the difference between the 800,000 number and the 1.1 million number. So, very quickly, literally in one day, and 24 hours, all of the work that I have done, for the last 10 years, everything that I had accomplished all of the success and monetary gain that I had vanished. Wow. And I just remember the feeling in my gut, I was walking the dog that night, it was probably early December, we'd already moved into the house, by the way they were finishing up construction, as we moved into the house, I talked him into letting us do that. Because we were living in an apartment and we were ready to get out of the apartment. And so we were already living there for like a couple of weeks by the time I got this invoice. And I just remember walking around thinking to myself, like, what are we going to do? Like, this is going to wipe us out entirely if we can even figure out what to do. And, and give some background how, like some people may be listening and thinking like how the heck does this happen? Right? How do you how do you get to the end, I mean, people usually your house cost more than they thought it was going to cost but at least they know what the house is going to cost. There's not this like quarter million dollar oops, surprise at the end. And that's not a rounding error. And the way this happened essentially was that as we were making different choices, within our our budget and the allowances they gave us for various things in the home, we would contact them because we didn't have any documentation of like what our allowances were, it was just, you know, we're over at the shop, buy in stuff for the bathroom or tile or whatever it is, we would call our our general manager, or whoever the guy is for the company. And we'd ask him like, Hey, what is our allowance for this? And he'd say, Oh, you can you can get anything you want in there, it'll, the allowance will cover it. But come to find out that wasn't the case, our allowance actually was a certain amount. And we were getting things that were much more expensive than that. I remember getting a call from the builder. And him saying to me, Hey, there's we had to flip the house around a little bit. Because there's like a main line for the electric company that runs on underneath the ground. We can't dig that up. So we had to flip the house a little bit and rotate it. But the good news is by rotating it, because of the grading, we were able to get you guys a walkout basement like Oh, fantastic. Well, that conversation about we got you a walkout basement. What he's actually saying was, hey, it's going to cost $35,000 more. And when I say that, do you hear$35,000? More? Or do you just you're gonna walk out basement. So I'm not a builder. I've never done this before. In his mind, he thinks that I should know that's going to be more brick, more windows, all these things. And I remember one time they called us and said like, Hey, do you have these two pillars out front? And they said, We can do this? We can do these pillars with stone, we think it'll look a lot better than brick. Would you guys like to do that? I said, I don't know if I want to do that. How much more does it gonna cost? And he said it's virtually the same? Oh, okay, fine. Well, that was $1,000. Right? So there was just lots of these little things along the way. That added up to this massive amount. And, you know, so we thought it might cost 850 house and up costs. And you know, what, about 1.1 million so that that essentially, like I said, Why wipe this out entirely, it was a cost plus project. So for anyone listening who's thinking of building a home, there are lots of great builders out there. Not every experience is like this. But definitely if your home is going to be over, let's say 600,000 Do not do a cost plus project. Come to find out this builder had had other scenarios like this that people had experienced. But there wasn't much we could do legally because we'd signed all the paperwork we'd signed off on all the insertion orders, or the change orders and things. It was mostly conversations over the phone. So there really wasn't much that we could go off of. So that was that was December 2020 or December of 2014. Wow. I can't even imagine feeling like you just wiped out everything that you earned, saved, worked for. How that must have felt that mean? I think sometimes those kinds of old sudden this house that was supposed to be this blessing. And this wonderful thing for your family has now kind of turned into some kind of A really a form of bondage. That's 100% what it was, I can remember. And it was always when I was walking the dog had had these like feelings and epiphanies. But we're walking the dog in the middle of the day, one time a few months later. And actually, this happened almost every time I walked the dog when I when I was walking back toward our house. Every time I'd walk back toward our house, and I see the rooftop and the distance, and that massive, ridiculous structure that we never really meant to build that big. I just felt like the house itself was like sitting on top of me every time. And it did it felt like a prison. It felt like it was meant to be our dream home, but it felt like it was it was a prison. It was a it was a place of bondage instead. Yeah, I mean, we, we made it work. Like I said, it wiped us out entirely, was very stressful financially for the next couple years. And the house, you know, we had lots of great memories in that house. But we came to a point a few years later, after living there, where it was through a series of different sermons and conversations we had and just just thinking about our future and how hard we were working, we were essentially working hard. Stress stressing ourselves out in order to stay in a home. That's what we were doing work really hard. I, I had opened up an additional franchise with the company in addition to my full time leadership role to help make ends meet. My wife was now starting to work part time, like we were doing everything we could to just, you know, pay the mortgage and the upkeep and the taxes and, and things were fine. But it's like, is this the pace that we really want to live out? Is this? Do we want to work hard to stay in a home? And when we came to a conclusion, where it's like, well, what if? What if someday I lost my job? What if some day, you know, I the money wasn't there that we were making right now. And the economy was crap, the housing market was crap, like it was back in 2009. I mean, if we would, we wouldn't be able to sell the house like we would be stuck. So we made the decision before things got to that place, that we were going to intentionally sell the house, even though we knew we could stay, we can make it work. We did not want to live that lifestyle. We did not want to be a slave to maintaining this exterior lifestyle that everyone else would see around us and be impressed with our home and what we had. So we made the decision, we're going to sell it and just felt deeply convicted that that was something God was calling us to do. By the way, I have to share this like so my office faced this street, my windows face the street in my home. And I bet 10 times a day, there would be a vehicle that would drive by the house, like two miles an hour. And you'd see people's faces. Impressive. Yeah, like, oh my gosh, what is that thing is that an apartment complex? Like that was just kind of and I'm not saying that like a like an arrogant way. It was just it was just hilarious. Like, Yep, got some more Gawker's. Like I just we text my back and forth my wife and I like up got smart Gawker's, again, like 10 times a day, someone's drive by like two miles an hour. It's like, get a good luck. Good luck. Good luck. So when you make that decision, just to to downsize, or to let the house go? I mean, I can't imagine. They're just must have been such a sense of internal, like, peace and relief. It was both. I mean, it was it was a sense of peace. Like, okay, we can do this. But it was such it was so hard. And when you build a home, and it takes it took nine months to build the house, right, we're bringing the kids over week by week, seeing the progress getting excited. The kids had their rooms, they had their spaces, we had our everything was the way it was every room was designed exactly how we wanted it. Every last fixture. And I remember my wife crying like just not because she wants the big house, but just crying because we don't want to we don't want to leave. Right? We feel called to leave, but we don't want to leave. We love this house. And explain that to my kids. It was it was just tough because they don't want to go. They love the house too. And even just the uncertainty about where we're going to go and where are we going to live? Well, it's going to be a house. That's probably half the size guys. Like I don't want a house that's half the size. So I explained that to my guys. How old would you then 2017. So to my seven and 10 year old, like, I don't want to I don't want a smaller house and when I was 34. So it was difficult. But yeah, there was a sense of relief. And I think mostly there was a sense of relief because what we assumed When when it was going to transpire from that decision, we're going to list this house for a million dollars, we'll probably sell it for like 975. And we'll pay the realtor fee and we'll walk away with still a good amount of cash, like well recoup a lot of the money we had end of it. So that I think gave us a sense of peace, just have like, okay, we're moving away from the house. But it's not gonna be a total loss, like, we're gonna have this revenue, we can put this down towards another house or vacations or whatever, you've made the decision to sell the house, it's a hard decision. But you've grown up with your kids, they've seen this house, it's their home, and there's this emotional attachment to it, you built it with your wife, she designed it, and making the decision at this point to step away. It's giving you peace, because you know, or you're expecting that this is that you are making a financially sound decision that this is going to bring additional financial peace to you. But instead, the outcome was really something very different. Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it we thought, okay, we're being obedient to this. This is what we this is what the Lord is calling us to do. And this is a financial this is a decision based on lifestyle of reducing stress. And it's it's a good financial decision. Maybe not because we have to, because we have to do it. But we don't want to be in a position where we are upside down. And this house, it's 100%. The reason it was driving it, so I never thought of it that way. But yeah, what so what what transpired was, I think we listed the home maybe in June of 2017. And like I said, we listed it for about a million, and then a million went down to 959 50, went to 900 900 went to 875 and 875 went to 850. And I remember just this process, this is over the course of nine months, you know, showing after showing and people not but not budging. And one of the reasons we didn't sell it for what we had into it was wasn't because the house wasn't worth it was because of the neighborhood we were in, we had overbuilt this home, it was probably the most if not, or maybe the second most expensive home in the neighborhood. And people just weren't willing to pay for that and which is understandable. So, you know, if every time we dropped the price, and every month that went by, I just remember thinking to myself, like it was just like a like a knife in my heart, like on my back or someplace in my body. And it was being twisted. I just felt like Lord, what are you doing? We put we did what you said we put this up and like, at least the unspoken agreement in my mind was I followed you, you reciprocate by making this show up. Right? Make this easy, you make this go this way, make this go the way that I want it to go. And, and it was just so I just felt like every time we dropped the price and more months would go by it was like Are we ever gonna sell this house? If we do sell the house, we talked to a realtor one time who we were exploring switching realtors, about six months in. And this other realtor we were talking to told us like you're gonna sell this for about 750. Well, if we do that, then we literally are like paying somebody else to like buy our house. I just couldn't make it. I'm like I'm not going to do is this what you want, like this is what you want. So I just remember thinking that to myself. And anyway, fast forward to March of 2018. Nine months have gone by houses listed at 850. And we get an offer for 810. And we take it so 810 was the final number. We walked away you paid a realtor fee and things maybe we walked away with 40 grand or 50 grand I can't remember exactly out of I don't know having 350,000 or something like that we didn't do it. So that was a pill to swallow. And then you combine that now though again, remember this house we moved from is a brand new house we designed everything the way we wanted it to be. We moved to our new home which was actually in my wife's dream neighborhood. My wife loves big trees, the old homes the character loves that stuff. So this area in Lincoln called Sheridan was her dream place to live in there's a shared in Boulevard street within the neighborhood that is her dream street so she's ecstatic she's like this is this is like my favorite possible scenario of an area to move into and don't get me wrong it was a gorgeous it was a gorgeous home we're moving into and we're very fortunate to be in a home like that about a half million dollars and but if your frame of references 1.1 brand new every everything's brand new the way you want and you're moving into a house that's half a million that's 85 years old, and everything's old and not the way you want. I was very frustrated. My kids were frustrated. I get my wife was ecstatic. It feels silly at times. Saying this is if this is like a hard thing, right? So you move to a half million dollar house poor guy. Right? And there is an element of that that's true. Like no, this really is, this is not difficult. My kids don't have cancer, there isn't like some kind of complete travesty that's going on. But it's not even about the numbers, right? What it's really about is the experience as someone who is finding their worth and value in their status, their achievements, what they have, ultimate, whatever it is for you, everyone's different. When what when where you find your sense of worth values to nificant starts to get stripped away from you. That is what makes an experience like this difficult. So we, we moved into that home, and that was that that was that was a difference. So I thought, Okay, at this point, I've taken my beatings and, and are, we've lost almost almost everything. We reserve we kept some, but at least at least now we can settle down, at least now we can rebuild and start to kind of move on from here. I want to pause right there. Because you mentioned this earlier, too, that like, very often when we feel like okay, I'm finally submitting to your Will God now everything's gonna go really easily. And you're going to show up and you're going to do your part. And I know what you're in that transfers to every area of our life, we think that it's it's going to go so simple, now that I'm doing God's will. But as you've continued, this was like there was still more teaching that he wasn't, there was still more lessons to be learned in this, even though you were doing what you knew you were supposed to do, is still didn't go the way that you were anticipating. Yeah, sometimes we think that obedience leads to a desired outcome, our desired outcome, obedience does lead to a desired outcome. But the question is, whose desired outcome are we talking about? Sometimes there does obedience sometimes will lead to my desired outcome, but what I want, but oftentimes, that's not the case. And what obedience always leads to is God's desired outcome for us in our life. And when my will gets met with his will, and those two we can't see right now on the podcast, when crashing my my fists together, when those, those meet, and they're going in opposite directions. God always wins. So, in those moments, like I just got this to this tattoo on my right arm, this last week. It's a Greek word that means surrender, which is one of the greatest lessons I've learned through all this. When when when we are surrendered to God's desire for us in a moment in our lives, that is painful and difficult. That is where and the only way the only path to experience joy and freedom, otherwise, all we're left with is resentment and anger. And that's where I was I was in a place at this point in time, of resentment and anger. But it gets worse, so I have more detail. And we're fully surrendered to God, regardless of the outcome than what we go through can be really difficult, but we come to the other side of it is always a better place. And it's always his we see how things will work out. So that's, that's beautiful, Jason. And just one other quick note on that, like I and all these things are spoken from someone who has had to learn these things the hard way, because I'm hard headed. And so much hardheaded really what it comes down to is the idols that we have on our lives. And I mean, whether you're a Christian or not, like we all are serving something. We're all serving something. And you know, I believe, you know, in that the Bible is true, and the God of the Bible, and in His scripture, like it is very clear that God is a jealous God, meaning that he loves me so deeply. He loves us so much so deeply, that he will do anything in his power, which is unlimited, to ensure that he is the one and only thing that we worship and serve in our life. And that's not because he's selfish, and because he's just a egomaniac. It's because he has designed us to find our rest or joy, or peace, all of our other systems and all the things that we're pursuing in our life that we want and And we pursue and other things, he's designed us to find those in him. And so the greatest joy I can ever have is to find my worth, identity, significance, value, sense of, of belonging, all those things found in my relationship with the Lord. And so he, he often will use hard circumstances and storms. And he certainly has in my life, to purge the things inside of me that are pursuing other things, other idols, other things that I believe will bring me those things. And by doing so, brings me brings me back brings us back to the one thing and the only thing that can actually satisfy us. So the the storms are meant to be an environment where God can form and shape us and shake us out of the things that we're pursuing. And I'll share another insight with that a little bit later. So now you're in this shared in house. And you mentioned it was a little 85 years old, and not new, the opposite of what you have moved out of. And there were a few repairs and things that needed to happen. Yeah, and you know, we expected some, you live in a older home that you're just going to have some of those things, but what we experienced was, I mean, it was, if you've ever seen the movie with Tom Hanks, Money Pit, yes, it's an old movie in an ID. I don't even know that I was really like, oh ages when I saw that when that movie came out. But I definitely saw it later on, it came out in the 80s. And that is almost almost to a tee like what our life was like what our life became. So again, recapping, here, we've lost$350,000 We've debt, we left our dream home, thinking that that would mean that God would be blessing us in the in a sense that we wanted the blessing. And it ended up being the opposite. And now we're, we're settling into this new place. And we're looking to rebuild and kind of go from here, and we figure our problems are over at this point. financially. I've learned the lesson, right? I've learned this lesson. But when we moved in, there were all kinds of things that were unexpected. Even with the home inspection. There were just a myriad of things that had happened beyond what they had actually pointed out to us when we first bought the place. So we spent, we knew this would be the case. So we spent about 60 hours worth of man labor, Man Man labor, 60 hours worth of labor with like landscaping tree services, just to clean up the yard. The thing was a jungle when we moved in and it was it was it was a nightmare. So that was very expensive. We knew that was coming though, the things we didn't know were coming were that we had to replace all the storm windows in the house. The furnace went out our oven broke and made to replace it and this wasn't just like a regular oven. This was a 48 inch range like commercial grade. So replacing that was like 15 grand weed would rot all over the exterior of the home over all the facia water was coming in. And again, this is like the prior buyers and sellers like Yeah, we haven't had any water problems. Well, first big giant rain, we had water everywhere. And we'd replace all the facia, the sink fell through in our master bathroom upstairs, we had a leak in the main level bathroom that had bled into the drywall in the ceiling in the living room, garage door broke, the water softener broke, we had to remove a 70 year old tree that was dying in the front yard, we probably knew that was coming I suppose we had a pipe that burst in the basement. The garbage disposal broke me to replace that dishwasher broke had replaced that we had all kinds of electrical problems. unbeknownst to us, and we should have we should have known this with the inspection. But there was tuckpointing all over the outside of the house. And for those of you don't know what tuckpointing was because I didn't know what tuckpointing was, in these older homes especially like because ours was a stone, stone home. It's all of the joints that connect the stones together. Over time those things start to kind of become brittle and break. So after let's say at five years, it's time to start replacing some of the mortar in between the stones. And so tuckpointing is one of those jobs if you're sending your kids out to the trades, have them be a tuck pointer. I mean, we had bids for like 30 grand tops that point like parts of our house. I'm like This is insanity. All you're doing is just like putting some mortar in these creases, but like it's just really specialized thing and so tuckpointing all over the house. We had water coming into the basement we had water leaking the family room, like I said from the shower, we had a stone cap of our chimney was cracked. Some point I'm going to replace that. And on top of all of this, our roof was original as well as the oh my goodness, the gutters and downspouts so 80 year old roof and downspouts and gutters. So it's like any day now those things are gonna break. And that's, you know, it's a slate roof, which, you know, those, those things are not cheap. So it when you total it up, and this is again gives you an insight into where my mindset was, I actually spent the time to total up all the money we spent on fixing the house. That's how angry and bitter I was. It was about 1600, it was an average it wasn't it wasn't equal in equal equal increments every week, but it was, but if you average it out, it was about$1,600 a week in expenses for 30 weeks. That's That's how much repairs we had in the first 18 months of living there. So 350, last three to $50,000 last year for this new place, not so excited about it. And now we're just continuing to lose another six plus figures. And I'm just thinking myself, like God, what are you doing? Like I already learned my lesson, I already know I shouldn't find my identity, my worth and my material gain and the status and things like that. I understand I got the point, right. Because over the course of over the course of four years, we'd lost over 150,000. I mean, everything we had, right, we had maybe a little bit amount of savings left, but it was it was just it was just gone. And beyond just the financial picture was just my emotional state. And my ego. It was just, I was so angry, I was just angry at God. And I was just like, wasn't wasn't, wasn't enough to lose over $300,000 In the last house. Like we obeyed you we moved just like you said we should we did what you said. And you have more more of this in store for us. Like, I thought we were getting away from that. As often when people are going through a difficult time. It's like how much more like what what else is there? Is it you know, it's it can feel like that can be like It's permanent, it's going to be that way forever. And I'm sure in that moment when losing almost half a million dollars, basically evaporating into two different houses. Like that had to be I can't even imagine how frustrating and how upset you must have been an angry, like you said for losing that kind of money. And you're at that time when you're when you're angry at God, you're we're maybe not even angry at God just angry in general. You know, how, how did you bring yourself through that time? How did you besides adding up all of the expenses? Okay, what did you do to to, to find the blessing in it? Or was there a blessing in it? Yeah. You know, as you were talking, this may be a crude analogy. So forgive me. I know that the stomach flu seems to be going around right now, like all over the place, especially here in Lincoln right now. And my son had it Thursday night, and Friday morning. I think he literally I've never seen someone puke that much in my life. He literally I think he puked over 35 times we've calculated. And you know, we've all been sick before with the stomach flu at times, and you end up just feeling like okay, that's the last one. Like, there's no way there's anything possibly left in my stomach. It's all out. It's all got it all out. Right. Right. And I think sometimes, that's how idols can be in our life. That we, I mean, I think that I've got it all out like, Okay, I've learned my lesson. God puked it all out, I got nothing left, right, or the situation we're going through. It's like it, there's there can't be more than this. Like, I can't even I can't even bear the idea of there being more than this, whether we're dealing with a financial situation like we were in and you're dealing with the loss of the loss of a loved one or the health situation, or maybe it's a relationship with someone that's been abusive or been difficult or a situation in your church, whatever it might be. And that's how I felt for sure. I definitely felt like that was the case. And I And to be clear, I wasn't angry with God. Because in at times, really what it came down to, as I thought reflected a journal on this during this time was that I I just believed bottom line, life would it be better if we had that 450k That money, money brought some sense of security and happiness, I suppose. I just I just didn't believe I didn't believe that life could be better in the situation I was in than the situation that I wanted to have happen. And so that, that space between our current reality, the story we had written for ourselves that we wanted to go a certain way we wanted to go in another direction. and where we're currently living, being able to embrace and believe that there is more life to be had where I am right now and where God has placed me than there was, if I had had gotten everything that I wanted it's easy to mentally assent to that truth. Because of course, money doesn't buy happiness. How many times have we said that? Oh, of course, like, like, God is like, my career, my achievements, those things are not most important to me, my family is my faith is we say those things. But until we were actually faced with what we really believe, all right, and we're faced with a circumstance that takes away the thing that we have been finding our sense of worth and value. And that's when we're actually forced to face that reality and say, well do what do I really believe? And for me, I still didn't believe that. But I remember those were a lot of hard earned wasn't just dollars in the bank. It was it was a lot of the work that you had put into it, too, I imagine. Yeah, that's a good point. That wasn't like an inheritance that we had. Right? Or it was, this is something that was created from the ground up hard work, starting, you know, our own business and, and a lot of lot of difficult times, pushing through. Yeah, and then and I would see people I mean, that was the other thing, too, when you're in those moments of, of difficulty, or you're in the storm. Seems like everybody else is in sunshine. Do you look around, I'd look around and I see like everybody else is like, Yeah, our our home value went up by 20%. So we refinanced and got more money. I'm like, Cool, I sold my house for 30%, less than I paid for it. And I continued to lose money every month, like, Why can't my story be like yours? And again, goes back to because if my story was like yours, then life would be better. And, to your point earlier, your question earlier, like, Okay, well, how did you get through this? I remember, I remember exactly where I was sitting in our living room, on our chase the couch, I remember journaling. And I was journaling about how I just got I just believe life would be better if I had the money. And I it very few times in my life that this type of thing has happened. And I don't even I don't know if it was an audible thing. Probably not. It was just this thought entered my mind. And it was so clear to me that this thought was not necessarily my thought. It was a thought from something outside of me. And it was it was a question, rather than an answer. It was something along the lines of I have this in my journal, and I didn't get a chance to find because we moved and I don't know, my journal is but my old one. What if all the financial difficulties that I've placed in your life over the last four years, were the exact circumstances necessary? For me, being God to shield you from a path of destruction that you otherwise were traveling down? That's powerful. And I think you should have these. What if all, what if all the financial difficulties that God has placed in us over the past four years were the exact circumstances necessary for God to shield me from the path of destruction that I was otherwise traveling down? What if all the storms that that were in my life right now we're actually his mercy to me, to save me from a life spent pursuing something that could never fulfill my deepest desires. So it hit me at that moment that like, Jason, this is my grace to you, the this, these storms are, are not evidence of punishment for you. They're evidence of grace, that's, that's moving you from a place that you were headed down, that was sure to go off the cliff at some point in time later in your life. Right? I'm 30 years old, living this million dollar plus house, and not even knowing that I have so much arrogance and pride and so much of a sense of identity wrapped up in what I've accomplished, even though I know, I know my mind that those things are not where life is found. But somewhere along the way. That idealization of money and success, had creeped its way in to my heart. And if I continue to if God continued to let me go down that path for the next 1520 30 years, I don't know where it would have taken me. It actually scares me to think about where it would have taken me how it would have impacted my relationship with my kids. How would have impacted my relationship with my wife, how it really impacted my relationship with God and the amount of of life that I would have actually missed out on. Not as I was defining it at that point in time where life is found, right, like being found in success and all these other things, but where life is actually found. That was, that was a big moment for me, recognizing that it sent me on a journey. Forgot to continue to remove these things in my heart, this my work success and financial success are what makes me valuable my performance equals my worth. It doesn't feel like a gift to go through losing money or to have the financial setback over and over. But seeing that is actually his grace, to keep you from going to a place that you were inevitably bound to go, which was going to be very far from him. Probably ultimately, a full of pride and probably full of arrogance and things that were not for you. That was not as planned for you, and it hurt. But the beauty in that is, I think that so many people who might be listening, they're going through something really hard to and it doesn't feel fun. It doesn't feel it's not enjoyable. But what if it was their grace to what if it's their grace from God that is actually shielding them and directing them to a path that is so much better than the one that you thought you had intended for yourself? Yeah, yeah. And that distinction, and sometimes you hear that statement, especially with your that right in the middle of something. And it's just like, This sounds so cliche. Are you kidding me? Like what I said, What Susie said, like, That's so cliche, like, oh, it's God's mercy and grace. Sure, it is, like, this feels like anything other than love. This is the opposite of love. If I was God, having loving God, I would not be doing, we're allowing, fill in the blank. And how naive of me or naive of us to think that we have a corner on the totality of all the circumstances in our life and what is being used for what and what is good or not. I, it makes me think of, you know, Paul, when he was I forget which which book named the Corinthians But he was talking about how he has a thorn in his flesh. And one of the reasons for that was to actually keep them humble. And because he was he was so like, he was just he was so successful, all these things he was doing. And sometimes the only, the only reason that sometimes we have those storms is for our own humility, I will tell you, I'm much more humble and much more empathetic to people. now than I was years ago, there's no question that shapes me, but also impacts others. And sometimes even the moment we don't even see have a difficult time even understanding what could be the redeeming value of this. And I don't mean to, like keep having this, because I know there's a broad array of different listeners. And I don't mean to continue to kind of keep going back towards like scripture necessarily. So even if you're not someone who's a Christian or identifies that way, look for the lesson in this not necessarily like what is, you know, like, keeps talking about the Bible and stuff. But you know, God oftentimes uses things that would seemingly be the worst possible circumstances for the greatest good. Certainly the death of his son would be a great example of that story of Joseph would be a great example of that sold into slavery, right living for years in the dungeons, like, how could you possibly use this for good and ends up, you know, job would be another great example of that time and time again, God gives those examples. It's not necessarily that people always get reinstated, with material possessions and reinstated with everything in their life back the way they wanted it to be. But so much good, does and can and will come from difficult circumstances. As Fast forward several years later, you're in the organization at a very high level in the organization, and you're responsible for so much of the success of the organization, of course, a combined efforts of everybody underneath you and all of that as well. But she found yourself in a place that you've never ever expected to. Yeah, so see, when we moved to that house, and shared it, and that was 2000 it was May of 2018. So fast for the clock, not quite four more years. And I got a phone call March 15. That was completely for me unexpected that I was being let go for my position. And I've been at the company Now firstly, 16 years is the only company I've ever worked for outside of being a college kid and having jobs throughout college. And it was interesting because because on the one sense, like I was completely, completely shocked, and it blindsided me. And had that happened. Three or four years prior prior to all of this financial turmoil and all the things that I went through with God, basically ripping out of me. And by the way, I still struggle with this Suze. So this isn't like that. There are still times where I, I realize what's happening, I'm finding my worth my identity and my performance and, and what am I cheating and what I have, and so that's still something over and over. Yeah, I feel like it's just this spiral in my life, I feel like I keep learning the same like six lessons over and over again, I don't need to learn anything else new, I just need to get those things down. But the lesson that God taught me was that Hey, Jason, your self worth, the good life that I'm seeking. They're not found by working for something that I'm missing. But in receiving what I've already been given. And so for me what that meant for me, and you can apply this however you want that your self worth the good life, you seek where you believe, like the good life actually exists, right? We're all seeking and all pursuing the good life, we have a story in our mind of what of what the good life is, we're all chasing it. Those things are not found in something that you'd have to work for something that you're missing, they're found in receiving what you've already been given it for me what that meant was that, like, my worth, my identity, my significance, everything that I need to have the good life. I already I've already been given from God, I don't have to work for it, I don't have to attain something, I don't have to have something different in my life than where it is today. For me to have that. And that was a lesson I learned. And so it was almost like, in some ways. I know it was much more than just this. But had God not taking me through what I went through those four years financially, and kind of taught me that lesson, which I continue to learn today. Losing losing, like you think think think about like for someone who finds their worth and identity in their work. And in their performance and in their title. And in the money that they pull in, and their salary. For somebody who finds their worth and identity and those things, what is the biggest nightmare they could ever experience? Right? Outside of just like failing, it's being fired. Having having literally no job title, no income? No, I mean, basically being told, like you are not good enough. Goodbye. And that would have devastated me four years ago, if God hadn't already done so much work in my heart, on this topic of my identity, my income and all those things. But very quickly, within like a week, like just the amount of peace and sense of like, God's got this and not in like a trite sense, but But yes, very much. So. Whatever you have in store for me, like I'm, like, I'm okay. Like, I trust you. So it was it was such a beautiful experience for me, just his tenderness and kindness to me in that in those moments where I was, otherwise, you know, should have been totally freaked freaking out. Because now I have no job and what are we gonna do? Oh my gosh, right. I think the trial that you went through before definitely prepared your heart to be able to see this as I'm going to look through this as a lens as a gift, even though I'm sure there were moments where you didn't emotionally feel that way for sure. Because you could have either gone a very dark path and had been full of rage and bitterness and could have, you know, wished a lot of harm for a lot of people. Or, but you chose really to say, Okay, God, this is this is the gift again, it doesn't really feel like a gift. But here you are now, hasn't been quite a year since that happened. But you've really already developed something quite amazing. You've founded a brand new coaching company, founder of amplify coaching and consulting. You help business owners, and high impact business owners really take their business to the next level. And just I know from conversations I've had with you how I mean the joy I hear in your voice, the knowing that you're working on the mission, that is for you that God's created uniquely for you to do in this space is been a joy to see I know we were all so Devis stated when the march 15 announcement was made, but to see where you are right now, I think it's without a doubt, or you're supposed to be. I appreciate that. And Absolutely. If you had asked me a year ago today, what's gonna be going on in your life a year from now, Jason, I'd be like, no be about the same as it is right now. And instead, we sold our house, we felt like that was the right decision. But what's interesting is we still we still shared and House of course, we all know what the real estate market was doing earlier this year, I was crazy, insane. It was it. God doesn't have to do these things, in order for him to be good. And if this if things still didn't go well, with selling this house and Sheridan, it would still be okay. But sometimes, like, I think he does things just because it's humorous. And, or just because he takes delight in doing things like this. But I put it for sale put up for sale, and we listed it for way higher than we thought we were gonna get it, we put it like 750. He's like, that'd be the dream number, right? There's no way we'll get above that. Because we bought it for five. And we had a cash buyer. No inspections, that bought it, sight unseen from California, for 850, within three days, so we had this, we had the first house scenario took nine months to sell. Second house scenario, three days, first house scenario, price goes from 1.1, down, down, down, down, down to a 10. Second scenario, price goes to 750, up up up to 850. So it's just a funny scenario in the sense that we ended up like just laughing because it's like we sold this other house that was half as much for more than that house that was twice as much for yours, you're a lot less that you got back some of your last two, we did oh, we got Yeah, we got some back, we got some of that back, and then some and so you just looking at the situation today from like a material possessions like that type of standpoint. And we moved to Lincoln, when we were 2014 built a $1.1 million house, you know, where my identity worth, we're all on a completely different place. Eight years later, here we are, we're living in a rented duplex. And we have, I mean, a fifth or a quarter to an eighth of the space we had maybe less than when we first moved to Lincoln, and ruining life is far better now than it was then. And to your point, like the coaching, and consulting business that I've been fortunate to start, I mean, it's been phenomenal. Like I, every week, like I love the opportunity to impact the lives of people to work with high achieving high, high performing business owners, and help them dream bigger than they've ever dreamed before. both professionally and personally. And then watch just to watch them work towards those and make them happen so much faster than than they thought it would be possible. And with so much with so much more ease than they thought possible. Is is truly just one of the most life giving things so I, I yeah, I I thought the job that I had was everything that I wanted and needed and the Lord has caused us to take a complete left turn and we're in a very different place than we ever thought we would be. But it's I mean, I'm, I'm enjoying what I do now more than I ever have. I think two of the life lessons that your kids have learned. Just watching you know, now they've they've learned that value doesn't come from where we live value comes in who we are and our identity in Christ. And value doesn't come with title and to watch for them to watch you go through that so gracefully. Is such a life lesson that I'm sure it's going to carry into their their future for Jason, thank you so much for sharing your story. Any last words or any bit of encouragement that you might want to give anybody who's going through season? That feels impossible? I think the first thing I would say is that whatever you're going through in the moment just just remember that it's it's a it's a it's a chapter it's a paragraph It's a section of your story. And I think sometimes we are going through something in the moment, it can feel like this is the definition of our story from here on out. And it doesn't necessarily mean that circumstances will change. Sometimes they do. And sometimes they don't. But the most important thing I think is, is that through the circumstances we find ourselves in, we change. And when we change, and we don't need our circumstances to change. That is, I think, where you find the most powerful the most powerful joy and the most powerful enthusiasm, excitement for life and for for, for what you've been given, because it's not dependent upon outside circumstances, it's completely reliant upon something that you have chosen to receive. So I would just encourage you, wherever you are to choose to receive, and to look to what you've been given. Instead of looking to change the outside circumstances, still pray for that still, you know, still deciding it's okay to desire that. And to pray for that. But seek to find what can I receive in this moment right now, even though this is difficult, that by receiving it would help me live with grace and joy, and faith, amidst whatever it is that I'm going through at this moment? That was beautiful. So well said, if somebody is interested in learning more about your coaching business, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you? Yeah, so we are launching our website or our website here pretty shortly, it's going to be coached with jason.com. So that's the best place the best place to go to learn more. My email is, Jason, at your amplify coach.com. And I again, I work with primarily high achieving entrepreneurs and business owners. But if you're interested in just connecting and learning more about what it might look like to work together, I do have, I think, three spots remaining. For 2023, for one on one coaching, we'd be happy to talk and just really see if I can serve you. Not everyone's a good fit for what I do. And but my my objective when I talk with people, is simply just to serve them powerfully whether they become a client or not to make an impact on their life. That's just a gift I've been given. And that's the gift I want to give. You know what I'm what I'm doing now, professionally, I've been doing my entire life, really, so it's just a joy to get paid for it now. Well, Jason, thank you so much grateful for you as as a friend, and as a coach and a leader and thank you for pouring into the people on this episode today. Yeah, thank you for having me, Susie, and thank you for doing this podcast. I think it's just a it was just amazing. And you were you're very good at it. So thank you. Thank you