How Purpose And Identity Shape A Good Man

Some rooms get calmer the moment a certain man walks in. Not because he is loud, rich, or impressive, but because he brings order. That is where this conversation with entrepreneur and inventor David Osk starts and it only gets more personal from there.

We talk about masculinity and leadership as service: being a giver, protecting what is good, and making the people around you safer and stronger. David shares his path from music to building products sold in major retail stores, but the real story is how faith and identity shape a man when life gets hard. He opens up about infertility, going through the adoption process, and then the shock and joy of pregnancy after being told it was almost impossible. We also get honest about how fatherhood changes you in steps, not in a single heroic moment.

From there we dig into the words we throw around like “authenticity” and “identity” and why even high performers can feel lost. David connects authenticity to the idea of an author and challenges the addiction to applause that fuels imposter syndrome, anxiety, and constant striving. We also talk purpose as a real mental health stabilizer, the difference between healthy fear and the kind that must be thrown out, and how core values create alignment you can feel in your body and your choices.

If you want a clearer sense of manhood, purpose, and personal growth that actually holds up in real life, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more men can find the work.

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Transcript

Forging Manhood And Guest Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Man in Progress, Forging Manhood. I'm your host, Travis Murray, and this space is where we talk about what it actually means to grow up as a man. Not the surface level stuff, but the real work, identity, responsibility, faith, and the decision that shapes who you become. Today, I've got a special guest. I'm looking forward to diving into this with David. David, go ahead and introduce

David Osk And Orderly Masculinity

SPEAKER_00 0:23

yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Hey, yeah, man. Thanks for having me. I'm I'm, you know, it's interesting when I saw your uh your your uh website, you know, and so on, I just thought, you know, this idea of man in progress, right? It's what a gracious way, especially in a culture who has largely lost uh, you know, its way with regards to masculinity and and feminine femininity for that matter, you know, to just take a curious look at how do we how do we ground ourselves and and move forward here. So yeah, so who who are you talking to today? So I'm yeah, David Osk, and I uh you know, I'm an entrepreneur. Uh, you know, I'm I've got a yeah, I'll just give you kind of the highlight. So grew up in Minnesota, moved to Nashville to be a vocalist, and I'm grateful I still get to do a lot of music. Um I I've got a product in 3700 retail stores, uh, which is uh I'm the guy that invented the world's first thermostat guard with a combination lock, so you don't have to worry about losing that tiny key. And um anyway, so we're in Home Depot and Lowe's, and hopefully uh soon to be you know on some other retailers. In fact, I just licensed a new unit in the Pro Channel to a company called Supco. They were just purchased by Lennox, but now we've got our Lockbox Pro that's in uh Granger and HD Supply and Supplyhouse.com and the Stat Card Plus is in Home Depot and Lowe's and so on. But you know, so on a on a deeper and more meaningful level, I'm a husband of almost 28 years. Lisa and I are celebrating 28 years in uh in about three weeks, and we've raised uh two adult kids. So my daughter's 19, my my son will be 21 in just a few weeks. And um I'm absolutely you know passionate about uh celebrating the difference between men and women and helping men to identify uh how about this identify identity and um I love to talk about words, you know, and and really the root meaning behind authenticity and identity, which are kind of thrown around in our culture and largely misunderstood. Um, and and words like grit and mission and you know, things that describe a man's soul. And then one last thing here is for some reason, as you were talking, the a memory came up. A friend of mine who I work with closely, Dr. Andy Garrett, he reminded me one day, he said, he said, David, did you know that the there's a kind of an iteration in Hebrew of the word man that actually means to turn chaos into order? And I just love this idea of, you know, when a true man, right, who's a giver and not a taker, right? I'm not talking the guy with the big question marks who's stumbling through life, just taking whatever he can get. I'm talking about the man who walks into a room and the room gets wiser, safer, stronger, better, more joyful, more noble, and how about this? More orderly, right? You know full well when certain men walk into a room, the room just gets safer in every single way. And I think that's what we're all longing to become, and it's what we're, you know, what we're all, you know, we we all long, even as as young men to have that type of a stable father in those people in our lives who, you know, go before us. So man, I'm I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be talking about what I think is the most meaningful thing on earth, and that is when men lead with kindness, conviction, and clarity, everybody wins. And when men don't, everybody loses.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I agree with that completely and entirely. I really feel that men have that responsibility to bring that order. I heard this wonderful thing, and it came from a a pastor that I saw on, I think it was YouTube, and he said, you know, in the Bible it states that, you know, woman came from the rib of man, not their feet, not to be walked on, right? But from their rib, to be side by side, to be partners in their relationship when they have one. Right. And so I I like what you're saying. The men are there to keep order, and that's kind of what we do as fathers

Infertility Adoption And Becoming A Dad

SPEAKER_00 4:13

in the home. You know, you said that you're you're a father yourself. When you first realized that your wife was pregnant, how did you take that initial reaction? What was your reaction to that?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, you know, we were we were we were really excited. I mean, you know, so our story, you know, even with regards to that was, you know, we went through some infertility, like years of that. Like me, you know, we were told the doctor basically said, you know, told my wife, you have about a 1% chance of getting pregnant, period. So, you know, for Lisa, that was like, oh my gosh, that's you know, it felt like a death sentence at the time. I mean, she was early twenties, and you know, so we kind of, you know, we did a few things to to try to, you know, to make something happen medically, and you know, and at the same time, during that time, tried to posture our hearts, you know, before God, just like, hey, you're good and you know what we need. And, you know, would you just, you know, just orchestrate our steps here, help us to be be faithful. And so we went through the entire adoption process. Like we were literally, you know, I mean, it was a year of of interviews and all this preparatory work through this particular agency that we really liked, and we're literally on the waiting list to get a call. And, you know, and then we come to find out, you know, Lisa got pregnant with Parker, and then 19 months later with Kate. And um, yeah, we and granted by that time and though after those years, I was in my 30s, so we kind of decided we were, you know, the quiver was full at that point. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah, that sounds amazing. It sounds rough, but amazing that that actually came to fruition for you. In that process, you know, when did you like I talk about this in the podcast about how you know men as men, we go from this way of thinking of, you know, me, my, and and maybe us as far as like girlfriends and wives go. And once that baby hits, there's no real switch that kind of flips for us. It's it's a work in progress. You know, every every man that I've talked to who has kids thus far, and there could be exceptions to the rule, of course, they've said this to me the same way that I felt. I saw this little baby. Yes, I want to protect this child. Yes, I'm going to do everything that I can to protect this child. But it came in it it came in steps. Like as a as a father now, I I know that I'm more inclined to, you know, take care of and do things for my children and make sure that they're okay and wanting them to succeed above myself at this point. But you know, when I first had a child, it wasn't like that. And it and it takes this process of steps that you take, these micro steps that you take to get there. So, you know, in that in that same conversation, you know, where were you before, you know, before this, before the inventor, before the book, before, you know, before you are now in that transition from when you were, you know, trying to trying to have a baby to maybe feeling like you weren't going to. How did you how did you how did you overcome that?

Fathers Who Raise Men To Rise

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, you know, I'm grateful because I I was modeled, you know, growing up, parents who really were intentional and loved us, you know, and and um so in it was interesting. My even my dad, uh, he won Father of the Year or third place, Father of the Year in Minnesota. And, you know, where I was growing up based on an essay that I wrote and then a bunch of interviews, like literally he was interviewed by the National Center for Fathering for six months. And I mean it was like yeah, a long process. But my my point is this is, you know, I think that, you know, obviously there are biological instincts that are woven into us, you know, but we also we also experience, right, and we witness and we see where, you know, people abandon their kids, right? Or worse. And I so again, I I know that's a rough subject for for so many, and and there's a lot of reasons why that stuff happens, right? So we're not we don't need to necessarily walk down that road. But I just want to say I was really grateful that I had parents who, like every single day, not that they're perfect, right? But every single day they said, I love you, and we prayed together. And, you know, I knew they were absolutely interested in my well-being in every single way. So, you know, it wasn't a big leap, right? I mean, it's I mean, I was raised, and what does that mean? I was caused to rise. Well, what does that mean? It means that my mom and dad said, Hey, we have great expectation of you. We have a understand that we are made in the image of the one who made lightning and hurricanes and tornadoes and steel and you know, gold. Like it's like there's there's a context that we live in. There are clues that show that we are are not creators, right? We're fashioners. We're there's there's one creator, but we are fashioners of what he has given us in this world to create a beautiful city, you know, a beautiful kingdom, as it were. So growing up, my mom and dad taught us how to work, right? They taught us how to love, they taught us how to say I'm sorry, they taught us about you know grace and forgiveness, and and they had expectations and an identity, like people like us do things like this, right? You we expect you to work your butt off and be really kind and to speak into the chaos. And if somebody needs protecting, you you jump in. My dad was in the army and you know, he was a welder metal fab guy. My mom was a musician and teacher, and you know, they they taught us a lot about everything. So it wasn't too big of a lease.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, fair enough. And I mean, you invented something that, you know, must have taken quite a lot of time to actually perfect and and and then institute into the market. You've written a book, you performed as a vocalist, like you were raised by hard it sounds like you were raised by hardworking individuals, and some of that kind of rubbed off on you.

Authenticity Identity And The Author

SPEAKER_00 9:42

So you talk a lot about authenticity and or authentic identity. So why do my question here is why do so many successful people, people on top tier, let alone the you know the bottom tier, still feel lost about who they really are?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah, yeah, man. That's a I'm you know, here's the funny thing. It's a bit of a dangerous question. And and the reason is is because it causes us to to look in the mirror and to start to evaluate some things in our lives that are disordered. So I'm gonna let me let me jump into the deep end of the pool here. Uh, you know, where do we get the word authenticity from? Right? I stood in a room of of of uh really high executives one time, you know, with PhDs and everything else, and I said, hey, we're gonna be talking this week, because we were doing kind of a a workshop. We're gonna be talking about identity and authenticity and grit and resilience and all these things, and we're gonna ask you to take a deeper look inside. We're gonna ask you questions in a particular progression so you can identify, right? The word identity, that's all that is. You can identify all of the things that you know that you care about and that describe you. But here's what's fascinating the word authenticity comes from the word author. You know, we didn't make us, right? I mean, it's a popular one to say, well, you didn't choose your skin color. Well, guess what? You didn't choose anything. You don't choose into what family you're born, your skin color, eye color, taste buds, you know, uh timing you're born in history, and here's something else. You don't even choose your own personality. And how do we know that that's a law like gravity? Because those of us who have kids especially know, or our siblings for that matter, when a when a baby comes out out of the womb, I mean, you can tell that their little essence, their little spirit is so precious and unique. And when they start growing into, you know, months and years, and especially when the second one comes along or third, you're like, they're all boys, but they're so different. Are you kidding me? Like, what's going on here? Well, children, unlike you and me, who are, you know, broken and wounded and all this stuff, we're not kids aren't thinking about authenticity and identity. You know what I mean? They're not trying to figure it out, they're just being authentic. They're being they're just being normal, they're doing their deal. Until what? Until when? Until life punches them in the face. And then they're like, wait a second, I'm not good enough? You know, I'm I walk into a room and I do X, Y, and Z and I get, you know, an applause, or I do X, Y, and Z and somebody, you know, slaps me or mocks me, or, you know, I get disciplined, or you start playing a role. Well, you go through your adolescence and hit up into your teenage years, and then all of a sudden, you know, teenagers get all buckwild and you know start pushing back. That's actually what's called psycho psychologists start calling self-actualization. You know, you're you're figuring out where do I start and stop? And where does this person start and stop? And, you know, do I like what's going on here? And you're starting to carve out, you know, a a little bit of your your, you know, what do you value? Like we talk about core values and so on. Like, what do I really value here? And is what mom and dad's saying, do I really like that? You know, and here's the funny thing. There are there are some teenagers, sadly, that are in a context where their parents are doing a horrible job. And and yet their their beautiful and God-given hearts are told to honor and love their parents. Well, that's a good thing. So I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. But guess what? If you are in a context that is absolute chaos and it's the blind leading the blind, I would hope that young people, you know, would be able to say, I love my mom and dad, but you know, nobody showed them how to do life. And and there's some things that, yeah, I'll probably take with me here and assimilate, but there's some other stuff that I might need to reject that wholeheartedly. And and and and to to and to move on into a space that is more honorable and courageous and noble and kind and curious, you know. Uh you know, I I think of even as I say that, I think that are, you know, fruit of the spirit, right? Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. I would hope, even though my children and and I grew up in a, you know, like I'm standing on my dad's shoulders and I'm uh, you know, I'm my my son and uh kids are standing on my shoulders. I would hope that my kids, and we talk about this all the time, I'm giving them permission to say, hey, take, you know, those things that that you find valuable, that are beautiful, that are good, and use them. But if there's some things that I'm doing wrong, and guess what? I'm human, there's a lot of things I'm not doing right, man. I I hope that you can still love me and my humanness and as I'm growing like man in progress, right? And then assimilate some other things into your life that are that are better than what I'm doing. I want you to stand on my shoulders. So let me go back real quick. You know, why do you feel lost? You know, why why why is it that that so many of us, and my story, by the way, was I was uh even as a a Christian who grew up in a pr a pretty good home, I really got kind of the cart before the horse. And I wanted to um how about this? I wanted to become somebody. You know, I I didn't for some reason I felt like I'm not good enough, you know, and I need to I need to be famous. I need to be I need to I need to have some accolades, I need to have some accomplishments that justify my existence so that I am someone or at least not a nobody. You know, that kind of thing. And it's and it's that type of stuff is crushing and because it's two things, it's never good enough, and of course the response you think you're gonna get is never good enough, and even if you got the response you wanted from somebody, that would last about three minutes. You know, I've stood on stages, you know, like I'm looking at one here that I signed a non-disclosure agreement, I can't even talk about. Like a to a complete pipe dream. And got out of standing ovation from billionaires. And you know what? That's a great experience. But that lasted, you know, about twenty-four hours, and now David needs to, you know, understand afresh whose I am and who I am and and to take upon the ultimate identity, which is you know, again, I'm choosing to to believe this is true, right? I'm identifying what I believe about not only my author, but my authenticity, you know, and I'm saying stuff like, I believe that you know, the one who made lightning and tigers and hurricanes and tornadoes, and who wrote himself into the story, who took who ultimate power, uh Tim Keller says, came to take a seat on the floor so that I would have a seat at the table. That guy right the ultimate reality has said, You are mine and I'm yours. Let's you and I make a difference together, but let's do it in an upside down fashion where it's not me over you, and it's not, hey David, you need to become this big influencer and you know, and talk about how great you are and have people follow in your footsteps because you're just such a champion. No, I'm not. I'm a slow of heart idiot most days. And I say that, you know, kind of jokingly, but the reality of it is quite often, even if I'm doing the right thing, Travis, I'm still often doing it because I want you and everybody else to somehow think that I'm a good dude. But on the days when my heart is free, I'm doing it because uh I I'm I'm just acting in alignment with what I uh how about this? Uh I'll I'll I'll use a quote by Eric Little, you know, uh the guy that uh is in the movie Chariots of Fire. He said, you know, when this is a true story, so he was, you know, running in the Olympics and his I think it was his sisters, who's like, you know, no, you gotta come back and do X, Y, and Z, whatever it was, and he said, No, he said, God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. And to me, that is the goal of life. May I feel the pleasure and the smile of God. Well, what does that mean? It means that I haven't made a good thing an ultimate thing. I've let the I've let the ultimate thing be the ultimate thing, and I've I've I've uh let the the the other beautiful things remain in the order, you know, thus not disordered, remain in the order that they should be. And so when I'm, you know, inspiring people and breathing life into somebody and having a great conversation, which is uh one of the reasons I think I'm here on earth, right? I'm I'm I'm I'm living my role that God created me to be. I'm a creative, I like creating music and products and various things. I get to just enjoy being who he created me to be, as opposed to trying to win the favor and the applause and the fame of everybody around me, right? I get to be hopefully faithful and not famous. So I get to be shine brightly and not, you know, try to be some weird hero that has to live up to somebody else's expectations. And I get to sit on the floor where ultimate reality has placed himself so that we can just be human and ha and have great conversations, as opposed to strive and white knuckle life and try to become somebody. I know that's a that's a lot, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

No, it it it's a lot, but it's it's definitely worth stating because that's that's kind of how it is.

Purpose Anxiety And The Lion King

SPEAKER_00 18:33

And you know, I like to think back to the Lion King and parts of that, because as we are in our in our older years, I would say probably later 20s into that, into that early 30s, we start to realize that we want purpose. I worked a job where I was getting quite a bit of money and a freedom to travel a little bit here and there, but I was getting sick a lot. I was, I was, I started at the end of that role, I started actually waking up panicking, panic sweats, panic, panic attacks left and right. I couldn't go to a hotel and sleep in a hotel without waking up in a panic most nights at the at the tail end of that career. And I couldn't figure out why. But since I started podcasting, since I started telling this process of building values, I haven't been sick in over, I would say, 300 days, like almost a full year. I I felt amazing. I haven't had a panic attack. I've been living a good, purposeful life, and I think that that purpose comes into play. And I like to tell the story of you know the Lion King because you know, in that gorge, when Simba is on that tree and Mufasa sees him down there and he leaps into action. I like to think that fathers do that. Fathers are there to take on the burden when the child is suffering, and they do that. Unfortunately, we all know how that side of that story ended. But then there's always this, and I talk about this in the podcast, there's this shadow and this aspirational side of you that want to move forward. And that shadow is always going to tell you the simplest things like Uncle Scar telling Simba to run away. And it's not always going to be a hard-fought path. We all saw the movie. Simba had a wonderful freaking time with Timon and Boomba as they pranced around in the forest and ate grubs and almost went vegan, and they were having a hell of a time. And then, you know, Simba grew up. And when he got to that age where he's like, What is my purpose? Rustiki showed up and hit him on the head. And was like, all right, it's time to live your purpose. And I really liked the scene where he goes over to the pond and he shows Simba the water, and Simba looks down and sees his reflection. And Rafiki's like, look harder, stupid. And he sees his father in him. And that's how I feel like a lot of us live, whether it be a mother that you're seeing inside of yourself, whether it be a father you're seeing inside of yourself, you're starting to see their wisdom. And in their wisdom and in their values, you start to see your path. And it's only up to you at that point to make the choice to follow that path. And, you know, I talk about, like I said, shadow values and aspirational values. David, in your life, you know, you you overcome some things and you know, your own shadow aspirational and your own shadow values and turned into aspirational values. And you're sitting now as this authority in your field where you get to talk to billionaires and help them and do that sort of thing. What what changed? What did you recognize about yourself? And what process did you take to finally fulfill that purpose in that way?

The Masculine Journey Through Life Stages

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah, yeah, I there's a lot there. So let me let me back up real quick to your you're talking about you know, the Lion King and so on. I think there's a you know, there's one story being told, you know, over and over. And over. And, you know, it's I don't care if it's a love song or, you know, the movies, right? We all have, you know, this idea of, you know, there's we live in a broken world, right? There's a problem. There's a process of growth, and there's a hero. And, you know, the hero enters into the story, right? And it's not us. Although we are made in his image and we're the little hero, right? We're the king with a little key. And that process of of growth inside of you know the larger kingdom, the larger story, is very important, you know, to the king, right? He wants us to, you know, we're made as it made in in his image, and it's it's it's you know, I'll speak for men, right? I mean, we were called to manage our kingdom well. And and we go through phases. I remember years ago I read the book Wild at Heart by John Eldridge, and he talks about the the the phases of the masculine journey, and he says that you know, you start out as the beloved son, right? Go figure, right? It's there's Simba, right? And and then it's the the uh cowboy stage, and then the warrior, and then the lover, and then the king, and then the sage. And we see all of that in almost every movie. And and I and I think there's again, there's a truth, there's a a thread that runs through all of these stories and songs and you know, everything from Lord of the Rings to you know Braveheart to uh Gladiator, you know, all these things, right? It's it's that same that same story, that same process. I think the I think sometimes though we we tend to try to uh jump or skip phases of that. And you know, it things get a bit squirrely, right? You if you give a if you give someone in their their twenties the title of a king or title of a sage, and you put them, you know, you promote them beyond their maturity and their ability, things get really squirrely in a hurry. And and quite often, and I think largely in our culture, right, we've lost that order of things. And um, and and of course we've lost, you know, the the people that even understand that there should be an order, let alone understand how to raise someone through that process. So, you know, with regards to my story, you know, I've I've been through a lot of those phases, I've dipped my toe back into certain waters and you know, had to figure some things out and so on. And I you know, here's here's what's funny. I mean, you know, you mentioned being an authority in some space. Well, I'm writing a book for dads, and you know, there's some things I've learned. And at the same time, you know, what do I what's my hope? My hope is that, you know, someone could take some things that I've learned and just assimilate some of that into their life and walk beside somebody. And, you know, I'm I'll be fifty-two in a in about a week, week and a half, and I um, you know, I'm still in process. Right? My my s my son, my daughter, they're kind of just launching into life and you know, even this week we've had, you know, my son just finished a a an associate's degree, started his own business, and you know, we had to go buy a new truck for him yesterday because the other one died, and like we're just we're learning to navigate, you know, all of you know this process, right? He's going from the, you know, kind of the maybe the cowboy stage into the warrior lover stage, you know, looking for a wife and building his business and and and soon, you know, in the next probably decade, right, he'll start entering those king waters. And and I think it's really important for the kings and the sages, you know, to to be, you know, the older shall teach the younger and to be to be um how about this, to be telling them, hey, it's gonna be okay. Like, just keep walking here. You know, the the path might not be well clear, but what you're aiming at is love and mercy and kindness and protection and nobility. You are already enough. You're more than enough. And that the the context that we live in is really just that. It's a context to experience relationship in. And um, so I I think that we really need to understand that growth and relationships and that stuff is the pinnacle of all things. The rest of it is just a context to experience people in and to to grow. And um, there's a lot of icing on the cake, you know, by the way, within the context and whether it's experiences or places you get to see or music you get to hear and things like that. But again, it's a context to experience growth with image bearers.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah, it really is. And, you know, like like you said, you're you're still in process, or would you say that you're still a man in progress,

Finding Purpose Through Core Values

SPEAKER_00 26:17

right? And so with that being said, I want to know like what what do you feel like is your purpose now? Like what are you trying to do? Like, like you said, you want you want to teach somebody, you know, I feel the same way. I just want one person, one person to to know what I'm saying, use it and and be successful with it. That would that would drive me wild. I would love that for somebody. So that's that's kind of my purpose. What is your purpose? What what do you have going on in your life now?

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, so here's something else I'll say too. I think purpose, I heard remember Tim Keller said purpose is everything. Meaning, you know, if you don't feel like you have a purpose, so you start treating yourself like trash because trash doesn't have a purpose. I remember sitting, I've told this story a few times and I'll make it kind of fast, but I was sitting at Strawbergs with a guy who was really struggling. And when I got there, I spilled my coffee and I took a napkin and wiped it up, you know, and and I asked him, I said, Hey, what's this? And he said, It's a napkin. I'm like, no, it's not. It used to be like it, because now it's covered in, you know, who knows what on the table, COVID and everything else. This was a few years ago, and it's soaking wet. It used to be a napkin. It used to have a purpose. Well, now it doesn't. It's just, it's not a negative thing. It just is transferred from no purpose or for purpose to no purpose, and it should be thrown in the trash. Well, we often, you know, we feel like that, right? If I don't feel like I have a purpose, well, then I start sabotaging and I start treating myself like trash. So I think purpose is everything and uniqueness of purpose is everything. So there are clues, you know, as to understanding if you've, you know, you've found that alignment. So one of the things we do in, you know, and with Dr. Andy in his True North curriculum is we just start asking people about, you know, I'll put it this way. We introduce them to themselves. So, you know, there's some clues here. So when you you know that you've answered the questions correctly, uh, how about this? What how about this? When you haven't found the alignment, you know, inside of you, you haven't found your purpose, well, there's a clue there. You start feeling imposter syndrome, apathetic, right? I'm like, I'm just wanting to get up this morning, avoidant of certain people in situations because you feel insecure, imposter syndrome, you know, anxiety just across the board, and if it goes long enough, like severe depression. I mean, and and it gets worse, right? So how do you know you found it? How do you know you've got some alignment there? And you're like, wow, I feel kind of natural and normal and resilient and confident and free, and you know, you're looking at it like you get up in the morning, and I remember Jim Rohn, he says, People always ask me why I get up so early in the morning. And he always says, Well, you'd get up early too if you knew where I was headed. You know, it's like, so when you get up with, you know, you've answered those questions and you're like, what is it that lights me up and what type of an impact do I want to have? And when I see that impact, how much joy does it give me? It's like, oh my gosh, you know, this is r rather fulfilling. So to answer your question, what's my purpose? Well, there are there are a few contexts, right, that I that I live in, right? I'm I'm a husband, so I have a different purpose with regards to loving my wife. I I mean, my purpose there is to is to make sure that she knows she is cherished and adored. That's it. So of course I do the the providing and you know, largely that kind of thing. She works as well. But again, you know, for my kids, right? I mean well, my daughter, right, she'll always be my little girl. I want her to know that she's the object of my delight. Like I've whispered in her ear ear every day. I texted her last night at 10 o'clock, she's in college. You are full of wonder. Right? You're wonderful. Like I love you, and I see you. And my son, right, my my goal with him and early on in life is I see you and I love what I see. And I named you, and now, you know, the practical name, Parker. But guess what? God has named you with other names. And we're gonna find out what those words are, and I'm going to mirror them back to you so that so that you rise into the person you were created to be to crush fear. Like we live in a broken world, right? So there's a lot of there's a lot of chaos going on around here, internally and externally. So how do you navigate that, right? Man, you've got to have a clear understanding of of who you are, what you value, so that you can say, Yeah, here's a thought, but guess what? It's not mine. Just because it's a thought doesn't mean it's mine, and you could be the observer of those thoughts as opposed to just being in the weeds and thinking I am my thoughts. Because there's a lot of crap that comes along our, you know, our experience and our minds and hearts and souls and everything that we have to be able to sift that stuff out. And so again, my goal with Parker, my purpose there is to just raise him as a man God would have him be, because he's a different human being than I am. And he's gonna have a different flavor on how he, you know, his dent in the universe as it w as it were. And, you know, so and then I would say on a macro level, you know, my my my number one core value is inspire. What does that mean? It means to breathe life into. So when I when we walk people through, you know, some of the core values assessments, we have them choose their top five or six core values that are really resonate with them, they get to define that word and then tell us why it's important to them. I'm not gonna tell them what they should think or how they should define something, right? You need to trust yourself and anchor those things. And boy, I tell you what, when you start operating in alignment, you know, with that person and there's no utopia, by the way, and we're all, you know, mixed bag of contradictions every day, and I get it. That's Dostoyevsky, by the way. You know, but when you start acting in alignment with the things that you have described, you know, about your own essence and your soul and your strengths and how you want to apply those and your dent in the universe, all that stuff. Well, there's some clues, you start feeling, you know, natural and normal and authentic, as opposed to, you know, the opposite and uh, you know, and fragmented and lost and alone and and so on. And here's what's fascinating.

The Ask Experience And Final Charge

SPEAKER_01 31:44

You asked me earlier, where do you want people to find you online? Well, I'm launching you know my own podcast and all that stuff here soon called the Ask Experience. Well, of course, my last name is Ask, right? A S-K. Am I having a little fun here with my last name? Why? Because if you ask someone the right questions and they start to identify, right, the word identity, their own authenticity by the author, they start to remove the question marks that they feel, and so does everybody around them, right? If you walk into a room with a bunch of question marks, I mean it sometimes it looks really ugly. You say and do stupid stuff, you feel it, and so does everybody else around you. But we've all met those people that they don't seem to have many question marks. And it's not some weird agenda. They just walk into a room, hey, I'm loved by God. I'm made in his image, right? This they're just subconsciously kind of thinking and knowing this. I wonder who could use a friend right now. Like it's there's no weird, you know, posturing and gee, I I need somebody to think that I'm cool. I've been there and it's exhausting as opposed to, and I get to relax into the man, you know, that God fashioned in me before the foundation of the world, and I get to trust him above all, and I get to move through this day with clarity and peace and nobility and kindness and trust that he's gonna bring the right people to me today who need me and who I need, and uh keep it rather simple.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

That's amazing. I love that. Um you're so you're starting the Ask Experience. What the website that you're gonna be launching that on was you said earlier, what was it again? Yeah, or what's your website that you we can find more about you?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah, theaskexperience.com. And then we've got the we kind of did a soft launch on iTunes and Spotify, and um just started to create some, you know, some social media around that because I just I love this idea of you know introducing people to themselves, right? And and and help having them understand, you know, like we do like we think these things for our kids, like, dude, you're made of awesome. And I don't want you to be somebody else, and I don't want you to walk around life and into a room with a bunch of stupid insecurity and and you know unthoughts. Like I want you to be able to sift through those things rather quickly and to say, okay, that's a thought, and you know what, that might be actually legit. Like I should be a little fearful right now. I'm doing some new stuff and it's hard. I I mean, I had that conversation with my son last night. You know, he's running a business and trying to figure out how to pull a trailer with his truck. He's, you know, I mean a large one, he's never done that before. And he's like, Dad, I'm really nervous about this. Like, I'm like, well, you should be. It's okay. You know, some there's some fear and anxiety that's actually quite healthy. It causes you to slow down and pay attention. So there's, you know, not all fear, as it were, is a bad thing. Some of it is is is horrible, and you need to grab it by the back of the neck and chuck it out the door.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah, you do. I like to uh instead of using the word confidence, I like to say that you're inexperienced, and so you need to gain experience because it's one and the same thing, and people get that confused all the time. With my daughter, she won't go to her teachers and ask for missing assignments because she's afraid that they're gonna, you know, maybe get upset with her or maybe embarrass her in front of the class or something like that. And I'm like, no, what you're feeling is inexperienced in talking to these authority figures. I need you to get more experience, so I need you to go do this. And so it it kind of helps in that way to reframe things, and then you realize that moving forward, it's much easier than you you made it out to be.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Yeah. David's uh yeah, and and it's and there's some things that, by the way, that you know, we it takes a while to kind of just assimilate some of these thoughts, and then and and we need a guide, right? No, no one was meant to walk this road alone, and and you need someone to that can you know usher you into those places and to walk with you when it's messy and you know, and and and show a lot of grace and just we all need that. That's that's part of the experience, that's the beauty of it.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah, and that's exactly true. And that's one of the reasons why part of my purpose is to help guide. As a coach, that's what I want to do. I want to find people who want to better their situation and I want to help them with a little bit of guidance, with a little bit of that that wonder what they can accomplish. And you know, on top of which, I really feel like a lot of us are getting lost in that. So, you know, I love that you're starting this ask experience because I I genuinely I genuinely want to go check it out myself and I want to listen to some of your podcast episodes. I can't wait for that. So I'm gonna check that out myself. So I hope that people listening today or watching on YouTube, go and check it out. David Ok with the AskExperience.com. That is an amazing. I love the I love the play on words there. It's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah, and thank you for that. It's a great, great, yeah, great conversation with you today.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yeah, thank you for coming on the show. And you know, I'll finish it off. I'll I'll give you a if you want to say some finishing words, go ahead and then I'll close us out. And you know Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah. So, you know, I I like to end end the show quite often with my favorite quote, you know, and again, I'm so passionate about fatherhood that you can use this for everyone that you're in contact with. So Benjamin Disraeli, a former PM of England back in the day, he says, the greatest good you can do for another is not to share with him your riches, but to reveal to him his own. And I just love the idea of holding up a mirror to somebody and saying, Hey, do you see what I see? I want you to believe that. I mean, you're you're made of awesome. And you need to you need to own the beauty that has been written into you and operate in that context. And and we all need someone else to inspire us, breathe life into us, encourage us. We were we were designed to receive that love. And it's that love and encouragement that unlocks all of that.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

I love that. That is I've never heard that quote before. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And I'll leave everyone with this. No, you are not behind. No, you are not too late, and no, you are not broken. You are a man in progress. Keep forging.