The speaker's life began with the traumatic loss of his father at age six, an event that fundamentally shaped his understanding of life, death, and permanence. As a child, he struggled to grasp the concept of "forever," seeing death as nothingness—a fear that endured into adulthood. Without a father figure, he developed a deep sense of anger, a need for control, and a desire to prove himself, which found expression in intense gym discipline. For him, the gym became a sanctuary of structure and personal mastery, offering temporary peace but never lasting fulfillment. His relationship with religion was skeptical, shaped by early experiences of hypocrisy and personal suffering. A turning point came when, in a moment of despair, he experienced a divine encounter with Jesus, which stopped him from taking his life and brought lasting peace. This encounter led him to embrace core Christian beliefs: that all humans are born in sin, salvation comes through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, and heaven and hell reflect eternal union or separation from God. Though he acknowledges uncertainty about the afterlife, he finds meaning in the Christian narrative—rooted in God’s love, justice, and the belief that God reveals Himself in diverse ways to all people. His journey reflects a path from existential despair to faith, driven by personal pain and a profound encounter with hope.
- My father took his life when I was young, so I was six. - My mom telling me, "Your dad's not coming back. What do you mean not coming back?" - I was so fixated on what, what is this? What's the point of this? Like, why did this happen to me? - I found the gym and was like, "Oh, this is like the one thing that helps me not think about that." - So what shaped you then? - Probably anger. - There was one thing I could do. I am in control of this. - The gym is sort of never enough. - You don't really fill that up. - What do you think happens when we die? - That's the one I struggle with the most. - Where did he go? - Yeah, I thought that it was just, there was nothing. It was just nothingness. And I think that was the thing that really scared me about it. - Where do you that way, God? - Hey, before we get into today's episode, I wanna share two quick things with you. First, if these videos have meant anything to you, if they've encouraged your faith or helped you see the gospel a little bit more clearly, I just wanna ask you to subscribe. A lot of people tune in every single week and haven't hit the button yet. It only takes two seconds and it helps us keep putting these conversations in front of people who need them. And the second thing, this one I've honestly been really excited to say, I'm officially announcing our ministry's biggest live event to date, Open Heaven live podcast tour. It's happening November 8th this year at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas. This is gonna be a night centered around worship, faith, real conversations and genuine community. I believe God is going to move it a powerful way and I would love for you to be in the room. Tickets are on sale right now. You can head to briskroffer.org/tour or just click the link in the description below. And please, only get your tickets through my official site or that link below. I recommend not buying from random resellers online. I believe this is going to be a really special night and I hope to see you there. All right, let's get into that episode. What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of the briskroffer podcast. I'm Bryson today. I'm with Bradley Martin. Let's go. Hello. How you feeling? I feel like good. This is a really nice setup. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's very nice. You know, I've only ever seen you one other time in person from afar. I got to say you're a very handsome man. Wow, that's very sweet of you. Yeah, start with like nice comments. Yeah, I'm just trying to love bomb you before we get into this stuff. Wow. No, we were at a, we were at the brand risk fight in Vegas. What recently? Yeah, a couple weeks ago. And then we just saw you pop out of the blue nowhere with Takashi six nine and he came out and started singing in the middle of ring. We were honestly really good. Where were the fuck were you at? I was somewhere in there. I was sitting me and Chris were over there and we were hanging out. We were so invested in the fights because I'd never been to an actual fighting event before. Like I've never been at UFC or boxing anything. And so that was kind of like my first ever fight and we were just like loving it. Yeah, it was interesting first. Interesting first fight event for sure. Yeah, that was I mean, the Ray J knockout was kinda crazy though. Yeah, that was actually pretty crazy. And then he got, he like got beat and was like, I thought we had a plan. I was like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, that was pretty crazy. That was actually really insane. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they planned it. Maybe he was just mad he lost and then he's like, how did it come out with like something? You know what's kind of crazy? I thought, I thought I read some online that he was like having some hard issues and had like four months left to live. And then he goes, it does a fight. Yeah, I mean, we could take it all the way back to Kim Kardashian and we can go all the way there if you want. It's all about cloud, it's all about viral news. I didn't know that he was the one that did that. Sure, buddy. I'm not even kidding. Sure, buddy. Yeah, so he was one that did that, but that was like the inception of like viral, and make viral content to like stay popular. Is that kind of how he got like, how people? No, he was to be fair. He was already a really well established singer. Like he was an artist. That's kind of like how I'm assuming they found him. But he was in the hip hop scene, right? Yeah, he was, he was R&B, he was more of a singer. Oh, okay, yeah, I've never, yeah, I'd actually never heard of any of this music. Yeah, he was here and then, and then she took him on camera and then she went like this, and just kept going. Like if we could just keep going, as far as like cloud, like money, she just kept going. Oh my goodness. 'Cause her mom's a genius, I guess, and set the whole thing up. Like we're sure of their entire life. Could you imagine having a mom that was just like, all right, you going to this guy on camera, and then we're going to make you go viral, and then we're going to build billion dollar brands with you and your whole family. That, you know, I'm not going to lie, I've never really thought about it like that, but this is exactly what happened. Is it really? Yeah, Chris Jenner is a genius. Do you know them? I don't know them, no. I've met a few of them in different settings, but I don't know them. What kind of settings have you been doing? I met, came at the airport. She was with her gay, some probably like, makeup bars or something. And then he was like, he said something's slid at me 'cause I was walking in front of him. Like you tried to flirt with you? Yeah, and then I turned around and I was like, "Oh, it's Kim Kardashian," and then that was it. And then I met Kylie at some like weekend party thing in like West Hollywood. It was like a Halloween party, and Abel was dressed up as like Professor Clump, and then we were leaving. Wait, who's Abel? The weekend. Oh, okay, okay. Thank you, you know I'm on a first name basis. I don't know, I'm like, he's not the homie, but like I've met him a few times. He used to train at my old gym with like his trainer like late night and shit. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah, when it was closed. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. Dang. Well, thanks for coming on. No, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, of course. What I just said has nothing to do with me, you know. I think I saw much for watching. Appreciate you guys. You have a great conversation. I know the weekend, this guy I'm out of here. (laughing) Bro, I'm just, I just start talking. I could just talk forever, so. No, I like it. Well, I'm excited because we'll probably go all over the place. I do. In podcasts, yeah, they talk so much. Well, before we get into a bunch of stuff, you know, before you became a fitness influencer or started a gym and all that stuff, what was life like for you growing up? I mean, I asked pretty basic. Yeah, like normal shit. Your dad, like, stitches old, takes his life. Pretty normal, right? No, no, not normal. But that's what life was like. It was like sort of, I don't know. I think really, 'cause my father took his life when I was young, so I was six. I've talked about this many times. But when you ask me what life is like, I tend to just think about that sort of moment because everything following that was just like, I was so fixated on what, what is this? Why is my life this way? Those sort of thoughts. So majority of my life was like in that space. Yeah. And then, you know, you asked before I became a fitness influencer and all this. Then I found the gym and was like, oh, this is like the one thing that helps me not think about that. And so that's why I just, like, oh, I want to be there as much as I can. You know, you asked me a question about being a fitness influencer. That wasn't even in my mind when I was then, you know, so long ago now. None of this was like a thing. It wasn't social media, Instagram, podcasting, all this wasn't real. Wasn't existing, rather. So I was just like, oh, I'm gonna go to the gym and this is the only thing that makes me feel somewhat sort of calm in my mind. And then, that's all I did, pretty much. - Wait, can you do that in video games? - Where you play live video games? - Pro, I'm the best ever. - What do you like to play? - Anything, I play anything. I played everything. - Do you like Fortnite? - Yeah, that's just, that's, that's, I did. When it first came out, it was very fun. Like the first map, the first version of it. And then they just sort of ruined it with like bots and you just joined lobbies with like computers and sh*t now. - Yeah, I mean, I never really put a lot of video games so I always love Fortnite. - You look like a Fortnite guy. - I, I, I, I, as you know, I like a Fortnite guy. - I'll take that. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. - You like building, huh? - No, I do the no build. - Oh, good. You're a real one then. - Yeah, 'cause it's kind of like, so I, my like first ever video game was like Call of Duty 3. And then. - Wow. - Holy sh*t. - You heard a halo? - I didn't like halo. - Oh my god, I didn't like halo. - And then I, so I played that and then, and then I, there was a time where I would play a lot of Rainbow Six Siege. - Yeah, I played a lot too. - But when I'm saying like a lot for me, like some of that plays video games consistently would be like, you don't play a lot. Like I, I would maybe play video games for like 30 minutes. - Oh yeah, no, you're not a gamer. - And then I would be like, I can't my head hurt. - Yeah, no, I would like. I would play video games for like four, five, seven hours. - I honestly don't know what I was doing. - If I wasn't in the gym, I was playing video games. - Just 'cause you like them. - I think it was another distraction, like I said. It was just like, I could just focus on this thing. And I like the competitiveness. - Yeah. - I like trying to be better. - Can we talk a little bit about when you were six? Because I, I don't want to just skip over that. I think that's a big deal. That's a big part of your story. I mean, like, can you kind of take me into those days leading up to the night? - I mean, I don't really know about leading up to. It's more like just the reaction to it when you find out. - So what exactly happened? Like not trying to be crude. Did you find him or did somebody else find it? Like what happened? 'Cause I knew that about you, but I don't know like details. - Yeah, I mean, I don't really talk so many details about it. The thing that really stands out in my mind is my mom telling me like the realization of it when you're like, she's like, your dad's not coming back. And that was the, I just, that sort of rung in my head just seemed like forever. I mean, it's not really there anymore now 'cause I've sort of dealt with it for the most part. But that was the moment where I was like, what the fuck does that mean? What do you mean not coming back? 'Cause you don't think it's like a six-year-old, everything prior was just like, you can scratch your, you can knee or you hurt yourself playing some sports. I play a lot of sports growing up. And it's just everything felt temporary. - Yeah. - You know, obviously like, you don't think of the, the finite. You don't think that like, this is gonna be done. 'Cause your perspective on life is so just like, everything is new, everything is happening. And I think at that age, when you're told like, oh, this person's gone forever, you struggle with understanding what that means. - Yeah. - You don't have the idea of what forever means in your mind at that age. - Did, was it, was it hard growing up without a father? - I mean, it was like, the hardest part would be seeing, you know, going to graduation or going like certain events that I would, I could draw back to thinking like, you know, seeing other people's reactions and interactions with their parents and they're mostly, in this case, father figures where I would just kind of be like, oh, I don't have that. And just be constantly reminded that I don't have that. Would it be like, someone coming to a sport event and watching, like me watching their dad interact with them and being like, oh, I don't have that. Or, you know, get graduated and seeing the dad, like, congratulate the guy after and be like, oh, I don't have that. All those sort of moments and the things that really stood out in my mind. - Yeah. - Where I was just like, the other sucks. How is that shaped you into wanting to be a leader?
or a friend, maybe a father in the future. Like how does it shape you? - I think it's a lot of stuff up as far as, I mean, I know my relationships in my older age or more so like, you approach them with a lot more fear. Which is why I was interested in what it was like when you were like, you got married at 21 or 22 or something. - Yeah. - I said I was jokingly saying like, I missed that book 'cause it was so much harder for me. At this point now I'm sort of good, but trying to have relationships with people was just like impossible. You just felt like, you know, if you get too close to someone or something, they're eventually just gonna leave you. In the reality in life, like that's just kind of the truth no matter what. Like not everyone's gonna leave you, but nothing is permanent, nothing is forever, right? But I struggled with allowing people into my life. That was like, I would say the biggest struggle that sort of prolonged throughout my life. But to answer your question as far as like, wanting to be a father figure or that sort of thing. - Yeah. - It would have happened over time and sort of unknowingly through my social media experience 'cause on social media, the thing that made me popular outside of, excuse me, outside of just making content that was like fitness related and people wanted that sort of content. I would always speak about my life and I would share moments of my life where I shared things that I thought of or things that I went through and I would share in a way that was just very candid. - Yeah. - Like I'd feel my YouTube video working out and then I would just start talking about something. I remember I would always talk behind like, by like in trash cans at gyms, for some reason I used 'cause that was always quiet to film. (laughing) - Wait, so you'd, you know, it sounds crazy. But I would work out in a gym and then I would like, sometimes I'd talk in the gym, but a lot of times I would talk after a certain topics and it would always end up being by like a trash can. (laughing) - Well, that's so funny 'cause I feel like some of the making videos are like, let me try to find like the best scenic view. - Yeah, no, I just think a green can. I was just trying to find where it was quiet. And it was quiet by the trash cans. - Yeah, I mean, respect, respect. - And then I would talk about life for, you know, things that I'd experienced at that point. And I think, again, going back to answer your question was, those were always the things that eventually when I would show up to like expose or people would message me online. Like what they appreciated was the things that I said more so than the things that I did. - Yeah. - And that's when I was like, oh, this is like, it kind of all started to make sense now. But that was, you know, that took 20 years 'cause it died when I was six and then around 26 when I was like, oh, people are actually appreciating this. And there's like value in what happened with me for everyone else. - Yeah, just from what I know about you online and from the short interactions here, there's like authenticity about you, which seems to be the truth of what you're saying. Like that's why people gravitate towards you. - I mean, I get, I just, the benefit that I had to all this social media stuff was that, it's kind of interesting like I also didn't have a father to show me what's right and wrong in a way in a sense. And then also on social media, I didn't have examples of like how to be or how to show up or what to say or what to do or like what was gonna do well. - You know nowadays, a lot of people, they start a podcast 'cause you've got a podcast and it does well and you do it consistently and they go, oh, I want to do a podcast and 'cause he does it and I like him for all good reasons or whatever. I never really had those examples. So when you talk about authenticity, I was just like, oh, I'm just the only thing I know how to be is me. And so in every version of what I did, it was just like, this is just who I am and what I'm doing and what I enjoy or what I think and I would just put that out there. - Wait, so what shaped you then like, you know how? You know, like, you know, typical father thing is like, oh, here's how to change a tire or here's how to like put your money here or here's how to, you know, hey, don't be a knucklehead, don't do that. What, what, if you didn't have that, what then was shaping you the way you viewed the world, morality? - Probably anger. - Yeah. - Like being upset that I didn't have things that I thought other people had that I should have had that I didn't have. And so shaping me, I mean, that would have been the thing that it would bother me so much. And I felt like I wanted to prove that I was good enough to have the things that I didn't have. Even though I couldn't, I couldn't ever force that to be the case. - Yeah. - But in my mind, it was like, nah, I'm fucking good enough, I'm gonna prove it. Whether it was just to myself or, you know, a lot of times it was outward to try to prove it to other people. Because I would find myself in situations in the gym with like older men who are also in the gym, who became sort of like father figures where I didn't want to prove that I was like strong enough. Like I was good enough out of bench press. So it's simple, like stupid when I was like early teens, like 17, 16, like, all I can do this weight, 'cause that guy does it. Like it was just dumb, like I always wanted to prove myself. And I think that's why I got so locked in the gym, 'cause it was, it was a, there was one thing I could do, was like, oh, I could get better at this. Like I am in control of this. And I think that's why I liked it so much, 'cause I felt so out of control out of a lot of other things in my life. - So your discipline in the gym came from hurt, anger, for sure. - Competitiveness, almost like comparison, but not in the way that people use comparison. It's just like, oh, that guy's like 20 years older than me, and I'm like bench press in his weight, or whatever. - Yeah, trying to prove that I could, yeah. - Was that just like, you still feel like, if you're in that space right now, do you feel like you're on like an endless hamster wheel? Like do you ever feel satisfied, does that make sense? - No, I think the gym is sort of that kind of place where it's sort of never enough, kind of the vibe that a lot of people start to get when they train and they, whether they make, you know, physical progress or strength progress, it sort of feels like you could always get better. So yeah, I was trying to think, in hindsight, no, it was just kind of like never enough. So you don't really fill that up, right? - Yeah. - It's just kind of like, where do you move? And how do you, you find different goals to sort of go after like that? - And you, you started working out like in what? High school, middle school? - Yeah, I played sports on my life. And I was like, I played football, like the little kid, pop-warner, Pee-Wee, midgets this whole thing. And then I played one year in like, high school. And then I was just like, I realized in high school that I just like the weight room more than I like playing football. - Yeah. - And again, it probably goes back to just the idea that like I could just be in my own head. - Yeah. - Not worry about anything else. When you play sports, you're a part of the bigger picture and you got to play with the intention of being good for the whole team. And in my mind, I was like, oh, I just like, I just like get it under a barbell and not having to think about anything. - Dude, see, I, okay, wait, hold on. Before I go there, what position were you in high school? - I was a DB and receiver. I was a lot smaller, obviously. - Okay, I was fast too. I played one year in high school too. So I did a third football and then I did freshman year. And they put me on D line. I was 115 pounds, 510. It sounds like a bad coach. - It was brutal. It was bad. - But maybe they didn't have enough people. - Oh, we had plenty of people. - So they had bigger people, but they did. Maybe you were just that good. - So I was on JV and then I got to be in one varsity snap because we were beating the team so bad. But they had this guy who's actually in the NFL now who was ginormous on this other team. And I was on the kickoff return. - He smoked you. - He dude, he nailed me, it was bad. But that's besides the point. No, that's pretty entertaining. - Yeah, I mean, it was-- - I wish there was footage of that. - It was tried. - There might be, my huddle highlights were bad. My huddle highlights were like me over there on the side of the home. - There's got to be footage of that because you're young. That's probably probably on an iPhone somewhere. - Dude, it probably is somewhere. - Yeah. - I don't know where I would find it. But it's definitely, hey, if you can find it, find it and send it to me because I would love to see it. - Yeah, it'd be funny. - Now, with the gym stuff, you said that you like it and then lived in heavy stuff. See, that's my pain with the gym. I hate that. Like, you're just telling me I'm just gonna sit there and go like this with heavy stuff like the whole time. Like, that sounds so-- Like for me, with my personality, it just seems so boring of like me doing like this back and forth or this with the weights, heavy stuff. - Yeah, but it's kind of like-- It's interesting you say that, right? 'Cause I don't know how I'm gonna relate this to religion or something like that, but life is difficult. It's hard, it's supposed to be hard. And I think that's like the perfect representation of life is that this shit, it's hard, makes you good. - So I, oh, let me clarify, I do work out, even if it doesn't look like it. - You sound like a bitchie right now. - I do work out. All right. - I'll be honest with you, I'll work out. Now, I don't like to have heavy hard stuff. It's one of my life to be easy. - Okay, this guy's talking about Jesus and Jesus. - Here's the thing. - One of my life to be easy. - Here's the other cross and walk that, just like he did do that. - Come on, bro. - I'm not gonna lie, I think about that in the gym. - Yeah. - Yeah, it gives you the motivation 'cause I'll be like, anyways, I have a specific morning routine that like I have to do. And if I don't do it, then I'm like the more prideful selfish, like eat quick, quick to be like frustrated version of myself. And one of those things is the gym. - Care to cross. - Yeah, I got to carry my cross in the gym, in life. And so I'll like go to the gym, but when I'm like, and down there, or like when I'm heading to the gym, like in my mind, that thought is like, this is boring. But then when I leave, it's like, I got a gold star. - It's so funny. - Because like, I cannot relate at all. It was the only thing that was fun to me. - Besides video games. - I'm like joyfully jealous of that. Like I don't want to get there one day. - You need anger. - Yeah, you need pain. - No. - That's what you need. That's what gets you there. - Well, you know, I actually did, I was doing Zila, like fitness thing last year. I actually gained a bunch of muscle and I'd been doing it for like four months. But then I travel a lot. And then I had to stop doing it with travel. And then I just stopped doing it. And then I got skinny fat again. Which, that's like the worst. So now I've been back. - Well, that's good, going, thank you. - Yeah, I know, I'm talking shit.
but the biggest thing is consistency, that's all it is. - So where does your physical discipline come from then? Like, if someone wants to be physically disciplined. - Where does my physical discipline come from? - Well, you've been in the gym for a while, so I feel like for you, it's kind of like one of those things where it's like, it's almost like subconsciously embedded in you, like the gyms of part of your habit, it's, you know? - Yeah, I mean, it's like, I've been going to the gym in the morning, my entire life. If I don't go, it's kind of weird. - Wait, what time, wait. - No, right now, 11 o'clock. - What, what does your actual morning routine look like? - I wake up, I feed my dogs, and I go straight to the gym. - How long do you work out for? - Maybe like an hour and a half. I mean, sometimes two hours depends. - What's your bench press max? - All time or currently? - Currently. - Maybe like 475. - Oh my gosh. - All time, I was like 505. - That's like, that was so cool. - It's like three of me. - No, I was great, I mean, dude, it's fun. I don't know why, I understand why people don't like it 'cause it's hard, but it's still fun. - Okay, but that's, okay, that may be where my disconnect is. I don't necessarily not like a gym, 'cause it's hard. I don't like it because to me, it's boring. - I think you don't like 'cause it's hard. 'Cause I was stressing you so much. - That does not bother me. I don't like it because like, in the moment when I'm headed to the gym, I'm like, you're telling me, I'm gonna lay on a bench and go like this. - Yeah, it's hard. - That's not like hard in my mind, that's just boring. - You know what was boring to me? - What? - Going to church. - All right, we'll get into that in a minute. - Yeah, going to church was so boring. - All right, well, before we get there, after you work out, you work out what time? - Typically 11, now. But even actually, yeah, that's crazy. My schedule's always been kind of like 10, 11. - Dang, thanks for coming with us on your gym. - Yeah, I guess, my day up. - We just caught, we just kidding, I'm kidding. - We just caught you slacking. - No, you said 11, I was like, - Can I do it, then I'm gonna go to the gym. - Okay, cool. - Yeah. - Okay, so you get up, go to the gym. You're supposed to be working out now but you're with us. - Yeah. - What happens after you work out? - Most days. - Yeah. - Depends on what I'm working on. So right now I'm working on the gym in Miami. So there's like a lot of phone call stuff for design work 'cause they're like sort of at that stage of it. - Oh, you're launching a second location. - Yeah, in Miami. - Oh, that's cool. - Yeah, we just signed a lease, so we're opening one in Miami, which I'm really excited about. 'Cause I'm working on it for like, not working on it, but trying to get it done for like the last three years. - Yeah, it's just really difficult to find locations. We finally have a really good with a ton of parking, so I'm excited about it. But to answer your question, yeah, it depends on what I'm working on. But typically it'll be like phone calls after that. I'll do all that sort of like meetings and things like that. Zoom calls and then but me personally, 'cause I can kind of do all of my phone like, I'll just either go spend time with my dogs or like take them to the park or go on a hike or something basic or just let them swim at the pool of my house. Do you have like a hobby that you like doing that maybe the average person doesn't like doing? Like do you collect something, do you? - I like Pokemon cards. - Yeah. - You know, I had to kick a Pokemon for a little bit and I had to stop. - Why? - Dude, it just got like, I just realized it was just an endless loophole for me. - Everything is kind of that way though. - With like the Pokemon though, it was kind of an endless loophole and then I had to catch 'em all. - I'm sorry, sorry. - But that's the thing, you can't catch 'em all but keep inventing random Pokemon. - It's more so like, I like the collector side of it 'cause it's actually funny, I have a great story. I age myself here, but I was probably like the generation when they first came out. - Wait, wait, hold on. - I just think that it's weird. - Before we start recording you, - I don't really want to talk about my age. - Well, I don't talk about my age. - Probably like five times in this podcast, you like shoot, I can't help myself. - I can't help, because of the time period of social media like to explain things, I have to explain it properly. - Did my space exist when you were gone? - Oh yeah, but oh yeah. - Oh my god. - Oh yeah, yeah, I don't even want to say when that was. But I had the top friends, I had a song on that, yeah. My space existed and it wasn't just a music thing 'cause that became a music thing and I think it's dead. But anyways, like I was saying, I remember going to a zoo camp. It was like a San Francisco, I'm open to the bay and then like, I think during the summer it was like a zoo camp, my mom and sent me there. And there was this other kid who was like, dude, I got all these, another young kid, I got all these Pokemon cards and I was like, I remember talking to this kid like it was gold 'cause he had all the, you gotta think, Pokemon cards were not worth what they are now today. There were like hundreds of not millions of dollars depending on cards that you have, whatever. $400,000 a card. But I remember being a kid being like, oh, this kid has all the money in the world 'cause he's telling me about these cards. As my little kid, mine was like, oh my God. And he would like, long story short, he would like, tell me he was gonna get me all these cards and I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna be so rich. But it wasn't even worth money then. I just, the cards were so cool to me. Anyways, long story short, he was lying. He never got me any cards. He just like, capped the whole summer camp, never came out with the cards. But I would buy a lot of these cards. I have a lot of these cards and I never played the game. I just bought the cards and put them in a thing, put them in like a binder. Yeah. So I had like, I'm telling you, it was either first or second edition, like Charizard, Alacazam, Blast, or everything. Yeah. hologram, first edition, second edition. Where's that binder now? This is where the story gets good. So those cards now, how I would have had them would have been probably meant. 'Cause I just literally took them out, put them in the thing and I just would like look at it. Yeah. I never touched them. I remember just thinking like, oh, they're just so cool. I just like to look at them. And then, fast forward now, there's like certain cards that were like, Charizard first edition, like mint. It's like PSA 10, whatever is worth it in like $400,000. I remember you had five of those. Oh, my gosh. Now, but you wouldn't know, right? 'Cause this is like gambling. You never know, it's gonna happen in the future. You know, I grow up. They're still in that binder. They eventually just sit in my garage at home, where, you know, where I grew up, my family. I think like four years ago, I call my mom and I'm like, yo, where's that binder? It's just white binder, tons of cards. Where's, 'cause they're like, oh, they're worth all this money now. I'm like, where's that binder? She's like, I don't know. I mean, she's had cleaned out the garage a few times. That's just gone. That's just gone, bro. She definitely got like 10 bucks for it on a yard. No, she just probably threw that away. Really? That's probably worth like $10 million. I swear to God. I am not kidding. I know it sounds like clickbait, I'm not kidding. But you would know, like, I wouldn't have known, my mom would have known, known would have known that there was going to be like this whole thing now. But yeah, I would have been a Pokemon millionaire, but I'm not. It is what it is, you know. You win something, you lose something. That was a big loss. Huge loss. Well, hypothetically, if you think about it, like if you only spent like a couple hundred bucks back in the day, it's only like $500 loss. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way. If you think about it like that, it makes you feel a whole lot better than it, you know. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's just the gambling side of it. It's like, you just don't, you would never know. It'd be like, if I knew, oh man, what would you tell your younger self? If you could, I would have been like, buy Bitcoin. I'd have a trillion dollars if I spent all my money on Bitcoin when it first came out. Well, I just remember growing up, like, I'd be Elon Musk rich right now. Yeah, if you invested in Bitcoin. Yeah, Bitcoin, I don't know anything about crypto. But I do know about baseball cards. That was like my gig when I was younger. So I didn't know, I went in an antique store because my favorite player is Chipper Jones from the Braves. And I remember watching, I used to watch this highlight reel before like every little league game I would play. And they would have this like a rookie card of him on the highlight reel. And I found it in an antique store for like five bucks. It was worth like a hundred bucks online. And that was like my first, oh, you can make money with baseball cards. Yeah, I mean, a lot of antiques and a lot of like collectibles is like tons of money in that. Hey, quick break. Let me tell you about today's sponsor upside. Gas, groceries, and eating out three things we all know add up fast. Even on the tightest budget, there's no escaping them. But here's what you can control. Getting cash back when you fill up, hit the grocery store or go out to eat with the upside app. The free upside app gets you cash back on gas groceries and dining. Here's how it works. You open the app, claim an offer, pay with your card like normal and get paid. That's it. Not points you'll never use, not credit set expire. Cash back, you transfer straight to your bank account. Checking upside before I fill up, before I eat out, before I grocery shop, it's not something I have to remember anymore. It just becomes part of the routine. Before I even pull into the gas station, I check the app. I use this and you should too. Over 100,000 participating locations and you can earn cash back on top of your existing credit card and loyalty rewards. Upside has given back $1 billion to its users. To find out how much you could earn, download the free upside app and use promo code Bryce to get an extra $0.25 back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's an extra $0.25 back for every gallon on your first tank of gas using promo code Bryce. All right, now back to what we're talking about. That's kind of like one of your big hobbies. You have another hobby that maybe in your daily routine sneaks up on you. No. Okay. I mean, it's just like, I just like spending time with my dogs. I go to the gym, I work, and then I spend time with my dogs. And then maybe I'll work out some more, like do some cardio or something. Okay. Cool. Yeah. It's pretty boring. No, it's like just chill. Yeah. It's not boring. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I like really basic. Like I like camping. Like I like to drive. I have a van. I think you could sleep. It's like a sprint or a van. It's all nice. You could sleep in it. And I'll just like go places and just disappear. That's fun. With my dogs and just sit and do nothing. It's actually really nice. Yeah. There's like something beautiful and restful about that. I like that. Take closer to God. Yeah.
You that way, God, Jesus, Christianity. You mentioned church was born, which I can understand, I mean. I've always had a really tough relationship with it. I think 'cause I was sort of pushed into it at an early age. It was like, I grew up Catholic, went to a Catholic school. And my relationship to church was just like, what the fuck am I doing here? Why do people have to give money? This is kind of stupid. And then I would laugh at funny, well, I'd be at church 'cause like, you read the thing into like, Missle and I just thought that was hilarious. And now we're getting trouble for laughing at stupid shit. And I was just like, this is not dumb, but it just felt like, I don't know. I think 'cause what I would hear about Jesus and God and all this stuff and then, you know, you're in church and people's reactions to certain things are like, these people are just kids to me. Like what's Godly about this? What's Jesus' issue about this? Like, I don't know. I felt sort of forced into it, I guess, at a young age. And then I think I had resentment to how like my life panned out. And I was like, this is like why this happened to me. I had a lot of that mentality, like a relationship to my father. So it was hard for me to really be attached to it. I would say that, yeah, that's, that was like my younger brain. And then my older brain is like, looking at life, all the most terrible things that have happened have been on the name of some sort of like religion or some sort of conquest that we have to do this to spread this word and, you know, these people believe something different than us and we believe we're right. So they're wrong. So we need to take their, they're killed at them. It's just kind of like, there's nothing Godly about any of that. But it was all in the name of God. What do you think happens when we die? That's the one I struggle with the most. Because I always had, I think even since I was young, I think the thought of my father dying made me think really early on like, what the fuck does that mean? Like, so what is death? What is life? What's the purpose of this? Like, what happens when we go? Like, where did he go? And yeah, I still don't really have that figured out. I mean, I don't think anyone truly does. I think a lot of people believe. And, you know, obviously that's what having faith is is believing that, you know, either what you read or what you believe, what you're told or what you're supposed to believe is what's going to happen. And I think I just have a really hard like logical and a litical perspective on things and I sometimes get sort of burnt out with the idea that like, you know, there's this heaven and hell and I don't think that it's necessarily untrue, but the way that we're sort of taught it seems to just not make clear sense to me. And I think maybe that's just the way it is. What's your understanding of heaven and hell? Well, the idea that, you know, if you do good things, you do certain acts, you treat people a certain way, you know, like the golden rule. Like, that was kind of the thing that I always like, always sit out, my mind was treat people how you want to be treated. And that would be like the most important sort of thing that you'd end up in a place where you wouldn't necessarily like see your touch, your loved ones, but you'd have this sort of sense of feeling or energy or something, something around that. But again, I don't know. Like, that's the thing, even at this point in my life, like I don't have a direct, this is what it is. You know, I've been told so many different things. And I think it's just hard for me to get behind a lot of it because I just think about my life and I just think about life in general. And it's like people created all of these things around religion. I guess my original perspective was this that they created these ideas so people would be more comfortable with the idea of death and the idea of like not being here forever. - So do you think that it just goes all black? - That's what I thought for a long time. Yeah, I thought that like it was just, there was nothing, it was just nothingness. I don't necessarily believe that as much now, but I also don't, I don't have a definite like, this is what it is. - Yeah. - You know, I can't sit here and say that like, I'm certain that it's heaven and hell or I'm certain that it's nothing. And I think that's why it's still a little scary but I think I also just got to a certain point in my life where I'm like, kid. - Yeah, kind of, I don't know. - Yeah. - What do you think it is? - Well, I believe in heaven and hell, but the definition that you said a lot of people have and I would say according to the Christian perspective, it's like a false definition, but a lot of people have that definition. So it's not like a, you know, you made some grave mistake, but so I believe in heaven and hell, but that's because my entire worldview comes from Jesus and the Christian perspective, but essentially heaven and hell is eternity with God and hell is eternity without God. So heaven would be, you know, there's like minor details about, oh, there's gonna be gold road or whatever. You're gonna have, I don't know if you ever hear a Christian people, I'm gonna get a mansion in heaven. You know, that seems to be a thing, but it's not good works that get you there. And that was my hesitation with religion. I grew up in Christian school, I grew up in church, but I rejected God because of hypocrisy. So the same way you were like, these people are kind of mean to me that we're going to your Catholic mass was like, I felt that way with church. I was like, you guys are telling me to live my way, my life one way, but you're like doing this stuff Monday through Saturday. So if God's like that, I don't want it. And then my grandfather passed away in the eighth grade and I remember blaming God for killing my grandfather. And that was like a big thing for me. And so I had really bad depression and anxiety from like the eighth grade till about my junior year. And a few months before I was planning on taking my life, we had a religions class at my school where the teacher was supposed to teach you why the other religions were false, but I would go home in a research that they could be true. Because I was trying to figure out how to fix my depression and my sin issues and all this other stuff. And I just came to the conclusion that if we live in a broken world and I can't fix my broken heart and a broken world, then there's no way I could work myself to any sort of heaven. Because we keep people release all these self-help books and we haven't cured anxiety and depression and all this and their stuff. And so when I was 17, I was going to take my life and I went to, it was on Christmas Day of 2020. And so the only thing open was waffle house because they don't close on holidays. And so I went there for my last meal at night time and no one preached to me. No one's saying anything to me about Jesus. I've never done a drug. I've never had a sip of alcohol. I had a supernatural encounter with Jesus. And he stopped me from taking my life. And so I prayed a prayer in my car. I said, Jesus, if you're real, take away my anxiety and depression. This is why I want to take my life. And I haven't had the crippling anxiety and depression since that day. So it's been over five years. And that was like my foot in the door. But what I realized about heaven and hell was that truth of I can't do good works. Like really in reality, no human being is good. If you think about it, everyone's made mistakes. Like I've made mistakes you don't know about. You've made mistakes I don't know about you. So deep down like no one is inherently good. We can do good things. You know, like your car can break down and I can change your tire. And you can be like, oh, that was a good deed. But like no one's inherently good except Jesus. And so from the Christian perspective, it would say, Jesus paid the price that we deserve to pay for our sin. We've done wrong. Justice system is like, I'm murder you. I got to go to jail because that's justice. Jesus would say, you've done wrong, but I'll take your punishment. I'll die so that you can live because we're all going to die. And then we're going to stand before God. And if we put faith in trust that what Jesus did on the cross was enough to pay the price, we put faith in Jesus. It's forgiven as if we've never done anything wrong. And we get eternity, Jesus. If we say reject God in this life, I don't want him. I don't need him, I don't want anything to do with him. It breaks God's heart, but he respects your choice because he doesn't force you to believe in him. He respects your choice and the hell is an eternity separate from God. You don't believe that people are inherently good? No, because you don't have to teach a four year old to be selfish and throw a temper tantrum when you ask him to share his toys. You don't have to teach people to be gravitated towards sin. Like isn't it crazy that all the media in the movies promote sin, bad stuff? The stuff that sells is like, like all the romance movies right now are people that cheat on their significant others. Just about all of them are. It's like no one, like who made that cool? Yeah, but it's like, when you say that, you're sort of talking about societal things. Like things that are imposed on us, you know, like you're speaking about a movie for example, right? Like you're talking about a place Hollywood, right? It's trying to sell something, right? And typically, me, we even talked about earlier this whole raging and Kim Kardashian thing. Like they know what works and what sells. And just like on social media, what's gonna do better than other is gonna be the thing that's what's gonna be more viral is, oh, it's bad. It's crazy. It's not good because people are sort of drawn to this negative side of things. I think more than they're drawn to the good side of things, which maybe kind of counters my point about innately good. 'Cause I was gonna say that I think people are innately good and then they're proven or they're showing through society that like they feel like they need to do certain things. 'Cause you said another thing earlier that was interesting about, but you didn't say this in my mind thought at the, people all do things that I think they think are good based on their perspective or their angle of which they're coming from. Yeah. I don't think people are like, I wanna just go do bad things to other people. I think it's just like constant war between like, what someone wants and what they actually need. And they think that in their actions, whether from the outside we say they're good or bad, I don't think anyone's thinking I want to do bad things to people. And I think that's innate. I think people have that. I think you gave the example of like a kid who's like, doesn't wanna share their toys or whatever. I don't know how we're drawing that to the rest of society or the world. But I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think everyone is.
does what they think is good with what they know. And society, there's obviously so many more layers to what then what you know is based on what you learn and what you're taught or what you're shown, what you constantly sort of given information to is like, okay, then this must be good because I'm getting this reaction and I'm seeing this, someone does this good. So if I do that good, then I'll get the same reaction. Like I think humans are just creatures of that sort of nature. I see what you're saying. There's some habits that I have because I was erased in the south and I was raised by the family that I had and things like that that maybe you wouldn't have because you were raised in San Francisco and you had a different family and something. But in regards to morality, if God does not exist, then morality is subjective, meaning you have your truth and I have my truth. And if that's the case about morality and I think murdering people is okay, I think murdering people is good. I don't think anyone thinks that. But that's the moral argument is if God doesn't exist, there isn't a standard but yourself and myself, you can't tell me that if I think murder is okay, you can't tell me it's wrong. Right, but I don't think, I truly don't think anyone thinks that that's okay. Okay, so then that's where the Christian would say, every human being has been given a moral code written on their heart because morality comes from God. So I would argue. So what about when God in society was unknown and people lived in tribes and they lived in places where they looked at the stars and things that were sort of more tangible, at least at that time, and the way the stars move is the way they're going to grow their crops or the way the stars move is how their life's going to, whether it's going to rain or there's going to be storms, they're sort of depending on what the earth is telling the people, were they not good? Because obviously that's the religion thing became a thing a lot later in human history. We're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago where people did exist and they did live their lives in certain ways, whether we look at and go the sacrifice and thing or whatever the shit they did was bad from our perspective now, what we know and what's known and what's normal. But do you believe that God created them? I believe God created all people. So before he was known, before it was written, before it was tracked and before it was like this prophet or this disciple whoever wrote this piece in the Bible and put it here, was God not imposing any sort of good and evil on them? Well, if God exists, so any sort of God out of any religion for the most part, I'll just use Christianity as an example because I'm a Christian. We believe God has always existed. So if God has always existed and the labels that God has, as he's the first in the last, he's the alpha in the Omega, he's a father, he's a Lord, he is a healer, he's a provider, he's a protector and God is good. Then he gets the authority to determine what is good and what is evil. And so when he created man, he created Adam, you said you've been reading the Bible, but in Genesis, Adam and Eve, he created Adam and Eve the first humans and he's not forcing them to do anything. He has created them breathe life into them and they have a moral code written on their heart. But if you notice, like God doesn't force them to follow him because they rebel against God. Satan comes in the garden and he's like, well, you're in paradise and you're with God, but you're not God yourself. You might as well eat from the tree because he doesn't want you to do that. And so they rebel against God. And so that's where sin entered into the world and that's where we would say the result of, you know, why adultery happens, why people murder, why people steal, but also from a broader perspective, like why just general suffering happens, why the fires of the palisades happen, why wars happen is because sin exists. And in that moment, because God didn't need us, he wanted us. So he chose to create us. God doesn't know us anything. If we rebelled against him, he could just let us all suffer. But the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a historical document of God trying to get as close to mankind as possible. And so as you read the Bible, you see, okay, man has rebelled. Man has done wrong things. So therefore God wants to give them the choice. Choose me or not. But I'm going to show you the way. You can choose me or not. And so like, you know, if there's like some tribe deep in the Amazon, the Bible isn't explicit on how God's going to judge each individual tribe of 12 people with their own language. The Bible's not in their language, that kind of thing. But the Bible does say in heaven, there will be people from every nation, tribe and tongue. So that gives me hope as like a Christian going, God's going to do everything in his capacity to reveal himself to all people so that people get the option to choose him or not. You know, so like when like the October 7th thing happened in the Gaza Strip, there was like a, there was a news article about how there were about five or 600 Muslims who had all had the same dream about Jesus in the same night. And they can't, they converted to Christianity because of that dream. And so it's not like that they need, you know, a scripture to fall down from heaven or like a rabium of fire, something appears in front of them and then they start believing. We're just believing that God reveals himself to all people in whatever way possible. Some people go on hikes like you do and they look at creation and they go, there has to be a mind behind this. And that draws them to the Lord. Some people have a moment like me in Waffle House. Some people are raised in church all their life. And that's how they know about Jesus, praise God. But as a Christian, we're trusting that he is going to judge the earth justly because we believe he's ultimately good and righteous. And we're going to trust that he's going to reveal himself in a capacity of where people can believe him. Right. So what I'm saying is before religion was created and before it was written down and before it was like, you know, noted how we know it and how you know it. Do you think then the people that existed before this were just like all terrible? I think still now human beings aren't inherently sinful. They're inherently bad. Like I was born inherently sinful and I still struggle. I still want to make mistakes. But we can confirm that the preservation of the narrative, the Christian narrative, according to the scriptures has been preserved because of the amount of historical evidence that we have to support it. So I think like in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were slave owners that would rip books of the Bible out of the Bible to keep slaves enslaved. And they would use that to convince them that they should continue being slaves. And as a Christian, I'd be like, that's wrong. That's not the Bible. And we were able to confirm that that was wrong because we have manuscripts that have preserved that message. But in regards to like the question, yeah, I think every human being is born inherently sinful. And we see that after Adam and Eve have rebelled against God and they chose to sin against God, the human race as we know it is all born into sin. But he doesn't leave us hanging. God provides the solution. But did he leave the people that hanging before it was written? No. So just because something is documented doesn't mean that the truth didn't exist. So give it a think like, like when Jesus was alive, they didn't have a new testament. Jesus was the Messiah to come. They just had the Torah. They had the Old Testament, you know, and they didn't have it in a leather-bound Bible. They had it in scrolls, you know. And so that was preserving the history and the message of the Old Testament. And when you read the Old Testament a lot of its history, you know what I mean? You're not putting, as a Christian, you're not putting faith and trust in words on a piece of paper or in an institute. Structure is important. But we're putting trust in Jesus because we ultimately believe that he is God. And he saw humankind suffering so much. And this is, I say this all the time, it's my favorite thing about Jesus compared to every other religion because every other religion says, God's on his throne, work your way to that God. And Jesus comes down from heaven, who's constantly receiving praise and glory, comes down from heaven into time and space, born as a human being, fully God, but also fully man. And he lives in the same world that we live in. So he understands what it means to suffer. He understands what it means to be tempted. He understands what it means to be backstabbed by close friends. He understands what it means to experience life. So he doesn't just sit on his high horse and tell us that we have to live life a certain way. He showed us how to live it. Jesus himself in the gospel says, I didn't come to be served. I came to serve. So he shows us that what actual righteousness looks like according to God's character and God's law is possible through him. That's why he lived it ultimately, dying the death that we deserve because of our wrongdoing. So that would be like, you know, like you murdered someone that you went to trial. And then I'd be like, I'll do Bradley's time like he can leave. You'd be like, what the heck? I get stupid. Like I didn't murder anyone. But that's what Jesus did with us. Yeah, theoretically, I guess. I don't know. The religious stuff is just oh man. I guess I guess what always cheers me up is it's just it's written by men. It's written by people. I think that's one of the more beautiful parts. You have 40 different authors over 1500 years from three different continents. And the Bible was written in Greek Hebrew and Aramaic, a little bit of Aramaic. Four different authors, three continents over 1500 years, writing 66 books in this leather bound thing that we call the Bible that has over 66,000 cross references.
Meaning it references a verse in this other book and two of these dudes could have been 700 years apart Over 66,000 cross references. That's something you would have to probably get in a room of 30 scholars around a conference table Right. If it wasn't the Bible wasn't the Bible written and there's a lot of things that were also not included in the Bible that at some point People decided what would be in the Bible? What wouldn't be in the Bible? So there's like you know aspects of not like you have some stuff like the Gospels that are rejected that are not congruent to the narrative of scripture accord that we have a who's deciding what's congruent and what's not so you so we listen to the Decide and I'm not trying to be like mean or anything because like I I know that's not me, but it's the I like that's my idea behind it is at some point someone Decided like the Bible that you're speaking to in these connections. Yep that this is the Bible that we're going to make the Bible Yeah, and from what I understand in the history of it There was a lot of other books and things that would they go okay, we're not going to put that in into this Bible And this is the Bible that's going to be the Bible so the Catholic Bible has 73 books in it called apocrypha And then like my Bible has 66 books in it doesn't have the apocrypha so that's like a big debate between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians I don't necessarily have a problem with the apocrypha But other stuff like other books outside of those two that I just mentioned We have so much evidence through manuscripts and Dead Sea Scrolls that what we have today is what that they had when they were opening the scrolls So we have Dead Sea Scrolls. We have the Greek Septuagint. We have the Latin Volgate These are just fancy terms for like old historical documents that we have to confirm it, but sometimes like There's a passage of scripture. I'll give an example. Maybe this will help in John chapter 8 It's this woman called adultery and in my Bible and in a lot of Bibles it says The earliest manuscripts we have of John chapter 8 does not contain the story That doesn't mean that the story isn't true That might mean we have A manuscript from 30 AD of John chapter 8 that doesn't contain that story We have two that doesn't contain it, but we have 500 Manuscripts from 35 AD that contain that story so because we have an overwhelming amount of evidence that that story is true It's just the earliest ones that we have even though we only have two for example, but we have 500 just five years later with it We just put that nuance in there and say hey, that's the case There's like two passages in scripture like that But they also keep it in there not just because of evidence, but because it aligns with Jesus's character So we you would read that passage with caution, but everything else in the scriptures We can confirm there's a cool like there's a cool museum in DC called the Museum of the Bible that has like a ton of like cool Manuscripts and fun stuff in there that's like, you know that helps confirm it and stuff you're ever in DC It's kind of cool. Yeah, I've definitely been searching on this one this sort of it's just I don't know my Relatitude is just so different and not not saying it's right or wrong. It just it just feels like every religion I guess the idea that every religion believes that they're the religion Then I'm just like It's just a bunch of people. Well sometimes it's different, you know like you know Buddhist and Hindus respect Jesus not as God. They think it's a good teacher and they don't have a problem with Christians and they're you know do enough good maybe we do more bad than goods bad day You know Muslims would say that were people of the book for the first have the cross second half They'd be like they would want us to convert to Islam or we'd be doing something wrong But it's working working and they only see Jesus as a prophet Christianity. Jesus is God and Jesus But you see what I'm saying like this is Billions of people that believe something else whether it's right or wrong. I don't again. I believe in God I believe in much of the story of Jesus and I still can't get over the fact just when I just think logically you still have billions of people that believe something completely sort of separate As far as like you know what happens and you know in their book and in their religion That how are we determining that we're right and they're wrong? Well, we're so like I can't prove that the God of Christianity is the true God No one can prove it, but you have to look at evidence like where's the overwhelming amount of evidence? What you're looking at your evidence. That's the thing where it gets confusing in my mind Well, even outside of Christianity like for example, let's talk about Jesus's death and resurrection There are so many non-Christian historians that wrote about Jesus dying on the cross and being buried and his tomb being empty They wouldn't say he was resurrected because they're not Christian But they are like yeah three days later the tomb was empty and the way that they record it being cloudy and dark and the veil being torn You have guys like Cornelius Tachetus and Pliny the Winnie and all these guys who Still today historians today look back at their historical texts for more than just Christian affirmation These guys are writing the same details that we have in the scripture so it's not just a you can only look at Christian sources There's tons of non-Christian historians that write about the life of Jesus He was a man of his word he died on the cross His tomb was empty on the third day and so even even like with even with like my Muslim friends This is gonna sound so blasphemous, but it's like how do you know somebody just go take his body out of that bitch? Okay, that's great. I'm sorry like I'm not trying to get all again We have to look at overwhelming amount of evidence if they took his body where did he go? Where would they have put it? They I don't know if they didn't like that mother so much they put him somewhere else so they had a guard a Roman guard Guarding the tomb and it had a ginormous rock in front of the tomb that was too heavy for someone to just naturally move it by Themselfs if someone conspired so that was a common theory back in the day I was like oh Jesus's followers totally robbed his body. They totally robbed his body Here's the problem though is even after Jesus according to the Bible resurrected ascended into heaven These guys died for the fact that he rose from the dead If you knew something wasn't true, there's no way you would put your life on it No way like if you were lying to me about something and then I held a gun to your head I'm saying I'm gonna pull the trigger if you're not telling me the truth. It's you know Yeah, you're right, but then it's so funny before we even started this podcast We were talking about we were joking about the drinking the cool aid. I was making sure And the Jim Jones thing and that guy like in my town like some kid that I grew up is like that was his uncle But you're right in Most cases, but there are cases where like for example these people were willing to go go willing to drink fucking Kool-Aid and die Well, we're talking about their dying. I'm not saying that's what's happening But no no for sure the gospel accounts is they're dying on behalf of Jesus's life. They're trusting That what Jesus did was true. So if you like robbed his body or you knew he didn't resurrect because the Bible would say and through eyewitness accounts the disciples Jesus appeared in his physical body resurrected to the disciples They saw him and then over a period of 40 days. He revealed himself and ascended into heaven in front of 500 eyewitnesses early in the morning, so they weren't drunk. They weren't hallucinating historical documents Outside of just the Bible describe this. So in an instance where like you have a Jim Jones and he's like, you know Love bombing them and convincing them to drink this Kool-Aid and all that stuff Verses you have these guys that their lives and their livelihood and their families are being threatened and These guys die the most gruesome deaths possible Like Peter who was like one of Jesus's right hand disciples got crucified upside down You had John the Baptist or not John the Baptist John the disciple Who was exiled to an island? Because they didn't want to try to boil him alive and he lived and then they exiled him Imagine like being boiled alive and then living and then thinking that they could punish you again and go not now I had it. You know what I mean? So you have these guys that laid their lives down on the line for Jesus and for the like For the validity of it. And so yeah, I'm trusting in the evidence and like you know people people believe things for two things Experiences I had an experience that night in Waffle House, but that's not enough to sustain Me being crazy for Jesus. Like that could die out. That's like just that's an experience and So that's where that's kind of where I land now and the ultimate thing I found was peace that I look for everywhere else Like I couldn't find it in porn. I couldn't find it in girls I never did drugs or alcohol, but I was a people pleaser. I tried to find it in sport So try to find it in friendships and I never had peace and the first year of me being a Christian was the hardest year of my life But I had peace. I just had something that I couldn't find everywhere else, but in Jesus and that was a big That was a big deal for me because I was just on that quest for love on that quest for peace and I found it in him and maybe, maybe honestly That might be why It may be hard for you to wrap around sometimes because you know, you had that experience when you were six years old and you Kind of didn't understand why your life pan out the way it did Rightfully so. I mean, that's an intense experience And you don't understand why and one of the labels that the God of Christianity has as being a father It like that was one of the hardest things for me to grasp when I became a Christian. It's like what do you mean God?
God's a father, He's God, we mean He's a father, we mean He's a friend. That was hard for me to grasp, but as I continue to grow in Jesus, when I, when I continue to grow and understand that, that helps me in my relationship. It's like, yes, Christianity is a religion, their structure to it, but it's also a relationship with the one that created you and designed you and you invite him into every aspect of your life and things like that. It's interesting you say that, but I think if I'm looking back on my life, I would have wanted that. I feel like I would have leaned into something that felt like was a fatherly sort of figure. I think the thing that happened to me over time and just as I got older and all my life experiences with people is that people just suck and they do what's good for them, whether it's right or wrong for anyone else. I've experienced it so many times and then I just start to think about all these stories and, you know, where does it come from and what does it for and if I could draw the line to everything else that humans have done over time in regards to religion, it just makes me feel like they did all these things so that they can, you know, get a bunch of people to believe this. It's not that it's okay that they do that. And then, you know, I think about history and it's the same sort of thing. It's like, well, it's written in the person who won. It's written, you know, we know that history is written by the victor, right? So it's written by the people who want you to believe that this is the history that is true. They want you to believe that this is the true way the world worked or what happened was what we tell you. And I think, you know, not getting too into like political today and the world today, but it's just a bunch of selfish people who want power. And I'm not saying that this is why the Bible was written or created or the reason why it's been sort of, you know, grown to the extent that it's grown. But I think I've just seen that happen so much that it's hard to believe. And my biggest point with this whole religion thing was like, if God himself wrote this book, I'd be like, yo, I'm all ears. I think because humans wrote it and transcribed it and whether it was written this many times or that many times, it just, it still feels like of human sort of nature. And what I mean by that is whether it's in sort of some sort of power struggle or control or being able to impose your will over a group of people because they should or shouldn't be this way. And then I think about it in regards to the rest of the world doing the same thing in there, you know, in Asia, it's the Buddhism or whatever, in the Middle East, the Muslim. It's like they created their own sort of ways to quell the population for whatever makes sense for them and their doings and whatever they need to do. Again, I'm not saying that I'm just not believing. I think I just don't trust people. And I think it's been the hardest thing for me when I hear about all these stories. It's just like, you know, it's written so people can feel better about themselves and what they're doing, whether it's right or wrong and I don't know, it just, it definitely made me up. And then this is no knock on you, but then there's this, there's whole audiences that want to believe that or do believe that nowadays we take it to social media. And I'm not saying this about you at all. Sure. I think you're a great guy and you're very, you're very genuine when I speak to you off camera and on camera. But there are people who leverage even these sort of conversations to make money. I mean, we have products here. You got a podcast where you get paid and it's no disrespect because I do the same thing. But I think a lot of people propagate things that they know other people are going to be like, oh, I believe this too. I've had this experience. I like this person. I want to watch this person. I'm going to engage with this person. And now you have a living because of it. And then I think about all like the super churches where they're like, give us all your money and they're like, you know, I just think of like, what's the righteous gem sounds like the funniest TV show because I love that fucking, what's that guy's name dude? The media and the Eastbound and Down Guy, Danny McBride. Oh, okay. And I love that show. But it's like, I know that's a real thing where people were like, this, you know what I'm saying? The super churches. Yeah. And I just think it's just a bunch of people who are just like, how could I use this for my betterment? How, whether it's the history, how it's written, whether it's, you know, my relationship to the, the Bible and, you know, I'm holier than now in these cases because I believe this and you believe that that's where it gets all convoluted in my mind. Yeah. And it just feels like it's just a bunch of humans trying to leverage some sort of law or rule so that they can do what they feel like they need to be doing. Sure. Because it happened with like the crusades and all this. It's like, you're wrong because you live your life this way. You know, America's a great example. Like we came where like, you know, these people are savages and they don't speak this language and they don't have this religion. So we're going to make missions and they were going to teach you that this is the right religion and what you thought previous to us coming here was completely wrong. And that's where I'm just like, ah, this is so tough for me to get behind because everyone just does things so that they can get more out of their own life. And then there's nothing wrong with that. I'm like, that's sort of, I guess, human nature, but that's what gets me like, what is this really? Yeah. Well, the Bible thing, yeah, we, we believe humans put pen to paper on it, but we believe that God, it's, we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. That's fancy terms for like, I get it. You're not wrong. God wrote it. But that's the thing. I believe that's the point. Yes. And we're, and we're again, you know, trusting that evidence set because if, if people wanted to corrupt it, they would have done it over time. So we have the manuscripts to, to go back to it, but I think what you said was super important about that's the reality. I've been into big mega churches and I've met pastors and leaders that I've known that I used to watch when I first became a Christian that I was encouraged by and they were the total opposite of what I thought they were like from videos and going to their events and churches. On the contrary, I've seen people that I've loved and admired online where they have a big church or big ministry or small church or small ministry and I meet them behind closed doors and they're even better than you would think. And so I do the same thing if I get hurt by something or I don't understand something where it can be easy to generalize it and you obviously didn't do that with, with me because you understand. Hey, there are going to be some people that make products that do things that want to, want a big church because they want to profit off the name of God that's going to happen. God hates that. What happened in the crusades breaks God's heart, you know, when people use the name of God for selfish game, it breaks God's heart. The reason that he doesn't intervene every time it happens though is because we believe that God is going to righteously judge the earth one day. And those that actually put faith and trust in Jesus receive the forgiveness of God and allow God to be in the driver's seat of their life and lead their life because if we have a creator, we're trusting that he knows what's best for our life instead of ourself. He's always existed. We've existed for a limited amount of time. We're trusting him. And so, you know, he'll deal with that. That's why all of Christianity is, yeah, God can look at the outward appearance, but I mean, men looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart, you know? Like I, I was at a college campus last year talking about Jesus with this dude named Cliff and he's like 77 years old and he's older, wears the button down shirt in the khaki pants and no tattoos and clean cut hair and I've got like shaggy hair and I wear a t-shirt and sweatpants and crocs and I got tattoos. And this guy came out there and was like, so how is it that cliffs, a real Christian and you have tattoos, t-shirt and all that and he like generalized me, you know? Are there going to be people that actually don't consider the love of Jesus? Yes. But there are also people that do and God again looks at the heart. And so that's why there's a passage in the Bible where in 1 Corinthians 13 it defines what love is and at the very end it says, love hopes all things and that has been a big challenge for me as a human being that has trust issues and that has a hard time really believing the best in people is like, my mind goes to like the worst extreme possible. You know, my mind always is like has a hard time trusting people, trusting things. I've also seen a lot of hard stuff and wicked stuff just like, yeah, we do social media but really our heart is ministry. We want to see people know Jesus like that's why we have the conversations with you. That's why we have the conversations on camera. That's why we do that stuff. So I've seen wicked stuff in ministry and I can attest you. That stuff does exist and I've also seen where there's a lot of it that is sincere, hopeful, faithful people that love God and want to love people. And that's just the reality with everything, you know, you sit it earlier. Someone might see Bradley Martin open a gym and they're like, oh shoot, well, I'm going to start opening gyms because it worked for him and it might work for me. That absolutely happened. Yeah, it probably did. And that's the case. Same thing. It's something culture now, like fitness culture, iron culture, strength culture. Yeah. It was pretty interesting. We're going to sue you. No, I'm not going to sue anyone. I mean, you can't sue anyone over that word. Previous of that word. No one did it. I think it's just a lot of experiences like that where I'm like, man, people just suck. But I get it at the same time because they want the success and they want it. Yeah, because people are inherently bad, right? I mean, that's the thing. I wasn't that way. I wasn't that way though. No, no, no, no. People are opportunistic. You have, no, I get what you're saying. I just mean in general, like, no, no, no, no, no. To your point, exactly in the point you try to make, which is a little, little facetious. But I'll tell you that what I mean by people are inherently good is that I think they're good. And what I also said earlier was that I think people do what they think is good for them. And they what they do, what they also do, what they think is good for the people in their life, right? So just people who see what I'm doing, oh, it worked for him. It was good. They're not doing anything bad to me by taking a name. You know, I might have felt like, damn, they stole my sort of swagger. But in their mind, they go, it worked for him. It was good. It can work for me. It could be good for me and my family. That's not an innately bad thing and an inherently bad thing.
That's just someone from their perspective, which is what I've been speaking to, thinking this is good for me. However, it affected me as a relevant, right? 'Cause it didn't really affect me, other than my ego in relationship to thinking like, "Ah, man, I thought of this." Why do they copy my-- So I do think regardless, they are inherently good. I still think that to this day, I think people are. I think they're proven through like, social media society, the world that like, I have to do whatever I have to do to take care of myself and my family and, you know, like I said, the younger me when that happened, my ego was like, "Ah, they stole my--." But as I got older and I recognized it was like, "Oh, these people just saw this as an opportunity "to make their lives better." Sure, which is still inherently good. And from their perspective, they're doing something that is good. Yeah, but again, you know, the motive might not be sincere. And what I mean by that is like, you know, you started the gym because you've been going to the gym. You love the gym, it's a part of who you are. It's a hobby you have, it's a passion you have. And so you didn't have to like, muster up strength to be like, I'm going to start a gym, I'm going to start a clothing brand, a fitness clothing brand. And like, I'm going to talk about fitness stuff online. You know, you didn't have to like, perform to do that. Whereas like, some people may look at popular fitness guys and then, you know, fitness is okay in their life. You know, it's something that they do, but they're like, "Oh, they're making a load of money "and they're doing this, so I want to do it." Then we would probably both be like, that may appear good, but their motive might be money. And you never know what people would do for money. You'll never know what people would do for anything. Status, fame or whatever. And that, you know, that's just like a part of reality, I believe, which is the unfortunate case, you know? And it's kind of like what you said. People, like when we talked about this, we made a, we've been making a Christian energy drink and a hydration brand. And basically what that means is just trying to offer like cleaner options, better options and putting like Christianity and retail. Like I think that we need Jesus in retail. Just want people to like see Jesus and know the heart behind the company. It's like pure and good and there are people that care and we wanted to make products. Like the Shaker bottle has Bible verses on the cup because so many people have a hard time talking about their faith. And if you're using this, you can literally use the cup to help talk. We just want to make products that would help people. And people looked at it and they were like, "Oh, you're just trying to do this and do that. "You just want to make a buck or whatever." Like it's performative. Yeah, and it's like, "Okay, you can think that." Like that's fine, you have the right to have an opinion. But deep down, no one's going to understand that. And there's going to be a lot of people that hear them be like, "Oh, I don't believe that." That's okay, you know? But the reality of the situation is some people do things out of pure intent and sometimes people don't do things out of pure intent. I, you know, that's just the case, that just happens. And so that goes with everything. The mega church is, you know, with things like that, people manipulating their authority, their position of authority to do bad things, whatever that looks like, to make a buck. Like one of the most popular churches in my hometown, when I was younger, they had a different pastor there. And the pastor cheated on his wife, stole a million dollars from the church and ran. So when they brought a new pastor in, the community was skeptical because they were like, "Oh, what if this happens again?" Right, over generalization. Happened before it might happen again. And the pastor there is a really good friend of mine and one of the most honorable, sincere, full of integrity, gentle kind, open-handed, whatever God wants, kind of people. And I really think that's the sign of someone that really has a pure heart as someone that goes, if God took this away right now, I would be okay, kind of deal, you know? - Yeah. I mean, I think that's the test, right? I think how you really know someone is when that does actually happen. - Yeah. - How does someone actually act? How do they actually move forward from that? - Yeah. - 'Cause, you know, it's easy to talk about pure and good intent when things are going in the direction of what you want it to go. - For sure. - But then when it doesn't, like, do you still have that pure and good intent? You just pull a Logan Paul? - Do you know what? - Oh, I thought there was nothing in there. - Oh, no, there was like a little bit. It's not going on. - You know what, he did the prime. Do you remember seeing that? - Oh, no. - When people were like roast, they were like roasting 'em 'cause he was drinking the prime. (laughing) I was like, wait, what? I was like trying to get a last sip. - No, yeah, 'cause I didn't see anything. - Oh, okay. - But I don't even think that was true. I just remember this was like a clip with Logan. - You know, actually been, 'cause you have the protein drink with him. - Yeah, it's amazing. - I haven't tried it yet. - It's good. - I've heard it's really good. - Yeah, it's really good. - I really want it. - I'm not even trying to promo it, but it's really good. - No, I just thought you were trying to like, Logan Paul me on the-- - Yeah, I just, that's what I'm been doing. - 'Cause I wonder if they're going to see it, if you're like, there was nothing in there. I promise there's a little liquid in here. There is a little bit. It's in there. - It was like, so do you think you could do this same thing? Like, oh, God, I feel like such an-- - No, bro, any questions on the table. - Yeah. - Has that gonna offend me? - Do you think you could still do the same thing without making it religious? - Yeah, absolutely. - Do you think it would sell the same if it wasn't religious based on your audience? - Maybe it might do better, but I didn't create this because I was like, oh, I have a Christian audience. I can target them and sell it. - But that's, I'm gonna be, I gotta be really transparent. That's exactly what this is doing. - Well, like word for word, it says, praise hydration with a cross. I'm not trying to be mean to you. - No, no, no, I know exactly what you're saying, but that's, again, you're almost making the assumption like that was the reason why I did it. - Well, that's exactly, it's so hard for me to see this, but it is. - But you have to understand, right? The same way that fitness, that fitness is like your life, it's who you are, it's literally a test your personality. Jesus is for me. - Yeah. - So everything that I do from the core of me is I want Jesus to be involved. And so, like, yeah, would I be open to making it sure, but without the shadow of a doubt, my first mind was like, I gotta put Jesus attached to it because I want people to see Jesus when they see this product. I want people to know the heart behind the company. So, like, this QR code on it, anyone can scan this QR code and upload a prayer request anonymously, anything they want. And within 24 hours, a real person from our team will have prayed for their prayer. And it's an anonymous prayer request. The cup you can use to share their faith. 'Cause one of the things we do outside of the podcast, we go into the street, raw interactions. Hey, what do you think about Jesus talking to people about Jesus? And so many people want to do it. And they don't know how to start the conversations. So it's, okay, why don't we make a cup to go with this? And that has the Bible versus on it. And it's three simple ones that would kind of lead people in a general idea of what the gospel is, that were sinners and Jesus came down on the cross. They can use that as an example as a way to be like, yo, check out this Bible verse on my cup or something like that, you know? And so, I can totally understand, it's not a mean question at all. It may appear that way because we have a Christian audience, but we also have a lot of non-Christians that watch us as well because we talk to a lot of people that aren't Christian. We go into environments of people where we're the minority, where we're going into, quote unquote, heated environments and navigating those conversations. And so, no, I don't think that's a mean question at all and I can understand that. But my heart is, how do I get Jesus involved because at the core of who I am, that's who I am? And if I believe Jesus is the truth, maybe someone who didn't like church growing up, who has, when's the last time you stepped foot in a church? - I went to New York recently. I was doing some live, she went to a church in New York, it was a really beautiful church for right in the financial district, right near the stock market thing. I don't know the name of the church, but it was like a very old, beautiful church. - Yeah, so like, you know, sometimes people's experiences are different, they haven't gone an X amount of time and things like that. So they may be like, well, I don't know if I could go into church, but maybe I could sit down with Bryce and have a conversation. - But I was going to church and just pop in the flames or something. (laughing) No, dude, I believe, it's just a. - You know what I mean? - Yeah, I believe, I definitely believe in God, I just really struggle with the human iterations of it. - And all this sort of stuff to me is like, I don't know, it just feels like it's pandering to a specific audience, which is fine. - We know, I could say the same thing about, you know, prime protein drink. - Yeah, I mean, like, you know, you're a big buff guy. - Yeah, I mean, you're selling protein. - There's a difference between, like, if I was like. Like, I'm talking about some religion and then this is the backbone of this protein thing, would be a little bit different, I think. - Yeah, but fitness is the backbone of your protein thing and that's what you do. So I think, you know, branding, I don't think, is inherently bad. I think a brand shows the heart, the passion, is the brain of the company, right? And so, yeah, sure, we can make a product, but one of the things like, with our energy drink, it has, like, less than half of the amount of ingredients that most of the energy drinks have. - I love how this also become like a really good, like, marketing thing, she's pretty funny. - I'm not gonna lie, it's hilarious. - It is kind of funny, but, like, you know, we're just, you know, you know what I mean? I'm just explaining. - I was just doing this for so long. It's like, the second I hear it, I'm like, damn. It's like, ironic that I'm like, challenging it, and at the same time, it's probably gonna convert better to the audience who's like, - That's, Brad, I'm gonna buy this, 'cause I believe in God, and I like. - Do you believe in that guy? - Bro, you know what, so many people, so many people had a problem with it, and I understand. - Even your core audience? - Christians had such a big problem with it, and I understand, and that's okay. And that's again, because their perspective of it is he's a grifter, he doesn't have a good heart behind it. Where it's like, I love energy drinks, love energy drinks, but I wanted one that was like a cleaner, better option for like my body, I wanted one. - The marketing thing. That had Jesus on it, and that was in your face, that you could use the products to tell people about Jesus, and it was in retail, who knows, maybe, you have non-Christians that wear a cross necklace around their neck, maybe they see the cross on the front of a can, or on the front of a box of the electrolytes or on the thing, and it reminds them of Jesus, and somehow, they get impacted by the gospel, you know. So, you never know, and so there's also that side to it. But, - Are you doing any charity work with this, like proceeds and things like that? - Yes, and I'll tell you off camera what we're doing with it, but we're purposefully not announcing it because we don't want people to think that we're trying to see.
Say that so they can blame us as if, oh, you're just trying to not do it good. So I'll tell you what we're doing after, which is actually really cool, which is really cool, but yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be-- - So I just-- - Bro, I don't think you are. It's a right question. And you know what? I haven't talked about that at all publicly, so I'm glad you asked me. - It goes back to all my skepticism of just the whole thing, just all of it, man. - Well, skepticism isn't wrong. My Bible teacher, my sophomore year, which is like, I arguably think like, God would just snatch him up to heaven 'cause he's the holiest guy I've ever met. He would always say, always be a good, respectful skeptic. Don't just believe something I teach you in Bible class. Go look it up for yourself. And I admired that about him. I thought that was pretty sweet. - Yeah, it's definitely, I mean, I can't help but be skeptical of people, man. - And not you in particular, just people in general do. - Yeah, I mean, well, you know. - I just went to a lot of-- - You've experienced a lot of stuff. You've been around a while. - Yeah, I've seen a lot. I've been on the social media game. I've seen it all, man. - You have. Really, I've seen every version and-- - So, can I ask you like a different question? - Whatever you want. - Okay, this is kind of a random question. Have you ever, have you ever struggled with gluttony? - Like eating too much food. - Specifically food and it becomes gluttony. - I'm not really. I mean, post like competition stuff 'cause I did like the bodybuilding stuff, like early 2011, 10 and 12. - That's like tradition though. - Yeah, it's more so like you died, it's so hard than you're just like you can't stop eating. But never really had a problem with eating. More so the opposite, I can like not eat anything. I typically fast like every day to like 3 p.m. - Oh wow. - Yeah, my whole life to be honest too. - I never had like a gluttony problem since I could never stop eating. But I had a hard time like want to eat a bunch of food. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like late at night, I'm like I could slam 40 and make nuggets right now. - Yeah, oh, late at night. I definitely want some ice cream. Like when I first started that training program, it literally didn't eat like a single dessert for like three and a half months. And then I went to crumble cookie caved. I ate 12 crumble cookies in my car. I didn't even leave the parking lot. I ate 12 crumble cookies. - Yeah, I went, I ate some crumble for a little bit but then it's just like, that shit makes you sick bro. - It kinda hurts, it's not good. - But yeah, no, yeah. I've never really had too much of a gluttony problem. Maybe like I'm for sure. Probably had like a sex addiction at one point. - Okay, wait, tell me a little bit about it. - I knew you'd like this. - Tell me a little bit about that. - How do you view sex? How do you view? - Like now? - Now. - And now it's way different. But for sure, the whole social media come up. I think I, I mean, it was sort of twofold. Like validation. Like I was getting so much of it, you know, popular in the internet getting likes feeling like I deserve whatever I want. And then at the same time, I think it was also my, the problem that I had with having a good relationship was because I always, like I told you earlier, like I felt like people were gonna leave. So that I was always sort of searching for more because I don't know, just the fear of, I guess being alone or being left. It makes you sort of, let me find other options. Let me always have something to fall back on. - Yeah. - That's what really taught me in the longer term after I had like two seven year relationships that's sort of an insatiable thing that's just always gonna be fleeting. And it's more like, okay, how am I good with myself to be able to actually be good with a partner? So I definitely learn the hard way to like, trying to continuously have validation to having different partners and all this sort of shit. And never really feeling full, never really feeling like it was enough. That's what I just thought about it when you thought about, you brought out the gluttony thing. But I definitely had that problem for some time in my life, like during my 20s. And you know, you just learn, I learned the hard way. I learned the hard way through like actually losing people that you're like, oh man, it's in hindsight, you look at it, you're like, oh, this could have been a really good thing in the long run. Obviously at the time, it's not like I was just, you know, I wanna just be, you know, not loyal and I wanna just be a bad person. It's not at all the thought that I had in my mind. There's a lot of other details that I'm not gonna like bore you with as far as like, how the relationship started and where it goes. But it was me just trying to feel like, oh, I should, I shouldn't be alone and I should have this affection and just like, consi trying to balance and find it. Yeah. But yeah, learn the hard way. You learn the hard way and you're like, damn, okay, this is, there's no fulfillment in this. It's like, it's just like money. It's like a never ending. It can never sort of be enough until you get to the point of like, all right, do I, do I love myself? Am I actually like happy with where I'm at in my life? Have I like come to the realization that like, I'm okay with or without. And that just took a long time for me to get to, for sure. Do you wanna get married one day? I don't know, I mean, marriage, like the way it's written and the way it's all sort of, you know, transcribed now and just, it's kind of not my favorite idea. I definitely wanna partner. I definitely wanna be and have a real true partnership. I wanna be with someone I'd like to spend my life with someone. I'm not looking for like multiple people and all that sort of thing. But marriage as it's written, you know, and you sign to the law and you know, all these agreements and you're signing with the government. It's kind of a stupid concept in my opinion. Not the idea of a partnership, not the idea of a union. Like with two people, I think that's very human. You're talking about legally like, signing a government document. Yeah, I think that's all bullshit. But absolutely, having a union and being able to grow with someone and being able to build your life with someone, I think that's the reason why we're here. Dude, that's something that we talked so I didn't have in that conversation with my old roommate. Like what does it mean to actually be married? Like what signifies a marriage? We were just talking practically and according to the Bible. Like is it when you sign a document? Is it when someone you consummate the marriage by having sex? Is it just saying, hey, we're married? 'Cause if that's the case and like if I was like, all right, Bradley, we're married. Then we'd be married and it's like, that's kind of stupid. So we were having that conversation and didn't really know and then Tristan Tate said something similar that you just said too where he's like, he doesn't believe in the marriage document which I'm not, I don't know how I feel about all of it. I'm just trying to figure out what does it actually mean? Like what does the signifier that someone's in a union? That's where I'm hung up on it. I mean, I think then that kind of goes back to what you believe religiously but it's definitely some sort of moment where you're identifying that this is what you're gonna be doing whether it's consummate it's in a church or you're coming together, the two families are coming together and agreeing that this is what's happening. I mean, he ought to think all this like document type is, it's new, it's not like, if it didn't exist, could people still be married? Could people still have marriages? Could people still have partnerships? Of course. Yeah, yeah, you know like even dating. Because also I'm sorry I interrupted but also even if you're married, I mean usually look at the stats on marriage. It's like 70% divorce rate or some 60% divorce rate, 80% is initiated by the woman. It's like anyone at any point could just go, I don't wanna do this anymore and get a divorce. And that's the norm. Yeah, that's statistically the norm. So even if it's consummated, it's religious, you have a big show, it's a big whatever, you go on some vacation and you get married, Italy or whatever, like year, six months, two years, so I could still be like, I don't wanna do this anymore, I'm getting a divorce. Yeah, so what makes a marriage is a commitment continuously over time, whether it's a consummation, whether you have an agreement or a written document, a marriage if we're talking about like a partnership and a union till death to us part, is just consistent effort and consistent work over time continuously. And whether you write it on a piece of paper or not, that's what you have to do. You have to put in the effort. Yeah, I had a, if you look up like when dating was invented, it was only invented like 120 years ago and it was like a euphemism verse, sexual favor. Like if you told someone like 120 years ago, I'm going on a date, you were like going to hook up with someone. And then still kind of out today. Now would you kind of, yeah, it's kind of still about today. Yeah, it still happens. That's what people do. But I think one of the reasons, I mean again, I'm a Christian, so I believe that the divorce rates are so high because people don't have Jesus in the center of their marriage and, you know, like my wife and I dated for two years and we waited to, to marriage to have sex. And we, that makes me just want to go like, what are the divorce rate of Christians? Can we pull that up? I don't, we just don't know. We just don't know. God, sorry, I know of the statistic. Can we pull that up and just sit on us and you don't only see us? Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm so interested in that statistic 'cause I wonder what that statistic is for that specific group of people. Well, typically there's a, there's a theme of Christians that get married fairly young. And a lot of beautiful marriages, I know. See, 'cause it's interesting, I had a friend, I remember I became a Christian when I was 17 and I, about a month in a phone, Jesus, I met about like a hundred Christians. Some of them are still my friends today. I lived with some of them. One of the guys I met there, he met his wife. They dated for three months, got married in three months and they have a flourishing marriage with beautiful kids and they're just awesome. On the contrary, I know people that have been married 20, 30, 40 years who don't have Jesus in their life that are just crumbling, crumbling. But also the Bible has some cool descriptive dynamics of like why marriage and imagery is beautiful. Like marriage man and a woman to Christ and believers and stuff like that is pretty sick. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know enough about any of that. I really wanted those statistics though. Did you pull that up, 33%? So even. Christian, 33% and then the average in America. I feel like that's not bad though for Christians. And again, in comparison to the average. In comparison to the average. And also, you're talking about people that just claim to be Christian and that statistic properly. But that's my whole issue with all of this. That's the whole issue with all of this is people who, yeah, this is what I do. This is what I believe and it's like. Well, you know, if we were hanging out right now and I was like, yeah, man, I'm a Christian and you know, we have a podcast where we talk about Jesus and you know, I'm talking all this stuff. And then I invited you over to my house for dinner and I'm cheating on my wife and I'm getting drunk and I'm telling you all these plans I have to steal people's money. You'd be like, this dude does not love Jesus at all. One bit. - Yeah, he loves himself. - Yes, yeah. - So, you know, there is that comparison too. That'd be like me going, oh bro, I'm a big gym buff. Like, I'm obsessed with the gym. Like, I love it. You'd be like, do you get out of your mind? - But then you hate bench pressing. It's like, this guy's-- - I can't remember last time I barbell bench press. - So simple, bro. - I like the dumbbell bench press. - I think God would be disappointed in you. I'd be honest. - Because I don't barbell bench press? - 100%. - I like the, the, um-- - Dumbbell. - Dumbbell. - I forgot the name. 'Cause I'm so in love with it. - I am, bro. - He's so disappointed. - I love the dumbbell. - How about this? - What was I like, I read it in a book. - He told me. - Straight up, man. - He visited me in a dream with a gold at three. - I was at Waffle House. - I was at Waffle House, and he came to me, and he said. - Do you like Waffle House? - It's all right. Yeah, it's all right. - It's not really good. It's like, you need a little pen. - Yeah, I mean, it's like, if you want just like, super bid, but like, it's good if you're drunk, I think. - They could sneeze, they could sneeze on your food, and there could be a motorcycle on fire in the parking lot, and there's definitely a fight there too. - No, it's throwing down. - Anything past 10 a.m. at Waffle House, it's like World War Three over there, it's crazy. - I've only eaten there like twice. - No, three times. - It wasn't that bad, it wasn't all that good. - We'll make a deal. I'll take you to Waffle House on a date, and then in return, you train me for the next three years in the gym. - I get one date, and maybe I got it three years? - Dude, it's a big deal. - Holy shit. - I feel like a terrible deal. - Bro, I mean, you should come to the gym, I don't know why you haven't. - Oh, it's great, 'cause you hate the gym. - Yeah, well. - And you hate God. - God, dude. - I was intimidated by you. - Me? - Yeah, why? - I don't know, you just kind of intimidated me. - For what? - I don't know, you just kind of did. - Just 'cause like, the content you've seen? - No, no, no, no, no, I don't know what it is. It's just like, I don't know, it happens with like, random people, like I get nervous to approach, like random, certain people, and I was like nervous to reach out to you. - I'm so curious, why? - I'm telling you, there's literally no other reason other than like, I don't really understand why. But then the second you jumped out of the car, I was like, oh, I love him. You know, he didn't even say anything. - God, just, I'm just regular, bro. - I'm just such a regular dude. - You know, but I definitely, I would go, I guess, you know, something I actually do have a hard time with, is, dang, I actually have never really talked about this before. I have a big insecurity on like, what people will think of me in the gym, out of-- - No one cares. - Out of a comparison way, where if I don't, if no one, like, if I'm not in the same room that they are, you know what I'm saying? - Yeah. - I think a lot of people have that. The reality is, anyone who's like really in the gym, and they see someone, whether they're a super overweight or they're really skinny, and they're like real gym bros, that those would be the ones you'd be intimidated by, right? 'Cause you'd probably put them out this category that, oh, they figured it out, or they already got the muscle or the strength. None of those people are ever going to be the people that will make you feel less because you're less than them in the gym. That just is not the reality. If anything, I think all those cases, those are the people who are like more so willing to help, 'cause they've already done it. And they see someone who wants to do it. It's, I've never, ever been in a situation where I've seen like, some super gym bro just be a, to some guy, just 'cause he was smaller or like, fatter, ever. - Yeah. I guess they don't care. - I'm thinking of like instances that I've had like, traveling and being in a gym and like, it's oftentimes the bigger guys that are encouraging you. - Yeah, 'cause I'm saying it's more of like a, it's like you said, it's an insecurity. It's more of your own ego like placing this like, oh, someone's gonna think this of me, but people are just focused on bettering themselves there. - Yeah, yeah, but you know how like, some people have a gym ego and they're like, I have to lift heavier weights 'cause I'm in the gym. Like, you know what I mean? It's like they lift, they try to lift a heavier weight than they can actually handle. - Yeah. - Like, I don't have that kind of like insecurity. We're like, if I looked at someone next to me and they were lifting double my weight, it's like, oh, I have to try that. That does not bother me. For some reason, it's like the idea of, - By the way, Morse, those guys do that 'cause they're trying to like impress them. Be honest with you. - And I'm secure 'cause I got wife. - Yeah, like they're like, I gotta lift this weight 'cause it's like, I'm trying to impress the girls. - Yeah, that's it. - Even though it's typically like guys with like, damn, bro, it was a really good lift. (laughing) - How much you bench, bro? - Yeah, that's not me. But I definitely, yeah, I think that's something that I've always had a hard time with. - Be insecure about going to the gym. - Yeah, I don't know what it is. I'm just like of, it's almost like, I've always had such a hard time, even after becoming a Christian with like, what people think of me, you know? Like, if someone makes an assumption about me online or says something about me, that's not true in person or online, like, I'm the first person immediately. My brain is like, I didn't mean that. I didn't say that. Pull up the receipts. Check the security camera footage. It's like, that's always me. So I guess when it comes to the gym, when it comes to the gym, I have that insecurity of like, oh, I don't wanna show up and, you know, people in the back of their mind be like, oh, what's he doing here? What does come, you know what I mean? - Careers. I mean, even in relationships to the whole internet thing, like, I've been doing this for so long. I know we keep talking about that, but. I definitely, I definitely, I definitely, I definitely used to think more, oh man, I wanna be able to make everyone happy. I want everyone to be able to appreciate me and I feel like, you know, I did anything wrong or did anything bad. And I realized really early on that like, it just does not matter. No matter what you do, people are gonna decide whether they love or hate you period and they're gonna run with whatever narrative they wanna run with, it doesn't matter. You can't control it. All you can control is how you continue to show up and people, like, I can't tell you how many messages have I gotten over the years when people be like, oh man, I used to think you were, you were even like, it was afraid to approach me or whatever. And over time, they'll see, oh, they'll send a message. It'll be mean like, 2017 and then, 2021, they're like, oh man, I'm sorry, I was, I ever said anything mean, I really like your content, I just takes one thing. And it's just like, you can't live being like, I wanna just make everyone like me. It's not ever gonna work, it's not ever gonna happen. You gotta do it 'cause like, it's just who you are. You just be yourself and you'll have the success it just takes time. Dang, thank you for saying that. It's like, even in regards to all this, you know, even as I was saying about this, like that's just, I was just giving you my perspective outside looking in, not knowing enough about your reason behind anything and knowing enough about everyone else's sort of like how they've done all this shit. And let me just apply that to you, but they can be completely untrue because you could have a real reason for it, which you did and what you explained. But like, my point in all that is saying is like, it just does not matter what people think of you. It doesn't, it matters what you think of yourself. Because what you think of yourself will allow you to do the things that, okay, this is really of me. This is really my heart. This is who I am. And the people who are gonna matter are gonna be people who are able to see that or at that moment in their life able and willing to see that to be able to take something from it for themselves. All the other people who say, oh, this and all that about this person and oh, I saw this and I think that or I want this guy to be this because I look at him like that and it's all relevant. Like that, just you don't do it for those people. You never do it for those people. You do it for yourself so that you could actually give the good to other people. Because like I was saying earlier, I don't think you came in here thinking like, oh, I just want to take advantage of people and I think you have a genuine reason for like the stuff that you're talking about. That's all that matters. Doesn't matter, it's just all nonsense. You're never gonna avoid it. No matter how hard you try to get everyone to love you or like you, it's just not gonna happen. But if you're true to yourself, other people will see that being encouraged by that want to be more true to themselves and they'll find value in that in you for themselves. And that's just life. So thanks for saying that. Yeah, because I just, I've done it. I've been through it. I've done all this. It's kind of funny. I became the father figure in a lot of ways. You know what they say? Yeah. With age comes wisdom. Yeah, you know what I mean? With pain. With depression. Yeah. With all, you just learn. Hopefully, right? Yeah, you don't quit. All right, let me pray for you really quick. Jesus, thank you for the stay. God, thank you for our conversation and thank you for Bradley and his time and allowing us to get to hang out. God, would you just continue moving his life? Speak to him through the scriptures. Speak to him through people. Speak to him through your old conversations together in prayer. God, be with them. God and protect him. Guide us all. We love you, Jesus. It's in your name. We pray.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The speaker lost his father to suicide at age six, which deeply shaped his worldview and led to intense questions about death, meaning, and permanence.
Early life was defined by confusion and emotional pain, particularly around the concept of "forever" and what happens after death.
The gym became a vital emotional refuge—a place of control and structure amid chaos, offering a sense of calm and personal agency.
Anger and a desire to prove oneself were central emotional drivers, fueled by the absence of a father figure and a sense of injustice.
Physical discipline in the gym was rooted in a need for control, competitiveness, and a way to feel "good enough" in a world that felt unfair.
Despite being physically disciplined, the speaker acknowledges the gym is never "enough," highlighting the ongoing struggle with fulfillment and purpose.
The speaker has a complex relationship with religion and faith, shaped by early experiences of hypocrisy, depression, and a personal encounter with Jesus in a moment of crisis.
A pivotal moment in his life—on Christmas Day in 2020—when he nearly took his own life and was stopped by a supernatural encounter with Jesus, leading to lasting healing and a shift in belief.
He believes in heaven and hell as eternal separation from God, not based on good works, but on faith in Jesus’ atonement for human sin.
He reflects on human nature as inherently flawed, with moral codes rooted in God’s design, not societal conditioning.
The Christian worldview is presented as a response to human suffering, with God’s love and justice revealed through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Summary:
The speaker's life began with the traumatic loss of his father at age six, an event that fundamentally shaped his understanding of life, death, and permanence. As a child, he struggled to grasp the concept of "forever," seeing death as nothingness—a fear that endured into adulthood. Without a father figure, he developed a deep sense of anger, a need for control, and a desire to prove himself, which found expression in intense gym discipline.
For him, the gym became a sanctuary of structure and personal mastery, offering temporary peace but never lasting fulfillment. His relationship with religion was skeptical, shaped by early experiences of hypocrisy and personal suffering. A turning point came when, in a moment of despair, he experienced a divine encounter with Jesus, which stopped him from taking his life and brought lasting peace.
This encounter led him to embrace core Christian beliefs: that all humans are born in sin, salvation comes through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, and heaven and hell reflect eternal union or separation from God. Though he acknowledges uncertainty about the afterlife, he finds meaning in the Christian narrative—rooted in God’s love, justice, and the belief that God reveals Himself in diverse ways to all people. His journey reflects a path from existential despair to faith, driven by personal pain and a profound encounter with hope.
FAQs
Losing my father at age six deeply shaped my early understanding of life and death. It led to intense confusion about what 'forever' means and made me question the purpose of life, which has followed me throughout my growth.
The gym became a crucial escape from painful thoughts about my father's death. It gave me a sense of control and calm, allowing me to focus on something tangible and measurable in a world that felt chaotic and unpredictable.
Growing up without a father made me fear close relationships, as I constantly noticed the absence of fatherly presence in others' lives. This led me to struggle with allowing people into my life and trust deeply.
Anger and a need to prove myself were key drivers. I felt I had to prove I was strong enough, especially in comparison to others, which fueled my pursuit of physical improvement and discipline.
I struggle with the concept of death and what comes after. For a long time, I thought it meant nothingness, but now I believe in heaven and hell as eternal states—eternity with or without God—though I don’t have full certainty about it.
Heaven is eternity with God, and hell is eternity without God. According to the Christian view, we are all born sinful and need grace through Christ's sacrifice. Salvation comes not through good works, but through faith in Jesus' atoning death.
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