Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to the Certain Success Podcast, Matt and Joe here. After a little hiatus of vacation and hurricanes and madness, we are back with a new episode called Dream Builders, and it's a subject that's near and dear to my heart, near and dear to Joe's heart, and represents kind of what we do here in terms of encouraging people and helping people to chase the dream that God's put on their heart. Not just run a successful business, but be chasing the dream, running the race that God's put before you and going and getting it Right. Joe, I love it.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Yeah, it's been a. It's been a crazy couple of weeks from, like you said, from your vacation to us running away from two hurricanes here in Florida and trying to put things back together again. So I'm excited about this podcast. So I'll let you kick it off and let's see where it takes us.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Well, I'm going to bounce it back to you quickly, because right before we were hitting record, we were talking about your stuff, the stuff that you're working on in your world, some of which will wrap around your book that's recently out Average Joe, the Journey Home but you were saying things that are fundamental in terms of the commitment level that it takes to chase your dream. You're dug in and you're like I'm just gonna figure it out, like I don't know anything about any of the details. But that's not the way you chase your dream. If it's a god-sized dream, you're not gonna know, you're just gonna jump and go um. So, to the extent that you're willing, I want you to talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Well, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is I am so thankful that I have my wonderful wife behind me in anything that I do. I've been with her since I was 19 years of age. It's been together for 40-some years. And if I didn't have her support, if I didn't come to her with one of these ideas that comes to my mind and say I think God's telling me to do this, and if, every time I went to her and sat down with I think God is telling me to do this and she said I don't think that's what God is saying, she said I don't think that's what God is saying. Or, you know, go back in your office and get back to work. We have bills to pay. It wouldn't be a great marriage and in some of these leap of faiths that I've taken as of the last couple years have been it involves being with the right human and making sure that I'm aligned with the right people in my life. You know, you and I have had a lot of these conversations about just listening to God and asking God to invite us into what he had originally planned for us from day one, to use our gifts the way that he designed us and you were just saying a few minutes ago, before we started recording, is that you were having a conversation with a friend about something that you're building up in your mind in regards to dream builders, and it was like man and you're getting jazzed about it and you're getting excited about it. And when, when you know. To get back to where I was last year at the end of the year, when I really felt God was saying hey, joe, you're going to write this, this book, this 365 day journal. You know, and, as I said, for a couple of years he was nudging me, but it really came on strong towards the end of 2023. I made that promise and said OK, I'm awake at five o'clock every morning and I'm going to start writing, and at the end of the day, when I'm done with my regular work, I'm going to write again. So I would average between four and five hours a day of writing and putting this journal together. And it was.

Speaker 2: 4:26

I was I was up at at first, matt. I mean I thought I was going to look back at 14 years of all of my journaling, the thousands of pages that I've written in my morning walk with God, and I thought that was going to be my go-to cheat sheet to write this book. Not one, not one page of that of my past. God put it on my heart and said everything's going to be fresh from right. Here I'll breathe into you what I want you to write each day.

Speaker 2: 4:56

And from there I started writing and I only had one morning where I actually had writer's block and it didn't last long. I just walked away from the writing, probably grabbed, you know, a drink out of the refrigerator and came back and sat down and it opened back up again. So I think part of the piece that I've had in this process is that now I know that that's what he wanted me to do. If that book didn't get completed, if that book didn't make it to Amazon and I didn't have people surrounding me and praying for me, it wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Man, you're making me think of notes to write down and things I want to make sure that we talk about. Um, people are always like, well, I don't know if I know what my dream is, and the very first indicator is how much joy does it bring you? How amped do you get when you're talking about it? Right, we have had many conversations about lots of clients, but one client in particular where, like, he started talking about this dream and you could just see him come to life.

Speaker 2: 6:37

It changed right in front of us in video.

Speaker 1: 6:40

We watched it, but but then he like suppressed, he was like I could never do that. That would be irresponsible.

Speaker 1: 6:47

It's like what? No, that's it. That's your dream, and I was telling you, joe, how connected I am to this language of Paul's in the scripture about running the race that God's put before you, and I honestly think that the metaphor he was making there has maybe nothing to do with the way I'm interpreting it, but I think that God gives you a dream, and whatever lights you on fire, that's what he's put on your heart to do, and to the extent that you don't do, that is actually disobedience. And I'll take that a step further. I think that you just will never become everything that God created you to be If you will not take up that challenge. Because he knows, like, okay, I'm going to put you on this path, I'm going to run you down this road, and he knows all the things that are going to happen on the way and like, those are all the things that are going to make you into what he made you to be.

Speaker 2: 8:05

Yeah, it's almost as if you know and I actually you know that scripture I think that you're referring to that Paul's writing in Corinthians. He's talking about that prize, and the prize that he's talking about was the prize of an athlete which won't last. It's the prize he was talking about is our eternal crown, the crown of life that we are going to win at the end of this life. And one of the things I've shared with you in the past is that when God laid it on my heart to write this book, the first emotion that I felt and this might be me, typical Italian, you know I'm very emotional, I got my emotions on my sleeve is I didn't want to disappoint God when I got to heaven and I want to hear him say well done, faithful servant.

Speaker 2: 8:57

You did what I wired you to do, and you didn't care if you're going to live in a van down by the river, and you didn't care if you're going to live in a van down by the river. You did what I wired you to do. Mother Teresa could have literally lived in a van down by the river, but one of the richest women went on to become a saint because she did what God laid on her heart to do. She didn't have to take a passion test. Passion was love. Her passion was to take care of humans and and I don't know how to express it anymore to anyone who's listening to this call, but when you can wake up like I was waking up to write this book and I couldn't wait to get the my journal open to start writing that excitement, if I can transfer that to you and say if you are loathing to get to your desk every day and you're dying inside, it's time to start working on your dream.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Yeah, when you told the story not that long ago on the podcast, I think, about leaving a job a couple of jobs ago and. But you like walked into the office and you were just like I'm done, like you could just feel that the joy was gone and it was time to jump and and and you jumped. And I think that that's, in one hand, on one hand, that is a feature of entrepreneurial minded people. But that's this, this thing that God's kind of really been grinding on me lately about, is like it's yeah, entrepreneurs entrepreneurs jump more easily, but he's calling us all to jump. He's calling us all to this leap of faith. He's like sell everything and follow me. That's for everybody, that's not just for the entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1: 10:59

But we also talked about the fact that in the modern era, if you say, okay, I'm going to sell everything and follow my dream and follow God while chasing my dream, there's probably some vocation there. Right, it's. You know I want to go be the best cake baker in the world or whatever it is, but there's some business, there's some vocation behind what you're doing there, even if it's nonprofit and I guess there's exceptions to that rule, but for the most part, in the modern era it's going to be tied to. I want to go build some kind of revenue building business and of revenue building business, and it's never been easier to do that than it is in 2024, 2025, almost. It's never been easier to do that, yet it's incredibly difficult, as you and I both continue to explore. There's nothing easy about it. You need people around you, you need help, you need inspiration, you need encouragement and you need all the tools and lots of lots of skill that you have to develop to do it, but yet it's never been easier.

Speaker 2: 12:14

Yeah and I. It goes back to what I started with and what you just finished with. It's the people that you surround yourself with. They are. They are so key because you could be around people that are going to suck their, their vampires. They're going to suck the living energy out of you. When you share an idea, be careful who you share ideas with, because they may be the very person that's going to want to put their foot on your neck because they really don't care for your success. In fact, they probably enjoy seeing you not be successful. So be careful who you share your dreams with. These dreams are so important and they're given to you by a loving God that wants you to do what he wired you to do to begin with and I mean and Matt, lately, and as I wrote and as I dove further into writing, average Joe, the Journey Home.

Speaker 2: 13:15

It made me start going back to places in my life where God was saying that was a nudge. That nudge that I did in in fourth grade when you felt embarrassed in front of your class because you wanted to do a. You want to do something good for one of the kids in the community that that they, the family, needed help and the peers, your friends in the class called you a brown noser because you were trying to do something for someone that you didn't even know, and I was like that was the last thing on my mind in fourth grade. I'm like I wasn't trying to do that. I read an article in the local paper. This family needed help.

Speaker 2: 13:57

I went to my parents and asked how can we help this family? And my parents said ask your teacher if you could do a fundraiser in school. I go to my teacher and all of a sudden I'm being a whack-a-mole where everyone's like you're just doing this to impress the teacher. I was like no, I'm not. That was the heart that God gave me when I was a kid and throughout my life I can point to those moments where that's what was. God was setting me up for this and yeah, whoop-dee-doo, I'm at 60 years of age and a lot of 20-year-olds already have figured out what they want to do.

Speaker 2: 14:36

It took me a little longer, and a lot of 20 year olds already have figured out what they want to do.

Speaker 1: 14:44

It took me a little longer, but here I am and it's never too late, you, you, but you've been doing it.

Speaker 1: 14:52

And, um, you know we talk a lot about identity and um, um, uh, if you get to know me for listening to this, and you get to get to know me, if your name is in my phone, it probably says something weird, cause I like to make up names for people and Joe's name in my phone is gentle heart, because that's how I, how he is, not just how I see him, it's how he is with everybody, and which you just described.

Speaker 1: 15:11

The fourth grade representation of that and and so that's part of this whole dream chaser thing is getting really clear on, like, who you are. Who does god say you are? What's the truest thing about you? And and then you know, embracing that in a way that you maybe never have before. Um, and I think maybe the biggest thing that keeps people from clearly, from fully embracing what god's given them as an identity, is that that's always where the devil's going to attack you, which is what you just said about. The fourth grade thing is you know you were, you were being gentle heart and everybody attacked you, so the devil's acting against you because that's your. He wants you to not embrace your true identity.

Speaker 2: 16:05

Yeah, sucker's been around for all thousands and thousands of years. And, as I was saying to you this morning, matt, as I'm working on this other project, first one out of the gates, the devil saying yeah, this, this isn't your wheelhouse, you shouldn't be doing this. And here comes those fiery arrows and it goes back to some of the things that we've talked about as far as the armor of God, and every morning now, before I even crawl out of bed, and I really suggest strongly that everyone goes to Ephesians 6. I think it's Ephesians 6, and it starts around chapter uh, verse 8 through 16 or 17, but it's the armor of god. And so, before I roll out of bed now, I don't verbatim do the armor of god, but I know the armor of god is the helmet of salvation, it's the sword of truth, it's the uh, it's uh, it's the uh.

Speaker 2: 16:55

Righteousness, it's the shield of faith, it's the feet readiness with the gospel, and I go through that in a typical layman's way. I'm not ever going to be the guy who says I have everything memorized now, but I know enough that I need that armor on and everyone who's listening to this armor up, because as soon as you start to go for this dream and you build this idea in your mind of what this dream looks like. Do it with this armor, because you're going to need it, because it never comes easy. If you think it's going to come easy, I mean well, I mean, when's the last time you went to ikea and bought something? You had to put it together.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Nothing is easy I refuse to go to ikea for that reason but uh, no, you're, you're absolutely right, yeah, and and and I think one of the most uh compelling things about understanding the armor of God is understanding that where the battle is. We talk about this all the time too. Right, I will ask you all the time, joe, where's the battle? And, um, you know, know the battles in the spiritual realm, the battle. So when you were in fourth grade and you were trying to do that, that nice thing for those people, those other kids were attacking you and the devil was whispering in their ear like look at joe, he's just doing this to be a brown noser and whatever, but that those thoughts were in the spiritual realm and so you were being attacked in the physical world. But that those thoughts were in the spiritual realm and so you were being attacked in the physical world, but that really wasn't worth the battle. They're not you, the kids were not your enemy, it's the voice in right but see how long it stuck though.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Look how long that has stuck yeah and that's exactly what the evil one wants to do. He wants to leave those markers of pain in you as a reminder of yeah, you probably shouldn't do that. Don't do that fundraiser, don't put that on Facebook, because people are going to look at you like you're trying to, you know, promote yourself. I, as part of part of my reading in Proverbs this morning, was about when you, when you speak, speak with wisdom. Don't, don't put yourself out there in a way that it's about you, it's, it's a, it's about the heart and and that's it's just.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Again, all of this and I know it, I just kind of veered off course real quick, but all of it's so important doing a quiet time every day, putting on that breastplate, walking in faith, saying God, you gave me a dream and I veered away from itth 2024, joe, you're going to write a book and it will be published by September of 2024 or 2023, a year ago and said, hey, this book is going to be written by you. I would have laughed at you. Yeah, well, this book is going to be written by you.

Speaker 1: 20:20

I would have laughed at you yeah well, god won Well and you did it. You know you do things. You're a disciplined human, and so you do things in a disciplined way. Like for me, I would never have done it five hours a day. I know there's people that are listening to this.

Speaker 1: 20:33

They're like five hours a day oh my God, but that's a big part of this stuff too is like do it your way, like if it takes you a year at 20 minutes a day, totally cool, you know. Or, or you know, in my case it's like write like crazy for a month, put it down for a month, write like crazy for a you know. And so one of the devil's schemes is to come in and go. Well, if you don't do it the way Joe does it, then you're a failure or you're never going to win, or all that stuff. And none of that's true either.

Speaker 1: 21:10

I want to talk about co-creating with God, because you were talking about when you were writing the book, a. It was pretty clear that god put it on your heart to write book, but then your method was to wait for the holy spirit to give you specific thoughts and ideas each day about what the conversation was going to be, and I think that that is such an incredibly important muscle to build, and what I've done way too many times in my life is I get this great idea pretty sure it came from God and then, okay, here I go and I'm like running, running, running, running, running for hours and days and weeks and months, and it was like, well, he told me that and I ran and he's like wait, whoa? Um, maybe every minute asked me again what's next? You know like we should stop right now and be like lord, what's the next? Lord, show us what's the next two minutes of this podcast.

Speaker 1: 22:21

What are we supposed to talk to about next? And this is like moment by moment. Check it. So talk about that. How you co-created that book well, it is interesting.

Speaker 2: 22:32

I and I wrote it throughout the the 365 days of messages to people. I would always remind them. I say, just as just you know, big smile and kind of a shout out. When I wrote this yesterday, I had no idea that this was going to be the scripture for today. And look how the two of them matched up. And God, smiling at the fact that the two messages back to back lined up. Smiling at the fact that the two messages back to back lined up. And so there were days like that. That I was just like I get goosebumps going. Damn, that that's impressive. Well, god's impressive.

Speaker 2: 23:08

But then there was times, matt, where I would start in a chapter, and it might be, it may have been in Proverbs, and God laid it on my heart You're going to stay in Proverbs for the next 30 days of messages because they all line up to the next one. So not every single day was okay. This is what you're going to write. I could have started a particular message and God's like you're going to stick around, and then I'd go a couple days into a particular, whether it was Corinthians or whether it was Romans, and after a couple days it became evident that I was going to be sticking around in Romans for the next two weeks because everything kept lining up for the next message. So it was cool how it happened. But when two would come together back to back, it was pretty cool yeah, um, that is super um.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Last thing, and maybe I'll ask you if you have other thoughts but I want to talk about I wrote on my notes here it's me and I think that it's so to have community of people that you are talking to, connecting with, sharing ideas, with getting getting encouragement from, but, um, I think we're shifting culturally to a mode that it's, instead of being focused on the leader and being in awe of the leader and you know whether it's a coach or a pastor or whatever to back to the direct relationship where Jesus is my coach and I'm going to do my thing and and I'm going to listen to that voice and all the other voices come subordinate to that. Um, man, I think that's a really important part of the the. The whole dream builders movement, too, is just, you know, got to get tuned to the voice. It's really the co-create, a different piece of co-creating, but I guess I want to bring it back to this understanding that it's got to. It's got to be between you and the Lord and everybody else's voice comes second.

Speaker 2: 25:43

Exactly, and it's just like in marriage. I mean and Stacy knows this and I know it's the same for her I love my relationship with Christ and God more than I love my wife, and that's how it has to be. And so God first my wife, second children, you know all in that format. And as far as again going back to you know, making sure that you're with like-minded people that really get excited about your, your dream, and and they and they just and they're cheering you on.

Speaker 2: 26:22

Can you imagine being on an airplane? And my brother has jumped out of several very, very good operating airplanes. He would tell you, uh, he was airborne, he was a green beret, uh, but could you imagine is, just before he was about to jump, the jump master looked at him and said your parachute's not on and my brother still jumped. That wouldn't be a very good decision. That is operating in a way that is going to be a crash and burn. But because of what? The airborne and the green berets, before they jump, everything has been meticulously gone through for their safety before they jump, christ, your prayer, your trusting, is meticulously putting that parachute of faith together before you jump. Every one of us on this, you know that's listening to this call, has jumped at one time or another. Or maybe you haven't, maybe you've really never jumped, but your parachute is your faith. Your parachute is your faith. Your parachute is your is your christ.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Your parachute is trusting that he wired you for something bigger and he doesn't want you to jump out that airplane without him yeah, and I think, uh, you just made me think of one last piece, and that's this radical dependence that I've been talking about for a couple of weeks and really coming to believe that God's your provider, not in some cutesy way, but like practically like down to like, what am I eating today and what's happening next?

Speaker 2: 28:14

and, and I think you have to come to that heart level, understanding, to really jump or you're gonna quit, you're gonna get afraid and you're gonna quit yeah, life has a way of, uh, you know, being pretty real with all of us and, um, a way of you know being pretty real with all of us, and it's sometimes making these decisions are gut-wrenching and I'll just keep referring back to and, matt, it's actually something that you've taught me to be better about, and that's to be and and just listen, for God.

Speaker 2: 29:01

Sometimes I in a podcast, is a very bad example of this, because you're pretty much talking the entire time, but sometimes we have to stop talking and start listening. And I know for anyone out there, if, if it resonated with you that the angst of sitting in front of a computer working for someone else doing something that really doesn't jazz you up, resonated with you and you have this idea of something that you love and you want to make a living doing, then you're in the right place and I am excited for your. I know you're going to do something later on that you're excited to share later, but Matt's got this dream that God's got on his heart and I love the name of it Dream Builders and it's going to be something amazing for so many people and I and I think people will find, uh, what they were wired to do.

Speaker 1: 29:58

Yeah, well, you, you teed it up perfectly. Um, and you know, today's the day that we go public with our, our first event, and, uh, and some other fun things coming behind that for certain success, um called dream builders, and, um, we're going to run our first event december 2nd, 3rd and 4th. So it's virtual, it's virtual, but you're hearing this. Mark your calendars for that, and it's. It's built for the people who have finally decided to jump, and it can be the first jump you've ever made, or it can just be making the next, the next leap, but, um, you need that like-minded community around you that has christ at the top and that are all making the same kinds of leaps and building new things, new businesses, new ventures, and so, yeah, dream Builders is going to come to life in December.

Speaker 2: 31:05

Yeah, excited for it.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Yeah, man. Well, guys, thanks for being with us on the Certain Success Podcast and we will see you back here soon, soon. See you, joe, see you, man.