Paul's Challenge, Message, and Prayer for Aaron in 2023

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I say tomato, you say tomato. I guess 2023 is the same as 2022 for you. Oh, yeah. This episode is recorded 11 20 23 welcome to Use Your Words podcast, where we believe in intelligently spoken conversations. So yeah, so, you know, and like, I like I will admit, like I said, that some I can talk or not.

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We can't even get through an intro without you having to fidget with your gun. It doesn't matter if it's the intro. Now it matters when I do it. Yeah, now it matters when you're sitting there clunk and loading in everything. Why do I even I don't know.

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This is a question I ask myself all the time. Why do I allow Aaron to do stuff like this and then go, oh, wait, that's right. It's Aaron. He's doing errandy things when he does ernee things. What are you doing?

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I'm studying it to set the scene here. Now I'm intrigued to set the scene here. We're at a table getting ready to record. I'm getting stuff set up, and Aaron's like, oh, I'm going to bring my new gun over here and to play with it during recording. Yeah, well, I wasn't going to play with it during recording.

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Okay. Now I might, though. Oh, my goodness. Now that you're expecting, it going to make this next part even more fun.

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Aaron's like, oh, what's going on? I don't understand what's going on. What's the next part? You'll see here in a second, sir. You'll see, it's the start.

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It's literally the first day of 2023 and you're already tired. Start for 2023. Okay. We were up late last night, or were we up early this morning? I don't care what you want to say.

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Up late last night, up early this morning. I don't care. Lack of sleep happened. However, you and Josh slept more than I did. Oh, yes.

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You were just under. I was on the couch like snoring. I was passing out while you guys were talking. You were definitely doing the snore. And it was entertaining at times because just out of nowhere, all of a sudden we get that because I wasn't fully out until I started snoring.

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And then once the snore starts, I was like, oh, he's out. Yeah, but you would snore, and then like, the next second later, you'd go, yeah, okay. Yeah, I know, because I'm listening to you guys the whole time. And I'm just like, yeah, okay, sir, what was Josh talking about? I don't remember exactly.

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So politics? No, actually, there was parts of it, actually. For the most part. No, it was his hypothetical situation about him buying a farm. Oh, yeah.

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But it all started with the whole talk of how long is it going to be until everybody's in apartments and condos versus houses. Yeah, all that kind of fun. And eventually got to him farming. Again, hypothetically buying a farm, which happened whole other conversation there. But that being said, that's not anywhere here nor there.

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That was a fun New Year's Eve. New Year's.

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Yes. Josh half asleep. Aaron 910 asleep, and I'm wide awake. Yeah. These punches aren't.

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Hey, man, there's a lot of alcohol for the first time in a long time. Yeah, it made me go midnight. A lot of things that were curdling, things you don't want to hear together. Alcohol plus curdles. Good old Bilus and stout.

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Oh, yeah. But again, neither here nor there on what today is today. Today. This is one might make Erin, I don't know, weird, uncomfortable. Great.

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Slightly red in the face. Who knows? Well, good thing I'm drinking a red drink now. Yes. Because drinking a red drink will completely nullify anything else.

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But that's my goal of red face, to get to leaving that one alone. Aaron Johnson. Yeah. I can be selfish, and I can hijack a podcast episode whenever I want to, which is wonderful.

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So that's what I'm going to do today. Oh, great. But it's not for my benefit. I'll believe it when it's done.

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Really? Now? I don't know.

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I've thought about this, and I've put this on the tentative back end schedule, the one that you never would even have a chance to see previous to anything, potentially, that you could see if you took the initiative to view stuff. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So I've had this on and off multiple times. I even put it on again today, and I was like, no, maybe not pull it off.

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And so I was like, well, you know what? No, I'm going to be selfish and I'm going to put it on. Do it this whole episode today. Oh, no. Why are you going no, it's going to be a good one.

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I don't know. This one is it will be very, I guess you could say personal. Oh, yeah. It's going to be a good one.

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What is it? See, that's how you know it's good when you go to pause and take a drink before you say it. Aaron Johnson, as 2023 starts yes. Your sucks.

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Only 13 hours into 2023. It's been great so far. It's been tiring, I understand. No, it hasn't been tiring yet. Getting up for church this morning.

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If that's as bad as it gets, that's pretty great. Yeah. Anyways, 2023 is just starting, sir.

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This is, I guess you could say my message to you. Oh, great. It'll be a good one. Why did you go? Oh, great.

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Okay. Always do. Boy. What? No, say it.

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It's going to be filled with challenges and other stuff I'm not going to want to do.

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I don't know if it's stuff with challenges and things and all that. All right, sweet. But this is, I guess you could say stuff that has always been on my mind in the back of my mind. Some of the things I have said to you before, some of the things I haven't. And this is coming from not as.

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So I'm putting on an old hat here. Old hat? Yeah. Youth leader hat. Not the youth leader hat.

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That more mentoring type hat. Even worse.

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This is me going back and putting on that hat a little bit. And here's why I'm putting on that hat a little bit. Okay. Okay. And if you could see the video of this, I'm looking directly at Aaron.

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I'm scoring. Unfortunately, there's no video yet. Yeah.

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But here's why I say this, sir. Yeah. I'm going to start off by telling you what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you I'm not going to tell you what I told you. You know that formula?

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You know that routine? Because I have employed that routine multiple times with you.

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Why did you move the microwave? I didn't want to breathe into it. Breathe, whatever. Okay. You need to breathe.

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Good band. Oh, my goodness.

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But anyways and anyone else listening, take from it what you will. Like I said, because I pay the hosting fees and that I get the ability to once in a while just say, screw it, we're doing what I want to do, and no one can object. Well, I mean, people can object, but they're going to change anything. No, not at all. So, Mr.

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Johnson? Yes. These are thoughts have been going through my head many times over the years, and especially as 2023 starts rolling around, it's like, you know what, it's time to just go for it. Now might be a good time to put that mentor hat back on for a moment. The friendship hat is still over there in the corner.

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The brother hat still over there in the corner. But the mentor ones right now. Okay. And I have this to say, and I know you have heard me say this so many times to you, almost likely I want you to live up to that potential that others see in you. Yeah.

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And I know it's difficult to just I'm not saying cut whatever you're doing and change 100%. Yeah. Sir, you are a talented musician. Don't do not, do not, do not. Let's look at this objectively.

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Let's look at this objectively. How many instruments do you play? I'm not saying that you are the most amazing recording quality artist, but you can play competently and fill in for and do with maybe a little practice or at the drop of a hat. How many instruments? Two.

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Two? Yeah. Okay. Guitar and drums. Yeah.

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Two. In a pinch, you could fill in a bass in a pin. I can play bass. Bass. I'm not bass notes.

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I didn't I didn't say studio quality, multi level. I didn't say no, I know what you say it but in a pinch, you could. But competently, comfortably, guitar and drums, not a lot of people are able to do more than one instrument. No. Okay.

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No. That's what I said. Let's look at this. Objectively, don't look at this as well. I'm not as good as Matt over here.

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I'm not as good as this person. I'm not as good as this person because we all do that. Okay. I play bass, obviously. I am not anywhere near Jack's level.

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Jack used to be a studio bassist. Jack is very good. Okay. I'm not going to touch Jack's level. So I'm like, whatever name Jack can play, we need the tech skills.

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But I'll compare myself against people sometimes, and I know you do, too. I've heard you say, oh, I'm not as good as Baba. Objectively, you are a good instrumentalist, decent, very good. I can be good. Objectively, you are good.

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Okay.

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So first off, you know how to do music, right? For the most part. I didn't say write it, I said play it. The writing portion. Anyone can learn eventually over time.

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It just takes time and practice. That's probably going to be easier than learning how to play, because once you know how to play, you then know how to implement and do things. In writing, they're different muscles, but they're the same in a way. Objectively, you are a good musician. I look around this room, the gear doesn't describe or tell the level of the musician.

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That is fine. Okay, that's fine. You are also a pack rat of musician. Yes. Like a collector.

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Okay. A collector or a hoarder, if you want to be real, whichever one you want to go with. Okay. So regardless of the fact of how many instruments you do or don't have down here, objectively, you are that objectively also. And I'm just going to go over some things I know about you.

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You're a very caring person. You don't wear your I will say yes. You don't wear your heart on your sleeve, necessarily. Not all the time, but when things are down, when in your own Aaron way, okay, yes. And everyone has their own way of how they support others.

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You do support people when you check up on them or you do in your way. By the way, I'm just going to say I have appreciated that over the years. Okay, what did you say? That's what I appreciate. Yeah, that's what I appreciate about you, sir.

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So objectively, that is the case. Objectively, you are very generous with your time, your resources, and your willingness to serve as well, right? Well, yeah.

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And whether you see it in yourself or not, sir, you're smart. You underestimate yourself a lot. Now, don't get me wrong, there's some things I'm like, why does he know that? It's just or why doesn't or why doesn't he there's some things I go, why doesn't he know that? But you put yourself down a lot on your own intellect.

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Yeah.

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The only reason I say, I guess, again, it's the whole potential part, okay, maybe I could be a lot smarter, but not everyone has to be an elon musk. Oh, gosh, no, I would never try and achieve that level of knowledge. I wouldn't want to, I don't think. But in the things that you are passionate about. Including music.

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Including music. I still don't know that much. Again, you're putting yourself down. Yeah, I know. Really?

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No. I know chords, I know notes, I know rhythm.

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That's about it. But I bet you if I put you with some random musicians who had worked together previously, and they say, hey, we're going to play this song, give me a few minutes to figure it out. I bet you could put together something on the fly, the bass nodes on the drums, something basic. Yeah, but you could do it, don't you? Something basic.

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Yeah, but you could do it. Yeah.

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I was kind of bummed because okay, so for the people who I played guitar for church this morning, but there was a possibility for me to play drums this morning, I'm kind of glad I didn't, but I kind of wish I did because, well, one song would have been fine, but it's like I didn't listen to the songs at all beforehand. I mean, I know we've done in the past. I know I've played whatever the Line, the Lamb, whatever that one was. I know I've played that on drums in the past, but I don't remember how it went at all as far as the drum parts in the song. But that would have been an easy unfortunately, a lot of worship music is insanely easy to just play to.

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It's standard formula of how things go. So it's very cookie cutter easy to go through. But the other song, I was like, shoot, the first one we did would have taken more, I guess, thought as far as and even that it wouldn't have been that hard, but it would have been more thought on how to go about playing each verse a little bit differently to spice it up a bit. But you would have been able to do it. Well, that's why I kind of wanted to try it, but I was like, hey, no, we're already this far into practice.

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But you would have been able to do it. Potentially, yeah. Would I have liked it? Maybe not, but I guess I could have done something, but I never liked what I do. Okay.

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Just kidding. That's not true. We'll move on to that in a minute. There's things that I do that I like, but I don't like when I hit on the fly, I normally don't like it. We'll move on to the negative in a minute.

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So much better if I put extra time into it, but yeah, okay. I want to stick on the positives and the potentials right now, and then we'll talk about the negative stuff.

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Yeah. Another skill set that you have, I don't know if you know you have the skill set, because I think it just comes so naturally to you and I have observed it since, like, day one that I've known you, and I have seen it in Pennsylvania. I've seen it anywhere. I've been with you, and I always joke around with it. I say, man, it's like he knows everyone everywhere.

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Oh, the whole social aspect of stuff. You can strike up a conversation and have a conversation with anyone.

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You can BS your way through it, too, pretty easily. You can. But you have that skill set. Not everyone is able to do that, in case you didn't know that. No.

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Yeah. I guess as far as being comfortable and I guess striking up conversation, but depending on what the conversation is, I have no idea what you might talk about. People like, oh, cool, yeah, sick. But you're able to at least continue and be engaged in with it. Well, I remember anything from it.

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Maybe not. That's a whole other conversation than that one. If you remember what the conversation that you were just having was about or not. But that's what I'm saying. You can strike up that conversation with anyone and be comfortable with it.

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I've seen that in action multiple times. It's entertaining. I'll say that straight up. It is entertaining. Especially as someone who it takes at least a good month before I get comfortable to have a conversation, a solid conversation with anyone.

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Yeah. Whereas you, you just go, hey, you're a new friend.

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Don't deny it.

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I feel terrible. I can't remember his name, but one of the new guys that I met on the CBR trip, there was a couple of moments, mainly when we were in the coffee shop and I was just standing right next to him. I was just like, what to talk about? What can I say to straight up conversation?

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I can't remember what we started talking about. Probably the burritos and hot sauce. But you found a way to do it. But it ended up happening. See what I say?

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That's not a skill set that everyone possesses, sir. And I'm serious about that. I am, as my dad would say, the whole social butterfly kind of thing. Oh, yeah. You've moved beyond social butterfly.

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You've turned into the social hurricane.

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You're flying to everyone, having little conversations with them. And that is a great thing when utilized, right? Yes. If I used it properly, yeah. And who knows?

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Maybe I know you're knocking close to 30. Yeah. But that doesn't mean you can't change a career. That's too late.

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The only reason I say that is because the last couple of conversations, that not indirectly with me, but just in general, like, it's not too late to change your career path at such and such an age. Whatever. Yeah, it is. No, no, it's not. And who knows?

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You might be able to find a career path that utilizes that social butterflyness. Like a male man. Well, sure.

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I would imagine male men talk to people along the roads from time to time. I'm sure they do. But I'm saying you do have opportunities there. Yeah.

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Aaron just thought of something. That was something I had thought about for work, because they used to have a booth or some kind of display at the Nam shows and stuff like that. And I was bringing that back up with one of my bosses or whatever, and I was like, do you think if we ran that by the big boss, we'd be able to make that happen again? But you could be the boof talker. If they send me there, I will.

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You will stop everyone and talk to them. Probably. See what I say. But there'd be so many cool people to meet. See what I say.

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Yup. All right. So yeah. Boom. Those are some of your strengths, sir.

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Yeah. Have you ever done no, I'm going to ask this question. I know probably I'm interjecting this in here. Have you ever done a SWAT analysis? What?

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Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, OT. Yeah, I know it's said SWAT. Even though it's SWAT, it's Swoot. SWAT, Swoot. So those are some of your strengths.

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In that regard, I will move to opportunity.

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Now we get to get to the good part. Oh, no. Opportunity day. Again. This is me knowing you from the outside to you.

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Okay. You obviously have to do your own self assessment. Right. And you can do that, because if I don't believe it, it doesn't matter. Yeah.

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I mean, to a point.

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To a good point. Yeah. But if nobody ever says anything, then it never challenges the mind to think differently. So your opportunity, sir, there's that old phrase, that old saying. Oh, great.

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And you're only 27 still once. Still. You're still 27. Yeah. You're still under 30.

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Knocking on 30, but you're under it. Like I told Ben, I'm knocking on 40. As in I was six months away from knocking on 40 when he messaged me about something. I'm six months away. I'm like, heavily pounding on that door.

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Let me in, let me in. Oh, no, I don't want to go in by the hair. My chinny chin chin. Okay. That's where I'm at.

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But you're lightly rapping on the door. You're lightly I'm walking up to the door in the distance. You're pretty close there. So you still have some opportunities in your life, potentially, where you don't have to. Now, I want you to hear this, and I want you to hear this properly.

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You may decide to stay and be a Velpert for the rest of your life. May, that's up to you. Okay. But you do have opportunities to do stuff outside of velperting. When I say outside, I mean, yes, both a career wise, but I'm saying you can also have a fulfilling life, even though your job is one you may not fully enjoy.

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Right. And I want you to hear this as someone who is older, who, yes, only twelve years, but I'm twelve years older than you. I'm twelve years or seniors, pardon me, sometimes wants to rename this to advice from an old man to a young boy. Because jeez Louise, that's what seems like sometimes basically okay. But this is why I put on the opportunities for you.

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Because in a way you sometimes do this. But I think you stop yourself short a little bit on this. No, never. Right? What are you talking about?

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That's why this is also under threat.

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The opportunity is for you to be able to do something impactful not only for yourself, but for the community. And it doesn't necessarily have to be your job. Oh, right. No. Otherwise I've already helped save the world.

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Okay, by what? Velcroing it together?

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I suppose you could say when the whole pandemic hit, we made straps for ventilators. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Saving the world. But I want you to take, and maybe this is something that you need to do on the day, on your own.

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Take some time and go, where do my passions line up? And what can I do with those passions? I ain't got time for that. I think about that all day at work sometimes. All day.

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Okay. For like the whole day. Okay, so you think about that at work sometimes. Now take what you think about yeah. And figure out a plan to do something with it.

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Impossible. It's not impossible. It may seem like it's impossible, but break it down to smaller steps and I know you can do it. It's unreachable. Why is it unreachable?

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Why? Yeah. Because it requires too much stuff.

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We'll get you in a second. I don't know, but that is your biggest opportunity. But on the flip side, that's also a little negative here. Sorry. That's one of the biggest weaknesses I've seen in you, sir.

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Oh, yeah. You get an idea that would be really cool, whatever, and then you stop.

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I haven't learned that one from work, from one of the bosses. Full of ideas, but nothing's ever going to pan out. Okay. All right, so this is where I want you to take that weakness, sir. Turn that into an opportunity.

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Mean you could talk about how offline connections sometimes it's not about the connection. Sometimes it's just about starting it. No, it's not all about the connections. But that can help. It can help.

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Yes. But sometimes it's just about starting it. This is what that was. That totally brought back another thought topic idea I had in my head. Yeah, jokingly.

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As I say, the whole thing of just do it with the whole shil above thing. Yeah, but it's where it's like instead of just creating ideas, just start it and do it and send it and see what happens with it. Yeah, gosh. Nike might not like that because anyways but this is where the mentor cap really gets tight right now. Where I put it on, be like, dude, listen oh, it gets really tight now.

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Like, I pull it down so it just fastens fastened. I want you to listen to this. Okay, I guess I can to not listen to it and my headphones are on. You got to where you were with your skill set of music and your other things through practice, doing it over and over again. It took dedication, it took a lot of energy.

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There have been a lot of times when you've had I shouldn't say a lot of times. There have been times when you've maybe had an evening free or an afternoon free and I'll message you be like, hey, what are you doing? Just like, I just got done drumming. Pour a little bit, I'm all sweaty, blah, blah, blah. That's a fun time, right?

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I enjoy that. But it takes time, it takes energy, it takes dedication, it takes practice. It takes the forethought and the commitment to do it right. I want you, sir, that an able body which is withering away. Oh, my goodness.

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But you want me to take just a fraction, just a fraction of that passion that you have for drumming and dedicate a little bit of that to some of those other ideas that you have of those passions that you come up with. I don't know what those are. You said you think about them sometimes at work. I mean, it's all music related. Okay, think about them at work and then figure out a way to take action on them.

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2023 is just starting out. Yes. I'm not saying make because everyone makes New Year's commitments and all that. You knew me, I'm going to make this happen. Yeah.

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I'm not saying make a commitment because commitments don't always go through, right? No. Make some ideas, but things to come up with, some things to strive for, and they may not be completed this year. They may take a couple of years to complete, and that's fine. At my job, when we do our goals every year, we have two categories of goals.

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We have the goals that we are going to do this year, this is what we're going to do this year, and we have the goals that we are going to do over the next five years. Some of those things that you're thinking about at work might be things that you do this year. Some of those things that you're thinking about work might be things you do within five years. But here's the point about all those goals. They should better you in some way.

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They should move you closer to a bigger goal that you have in life. I want to see you take that potential that you have. And in five years, I want to see you blast off into whatever that is you're looking forward to do. Yeah. Why are you laughing?

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It's the pessimist in me. What if people just see potential that's not actually there? Then I want you to go ask Andy. I want you to go ask Josh. I want you to ask Heather.

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Yeah. I want you to ask them what potentials they see in you. Because let me guarantee you, if there is more than one person saying the same thing about you, that's probably true. And you're just talking down to yourself about it. I'm probably in the wrong.

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And guess what? We're all guilty of doing that to some degree or less. Maybe sometimes. Yeah. Now, there are some people who are complete narcissistic and they completely think fool themselves and they think about things.

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There's that, too. But I'm telling you, as someone who has seen you grow up, as someone who has seen you make surprisingly mature decisions at times that surprise the heck out of me. Yeah, we all make mistakes. We all do dumb stuff. That's why I said I'm talking about the good stuff right now.

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As someone who has seen you do these things over the years, as someone who has seen you shave your facial hair off, that's a mistake. That was a mistake that you have learned from, yes, thankfully.

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But as someone who has seen you grow up and mature in those ways, and I guarantee you, what I want for you is hundreds of times less than, like, what your parents want for you. Oh, I'm sure they raised you from a little kido. I was a little baby boy. Yeah. They have to probably figure as long as I can help them around the house, they're good.

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Once they're gone, they're gone. We have to worry about this no more. Oh, my goodness. Okay, that's not true. No, they saw enough potential in you when you, what, 18 to buy your drum set for Christmas.

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18? How old were you? Oh, no, I mean, they were my first drum set. Not your first drum set. Like, I remember there was a drum set, like you were 18 or 19 or something like that when you got a drum set.

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And I remember you commenting, my orange one, I don't remember exactly which one, but I remember the comments that you made, how you didn't feel, like, worthy of getting. I did not deserve this. Yes. It had to be the orange pearl. I can't remember when did I get that one?

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It was sometime during high school. Yeah, I thought it was like 18 or so. But they saw that passion for drumming in you and that skill set, and they want to do whatever they could to help nurture that. I'm not going to buy you drum set or anything like that, sir. Okay, look, let's be realistic here.

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Well, please don't. I don't have room for it. But I want to see you succeed at the things that you are passionate for. Maybe not as a career, necessarily. Being a musician is a tough career to get into and do well.

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I guess that is all the way around. But there. Are some parts that would be easier to get into than others, I suppose. But I want to see you utilize that career either to serve the community, to serve God, to be a blessing to other people in that way as well. Yeah.

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I like the second one the most, because you can succeed in that way and still work at your job and love it or hate it, regardless of that. But if you succeed in that other way, you can find a ton of fulfillment in there and succeed in so many other ways there. So that's what I want to see for you, sir, and I want to see you continue to take those steps forward and do it. And that's why I said, as you think of things at work, figure out maybe action steps you can take on them, and they don't have to be big things. And I think I've told you this before, do not take on things that you think where you take a big goal without little steps to get to it.

[00:38:10]

Make some grandeur. Yeah.

[00:38:16]

Because those ideas good. Those thoughts good. I'm glad you have ideas and thoughts. Yeah. Now, the next step, and we don't have to do this on the recording here, we can do this offline, even, is what are those steps to get you forward towards it?

[00:38:33]

And are those steps manageable? I hope so, because one of them is just literally the whole getting past the laziness aspect of stuff. Right. And then we set a goal. And here's the thing with setting goals.

[00:38:50]

They have to be measurable and actionable. Yeah. In other words, a goal of I'm going to practice. That's not measurable. I'm going to practice 1 hour a week.

[00:39:03]

That's measurable, right? Oh, yeah. You're setting times in there. You're setting commitments in there. Because I want to see you, sir, like I said, succeed.

[00:39:16]

I want to see you succeed in those ways. There are other ways that I pray for you to succeed in. Yeah. But those aren't things that have to happen or anything. No.

[00:39:27]

Those aren't things that are ultimately going to determine, I guess, your success in life, necessarily. Yeah. But these are things that we're talking about, those kind of do, whether you end up having a family or not or kids or not, that's a whole of the conversation. And that's different. People find different things in that.

[00:39:51]

Right.

[00:39:54]

But you can be a single person in highly successful or you could be a married person in highly successful. Yeah. Marriage doesn't make you successful or not. No. Why are you laughing?

[00:40:09]

Silicon. And you Tate. Oh, my goodness. We'll talk about him in the next episode, actually.

[00:40:17]

Yeah, gosh. But this was my message to you, Aaron Johnson, as you start off 2023, that's a lot easier than I expected to be.

[00:40:32]

The message to you is this oh, find those things of which you are passionate about and pursue them pursue them in such a way that not only do they make you fulfilled and successful, but that they also bring honor and glory to God. There we go. All right, cool. Because by bringing honor and glory to God, you may be fulfilled and successful. Now, fulfilled and successful can look like a lot of ways.

[00:41:02]

That doesn't necessarily mean you get rich. No, it can mean something. I could lose everything. Right. It can mean building a friendship, building a relationship that might be that meaning of successful.

[00:41:18]

So that is my message for you as you start off, 2023, because I want to see you succeed. You have had glimmers of success. I want to see those glimmers continue and be consistent.

[00:41:42]

Trying to think of what the glimmers are.

[00:41:47]

Like I said, they were glimmers. They weren't full on shooting stars, shining bright. Clearly not. But there were glimmers things that I've seen through the years that you have done, where I go, maybe he's finally getting it and maybe 2023, my prayer for you is that this is the year you finally get it.

[00:42:13]

And don't take this next sentence the wrong way, but also take it as a challenge. Aaron. Yeah. You need to stop being a boy and finally turn into a man. No, I'm tossing to the towel.

[00:42:30]

That's all it took. That's all it took for you to say, I'm out.

[00:42:40]

I'm kidding.

[00:42:44]

Yeah. That is my challenge for you. Yeah. So I had a message for you, a prayer for you and a challenge.

[00:42:57]

Those aren't simple things that I just delivered to you. Now, think about it this way. I'm giving you this message now when you're single, still, if you ever get married, can you imagine the challenge and the message I'm going to give to you then at your wedding?

[00:43:17]

That's a good reason not to get married.

[00:43:22]

They're just lining up here. Wow. Almost choked there for a second. No, but in all seriousness yeah.

[00:43:36]

That'd be a terrifying one to listen to. Then I feel like. Why? I don't know. Not terrifying.

[00:43:44]

I don't know how to describe it other than that. Because here's the thing, man. Yeah. And I need you to understand this right now. I think you've understood this.

[00:43:52]

I'm just reinforcing it in your head. Just because we're friends does not mean I'm going to go easy on you. I'm trying to think of that. What was that? Wasn't it?

[00:44:09]

I never remember what the chapter slashfreds. But the whole thing about the open, rebukes, better than hidden love kind of stuff. A real friend wouldn't just be easy. Yeah. So the problem you're talking about, it's talking about where the enemy will come with honey and sweetness.

[00:44:28]

Right. Basically, they'll be like, oh, Aaron, you're doing so great. You're doing great, wonderful, wonderful. You cannot do anything wrong where a true friend is going to come and say, hey, yeah. You know what you did.

[00:44:39]

You screwed up here. Yeah. And I'm not saying I don't know if that's a pure analog, but yeah, I get what you're saying, because this isn't Aaron. You're a screw up. This is Aaron.

[00:44:53]

You have potential. I want to see you fulfill and achieve some of that potential because you're not doing it yet. I know. That's kind of like an underlying current there. Yeah.

[00:45:06]

But at the same time, it's not a rebuke. No, this is Aaron. You can do so much. God, I believe in yourself. And there's a lot of people who are rooting for you to do well, and you know who is doing that and you know that any of us would help you in any way we can.

[00:45:33]

Yeah. So the message, prayer, the challenge, that's how you're starting off. 2023, Aaron.

[00:45:44]

I already feel like it's going to be a fun one. Oh, yeah. Hopefully it's better than last year. Oh, I mean, anything is better than 2022.