Making 2026 Your Best Year Yet!

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hey, welcome back to Grow Tential. It's the Father Daughter podcast, where as we learn and grow, we want to share what we are learning and growing with you. How are you, my dad? [00:00:16] Speaker B: I'm doing pretty good. How about you? [00:00:18] Speaker A: I am good. I said, Lex, my daughter, she did a sermon on Wednesday and any suffering. [00:00:28] Speaker B: I watched it. [00:00:29] Speaker A: Yeah, Wasn't it great? [00:00:31] Speaker B: Yes, it was. [00:00:32] Speaker A: It fits the theme of our last couple podcasts. So if you get a chance to go back and listen to it. What was it called, Lex was their title why Do I exist? Part 5. But in it, she talks about how John Lennox says, in our life, there's bombs and beauty. Was it John Lennox? And I feel like that's what this week has felt like for us, is it's bombs and beauty. Bombs and beauty. Have you ever heard that saying? [00:01:05] Speaker B: No, but I like Linux. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. We lost a good friend this week, and we had something awesome happen to our family this week for our future. And so it's been. It's been bombs and beauty. [00:01:20] Speaker B: God is big enough for both bombs and beauty. [00:01:23] Speaker A: Yes, he sure is. He sure is. We are filming this right before Christmas. It is December 23rd today. What are you looking forward to most about Christmas? [00:01:35] Speaker B: Having Christmas dinner with my family. [00:01:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:38] Speaker B: All the kids and the grandkids and now baby Selah running around. [00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:43] Speaker B: I just love it. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Baby Selah will be owning the dining room table. I'm pretty sure if she's standing on top of it, she is hard to light. Our little monster baby that we love. [00:01:56] Speaker B: She. She. She has a way of her own. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, too. I'm looking forward to just turning off for a little bit and resting and getting to be with my family. I sure love you guys. Well, every year at this time, we like to look ahead. As a church, the leadership team normally starts in, what, August. We kind of review what the year we just had, what, how did God move, what goals did we hit, what did we not hit, what did we not see coming? And how can we build on the stuff that God is so clearly in? And so we start with the review process, and then we start to build goals around it. And something I heard that was a really cool idea was when you are building goals, so many people do, like, professional goals, personal goals when it comes to, like, weight loss or how you want to get healthy, but rarely do you stop and look and say, what do I want from my life? I want to have life goals that shape who I am and where I'm going. And do life purposefully instead of reactionary. When you think about your life, dad, would you say that you've been more reactionary with business or looking ahead or really good in the business sector? I call business, it's church. But you have to lead. And there is that level of business in the church world. What would you say have you been good at life, personal, business? What has been your sweet spot? [00:03:43] Speaker B: So I, I started very young with this idea that you got, somebody's got to drive the bus, you got to know where you're going, what do I want and why do I want it? Is that a question we've dealt with a million times? All right, so it turns out you can accomplish in 25 years immensely more than what you imagine. And you can't accomplish in one year what you think you can. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:24] Speaker B: So I've always been a really big believer in the 5 year goals, the 10 year goals, the 15 year old goals, and I even have a notebook down there that I had 25 year goals on. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Did you look at those recently? [00:04:44] Speaker B: No, but I'm pretty sure I could tell you what's mostly on it. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Do you feel like you're hitting them? [00:04:52] Speaker B: I think everything on that list is a reality now. [00:04:57] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's really cool. [00:04:59] Speaker B: And you know I'm big on plan and review. [00:05:02] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:02] Speaker B: So you have to have your plan if you're gonna review. [00:05:05] Speaker A: So now when you do all that, does that encompass your whole life or does that just encompass the church world? [00:05:13] Speaker B: No, it encompasses my whole life. My personal goals, my family goals, my self development goals. [00:05:21] Speaker A: How old were you when you think you like this became important to you? [00:05:30] Speaker B: Well, I learned the structure of a lot of this when it's the Franklin planter. Do you know what I mean? [00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:38] Speaker B: So the Franklin planner gave me my original structure for doing this. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Mm. Okay. So when Jacob and I started this probably, I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago, where we decided to look at it as like our life. And we only get one life. So we wanna, we wanna be proactive about the life we want. And so we started doing five year goals together for our family, for our kids, for. And now we recently just redid them for just him and I personally, because we're empty nesters basically. But one of the things that I love about it is the intentionality. When you can put intention behind your life, there is so much more success. There's such bigger wins. It's purposeful and not reactionary. So this podcast today is gonna be about what are the six things that we can do in 2026 to have a better year. And as we shape these, I would love for the audience to think about it in the kind of way of big picture first, and then putting your goals in what you really want for your life. Does that sound good? [00:07:01] Speaker B: That sounds great to me. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:03] Speaker B: I love the idea of living on purpose. I hate the idea of drifting through life. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's so easy to do. It's so easy to get caught up in the little things in the day to day. And, you know, you look for the big picture stuff like we're gonna go on this vacation or we're gonna do this, and then everything else is just like drifting. So the intentionality, it does, it matters to me. But I think I learned it from you, my dad. Well, turns out you're a genius. Okay. So when we think about six things in our life that could help us get better for 2026, give me your first idea. [00:07:49] Speaker B: I believe it's important to be growing in my understanding and intelligence. I want to live life smarter and smarter. And so I. I want to have what Boyatsas calls a self directed learning plan. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:10] Speaker B: I learned this from Boyatzis and it's in his book Emotional Intelligence. So when you're, when you go to school, somebody else creates your schedule, your curriculum. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:27] Speaker B: They tell you you have to take this class and you have to take that class, but when you graduate, that stops. And we have to take responsibility for creating our own curriculum. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:41] Speaker B: What do I want to learn? In what way do I want to become more intelligent? What understanding do I want to increase? [00:08:51] Speaker A: And this is so interesting because I think for me, just being done with school was like, things. Thank you, Jesus. That I never really thought about this. Like, what do I really want to know? Where do I want to get better and what. What interests me? Like, those kind of things. So when you think about this growing in intelligence, when did this become important to you? Because you were not a great high school student, correct? [00:09:20] Speaker B: No, just barely. Grad. Just barely. They actually just pushed me through because they didn't want me there anym. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Okay. So when did you fall in love with learning then? [00:09:34] Speaker B: I probably didn't in college either, because I worked my way through college. I was kind of utilitarian. But then I met Dr. Douglas, and he really started to challenge me about realizing my intellectual potential. He's the one who got me reading Systematic Theology. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:00] Speaker B: He's the one who got me to go to graduate school that I wasn't even considering right So I would say. [00:10:06] Speaker A: And now you sit here with your THD. [00:10:08] Speaker B: I would say, in my mid-20s. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Okay. Do you think he. He saw the potential in you and didn't want you to settle for less? [00:10:22] Speaker B: I think he was just a. He just had a passion for mentoring people. It came natural to him. He liked doing was a meaningful task to him. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you saying. It's almost like Dr. Douglas is mentoring me a little bit right now with the systematic theology and some of the framework that you use, that's kind of cool to see generationally, how that can pass. I love that. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah, we pass it on. [00:11:02] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. Okay. So this is tricky for some people, because some people, it comes very natural. You. A lot of the pastors here have the gift of just high retention. This is not my gift. This does not come naturally to me. [00:11:21] Speaker B: You're pretty smart. You don't give yourself enough credit. [00:11:24] Speaker A: I think I'm higher in the emotional realm than I am in the intellectual realm. And so I think I can pass some things off. But it's okay because we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And so I think a lot of people in the audience might feel like me, where maybe this isn't their. Their sweet spot. So even just thinking about it can feel overwhelming or like something you might not really want to do. They're like, okay, what's number two on this list? [00:11:52] Speaker B: Well, Siri, this also gets easier if we understand our learning style. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:00] Speaker B: So I know you listen to a lot of podcasts. I don't listen to hardly any podcast. If I'm gonna be able to read or listen to a podcast, I'm gonna read. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:15] Speaker B: So the better we understand our learning style, the easier this gets. [00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:23] Speaker B: I know people who like to listen to recorded books, and they'll listen to recorded books all the time, but they won't read a book. Well, that's just fine. [00:12:33] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:33] Speaker B: It's not how you get the information. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Right. It's that you get it. [00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:38] Speaker A: And so what's been wonderful for me is understanding that about myself, pushing myself. But I find that I have goals now that I never. I never wanted to be ordained, dad. Never in my life did I think I'm going to be ordained and I'm going to be preaching. Like that just was never an outlook for my life that I saw coming. But the more I follow, isn't it. [00:13:03] Speaker B: Beautiful that God gives us surprises? [00:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah. The more I followed him and the more I said yes, and the deeper longing I had to understand, who is this God that I want to follow. Like who is he? And the more you read scripture, it's. There's just a longing of like, I don't understand this, but I want to, I want to understand this better. And so finding ways that open up my heart to and mind to, what can I know deeper? Because I think it not only affects my life, but it affects my kids life, it affects my team's life, it affects the congregation. The more I know, the more I study, it affects the people around us. So when you think about your learning style, you would say you're definitely a reader. I am more of hands on has been my number one learning style. I would rather do than sit and read any day of the week. But I do like the idea of finding podcasts. Now when you think about this self directive curriculum, we're saying I want to get better in this area this year. Does that sound fair to what you're saying? [00:14:22] Speaker B: All right, here's an example. So last year, 2024, I bought the four volume set of Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics. And I set a goal that I was going to read two volumes a year for the next two years and then I would. In two years I could read all four volumes. All right. So then I took the first volume, figured out how many pages there were, divided it by 150, and I said if I'm going to read this in a half a year, I got to read this many pages. So then that becomes my curriculum. Every week in my study times, I read my pages and then I actually, I actually read two and a half volumes this year. So I'm a half a volume ahead. [00:15:25] Speaker A: Nice work. [00:15:26] Speaker B: Okay, but that doesn't happen by itself. [00:15:28] Speaker A: Right. It's not accidental. [00:15:30] Speaker B: It's a curriculum you create. Just like you had to go to school, you had to take your quizzes, whatever. You have a curriculum you create for yourself. [00:15:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So mine looks a little bit different. One of the things I really wanted to grow in this year was self discipline. I just, I want to get better at it. I am a free bird by nature. I like freedom. I like it a whole lot. But I want to be disciplined. And so I listened to every book I could on Walks of the Power to Change and Atomic Habits. I re looked at this year and Charles Duhigg's book. And so it was a lot of listening, it was a lot of podcasts, it was reading. I bought the books. I'm doing something new this year that I didn't do in previous years where I'LL listen to the book and then I'll buy it and reread it because retention is a little bit. I'm not as good at it as others, so that helps me retain more. So mine just looks like, okay, what is the theme or what? What do I want to grow in? What areas? I am in my ordination studies, doing the theses for the books of the Bible. And I will say I had a poor plan at the beginning of the year. I didn't. I made it too loose because I like freedom. You know what I mean? Like, I'll just have these books done by this date. And I didn't. Everything, they got pushed because everything else took precedence. So then now I'm. Every week this book is going to be done with this theses. So I. It is way more like you're saying, how many pages? How are you breaking it down? But I do think there's different ways. So what interests you? What. What do you want to grow in? Because we should be lifelong learners. Yes, that is a theme of yours throughout life. Why? Why? Why should we be lifelong learners? [00:17:28] Speaker B: Because there's a difference between living life fully, living up to your potential, and just living the same year over and over and over again. Some people, they don't. They live the same year over and over and over again. They don't learn anything new. They don't change anything. So their life this year is a repetition of what their life was five years ago. And that's wasting your life when you're living on purpose. I'm growing into my potential. And because I'm growing in my potential, I can understand things I didn't understand. I can do things I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. I can accept challenges that would in the past been way beyond me. [00:18:37] Speaker A: And that's the cool thing, I think as we get intentional about our life, God opens up doorways. And so when I. So my husband and I, we had a dream of owning something by the water, and it was a dream. And so we found this little trailer that was like a tiny home about a year after we were planning. And I think we actually found it on that trip, but we ended up buying it about a year later. And that opened up doorways to things that I never knew possible. Like people could stay there so they could get away and seek him. And I never saw that at the time, but I think when we get intentional about learning, God is going to use that for the good of the people around us. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Okay, so what would you say to someone who maybe has never done this before, has never been intentional. What would be your number one tip for them to do this in January? [00:19:47] Speaker B: So I get to write my own curriculum. So that is a blessing and it is a challenge. Right. And we are big believers in curiosity. I'm gonna do my best learning where I'm curious. So I would take a sheet of paper and I would sit down and I would answer some questions for myself. What am I curious about? What would I. What would I like to learn more about? Would I like to learn a foreign language? Would I like to learn a new life skill? I don't know if you remember, but a year I decided I was going to learn more about painting, and I bought some painting books, I bought a painting set, and I started painting as part of my art curriculum. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Oh, I remember. We've got paintings of yours. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:51] Speaker A: And you did a pretty darn good job. [00:20:53] Speaker B: They're in the closet somewhere. So hopefully you're curious about something. And there's all kinds of stuff out there. There are all these programs for learning a foreign language. There's all these programs for. You can. You can actually watch college courses online. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:26] Speaker B: And not pay a fraction of what the kids are paying who go to school. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I think when you're talking about this curiosity and this. It is actually the number two thing we're gonna talk about. I'm sorry. There's clearly someone on the roof. [00:21:42] Speaker B: They're working on the roof. [00:21:43] Speaker A: We did not see that one coming. [00:21:45] Speaker B: That's all right. [00:21:46] Speaker A: This church is beautiful, but we built it so that the ceilings are all exposed and it makes it very thin for, let's say someone's on the roof working right above us. Or it rains. You can hear everything. But if you listen to our podcast, you're used to noise in the background. [00:22:02] Speaker B: So it's not a sound stage. [00:22:05] Speaker A: We'd rather be comfortable in our setting than, like, locked in a room with no windows for great sound. [00:22:11] Speaker B: So we're looking out a beautiful window right now. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Okay. So I think this curiosity piece, I think we've talked about it in previous podcasts, but this would be the second step of what is calling you in your life. Where do you want to grow? Where are. Can you be self aware? So for some people, it's cooking, and a lot of moms are, how do you eat cleaner and give your kids a better start than maybe, let's say I got with bologna sandwiches. You know, I am struggling with food for the rest of my life. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:49] Speaker A: Because who doesn't like a coca Cola and a bologna sandwich. [00:22:52] Speaker B: You know what I mean? [00:22:54] Speaker A: Moms that are doing the healthy stuff are literally throwing up as I say that. Lexi has been big into making bread and homemade cookies that are healthy or with clean ingredients. And so, like, that's awesome. [00:23:09] Speaker B: I think all of this stuff is part of the learning process. [00:23:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And so it's a self awareness of. Of what is calling you, dad. What is calling you? [00:23:22] Speaker B: Well, I set a goal. I read the Greek New Testament to myself six times a year. And I set a goal this year. I'm gonna read it out loud. So I learned I've read the whole Bible in English out loud several times. And the Bible sounds different when you're reading it out loud than when you're reading it in your head. So I've already started. I got a head start on next year. And I'm reading the Greek out loud in Greek and then I'm translating it out loud into English and. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Wait, what do you mean you're gonna read. So wait, I just thought you were gonna read it out loud in Greek. You're gonna read the Greek out loud in English? [00:24:19] Speaker B: I'm going to read it out loud in Greek. [00:24:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:21] Speaker B: And then I'm going to translate that sentence out loud into English. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Oh, cool. [00:24:26] Speaker B: So I'll read a sentence because the New Testament's written in Greek, right? I'll read that sentence out loud in Greek and then I'll translate it out loud into English. [00:24:36] Speaker A: And this is why your mind is so incredibly sharp. [00:24:39] Speaker B: So I'll be doing. So it's actually you get three things. You get. You get to hear it in Greek, you get to hear it in English, and you get to think about it in Greek and English. So you. Every sentence you touch three times or it touches you three times. [00:25:01] Speaker A: That's cool. I love that. I love the repetition of it too. Okay. So that is the. The Greek New Testament's always calling you, huh? Yeah, it's. That is a theme in your life. I think for me, this ordination process, I want to see it through this year. And so that is calling me on a life dream. I, Jacob and I have wanted to find property for our family where if the kids wanted to build on it, they could. And so that's calling my heart deeply. And we're excited to see all that God might do in that. So I'm going to be learning about land ownership and like, it just interests me. It makes me very, very excited. [00:25:47] Speaker B: You're going to have Green Acres. [00:25:49] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But I just, I dream of a place that Would our home. The grandkids could walk to our house and we can do fires out there. [00:25:59] Speaker B: Well, maybe ride a four wheeler over. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Exactly know if they'll be walking. Yeah, I. I don't know. I just. It makes me. And I think it's one of the life things I want. Our family is so important to us and you and mom have done an incredible job in that of, you know, our family's everything. Yeah. And a lot of people come and go, but we stick. [00:26:21] Speaker B: God, family, and church. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So when you think about your self awareness level, dad, what would you say a weakness and a strength is? [00:26:40] Speaker B: So my, My strength. My weakness is I'm rarely the most sensitive person in the room. [00:26:50] Speaker A: I like how you put that. [00:26:53] Speaker B: I'm. I'm rarely the one who's. I'm really the one who's picking up on too much tension or my mom. [00:27:01] Speaker A: And I will be in a room with like my dad. Jacob's better at picking up on attention, but he's still not as clear. We'll be in a room, we will be dying. We will be so uncomfortable. Dad and Jacob having the best time never knowing the depth of the discomfort in our soul. [00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah. No, that's not a strength for me. I thank God for Shay. She said to me many times, didn't you see that? So and so was. And I said, no, they looked normal to me. And then I would say one of my strengths is. I'm gonna stay with it. I'm gonna persist until we figure it out. [00:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:56] Speaker B: We're gonna make our. We're gonna do our best preparation, then we're gonna take a good hard run at it. And if it doesn't work, we're gonna sit down, we're gonna aar it to death, and then we're gonna try it again. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I would agree totally. I think one way I wanna end this podcast today and for another podcast on resilience, which I think is what you're talking about, and empathy. And we'll end with integrity. But as we close out on this one, I think we do have to lean in if we're going to accept our weaknesses, we have to accept our strengths. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:41] Speaker A: And I think the beauty of accepting your strength is how did God hardwire you? And leaning in not to, because my tendency is I'm inept in all these things. But God's working anyways. Like that's my tendency. But the reality is God's worked pretty great in a lot of things too, that I have a harder time talking about my Strengths, and I do my weaknesses. It's just easier. But I think I heard a pastor say it. You have to own your strengths in the same way you own your weaknesses. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Yes. [00:29:17] Speaker A: So. So when you think about someone listening to this podcast for 2026, what is one good idea on this self awareness piece of how do you own your strengths and your weaknesses? [00:29:37] Speaker B: So Daniel Goldman wrote an awesome book called Emotional Intelligence. You and I have been following Brene Brown's book on labeling and understanding emotions. So first of all, we have to start paying attention. I have to be aware in the moment. I have to have time where I sit down and I inquire of myself, what do you do? What are you doing that works? What are you doing that you continually don't do so well in? What are you doing in life that energizes you? Yeah, what are you doing in life that de energizes you? [00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Right. And if we start paying attention, life will talk to us. If we. [00:30:43] Speaker A: Sometimes it decides to scream at you, you know, if. [00:30:46] Speaker B: If we can be open and allow a people we trust to. To give us advice. So Sunday I said something, and after the service, Katie said to me that sounded a little harsh. You might try saying it this way. So in the second service, I said it the way she said it. [00:31:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:18] Speaker B: If she had not have said that to me, I would have not have been aware of it. I wasn't aware of how it sounded. [00:31:25] Speaker A: All right. [00:31:27] Speaker B: So all of these things, if I'm open to them, they'll start pointing the way. [00:31:36] Speaker A: But. [00:31:38] Speaker B: Following up, having the self discipline to stay with it. 1, 1 Self evaluation period will never be enough. And at the very beginning, you got to have. You have to have them all the time. But the better you get to know yourself, then the easier it is to recognize. All right. These things are going pretty well. I don't have to put a lot of work on that. I'm off the rails over here. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:14] Speaker B: I'm also a believer that develop your strengths. Why spend hours and hours to be mediocre at something at best when you can spend hours and hours and you can master something? [00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:29] Speaker B: I want to put my energy and effort into what I can master, not what I can be mediocre at. [00:32:36] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much. I think to live our best life. We're getting started. I hope this podcast has been helpful with you. The idea of growing in your intelligence, but also the second one, what is calling you? Where are you curious and how can you be self aware? I think it's going to be very helpful to think through these in the New Year. So Happy New Year everybody. We will join you next time with the next four or two or whatever we can get across. But I hope this was helpful. Please share like it? Pass it on. Happy New Year. [00:33:17] Speaker B: Merry Christmas.