So here's the thing, a lot of guys are not afraid to choose
the wrong thing. They're afraid of missing the
one thing that will make them truly happy.
They think that is their calling.
But what we are here at the All In Podcast to talk about today
is what happens if you don't know you're calling?
What happens if you're worried that the thing you're about to
choose isn't the thing that you are being called to.
We are going to dive into all of that here today at the All In
Podcast. Don't go anywhere.
All right, gentlemen, welcome back.
Good to have everybody here. It's good to be here, Little.
Nuts around here. There you go.
So we're here, we're talking about calling.
What is your calling in life? And, and for many guys who are
afraid of, of the reality of missing their calling, I think
sometimes we we put on an additional weight on our
shoulders to choose the right thing.
But sometimes that's not necessary in certain decisions.
So what are sometimes in y'all's lives that you feel like the
decision felt way heavier or more important than it actually
was? I am notorious for being
indecisive because anything will give me paralysis because I'm
I'm thinking ahead of like, how is everything?
This morning I didn't have time to to drink any coffee.
We stopped at a gas station to pick up a little caffeine.
If we went in time crunch, I could have spent 10 minutes
thinking about which energy drink is going to allow me to
have the best day and is going to lead to fulfillment.
Which energy drink am I being called to?
Yeah, which a white monster for the most part, you know, but
that like that's the level of ball that I'm playing on a daily
basis is just getting stuck in the smallest things in drama,
like dramatizing them into thinking that they're the most
important things of all time on a more like to what you're
actually asking. I think one of the heaviest
decisions that in or in the time of heaviest decisions I made.
But looking back, I'm like, that doesn't really like I don't know
if it would have had any sort of impact on anything was when I
was deciding on my 5th year A&M. It was a lot of like, well, I
could do summer classes and like graduate in August or I could
take classes in the fall and pack myself with like 15 hours
or spent my months 2 semesters. And it I mean, I went back and
forth for months and I thought that if I didn't do the right
thing, it was going to lead to me not finding the right job to
me not finding the right spouse to me potentially going to
heaven or hell. Like I thought everything.
Is very cool. Like the the I was just so I
couldn't think about anything else.
But on did I want to do a fifth year or not and to what extent?
So it wasn't I didn't have to do the calling, but I made it have
to do about a call. You know Clayton, what about
you? What you're describing, Jose,
is, is the cross of the melancholic soul.
So Michael can relate. He's married to a melancholic.
I have a Group, A group. Called the The Married to
melancholic support. Group it is, it's, it's brutal
because I'm, I'm the I'm the exact same way as you, which is
just that every single, you know, every single decision, big
or small, I just Mull over and over and over and over and it,
you know, it gives me anxiety. Like what if I choose the wrong
thing? And you know, what are the
repercussions of this going to be?
Or just like thinking about my life and what this and what this
and what this And so it took me. Two weeks to decide how much RAM
I wanted my laptop to, you know, I.
Can relate to that. We have a good friend, Jonathan,
and you know, we do the, we do the same thing where it's like
even, you know, I've talked about my task manager To Do List
on here before. And you know, him and I talk
about all the time about how, you know, when we're making a
purchase, it's like we'll have three options.
You know, whether it's, you know, downloading one app versus
another or which water bottle am I going to get?
You know, and I go through hundreds of reviews trying to
decide, you know, which one of these things is going to be the
best possible thing that that I could buy.
And it's just like, dude, it's a, it's a water bottle.
It's the one I. Have is antimicrobial.
Going through different colors of the Wallace until I blame it
on this. One you tried every single straw
in. The store, I held them all
against my hand, seeing how they would go with my skin tone, you
know? Up against my clothes.
Which one would look better with my black backpack, you know?
You know who's not like this? Jean, Michael.
Nope. I think about decisions two
weeks after I make them. That's exactly right.
That's how I've lived my life and, and to be honest, when,
when I'm with people and I'm, I swear, I'm not talking about
y'all. Just to be clear, other people
who are just, I don't know what to do.
I'm just like, just just do something.
And then if you made the wrong decision, you can just correct
it and go back. But I think the, the action
oriented side of me, that is a gift at times.
I've also made a lot of poor decisions because I've jumped
into something without actually thinking it through.
I'm wondering if if for men and and maybe for for ladies as
well, is the fear of missing their calling more of a fear of
missing out? Or is it a prudence of choosing
the right thing? Is it I want to take more time?
This is so important. I really want to make the right
decision here. Or is it let?
Is it more I'm I have a paralysis of decision because
I'm afraid I'm going to choose the wrong thing?
Well, I think, you know, it can't, it can, it can be, it can
be both. I mean, honestly, I could, I
could stand to be a little bit more like you and you could
stand to be probably a little bit more like me in situations,
you know. And so I would say up to a
certain point, you know, there's a healthiness and yeah, sitting
back and evaluating decisions from perhaps a practical
standpoint, and then also evaluating decisions from a
prayerful standpoint as well. But then when you at some point
you got to make a decision and there's, I don't necessarily
know where that line in the sand is, but my tendency is to go
over that line. And once you go over that line,
then you're, you know, valuations of your decisions
become more motivated by fear than they do about prudence, I
would say. Do you think that the idea of a
calling people think of as like this one specific Rd.
That I need to go down and so that maybe stresses them out is
like, all right, there's six different ways to get to that
destination, but my calling has to only be one of those things.
Yeah, I, I would say so. I think I know, at least in my
own life, most of the times where I'm afraid to make a
decision to paralyze is because I forget that there are many
different ways to get to that point in time and space,
whatever you want to call it. And yeah, I think we could all
use that reminder more often. I know whenever I am reminded of
that by my friends, people like you, John Michael, that's OK.
There's a lot of ways to get there.
Like it's OK. I think that's when it's like,
oh, you're right. And this decision, maybe it's
still a big decision, don't get me wrong, but it's, it's a lot
easier to take and be like, OK, if I make a mistake, it's going
to be OK because there's 15,000,000 different roads that
are going to lead to the same destination.
But I've convinced myself that there is each of the six options
in front of me each lead to complete opposite directions and
there's no crossover. And that's why I get paralyzed.
Is that I'm wondering too for, for people?
Is it that when like, let's say you're making a decision on a
job, right? We're all we're all at a point
of our lives where, you know, we've either made decisions for
job and career or we're kind of in that stage of our life where
we're kind of looking ahead and thinking about that.
And there's so many different factors, right?
There's there's pay, there's city, there's lifestyle, is it
remote? Is it not?
There's Co workers, there's leadership structures, there's
industry. Am I going to like that
industry? Am I not?
So when you're making a decision like a job, you have 16
different factors that you're looking at.
And what's the compensation package?
And do they send me a laptop and all these things?
And I'm wondering if maybe some of that paralysis is instead of
focusing on three key objectives in that 16, that 16 item list of
things that you want, you're, you're trying to find that
perfect one that checks every single box for your lifestyle,
for your compensation, for your city, for your time.
And I'm wondering if when you lack that high of a level of
clarity, if that's what trips people up.
They want to know. I want to see everything on
paper before I make a decision, and I'm curious if that's ever
even possible to know how that's going to work out for you before
you jump into it. I mean, I can, I can relate to
that just because I think that, you know, a lot of my decisions,
there's like a compulsive need for security.
You know, there's like a fear that, you know, a decision that
I make is going to lead to some form of, of insecurity in, in my
life. And so before I take a, a step
in something, a step in a direction towards something, I
want to know that I'm going to land and become and be
completely fine. And that's just not the reality
of our life here on this earth, You know, in our exile on this
pilgrimage is that, you know, we have to, we have to put 1 foot
in front of the other and, and, and sometimes not really see the
full picture all of the time and just trust that that God is
going to provide for us. And that's something that I
think that, you know, I need to grow in day by day.
Absolutely. It's funny, I, I feel like as
I'm sitting here, it lasts however long we've been talking.
I'm like, yeah, I definitely get like that when it comes to small
decisions. Like when it comes to like, what
color is my water bottle going to be?
I, I will sit for, I could sit for hours trying to decide like
when my wife's like, Hey, what do you want to go eat for a date
night? Like that is one of the hardest
questions you can ever ask me. But when it comes to like big
decisions, I'm a lot more like you in that sense where I'm
like, I, I think there's a point for me where it crosses like
there's too many variables. Whereas now I'm just going to go
with my gut and hope for the best.
And live with the consequences. It but when it comes to like
less variables, I want to examine every single variable
like on their microscope where I'm just like, yeah, I don't
know because I keep going back and forth.
When it comes to my fifth year A and MI knew it wasn't that big
of a deal maybe and that's why I've molded over so much that it
became a big deal. But when it comes to what do I
want to do? You know, after a couple years
and a job, I'm a lot more likely to go.
I know what I want to do. I'm going to go do this.
Do you think that as you've inherited more and more
responsibilities in your life that you have become quicker to
make decisions or more fearful to make decisions?
What do you think? I think, I think I mean, the
biggest, the biggest decision that, you know, all of us have
ever had to, to make is the decision to propose to our, our
now wives. And that was something that, you
know, in, in the, in the dating world and the, the pre
engagement world and the enduring engagement that can
just bring up a lot of anxiety and, and uncertainty and talking
to a lot of people. That's that's really, really
normal, you know, to, to feel that way because you're, you're,
you're making a decision honestly, that at that point in
my life, when I was, you know, 22, I didn't, I didn't feel like
I had the authority to make, you know, it's like, I don't, you
know, I just graduated college. I have no idea what's going on
in my life, you know, no. And so I would say, you know,
yeah, once you start making big decisions like that and you see
that all things work together for good for those who love God,
there's a greater there's a greater freedom there.
And I think too, you know, I was thinking of the line from the
the Easter Vigil. Oh, happy fault.
Oh, what is it? Oh, glorious sin of Adam, that
one for us so great a Redeemer that that God works good in in
all things. And perhaps there are certain
times in our life where there's no great clarity of like there
is this one specific path, there is this one specific decision
that that I feel like God is, is calling me in this direction.
But then we also have to remember that God gives us a lot
of freedom as well to use our own, you know, human reason to
make a decision. And then even in the midst of
that, you know, using our reason to, you know, to make pros and
cons lessons to figure out, you know, what's better, you know,
ABC or D. And then also trust that, you
know what, even if I do make the wrong decision here, I have a
good father who who loves me and is going to, you know, like just
thinking of our children make poor decisions all the time, you
know, and we snatch them up, you know, out of that.
But we also want to give them, you know, freedom to to make
those decisions as well and just know that we're going to support
them along the way. Reminds me of there's a quote by
Saint Augustine. Do you say Augustine or?
Gus. Augustine or Augustine?
Augustine. Augustine, I do too.
Smart people. I just want to make sure we're
on the same page. Here's a quote that is love God
and do whatever you please. Have you just heard this quote?
That sounds wonderful. Which I I think gets misused a.
Lot I could. I could.
See it I could, that would be
abused. Because it's like, Oh yeah, I
totally love that. But I, I think there's a second
part to that quote that people forget, which is live God and do
whatever you please for the soul trained and loved to God will do
nothing to offend the one who is beloved, right?
And I think that. Second sentence is really
important. Really.
Important, huge, but that goes to kind of what you're saying,
which that has allowed me a lot of freedom when it comes to the
bigger decisions. And maybe you know what I was
saying, if like the bigger decisions don't cost me as much
stress because part of me knows like, OK, I, I have to trust my
formation. I have to trust that, OK, I'm
instead of grace, I pray daily. I go to mass as much as I can,
not daily, but I try. You know, it's like, I love God.
I'm doing all these things. It's all, no, I'm not saying
that it I can't sin by any means, but it's like, OK, a soul
trained. What does it say?
A soul trained and loved to God will do nothing to offend the
one who is beloved. It's like there has to be a
trust there that I'm not going to purposely do something that's
going to lead my family away from salvation.
As long as I'm still in these places of being a state of
grace, continuing to love God, continuing to put him as like
the most important thing. If we can get those things, it
doesn't really matter where my wife and I live and raise a
family. You know, it doesn't really
matter what job I have. Now, again, the other side of
the coin, I think when I first heard this when I was in
college, I was like, oh, love God and do whatever you please.
The Saints at that. Great.
I can do whatever. I want buy Bitcoin, yeah.
Keep calm and chive. On like I'm going to go to the
bar still 3:00 AM everyday. It's fine, you know, I love God.
Yeah, I think we, you know, in my day job, I, I help out
recruiting and hiring and retaining people to, to focus.
And I know you guys have ample experience in recruiting, in
recruiting people to come work for us also recruiting people to
work in, in different organizations or camps or
apostolates or companies. And so I think we actually, you
know, the All In podcast doesn't have a ton of talent.
I think if there's one area we do have a lot of talent in, it's
like we are well versed in helping people make decisions.
I mean, we, we've done this for our day jobs the last 3-4 years
of our career. And I think you guys would,
would all say the same thing. What is the thing that
frustrates you the most when you're walking with a, you know,
soon to be college graduate in terms of his future?
I don't feel called. I don't feel called.
I don't feel called and and I think for for their sake, I
think what they're saying is, is I have confusion or dis clarity
about my direction. I think another thing that I
have done myself and I see in some of these young people is I
won't take an A step in that direction unless I feel like
that is the thing I'm supposed to do.
And so I won't attend a interview unless I feel like I
really, really want that job or I won't take a step to, you
know, ask a girl out unless I just know she is the one.
I won't apply to this company unless I know everything about
the company and I've read their mission statement and I've had
coffee with the CEO and I've talked to five employees at the
company to get their experience. And I just think that that
attitude, one that we can relate to, certainly it is just
dangerous because calling necessitates some discernment.
Discernment could mean a way of thinking through something, but
discernment necessitates action. You can't actually discern if
something's good or bad for you without going and checking it
out. And so, you know, our advice to
people in our recruiting of them has always been, hey, just come
get to know us a little bit. Like before you can make a
decision on if you want to work for us or not, we just come
check it out. And you know, I call it a first
date, like come and come and go out on a date with us and, and
get a feel for who we are. And then you can figure out what
the next step is there. Maybe it's interviewing great.
Maybe it's you get an offer. Awesome.
Well then the next step after that is decide if you want to
work for us, but don't make a decision on if you want to work
for us until, you know, if you even have an offer to come join
us. And so that discernment
necessitates action and action necessitates an act of the will
to go and do that thing. So use your head a little bit
more, you know, don't lean into your heart nearly as much.
I don't feel that it's my calling.
It's like God has given you rational capabilities to think
through things. What's the line y'all think?
And I don't want to derail too much, but I think first is like
what does calling even mean? I think what what some people
think it means is you're you're Saint Paul on the way to
Damascus and God knocks you off of your horse and makes it
abundantly clear to you what your job is in your life or.
But I'm like, I, I just don't know if I believe that that's a
thing. No, no, I I'm saying that's, I
think that's the connotation that people have.
Because it also implies that there, there's only like 1 in
there. That's it.
Which I guess is what we're talking about.
It's like, yeah, I don't know if I subscribe to that.
It's it's extremely nuanced. Yeah.
Clayton, can you help us? What do you got?
Look, I'm like if, if you love God, yeah.
If you're leading. Your family to eternal life as
best as you can. If you're not leading people to
send, it doesn't matter if you do sales IT you know, HR or like
whatever it is, there's no really calling.
There there is a something I've been thinking about as I was
talking with a friend of mine recently and he was having a
conversation with one of his spiritual directors and they
were talking about, you know, entering into the Christmas
season. He's got two young children.
And he's like, I want to do this, I want to do that.
I want to do this. I want to do that.
And she kind of slowed him down and was just like, you know,
like all of those things are, are, are good, but it's like
you're in a lot of ways, you're, you're trying to exit the
reality of your family life to go and, and do these external
things. And if you, if you run away from
your reality right now as a husband and father, and you know
what it's like to have two young, young children at the
home and you know, they're international missionaries right
now, you know, visiting family back in, you know, back in, in
Texas, If you run away from that, like you're, you're going
to miss God, like God comes to you and is present in your
reality. And I think a lot of times when,
you know, we're, we're looking for a calling, you know, in a
lot of ways, we're looking, we're looking for something, you
know, out out there outside of ourselves.
I have to go out there and have to find it.
I have to search for, I have to look for it, you know, and it's
this complicated decision when in reality, I think you have to
take a step back and you have to look like, what's the present
reality of my life? What are the circumstances that
I find myself in? What are the relationships, you
know, that the, the people that are around me, you know, who are
the people that I can talk to and ask questions to to help me
in making a decision? And I think it's, you know,
again, you know Saint Augustine, you know, I, he, he.
Faustine. Saint St.
Dino, you know, he he finds he finds God within himself.
You know, and I I don't know, I if you guys can can help me
there kind of process that of looking for God elsewhere when
maybe you have to take a step back and when we're talking
about, you know, recruiting and inviting young men and women to
to discern becoming a focus missionary.
It's like, hey, you know, like maybe this, maybe this isn't
something that you you want to do, you know, and that's that's
totally fine. But also like, you know, so much
of your college experience in the relationships that you've
had have been, you know, through relationships that you've formed
because of the focus missionaries that are on on your
campus. You know, and maybe that's just
something to look at and to consider.
And I'm not make I'm not trying to push anything on your make a
decision for you, but like this has been a huge part of your
life. It's worth, you know, taking a
step and and just looking at it at least a little bit.
Well, I think that going back to the the core analogy of, you
know, there's a destination, there's a couple different ways
to get there. I think as we determine and
define calling, there's a few non negotiables and we could
identify some of those not non negotiables.
One to love God with your whole heart, your whole mind and your
whole self and to treat your neighbor as you would treat
yourself. Like those are those are some,
some non negotiables that are objectively you're calling that
every human being who's been chosen by God, which everyone
has been chosen by God, has to have as a part of their calling
to love God and to love his people.
And then there's a kind of hierarchy of loving his people.
And so there's there's love of, of spouse.
If you're married, if you're, if you have a vocation to the
priesthood or religious life, it's loving the church.
That's your that's your primary there.
And then your secondary's your, your children, if God blesses
you with those or your spiritual children.
And then your third is those whom God has entrusted to you
through friendships and through your family.
And so it's kind of like, all right, non negotiables over
here, love God, love people, love people, in that order.
And then you kind of move to the negotiables of job, career,
location, all of those things. And so as you're looking at the
negotiables of life and then you have the non negotiables of
life, which is probably we would define that as the destination.
You look at these things and you see, OK, there's like 6 to 8 to
10 to 15 roads that I could take to get to that same thing.
And that is where things get difficult because you know the
non negotiables and I think a lot of our listeners us may be
clear on those. What they're unclear on is the 8
different roads to take. And maybe the advice I would
give there is some of those roads may be more predisposed to
helping the negotiables than others.
And so as you look at those things, you may find some of
those avenues allow for you to be more free to take care of
your your obligations to God and to his people.
And so you should lean hard to discovery of those maybe as kind
of your primary. And then sometimes people aren't
called to those things. Let's let's talk about career
for an example. You know, some people have
chosen to work careers that are, you know, somewhat significant
and hours worked 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week, 50 hours
a week. Maybe they're a lawyer or
something like that. And, and you would, you would
look at that and be like, OK, well, are you able to really
love God and, and love his people?
If you're, if you're really working hard, is that really
predisposed to these things? And there may be a reality that
even though it's not predisposed to those areas as much as
another role would be that that person still has the same
capacity and opportunity to love God and to love his people, even
though maybe his life isn't as predisposed to those things as
another opportunity would be. What are your thoughts there
that does that line up? I think so, Claire.
Any thoughts as I continue to process with?
Well, I think I think you're just kind of reminded me of like
what I was talking about a little bit of just what, what,
what present reality do you do you find yourself in you know,
and you know, our, our, our just the reality of, of family life
is each day kind of looks different, you know, and, and
growing in leadership and responsibility.
Your, your, your days and the way that you use your time look
different. And the way that you, you know,
the way that you lived your spiritual life and communed with
God in, in college looks vastly different than it does now.
And I think, you know, where we, you know, start to be judgmental
of others or even critical of ourselves is kind of trying to
compare things. Things need to look a certain
way and to be a certain way, you know, all the time.
And, you know, just trusting that, you know, that there's
particular seasons or careers where things have to look
different to know and, and to trust like, OK, this is just,
you know, you know, maybe I need to think about, do I need to
start doing things differently? Or maybe I need to think about,
you know, how do I just, you know, OfferUp my life as it is
right now as a as a sacrifice to to God and, and trust that he's
going to do with the little he's going to do a lot with the
little things that I can get to him.
As we've kind of gone through this season of podcasts, we, you
know, we've had a lot of episodes that have a similar
thread. You know, we, we talked about
the role of vacation in life. We talked about kind of the
hustle culture and what that means and, and concepts that are
certainly related. Maybe they're not the exact same
thing, but there's kind of a narrative journey.
I think that we've been been walking our, our listeners
through the last, I don't know, month, two months or so.
How do you, is there a way that this this aspect of calling
plays into the kind of some of the other things that we've
talked about South hustle culture, vacation, hard work and
like the value of excellence in work?
How do these things kind of interact?
I think the thread that I'm seeing in a lot of these
episodes, as we talk, we keep talking about getting distracted
from what God has put in front of you, right?
Whether it's by chasing the calling, whether it's through
the grind culture, whether it's, you know, by always wanting a
vacation for my life, It's pretty much all different ways
of saying like not fully entering into the reality that's
in front of you, that God is entrusted to you in getting
distracted from that for whatever reason.
You know, that's kind of that's the main thread that I'm seeing
through all of these things is or calling our, you know, not
vocation. I can't think of the word, but
our life, the most important thing in our life is love God,
love your neighbor, you know, love your family and that's it.
And be present to reality in front of.
You the word that was coming to mind for me was freedom and, and
just the, the freedom that we have as as children of God, like
you said, Joe Michael, there's, there's certain, there's certain
non negotiables, you know, and you know, the non negotiables
would be frankly, you know, Sunday Mass, you know, the, the
church would say confession once a year.
You know, I like, you know, we probably preferential to go more
frequently than that. But you know, there's, there's
certain freedoms that that God allows us as as his, as his
children. And I think, you know, a
tendency for a tendency for us is to just, you know, put an
immense amount of pressure on ourself, the pressure to
perform, the pressure to achieve, the pressure to, to,
to, to make the right decision. You know, and, and a lot of
those things I think are, are driven by a sense of shame that
I need to cover myself up. I need to, I need to, you know,
I need to hustle, you know, I need to, I want to consume a lot
of things, you know, I want to want to make the right decision.
It's just, you know, I think if I could describe a way that I
feel like I've grown in the last seven years is I've grown in an
immense amount of freedom and just trusting and believing that
I'm a beloved son of God and that and that he and that he
loves me and he's, he gives me the freedom to, to make my own
decisions. And I and I and I go to him and
I ask for direction, I ask for clarity.
But even beyond that, I asked for an increased sense of hope.
You know, I asked for an increase of faith of just God,
like help me to believe that that you love me, that you're my
father, that you're present with me in my everyday life.
And that, you know, you've given me the relationships and the
tools that I need to, you know, to to be the leader that I want
to be in my family, to excel, you know, in in the workplace.
And you've given me the human intellect and the reason to make
to make right decisions. And I trust that if I make the
wrong decision that you're going to be there with me, you know,
And so that's what I mean, if, if anything to, to the listeners
is it's just, you know, how is God and inviting you to inviting
you to greater freedom so that you're not, you know, just
burdened by a sense of overwhelm, anxiety, shame, that
God, God loves you as you are right now.
And he's and he's guiding you. And so to, to go to him just in,
in silent trust. And that, you know, even if you
mess up, it's OK. It's going to be OK.
Yeah, I love that. And I think the hopefully the
value add that we're giving our listeners is to to give them
experiences and conversations about faith in in action.
To give them an experience of not just faith in a, in a church
or faith in a song or, or an old lady type of faith that that
doesn't really have any concrete practicals to it, but that we're
having conversations about. What is faith look like in the
real world? What does real life faith look
like for a man in the midst of his obligations?
And I think we've been having a ton of fun diving into those
realities the last the last couple episodes.
So as we finish up here, if you have been enjoying what you're
hearing from the All In podcast, we ask you to please share this
with a brother who needs holiness in his life.
Maybe you guys can be on a journey together, share these
episodes with him, make sure that you're liked, that you're
subscribed, and that you are locked in to all things all in.
Over the next couple of weeks, we have more incredible content
coming straight to you on all of our platforms and we look
forward to seeing you in the next one.