#115: Creating something great from what you've been given (with Justin McRoberts)

This week on The Puddcast I am joined by Justin McRoberts. Justin’s focus is on helping people live generous lives that faithfully do good work in the world around them. He’s a musician, a writer, a coach, and he hosts the @Sea podcast. We talked all about the process of becoming, trying something, failing, refining your understanding of your own passions and pivoting around those things in order to create something amazing out of whatever life has handed you, all themes from his new book, It is What You Make of It: Creating Something Great from What You’ve been Given.

Order It Is What You Make of It: Creating Something Great from What You’ve Been Given by Justin McRoberts
Learn more at justinmcroberts.com
Find his music on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
Listen to his podcast, @Sea with Justin McRoberts
Follow Justin on Instagram.

Support the show and my other work, at jonathanpuddle.com/support
Order my trauma-informed 30-day devotional, You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You.
Find every book or resource I’ve talked about recently on my Amazon storefront, in Canada, the United States or the United Kingdom.

Check out the B-Side!

Once you’ve listened to this, make sure to check out the raw and uncut B-Side interview where my friends and I unpack the conversation in even more detail. Available exclusively on Patreon.

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Transcription

Jonathan Puddle  00:01

Hey friends, welcome back to The Pudddcast with me, Jonathan Puddle. This is Episode 115. My guest today is Justin McRoberts. Justin is all about helping people live generous lives that faithfully do good work in the world. To that end, he has been and is a musician, a writer, personal coach, does all kinds of interesting things, and is a really fun guy. I really, really, really enjoyed this. I find myself saying that every week, so obviously, I'm just blessed to have amazing conversations with people all the time. But editing this podcast and going back through it today, so many things stuck out to me. And I'm really excited to share this with you. Justin has a brand new book out that we talk a bunch about today. It's called "It Is What You Make of It: Creating Something Great From What You've Been Given." Justin also wrote a book called Prayer and May It Be So, co-wrote those actually with Scott Erickson, who has been on the show before. Today, we talked all about the process of becoming—I guess—of trying something, of failing, of throwing all your energy into the dream you think you have. But really just letting that refine the... refine your understanding of yourself and of your passions and of life. So that you can actually then pivot around those passions in order to create something amazing for the very people that you're in relationship with. It's like a whole different way for me of thinking about the process of becoming and of creating. So if you are creative, if you are entrepreneurial, if you are stuck at a point in your career where you're bored and you want to make a change... if you are just looking at, hopefully, you know the end of this COVID time and are dreaming about the future, and thinking about like what should the next phase of my life be like.... then there is a lot of really great stuff in here for you. I'll link to Justin's book and his podcast and other resources in the show notes and talk about them again at the end of the show. Let's get into it.  Justin McRoberts. I was new to you, we've been following, I've been following you on Instagram for a while and just seeing your your, your little writing snippets there. And I was like, who is this guy? Is this like, is he some kind of poet? Or like, what is it? And so I've been digging into who you are, and I've been actually sitting in my living room listening to your music the last couple of days, and it's been delightful. It's been a really, wonderful soul space for me. So thank you.

Justin McRoberts  02:39

That's generous. Thank you.

Jonathan Puddle  02:40

And welcome to the show.

Justin McRoberts  02:42

Thanks for having me. That's a great start. Why don't we kill it there? That feels really good.

Jonathan Puddle  02:46

Excellent. All right. Head to his website and buy his stuff. Goodbye.

Justin McRoberts  02:51

Done. And goodnight.

Jonathan Puddle  02:52

Okay, so you're... I am guilty of saying, "it is what it is." I say this all the time. It is like a really common turn of phrase for me. For me, it doesn't mean that I'm like giving up. But it's me sort of like, it's my it's my saying this is, this is something I've chosen to be content with. Because I can no longer change it.

Justin McRoberts  03:12

Yes. Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  03:14

So you've written this book, "It Is What You Make of It: Creating Something Great From What You've Been Given." And honestly, when, when you first emailed me and pitched the title, my initial reaction was, "Man, this sounds like just more of this work harder bullshit," that I have like tried to train out of my own life. But But I thought that would be incongruous with everything else that I've seen about what you do. And so as soon as I began reading, I was like, "Oh, this feels hope filled. This feels like an encouragement." This feels like, this feels like actually I'm given.... what's the word? I guess, like, like agency and dignity.

Justin McRoberts  03:53

That's exactly the word I want people to walk away with.

Jonathan Puddle  03:56

So talk to me about it. Why did you write it, where'd it come from?

Justin McRoberts  03:59

Well you kind of you hit it, you hit a bit of a nuance thing for some folks that will come, I'm assuming they'll come to the book for the same reason they would come to—and these are not rips because I like these people a lot—the same reason they'll come to like a Jon Acuff book, or, or a Gary Vaynerchuk book, or a Seth Godin book. Oh, they're all doing something similar to some degree as well. But like folks, including myself, I go to those folks, cuz I go to Seth Godin, or Gary Vaynerchuk or Jon Acuff, because I'm looking at my life and thinking there's stuff I want to be doing, there's more, there's a sense of more, and I want to learn how to, I want to learn how to work better. That's why I show up there, like there's work that I want to do in my life. I want to be better at that. And I love like, I love that impulse in people is to is that whole like, you got like, you know, work harder bullshit, like, yeah, I like the idea of like, working harder, kind of, but I want to do something with this a little bit. Like we have a slightly mutual friend and by slightly mutual, I mean, we're not really friends-friends, but in Aundi, who said, you know, "try softer." Like her thing is like, let's take this and tweak this a little bit. You're not wrong wrong wrong about this approach. There's a little bit of a twist here. So you said a second ago, the really nuanced bit that's actually right at the heart of it is, I don't want you to care less about things, I want you to care about fewer things. So like, you can't care about everything. So when you say it is what it is, there are times when like, you what you're saying is like, this is I am content with this. And I think the reason we say that is not because it's not actually about the thing itself. It's not about this monolith of, you know, systemic racism. It's the like, I can't, I've come to an end of my particular efforts here, which is more so a confession of powerlessness, one, like, I can't, I recognize my own powerlessness. So I'm going to talk about me instead of that thing, like "it is what it is", no, no, that has nothing to do with this. You don't have the energy for it. Let's just name that you don't have the energy for it. That's cool. Or, you don't know enough about it. I don't know what to do about trans kids and suicide. Okay. But that's not "it is what it is", it's awful and it should change...

Jonathan Puddle  06:13

Yes.

Justin McRoberts  06:13

...you just don't have the agency, the information or the you don't have the energy and the information. So let's name that what it is. And as I begin to pare that down, then the things that I really do have enough information about, energy for, a passion for, a sense of wisdom to... like a sense of divine connection and relationship with, those are the things that I can like, redirect all this angsty energy where I feel like the whole freaking world's coming apart at the seams (which it kind of is) and say, "This is the space in which I know that I can function well and wisely, and like, I'm going to actually apply my energies here." So it is, part of, part of what you got to just now is like, it's not a matter of "This doesn't matter." It's not a matter of "I don't care about it." And it's certainly not a matter of like, "This just is what it is, and it will never change." It's just I I can't do I can't do that part right now and I'm confessing my own powerlessness or disconnect here, which I think is really important.

Jonathan Puddle  07:03

Yes. So it's kind of like, let's not leave the world unchanged.

07:08

Yeah, you you can work only so hard, in only so many places. You're gonna die at some point, it's going to come up, like that. You and I were both in our freakin 20s yesterday, and making plans and thinking about like, what life would be like, "Oh my God, who wants kids?" And then all of a sudden, literally, it's all of a sudden, like, I have two. Like and then, like, what happened? It goes by real quick, like, life is not, human life is not a renewable resource. It has a beginning as an end, and then it's done. You have so much time, you have so much energy, you'll have so much money. What specifically do you want to do with it? And part of what steals the joy of that is like this sense of like, I've got to have my hands in everything, I've got to fix everything, I have to care about everything. You really don't. You have to know what it is that you can care about, you have to know what it is you can do something wisely and well about and apply yourself there. Once you've done that, you get to say, that's not just what it is, that is awful and it should change and God bless the people who apply themselves to that, I'm just not powerful enough or wise enough or smart enough or informed enough to actually do something about it, which is a very different thing than saying, "It is what it is."

Jonathan Puddle  08:18

Right. Right. Right. So it's yeah, it's like choosing your battles, but much, much more much more robustly. You know, you kind of almost laid out like a five point Venn diagram of all these different factors and we're looking for that gold spot in the middle where, where the fullness of your humanity gets brought to bear on something that...

Justin McRoberts  08:42

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  08:42

...hopefully impacts someone else.

08:45

Well, and the reality is, that's probably where I'm working anyways. Right? The reality is, is like that the Venn diagram of the things with the thing I actually care about, the thing I actually have legitimate agency and the thing I actually have a budget for, the thing I actually have time for, the thing that actually impacts my life, which is usually the factor that actually draws us into it, like does it does it really affect your life? Those are the things that eventually... those are things that are actually acting on my soul, anyways. I'm probably already working there. I'm probably already doing that. And so to recognize that and live fully into that, as opposed to distract myself from the thing, I'm probably living already in that like golden spot. I just, if I could do that more consciously, more wisely. One, I'm more effective in that place where it's like, yeah, I, I don't not care about trans teenagers, I just don't have any in my life. And so I can worry and I can... or I can recognize that there are people who are working really diligently to meet those kids right where they're at, and love them exactly where they are. And I can apply instead of that worry energy over here, like how is this going to work, I can apply my energy to the things like there... what there are is there a bunch of kids in this neighborhood whose parents are gone a ton of the day, most of the week, and I get to be an adult who's present to them. And that's the thing that I can do.

Jonathan Puddle  10:07

Yes, yes, yes. This is already so much more life / mission / philosophical than I kind of had in my head, which is wonderful. I'm... I love this. Boil it down to a couple of like, practical different spheres. Like, obviously, you do a lot of work in creative spaces. Do you have a particular modality that you're kind of envisioning when you put some of these words down?

Justin McRoberts  10:37

Ummm... You mean for my readers or for myself?

Jonathan Puddle  10:39

Either, both or or how does this... why don't you talk about your own life and say, some of the some of the lessons and the projects and the screw ups for you. Tell us a story.

Justin McRoberts  10:51

So I started playing music in my early 20s. And the whole kit and caboodle for me with music was like, I wasn't I wasn't—this story is actually in the book—I wasn't trying to play music for a living. I was just writing songs because like, I was a kid who didn't do the God thing at all. And then like, a number of things happened. I was like, "Maybe this is a real thing?" And I didn't know what the hell to do with that. And so I started writing songs. And the guy who owned the house I was living in came to me and asked if I was interested in making music for a living. Which takes me to this whole other level in which like, he, he didn't think I was good at music. This was what's fascinating. He actually did not think I was good at music. He just liked me as a person, which is which is actually true. We were at a thing in Nashville where he introduced me to, introduced me to a roomful of radio executives and and like store buyers and all these folks. This is 90... 98 99.

Jonathan Puddle  11:54

So the ahhh, "peak Christian music."

Justin McRoberts  11:56

Bro, it was blowing up we thought it was like, I didn't even and I didn't even... there's a layer to this. I didn't even know it existed. Like people like, "the Christian music marketplace." I'm like, you guys have your own? Like, why would you do that? That's so weird.

Jonathan Puddle  12:09

We sure did!

Justin McRoberts  12:09

When I was in it. And boy, did we and that didn't go that well. So, so anyways, I'm at this this thing in Nashville, Tennessee, and I walk onto the stage behind Frank, Frank Tate with Five Minute Walk records and he gets on the microphone. I'm standing behind him holding my guitar. And he goes, he said, "So this is Justin McRoberts. And he's the artist we'll be focusing on this year." Which is like, that's the normal intro everyone does that. But then like they talk about their artists, like "This is Audio Adrenaline, who..." Audio Adrenaline was like massive Christian rock thing at the time. They played that morning, like two sets before me. And their exec got up, was like, "This record is gonna change the face of rock, I think is might take over the world. The kids in Japan are gonna love it." It was just this big thing. And and Frank says, "This is Justin McRoberts. He's the artist we'll be focusing on this year. And I'll be honest, he's not very good right now." Like legit, 100%, without question, is exactly what he said. And he said, and then he said, um, "But I think a lot of the artists that you are going to see this morning probably won't be playing music two or three years from now, because it's really hard. I think Justin will be making art 15 years from now and it'll be really good. So I'm making a long term investment. And if you want to do that with me, great. If you don't, I don't care." And he walked off stage.

Jonathan Puddle  13:23

Wow.

Justin McRoberts  13:24

Right?!

Jonathan Puddle  13:26

That is something.

Justin McRoberts  13:27

That's something. And so I started playing music because, this not... because and this goes directly to the modality question. I wasn't like trying to play music. I liked, I liked what Frank was doing for me, which was to say, like, "I see something in you, that is not developed yet, it's not complete, but I want to invest in it. And so I'm gonna put my best foot forward." Because Frank didn't start a record label because he wanted to run a record label, he was just like, "How do I meet people where they are? People like music, I'll just do music". Like he never cared about the thing he was doing. He started like a pizza place after that. And like, it was just like, he would just do stuff. And it was never the thing itself. What it was for Frank is, there's something in you that gets sold a bill of goods by the culture or by the marketplace, or, or whatever propaganda is around, is around you, that steals from you the actual process of you becoming. So I wanted to do that with people. I want to do that for people as I go, "How do I get into your psychology somewhere where I can start tapping into that thing in you?" That is like the most glorious and happiest and deepest expression of who you are as a person. And if I can write songs to get there, great. And then when the song thing started to, kind of petered out, it was more about stories. And then when the stories thing... as that has grown, that's become more things like coaching and retreat leading, and like pastoring a church, but it never has been a matter of like, "the thing I'm doing." Like, I'll take that tool and I love that, like I liked pastoring church. I love writing books. I still like music-ish. But mostly I like getting into people's psychologies and tapping on that root and saying, "I think this might actually be the best version of you, how do we get this out of here?"

Jonathan Puddle  15:12

Mhhmm. I have experienced that. I am blessed and thankful to... a couple years ago be at something, I didn't think I realized that I was at a career, you know, an intersection point, I didn't quite realize it, but other people did. And I had, I had traveled abroad to see a friend who, you know, his life was falling apart. And a couple of other people said, you know, "So what are you doing right now?" And I said, "Well, you know, bla bla, bla," and one of the guys said, "I think that you are like a living room pastor, I think that's really the best version of who you are. So go and figure out how to monetize or whatever, in order to feed your family. But like, you should be having one on one conversations with people. That's what you should be doing."

Justin McRoberts  15:57

That's good.

Jonathan Puddle  15:57

And that... I tried all kinds of ways to figure out how to make that work. Most of them didn't work but here we are, 3, 4 years later, and that's exactly who I am and what I'm doing.

Justin McRoberts  16:07

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  16:08

You just said something that was really interesting to me, if I heard you correctly, that the thing that we do can sometimes block the process of becoming.

Justin McRoberts  16:18

100%.

Jonathan Puddle  16:20

Unpack that for me.

Justin McRoberts  16:22

So I'll work with... I do a lot of coaching now with artists, pastors, entrepreneurs. And folks, I'm not gonna, I will, I will say this out loud, this will be an overstatement. And I will walk parts of it back, but I think I have to start here: Folks get full-blown hung up on the end result. That's too easy to say. But it's exactly what I mean. I'm just trying to do some a little more nuanced with it. So I'll talk to an author or I'll talk to a writer. This is exactly what I do. I'll talk to a writer. And she'll say this happened, this happens all the time happened last week. She's like, "I want to I want to write a book," is what she says, she comes to me say, "I want to write a book." I'm like, "Okay, tell me about that. Like, what do you see?" She's like, "Ahhh, I dunno, it's just, you have these things, these thoughts and it's... I want to put them in book form." I'm like, "Okay, so you know, what's in the book?" She's like, "I don't really know." I'm like, "So what makes it a book?" She's like, "Why?" I said, "What, why are you hung up on the book?" She's like, "Because that's, that's what, that's what writers do." I'm like, "No, not necessarily. Okay. Do you write it all?" She's like, "Yeah, I write." I'm like, "Where does it go?" She said... Oh, no, she... I said, "Why do you hung up on the book?" She says, "Because I want to be a published... I want to be a published writer. I want to be a published author." I was like, "Okay, interesting. So do you write anywhere?" She said, "Yeah." And I knew this before I asked. I said, "Do you write anywhere?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you have a blog?" She said, "Yeah, but I also post to Facebook and Instagram" She's got a crap-ton of followers. I was like, "Huh, how often are you posting?" "Two or three times a week?" I'm like, "Okay, and you've got like, 25,000 followers on Instagram." She said, "Yeah." I said, "You know, the average book sells like 200 copies on Amazon, like right about. So you have books that sell like 4 million copies, and then all the rest of them and it average, averages out to like 200. "Every single time you post something to Instagram, close to 10-15,000 people read it. So you are actually a published writer, and you need to get off this whole book thing. Because you are actually the person you want to be right now. But the idea of this book is stealing that joy from you. Somehow you have to put a frickin book together to be a published author. Do you know how many people read books? Not that many people are reading books anymore. You know why? Because they're reading your freakin Instagram blog! Like they are already reading you." So... and this is what it meant, like, and this happens in perpetuity. And the thing that you just talked about with regards to pastoring, boy, don't you and I both know it with regards to like, what's it look like to shepherd people in the faith? There are like, two or three like sanctioned, stamped models, institutionally. Like it looks like this, and it looks like this, and it looks like this. And and also, if you want to do a dinner church thing, that's fine. Know what I mean? But like, what's it actually look like to shepherd people? That really should be like a completely open field without borders and like, and people are doing it all the time. But the idea of a church or being a pastor steals the joy from what you actually are in the relationship people to people around you. It happens all the time.

Jonathan Puddle  19:08

Wow. That's like, yes, that that is that is clarifying so many things I've experienced and observed in my own life, for sure. The... and I suspect, yeah, okay, I could, I could riff on this all day, but I'm gonna not because already my brain is like spinning off. But that is, that is so intriguing. Well, maybe maybe we'll stay here just for a minute. Because...

Justin McRoberts  19:31

Sure.

Jonathan Puddle  19:31

...even I think in COVID, I felt like there's this major gift in the midst of this horrific, painful traumatic experience of like, "Hold on, I've spent the last 10 years doing something I don't think I want to be doing. And suddenly I've had a big enough kick to decide maybe now's the time to change."

Justin McRoberts  19:52

Yes. Yes, please.

Jonathan Puddle  19:55

Yes, please. Do you think like, I don't know... I, that optimistic part of me, says we're headed for a better world because of all the human beings who suddenly woke up to their own humanity.

Justin McRoberts  20:09

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  20:10

In the midst of the death of COVID.

Justin McRoberts  20:12

Yes, yes, yes. Yes. And, you know, this is where it's a, it's a little, I'm a little nervous in saying some of these things because there is a correctness in the posture of saying, like, I don't want to... I don't want to over-speak about COVID and the cost of COVID, whether that's human lives or, or businesses, or whathaveyou. I don't want to minimize this be like, "Oh, it you know, God works all good things out for people"... that said, I don't wanna, I'm not trying to do that. But at the same time—it's a big ol' but—but but at the same time, if you are someone, and this is why I'm really glad the book is coming out now, if you are someone who has had that sense of upset, that unrooted sense that like "I've been working all this time at this thing, it was taken out of my hands, I've had no control over, control over it for eight months to a year. I don't know how to rebuild it the way it was, I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do. And there's part of me that doesn't actually want that back. There's part of me that it's like, like, I miss this thing. But there's a lot about it that I don't miss." If you're actually in that place, my push is like now is actually the time to not play it safe. Now is actually the time to—like literally now—and this is one of those like I have it's like I've got the scrolling numbers bot, "Act now! Call now, and you get this Ginsu knife!" Like but like now is actually not the time, if we're reading the culture correctly, if we're reading the moment correctly, now is not the time to play it safe, to hunker down and make sure you've got all your security in line before you take your risks. Because if we've learned something together culturally it's like, "There is no safe." Like this thing you thought you built, that was sure was ripped the freak out of your hands in a moment. Everything I knew I was going to do to make money in 2010... in 2020, wow, 2010 I'm that old now, in 2020. Like everything I knew I was gonna make money on that year, within five days, I had every single dime of money, like taken right off my calendar, in five days. I watched it happen, like at the very tail end of March, where all these folks are trying to hold on to do this complicated retreat. And the thing, gone.

Jonathan Puddle  22:36

Gone.

Justin McRoberts  22:37

It's the surest thing, I've been working on this for 20 years. 20 years of... the 20 years relationships, you had 20 years of established reputation in certain cultures, and certain states, certain towns, and it was gone for a year. There is no sure thing, except that I know who I am. And I know what I'm good at. And the thing I don't want to bank on is the end result, or what it's gonna look like when I have this finished project. What I do want to bank on is I'm actually good at some of the things I'm good at. And I actually care about some of these things really deeply. And I'd rather build my entire life around that. That's the thing I'm sure of, I'm certain that I'm at some point, you're just sure like you're just talking about. Like I'm... you know it, like you know, I pay attention to you. You're really good at what you do. And it comes across really clearly like you really care about what you do. And this is what I was saying, you know, before we started the podcast, it's abundantly clear that you care about the people you're working with, and for. Like, it's just very clear. You're in that spot—that's worth banking on. This is the time to actually say "I know that I'm good at some things. I think I'm good at some things. And I know that these are some things that I care about. And I'm going to take some risks and start building the next year and a half around what I'm actually good at, what I actually like doing, what I actually care about and see how that works." This is that time.

Jonathan Puddle  23:54

Yes, I resonate. That's great. Okay, so now I've got a picture of some dudes' faces, mostly dudes, for some reason, who come to me with an idea. And they are thrilled to, "I'm going to quit my job, I'm going to cancel my degree. I've got this.... this is what God is saying. This is the calling on my life. This is the prophetic word. This is the harebrained scheme that I came up with." And you know, it's not going to fly. You're... you're sitting on the other side, and you're just like, "Ahhh, it's not this one. Not this one." What do you what do you... how, what are your thoughts on that? Like, what do you say to someone... You just say it...

Justin McRoberts  24:39

Let's go!

Jonathan Puddle  24:39

What do you go with someone who feels like, you know, I'm 55 I've thrown all these things at the wall for the last 20 years... nothing's working.

Justin McRoberts  24:49

Yeah, so do it again. Get up. You're fine. Let's go. I'm thinking of two lines here. I don't know if you ever watched The West Wing, but one of my favorite lines in The West Wing is, I think it might have been epi... episode three, definitely season one. And Leo McGary talks about, like they come up against something, I think it was a gun bill. So maybe it's episode four or five, this gun bill and they're, and they they're trying, they're shucking and jiving, and they're trying to make the thing work. And they and now they realize they don't have, I think, I think actually the episode's called "Five votes down." And literally Leo McGarry says, "If we're going to run into walls, I want us running into them full steam." And I'm like, oooh, I love that. So that moment, where it's like, I have this harebrained idea, I think I've heard from the voice of God, I'm like, "Great, cool, let's throw, let's let's throw our weight behind that and let's go see what happens." If you think you're right about something, if you have a passion behind it, shoot! Just hold your expectations loosely for how that's gonna play out. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm not saying don't do it with all your heart. Do it! And when you... when it doesn't work, because it never works the first time, it almost never works exactly at 100%. But when it, when it doesn't work perfectly well, one... two things end up happening. And that is another straw gives you the second. Two things end up happening: One is I actually find my own limitations, my own shape. Like I like I figure out like, "Oh, this doesn't work. And I know it doesn't work." And I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not confused, like, well, "If I would have tried harder, I could have made it work." No, you knew you tried your hardest and that it didn't work. So now you're done with that one.

Jonathan Puddle  26:22

Mhmmm.

Justin McRoberts  26:23

Well, that's so that's part of what McGarry was getting after is like, "If we're gonna fail, we're gonna fail trying, actually trying." But then the other part of it is, you end up missing, we end up missing in ways that are like beautiful and wonderful. And we discover... because part of the actual work of art is like, "You are probably wrong about the thing you're actually wanting to do. But the vision of what you think you're supposed to do will take you in the direction in which you get to discover the thing you're actually better at." So if I don't actually sell out on this thing that's leading in this direction, and theology works this way, exactly the same way, of like, "No, of course you don't know what the hell God is like. But if you don't chase God, the way you think God actually works, then you won't find out how freakin wrong you are, and you'll never actually have the gracious, gracious moment in which we could be like have the revelation of like, 'I, I thought that this was this way, and clearly, it's not.'" Like you never get there unless you chase the thing you think. So my thing is always like, "Okay, yes, you want to do that? You have some resources, you got some time, let's go." And when we find out that we're not at 100%, maybe we're 30%. Cool, then 30% is way the hell more than we had when we got started. So let's start again at 30.

Jonathan Puddle  27:31

Yes, I like that. Okay, so let's say I like that. What do you say to the person whose, whose, just whose soul is now tired? You've taken a few solid hits, you've just said get up and go, but maybe it's like, "Okay, well, not, not this hour, Justin."

Justin McRoberts  27:50

Correct. That's the next book, man. Is a... it's actually true, this is... it's about Sabbath keeping and rest. And part of what I get into this book a little bit, has to do with rest... has to do with, like, with self-care, has to do with the relationship between rest and work. Part of what I have discovered in myself is the practice of rest has only really come as I've actually fallen in love with the work that I'm doing. So because I care about what I do, I really, really, really want to do it well. So when I'm not, it bugs me. And so then I pay attention to why and I realize that I'm tired. And I'm like, okay, I can't do this pace. If I'm working things I don't care about, I'm not really that concerned about the fact that I'm half-assed in my job, I'm just trying to get through. But if I care about what I'm doing, I'm like: I want to be fully present here and give myself completely to this thing. And I'm not able to. So I should probably develop better patterns so that I give a better version of myself to the space. So rest becomes an actual thing that I want, because I care about my work.

Jonathan Puddle  29:00

Yes.

Justin McRoberts  29:00

I actually think and this is a terrible way to say this, because, well, not terrible. I know this is a little bit counterintuitive. I don't think people go to rest first, I think particularly for people like myself and for the people I think will resonate with the book. I didn't start the Sabbath because it's a commandment. It's a commandment! Like, it's like, don't kill people, like don't steal things, you know, take a day off. Like, the take a day off.... like I was never gonna read the Bible and be like, "Yeah, so Sabbath. So I'm going to do that." You know what I mean?

Jonathan Puddle  29:26

Yup.

Justin McRoberts  29:27

It's like, I came to the practice of rest because I was working my ass off at things that I cared about, and I wanted to do that really well. And I think that's probably the case for a lot of us. So rest becomes important when we actually work at the things we care about. Rest is not important because we're not concerned about how healthy we are working, we're just trying to work so we can pay for our lives.

Jonathan Puddle  29:49

Do you think we could make a corollary and look at all the people who are the most frantically burned out and say, "Ha, you're probably not living in your integrity or working in your integrity."

Justin McRoberts  29:57

I would, I think that would be, I think that would be if, I'm I'm certain actually, there's some sort of study and it wouldn't shock me if it was like the like a, an almost direct parallel.

Jonathan Puddle  30:06

That's so interesting. Brené Brown, I've heard about talking about the difference between giving up and giving in. And she's sort of using giving in as this illusion to like surrender, that there is that there is like an inner leading, that is pulling you somewhere that you're probably been resisting all this time. And we've, you know, if we, if we, if we don't, we don't want to give up, right, we want to, we want to make something and be good. But that there is like, almost like a subtle thing between letting, giving up on something good. And then actually learning to like, give in to that kind of inner thing. I want, you tweeted this thing out yesterday, or just the other day, "My way forward is far more often hampered by not doing what I know I can or even should do, then it is ever by not knowing what to do."

Justin McRoberts  31:00

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  31:00

Where did, where does that lie with you in terms of kind of like... I don't know, the mysterious flame that leads us on, and desire, and not knowing, knowing what to do and not? Like, all that kind of...

Justin McRoberts  31:12

Yeah, I don't know that I think that I... and this is where like my father's pragmatism really plays into my life spiritually is... like, I don't think that the flame is that mysterious. I just think it's unexamined. I think it's untapped. To think like, I think it's I think there's enough. I don't, I don't apply myself to it. Like, I don't get all the way, I half-ass it. I mean, this is the, this is Lewis's whole thing, right? About like, you get satisfied with making mud pies because you don't want, because you don't know what it would be like to take a vacation at sea. The whole thing like we've done a million times, but there really is like... because I'm nervous, because I'm afraid—all these things are reasonable. I don't, I don't think it's a matter of like, I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. I think you know what you want to do.

Jonathan Puddle  32:04

Hear... sorry, because I hear a lot of people say things to me, like, "I just don't know, what I want to do. Or I just don't..."

Justin McRoberts  32:11

Yeah I think that... and I think that's trash. I think, I think that's, I think you do, I think you don't want to try because you don't want to fail. And I totally get that. But there really isn't another... there isn't a workaround for that in terms of what are you supposed to do with your life? Like this whole question, like, "What am I supposed to be doing with my life?" There isn't a workaround that bypasses the the long seasons, multiple long seasons in which you're doing things that aren't satisfying, so you can figure out what is. There just isn't a way around that. Like that's, that is the bog you have to travel through with Sam and Frodo in order to get where you're going. Like you have to do that.

Jonathan Puddle  32:48

You have to read all of The Two Towers before anyone lets you read Return of the King.

Justin McRoberts  32:52

Hahahah. That's exactly it.. "What this book is so long." Um, but that's it. That's exactly it. Like you had like, that is the bog I have to... and it goes, you know, to all that real simple sometimes Hallmark cheesy art stuff, like, "You have to make bad art in order to make good art." You have to live life poorly in order to live life. Well, you absolutely have to, you have to get things wrong. You have to be, you have to work through disillusionment, you have to work through disappointment, and not avoid it. You actually have to go there, all the way there and put your best foot forward, dig all the way and get neck deep into a thing and figure out like, I actually hate it here. Okay, cool. Then now we got now we got somewhere to go! So like, like, it's never almost ever that like I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do. It's, you know enough about what it is that you want to do. And, and you should just bank on that. And then we'll get to the whole "supposed to" later on.

Jonathan Puddle  33:51

That's really good.  We'll take a quick break from Justin's brilliance so that I can thank my patrons. Huge shout out to Kimmie, Mark, Melanie and Marcia, who are all brand new patrons, have come on in the last couple of weeks. Thank you very much for joining the team. Thank you to everybody who shares the show, who chips in, who gives one time gifts, who encourages me. I've begun wading back into a little bit of social, just I guess not wading, just dipping my toes, really. And it's, it's just nice to check my inboxes and find such lovely messages from people. So if you're the kind of person who has ever sent me a lovely message, or even just thought lovely thoughts in my direction, I would like to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I certainly appreciate being thought of and prayed for. Somebody gave me a lovely kind of prophetic word the other day. So hey, I'll take it. Thank you friends for being here with me on this journey, so honored to share it all with you. If you'd like to support me in any way you can go to jonathanpuddle.com/support and there you'll find a link to Patreon for those who want to give monthly or annually. As well as an option to give a one time gift if that is more your thing. Thanks for being here, we'll get back to the show.  I had a, I had a guy years back, I was a software, I was a Technology Director and I had a guy working for me, who was kind of leading training on this new software product. And, and I went away for a couple of weeks, and I left him in charge of completing this particular rollout. And I just, I knew he didn't quite have it in him yet to do it well. But nonetheless... he didn't know that I knew that, but but I was confident that I would come back to a bit of a dumpster fire. So I come, I come back to a dumpster fire. And he's so embarrassed. And he's like, "Jonathan, I screwed it all up". And I said, "Dude, this is perfect. This is...

Justin McRoberts  35:44

That's good.

Jonathan Puddle  35:45

...best case scenario. Because your two options when I came back, were to find a dumpster fire; or to find no dumpster fire, and no dumpster fire would mean you didn't push hard enough."

Justin McRoberts  35:54

That's exactly right.

Jonathan Puddle  35:56

And, you know that, like to your point earlier that showed him some of his boundaries that showed him "Okay, I, I don't do this thing as thought as as well as I thought I did. And I actually don't have as much like relational equity with those people as much as I thought I did." And he sorted himself out. Figured a bunch of shit out and then changed careers. And then like...

Justin McRoberts  36:16

Yes! And hearing you can hear the process is through you, the process of grace and mercy in a human life in which like, you did try. And now you can actually receive the grace so that you can try again. And if you don't try you don't trust the grace you're receiving. It's like, it's... so I love, I was just looking it up, so I get the the name of the book, right. So Gordon MacKenzie, who wrote Orbiting the Giant Hairball, did you ever read that book?

Jonathan Puddle  36:42

No.

Justin McRoberts  36:43

So he worked at Hallmark for the longest time. And he had this amazing job title at some point, just because he'd been there so long was just brilliant and creative and funny. But like his, his primary job was just to say yes.to people's projects and ideas. He literally didn't say no, ever. And, and the and the reason he did that was for this was because of that process. And people, what he believed in is what I was getting earlier. Like, he believed that insofar as you people have been hired by Hallmark, and they've been here, like there's something in you. I don't need to sort that out. I think you're here, you're chasing this because I think you feel it. I'd rather you get to it within yourself than me give you some sort of freakin thing to jump through and shape you into what I think you're supposed to look like. They only get you, the only way to get you all the way out is to say, "What's in there? What do you want to try to do?" Give me all that. Great. Let's go do that. Okay, this one didn't work. This one. Did you like this? Did that hurt? You still want to do it? Okay, cool. Let's keep that. How about we did this? You actually... Oh, no. Okay, great. And then and then let's move from there. And like then you learn your own shape, but you only get there through the process of grace, which you only get to by actually trying and actually failing.

Jonathan Puddle  37:51

Yeah, okay. So I think there's got to be almost a one-to-one theological corollary to this. And I think a lot of Christians don't believe it, like a lot of Christians live in absolute fear of failure, because they've been told like sin is the worst possible thing, and God is allergic to it and will hate you. And so why ever risk failing?

Justin McRoberts  38:12

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  38:13

What do you do with that, like, theologically?

Justin McRoberts  38:16

I don't think there's a theological justification for that. I think that since, I think that is like corporate institutionalism, in all honesty. I think, like, the reason I don't want you... If I'm a bad pastor, um, let's just say I definitely have been a bad pastor. And if I'm a bad pastor, there are a couple of reasons I don't want you to fail. One is I look bad when you do. Like, my product looks bad. If you're a member of my congregation, you go to my church, and you actually full blown drop the ball, my product looks bad, and I'm trying to sell this thing. That's one. Two, if if it goes the other way, or the, how shall I say this? This is why Rachel was so... Rachel Held Evans was just so important is because this was the her whole career, I'm gonna lose it, think about her. But this is her whole career, like, ah, like, "If God really is the active, wild, person, thing God is then like grace really will hold it all together. And as that happens, things will be revealed in you that your church can't handle because it's not designed to." So the problem ends up being is like: One, I'm afraid that I'm going to look bad as a pastor if you drop the ball. The other thing I'm afraid of is that you're not going to need me. Because if you discover that you and the Holy Spirit, you and and the Creator God, you and the Redeemer of all things are actually as tight as you actually are—you don't need me to talk out my ass 52 Sundays out of the year. Like... I can, I can, I can only come alongside and help! And that's, Like it's harder to get paid to do that job.

Jonathan Puddle  40:02

Yes.

Justin McRoberts  40:02

So I think that's actually what's at hand when we fear failure. I don't want to look bad. And I need you to need me.

Jonathan Puddle  40:08

Hmm, that's so real. Yes. Yes, indeed. And I have been that guy too. I have been that manager....

Justin McRoberts  40:15

So have I.

Jonathan Puddle  40:16

Been that director. I've been that project manager.

Justin McRoberts  40:19

I've spent a lot of years getting like, "Yeah, but I got a license from the institution that told me I need to make sure you don't blow it."

Jonathan Puddle  40:26

So 1999, I am... at the beginning of '99 I'm 12 years old. And I am at a music festival in New Zealand—where I was born and raised. And this cutting edge, third wave ska band came through called Five Iron Frenzy.

Justin McRoberts  40:45

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  40:45

And I happened to be stage support for my father who is a performing artist. And so that meant I got to live in the artists' village for the few days of this music festival. And 12 year old me met my hero, Reese Roper, and all these other folks. And, and I just remember being treated with such kindness, and...

Justin McRoberts  41:11

Oh they're incredible.

Jonathan Puddle  41:11

...and warmth and dignity.

Justin McRoberts  41:13

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  41:14

And I'm flipping through your book today and I find this hilarious story about you guys going on, on this tour. Would you tell us some of that story?

Justin McRoberts  41:22

Oh, yeah. So when so Five Iron Frenzy, I still number of really, really good friends in the band. Reese and I talked quite a bit. Leanor and I talk as well. I love these people. Always will. Five Iron Frenzy at the time, this was 1998-1999 was the flagship band on Five Minute Walk records. So not so long after Frank got up in front of a bunch of people and told them I sucked. He then put me on tour with his best band. We played 48 shows in 55 days, mostly in roller skating rinks, it was called "The Holy Roller Tour." So we were carrying our own sound system, our own stage. And there are two really two significant parts. And this is this is directly from the book they choose to give significant parts. One, was well, actually, this is not in this is not in the book, when you talk about being treated with dignity and kindness. So back in the day, when bands used to tour like that, and this happened to me, like I when I went on tours with other people, we would hand people... I'll just give you a number so that people understand, like how this actually works, we would end up forking over to go on to go on a tour with another artist, like $30,000 to be on that tour. And somehow I had to make back $30,000? Over the course of a tour to make it worth it for me and like I'm just, you know, I'm you know...  Five Iron Frenzy paid me out of their budget every night. Every night, they made sure that I left ahead.

Jonathan Puddle  42:52

Wow.

Justin McRoberts  42:53

Who does that? Like they will just come they will completely and foundationally different as a group. They will a grace and a gift at the time. So I'm out, I'm on the road. I know it's ridiculous that I'm getting paid. I know that. I was working for Young Life before this and I wasn't getting paid. And so we're carrying our own stage and we're carrying our own sound system, which means the setup is ridiculous. So we would arrive like 1:30-2 in the afternoon, two and a half hours of setup of the stage in the sound, which is a ton. And then we would strike it so they could group skate in the skating rink with the kids who came before and then would rewire the stage, play the show, tear down and then every night, every single night the band would hang out on the floor. And I'd never seen this: they were hanging out on the floor until the last kid was gone. So we would leave really late and really tired. And then night after night after night of that—for for 40 shows. I was confounded at the energy they had for the people that were there. Like that's just a ton. So show 48 we're on the way to the last show. We're driving to Dayton, Ohio. And a car pulls up next to us and they're screaming at us and I'm thinking like it's like they think it's the band. Turns out that the trailer that we had on the back of the... on the back of the van we are in, had lost a wheel. Not a tire, the wheel was gone and there was like this big spike shooting spark thing as we were like dragging like metal along the highway for like four miles! They were trying to catch us. So we're on the side of the highway with a busted trailer. The cops show up to help like "Hey, what's going on?" And like oh, we'll get you a tow truck. Hey, meanwhile, would you mind if we, you know, let this, let our dog sniff around your van. We're like, we're fine, I don't care. The dog loses its mind. And so now we are, one after the other, being filed out into the police car, being asked like are we running drugs between Ohio you know, between between Kentucky and Ohio? I'm like, I think there probably are people, I actually know there are, but like I'm not one of them. So like and the reason they're asking if we're running drugs is because the dog freaked out. They couldn't find any drugs because there were no drugs. No pot, no one was smoking pot, noone's doing a thing. But, but our tour manager because of our schedule, like I said, 48 shows after, you know, in 55 days, didn't have time, all the time, to go to the bank. And almost every kid showed up, 1100 kids per night, was paying in cash. And he had a suitcase, a duffel bag with like $40,000. And the cop was like, "Why? Who's carrying $40,000?" So now we're on the side of the road. And the like, they... one of the cop shows up, his daughter was a Five Iron Frenzy fan. He's like, "I know the band." So now we get... Now like this... only Five Iron Frenzy has this happen. So now the cop the police tour, tow truck shows up, they load out there, we're going 90 miles an hour up the road. And the real dilemma is this is like the last show, it's supposed to be like that. But you know, we're going to be barely on time. And the setup, like I said normally takes like two and a half, three hours plus. We get to the venue like an hour or so before the show's supposed to start. And there's a line of kids waiting for the band to show up. But they're not waiting there to like, just greet the band, they, they're they're waiting there to help. Then they're like, help load in gear. And they help, and they're just stand... and then they help set up, they do the stage set up, we start the show just a little bit late. And when they left, two things happen that blew my mind. One, they all left. They didn't hang around. They didn't ask for... they didn't like the and then, and then because it was a pay at the door thing, no one got in for free. They didn't want to! It was on the table, it's like, "If you helped, like thank you for being here." And they're like, "Nope, we want to support the band," and they paid their $12 fee to get back in the building. Which was just so mind boggling to me because that's not the way the world works. But that was—here you go—the culture that Five Iron had formed by being that way with people consistently night after night after night after night. And like, it reframed the way I wanted to do my life as an artist, like I want people to feel that way about me. Like when, like when I when I eat it, vocationally, I would like there to be a line of people that are like, not standing where I'm supposed to be and they're like "You're late, and you..." No! I would love to have people around me like, "Hey, this is a rough season for you. How do we help you work through that?"

Jonathan Puddle  47:15

Yeah.

Justin McRoberts  47:16

So I love that. I love that story. I love that about them.

Jonathan Puddle  47:19

You wrote right at the end of your book, "The future of meaningful life together is going to be smaller and more interpersonal."

Justin McRoberts  47:27

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  47:27

That's what that story sounds like. That's a small story.

Justin McRoberts  47:30

100% yes. Yeah. And it's a small story and it, you know, it wasn't big news. Like it wasn't one of those like, it wasn't set up to be that way. It was just like that 15 minute conversation with that kid who doesn't have the courage, and then the 15 minute conversation with that kid who hangs out to the very, very end at like 12:45 at night. And the reason she hangs out till 12, 12:45 at night, it's because she's actually terrified of people. And she doesn't like crowds. But she really really, really wants to know what it's like to be Leanor and be a girl on the road with a bunch of guys. And so she's waiting all freaking night. And instead of leaving or like, not giving that girl her time, she knows that this is what the whole thing's about. So she gives her the 15 minutes. And that kind of like we you know, this is that, this is like cheesy Christian stuff, but like that kind of like small seed of what you called kindness like, what is that? What if that shit actually works? What does that actually... what if that actually is the ballgame? And it actually does grow? What if that small thing really does amount to greater things than you can possibly imagine? What, what if that's actually true? What if it really is the mustard seed and not the megachurch?

Jonathan Puddle  48:40

Yes, come on. So good. Justin, where can people find out more about you?

Justin McRoberts  48:46

Um, if you just search my name on the Google machine, it'll send you to all kinds of places. I spend a lot of time on Instagram, I do a Q&A every Monday. And then my my podcast is called @Sea, the "At sign" and SEA, @Sea with Justin McRoberts. Those are the two most reliable places to find me.

Jonathan Puddle  49:06

Wonderful. I wonder if you would pray for us. I think what's on my head and heart through all of this, I think is having the courage. How do I sum it up? I feel like what you're saying to me here is to do with having the courage to allow the process to lead me through failure, through trying through going 100% at the wall and then picking up all the pieces to allow that process to to to lead me into that kindness and presence and interpersonal thing. That that's what art is.

Justin McRoberts  49:47

Yes, it is.

Jonathan Puddle  49:49

So...

Justin McRoberts  49:50

Yeah, I would love to. I... Spirit of God, grant, grant these beloved ones, even now, a deep sense of your actual... of their actual belovedness that they are actually beloved. And that what a loving God doesn't do is say, it's hard out there, and it's difficult to figure out but if you pay enough attention and if you work hard enough, you will figure out what you're supposed to do and who you're supposed to be. Instead, I think, a loving God says, I like you. Where do you want to go? I will go with you. I really like what I've done in you, even during the times you had no idea I was working in your life and your soul and your body. I like who you're becoming. What do you want to do with this? I will help you. May these beloved ones hear that, in the depths of their being, the invitation to become who you have been—for years now—making them into, as an act of love, an act of love that you joyfully participate in, and will continue to. Amen.

Jonathan Puddle  51:07

Amen. Honestly, there's so much in there. I think, even as I was editing it today, I was like, Hold on, wait, Okay, stop for a minute, and let me just unpack that. So I'm going to do exactly that with my good friend, Melissa. We're recording today or tomorrow a B-Side for this interview. So if you want to go deeper and process with me, and with Melissa, some of the things that Justin said, I've been scribbling notes furiously. Like I'm just fascinated by so many things here. We are going to have that, it's going to be up on my Patreon Puddcast B-Sides. So if you want to go and grab Justin's book, make sure you order it, it's on Amazon right now. It is called, It is What You Make of It: Creating Something Great from What You’ve been Given. You'll find it linked in the show notes. Head to JustinMcRoberts.com. Go listen to the @Sea podcast, find his music, listen to him, follow him on Instagram. Justin's a wonderful, warm, generous thinker, writer, creator, and he will challenge you, right? Like he's generous. but he'll also hold your feet to the fire, I think. If you need some coaching, here's your guy. Alright friends, we've got a couple more weeks of very, very exciting interviews coming up, some major names, and then we'll be done for the summer. So stay here, don't go anywhere. We'll be back next week. Much love!