Prayer in Action: The Mighty Men Protocol’s Blueprint for Lasting Change

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken PL and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ welcome back to another episode of the damn shame podcast today I have Sydney boa with me I just use my Spanish right there good uh Hey Sydney is an online entrepreneur with a background in marketing and e-commerce and his current work focuses on helping men overcome addiction through a program called The Mighty Men Collective cityne glad to have you man how you doing today dude it is such a pleasure to be on here so happy I'm doing good God is good how about you dude I it's the day of recording it is one of the hotter days here in Nashville Tennessee you live in Dallas so you know yeah the heat right now you're feeling it exactly but I'm enjoying it man after this I'm gonna go play with my kids and it's gonna be a ton of fun so sounds like a good day I I want to talk about our conversation today because the title is prayer and action the Mighty Men protocol blueprint for lasting change that's what we're going to talk about but before we do that man just so people could get to know you a little bit give me a random fun fact about Sydney the last time I ate eggs was when I was in second grade no yeah I hate eggs and it's funny because me going to the gym and tracking macros and stuff and my dad's a powerlifter so he puts me on these plans and he's like s you just have to eat eggs and I want to eat eggs because of the protein and just how easy it is but psychologically I can't get myself to eat them dude what kind of trauma did you go through with eggs that you don't like eating eggs it's not so I clearly remember it was literally like 10 minutes before my parents dropped me off to school and they were like Sid try an egg and I tried it in like this rap and I hated it and just ever since then I've just always put in my head like eggs are bad every time my parents make them like when I was still living with them and it would smell I was like bro this is nasty but it's good cuz my wife doesn't like eggs either so we just don't cook eggs in the household that's hilarious dude cuz I like the things that we don't have in the house is like mustard or we never had pickles but my daughter loves pickles so now but dude like I seriously would not touch the pickles with my hands I'll have like a fork I have to like sanitize it I'm like I'm not touching them that's crazy but I eat eggs every day so eggs are omo I'm kind of jealous I'm kind of jealous for you to be fair uh have you tried egg whites I can't I can't nothing so you're like anything with I cannot get myself to it now I like I'll eat things that like are made with eggs like if there's a recipe that there's like eggs like Blended in something like I'll be fine with that but like straight up egg scrambled egg hard boil nothing like that oh dude that's hilarious people are like these guys are we're going to need to have an intervention for yeah exactly okay well we're not here to talk about your egg trauma we're here to talk about the Mighty Men Collective and the protocol you actually walk them through but yeah before we jump into that tell us a little bit Syd your story of how you started to struggle with uh lust and pornography yeah um I remember even just taking it a little farther back from when it actually started I was someone that was bullied a lot in school um Middle School going into high school got into a bunch of relationships um just really trying to satiate the the lack of what I had in myself with self-esteem and all that stuff trying to find other people and relationships and wasn't good um but in High School freshman year of high school was when I first watched porn for the first time and one of my friends showed me and it was not a big deal at that point but through series of events and experiences that I went through through life I realized that it easily became a coping mechanism for me and something that I would go back to quite often um to the point where it just became a habit which turned into a seven-year battle with lust and porn ended a bunch of relationships friendships romantic relationships and then that one fateful day where I came into the fork in the road when um I got together with my uh with my now wife she was my girlfriend at the time and realized that I didn't want what happened in my other relationships to happen here because I knew that this was something that God was genuinely leading me in and I was like well if I'm going to get the blessings that God has for me it's important for me to be the person worthy of those blessings so through that started going through this really long and difficult process trying to figure out my way on how to break this seven-year cycle in addiction and through that praise God I was able to do it um with his help but through that I developed this framework that I now help other people other Christian men with to overcome their addiction that's awesome so walk us through a little bit of that cycle where you felt like man I was probably doing good then you fell and then like even with your relationships where you felt like I had to end them was it because of the lust or just kind of walk us through the cycle yeah it's interesting cuz sometimes like the cycle will always happen but for different reason sometimes it's one of those things where it could be self-inflicted and you're kind of sabotaging yourself but other times it's like other people are now experiencing the consequences um and the action that you're doing in the sin that you're living out is being manifested and people see that and they don't want anything to do with that so it happened in both ways sometimes I would just sabotage myself out of a relationship and other times it's like yeah know this is not something I really want to deal with and so they would walk out and so it's interesting because it plays and manifests itself in many different ways and that's where people struggle because it's not just like you can figure out one way and it's like okay this is the one way that it will come in my life and then I can deal with that and I'm good comes in a bunch of different ways which makes it really difficult to navigate yeah can you walk us through a little bit of the ways that it manifested in your life where you're just like ah I kept falling into this and this is how it kept showing up yeah so um one of the biggest ones was when I was in college aside from relationships a more tangible when I was in college even really getting out of high school as well was failing a lot of classes because you know I'd fall into the sin out I would indulge in porn and then it would leave me empty no energy nothing like that and so I didn't have the drive to hang out with people I didn't have the drive to study for tests or go to class and stuff and so my grade started slipping and before I dropped out of college to um go into entrepreneurship full-time I actually was going to get on academic probation from the College of Business and so I didn't tell my parents that and so I just ended up dropping out and actually told them for like one semester I was doing online school while I was like starting and helping other people people in their businesses with marketing but I was just going full in on entrepreneurship at this time but um definitely seeing my grade slip and just overall everyday performance when you get out of it it's so easy to recognize how you were such a different person and it's like man the level that I was settling for in this was crazy because now I can never imagine me being at that level yeah well you know what's interesting to me is the mental load it takes to keep the lie going right you were like oh I'm GNA lie about this I'm I'm going to lie to my parents I'm going to probably lie to all the ex-girlfriends and you're just hiding all that me energy is exhausting that takes away from your performance from anything that 100% and that's where most of the struggle is it's in making sure that because you end up living a double life and it's making sure that people don't see that side of you because that's the side that stays in the dark shove it in the closet close the closet um so it's like honestly I remember periods where it's like I was really just taking like mental stock like inventory of like the the stories that I was making up or like the lies to just try and cover my tracks and it's like you get so stressed and you know feel so bogged down doing the sin but then after like even more it's just figuring out like oh shoot was this the person that I told this to and like is this going to be in line with what I told them before and so it's very stressful and it takes a big mental toll on you man so how did it come up with your now wife so you were dating her and then you were still struggling with this in and then you wanted a date her but then you're like how did it come up did she confront you did you tell her you were you're struggling with it I know you had God and kind of was like you got a got on the fork in the road walk us through that fork in the road a little bit more detail yeah that it was such a good question because I remember when we first got together I'm not 100% sure if I would say it's like it it was kind of like my self- sabotage kind of coming out but I was just kind of telling her like listen like you know kind of kind of telling her without telling her like you know I I'm not that great of a person this that and the other and something that she told me that really stuck out to me which I knew was what God was you know trying to tell me and she was she basically just told me she's like Sydney I know you're going to mess up I know you're going to make mistakes and that's a part of it I expect you to make mistakes I don't expect you to be perfect because I'm not perfect either so whatever happens we're going to work through it and mind you I hadn't told her that I was struggling yet yeah I was kind of telling her without telling her right there got to a point a couple weeks after that a couple weeks or a couple months um I just felt this big conviction on my heart and I felt the spirit really weighing down on me and it's like the it was it was getting harder and harder and harder to really keep this in and I I felt the spirit telling me like listen like you need to tell her and um so I remember um I was driving back home to drop her off at her house um coming back from a date and I just start breaking down crying she's like what's wrong like she starts freaking out so I pull over and I tell her I was like listen this has been a struggle of mine for a long time and I didn't want to tell you because everyone else I told it didn't end the way I wanted it to but she was like s like I'm here for you I struggled with it too when she was a kid so I was like so it made me feel like the weight was just lifted off my chest and at that point that's where I was like okay I can either now tell her and try and perpetuate another lie by not really even bringing it up anymore and if she ask oh yeah I'm good I'm good and just brush it off or it's like no let me put in the work to actually get rid of this was it overnight that it happened no I still fell even after telling her and we were vulnerable and I was vulnerable and telling her about it and stuff you know process that we work through but it was definitely you know um a series of events and things that she said in the spirit that was just impressing on me that was like I need to tell her because now I'm putting myself out there forcing myself to be that leader for myself yeah dude that's so good I I remember this happened on several occasions but I remember I told one of my ex-girlfriends uh that I struggled with pornography years at this point I had to overcome it and I was like I I wanted to share it because I didn't want her to know or have any I didn't want to have any secrets from her so I was like I just have this massive struggle the Lord freed me from it and I remember her probably similar to your ex-girlfriends was like I don't want to be a part of this I thought I was going to be with a godly man like I remember her telling me that that crushed me like I thought I was gonna be with a Godly Man a pure man and I'm like oh my gosh like all my insecurities and the enemy coming in with the lies saying I told you you weren't a clean man I told you you weren't a pure man and I was like dang you know and that relationship ended up not working out but fast forward with my wife I remember having that same feeling like oh gosh I'm going to have to tell her and the last time I told someone this it didn't go well yeah so I remember wrestling through it and uh finally the Lord convicted me he's like you got to share it and I told my wife and I kid you not she was very similar to your wife at that time she's like Ken that's stuff that's happened in the past I don't see that in you and by the grace of God you've been transformed and changed and like you're a totally a new man yeah and I was like this woman is so gracious yeah to me when all I saw myself was my sin I my identity was I was this lustful man and she was like that's not even who I see every day she's like the way we've operated our whole relationship you haven't done that so it was a a beautiful way to say I'm gonna keep fighting for Purity and the same thing for you where you're like I'm going to now fight for Purity so walk us through then a little bit bit of like your process of how did you start to walk through Purity and fight for it and ultimately come up with like the Mighty Man protocol yeah the biggest thing that I realized and even after talking to friends that have experienced things as well and have struggled with this what I realized is the one thing that I did learn in school that actually stuck out to me um was this thing called the Pavlov's dog have you ever heard of that before oh yeah I'm familiar Yeah so basically for anyone who doesn't know it's basically Pavlov has a dog feeds the dog puts food on the ground and rings a bell and so what he was trying to do is form a connection between two unrelated stimulant after a while of doing that he stopped putting food on the floor and rang the bell and the dog gave the same reaction so what I actually realized was that our brains can actually connect three unrelated stimuli just psychoanalysis on everything that I went through I came to that conclusion and the three things are experiences emotions and actions and so what I mean by that is if we take half of that equation real quick and we can say that experiences that we experience give us a certain emotion now the emotion is greatly dependent on the perception of the experience yeah but the reality is experiences produce emotions and then after if we take the other side of it actions that we take are deeply rooted in emotions that we feel so now when you put all these three things together we see that people do things and take action based off of experiences that they've had and so what I had to realize was I had to look at that and be like okay well I can't just Strongarm the action because I can only do that for so long before I fall back into it but what I also can't do is I can't just suppress my emotions because that develops other bad thought patterns right so what I had to do is I had to look at the asth which is perception because if I could change the perception that I had on experiences that I went through that led me to feel an emotion that led me to take an action by change the perception I no longer feel that emotion in those experiences that now caused me to do that and so people are like well how can you go about actually not looking at porn anymore and stuff it's like easy all the things all the experiences that I went through that invoked a certain emotion that led me back to it I just have to rewire how I think about those because what I've realized is as we go through experiences and like you said in your story where it's like you were looking at yourself like this lustful person and your wife's like no you're not right because what happens is when we go through experiences we formulate three different identities we formulate the identity that we have on oursel which is what you came to as like I'm a lustful person because of experiences that you've had we've also formulated we also formulate our identity of how we view God and then how we view the world around us and those three identities actually operate in unison together because how we view God is ultimately going to be how we treat other people it's going to be how we view ourselves too so changing the perception of the experiences that you've had will change those three identities as well that now leads you to being that person that's now elevated instead of being low you now Elevate yourself because you're changing you do yourself and when you have that standard for yourself it's now something that you don't fall into sin with because you now don't align with it anymore dude that's so great man I I I've always used the philosophy of thinking feeling and acting but I like how you use the experiences versus emotions because that's probably what a lot of people perceive it's like this is the experience that I've struggled with or whatever it is it could be a stressful experience it could be a lonely experience it could be a heartache experience that triggers them a certain emotion and because of that emotion they want to now cope yep and their coping mechanism tends to be I'm gonna go watch pornography and I'm gonna you know go masturbate and then all of a sudden they're like what the heck happened and yeah I love how you said you can't Strongarm the action right where I feel like you and I have both met those kind of guys where they're like I'm just gonna grip my teeth and figure this out and not do it again and you've made promises to God a thousand times like i w never do this again exactly exactly and the the reason too why we can't Strongarm the emotion or the action I'm sorry is because the temp the Temptation that you have is the same temptation but it manifests itself and it comes from two different areas and we have to know which place it's actually coming from so like for me struggling for seven years it became a habit and so like there were some times where I feel a temptation to go watch porn strictly out of a habitual nature that I've created so in that aspect that is purely just strong arming the action denying the flesh to break a habit just like any other habit but the other side of it is that other times that I was being tempted it was coming from a deep rooted place from experiences you can't Strongarm that one you have to work it out yeah and so like a lot of people they just try and focus on that one path where it's like I'm going to just strong arm it which it'll only work 50% of the time yeah dude that's so great so so walk us through a little bit more of the protocol right so it sounds like the first part is handling the experiences right or changing the perception of that experience what's the next kind of couple steps yeah so it really gets broken down into two big um aspects there's identifying the triggers right now a bunch of people have a bunch of dots on the page of their life and it's really hard to connect those dots so identifying the triggers really helps you do that y get the problem by the root so if you uproot the weed there's no life source to it so it's now gone but the other part of it is actually denying the flesh this is where we actually teach the strong arming part of it for the habitual nature and so for that what we've developed is called The Mighty Men Collective rewiring protocol and so it's a three-part process that we go through over the course of 18 weeks that challenges you to deny your flesh in three different areas of your life so there's a dopamine detox there's a fast and there's a body recomposition and so those are three very different areas that your body and your mind will try and tell you to indulge in that you have to deny yourself from so one of them being screens and technology and social media the other one being you know complacency and comfort which is like I don't want to go to the gym but it's like no I'm going to deny that Comfort feeling and go and then with a fast it's like when you want to eat because you feel weak tapping into something deeper than you to actually go through that fast so in the rewiring protocol it's a three-part series that we go through first starting with a dopamine detox because that's the biggest thing because quite frankly when we watch porn it's not like we're listening to an Audi book or we're reading a book it's on a screen so detoxing your brain from all screen activity is the first thing that we deal with so it's a three-part process that really helps you navigate life in denying your flesh in three of the very big ways that comfort and Temptation comes in yeah and I like how you referenc it earlier these three phases right do you call them phases or three parts of the protocol yeah really are emphasizing the habitual nature of your life right because I I know so many guys they're like I was just bored so they went and did it right and they're like yeah well why don't you go do something else well it's because you created this habit right you're not necessarily saying that these three things are going to help with all the heart uprooting perception of these things but this is like the first big phase is let's get you into a place and I like to think about um I believe it's Matthew chapter 6 right where he's like if your right hand causes you to sin right cut it off right like like right now the thing that most men and I've told men this countless of times like dude if your phone is causing you to stumble in sin get rid of it and we're not saying get rid of it forever just get rid of it for a time so I love how you said like you're just detoxing from this thing yeah and then fasting right like fasting ultimately is that you're denying something so that you could put your energy towards God and see how like I like how you said it earlier seeing who God is seeing how God has made us and who he's made us to be right and then how we should view the world because of that right so that's part of the fasting section is there anything else that you kind of emphasize as you go through this protocol with these guys yeah so when you start doing those two things identifying the triggers which handles one manifestation of the Temptation and then when you deny the flesh which handles the other manifestation when you start doing those two things you now can cope with it in a healthy way and what I tell people is like picturing it like the gym like if you were to go to the gym and put 200 pounds on the bench press and it was your first time ever benching 200 pounds like it's going to be really heavy the only thing that you can do to actually bench the 200 and go above that is putting in the Reps and learning the right technique because if you know the right technique but you don't put in the Reps you're not doing anything you're not growing and stimulating the muscle but if you're putting in the reps with wrong technique you can actually injure yourself and so when you do these two things you now start building that muscle to now lift the weight until that weight is no longer an issue and when you get to that point we start helping people turn their tests into a testimony so many people that I work with want to help other people with this but I tell them you can't be a leader to others when you can't lead yourself so let's fix this first and then go ahead and Lead others because what that does is now you're using your challenges and your trials and they're not in vain you're actually using it to advance God's kingdom but what it does is it forces you to escape the goal mentality and it forces you to put on a standard mentality because I can't wake up every day and show up for for these guys if this was just a goal that I had five years ago like it has to be a standard that I hold myself to every day because like I said we can't lead others until we lead ourselves so if we now set the standard for ourselves because now other people are watching us we now have to force ourselves to hit that Mark every day so that we can lead the people around us that want to learn from us so using their test turning it into the testimony and really plugging them into different Avenues and channels that they can share their story that they can be that voice of inspiration and hope for others because when you do that it's also going to affect you positively as well because now you have a standard to hit so we also teach people how to do that as well sweet I love it man how do you during this process one of the things that I always emphasize is how the gospel changes everything in our lives or it changes our past present and future and some people could listen to this and they're like well I'm just going to grit my teeth and I'm just going to follow this system and this protocol but how do you incorporate the gospel and God who does the work in their lives to actually transform them and they get to participate in it yeah that's a good question so I I'll I'll start the answer like this with me I never want to do anything in life where if someone asks how did you do that I say oh was because of my own strength like I always want my life to be if you were to ask me how did I do that first and foremost it was because of God got me there right and a lot of people that try and overcome this in their own strength and in their own perception of things and in their own World Views it's very much a I did this right but when we go through identifying the triggers it is very much a a thing of rewiring how we View ourselves through God it's not just how we view ourselves because I mean the Bible says we've all sin and fallen short of the glory of God no one's worthy for it that's why it's a gift right and so it's not how am I going to try and rework how I view myself but it's more so how does God see me what was God's Perfect Design for me that I'm not living in right now and so when we change the perception of the experiences that we've been through it's not just if you broke up with your girlfriend Oh that girl wasn't good for you anyway it's like no what was God trying to teach us what was God saving us from and why did that happen to make us become the person that God wants us to be and so as we go through these and people train themselves to view life in that way and it's like okay what was the lesson that I'm supposed to extract that God's trying to teach me or what is God trying to show me about myself in this we start naturally thinking better about ourselves because God thinks the world of us and if we start adopting that mindset now it becomes something where it's like you're not just overcoming porn but you're actually painting an accurate picture of who God actually is dude I love it man and I think that uh I want to go back to one of the things that you have said like for all have Sinn and fall short of the glory of God and one of the things that I would want to emphasize to people listening to this is that especially if you're not a Believer right you may listen to this and you may be hearing Sydney say oh yeah well God sees you this way and God sees you as great and clean was like if you haven't repented and put your trust and faith in Jesus like this doesn't apply to you right and even if you are or you think you're a Believer and you're like oh I'm good but like you've never had a continual heart of repentance to say you know what God like forgive me for my sins I have wrong I confess that they're wrong but I know that you're the only one who could save me from this you're the only one who could change my heart and my life from this then all of a sudden he's like you know what I'm going to give you all these promises one of my biggest promises that I stand on is Philippians 1:6 that he who began a good work will completely completely Christ Jesus and I'm like oh well because I'm in Christ because I'm saved he said everything that you just talked about he's gonna do for me and that's the beauty of this whole conversation that we're having is that you are not saying hey let's do this without the power of God it's like no no we have to do it with the power of God that's the only way we can do it but on the flip side cdy I want to I want to bring this to something that you and I had talked about earlier is that sometimes when people are struggling and we talk about God a lot so you're talking about a lot of the action that we need to take yeah some people get too spiritual and they're like well I'm just struggling I need to just keep praying more to overcome the sin yeah so you had told me some stuff about this that you were like I think this is a bad play but like walk me through why does that actually not work for people I start off by saying when you go to Second Kings chapter 5 and you go to the story of non um and for those of you who don't know who non is non is a guy that had leprosy and very prestigious dude um and there was a an Israelite slave girl that lived in his wife's house and she was like oh I I know someone that can heal non and so non gets up goes to uh Elijah's house and when he gets there Elijah send his servant out and when the servant comes out and tells non what he has to do he gets very upset and he's like I would have thought that Elijah was going to come out the prophet was going to come out to me he was going to wave his hand over me and I was going to be healed and all this stuff um but what God was actually trying to tell nonon was you have to do things that you're not comfortable with doing that you wouldn't usually do because if you're not doing anything that's pushing you outside of your comfort zone how can I know that you actually have faith in me that I can actually do the thing the reason I say that is because so many people that I talk to and it it really hurts my heart because when people are in a preab about it mentality I physically cannot help them just because there's a certain entitlement that comes with I'm going to pray about it and I expect God to do something for me without me doing anything there's the caveat because a lot of people think that they're just going to pray and they just sit on their chair and everything's going to be better but that's not how God operates because that's not a real relationship building experience with God because we pray to God hey I want these things and don't get me wrong I pray all the time and I pray in expectance that God is going to do things for me but the reason why I can do that and the reason why those things actually happen for me based off my faith is because faith is not a belief system faith is an action that you take off of a belief system if I was to tell you hey Ken come sit on this chair and have faith that it's going to keep you up the faith is actually going and sitting on the chair but if you look at it and you're like oh yeah like yeah I have faith that that will keep me up but never actually see if it will like there's no faith there you're actually showing a lack of faith because you're not doing the thing that you claim is going to happen and so when people have a pray about it mentality that follows with not doing anything about their situation putting too much pressure on God to actually do something and then after when it doesn't happen I've seen so many people just stop believing in God he's like well God didn't do anything for me or I didn't pray hard enough and it's like you really think you have to pray like there's a certain level of praying until God can help you or do you think like he's just telling you to do something and show that you actually have faith that he will do what he can do and so that's why I feel like the pray about it mentality is super it does a disservice to a lot of people having that mindset when you and I first talked about this when we were getting ready for for this conversation I remember you were like man I hate this thing so much because we see it right where guys are like well I'm just going to keep praying and hoping it goes away and what you're saying is like no no no yes prayer is important we're not saying don't pray but what you're saying is what ends up happening for most men is that God has given us the common Graces certain things that we should do because he's empowered us with the Holy Spirit he says like okay go deny the flesh right or go live by the fruit of the spirit like he commands us to do certain things based off of the the truth and promises that he's given us to be able to pull off yeah right but we don't access any of that here's I remember this sermon I learned a long time ago or I listened to a long time ago he said many times we don't access the power of God or we don't see the power of God move in our lives because we're not acting and we're waiting for him to move and he's just like no the power of God to fight this sin happens when you are acting according to what the word of God says so I love that's why we talk about prayer in action we're like we should pray and we should sayl how do you want me to fight this what do you want me to do sometimes we do need to sit still be patient sometimes we need to move forward and fight and do the things that need to happen but for those who are being for a lack of a better word apathetic right I think that's ultimately what you're trying to get at is those guys who just are like I'm not really going to do anything I'm just going to hope that God just takes this away that's not how it works and I want to touch on something that you just said because because you just said sometimes it does require being still but being still is still doing something yeah because when you do something there's intention behind it and so something that I was going to say um also that can actually go very well with this when we were talking about people that might not be Believers and how it doesn't apply to them I would even argue it doesn't apply to people that aren't ready to repent and the reason why I say that is because repentance is actually like it's made up of two things there's intention and then there's direction right so right now I'm in Dallas if I wanted to go to Washington and I have the biggest intention on going to Washington but I'm traveling in the wrong direction I'm not getting to Washington and so a bunch of people in this cycle they like the idea of overcoming this they like the idea of forgiveness but they don't actually and they're not ready to actually do that and so like they're just on an I'm sorry boat but they're not on a repentance train where it's like no I'm at a point where it's like my intention is to get better but I'm gonna also position myself to travel in the direction to do so man dude I was just thinking about as you were saying that I'm Googling it because I couldn't remember the verse it's 2 Corinthians 710 through1 and I I just to read it so it's going to take me a second to find it yeah you're good please hold all these people while they're listening to something second Corinthians 10 this is where I should have my Bible on hand this would be a lot faster than me just trying to Google it okay it says this goes right where you're talking about like people aren't ready to repent it says Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to Salvation and leaves no no regret but worldly sorrow brings death and then now he now Paul is doing a comparison where he says see what this Godly sorrow has produced in you what earnestness what eagerness to clear yourselves what indignation what alarm what longing what concern what Readiness to see Justice done at every point you have proved yourself to be innocent in this manner exactly and that whole intention of like man if you really want this it's not just being in the sorry it's like all right what are you going to do like how much are you really going to sacrifice like I I always tell people when I counsel them through this I say they come to me and they're like man I really want to overcome this struggle I'm like how bad do you really want to change and they're like I don't know I'm like scale one to 10 10 being like I'm ready to sacrifice and do whatever it takes I'm like okay are you sure I might ask you to do some pretty extreme stuff like I'm not exactly waterboard them or anything right but yeah imagine like you're talking about detoxing for some people taking away their phone for like two months they're like oh my gosh I'd rather get rid of my leg right like they're like no way exactly but it's like no like do you care about your relationship with God enough that you would do whatever it takes to restore your relationship with God because the sin is holding you back from a beautiful wonderful amazing relationship with God and it's breaking fellowship with people around you because you are hiding like you talked about earlier you're hiding in the Sin all day long yeah so man I I loved it I love how you just brought that back together because that is true we need to have a heart of repentance and repentance is kind of like praying right it's not kind of like you're praying to God say like Father forgive me for what I've done all those things go hand in hand Sydney dude I think you and I can go for a long time uh and like just preaching off of one another on this topic as we kind of turn the corner and wrap things up if people are struggling right now and they're like dude I'm right there with you I have these experiences that I'm struggling with and I have these habits that I'm super stuck in and man I've tried so many things but I I don't know what to do I'm exhausted and I really want to serve God like they were like truly want to serve God yeah they're just tired right like they're just sick and tired of being tired and falling into the same sin what's a good next practical step that they can take to start overcoming this I'm going to say a practical but then I'm going to say the one that's even more I would say even more important um a practical one is get help you can't do it on your own because this this sin is a very isolating sin and isolation is actually what keeps you in sin so the very fact that this is something that isolates you that means the isolation is going to just keep you there but something even more important than that is to be a person whose actions match what you say you want because something like something that you just said that really just resonated with me because this is something that everyone needs is making sure that like when you said like on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad do you want and they're like 10 I'll do anything and you're like will you do anything though I've had so many calls and talked with so many people that that said they want all this out of life but weren't actually ready to give it because everyone likes the idea of getting to the top of the mountain but not everyone actually gets there and it's just a sad reality of it everyone can get there but not everyone does because not everyone does what needs to be done and so what I would say if like there's one thing that I can say that can get to people and can touch the heart of someone is become the person that does the thing that is required of you to have the life that you want have your actions back up what you say you want in life there was so many times in this journey and even in business and all these things I had to put myself in situations or I was put in situations where it's like okay you said this is what you want are you going to do everything it takes to actually get there and the reason why I can hold hold that standard for other people is because I was able to hold it for myself and so there's a lot of things that through this journey of healing you're going to have to do that aren't going to be easy and if you don't have a why and if you don't have a reason to do these things and if you don't have a life plan built out for yourself and a picture of who you want to be you're not going to be able to do it because you're not going to have a reason to but even if you have that reason you have to make sure that the pattern that you set out align with the picture that you set for yourself and so I would say that that's the first step because when you put yourself in that place you've now positioned yourself to actually get the healing that you want that's the biggest thing dude so good man so good I think that that's where having a vision for who you want to be is so vital and uh yeah for some of you who are listening to this you may be wondering what is that Vision who should I be and I think God has called all of us men to be righteous men right we can't be righteous on our own we have the righteousness of Christ Jesus that's the important part uh but I want to leave us with this last passage that I think is going to be really encouraging to all of you because many of you who are listening might be like I want to take action I want to be a man of action but you know you stumble and I want to make sure you guys heard what Sydney said earlier where he's like he wasn't perfect he told his wife and he still stumbled he still made things happen but going back to Vision I think Proverbs 24:16 says it really well it says for the righteous man falls seven times but he gets back up again but the wicked stumble in times of Calamity and here I just want to encourage all of you that like if you are in Christ you've put your faith in Jesus Christ you are a righteous man and though you fall seven times he gets back up right and that eighth time he's up and he's going again and again and he's going to fight and you're going to prosper and you're going to be victorious why because the vision you have in your life is not that you are an unclean unworthy lustful man like I used to be or used to think of myself it's no no no I have a vision for my life that I am a righteous man in Christ and I'm pursuing the things that God has called me to do and because of that I'm going to do that with all of my heart all of my strength and all of my power like that's what we're called to do with that man Sydney any last words that you have to encourage these men yeah 100% I was actually thinking about it when you were saying that another thing a really good mindset shift to have when you go through this journey is think about it in Daily increments not as like a big accumulation in a sum because there's some people that are like let's say I want to be porn free for a year and then you're on day 364 and on day 364 you fall like that whole year is taken away and what we do is we we now are measuring ourselves by where we fell short yeah but instead of doing that if you just focus on being Victorious over the day and you go 365 days and one day you stumbled the evidence that you stack for yourself that you can do it severely outweighs the evidence that you can yeah and it's the same thing that happened it's just a different perception on it again changing the way we perceive things yeah I like it man Sydney if people want to get to know you more and what you do what is the best way to follow you yeah go ahead follow me on Instagram my Instagram handle is Gladiator Sid Sydney sorry Gladiator Sydney so you could just follow me on Instagram you can hit me up i' be love to I'd love to talk with you guys yeah absolutely Sydney thank you so much again for just inspiring men for helping them kick this habit kick this sinful habit right to pursue the things of God and to pursue you know greater things to be on Mission so again for those of you who are listen reach out to Sydney on Instagram Gladiator Sydney I'll make sure it's in the show notes as well so that people have that and they can find you uh and I'll tag you when this goes live as well but man Sydney thank you again for everything you're doing appreciate it and then for all of you who are listening I would encourage you take this episode if you got encouragement can you just think of one guy that could really use this right and he might not be like you may not know that he's struggling with sexual sin but you know what you may know he's isolated or you may know that he's in that pray about it kind of season whatever it is that we've talked about that you think this would be really helpful for one of your guys for encouragement can you send this to them so that they could be encouraged to know that like there is a path and there is a way out with that keep doing what we talk about on this episode and the rest of this podcast kill sh shame stand strong in Christ and be on Mission hope you guys have a great day and God bless thanks for joining us today if you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has for you