Good Life Project - The Courage to Change When Everyone Wants You to Stay the Same | Danté Stewart

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Former college football player turned minister Danté Stewart reveals what happens when you stop shrinking yourself to fit others' expectations and start trusting your own evolution.Drawing from his acclaimed memoir Shoutin' in the Fire, Stewart shares intimate stories about navigating faith, identity, and belonging, offering a fresh perspective on what it means to grow beyond your community's boundaries while staying true to yourself.You can find Danté at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Rabbi Steve Leder about how to live, what really matters.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount CodesCheck out our offerings & partners: Beam Dream Powder: Visit https://shopbeam.com/GOODLIFE and use code GOODLIFE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So what happens when a college football player becomes a minister only to realize the very faith community he's dedicated his life to isn't actually where he feels like he belongs? And what if that moment of truth reveals something far bigger about why an entire generation is walking away from organized religion and what they might be walking toward? These questions kind of crackled through the conversation I had with Dante Stewart. As we explored what it really means to stand in your truth when the cost of authenticity city feels devastatingly high. What started as a discussion about spirituality and religion in modern life transformed into a profound exploration of courage and belonging and the fierce

grace that it takes to grow beyond the boundaries other set force. Dante is an award-winning writer, cultural critic and minister whose work appears in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Washington Post, and more. His critically acclaimed memoir, Souten in the Fire, examines faith, identity, and belonging in a racially fractured America, and a former college football player turned theologian, an essayist, Dante brings both intellectual rigor and just raw emotional honesty to every conversation. Through powerful, personal stories, he really shines a light on what becomes possible when we just trust our evolution, even as others want us to stay the same. And his surprising take on how to metabolize suffering, rather than avoid it,

really got me thinking so excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled rib-eye you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

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I think it was just last week. I saw one of the sort of like giant survey agencies came out with a poll that looked at religiosity over, you know, like a period of like a long window of time. And they broke it down for the first time that I saw by boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Z. And I think we've all heard that people on the whole are getting less and less religious over time was really surprising for me to see was that Gen Z in particular there's been a massive exit from religion from like basically all faith. I'd love your take on that. Like what are your thoughts on that? I think first of all, thank you for having me on here.

When I heard that I was going to get a chance to speak with y'all, it's very much a welcome invitation. And so I'm really excited to be here with y'all. I think for me to answer that question, I can kind of only answer out my own experience. I think on some level, people are tired. I think people are tired of the way in which, like, religion has not lived up to its own kind of ideals. And on another level, I think people,

we're more connected, even though we're more kind of disillusioned with one another. In a very real way, we're more connected between humans than we've ever been before, which means I think people, are more sensitive to their religious experiences, to vastly diverse religious experiences. And I think people realize that you got options. When you got options, you realize that you can kind of allow your expression, your expression

of your spirituality to kind of fit what you need. I think that that may be a part of it. I think people are exhausted. Young people are just tired of the way religion has gone. And, you know, we have seen the slow kind of leak of religion's insufficiency. you know and it is now turned into a kind of all out mass of poor and you're talking about the way in which and i'm particularly thinking about christian because i'm christian the ways in which people have linked and unnecessarily tied christianity to politics in the most unhealthy way and people

are saying well if this is what you believe that your faith is to embody then i don't want anything to do with that and i think people are you know just tired of the ways in which faith has been used as a weapon to be wielded rather than a world to be ventured in and explored. You know, as I think about my own kind of relationship of faith in this ever, ever evolve in nature, you know, for me, I'm, I think as I get older, I get a little bit more sensitive and expansive to realize that, like, you know, I'm not the only one that got something to offer to this world. You know, we're humans.

We get to offer, you know, something to contribute to the good life. and that means that like we have to be diverse in our approach and in our experience. And whenever that doesn't, you know, necessarily live up to his idea, then we get a chance to, like, change it. And I think, you know, people like, hey, I get another option. I get a better shot at this than the way I've experienced. I'm willing to take that shot. Yeah, I mean, that really resonates with me. And it kind of goes along with what I was thinking a little bit too.

I'm curious what you think about this. Because I've kind of been looking at, I was wondering about this stat. And I've always had this sense that even beyond religion, that young generation, Gen Z in particular, and even younger millennials, they're less willing to tow the line, you know, and more willing to say, like, to actually kick the tires and be like, how is this actually working for me? And if I look at my parents or like grandparents, the generations above me, how has it worked out for them, too? And if this has been centered in their life, and I look at them and I'm actually not, I'm not really seeing the outcomes that I look. to see or the impact and they look at my own life and I'm like I'm kind of not buying into it I feel like younger generations and maybe this has always just been younger generations right it feels like they're less willing to basically just adopt what's been handed down to them as a sacred transmission don't

question it don't challenge it um just do it abide by it and they're kind of like not I need to figure out like I want to know the why and I want to know the how and I need to see if this actually fits for me and a lot of them are deciding it doesn't I mean what's your take on that yeah I think i think that's true i know that a lot of people you know you start talking about like philosophy and more philosophy you know there are people who say like there is not they see the limitations of utilitarianism and the usefulness of a thing you know and i think there is something good about actually questioning is this thing actually working the way it was intended to work now for me and i can only speak for christianity i think that we have to

to challenge what we mean by work. I think older generations, many of their ideas of working was, you know, I kind of have my kind of own individual relationship with God or I have my relationship with my church community and, you know, my life, religion is just a part, another aspect of the web of experience. Rather than like religion should actually like do something to change the world we live in, you know, now granted, I'm black American. So, you know, my experience of religion would be very catered to like being southern and black, which means that like religion is like almost totalizing in a sense, that like God is in everything and everywhere and everything can be moved and altered and change

and that religion can be a force for good, even if, you know, the kind of oxymoronic ways religion is used as an instrument of control. You know, I think that like younger generations they're more willing to be like, I bet, cool, that don't work for me. I'm out. See you later, period. I think there's something useful about that too, though, because I think, like, life gets boring, at least to me, I'm a writer. You know, I'm a writer.

I'm a person that goes into, like, art museums, and I can sit in art museums and, like, you know, like just explore the art museums and find something generative that of, like, sitting or returning and questioning and looking out in the world and, you know, being adventurous and things like that. So for me, you know, as a personality type, I'm kind of more adventurous and I look forward to like expansion and evolution. Some people's personality types aren't like that. But like for me, I'm like the other day, I was thinking about Jesus and there's a story in the Bible where Jesus says no to his parents. And he says no to his parents.

They're looking for him. And he said, I'm going about doing my father's business. Da da da da da. If parents don't went away, he's doing his own thing. And I think about that story and the other part of that story. where it says like you know he Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and the religion of that day going to synagogue and things like that Jesus if we look at his story that means that like yo he matured he was able to say no and he was able to grow and expand and even be different than the

kind of receive religion that his parents were engaging in the rituals that they were engaging in not saying that you know he was one to like uphold the system or tear it all the way down but I think there's something generative there to be thinking about okay if Jesus could do it you know then why can't we then why can't I you know if he has to grow in wisdom and stature and that growing for him allowed him to grow his theology to challenge the ways that people were embody in their faith even if it meant that like you know people would think that he is wild he's crazy he was willing to do it he was brave enough and great enough to do it then if it's good enough to him then it should at least we should have grace enough for it to be good enough for young people today

Yeah, I mean, it's such an interesting take. What you're describing is somebody who's sort of like looking at something that was said, this is the way to be. And it's him saying, I'm going to get curious about that. And it's not resonating with me. So I need to actually, I need to say no. And I need to go figure out, like, what is resonant for me? And I feel like faith these days across so many traditions doesn't create the room for that.

They don't create space for that. It's sort of like, this is the way it is. This is the way it's always been. there are a small number of sort of anointed people who will tell you what this means and whatever that translation is isn't really supposed to be challenged and I think a lot of folks are not okay with that anymore

not at all I mean when have we ever been you know we're humans you know when have we ever been good at other people challenging us like I'm in therapy and like you know I don't like when my therapist be like well let me challenge you or something that you deeply hold and I'm a fighter too. I love to fight. I mean, I love to squabble. I love to argue. I am a very opinionated individual. And I think that like, you know, we're, as human beings, we aren't really good at changing our minds or evolving or expanding. And I think part of it is about fear. Not even bad.

You know, it's, it's like whatever we receive and whatever we embody it, it works. And so it's like, it's very difficult to allow yourself to go through changing your mind about something that you're community when you think about like for me when I think about morality you know I think that morality is also like a communal project right so the community you know determine what's good was right with fair and that's going different based on you know various communities this is me using my sociology degree from glimpse so like these communities are going to generate their own kind of standards of meaning and things like that not saying I'm not saying that they're right you know it just sometimes it is now in order for you to be someone to be like I bet

I'm going to try and, like, explore, be more curious. You have the possibility of, like, making yourself, like, a recipient of punishment or ostracization or whatever they call it and things like that. You can be like an outsider. I mean, some people like to be loners is cool. But some people who would want to generate, like, meaning and contribute to the community, sometimes they may struggle with being considered an outsider. And I think that, like, like, sometimes that fear is not about.

like what we actually believe. It's about what we believe that people will become if we reject projections that we're projecting on the world about what we should be and what we should believe together. And so I think there is nothing wrong to me with changing your mind, saying like, I don't know or I haven't thought about that. Let me think a little bit deeper about that. But oftentimes we live in a culture. We just don't have grace with one another. Hey, let me be real, man. Like, I believe I'm a gracious person, but in a very real way, sometimes I'm not a gracious person. Just like all of us. Yeah. Exactly. So if we could just be honest, like not all of us are gracious. And I think, you know, people struggle to be patient

in our change or be courageous in being willing to change because we're struggling to have this kind of communal aspect of grace. Communal morality means absolutely no. nothing without communal grace. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecues lit, but there's nothing to grill, when the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner.

Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in a special. fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy zero-dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Say hello savings and goodbye worries with Freedom Mobile. Get 60 gigs to use in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico for just $39 a month. Plus get a one-time use of five gigs of roam beyond data. Conditions apply. Details at freedommobile.com. So you write about it in the book, in the five, like it really opens up with this metaphor of fire and you're using fire as a metaphor for

spiritual fervor internalized pain for grief and grace and then rage and redemption um take me into this wow i love the way you describe use those words to talk about my book because the further i get away from it and in some sense the more i return to it so there's a distance because it's been written some of the years ago and i still have conversations like today about it even as i'm working on another work and it's just so interesting now to hear the words that are you know use when it comes to like people thinking about my book and the word that you use like you know i think you said something about grief and say it again one more time yeah it was like grief and grace yeah i love that grief and grace yeah i mean you could describe it in so many different ways but it's just the metaphor of

fire is really it's it's poignant and i think people can kind of step they can take that metaphor and make it feel right for whatever, like, it represents to them. Yeah, yeah, because in a very real way, the book is a journey, and this is me kind of talking about my own book as I'm a character in the story. You know, the book is very much following a young man who is simply trying to find his way in the world, a young black man, and that's from South Carolina who grows up, and they grows up in very rural, poor America, and I didn't really address this in this particular the book the layers of like being from the black rural south when it comes to like economics and

you know being from my small town of 2,000 people but here's the stories of a young man who's attempting to find himself and he's fighting against the all these kind of voices of what he should become or what he should do and he listens to those voices and he becomes a thing oftentimes that he doesn't want to become until those things doesn't work anymore and he has to make the decision whether he's going to remain the same or whether he's going to be courageous enough or vulnerable enough because for me before there has ever courage there's vulnerability and the only thing that protects vulnerability is courage so there's a relationship between vulnerability and courage to me that I think is woven through the book in which like the fire

is about the heat the struggle of what it means to be young and black and American and Christian and Southern as it relates to going off to college or, you know, growing up in your own family life, going to white churches. That fire is about, you know, how hard it is and the challenges of, you know, the pain associated with fire and being burned. But it's also about an internal fire. This kind of internal spark like a force, an energy or a voice or compulsion in which that tells the young man like this is who you are this is what you must become and as you are going through the fire outside of yourself don't forget to spark that lies within and if you can hear the voice in the flickery that lies within you will always find

what you're supposed to be in this world and I think people who read the book I think once they leave the book they will be given more of themselves because you know being and young and black and American isn't the only conditions in which, like, we have to encounter fire or have to be reminded of our internal spark and flame. I think everybody in their lives at some point have to go through their own particular fires. And for me, I think the book is just, you know, a metaphor of I've been through the fire. I've been burned by it. I've been changed by it. Now, come alone. Let's go through it together. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting the way you tee up just the notion of fire also. It's got these two qualities.

You know, it's like, it's the fire that, you know, it can either, it can burn, but it can also forge. And sometimes it does both at the same time. Oftentimes it does both, right? And we're constantly trying to avoid it, but sometimes also we can't avoid it, you know, and it's like there's so often, I feel like, for so many of us, there's an other side we want to be on or we want to get to. And like, we're trying to figure out how do we get there without going through this? How do we get there? Like, there's a, I can see like there's a fire in front of me. On the other side, there's something I really want.

There's a way I want to be. There's something, way I want to live there, whatever it is. And it's like, how do I get around the fire to get to that thing? And end of the day, it really doesn't work. You kind of got to go through it. Yeah, you know, I think the poet, Robert Frost, is so helpful here. You know, he says the only way out is through. And I believe that to be true, I think.

think the only way to get through the fire is to go through the fire. I'm reminded. I was sent, I sent my friend this poem the other day called I Worried by Mary Oliver. I'm actually doing my MFA in poetry now. And so I've been, you know, I've been kind of maturing as a writer, you know, not just, you know, minister, but like journalist, poet, SAS, and minister, you know, really trying to deepen my craft and voice and grow myself and challenge myself. And I came across this poem by Mayor Oliver the other day. I sent to my friend called I Worried. And the poem is Mary Oliver, you know, worrying about so much, worrying about whether she

was going to be able to make it, worrying about her health, worrying about this, worrying about that. And at the end, the last two stanzas of the poem is her picking herself up and going out and standing up and walking. and moving and I never forget sending that point because it reminded me of an event that I did where someone asked me, you know, how do you metabolize suffering? And I think about, you know, any type of muscle or energy, the only way to get it going and to metabolize it is to move it. And I think so many people struggle, I'm preaching to myself right now in this season of my life,

you know because as much as we would like the fire of yesterday to never become the fire of them all the fact is like there's we're going to constantly encounter fires in life and the fire that we passed through before should like you said for us to be ready to say okay I've been through this before so I can get through it again and so I think that like the only way to get through the fires of life that all of us going to have to go through the only way to to metabolize our suffering or our fear is to utilize that energy to move us forward. To complain about things, you know, allow yourself to worry because so often, you know, we dissociate so much, you know, with our fear and our anger and our sadness that when it's

time to move, you know, we struggle to move because we have not allowed ourselves to feel what we feel. So I think, yeah, the only way out, as Robert Frost says, is Stuart. we were talking about metabolizing suffering and how a lot of people are trying to just figure out how do I opt out of it entirely basically

and the truth of the world is we don't you know we're going to experience it a lot and but like what do you do with that I think is one of the big questions

you know it's interesting right because part of what you write about also is a notion and you know and you've written a bunch about how you've grown up your kid in South Carolina

and that part of the message that you took in was that in some way, shape, or form, part of your job was to shrink. It was, like, if you want safety, you know, part of that comes with invisibility. And, you know, like, for you, that's something that sets a pattern in motion

that becomes really fraught to live that way. Oh, 100%. And what's so wild is, you know, I feel like, I feel like I'm always wrestling with the ways in which I feel, like I've had to shrink. I don't think we human beings ever get to a point. I think we do get to a point where like,

like Denise Levittal, now I become myself the poet. I think we get to a point where we are becoming ourselves, but we always, in some sense, fighting against the version of us that felt like we had to shrink in order to be ourselves. You know, and you talk about religion, putting that, you know,

you're talking about like the shrinking version of you is the more moral version. of you. The version of you that's more free, that's more expressive, is the more immoral version of you. And so we're dealing not just with, you know, wrestling through, you know, processing who we're becoming, trying to, you know, generate language for our own journeys, but we're also dealing with, like, dislodging ourselves from patterns of internalized shame and internalized guilt that don't belong to us, you know? So it's like, I resonate so much with you thinking about shrinking because like I feel like I've I've always kind of been on a journey

and we are always on a journey especially and I think if you're the type of person who has a temperament of like you know there's always more to grow toward or there's always more to learn you know I think that we're always going to you know deal with the struggle of like smallness and growth and I feel like being a football player is a part of that too because it's you know I never forget you know like what have you done? for me lately. You know, yesterday really don't matter. You're always in competition against yourself and where you can grow and you're always fighting against yourself. Sometimes that's healthy. Sometimes it's not because sometimes there would never be a point in which you come to the

feeling that like I have arrived at who I'm supposed to be. There's always this new self. It's like you've got a whole season to get better and the way you start isn't the way you should end up. is that once you get into life, in football, you've got a beginning of the season and you have an end of the season. With life, you know, life is such a long thing. And so I think for so many of us who are used to strength and I think about myself, yes, so much of what I write is about visibility, is about human beings, you know, not strength. Because I believe that like, I don't know. I'm just wild enough to believe that God like or life or our communities truly want the best for us. And truly wanting the best for us means that we're becoming the version that we

were always intended to be. You know, every day I wake up, have a picture that's in the restroom of our home. And that picture simply says, God smiles at the thought of you. And every day I look at that and I try and ingest it. I don't always believe it. You know, because like to become who you are and to stop shrinking means that like, you know, you really got to deal with how people around you got used to a small version of you. And I think that so many people who go through that, we go through it and we believe that like some sense of rejection is going to take place if I become who I am. And I just believe that sometimes, man, we've created, that may be true, but like it's the story we've learned to believe about

ourselves. And as writers, our job is to challenge the story, to challenge the narrative, to challenge the narrative arc of our lives and our growth in hopes that we encounter things and are changed by it and given more of ourselves. So when I go to the page, my simple job is this is like, I want to attempt to be. more of myself, and I want to attempt to give you more yourself. And if we can do that, then like, that is our whole job as humans. That's love. Love is being able to be and give everything to ourselves that we believe we deserve. And that resonates really strongly. I guess my deeper curiosity, though, is this. Sometimes we shrink because we don't want to be rejected, because we

don't want to be, you mentioned earlier, like ostracized kicked out. Like, we want to belong in community and follow whatever the norms are. Other times we shrink for very practical reasons like safety. Like you're a kid, you're growing up, young black man in the South, right? Part of this for you isn't about being rejected. And this is some part of what you write about. It's about safety. Oh yeah. You know, it's like showing up in a particular way that's smaller than who you are because you want to be alive. You want to be safe. Oh, yeah. That's a harder problem to solve in my mind. Like so when you say, it's like when you say be more visible and you're like, be who you are. And that is a huge amount of faith if part of the reason you're shrinking is because of the

perception that will make you safer and maybe the very real, the reality that it will make you safer to then go out and say, no, I'm going to be more visible. I'm going to be more of who I need to be and who I am. It's like you're challenging not just rejection. You're stepping into a place of faith that somehow you're going to be okay even showing up in that deeper, more real, authentic place. And this was your story. That's big. That's a big move.

Yeah. Yeah. No, you know, what's funny is like I'm such a person that like I don't like to talk about myself often, you know, in my own journey that like you're right. Hey, it is big. Because when I think about it, man, to be young and black and American, like you really do like got to shrink and become invisible to survive this country. Especially playing football on the level that I did and that we did. I never forget. Like when Trayvon Martin was. murdered. Like I wasn't one of the ones who was like, you know, protesting or things like that. And we had a small group who did. But I wasn't one of the ones who did because I wanted to be safe. Like I wanted, you know, I felt like I had too much at stakes in order to put myself out there. And a lot of times, you know, it's easier to put out yourself out there when you got a lot to lose. It's much harder to put yourself out there when you got everything to lose. And oftentimes being black in

this country, you know, we got everything to lose. You know, this country gave us so little and we made something of it. And what little we do have, this country is constantly attempted to try and take away. We think about right now. This is in 2025. And we're still dealing with the rolling back of rights. We're still dealing with people trying to undo many of the freedoms that we so hard fought for. We still live in a country in which, like, books are being banned.

Funding is being cut. People don't care highly about, like, what's going on in rural America, no matter where you in Wisconsin, whether you in South Carolina where I'm from, people oftentimes aren't just like not caring, but they're like actively against. So to me, to show up in spite of that, you're right. It's the ultimate expression of faith because there's the possibility of loss. And you believe, you begin to believe that even if I lose something, I don't lose everything. And everything I don't lose is who I am as a person. I never forget. So like my granddad, I love my granite, right? I carry his obituaries.

wherever I go. I have some friends who, I'm Christian, but I have friends who practice hoodoo. And they be like, hey, bro, like make a cup of coffee to your granddaddy, you know, and sip coffee with your granddaddy. And I do. You know, and I'd be like, hey, granddaddy. Like, I have conversations with granddaddy with everything.

You know, and so, like, for me, it's being generative and life-given. So one of the things about my granddaddy I love, you know, it's like he's a black man from South Carolina, born in the 1930s. In spite of, like, serving in this country. I'll never forget when 1965, the voting rights act of 1965 happened my granddaddy born in south kielana born as a baby of the great

depression born in the time of which this country you know were just years removed from one of the bloodiest periods in american history for black people the 19 the early 1900s to about to the 1920s especially black southern folk you know 1919 was you know they were like lynching black people all over and you're talking about like he has proximity to these stories and you're talking about like being not far removed from Emmett Tillman. You're not even talking about like the stories, the smaller stories of the ways in which black people live in a constant grip of American terror all throughout the continental United States in ways that are like for every one headline, there's like 10, 15 acts of small violence that people don't report on. And people like my granddaddy in the small

rural South, when the voting rights act came down in 1964, 1964, 65, after the Civil Rights Act of My granite got up in his pickup truck, and you want to know what my granite it is? My granddad went around town. He picked up everybody and said that no matter what, we in South Carolina, I'm going to pick up everybody so that they can have a right to be fully human and to vote and make their voice known. That is a radical risk. Why? Because you are in a moment in a state where people really don't just don't want you to exist. They don't want you to change anything.

So for me, I think like, yeah, it's showing up. as your full self, no matter who you are, whether you're black, whether you're this, whether you're that, like it is, you're right, the ultimate form of faith, because you can lose so much. And yet, you're not willing to lose yourself. And so for me, I'm preaching to myself right now, you know, because the only you get, I feel like the less brave you become. So it's like, I hope that I become a person that as I deepen my understanding of life, it also deepens my commitment to radical choices, you know, because stability status quo would create a sustainable life.

But like risk, choice, imagination would create a full and whole life. And I don't just want a sustainable life. I want a life in which like we can take some risks to like be everything we can be. I mean, I think so many of us want that also, you know, but it's just, you know, fear stops you. And we all have different fears and we all, like, come from different places and different histories where, like, the fears can be radically different. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Say hello savings and goodbye worries with Freedom Mobile. Get 60 gigs to use in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico for just $39 a month.

Plus get a one-time use of 5 gigs of roam beyond data. Conditions apply, details at freedommobile.com. What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribby you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. service fees exclusions and terms apply instacart groceries that over deliver it's interesting what your

your story is sort of like this and i know you don't love talking about yourself but i'm going to talk about it's fine it's fine it's fine it's cool because it's it's a really powerful example in a lot of ways you know you've talked a number of times about you know like playing football and establishing yourself and establishing a name for that and it's really moving out into the world and moving into the world of faith, but the world of faith you first moved into was a world of faith that didn't fit you. And you did everything. You basically were like, let me figure this out. I want to be a part of this.

I want to be in community. Like, I want to try and make it so these are my people. You hit a moment where you're like, it's not working. Like this whole, the community, the approach, the, it's just not working. And rather than again, getting to this moment and saying, you know what, I'm going to shrink again. And because I want to fit in, again, you said, no, I can't do this, you know, and really started, and it meant walking away from a community, a sense of belonging, a set of beliefs that had been kind of like wrapped around you for a window of time, a season of your life, and really going out and I'm going to make this analogy and maybe uncomfortable for you. You described the story of Jesus earlier in a conversation about how it looked at his parents and said, no, I got to go, like, explore. and figure out what's right for me.

And it's kind of like you had your own version of that. Oh, it's not uncomfortable for me at all. Yeah. That's true. But it's not untrue. I'm not saying, I'm not comparing you to him and saying like, oh, no, no, but like saying no, saying, let me figure out what works. I think that's very true about my story.

It's like I feel like I've always been this type of person, though, for me. It's like, I don't know what it is. I feel like I've never been a person that's so tied to something ultimately to where I can't walk away. I think, and this is partly because of the people around me is I love people. My friend said the other day, bro, you just love people. And because I do love people, like, I pay attention to their stories. And I'm like, once you get to know people beyond your own kind of community and environment, then, like, you get to believe that there's more possible for you than you're settling for right now. You know, a lot of times we grow up or we come into environments

in which like we believe this is the only thing for us and then the story we receive about ourselves is that there are no other alternatives and options there's nothing more from me here and I just think that like that may be cool for some people to live that way to be like all right cool I'm good with where I'm at and for me I'm like that too I'm good where I'm met until it don't work and when it don't work I'm at least willing you know to challenge like why it doesn't work why it doesn't work for me and to be like all right at some point i'm just going to be like i'm going to bounce and i'm going to bounce out and i'm going to just be like okay i'm going to figure out what does work and like i think it's all depended on like having people

around you who can become a safe place to land when you got to jump i was talking my friend the other day and she was using this narrative the story of like a young man at a swimming pool. Imagine myself being a young man at a swimming pool and I had jumped in the pool before. I had swim before but time had kind of done his work on me and I wasn't in the pool and like here she is trying to get me to believe that I can swim again but then I'm at the edge of the pool and I'm saying oh I can't swim I can't do it I can't swim and here are all these people who are in the pool who had seen me swim who had jumped with me before who had seen me you know do beautiful breaststrokes and seen me freestyle and they seen me even dip my foot into the water and they

saw the process of me jumping in one season but then time and gunned at work and I settled and fears came in and she's like yo do realize this is that like you're afraid right now to jump again because you believe that this time is going to be the time to ruin you without realizing that you've jumped and swim so many times before. And all you got to do is trust that the people in the water will catch you and guide you where you need to go. Now, I think for me, I think for so many people, we get to the point where it's like we forget that like we have swam before and we've made it through and we didn't drown and it didn't destroy us. Big changes, big leaps, big bounds. It took something from us. It took a lot of.

courage it took a lot of faith to do it but like there's people in the water who's like hey come on dip your fit in jump it's okay and i think like for me i've never really been a person to be like i can't jump i can't leap you know and i think for so many people it's not that like we get complacent or we settle is that like the muscle the faith muscle atrophies the bravery muscle atrophies because oftentimes communities can in some sense make that bravery muscle atrophy. And when we're so used to being somewhere that's just like that doesn't really challenge us or like doesn't really, you know, maybe we're people who are like, I, well, I don't master this. It's time for me to bounce.

I didn't master this part of my journey. It's time for me to go. And oftentimes we think that like, okay, you're supposed to be somewhere forever. When in actuality, maybe it's just for a season. And it's time for you to jump again because somebody else needs your bravery. So on another level in this story, the more you jump, the more people that believe they can jump as well. And so it's like if we lose that, we lose our sense of self. And maybe we are the ones who are to jump and not the ones that's supposed to stay on the sideline.

I have to ask you now, when your friend was sort of like sharing this story with you, and saying like, okay, so like, here's what's going on. Was she talking to you about something that you're grappling with right now, a jump that you're thinking about? Yeah, she was in this moment. Are you open to sharing? No, not really. Nah, no, no, no.

I can't share it. Yeah, no, no, no. Down the road, down the road. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's like, because for me, in this present moment, I mean, I think a lot of the jump is about, like, Dante, what do you want in life? Mm.

And, you know, are you? you willing to like allow yourself the vulnerability of saying what you want without the fear of like being considered a bad person without the fear of like oh they're not going to like me if i do this or well you know it just doesn't things don't work anymore or they don't work the way they should work or maybe you know you want things to look different and i think that like as i'm grappling with my own life. It's so funny that this podcast is having to add this very moment where I'm going through one of the hardest times of my life. And it's taking a lot of bravery to show up for work, to show up for myself, to show up for my family, to show up for, you know, my dreams and my goals

and my desires. I think it's so funny that I'm going back to like shouting in the fire because I felt like I was so brave when I was writing that book. And I feel so scared in life right now. And she was dragging me a little bit in a way to tell me, Dante, you've already jumped before. It's okay to not know all the answers, to not know all the moves, to not know whether you, you know, going to swim or drown. But she's like, hey, gee, it's only three feet, my boy. You're a five foot, you're a five foot, nine. What did? You act like life is asking you to jump into 10 foot water.

No, bro. You jump before and it's okay to jump again. You know, I'm much different as a human. I think different. I talk different. I want different things than like, you know, when I was younger. And I think trust in the process of my evolution and my growth as a human being in this present moment is like those are the big leaps of life to trust the process of my life and I unfolded. And she was like, in this present moment, you know what you. feel you must do. You're just afraid of the consequences, but trust yourself. You got it. The end of that book that we've been referencing is a declaration of becoming. And there's one line where you say I became who I was always meant to be. It feels like you're dipping back into that as we speak. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking even like right now as a writer, you know, as a writer, I'm going through this right now where, you know, when I think about like writing shot in the fire, you know, it's a very different moment. It's in 2020, you know, in 2021. And it's just a very different moment for Americans. And as a young writer, you kind of speak in your mind or whatever

you feel, you know, and things like that. And it's good. It's right. But then like right now, and I'm like, I'm trying to be a storyteller in a way that, like, it's more robust. I like different type of writing now. I like more like immersive journalism and poetry and essays and things like that and like i want to explore humans outside of myself which is much different like i'm working on my second book right now and it's uh i'll be done in about a month and a half with it this book is the kind of next step in my journey as a writer and a human you know where so much of the same themes of shouting in the fire has been explored in this book but i'm stepping back and saying let me travel to yvall day let me travel to vietnam let me travel to charles and

South Carolina. Let me travel to these different places, New Mexico. Let me travel, you know, to these different to New York and begin to explore like heartbreak and what heartbreak does to us and what we do with it and figure out how we can use our heartbreak as a force for creative good. You know, and of course, shouting in the fire is that. You see that woven and shot in the fire where, you know, heartbreak and anger and grief is used for good and as a creative force. But, like, right now, and it's like, for me, you know, I'm just a different human than I was. And that takes a lot of bravery because, like, people get used to, you know, you being a certain type of way or, like, you know, my work on social media. It's like, sometimes you get tired

as a writer. And sometimes you're like, well, I don't want to talk about Donald Trump today, bro, I want to go watch some films and talk about Ryan Cougla or Alfred Hitchcock. You know, I want to go read some poems and let's talk about poems and things like that. Let's talk about basketball. You know, let me talk about sports. And of course, those other things are going to be layered in there. But it's like, you know, life is so interesting. And I think, like, I'm such a curious human being that, like, my desires and interest change, you know, ever so often.

And it takes a lot of bravery to accept that, like, okay, the person I was writing book one will be different than the person that I am writing book two. But like Ryan Coole said the other day in an interview, he says, every movie I made, it was the best movie that I can make at that moment. And like, hey, this is the best I got to offer right now. And back then that was the best I got to offer then. And then in an other year, when I'm working on my young adult novel, that would be the best thing that I can offer right then. and every version of the self matters. And I think a lot of times we think that like, okay, our journeys to becoming ourselves only matter

when we become the thing we always want it. And that's just not the case. The journey matters every day we wake up and decide we're going to take it. Yeah. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So I always wrap with the same question here, and that is in this container of Good Life Project,

if I offer up the phrase to live a good life. What comes up? For me to live a good life is to be okay with like that life is life. And that every day, you know, life presents a new opportunity to be more of who you are. And then the good life is a life in which you can look at everything you became and look at everything you came from and realize it meant something and an account for something. and that the only thing in the world demands of you is for you to just try and be yourself as much as you can every day.

That's the good life. That's the life that counts. It don't matter how much money you make, how many books you write, how many mistakes you make, how much failure you have, how much fear you possess. If you wake up in the morning

and you begin to ask yourself, what can I do today to give me life? That's the good life. To be able to ask that question to make small stuff to like live it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, man. If you love this episode, you'll also love the conversation we had with Rabbi Steve

Leader about how to live what really matters. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, and Troy Young, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here.

Do me personal favor. A seventh second favor. Share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even. Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue?

A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribby you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you. covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over deliver. Say hello savings and goodbye worries with Freedom Mobile. Get 60 gigs to use in Canada, the US, and Mexico for just 39 bucks a month. Plus get a one-time use of five gigs of Rome Beyond data. Conditions apply. Details at FreedomMobile.ca.