The Nick Bare Podcast - 036: Overcoming Hardship and Building A New Life with Running and Photography - Joe Greer

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Today I'm sitting down with renowned photographer and 2:36 marathoner Joe Greer. Joe has dedicated his career to capturing life in its purest form, and his ability to communicate his complex experiences through photos is breathtaking. Joe tragically lost his mother at a young age, creating a life of trials and hardship but also one of courage and overcoming, bringing so much wisdom that he openly shares with us today. We unpack Joe's complex background and reveal lessons on finding forgiveness, cultivating deep relationships, and how his passions for photography and running influence how he views the world. We also dive into how fatherhood is affecting our ambitions and perspectives on what we value most. Enjoy the episode! Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Keep up with Joe here:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/ioegreer/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JoeGreervlog Topics: 00:00 Intro 1:26 Welcome 04:28 Developing empathy 11:07 Cultivating deep relationships 17:12 Joe’s background 42:39 Finding the heart to forgive 50:46 The feeling of forgiveness 58:02 Joe’s introduction into photography 1:17:00 Passion for making photos 1:27:59 Transformation through fatherhood

I've always been an incredibly, as I mentioned earlier, an incredibly curious person. I'm constantly viewing life through a frame, whether I'm taking a photo or not. And so whether that's picking up on human elements of despair, of distraught, of happiness, of joy, of confusion even. I'm constantly trying to pick up those things and study why I was drawn to that. I care about documenting life. Life is so complex. Life is so hard. Life is so beautiful.

Life is long. Sometimes, unfortunately, life is short. And I've experienced that myself, losing my sister. Tragically, four years ago, unexpectedly. My whole pursuit is how can I make a photograph that stands the test of time? Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank you for tuning in and supporting the brand. Now, I have spent the last decade plus of my life building bare performance nutrition, and we create effective supplements that you can trust to support your wellness,

endurance, and performance goals. We offer high-quality, great-tasting weight protein powders, effective pre-workouts, superfoods, Superfoods, sleep support, electrolytes, and much more. So if you want to support the content that we produce and the message that I am sharing through my content and on this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it if you went to BPNSups.com and you can use code Nick Bear 10 to save 10% off your next order. So thank you guys. I appreciate you. And let's dive into the show.

Today on the podcast, we have Joe Greer. world famous and talented photographer, runner, husband, father. Those last two. Those are my favorite labels for sure. What's going on, brother? How's it going on, man? Thanks for having me, dude. Thanks for being here.

Absolutely. Well, I'm stoked. First off, in case anybody hasn't, welcome to Nashville. Thank you. Welcome to freaking Nashville. It's been amazing. Yeah. For me, for the family.

Looks like it's been a blessing. I mean, you guys looks already. You guys have been here not even, it seems like a really short time, but you guys are thriving already. kind of plugging into the community pretty quickly, hitting up the farmer's market, getting those pickled, what are they?

Pickled beats. Pickled beats. I still got to get some of those, man. Pickle beats. I might have some for you here to try. Oh, sweet Lord, we need to get on those, dude.

It's good stuff. That's awesome. That's awesome. No, yeah, welcome, man. I think Nashville's better for you guys being here. I think it's exciting. And yeah, and it looks like your running is taking off, and the hills are probably much better than in Texas.

The running is beautiful. Yeah. I think we've been here like seven weeks now. Yeah. getting plugged into the community, meeting people. Which is crazy how I kind of ran across you. That was nuts.

I was like mining my own beeswax. In Franklin. 6.20, 6.30 in the morning. I'm like doing it. I think it was just a little chill run and do the same route. And I was downtown Franklin. I run the roundabout.

And I was the only one there. And I looked over to my right. And you were like looking in a coffee shop. I'm like, wait a second. Who is this jacked dude at 6.20 in the morning shirtless? And I'm like, wait. Is that Nick? Is that Nick Bear? And so we met and talked. And yeah, that's where you were kind of sharing to me that you guys were considering moving to Nashville. Yeah. And scoping out Franklin.

And I mean, that was what a cool way to meet for the first time. And we've been aware of each other, I think, for a minute prior to that. So I mean, it's exciting that you guys are here. And yeah, man, we're stoked to have you in the city. Well, to paint that picture. So Steph and I have been coming back and forth from Texas to Tennessee over the last year looking for spots. We didn't know exactly where we wanted to live. We were looking at Franklin. We were looking at Brent Wood, we're looking at Nashville. And on this one trip, where you're staying in Franklin, and we had baby Charlie with us. And I had to go run that morning because I was prepping for Last Man Standing.

That was right. And you know how it is with a baby? You wake up, you can't really make your coffee in the room. Nope. Because you have the pack and plate. Yep. So I just grabbed my shoes and left the hotel room. Yep.

But I wanted to get coffee before running. So I'm trying to find a coffee shop that's open. So I could get the bathroom before I kicked off my run. Exactly. And I left the hotel room, didn't brush my teeth, just threw on like whatever I could find, random to you. Yep. And here we are a few weeks later.

It's incredible. So it's been great. Nashville has been treating us well. Oh, I love that. And before we like, I want to dive into your story and talk about a lot of different things throughout this conversation because kind of my overarching theme, I always have an overarching theme that I'd love to get to in the episode. Right.

If the conversation changes at some point, like, that's completely okay. I see these parallels between running and photography. Oh, yeah. Especially in the way that you say that you make photos. Yeah. You don't take photos. Right. A camera takes a photo, but a person, a creative, makes a photo, makes that image, makes

that memory, running a marathon and making a photo. those are equalizers in life. Yeah. A 26.2 mile race doesn't care about how much money you have in the bank, where you were born, where you came from, what trauma you experienced. That same 26.2 miles is going to be experienced very similar between everyone. It's an equalizer. It is.

Same thing for making a photo. It's an equalizer. Yeah. It doesn't matter like what camera you're using. Of course. You know, I'm in the creative space. Yep. Everyone gets geeked out and goes nuts over gear.

Of course, yeah. But, like, that camera isn't going to create or make a photo. It's the person behind it. It is. So, and there's these similarities of being equalizers. Yep. And I think your story and talking about your story and how you got to where you are today is going to kind of showcase that.

Before we dive into that, though, I want to set the stage. Sure. A few weeks ago, me and my... My wife, Steph, and you and your wife, Maddie, we went to dinner together. We did. Meat Kitchen. Yep. Absolutely delicious.

Amazing. Great meal. Yep. One of my observations during that dinner that I then talked to stuff about afterwards was, you know, the owner of the restaurant came over to us while we were eating. Yeah. And he was recently in a car accident. Right.

And you were extremely empathetic, very personal. you were asking questions but you cared about the answer Right Now I've met so many people I've come across so many people Sure That they'll ask people questions

They'll They'll show what seems to be empathy But they really don't care The answers They're just asking to ask To show that they might care Right But I was watching you have this conversation

I can tell that you truly cared about this person You cared about how it affected His life and the restaurant And the business and his family So I'm curious, were you always like that? Were you always super empathetic? Were you able to relate and resonate to people's misfortune or traumas or troubles in life?

And I really want to know that before we dive into your story. Because I think it'll provide context to where you came from. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question and a great observation. Yeah, I mean, I think just that last question there kind of right off the bat. And it sounds like we'll probably get into it, but I have experienced a lot of misfortune and a lot of trauma myself. And I think because it's so familiar to me, it's, and it's a part of my life that I pull from creatively. I use that.

I harness that when I'm behind the camera. I think that's how I'm able to relate to certain photographic scenes that I encounter because I'm allowing myself to dig deep in that well of human experience that I've had. And I'm the only one that has access to that will. and I get to pull from that. And so with you, the restaurant owner of Meekitchen, and I heard that via another employee before they had gone back to work. And I was just like very eager to see how they were. And they've kind of like, when we first went there,

we just bonded so quickly. They just moved there from New York. Maddie and I moved from New York three years ago. That was one of our favorite restaurants in the city. And they just came to Franklin of all places. And so we bonded pretty quickly over that. And they had just been so kind to Maddie and I every time we've gone. We've been there like 20 times now in the last two months.

But I could sense that that was a really intense experience and that they were blamed wrongly for. And it just broke me for them that they had that experience, that they were down there on vacation. And I'm very thankful that they're healthy and they're okay. I was just there last week and I saw Chloe, his wife, who had a lot of bruising apparently from the accident. So I got to connect with her.

And I'm glad that she's doing well. back at work. But I just think like my story, my experience has just allowed me to really, not even, it's just natural. Like I don't think about that. I'm just like, I care about people and people go through really hard things. Some people haven't gone through hard things yet. I think everybody will at some point in their life go through loss, go through heartbreak, go through being taken advantage of. And I've had a lot of that in my life. And so I try to always be quick to, quick to, slow to speak and quick to listen.

And that was just a moment where they've become friends now and I just, I cared about them. But now that's a wonderful observation. And I'm just, I don't know, like I think with my photography too, like primarily a street photographer and a documentary photographer, it's all about people.

That's all about that human emotion. That's what I'm looking for when the camera's in my hand. And I see the good light coming in and I'm seeing the emotion of people passing me by. I'm constantly viewing life through a frame. whether I'm taking a photo or not. And so whether that's picking up on human elements of despair, of distraught, of happiness, of joy, of excitement or confusion even. I'm constantly trying to pick up those things and study why I was drawn to that.

Was it something that triggered in me, whether it's from nostalgic reasons or from past kind of family upbringing situations or because it's a foreign emotion that I have never experience. Um, I think, uh, yeah, I will say make a note about what you said earlier, about you having a direction for this. I go on a lot of rabbit trails. I have a preaching degree. And so if you ask me a question, we could end up on a totally different topic. So I apologize. That's perfectly fine. This is, this conversation is open to go. Awesome. Anywhere. Cool. Sweet. But yeah, that's, um, I think that's what I'd say, you know, it's all about the people, man, just in life in general. And that's why I think I, you know,

gravitate towards you, you know, and from one of the videos I've seen of you, of you with you, podcasts I've listened to, you know, you care about motivating and helping people. And I think that I'm drawn to those kind of individuals. And so I think that's, yeah, that's beautiful. How do you view connections and relationships in terms of, are you the type of person who wants lots of connections, lots of relationships? Or do you want to have fewer or? Do you want to have fewer meaningful relationships. Yeah. Because I've, I've, I've kind of reached this part of my life many times before where it's like, you know, you want more connections, you want more friends and you get to a point where it's like, it's exhausting, it's hard to maintain a lot of relationships.

It is. Or do you try to really hone in on, you know, a few meaningful connections? Absolutely. It's interesting. Yeah. It is absolutely quality over quantity. for me. Maybe I think I am a diehard extrovert. I love being around people. Thankfully, I have a job that allows me to be in social circles and to travel and to be around a lot of people. But meeting Maddie, who is a tiehard introvert. We have bounced each other out quite a bit. She has made me enjoy being introverted and having time to myself and space. But I enjoy people. but I think as I've gotten older, I'll be 35 soon. Less is more.

Like I want, been in Nashville for three and a half years now. And when I first moved here, Maddie's from here. So she had kind of a built-in community, a girl's girlfriends that she went to high school with, old friends, her parents are here. She has a family here. And so for me, it's always been easy for me to make friends and to make friends quickly. But in this later stage of life, in my 20s, I walked into a room. I had to be the center of attention in every room that I was.

walked in. I wanted to know everybody. I wanted to talk to everybody. I wanted to get to, like, it was literally, I would go up to strangers and be like, hi, my name's Joe, what do you do? What's your dream? Just like, no icebreaker, just right into it. That's always been to me. I'm doing less of that now. Just because I, as a new parent, as a four and a half months ago, they're just priorities have shifted and I don't want to spread myself too thin, which I've done in the past. But now it's just like, I'm in a really beautiful, unique season of life where married and building a family, you know, I want to be doing life with folks that are in a similar stage to where Oliver can grow up having friends, you know, his whole life.

And we're going to be in Franklin until further notice. We have no plans to move anywhere else. So our roots are starting to set deep. And with that, I want deep relationships. I want intentional relationships. But also being an extrovert, I can flip that switch and go social and meet new people. I love meeting new people. It's like just recently, I was in New York for work.

After I came back on a really tight turnaround from another trip. and Maddie stayed back when I was in New York and I was out every day seeing all my friends. And she doesn't understand the life of an extrovert. She's like, it's insane to me that for you to recharge, you have to be around people, which is so true. Like I get my batteries full again by seeing friends, by meeting new people. But that's, I'm trying to do less of that now as I've just, you know, want to spend time with my family and this new chapter of life and I want to take it in and absorb it all.

but also trying to, I think we've talked about this a little bit at dinner, just also trying to be careful on the people that I do let in in this season in my life. You know, I've unfortunately in the photo space I've just been taken advantage of because of who I am in the photography space. And that's never fun kind of being, thinking, you know, I am a give everybody a benefit the doubt type of person. And unfortunately, some folks have wronged me in that. And so I'm trying to continue to lead with that.

but also I'm trying to protect, you know, what it is that I'm building here and making sure that people don't have angles or trying to just, you know, get to me to get to somebody else to do this. And it's just, you know, I've been, that's been happening in my whole life. And so I'm a little bit more cautious now and reserved on, you know, the people that I led in my life. And it's not fun because I do want to just bring everybody in. But, yeah, I'm trying to navigate that right now, which is kind of tricky.

You know, you take your values and the characteristics that are unique to you. Yeah. and at least I do this, you assume that all these other people in your life share those same values and characteristics. So in that sense, you trust a lot of people. Yeah.

And you give a lot of people credit. Oh, yeah. And then it's fine and it works until it doesn't. Yep. And then you really start learning about, I've been thinking about this a lot of my morning runs recently. Yeah.

I've been thinking about people's behaviors and what people are incentivized. By? Yeah. And sometimes you never know what they're really incentivized by. Right. Until it bites you in the ass. Yeah, absolutely.

And that's what's hard is because once you lose trust in one, two, three people. It's hard to rebuild that again. It is. I mean, I've, like, that's almost like to a fault. I trust people quickly. I think it is a blessing and a curse. It's so easy for me to trust people, like until you prove me wrong. And I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

but in that I've been hurt a lot. And so that's been where I'm trying to kind of rewire how I do that. But it also sucks because like I people do often, majority of the time do have good intentions. And it's just unfortunate that some people don't. On the similar season in chapter of life where time is extremely valuable. Having, you know, in my case, a 15 month old daughter. Yeah.

So the people that I want to spend time with. Yeah. I want those people to be selective. I want them to want to have deep. in meaningful conversations and talk about vulnerabilities and like, that's good.

Like, I love coming across people or having friends where they'll tell you like their, their greatest weaknesses and vulnerabilities right away. Oh, yeah. It's like, okay,

this is where we're at. This is where we're going. I love this. Let's explore. Before we dive like any deeper into your, your story, though, recently read your book, The Lay of the Land

and watched, your doc. Have you announced that it's not out yet so yeah but do people know you've been working on a dock? Yep yeah for yeah since March of 2022. So I watched the doc, read the book, loved them both. I was extremely surprised actually by your story. Before like really getting to know you yeah, I just assumed you were someone who had a camera in their hand since they were born. And learning more about your story and the

way you were raised and finding a camera, you know, for me, it's like, oh, if Joe did it, anyone else can do it. Exactly. Right? And, like, that's why I say it's an equalizer. Yes. And you kind of mentioned this a little bit ago about going into a room and being the center of attention.

And a quote in your book says, the best thing I could do would be to fully immerse myself and everything school work new relationships the bigger my personality the stronger i felt it would make my case that i had it all together my hyper extroverted behavior in social settings was a mask to keep people from seeing the weight of my trauma can we talk about the trauma in your story yeah to set the stage sure because you know i've had conversations in discussions and discussions and interviews with people who have achieved greatness. And greatness is defined by however you define it personally. Yeah, very subjective.

It is subjective, yeah. But like, I remember when I first heard about you. It was from my creative team years ago. Wow. And they were like, Joe Greer knows who BPN is. That's wild. And I remember someone saying this. And I was like, hold, let me like dive into some Joe's work.

And I saw your photos before. I was like these are these are these are famous photos that's crazy so I'd love to kind of talk about where you started where you came from sure to find out how you got to where you are today and some of the decisions some of the experiences that guided that trajectory absolutely yeah yeah that's wild um yeah man uh born in flint michigan and uh 1989 uh to a single mother uh Nikki Ann um yeah it was just her and I uh

growing up for those first four years. It was on the night of my fourth birthday. She never made it to the birthday party that we had a chucky cheese that night. She was at a kind of with some friends from from work that evening and it was kind of like bar hopping, I guess, before, or have a happy hour, I guess, before the party and had a little too much of drink. So she asked a friend of hers, colleague, not a friend, to drive. And she was unaware that he was drunk. And that guy ended up running a red light and a lady T-bone in the car on my mother's side. And he was fine, but my mom was in a critical condition. And he pulled my mom into the driver's seat to make it look like she was driving drunk.

And then he fled the scene. Thankfully, they caught him. Thankfully, there were witnesses there at the scene. And they could match, you know, the injuries on my mother's right side of her body to the blood that was on the inside of the right side of the car. she was yeah and a very critical condition and but she was alive but essentially in a vegetable state couldn't walk couldn't talk the accident looked like it had aged her by like 15 years I remember during those next two years of her life which was she was in that state for for the following two years from four age four to age six remember going to visit her at the hospital in the nursing home where she

later was and just being uncomfortable to see her because it's like that's not how I remember her especially as a four-year-old right you know um I now having a son I came in like when he is four years old I think that my my story's going to hit a whole new chapter of meaning of like oh wow this is how old I was when this happened to my mom and I'm going to know how all of her things at that age because I can't really go back and think about how I was at that time but as a four-year-old I remember just being like this is uncomfortable like she can't say my name she She can't hold out her arms to give me a hug. She can't chase after me like she used to.

And so it was just very hard for me. And that first year to go visit her. And then when I was six, she passed away from just complications of her injury. It just kind of caught up to her and her body kind of wore out. During that time, those two years, I was bouncing around of family members up in Michigan. And then the court kind of, they decided that my aunt and uncle, so my mother's sister, my aunt Michelle, Down in Florida, I would be the best suit for me. They had, at the time, three kids.

So I would have been the fourth. They ended up having two more after that. So it was the six of us, my two older brothers, my cousins, but I call them my brothers and sisters. And then I'll call my aunt, uncle, my mom and dad now. But, yeah, I got adopted by them. I changed my last name when I was about six and moved down to Florida, which is where I grew up.

And, yeah, I had kind of a normal childhood for the most part. But it was kind of also, there was just a lot of just bizarre things that were kind of happening during that time. You know, they pretty quickly on. They changed my name. They changed my middle name. They wanted me to feel kind of included in the family, which I get. And they also, you know, wanted me to, you know, not call them Aunt Michelle and Uncle Ken. You know, they wanted me to call them mom and dad.

And it was kind of like forced. It was kind of bizarre. But I didn't, you know, I didn't know what was what else to do or what was going on. And they never really wanted me to tell anybody, you know, that I was adopted either. which was, again, strange. And I'm the kind of person, like you just mentioned, like I'm a very open book, very. And it's the kind of, like you mentioned,

like I meet some new people. We're at a bonfire. If something came up, I would share my story. Like I'm not going to force on anybody, but naturally, if somebody asks, you know, I'm very open. I'm not a closed off person. So I was like that as a kid too,

which was, and finding out later from other family members that knew Mama Mom really well, is that she was like that also. She was a very curious person. person. I think that's why I am the way that I am or I photograph the way that I photograph or I travel the way that I travel is because I've always been a very curious, curious kid, maybe because that's of circumstance, because of what happened and being very sheltered.

I was adopted into a very strict family, very strict religious, Southern Baptist family, no drums in church, no rid of our movies, just sang hymns, which was really great for me. young age actually. I think I needed that structure. I needed that in a very weird way. And it also kind of led me to faith at a young age. Even though there was some unfortunate things happening behind the scenes growing up, it still led me to find my faith in Jesus, which is still there to this day. And I'm very grateful for that. Given all the things that I've gone through since then, it's been, you know, the one thing that has been stable in my life that has kept me grounded, that has kept me alive, that has kept to me from going off the deep end when there has been

multiple moments for me to just say, you know what, F it, screw everybody, I'm cutting everybody out, I'm gone, I'm moving away, I'm leaving the country, or I'm going to be dead in the ditch somewhere. Like, my store gives me the outlet to take all those paths and to be just angry at the world. But I'm very grateful that I believe God has had his hand on me his whole life. my whole life. And I'm very grateful for that. But I grew up, you know, they kind of didn't know what to do with me because I had a lot of pent-up energy. And maybe that was just angst.

Maybe it was confusion. Who knows. But like it was just sports. It was like soccer, baseball. It was too skinny for football. But did all the sports. Did all the things. I was really into baseball growing up.

And then it was eighth grade. I was trying on the basketball team, but I wanted to be in shape for it. So I ran cross-country in eighth grade. and I was just, it was so easy for me. Even in like in fifth grade, sixth grade, you do like the mile in your like PT test or whatever. And I was always like, I was running like sub six as like a 10 year old in the mile and like spoke on all the eighth graders doing all that stuff.

And so my coaches kept me like you need to run across the country. It's like no, I like baseball. I like basketball. I don't want to run. So I tried running in eighth grade and end up being a bunch of high schoolers in my races and it just was just always easy for me. It just became natural. But I also think there's a lot of layers there.

I think there's a lot of deeper things that was going on from the household situation where running was just this beautiful, calculated escape for me to just, and I wasn't like processing trauma as an eighth grader, but I think there were things there that there were experiences, there were feelings that I felt with that runner's high, which I had no idea was a thing back then, that I was experiencing that just felt so different from basketball or baseball or any other, you know, activity.

and then I get to high school and it's still baseball. It's like I'm a tryout for baseball. Not even going to look at cross country my freshman year. Go to baseball tryouts. I was a catcher and do the tryouts. Thought I did really well. Apparently I did not. Coach pulled me in.

He's like, Joe, listen, son. I don't have a spot for you on the team. And I was devastated, dude. Oh my God. I was like crying. I was shocked. Like my whole life was shattered. Like, dude, and I've never not been picked for a team.

Like, I pride myself by being very athletic and very, like a natural athlete. Like, I'm good at a lot of different things. but that was one of the first, like, humbling experiences of my life where I was, like, not good enough to make the JV baseball team. I was devastated, but it came with a caveat. He's like, you're in the wrong sport, son, you need to be running track and field. During the tryouts, I was, like, beating all the seniors on the track workout, track runs and stuff like that that they had for the baseball team.

And he was just looking at the way that I was running and doing that. I was like, you're not meant for this sport. And so I was obviously crushed, but went to run track and field, and the rest was history. that was a big part of my childhood. That was the first thing I was good at was running. It was the very first thing. It was my first love. I fell in love with running during my high school years and had a really fun high school

career. And when I graduated in 2007, it was like, what am I going to, do I want to try to run somewhere? Do you want to go get a scholarship? And I went to Liberty University to try to walk on the cross-country. Because I was fast, I wasn't fast enough to get a scholarship. And I could have been a good number five, number four on a team, I think. but I would have had to work very hard. And so I went to Liberty University

because at the time, they had one of the best runners in the country there, Josh McDougal, actually beat out Galen Rupp in the D1 Cross Nationals in 2008, the year I was there as a freshman. He beat out the Oregon Prodigy in Galen Rupp. So shout out Josh McDougal. And went there, man,

and it was just a bizarre, beautiful experience because as a very sheltered person, Like, I mean, when I was in high school, it was literally go to school, go to cross-country track practice, and then go home. Never partied, never drank, never went to friends' houses, friends never came over. It was just like, do your school, do your practice, and then you come home. Is that by choice or enforcement? No, enforcement. Absolutely.

If it was my way. But again, I think from as I was told, you know, my birth mother, you know, she liked to have a good time. And that was a big part of her personality. And so I think my aunt, her sister, was just terrified of what happening to my mom would happen to me, which is very natural. I feel like if I had adopted my nephew at the age of four or five or six

and knew how his mother was, I probably would have done the same thing, maybe, just by out of protection. And so as I've gotten older, I've tried to put myself in their position to see why they chose to be so freaking strict with me. And I think that's one of those things I just mentioned where it's like,

that typically when you have a household that is very, very strict, the child rebels. Whether it's when they leave the house, 18, I'm out, see you later, and never going to talk to you again, and they just like go freaking wild. But I think because they raised me in the church and I had that foundation of faith, I just never saw the draw to just that lifestyle,

even though all my friends wanted me to come to the parties and they wanted me to do this and that. And embarrassingly, I had to not allow, or I just making them excuses because I was too embarrassed to tell them that I wasn't allowed to do anything. But I'm also very grateful because, you know, I didn't have my first dream until I was like 25 because then I went to, yeah, because then I went to, so I guess backtrack a little bit. I went to Moody or went to Liberty University for only that one year, 2007, 2008. Come back to Florida.

My parents couldn't afford school anymore. And so I was in Florida down for the next two years from 19 to 21, just working. They had a flower shop. That was a flower truck deliverer. And I was running on the side too. I was actually coaching at my old high school there helping out some of the younger athletes, which was really fun season. And then I decided I wanted to go to Bible College to become a minister, become a pastor.

And a very incredible father figure in my life. I grew up going to and working at a Bible camp every summer from when I was basically adopted. I was like that summer they shipped me to Bible camp. And then so that was a big part of my childhood. And I had a lot of incredible mentors there. And one of them, he had gotten his education at, Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. And so knowing the impact he's had on me

throughout my adolescent years, I was like, oh, I gotta go to, Jared and went to Moody, I gotta go to Moody. So I applied, got rejected, and sent to their sister location in Spokane, Washington, which I had no idea existed. And I was pretty crushed again.

I was like, oh my gosh, man, I can't even go to Chicago. And so I go to Spokane, and it was one of the best decisions on my life. And I think at that time, too, I was going through some, some rough stuff, which I guess I'll try to like piece the story together. As I mentioned in the book, and I touch on in the documentary also. But because of my mother's accident, when she passed, there was a really big lawsuit.

And a lot of money was awarded to my family because of the lawsuit. You know, he was in a company car. He had run the, it was a whole big thing. and I have winning or been granted a million dollars, a few million dollars. That one I became of age at 18 that I would get this money. And so from age six when that's settled, age six or seven to 18, it had just been sitting in a trust fund, just building, building, building. And I found out about this from my older brother, cousin, Jake.

We were hiking in the woods one day and he somehow knew and told me, he was like 12. I was thinking about like what girl is going to sit next to a lunch. Like I was not thinking about, you know, getting any money. He's like, dude, remember your mom? You know your mom's accident? Like there's a bunch of money set aside for you that you're going to get, you know, a few million dollars when you turn 18. I was like, dude, Jake, shut up, girl.

Like, I'm trying to talk to Stacy when I get back to school right now. Like, let's, can we not? And, uh, but it was always there. It was, but I, my adopted parents never told me. I was way too terrified and intimidated by them to even bring that up. That's nothing I would ever even attempt to do. So I always knew that this was there. And I turned 18 while I was at Liberty in February.

Two months after that, in April, it was Easter Sunday. My grandma had called me and I was up in Virginia. And it's the first time I'd heard from my grandmother, my mother's mother, since I was about nine. I was about nine, my adoptive family cut her out of their life just on a whim. woke up one day and like we're done with grandma and it was terrifying because she was horrible she was a big part of my childhood especially during those first few years after my mother was going through the accident and she passed like that was her daughter um and she was so kind

and special to me and it was it was we had a really good relationship and so the first time i'm hearing her voice in like a decade and i'm like oh my gosh how did you get my number because and i knew i wasn't supposed to talk to her too so that fear from my parents just like you do not talk to grandma whatsoever she's crazy don't listen like that's you can't not talk to her. And so that was just, I was just like looking over my shoulder, seeing if my parents were going to watch me talk to my grand. I was so scared. It was so bizarre. But we were just catching up and she said, where are you? Like, oh, I'm in school of Liberty in Virginia. Virginia. I mean, she's freaking out. She's, how are the kids? How are your siblings? How is everything going?

What are you studying? All that. We get through all that information. And I'm 19 at the time. And she's like, okay, well, you know, how's the money? Do you got your money? And I was like, I kind of vaguely know what you're talking about, but not really. Like I have no clue. Jake told me something, you know, when I was 12, I was going to get some money when I turned 18, but no, I'm here at Liberty doing my thing, running, trying to run. And she was shocked. I mean, just angry, furious, how's that positive? Okay. And she's like, how did that happen? Like, there's no way. Like, we set to settle aside so that you didn't have your mother with you. And there was a thing that she probably would have wanted if she couldn't spend her life with you, that you would have this

to go on in your life and to be fruitful and to just like be successful. I was like, Nana, you know as much as I do. I have no clue. And then she's asking questions that did you ever go to a see a lawyer or like, did your parents ever, do you like sign any paperwork? And I was like, no. And I was like, wait a second. And then it just clicked the summer after I graduated high school before I went to Liberty

that summer, a few different times I'd gone to a bank to sign some paperwork in front of a notary. And I'm 18 at the time. And I asked them, I was like, what is this? I'm signing it. Like, what am I, what is this for? And they just, oh, you know, it's money for liberty to get you into liberty. I was like, okay, cool.

Didn't read. And it was just like, she went in, talked to them, had the paperwork, came out, got me, came in. Up, sign here, sign here, sign here, go back to the car. Happened like two, three times that summer. Didn't anything of it. I was going to liberty. I'm stoked. I'm getting out of Florida.

I'm getting away from the family. I'm freedom, my first time being free. to make my own decisions and to not have to be back at 3 p.m. And I could hang out with people. I could be that social butterfly that I always was and knew that that was a big part of my personality. And then I told her that and then everything clicked. I was like, oh my God.

Shortly after that, they bought that flower shop. Cash. And my dad bought a bunch of heavy machinery for his business. Cash. They paid off the house cash. They did pay for that one year of liberty. I will grant them that. And so I'm just like, oh my gosh, did I give.

them access to the money and do they take it? I'm like, no, I was like, no, there's no way that would have happened. There's no way. And so like, I go back. So I tell her that and she's like, oh, that's, I don't like what happened. That gives me not good feelings. And but again, I was not going to ever talk to them about it. I was too terrified. I was too scared of them. I was like, there's no way. And I was fine in life. I was very content with my life at that point. I'd gone back to Florida for those two years before I moved out to Washington State. Had a girlfriend was working at the Bible camp. I'm like making no money, but I'm like, I don't have no expenses because I'm living at home.

I'm running again. I'm trying to get back into some road races and I'm like just having a good time. And I was, I had gotten accepted into Moody to go to Spokane. And I had had like, I'd saved like four grand from just working. I was working at American Eagle. And just for the move to Spokane across the country to go to it. And I was like enough for one semester. And I was like kind of telling my story like I am now to the camp directors, some mentors in mine.

and they had no idea they'd never heard of my story. And so I'm kind of sharing all this and sharing about how I just talked to my grandma. And then I think I made the connection to like, I think they may have stole the money that I was supposed to get. I don't know, but I can't tell them. I don't want to tell them, but like, how do I find this out? And they're like, Joe, you got to one, you got to talk to your parents. But B, you may need to try to find some paperwork. Do you know if your family has any kind of documents of the court settlement or anything?

It's like, maybe we've got a storage container in the back of our house. So I went home. I was living at the camp, working there, all year that last year I lived in Florida. And so one day I went back one weekend and my parents went to sleep and I was up to like 3 a.m. in that storage container with a flashlight looking for and I found the box at my house still in Franklin now. And it's the police report. It's the autopsy report. It's the court settlement. It's photos of the car, photos of my mom prior to the accident, photos of her after the accident, everything. Everything is in there. And so I steal that box,

go back to where I was living in Lakeland and just took a few weeks to just lay everything out, look through everything. A lot of legal jargon I didn't understand had no idea what it meant, still don't. I'm like, I take it to a family friend that was a lawyer, is like, what's going on here? What do I got?

And they kind of was like, I found the documents, a million dollars, Joe Greer gets this when he becomes age. There's the trust fund, there's all the numbers, there's all the signatures, everyone agreeing to it. I'm like, this is so confused. What? Did I? I signed it all the way, didn't I? And then they were encouraging me.

He's like, Joe, now, you have this. You know, I'd go and I encourage, implore you to go talk to your parents and to just ask him. I'm like 20 at the time, almost 21. I'm terrified. I'm terrified to have this conversation. And I intentionally chose to do it when my dad was out of town so I could just talk to my mom.

And I go back one weekend, and I'm just like, dude, I mean, I don't even know how. I remember anything because I was just so nervous. But I had that piece of paper of her signature, just of the settlement in my back pocket to pull out. So I was like, Mom, this is what I know. Talk to Grandma. She told me all this. She completely denied it.

It was, Joe, you don't know what you're talking about. And then I pulled out the paper with her signature that agreed to everything that she just denied. Then her posture changed. Everything, she just like, yeah. was, yeah, she's had some pretty, some pretty hurtful things. And it's like, Joe, you just don't understand. You were a child. We took you in along with your other five brothers and sisters. It's just not fair for you to be treated like a prince when we took you, when we took you in, that money doesn't belong to you. And that was, that was horrible. Because at that time, you know,

I, yeah, it was, and so I said to her, I was like, so the paperwork I signed after I graduated high school at the bank in front of the notaries a few times was that me signing away the money giving you access to the accounts and you could it hit her then that was when it like her whole everything changed and she just looked down and nodded yes and i mean i was incredibly emotional and um so i left i didn't go back um until i got accepted into moody it was about to move across the country to say goodbye um and that i made that window may have been eight months um didn't hear from my dad i'm sure she told him Maybe she didn't. But I went back and it was like, Joe's home.

Like nothing was ever wrong. Just ignored it. Ignored it. Never addressed it. And that was just further confirmation that I do not belong here. I need to get out of this environment. I'm from a small town in Florida, like a thousand person town. Like nobody leaves.

Everybody stays there. Nobody gets out. And I'm like, this is not it. I got to get out. I got to go. And it was just, it was hard, but it was like confirmation. I'm 21. I'm about to move across the country.

Never seen fall. I've never seen snow. my life is about to change. I cannot wait. And so I go. And this goes into that quote that you just read about the book. I'm at Moody. I'm 21. I'm living in the Pacific Northwest. One of the most beautiful parts of the country, in my opinion. At Bible college, I'm learning about the Bible and scripture and theology, and I'm learning about forgiveness and grace. And I'm trying to like, and I just had one of the most intense years of my life finding this massive secret out about my up. bringing or about my mom's accident and how my family treated me this way and it was very challenging.

And I think that's where it was. I think that's why I was so vocal and why I was so extrovert and why I was so over the top because I had so much going on that nobody would have understood. And I didn't want to tell anybody at that time. Over the years, once I, you know, those first few years as it took me about two years to work through that process of forgiveness towards them, then truly was I able to open up and to truly be myself. But I think that was a mask for me because I wanted people to, you know, it was my first time to just have a fresh slate. Nobody knew me over there. It was, it was beautiful. But as I was working through that, it was challenging because, man, did my parents actually adopt me because they loved me or do

they see that check? Do they see that opportunity to make a lot of money? He's like, yeah, we're going to take him in for, you know, 13 years until he becomes an adult, but it'll be worth it when he turns 18. The incentive. Yeah, exactly. I'm curious, based off all that, And you talked about this in your book, and I thought you described it really well. So I'd love to hear your perspective on forgiveness. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, at a young age, you were pursuing a life and career to be a pastor. Yeah.

Like you wanted to lead in church at some point. Yeah. And you were down that path. I was. You were writing sermons, preaching sermons, studying Greek. I was in it. fully pursuing. And you have,

you know, that foundation of faith, following God, and you have these experiences and truly being challenged and tested through obstacles and, and hardship, how do that shape your opinion

and perspective on forgiveness? Because forgiving people, then we just talked about a little bit ago in beginning this episode, we both are people who trust others very easily. Yeah. We give others the benefit of the doubt,

trust them, bring them into our life until they prove us wrong. Right. When people prove us wrong, we have, we have choices. We can forgive them or we can burn them. And, you know, I think if you don't forgive, or at least the way you described in the book

is when you truly started practicing implementing forgiveness, you felt lighter. I did. And that really resonated with me because I've been in situations before where I've been burned by people or people I thought I could trust. I learned I couldn't trust anymore.

That's like really heavy. Yeah. And until you shed that weight, you can't feel the light. So what did you do to start practicing and implementing forgiveness and feel lighter? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this that aren't able to forgive people in their lives.

100%. And it's a really heavy weight to hold. It is, man. It's, uh, I think of some of the heaviest weight, no matter how you've been wronged, whether it's betrayal, whether it's deceit, whether it's manipulation, whether it's physical trauma, verbal trauma, whatever it is, whatever the case it may be for, because we're all different humans,

we all go through different things. But for my case, specifically, I'm very grateful for where I was during that season. Like if I had not gotten into Moody and I was still working in Florida, maybe I moved away to a different town in Florida and worked a random job or continue to work in American Eagle. But if I did not have that foundation of studying the scripture and learning about, I mean, I grew up in the church, I was very familiar with the scripture,

very familiar with the life of Jesus and very familiar with the gospel. But that's where I, like, really dug deep. Even theologically, he's like, okay, like, this is, if I'm learning about Jesus and now he forgave us, right? I'm not trying to, this is my sermon, Pastor Joe coming out. Preach. There was no way for me, it made no sense for me, to study and to have my conviction spiritually and then not to forgive my parents.

That's the anti-gospel. That's not gospel is Christ dying for our sins, live in the perfect, sinless life that we cannot and died the death that we deserved. He died in our place, and he forgave us for that. That's the essence and the heart of what Jesus came to do, to live on this earth and to die that, and then rose again. And as I'm studying this and I'm talking to my professors and other students and we're kind of, again, nobody knows I'm going through this. I'm just like processing everything.

And I'm asking questions geared towards the things I was going through and just kind of praying a lot. I was running during that time. I was out in the PNW. It was the mountains, first time seeing the mountains. So that was a really safe sanctuary for me to process some of these things. And then it just like, I started to think about it was like, man, so what's the ultimate? alternative here, Joe. You take them to court. The house they have down in Florida on 10 acres, it's my house. They use the money that should have been mine legally to buy that house.

Their business, fly business, that's mine. All their cars, that's mine. So what? I take all that. I pushed them out on the streets for money, which is exactly what they did to me. Then I'm repeating that cycle of greed, of manipulate. Like, that's just, not, it may not make sense to a lot of people. And when I tell this story to people, it angers a lot of people. Like, how did you not sue them? How did you not take every dime from them? And I'm so grateful that I had the people in my life in that particular season of my life to give me the advice that I needed to hear because there were times where I was so angry and I wanted justice and I wanted vengeance and I wanted revenge and I wanted them to feel the pain that they had caused

me. And it wasn't never about the money. It was the fact that like they had raised me. It was the fact that like they had raised me in the church to live in love like Jesus when all while they just had dollar signs and that I was just this this this collateral this this opportunity to make a lot of money and to buy a business and to do whatever and so it took like a year or two to work through that man and then it just like there was I don't remember like a one morning when I woke up it just like over time I think God's soft in my heart and he I was genuinely concerned that like they have not apologize. They think they have not done anything wrong. I was genuinely concerned about their salvation if they actually believe the things that they taught me growing up. The things, I mean, we

were very active in our church. It's like, are they even, they even believe what they're reading? Do they even believe what they're teaching? Because like, that's so anti-J-it's not how Jesus lived and walked this earth. And so I was having these conflicts of like, that doesn't make sense. And so I was like, terrified for, man, do they actually know who Jesus? Jesus is. It's like the best thing for me to do was to forgive them so that in that forgiveness, maybe by the grace of God, they could see through the power of the Holy Spirit leading them through conviction that they could see the light, that they could see that. That was why I made that decision. And it was hard and it took me years. But and after I made that commitment and

that decision, I mean, I felt, like you said, I felt so free and I felt so light. Shortly after that, I discovered photography. Photography came into my life like almost a month after that. decision. And then that whole new pursuit of, you know, taking photos on my iPhone for and just discovering this new passion of mine came into my life right around the same time. And so I, and to this day, I don't regret forgiving them. I don't regret the time that it took or how hard it was or whatever. Like I'm eternally grateful for those early years in my early 20s. It taught me a lot about myself. It taught me a lot about the gospel and my faith and how, um, how powerful and how freeing forgiveness is.

My mother and I have since reconciled, which has been a really beautiful thing. My adoptive father and I, not so much. I'm hopeful, but I, that is, you know, he's, he's an old, he's an old dog. It's, it's, you know, it's his way or the highway. You know, he's a classical southern man that just, he is right and everyone else is wrong.

And it's very unfortunate. it because I think he could gift me a lot of healing by just a few words. And it's unfortunate I think he's going to take that to his grave. I pray that that's different. And I pray that he has a powerful coming to Jesus moment. But I've chose to kind of separate myself from him, from my family even. but it's uh yeah yeah that's been really hard

but um I'm very grateful to to be where I'm at um given all that yeah sorry what does forgiveness look and feel like

and I'll try to frame it this way sure because I'm sure like a lot of people I've heard before yeah you gotta forgive just forgive forgive forgive and sometimes when it's just like thrown out there it feels like you're saying just give them a reset just giving them a restart yeah which sounds so cheap it does sound cheap and it's like well yeah but they get a reset they get a restart but yeah how does that make me feel lighter yeah so how do you approach forgiveness that you actually

feel lighter and it's not just a gimme that's where it's hard and i think it's um it's different for everybody. I don't know, man, it's always been easy for it to just roll off my back. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because it's so easy for me to trust. It's been easier for me to forgive after that experience. It took a while. But once I got that, any other wrongdoing that has come my way, it's I tried to put myself in their shoes. I try to see where they're coming from. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. And there are times where like I forgive, but then I have to kind like separate myself from that relationship just so I don't you know I wish you well but I'm going to do my own thing over here and yeah I don't know if I have like a profound answer um my buddy

matthias who helps out in the documentary he's a psychotherapist he's great he lives here and franklin he's incredible he and I went to moody together I was his RA he played a big role in the documentary which I'm very excited for people to see in here he and I uh Yeah, he's just an incredible therapist, specifically around trauma. And he and I have a very, we have a lot of boundaries in our friendship to where, like, I don't ever want him. He knows everything about my life, everything about my story, everything I've gone through, even things that are not public, he knows.

And I make sure that whenever we hang out, he's not trying to figure me out. Like, I'm not, he's not on the clock. We're hanging out. And he always respects those boundaries, which I'm very grateful for. So I've never heard him or seen him talk about my trauma ever. until I watched the first cut of the documentary that Eric Floberg and Stephen out there

in Chicago are making right now. And you've seen it. And it was the first time I ever saw him speak into and talk about my life in that way. And I was a wreck, dude. I mean, because he hits so, that's why I'm like so excited for people to watch this

documentary. And as you know, you've seen it like, it's not even about the running. It's not even about the goal that I had to for the CIM or the time I was trying to beat. And that's what's so beautiful about it. Not that we need to talk about the documentary, but it's just like Matthias, he hits pretty hard on that forgiveness bit

and said it in a way that I can't even try to mimic or regurgitate what he said because it was so profound on his approach. He's actually writing a book right now about forgiveness, which I think is going to help a lot of people. But I think that documentary is going to be a beautiful vessel about forgiveness. that Matthias so professionally and clinically threads through my story and finds these,

makes these connections that I didn't even realize was there. And he's like speaking to me, which I know, it's just, it was wild. It was a very bizarre thing. I don't have a really profound answer on that question about forgiveness. I'm still figuring it out, man. I just know for me, it's all rooted back to like to the gospel and to be Christ-like and to live and walk like Jesus did. And I study his life.

and I see how he walked this earth, and how he kind of extended love towards people that in today's world, people don't believe that deserve that kind of love. And Jesus kind of did that. And so that has been very transformative for me, my personal life and how I treat people and how I go about my business, how I go about my running, how I go about my marriage, how I plan to go about my new life as a father.

But, yeah. Now that you're speaking about this, I'm thinking, Yeah. I think the way that I approach forgiveness is I'm very intentional with where I invest my my time, yes, but more so my energy. Yeah. I come across a lot of people who are willing to invest their energy into everything. Yeah.

They care about everything. So like if someone burns them, they will remember that and they will spend so much energy. They will exhaust themselves on that pursuit of. Yeah. Getting answers or getting revenge. Right. And for me, if I lose trust in someone, yeah. Yes, like I will forgive them.

But part of my forgiveness is like, I just don't care to invest more time or energy into this situation or into this person. Yeah. I'm the same way. So it's like, yeah, you can like still be a part of my life. I'm going to create boundaries. Yes. But I'm not going to invest any more energy into this whole situation because I don't care enough to like keep pursuing it. That's good.

Yep. If you burn me, I could spend time on that. But now there's like opportunity costs of where I could be spending time with my wife or my daughter and like being present there and with my business. So that's the way that I kind of look at forgiveness. Yeah. I wish it was just easy for everybody to forgive or even for me sometimes. But it's just like it's just depending on the situation. It's, I mean, we're all humans.

We all make mistakes. And we've all been wronged in one way or another. And some people are very passionate. about revenge. Some people are very passionate about reconciliation. Some people are very passionate about trying to make things work or cut people out of their lives. And I think there are, maybe there are wrong ways, maybe there are right ways. I don't know. I'm not speaking, it's just like I have pursued it in a way that makes sense to me and that that speaks to my convictions. And I'm still learning. I don't do it the best sometimes. But it's,

what a, what a beautiful opportunity it is to have. the chance to forgive somebody. There's so much power in that. And I think that's where that liberty and that freedom of feeling light, when you truly do, not one hand open, one hand closed, and you're just holding on to it,

you know, grinding your teeth a little bit, but when you truly do extend those hands open and say, I forgive you, no strings attached, I wish you well. Like that has been a recipe of, of beauty and healing for me. And that doesn't work necessarily for everybody. But for me, it's like if I can truly let that go and move on

and pursue time with my wife and my beautiful son and my business and what I'm trying to build creatively and then my running goals and then building a community here in Franklin in Nashville, I have just experienced so, yeah, so much freedom and kind of like loosening the grip a little bit and truly letting it go. But again, that doesn't work for some people. I think it's because it's based on your personality.

And maybe there are times for justice. And yeah, I don't know when that is. I'm no expert on that. But that's how I've gone about it in my life. We're all just trying to figure it out. I'm just trying to figure it out, brother. That's it. So I do want to talk about your photography.

But I think a really good segue into photography is talking about the light. The concept of the light has been very interesting to me these past couple years in my life. And you can apply this to photography. Yeah. You can apply this to faith. Oh, yes. We live in like a, what can be a dark and noisy world.

Absolutely. And the way I've always thought about it is, you know, people will always follow other people. Yeah. So if there are bad people, there will be bad followers of those bad people. Yeah.

That creates this darkness, that creates this noise. Yeah. Wow. And say you have a room of just dark people doing bad things, bad thoughts, and one person walks into that room with a light. That's it.

Everyone's going to stop and look at the light. Yes. The light is... It's attention. It's an anomaly. It's like, what are you doing with that light in this dark room? Yeah.

I think we should all... Yes. Try to be the light in the darkness. You know, that's how we change the world. That's how we change behaviors and thoughts. Absolutely. That's my goal. I'm trying to be this light in darkness.

for my family, for the platforms that I've built over the last decade, for my business. Like that's where I see my meaningful mission at this point in my life right now. Absolutely. But light is also very applicable to photography. Oh, yeah. And capturing the light. The necessary ingredient. Right.

Yeah. You don't have a photograph without light. But you didn't grow up in a family or a world around cameras. No. The first couple photos you took, I guess for. couple years was on your iPhone. Garbage. That was 2011, correct?

2011, yeah. So let's talk about how you found this passion. Yeah. Because I think it would surprise a lot of people. It surprised me, to be honest. Because you thought I had grew up in it. You thought I was taking photo classes potentially or I was giving a camera at a young age. 100%.

Wow. Which I think is the majority of how people get into photography. Like their dad had a camera or their grandpa had one, which so many of friends I have, they have these stories where like their grandfather gifted them all their old film cameras and they started, you know. Your first generation photographer. Yes. Yeah, let's talk about that.

Absolutely, yeah, man. So going back, I go to Spokane. I'm studying, did four years there, 2010 to 2014. It was that 2011-ish year. Instagram had come out October of 2010. And so for that, and that whole year was out. I was an Android guy. I apologize to everybody listening.

I was the green text, dude. That was ruining. Text messages. This is the worst. Group chats. the app, the worst, the worst kind of people. And, but on Facebook, at that time, there was no real easy way to post photos to Facebook.

It was like very complicated. It was just hard to gather or it just didn't look, they hadn't figured it out. But I kept, on Facebook, I kept seeing people post photos. And it was, it said via Instagram and had these like cool filters on it that were just different from anything Facebook had.

And I was like, oh, what is this? What's Instagram? And I did some research and found out, oh my gosh, it's this new photo app. but you need an iPhone. You couldn't have it on Android. The Android feature was not yet a thing for Instagram. So I literally was like, I got to go buy an iPhone.

And I emptied my bank account. I was a broke college student. Worked four part-time jobs. Just like drained it to go buy an iPhone for the ones with the glass back. I don't even know if you remember those ones. Those were so beautiful. Such a beautiful device. And so I buy that, download Instagram just so I could take photos and post it to Facebook

so that people even care on Instagram. It was just the vessel for me to get photos to Facebook. for friends and family back home. And so I'm like taking photos of whatever. I mean, just in absolute nothing. Trying out all these like cool filters, you know,

I got it around fall time. So I was, you know, taking photos of, you know, all the foliage. It was my second fall I'd ever experience at that time.

And so I was still just encapsured by the, the fall season, autumn season out there. And so it's just a lot of really bad photos with horrible, horrible edits. And then as the months go by

and winter comes and snow comes and spring comes. I'm just like, I'm in class, I'm writing papers, I'm writing sermons, I'm doing my thing, and I'm just like thinking about taking photos. I'm like, man, just with my iPhone, had no professional camera. And so when I wasn't working, I had off time, even when I should have been doing schoolwork, writing papers and writing sermons, I was just out walking around. And there was a few friends of mine that we all kind of got this bug, this Instagram bug of

trying to take photos on our iPhone. And then our photos started to like, people started to pay attention to it. and they started to get a lot of likes. I'm like, who are all these random people liking my photos and finding my Instagram and following my Instagram? Like, this is insane. I'm taking, I mean, I leave all these photos up. So you can go back 3,000 plus images and you can see my original photos that I was taking back in the day. And they're just, I left it.

I leave it up there so I can just kind of return to it. It's always beautiful to know where I come from and how I started that it wasn't this like pearly gates open up. And I have just been successful since I started. there was a lot of bad gears, a lot of growing pains, a lot of bad photographs. I still make bad photographs. I go back and watch my old YouTube video sometimes just to like see how far we've come as a brand. It's a hard for you to kind of consume it. Like, oh my gosh, I've changed so much as a as a person, as a man, as a creative.

Or do you still, you're like, oh, I can't have I said that or oh, I watch with like one eye open, man. I cringe it like what I said and what I was talking about and you know, you think you have it all figured out. It's so funny how that works Because that's definitely a yeah because in that time I was like this is the sickest freaking thing like but now when I go back I'm like my goodness think think like and how did people like that how did people enjoy that? I just put like workout edits together to slow like R&B music It's like four minute workout segments way before Jordan was here right? Yeah yeah yeah

Like what was like all tripod shots? Yep transitions zoom in zoom out That's so good You know, it's very humbling and beautiful to look back on that because you see the growth. You know, and I think that's what's so powerful about it. And why I left it up there. It's like, man, what a beautiful way. Even for other photographers that are young or that hear the story. Some people, a lot of people know how I got into photography, but maybe some people

listen and will be the first time they're hearing this. So go back and look at those photos and to know that like results and success, and this applies into everything we're doing, even you and I building right now for the CIM marathon. success and results requires hard work. It requires, it's honestly insanity, doing the same thing over and over and over and over again until you get good, until you make mistakes.

You learn from that. You process it. At least how I do. Okay, what went wrong here? This is what we're wrong. This is, okay, I didn't compose this right, or I used the wrong lens, or maybe I didn't edit the right way.

And then you move on, and I still use that practice to this day, and I constantly look at my photographs and the bad ones and to see what I did, and then I move on. I set this aside and I continue to go on and stack. But it's so beautiful. And it's very nostalgic for me to look back on all those bad photographs and to know how far

I've come. But yeah, so I'm like taking all these photos. My Instagram is starting to grow. And I'm like looking for any and every excuse to take photos. I mean, to miss class, to like call out on work shifts,

to go catch sunset or to get up at 4 a.m. to go chase sunrise. And again, this is Florida boy living out in the mountains. I'm just the zes. and zeal for life is, I mean, you could, if you're around me in those, those, those years, I couldn't think or talk about anything else. It was that. It was just all making photographs. And I'm not even trying to make money either. It was just like, I love going to chase these

sunrises and sunsets and to see what I can discover. Those landscapes, right? Landscape, landscape photographs. I wasn't taking portraits, we wasn't taking any photos of people. It's usually people really far away kind of standing on a rock and that was giving some, scale to the landscape that I was. And that's why I chose to do that way. and that was a very trendy thing in that era too, right? So I was like following all these photographic trends on the early days of Instagram where it's just a lot of people in that part of the country too were just doing the same things.

And I was like, that's how I learned. I was just like, oh, like these people I followed that I looked up to. Oh, look at what, you know, Corey did or look what Jared did. Oh my gosh, look at, look how beautiful that is. Let's go try to do the same thing. And we would just try to learn and copy and essentially plagiarize their compositions. But it was like, okay, this is, I actually don't like this. He's a little too close to the camera or I don't like.

this warmer edit. Let me go a little bit colder here because it's, you know, I'm photographing in winter. And so I'm just like, I know nothing about contrast. I know nothing about highlights or how to edit a photo. I'm like working on, you know, visco cam, just trying to drag the little toggles and to see what contrast did. Oh, okay, so it makes it a little bit more intense and colors and shadows and makes a little bit more rich and just, I don't even know how to describe contrast now, which is hilarious. I'm not really a tech type photographer, but I was able to see and understand what highlights did and how shadows work and what what what is an hsl scale oh this is what this does i can control the colors or the temperature and so i mean i'm just like learning and um that was a really

beautiful pure time of my life i look back on those first few years of uh you know when i got the and every year the iPhone four iphone four s five five s six six s i got every new phone just because in the cameras kept getting better and better my photography kept getting better and better in my opinion and cleaner and cleaner and i was starting to get more of a style and i'm like learning how to edit. I'm learning the type of tones that I like to work with. What'd you love about it? I've always been an incredibly, as I mentioned earlier, an incredibly curious person. Maybe because that's from my upbringing, because there was a lot of things I wasn't able to do. And as an adult, I was able to get out and then I wanted to do everything. Not the bad

stuff. But I mean, I still hadn't drank a drop of alcohol at that point. I'm like 23. But like, I just wanted to experience life. I wanted to get to know people. I wanted to see that part of the country. I wanted to like delight in God's nature and his handiwork and his craft of creating this earth. And I wanted to immerse myself in such a landscape as as, and again, as I'm studying the Bible and learning theology and taking account what I'm learning in the book of Genesis and how God formed the earth. And so I'm just like throwing myself my theology and what I'm learning about how the earth was made and my love for light and my love for photography. I just, it, there was just an undescribable bug that I caught,

and I could not shake it. I couldn't even tell you what it was. And then I think it was, oh, people are starting to pay attention. So that kind of gave some weird pressure. That was like, oh my God,

like these people are like, really looking forward to my photographs. Like I'm taking, like that's insane. Like I don't, and I didn't think you could make money at this time, like taking photos.

I was just, I had caught this bug in my buddies. We just had these three years. We, like we were just going on road trips and taking photos and learning. Oh, how did you get that photo?

or how did you edit that? And then I just was like, I get towards summer in between my junior and senior year high school. I go when I work in Hawaii with a family for like three months in Maui. And I had my iPhone there and I'm every free shift that I had

any free time I had, I was exploring the island by myself. And I'm taking photos. I'm learning. I mean, it's a whole new landscape. It's tropical. It's different light. It's surf.

culture, which I'm not really into, but I'm like photographing a whole new set of landscapes. And so that just brought me. I get back to Moody for my senior year, should be starting to apply to seminary, to go to get my master's in divinity, to continue my education so that I can get hired by church and to be a pastor and go down that path that I thought I was going down. And I just remember sitting there like in class and I'm like, what do I do? What do I do? Like, I want to do this photography thing, but I don't even know how to do it.

How do I pursue a career in this? Like I just kept getting like, am I supposed to be a pastor? Am I supposed to go like to seminary school? And I just kept getting just like I just felt like in that year, God revealed a lot of things to me. And then he kept opening up doors and doors. I got a job at Apple, which was like a full circle moment for me. Like, oh, I started this photo thing on the iPhone. What better way for me to be able to talk about the device than to work there and to convince people and to show people how awesome these machines are.

That can take incredible photographs. You don't need a camera. You don't need a big DSLR. It's still at that time three years in. I had no real camera, just my iPhone. And I loved working at Apple and got to talk about, you know, this machine that changed my life. And then again, my Instagram started growing.

Instagram made me a suggested user back in the day, which I don't think they do anymore, which is they'll promote your account for a few weeks. And I gained like 50K in a two-week window. And so I'm just like, and then after that, it was just a snowball effect. It just kept growing and growing and growing and growing. I graduate.

and I make the decision to try to pursue this photography thing, and I'm just working at Apple. Maybe I work my way up an Apple, and maybe that's what I do, and I just take photos on the side. But then I had a friend who was working at Visco in Colorado Springs, and he's like, hey, we're hiring.

I think you should apply. And I was like, that's crazy, but no, no, no, there's no way. So I apply, I was like, there's no way I'm going to get this. Like, I have a Bible degree. I have a preaching degree. There's no way they're going to hire me. And he was saying, he was like, they really don't care.

about Instagram, they don't care about how many flowers you have, they don't care about none of that. They just want to know if, and so I was like, okay, good. The only thing I had going for me was like a certain number that lived next to my name that I thought at the time showed my value to the space that like I probably know what I'm doing. They did not give a flying rip about that. And somehow I got that job, which I should not have, but I did. And I moved down in Colorado, summer of 2014. And I work at Visco for the next 10 months.

And that was my photo school. That was my art school. That was, I grew more in that 10-month window than any other 10-month window of my entire life, even still to this day. I don't think I'll experience another type of growth that I experienced that way. I mean, just photographically in terms of art history, photo history, like I came in with my love of landscape. Moving to Colorado Springs, which is kind of at the base of the Rockies, you know, got the Garden of the Gods there. It's a very beautiful, natural place in terms of landscapes. but I thought I knew what photography was.

And the first week, they just obliterated my understanding of what photography was and just tore that foundation, weak foundation down and built it on brick by brick on a more sound, historical, photographic art history. And week one, I mean, they're giving me homework to study the greats. And they're giving me photographs of Alex Webb, who's probably known as 50s, who's one of my favorite photographers. I'm like looking at these complex compositions of just like street life. I'm like, this dude's famous.

Like this guy's well known for these photographs. I couldn't understand them. It's like, why? They're so busy. There's so much going on. And then week by week, I'm studying it and they're giving me new assignments and new study. And my job was a curator.

So it was essentially looking at thousands of thousands of photos that people that use Visco is submitted to their online gallery every day. I just going through thousands of photos from people all over the world. People younger than me, people my age, people older than me. and I was trying to, a lot of bad ones, but I was trying to find the good ones. So they're training me to pick out the good photographs. And so it was a crash course of what makes a good photograph.

A lot of that can be subjective. Some people believe, you know, as already is subjective. But then a lot of people, there are objective themes to look for in a photograph that make it compelling or that make it interesting and draws people in. And so I was learning those things,

those complex, compositional movement, emotion, what are you looking for, how to understand light, how to use it. I buy DSLR that year. Canon Mark 2 and a 50 millimeter lens had no idea how to use it. I'm trying to take it that year. I also met my wife on Instagram.

We met, you know, sent her a little DM and we started dating. And yeah, that 10 month was an insane time. I think it accelerated my growth in the photography space. And I tell the co-founder Greg, who actually moved here last year. He's in Franklin. He's incredible. he's so close friend of mine. I tell him even to this day that like that 10 month window changed my life.

Like I honestly would not be where I'm out of my career if it wasn't for my time of visco. Like they just, they, they helped me grow in such a way that was, I owe a lot to where I'm at from that season of my life. It's very, I'm very thankful for it. But I left, I took a work out of church out in Portland, Oregon in 2015. it was the perfect opportunity for me to marriage my love of photography

and art and my Bible degree in the church. And I was like, oh man, this is it. This is my future. I'm going to be here forever. This is it. I was one of the creative directors. My boss Ian Nelson, he's the one who officiated our wedding. Very close friend of mine. I was there for about a year and a half. It was incredible.

I had a wonderful time, but I ended up getting let go just before the holidays in 2016 for financial reasons. And surely after that, Maddie and I left Portland and moved to New York City where we were for three years. And then we moved to Nashville three and a half years ago. So, I mean, there was a lot in between that still

that had gone on, but that's kind of, yeah, the arc of the photography thing. And then she gave me her on our wedding day in 2015, Maddie gave me a film camera as a gift. And that's kind of what led me down the film photography path. And I've spent way too much money on film. So it's her fault why, yeah, how I've spent so much money on film, which is very unfortunate, but also very beautiful. Observation and some questions.

Oh, God, let's hear it. Observation of all the people that I've met who have, who can define their achievements as success or greatness. it's because they have acted on curiosity. I have found that that is the common denominator of people who achieve the things they want to achieve in their life. So many people are curious about good and bad things. Sure. Right.

But the people who act on the curiosity to pursue a passion or a dream or pursuit, that's the only way you get from point A to point B. You can keep wishing and hoping for like, I hope I get this job. one day I hope I can do this. I hope I can turn my hobby or passion into my work. 100%.

But until you act on that curiosity, nothing's going to happen. Absolutely. Question now. That's good. I was actually just listening to a podcast this morning talking about this, that a lot of people pursue something or enjoy an act because of the anticipation of what is to come, not the actual result.

Yeah. So I'm curious early on when you started taking photographs. Did you enjoy, because from reading your book, I learned this, did you enjoy the anticipation of what the photo you captured could have been? Or you sit down at your computer or your phone, you're editing and you see it. Because from my understanding, you'd wake up at 4, 5 a.m., you would travel to some remote location. You would travel the world to get this photograph. Yeah. But there's such a process to get to that one point where you finally were able to fire that shutter.

Right. And make the photo. Yeah. So is it the anticipation of being able to capture that? Yeah. Or the end result of seeing it that you love. It was the whole experience. It was all of it.

It was the waking up before you. I'm making my coffee. The conversations with my buddies in the car to drive four hours to go to one lake to try to see what kind of light we would experience. and to know that we were at the mercy of whatever the weather was going to give us that day, which could have been cloudy, could have been shit weather, and we walk away with no photos because the light wasn't good. It was all of it. Even in those bad weather days, I mean, there was so much joy and so much excitement

and so much just childlikeness that was so pure and intimate. And that's why I look back on those years with great fondness, that there was no motive. We weren't trying to become well-known. to gain a lot of follow. It was just like we delighted in the experience of waking up, chasing light, to see what we could find, to see what we could experience, to share that with other people, too, that were like-minded,

that they got that, they had that same bug, they had that same energy. But then getting back, when we're exhausted, we go back to one of their houses we sit on the couch and drink some more coffee, and we would just edit our photos on our phones, and we would just see what everybody got. And it was just, yeah, just so, there's no agenda. to it. It was so, it's hard to explain. So you were like around during that time and I have a lot of friends that are no longer taking photos that were around in that time that were very passionate and they've

gone off and done different things and very successful on what they're doing. But I've been one of the few that has just kept with it. And I think I'm just like, I believe, um, for some reason, you know, I went to school to study, to be on a stage behind a pulpit speaking to a bunch of people. I'm very comfortable on stage talking to people. But for whatever reason, God gave me a different avenue and a different platform to communicate. And I'm reaching probably more people now ever than I would have behind a pulpit because of a camera that I picked up in 2011, an iPhone camera. Photography has become the way that I communicate. It has become the way that I share a message.

Sometimes I'm even trying to share a specific message. It's just like how are people going to feel when they see this photograph and to know, the amount of times I have gotten messages, DMs, emails, letters of a certain photo that I took because I liked the light or I liked the movement or I liked the way that the subjects were doing something that triggered something so nostalgic in somebody that reminded them of their grandma who had just passed because it was a nostalgic scene that is very true to their experience. And I'm just like, yo, I just like the light. But that's insane to me that somebody could have that wild, intimate,

moving experience from a still photograph with no words, with no motion. And that has still to this day kept me inspired to pick up this camera every day, every time I go out, and why I view life through a frame constantly. Whether I'm making a photograph or I'm not, because life is going to come at me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then I want to be capable,

and I want to be ready to make a photograph. whenever life presents itself to me. Because within the photography, I tell people this, like photography literally is a marathon and it's so applicable to my running too. It's unfortunately so many people treat photography as a sprint.

They want the viral photo. They want the trendy thing. They want to do the big reel that gets them this, that grows and gets you. That's fine, but that pursuit, I think,

will fade. And those photographs will get lost in the masses, unfortunately, because there are billions of photos being made every day. We all have a high-powered camera in our back pocket that takes photos. Everybody's a photographer now. Everybody can take photos.

It's so accessible. It's one of the most accessible forms of art making and media making on the planet. It's photography. So how do you set your, you have to treat this craft as a marathon. And I tell people, I will never retire. There's no retirement photography. As long as my eyes, my mind, my hands and my feet and I'm mobile and I can make photographs,

I'll be making photographs until the day I die. There's no, and then that that excites me to know that my whole pursuit is how can I make a photograph that stands the test of time that will not get caught in the death trap of trends. And in Instagram, unfortunately, in those early years, 2011 to like 2015, taught me a lot of toxic, unhealthy photographic practices around trends. And so for the last eight years, it's been constantly unlearning these toxic methods that was about likes, that was about engagement, that was about got to grow, got to climb. Now it's just, man, I just, I care about documenting life.

Life is so complex. Life is so hard. Life is so beautiful. Life is long. Sometimes, unfortunately, life is short. And I've experienced that, you know, myself, losing my sister, tragically, four years ago, unexpectedly. That has shifted a lot of my priorities and how I work, how I think, how I go about my business,

how I go about my marriage, now as a parent, how I treat people, and to take, to not take life for granted because it is literally here and gone tomorrow. Like, it's, as it says in scripture, life is but a mist, but a vapor. it's here and gone just like that. And I've experienced that, unfortunately. And I know I have people in my life who've also experienced sudden loss of young family members and loved ones.

And it really changes you and changes how you think and how you act and how you treat people and how you shift and move around this world. And it's, I don't, and it sounds like you're the same person, but like I don't like wasting time. It is the irreplaceable commodity. We'll never get back.

And I have, I actually love aging. I'm getting a lot of grays now. now they have a son. They're coming out full force right now. It's pretty wild. But I love aging. It's, it's,

there's nothing we can do to fight it. It's happening. And it's, aging is wisdom. Oh, it is. And I'm starting really to respect and appreciate wisdom.

Yes. And the way my mind is, is firing now is so different than it was even six to 12 months ago. Really? Wow. That much. Having a daughter, becoming a dad,

has changed my thought process. Everything. So much. So much. Because you think about it. Like we have, you're 30, you're in your 30s, right? 33. 33.

I'm 34. We're about the same age. I have, I was born to be a father. I've known that from a young age. Even with my kind of wild family situation, I always knew, man, man, that'd be, you know, I grew up a camp counselor. So I've always been around kids. I'm very, I love being around kids.

It's so fun. I love being an uncle for all my 20s. But I just could not wait to be a father. But then I knew that there was an avenue of love and human experience that I did not have access to. And I knew it existed. And I knew I would hopefully find a partner that would want to have kids with me and that would want to have my offspring. And I knew that that avenue of love existed. And I couldn't tap into it, especially as an artist.

I loved tapping into different avenues of human emotion and human experience. and I couldn't tap into it until I had my own child. Nises and nephews love them, but that's like a different kind of love. They're of view, but they're not. But once Oliver came into this world, and I finally felt that love that I've been told about that my other friends who are parents have explained to me

and I'm like, I can't wait, I can't wait to feel it. It's changed everything. It's changed the way that I think, that I breathe, that I move. I'm a pretty, and it seems like you are too, I'm a pretty self-motivated person. Like I don't need a lot of, My story, my life has just given me a lot of material to just be motivated and to work and to get things done. And so I really did not need more motivation, but having Oliver has lit a fire under my ass that I did not even know was possible.

And so that has been so exciting to me. It's just like, this child is completely dependent on myself in Madison, providing for it. I mean, what an honor. What an honor it is. And especially as a photographer that I get a front row seat to his life to do. document it. And I think what's also, as you find out, you know, in the documentary, but like, you know, meeting my father at a later as an adult when I was 27, I met my biological father and then

losing him 10 months later on Father's Day and then my not so good relationship with my adopted father to now be a father myself. Man, it is one of the biggest rewards and blessings of my life to have the opportunity to love a child in the way I believe he should be left, to be present, to be there for him and to provide, to be emotionally available to him, to be patient. Oh, man, it's having a son has brought forward, a child in general, has brought forward a lot of healing that has been very beautiful. So the last four and a half months has been wildly life-changing. And I'm very grateful for the honor to be Oliver's dad and to, yeah, I think what's so great is I have a

perfect blueprint of what not to do. And I'm just, yeah, very excited. Yeah, even for you too. So to be in this newness. And by the way, happy anniversary. Thank you. Three years, yeah. Three years. You think she'll stay for another three? I'm hoping. Yeah. I think you. I'm hoping. Yeah, Charlie just turned 15 months old 15 months. Just started walking like last month too. Like three weeks ago started walking. Well, the way you guys wrapped up the dock

You know that question And I could see it hit you really hard Yeah. Where you were asked, you know, Are you afraid? Do you fear that your lack of fatherhood growing up Will affect your ability to be a good father now? Yeah.

And your response was, you know, no, absolutely not. No. I have the blueprint of what not to do. Exactly. And I can just see, like, the way you think and the way you talk about being a dad and talk about being a husband, you prioritize it. Yeah. Like when my daughter was born.

Yeah. Kind of like you said, like, I've always been a self-motivated person. Yep. I don't need more motivation, especially from external sources. Exactly. But like when she was born, what happened was my motivation shifted towards, like, what I was putting my focus towards. Absolutely. And I think my biggest realization was I have to be present.

And, like, I had like this, it was this quick, like, like, glimpse where you see the last, like, three or five years of your life. Like, like, all these photos. And I just pictured myself these last couple years so focused on building a business. that I wasn't actually present for these things that I said were my priorities. Right. I'll be very honest with myself. I used to always say, if someone said, what are your priorities in life, your responsibilities? Yeah.

Family first. Yeah. Family first. Well, let me see your calendar. Let me see your schedule. Wow. Well, you're at work all the time. Yeah.

Is family really your priority? So I used to say it. Sure. But I didn't actually mean it. Business was always first. Yeah. Building was always first. When my daughter is boring, that really opened my eyes too.

Yeah. Okay, I need to be present. Yep. I have to be here. I have to be available. I have to, I don't want to miss this. No. Do not want to miss this because you get one chance.

You get one shot. And we're already seeing this four and a half months in, but for 15 months, is it flown by as quick as I think it is? Because, I mean, four and a half, I mean, he's, every day. I mean, I'll do a little trips here and there. I go to Mexico City this weekend. I'm like dreading leading because when I come back, he's going to be doing something new. Like, is it really moved to?

as quick as they say, like, oh, man, it's, you know, days are long with years are short. It's been insane. Yeah. Insanely fast. Like, now I can see she's trying to talk, but it's a babble. But they sound like words. Right. And I can tell she knows what she's trying to say.

Yep. Like yesterday, Steph's in this big kick right now with making sourdough bread. Oh, yeah. She's trying to, like, perfect the recipe. Yep. I'm the one that's tasting all the... With a nice pickled bead spread. Yeah.

Dude, I'm telling you, I got beats for you to try. Dude, I'm going to try it after this podcast is over. And so I was feeding Charlie the sourdough With some carriegoe butter on it yesterday Love it And it sounded like she was saying more more and more So I'd put more in her mouth And she'd just like destroy it

Wow And I'm very grateful and appreciative That I worked so hard in my 20s Yeah In my early 30s To get to a point where I can be present For these moments Absolutely

And that's one thing I encourage For like younger people when you're young and if you have the opportunity right like work yeah like put in the work refine your craft so when you get to a point yeah where you want to be present you can be absolutely that's so good well I think what we're going to do is we're going to schedule a uh a part two for this for this podcast okay let's do it because we didn't get into anything running oh my gosh we did it and there's so funny there's a lot of like running stuff that I want to talk about Yeah, yeah.

In this episode, so we'll do a follow-up. Let's freaking do it. We'll do a part two because I want to talk about like your journey. Yeah. Of running when you were younger. Yeah. And taking some time off. I want to know how like running has affected, impacted your creative genius.

But I want to allocate a lot of time for that. It's completely changed my life. It has changed the way I think creatively, my business, my relationship. my marriage, fatherhood is, yeah, we could, that's a whole episode of itself. That's a question I've been constantly wrestling with and answering. How do I bridge these two loves of mine, my love for running and my love for photography and art? And where is that intersection?

Does it exist? If it does, who's doing it? Who's doing it well? And so constantly exploring that intersection of art and running and photography and running is been something I've been working towards and trying to understand what's the language, who are the people that are interested in that. What does it make me feel when I'm doing both of those things? It's something I'm still haven't really, I've unlocked some things, but I'm still constantly exploring and pushing the boundaries. And yeah, it's getting back into my running,

getting back into running as an adult in my early 30s has absolutely changed my life. Falling back in love with my first love is after I found photography. It's such a bizarre thing. I'm excited to where my running has gone, and I think it's only up from here. But no, yeah, wow, cannot believe we did not even get into that. That's wild. I'd love to come back.

I would love to come back. Thank you for having me on here, by the way. Absolutely. Absolutely joy and honor to be here. It's, yeah, been a fan of yours, and the fact that you're now living here in Nashville is incredible. And there's a lot of people on my side of things. I've been stoked.

They've seen a few things of you and I hanging out, and it's just like, this is like, why are these two people that I follow individually hanging out in the same room. So I'm honored to be here, man. And you're an inspiration and a motivation to myself and a lot of other people. So I would love to geek out and talk all things running, especially since you're going to absolutely destroy 245. We'll both be at CIM. We will both be at CIM. Yeah, it's, I'm excited. I mean, you're, you've been crushing it on these workouts. I'm ready for you to come to Franklin. And we can do a workout. We can do some run, some easy runs.

We can do both. Show you some of the, some of the beautiful, beautiful routes I have down there in Franklin. All to myself. It's all on me. And it's, you should come down for a run sometime. Well, like I was telling you, I feel like I'm in the best running ship in my life right now. You're moving. Hitting some of these hills. And I actually just released a YouTube video today talking about this.

But typically when I go into a fitness prep, an endurance prep, I am all consumed by the prep and the process. This is one time in my life that I'm not all consumed. There's a difference between being all in and all consumed. Right. historically I've always been all consumed and it's controlled every part of my day, every part of my life. It's affected relationships and friendships and work and everything. This is the one prep that I can remember where I'm all in and not all consumed. And what's the difference between those two?

All consumed is when it's all you can think about all the time. Got it. And you prioritize that over other responsibilities. Okay. You prioritize that goal over time with your family. Even when with your family, you're thinking about that goal. Of course. You turn down opportunities to meet new people and go to dinner and have a drink and relax.

Dude, runners don't drink. Come on. Yeah. Yeah, it's not cool too. Yeah, that's right. Maybe right after this podcast. But when you're all consumed, like that is a stressor on top of the stressor. You're already trying to apply to facilitate an adaptation.

Yeah. And when you're all in, it doesn't mean you're any less focused. Right. But you can separate the work required for the goal and your other responsibilities in life. I feel like I'm at a point now where I've been able to detach those two priorities

and responsibilities and show up equally for the things that are important in my life. So what was the switch? When did it, like, was it just this goal that you had, this lofty, you know, I'm trying to break 245, or was it the move?

Was it becoming a father? What was the thing that like, oh, I've been all consumed for too long? Now I'm right. Like, what was that deciding moment? Was there a moment? Was there a switch? I think the move was part of it. Yeah.

Stepping down from the CEO role was like, has really allowed me to focus on, hyper focus on less. Yeah. Another ingredient is that I did this bodybuilding prep this past spring. That's right. Talk about a objective that is all consumed. Jesus. From diet to sleep to training to body dysmorphia, like all of it, all consuming.

Wow. Do that process. Like, I realize the issue that it can compound to become. Interesting. Wow. Charlie getting older and actually being able to interact with me now. Yeah. Yep.

You know, when she was younger. Oh, yeah. It's all mama. She sits there. Yeah. She's all got mom. But now Charlie sees her. on my phone. Charlie sees when I'm not present. Charlie sees when I'm around and when I am around.

And when I show up as my best self, like there's a different Charlie that shows up as well. Jeez, that's why kids keep us honest, man. For real. That's unreal. That's okay. It's good to know. I got to start putting my phone down now. Yeah. That's good. But part two's coming. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I'd love to. Let's make it happen. Joe, I appreciate you. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks for everything, man. And part two on the way. Now wait. That's a wrap.