The Byte: Robert Hunt ~ Miracles From Chaos!

Robert tells the story of how everything in his life fell apart-coming home one day he found an empty house and his wife and child gone! As his divorce proceeded he tells of how he looked at himself, at his life, and realized that things had to change. And that's when the magic started happening!

Transcript

Greetings,

Everyone,

And welcome back to another episode of the podcast.

This week,

I'm introducing you to Robert J.

Hunt.

And while he is known as the accountability guy,

And we do discuss that a little bit later in this episode,

And I do confide to him that I was less than impeccable with my word this summer,

And you get to know me a little bit better in kind of the trials and tribulations that I've been going through,

Robert is also someone that individuals,

Corporations,

And groups come to,

To kind of help get their people centered,

To get them on the right path,

To get them to acknowledging their mistakes,

Owning their mistakes,

Owning their transgressions,

And moving forward with more integrity and authenticity.

But Robert is also an incredible storyteller,

And in this episode,

He tells some stories of his mother,

And how inspirational she was,

How strong she was,

How very brave,

And how she managed to keep this kind of ragtag,

Full of rapscallions group of kids together,

And how she shaped them to who they'd become later in life.

I love the story of formidable human beings in this world,

Those who mold and shape us,

Those who help us become who we were always meant to be.

And Robert shares all this and more,

He has an incredible miracle story,

And all in all,

It was a really delightful conversation.

So now,

This very next episode,

And my conversation with Robert J.

Hunt.

Yeah,

I think the turning point in my life was when I surrendered my life to Christ in 1994,

I'd been married 10 years to my wife.

And a couple months after that,

I had a surprise ceremony to renew our vows,

And had all the people in our wedding there,

And surprised her,

And I got to church with our pastor,

With the people in the group,

Everyone,

And she was crying,

And we had a lovely dinner,

And talked about,

You know,

10 years and all that.

And then,

Three months later,

She has someone deliver papers at my office and says,

I'm divorcing you.

If you had to go to a party,

Or a conference,

And you had to introduce yourself to a bunch of people,

How would you do that?

I,

Well,

I always say the guy who's lucky enough to be married to my beautiful wife,

Kathy.

I think in the days that I'm working on these days in a business setting,

I would probably introduce myself as the accountability guy.

And what does that mean in general?

To me,

It's,

I want to champion the awareness of what a real accountability looks like.

I think we've lost the awareness of what it looks like to truly be accountable.

And it's subtle.

It's such a small thing,

We can't get our head around it.

And so,

I wanted to be known by that,

So we could stir more conversations and talk about it.

That's why I wrote the book about accountability called Nobody Cares Until You Do.

And so,

I think I've got a real grip on it,

Because I walked that journey myself.

And I really,

I owned it,

And I went through it.

And that's what was the catalyst to write the book.

I do think it's interesting,

Because if you just take this common example,

Your words,

The words that come out of your mouth,

And being accountable for the words that you're putting out in the world,

And what does that look like?

Or,

You know,

Even if you're texting someone,

The words that are coming out of your fingers,

Or in a letter,

Or an email.

And I think sometimes,

First of all,

It's challenging,

Right,

With text to take something the wrong way.

Also with email,

But really impeccability of the word is so important.

And I have a dear friend who had another very good friend who,

You know,

He challenged him on some of the words he was using,

And they lost a friendship.

So it can be really,

Really powerful to kind of call someone or ask someone to account for the words that are coming out of their mouth.

It's really simple.

The definition of accountability is you own it.

And so let's say I send you a text,

And I sent you something,

And you got offended by it.

It's not that it's not my fault,

Because accountability says you own the result.

And responsibility says,

I sent you this message.

I'm done.

But accountability takes an effect that you have to understand the person you're communicating with.

If I know you've got a background,

And you've gone a journey through something,

And I just cavalierly throw out some words,

I have the right to say whatever I want to say.

But if I'm accountable,

I take in consideration the person listening to it.

You know,

Communication is not what is said.

It's what's understood.

And if I say something to you,

And it offends you,

I have the opportunity to either bless you by thinking of the words I say and being intentional.

Or I can just be selfish and throw them out and say,

Hey,

Deal with it.

Well,

That's not accountability.

Accountability is taking the time to think about the person I'm communicating with and say,

Hey,

Could that be misunderstood?

And I don't want to lie about anything.

But if you say,

Hey,

Come over and watch a movie with me.

And I'm like,

Oh,

I can't.

I have to wash my socks.

Okay,

You're clearly lying.

But you could say,

Hey,

I just don't feel like doing that today.

And you could be honest.

And then it's a chance for more vulnerability,

Which is really where accountability comes from.

If you're not vulnerable,

People have no idea what's really going on in your life.

And so then you make up a lie to cover something because it's awkward.

And you have to remember what that lie was.

So the next time I see you,

You don't go,

Hey,

I was washing your socks.

I'm like,

What are you talking about?

So you spend this whole confusion.

Why not just take the time to really think about it and say,

In this relationship,

What does it look like to have a vibrant relationship?

And that is honesty and transparency and vulnerability.

And just say,

Look,

I don't want to come over.

I want to stay home and sit and watch Netflix in my underwear.

Let me just stay home tonight.

Yes,

Netflix.

I do have to say one of the things that I think is really important to understand is that we're all changing all the time.

But who we are right now is good.

And it's beautiful.

The only reason I'm saying that is because I used to,

I'm trying so hard not to.

But if someone,

You gave a great example.

Someone says,

Hey,

I make a plan on Monday for Saturday.

By the time Saturday comes around,

I don't want to do what is happening.

So I'll say something like,

In the past,

I'll say,

Hey,

I can't go out.

I can't come over,

Whatever,

Because I've got a headache.

I don't feel good today.

Even though that wasn't the truth.

Right.

And now.

.

.

Because you hurt their feelings.

Yes,

Exactly.

Now I say,

You know,

I'm so sorry.

I just,

I don't feel like it.

I've changed my mind.

And within that is the,

Kind of the understanding that it's okay to change my mind.

You know,

My desires and my wants and needs change every day.

And,

You know,

While I had good intentions on Monday,

On Saturday,

I'm just not feeling it.

And it's okay.

It's okay to be that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're creating too hard of a journey for ourselves because we jump ahead and worry what someone's going to think.

But if I have such a bad relationship with you that I just can't say,

I'm just not feeling it tonight.

I got to bail.

And you're not more caring about me and worried about how I'm doing.

Are you okay?

I worry about you.

Letting me be me.

But if you have to constantly spin things around,

You ought to wonder about that relationship.

Maybe it's not that great of a relationship in the first place.

I have friends that I can just call up at any moment and go,

Let's go hang out.

And I have all those same friends.

I could say,

Man,

I'm not feeling it today.

Can we just bail?

Or instead of going out somewhere,

Come sit in my backyard and have a cigar with me.

And let's just talk about life.

They will adjust because they love me.

And so you have to be practicing this radical transparency,

If we're really going to have deeper relationships.

And the harder we work to spin it so that nobody gets offended,

We should put that same effort in towards building a really great relationship where they can't be offended because they know you love them.

Absolutely.

And I think another little piece about your accountability,

Deliciousness,

I'm going to call it that,

Is that there is not one person on this planet that's perfect.

And that's going to be perfect with their words all the time.

Because we're using words right now as an example.

You know,

We're going to slip up.

We might gossip.

We might put something out there that's maybe negative.

Or we might slip up.

So along with this is being gentle with ourselves and knowing that we're going to make mistakes.

And I guess it's the principle of goodwill.

My wife and I went through a study.

We read a book called Love and Respect.

Love and Respect.

And how men need to be respected and women need to be loved.

We both need both of those,

Each one of us.

But the core of who I am,

I need to be respected.

The core of what she is,

Is she needs to be loved.

And one of the things that helped us with that is this mindset of goodwill.

That when we're driving in the car and she says some kind of snide,

And I just look at her like,

Where did that come from?

I think back to the goodwill.

And maybe we're talking about a friend of mine that she doesn't like that much.

And so she's quick to go,

Well,

That's just him being that.

Oh,

Okay.

But I'm giving goodwill to her because I know she's the kindest,

Most loving person I've ever met.

So if she's being feisty or has a tone,

I erase that in the light or through the filter of goodwill that she's created with me over a lifetime of being married to her.

And so she could do no wrong because I think of all the things she's done for me and I put it in light of that equation and it doesn't matter anymore.

I also want to bring myself into this because I've literally just had a summer about learning to be accountable with my words and I failed massively.

I'm just going to own it.

I failed,

I failed,

I failed.

And the funny thing is,

Is I went into the summer really concentrating and thinking about being good with my word and I failed.

I mean,

I completely did not do it.

And one of the things that I had to really own is I,

You know,

With humility,

I had to look at my actions.

I had to look at what,

You know,

Have some compassion for myself for why I acted out the way that I did.

But I also had to say to myself,

Okay,

This was a learning experience.

You needed to learn this.

And now you know,

You know,

The stresses that act upon you,

The pressures that kind of maybe make you act out in this way.

And let's do better next time.

And there's always a chance to be better next time.

But you have to have the humility to kind of reflect on what you've put out in the world.

Why do you think you failed?

Was there something in your journey that you would reflect on that says this was the common thread?

Oh my gosh,

That story is way too long and intense and crazy.

And let's just say this summer I was under an inordinate amount of stress and in a place that I wasn't expecting to be in.

And what just spent the entire summer stressed out,

Like beyond stress.

And it's family issues with my mother.

She's not doing well.

My father also has dementia and he's kind of disappearing.

There's other family stuff going on.

I,

You know,

Was expecting to live in Illinois to take care of my mother.

And then that kind of fell apart and I didn't have anywhere to go.

So,

I mean,

It's such a long story.

So I was just,

Yeah,

Beside myself,

Let's say all summer.

Well,

I'll tell you that in my journey,

Thank you for being honest about that and telling me what your story was.

I have been applying the principles of accountability,

Really applying it since 2019 when we really figured out what this looks like.

And we regularly don't live up to it.

We regularly drop the ball,

But it's the awareness is so much quicker now.

Kathy will say,

Well,

That sounds like we're making an excuse here.

And I'll start to say something like,

Wait,

Wait,

I'm sorry.

That's not actually what it is.

And so I think we're getting better at it.

But I would say that we continue to have failures.

We put in the book,

It's like a climbing of a mountain.

This is the journey to accountability.

It's like a start and a stop.

You've got so much to do to go through this process.

But there are things that I can do to create the outcome I'm looking for.

And I had to make some real serious changes in how I live my life if I wanted to be truly accountable.

And the power and accountability is the freedom to chase the life I really want.

And really what that required was I was willing to go back and step back a little bit more and say,

What kind of things am I doing right now that are robbing me of the opportunity to have the life I want?

And am I willing to make those changes?

And a lot of times we say,

I can't,

But we really mean I won't.

A lot of times we'd say,

I'd like to do this,

But,

And we put some kind of self-limiting controller on there.

And if we take away the but and we put an and,

I'd like to do this and I have no money.

Okay,

So now I know what to go work on.

I need to make money.

Or I'd like to have this,

But we're not talking.

So not but,

And we're not talking.

So I need to fix why we're not talking.

The point is I'm trying to make is that good for you for giving yourself grace,

For not rocking it and for being aware and chalk that up to a learning lesson.

But I will tell you,

Your whole life is going to be like this.

You're never going to be done working through the concepts of you owning it.

But the more you practice it,

The more comfortable it becomes.

And the less comfortable being a victim feels.

When you roll into the victim mode,

You're like,

Oh,

I hate this.

I don't want to be a victim anymore.

And when you see yourself playing that role,

You catch yourself so much quicker.

And you wait,

That's a victim mindset.

I'm not a victim.

I might have been victimized in this situation,

But I am not a victim.

So what would it look like for me to own it and go forward with it?

You'll get way better at it as you practice it.

Thank you for that.

And that's really beautiful.

And such a great reminder of the victim mindset,

Which I think is a very,

Very easy,

Slippery slope to slide down.

And before you know it,

You can find yourself at the bottom of the victim mindset,

Really not able to identify or move forward or change anything about where you're at,

Because it's so comfortable and it's so familiar.

And I think one of the greatest,

I mean,

I look around at the world in general,

And it's interesting how many people want to be in that place.

And for me,

I think to myself,

My goodness,

Being in that place is such a position of weakness.

I want to come out into the world from a position of strength and being grounded and being self-aware.

And so thank you for pulling that piece in,

Because I think it's really important to understand how those two things go together.

And I would say,

I don't think people say,

Yes,

I'd like to be a victim,

Sign me up.

But I think in our behavior,

It's become the norm.

And we talk about in the book that there are four traps that we jump into really quick,

Whenever accountability becomes evident in your life.

You blame,

You blame your boss,

You blame your spouse,

You blame the schools,

You blame the government,

Whatever it is.

You make excuses.

And all these things do is just make us mad.

And it takes away any reason to try and do anything about it,

Because it's already like,

I can't control it.

This is outside of my ability.

And we have like this thing we self-impose on ourselves.

And if blame and excuse don't work,

We say we can't.

What we really mean is we won't.

And if all those things don't work,

Then we just wait and hope.

Well,

Maybe next year,

I'll get this big raise so I can pay off all my debt.

Maybe next year,

Somehow our friendship will get better.

You know,

All these things we wait for.

We were making minimum payments on our credit cards trying to survive.

We owed $90,

000 in debt.

And that does not include the house or the cars.

And it was miserable.

And we had stress and we were angry at everybody,

Including God.

Like,

God,

Why don't you bless us?

Why don't you take care of this debt?

And he's like,

Well,

I gave you a bunch of money.

What'd you do with it?

And,

You know,

I looked back at those days of how angry I was,

How frustrated I was.

And I somehow expected God would just clean up my laziness.

And so in 2019,

We just looked at each other and we said,

Geez,

We're not living the life we want.

Are we really willing to do something about it?

And that's when we committed to sell our house and start over.

And so if the world didn't change throughout that year,

We're going to make that change.

So we did.

We sold our house in the beginning of 2020 when COVID shut down the world.

And we took that money.

And by April,

We were debt free.

And the peace that we had was so radical.

It was such an amazing peace.

I didn't know how stressed and burdensome I was until I got away from it.

And looking back and feeling the difference,

I had lived in that time without peace in my life for so many years,

That just little bit by little bit,

I gave it away.

That when I got to a place of freedom,

It was so remarkably different.

And what that did is it fired us up to look at everything in our lives and go,

Well,

What else can we fix?

And we spent the last three years arguing about money.

Why don't we go to counseling?

And let's have some really healthy discussions.

We brought in a financial advisor who looked at our spending habits and goes,

Geez,

Is that what you want to do?

And we're like,

No.

So there was some learning that we had to go through.

And then same with my health.

I was just fatter than I've ever been in my life.

And I just kept saying,

Well,

I got to work on other things.

I don't really care.

Well,

I did care,

But I wasn't willing to do anything about it.

So we bit by bit started looking at all these pieces.

But because we had taken ownership of the biggest one that was in front of us,

We felt so empowered.

These other things seemed like nothing.

You know,

This was like a little thing compared to the thing we had to go through.

Accountability is freedom.

It brings clarity.

It brings joy and peace.

And I want everyone to experience that.

It's right in front of you.

Well,

My second question always is,

Did you grow up in a religious household?

What did that look like?

And how did it evolve over time?

Oh,

Boy.

Half of my house was pretty religious,

I guess,

If you'd call it religion.

My father thought everyone in church was a hypocrite.

So he didn't want to go to church.

And he's right.

Everyone in church is a hypocrite.

That's why we go to church.

We're trying to clean that act up.

My mom,

She modeled Jesus in my life.

She was awesome.

And my dad was an angry,

Bad person.

And he beat my mom and he beat us kids.

And I grew up in that house of fear,

Looking at him and his perspective on life.

And then looking at my mom,

Who with five kids and a husband who couldn't keep a job,

Somehow figured out a way to protect us as best she could to provide for us and love us and teach us to give grace and mercy.

And so I played church most of my youth.

I grew up in a church and got married in a church.

And it wasn't until I was 31 that I finally surrendered my life to Christ and said,

I know about you.

I just don't know you.

I'd really like to know you.

And so I gave up anything I was holding out.

I mean,

I would run a Sunday school class and take my clients to nudie bars on the weekdays.

There was this total hypocrisy of my life.

But when I surrendered completely and said,

God,

Take everything.

I want to see what this is really like.

It was so awesome.

And I got to know Jesus personally and the peace that I had.

And I sought after him and I liked him and I got to know him.

And so I'm not really big on religion.

I don't care what church you go to or if you baptize with sprinkles or you don't or what day of the week you go.

What I do know is that there's only one God and that's Jesus Christ.

And he's my savior.

And I like him and I know him.

And I want to hang out and live my life with him.

And so I want people to know that too.

But that's the difference for me has been when it really became real in my life.

That's when I had a real relationship with God.

And I have to say,

I so appreciate you sharing the story about your mother and your father,

But especially your mother,

Because she sounds almost like this force of nature who,

When surrounded by these odds that are so not great,

You know,

She held it together.

She stayed a beacon of hope and optimism.

And she raised five children.

Okay.

I can't imagine that.

Five children.

And we were hell.

We were hell.

We were horrible kids.

I mean,

Yeah,

For whatever reasons,

But we were.

My mom had four children,

An abusive husband.

The day she found out that that vasectomy he got,

He never actually got.

And she was pregnant again.

And she had another baby coming.

I was born 13 months after my brother was born.

So after Tom was born,

Dad said he was going to get a vasectomy,

Did not get a vasectomy.

And then she was pregnant again.

And my mom had to make a decision that day.

Do I abort this baby?

And with four kids and abusive husband and financially destitute,

I think a lot of people would say,

Hey,

You don't need that extra baby.

But my mom knows that every life is created by God.

And as challenging as that was,

She wasn't going to take my life.

And I'm thankful she didn't.

I get to be here and to enjoy the life I have.

But my mom modeled faithfulness.

My mom modeled knowing who she serves in the face of horrible situations.

She was a rock star.

She sounds like it.

Now,

When you said that you were horrible children,

Were you just saying you were always up to hijinks?

Oh,

My gosh,

We were so bad.

We were always in the principal's office.

We were all,

I mean,

I burned,

I lit a campfire in the living room carpet as a kid.

I burned the oven up.

We broke things.

We released the gears of the car and it drove out across the street into a tree.

We were constantly getting reprimanded at school.

And just terrors.

And my poor mom just had to figure out a way to kind of keep us from killing each other.

It was amazing.

And I think a lot of that,

Who knows why it's really there.

But when you're misguided and when you've not taught things,

You just kind of make up your own rules.

And my mom didn't have any credit in my life as a young man.

I looked at my dad and I saw how he behaved.

And so that kind of rebel inside of me kind of was stirred up by him.

Whatever that causes,

The reality is that she had her hands full and yet she still figured out a way to survive through it all.

I love that.

Did she have five boys?

No,

She had three boys,

Two girls.

Okay.

And everyone was into the hijinks.

My sister Ginger was probably the nicest person at school.

She always won.

Most likely to be nicest person in the world,

Stuff like that.

So she probably wasn't,

She was 10 years,

12 years older than me.

Still is actually 12 years older than me.

And right now she's got dementia.

And so she's going through her thing and all that.

But yeah,

They were far enough away that I didn't hang out with them much.

My sister Julie,

She was pretty good.

She was well-behaved.

I guess it was us three boys I'm thinking of because we were inseparable.

We hung out all the time and we were a handful,

Yeah.

I love that.

I mean,

My jaw did drop a little bit hearing about the fire in the living room.

But I love that you had this sibling relationship that was so fun.

Maybe a little destructive,

But also fun.

It was fun.

I think sometimes siblings don't get along and it's from the get-go.

And I kind of think of you three as the three musketeers kind of terrorizing the neighborhood,

Which I just love that image.

Well,

Again,

It's part of a journey.

My brother John got into partying quite a bit.

He was gone a lot as I got older and then ended up being quite an addict and spent a lot of time dealing with cocaine addiction.

And this is not speaking out of school.

John has quite a testimony and goes into prisons and tells people about how Christ has redeemed him from the drug addiction and the life he led.

But my brother was a cocaine addict and he had a hard life.

Not that we've been the primary example of goodness in the world,

But my brother Tom and I were very close all of our life.

We put up together.

We protected each other.

We fought together.

I think no matter what your circumstances are,

You have the choice.

You can be bitter and angry and just shake your fist at the world and God and say,

You're screwing me over.

Or you can realize that today I'm going to sleep in a bed.

I'm going to have food.

And if you're watching this podcast,

You're probably richer than 90% of the world.

You will not spend your day looking for food or water or hoping no one comes and bombs your home or takes your children.

So we're really blessed.

And yeah,

Life is hard,

But we've got a lot of good things going for us.

And the cool part is you and I have successfully survived 100% of everything that has come our way.

Now,

Maybe it didn't go the way we want it to,

But sometimes it's not supposed to go the way we think it should,

Because what do we know?

But in the scheme of things,

We've survived 100%.

I think that's pretty exciting.

That pretty much gives me hope to say,

Well,

If it done 100% and all this stuff,

I could do anything.

You have to believe in yourself in order to be having accountability.

It really requires that you're willing to believe that you can do more than you're currently doing.

Thank you for that and for illuminating that.

And I think it's also so important and so essential to just have gratitude in general for pretty much everything.

And you're right.

Our lives are,

Relatively speaking,

Compared to the rest of the world,

Very good,

Very blessed,

And full of a lot of advantage.

And so I try to remember every day to say thank you for everything that's going on,

That's good in my life,

Even some of the things that maybe I think are negative.

Because how do I know if it's good?

It could be a good thing.

It could lead to something bad.

How can you measure that?

If you go to the gym,

You're pushing up this really heavy weight and it's hurting.

And you're really tearing muscles is what that does.

It tears them just enough that more blood gets in there and they get bigger.

And if you see a tree,

The only reason the tree got so big is because the wind beat it down.

And when the wind shook it,

The roots got loose and allowed the roots to grow deeper.

The soil got loose from the wind shaking at it and allows the roots go deeper.

We forget that in order to grow,

You've got to have some adversity.

And so the things that we're going through,

Just make us stronger,

Smarter,

Wiser,

Able to take another thing and to encourage other people around us that they can make it too.

Not to go off on a tangent,

But I think resilience is a superpower.

And I've certainly met multiple people who were given everything that they ever wanted and went through school without even trying,

But were passed along.

And now they're out in the adult world and they have no ability to cope with anything.

And I think to myself,

Now,

This is why you have to go through things when you're a kiddo that are challenging,

That are difficult,

That you feel like are pushing you down.

So you learn how to bounce back because these adults that I'm meeting,

They have no capacity for that.

Absolutely no capacity.

It's really kind of astonishing.

My mom used to tell me that the view from the top of the mountain is beautiful,

But the fruit grows in the valley.

And when you're in the hard times,

When you're in the deep ditch of a valley and it feels miserable,

That is where you produce fruit.

That's where you get strong.

That's where you learn a skill.

That's where you remind yourself or prove to yourself that you can go through it.

I went through a divorce.

I went through a bankruptcy.

I lost time with my two-year-old daughter.

I went,

I lost my job.

And there's all these things in my life that you can be mad about.

But I learned so much through those deep times of trust and stepping back and saying,

What really matters?

What do I really want in my life?

And it would be weird to have a life that was so easy that you didn't understand anything.

Not only would you never be thankful and appreciate anything,

Nobody could relate to you.

It would be just a weird,

You'd be out there hummering around in some kind of castle somewhere,

I guess.

But life is hard for all of us.

That's why we all rally together to support one another.

And I do have to say,

Your mother sounds like a sage,

I swear.

Well,

She passed away.

She went to go be with Jesus August 2nd of this year.

She was 93 and she was ready.

She'd been living in an assisted living home,

Can't get out of a wheelchair.

And I just kept thinking,

God,

Why are you keeping this woman around?

But in the last visit,

I went to go see her.

There was this old man who said,

Your mom keeps telling me I need to know Jesus.

And I'm like,

Well,

She's pretty smart.

Maybe you ought to check him out.

We just sat and talked for a while.

And here's my mom,

93 years old.

And I'm wondering,

Why is she still alive?

And maybe it's for that dude.

Maybe it's just so that one more person can know,

Look,

I know you've had a hard life,

But God loves you.

God has a plan for your life.

And this woman could be bitter.

And we'd all go,

Yep,

You have the right to be bitter.

But she wasn't.

And it's a model for all of us to look at our lives and say,

It's a choice.

I'm going to be bitter or I'm going to own it.

And I make something awesome out of it.

And at my mom's funeral,

There were all these people that came up.

We just loved your mom.

Your mom was so sweet.

And everyone had nothing but just wonderful things to say about her.

It's a funeral,

I guess you're supposed to.

My mom was loved by everybody.

She was so kind and so gracious.

And she made a choice to not be bitter.

And if she can do it,

Anybody can do it.

I think the turning point in my life was when I surrendered my life to Christ in 1994.

I'd been married 10 years to my wife.

And a couple months after that,

I had a surprise ceremony to renew our vows and had all the people in our wedding there and surprised her.

And at the church with our pastor,

With the people in the group,

Everyone,

She was crying.

And we had a lovely dinner and talked about 10 years and all that.

And then three months later,

She has someone deliver papers at my office and says,

I'm divorcing you.

And when I came home,

The house was empty.

My two-year-old daughter was gone.

And my wife had moved in with someone else.

And I remember sitting there in the kitchen that night,

Just thinking,

God,

This is a great way to thank me for surrendering my life to you in May of this year.

And really saying,

OK,

I'm going to walk with you.

And I heard the Spirit of God say to me,

No,

I was getting you ready for today.

And everything was wrong.

She had taken all the money and not been paying bills for a long time and had stored up all the money in a checking account and took all that.

So we were way in debt.

And there was no money.

And so I went through a bankruptcy.

I lost the house.

I went through a super expensive court case and got a tiny bit of time with my daughter.

All that stuff,

I lost everything.

But I saw God show up time after time after time.

Some dude lets me live in his house for $300 a month for two different rooms.

So me and Lauren could have our own room.

And then a friend of theirs had a house.

They were getting married and his wife didn't want to live in that house.

So they let me rent that house from them for $900 a month.

I mean,

Every time I turn around,

Someone's come by my house with a bag of clothing for Lauren that would say,

Hey,

Our daughter outgrew this.

This is about Lauren's size.

And bit by bit,

I didn't go to work for months.

I just told them,

No,

I just don't feel like working.

If it doesn't work out for you guys,

That's fine.

And then my business took off.

That year,

I did $48 million in sales.

And I didn't show up to work for three months.

And they were like,

Could you come by and sign some of these documents for us?

And maybe next week.

And so I just look at the hand of God faithfully covering me when I just couldn't get my head out of the dirt.

And I think that's a miracle when he provided,

He protected.

He kept my daughter who lived with her mom and someone else in their home with their kids.

He protected her all those years.

And he protected her.

And she didn't grow up to be a bitter,

Angry person.

She's beautiful and sweet and wonderful.

And I think it's a miracle.

You know,

We look for someone to get up and walk.

They were healed.

I'm just saying,

Not imploding,

Not losing it.

Not,

You know,

My initial thought when that happened that night was I'm going to go to Maui and escape everything.

But I had a two-year-old daughter.

I couldn't think of just abandoning her.

And so he was so good and so kind to provide all those things throughout those years.

And then four years later,

I got to marry my wife now,

Who's the best thing in my life.

She's just awesome.

And I think of that scripture that says the Lord will restore the years the locusts have eaten away.

And all the things I lost in that journey,

God gave me more than I could ever imagine as a result of just the faithfulness and through all that.

So I think that's the miracle I would say that I've seen in my life is goodness throughout that journey.

Wow.

And I was listening to you.

And first of all,

I can't even imagine the shock after,

You know,

Renewing your vows and then coming home three months later and just kind of trying to wrap your head or to even comprehend what's going on to even maybe understand 10% of it,

Because how huge is that,

Especially with your daughter being gone and the house being empty?

I mean,

I just I wouldn't have been able to process at all.

But,

You know,

I also think of the example of your mother,

You know,

Watching your mother as a child and seeing her resilience,

Her strength,

Her ability to overcome adversity.

I'm sure that helped you immeasurably during this time.

No one's ever connected that before,

Maybe because I don't tell the story a lot.

My desire is always that my daughter's mom would come back to the woman I knew when I married her.

And so I just keep that all really quiet.

But no one's ever connected that in my mom's example was a lot like the journey I went through.

I guess that was I think it's when you know what you're about,

What you know your life is for.

If you don't know why you're here,

Everything's an irritant because you don't know what you're supposed to like or not like.

I'm confused.

Where am I going?

But when you're when you know where you're going,

Everything is part of the journey.

And I've just learned that God is good and that life is never going to go the way I want,

Like I know how it should go.

I can barely do my taxes.

What on earth would I do trying to come up with a plan for my life?

I have things I want to do.

I have things I'm interested in,

But I'm not God.

I don't know.

Maybe all the things I want to do would be horrible for me.

Maybe if God says,

Here's a million bucks,

I'd be like,

Yes,

Let's squander it.

And he knows my nature.

So he's like,

Well,

Here's a daily bread instead.

And I think that that's kind of the person I am.

I just need a little bit because I'll probably waste it.

So I don't spend a lot of energy trying to figure out why he's not doing what I want.

Instead,

I just don't want to suck at what I'm doing right now.

I want to be the best I can be,

Living the life that I have today and being thankful along the way.

Discover and enjoy the podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

You'll never know how much it means to me.

I need to thank my guest,

Robert Hunt,

For appearing on the podcast and sharing all of his incredible stories.

And I'd also like to thank him for the conversation that we had,

Where I got to confess my struggles this past summer.

I think it's important to be vulnerable,

And it's important to be open to these conversations because we're all learning every single day.

And this is something I needed to reflect on,

To look back on,

And think about how I want to be better in my life.

So I need to thank Robert for that.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Robert.

Try to be impeccable in your life.

So what does that look like?

Does it look like showing up on time for work?

Does it look like being impeccable with your word and not telling little white lies,

Not telling white lies even to yourself,

Just going out into the world and using your words for good,

For lifting others up?

Or does it look like helping someone who needs help at a desperate moment?

Maybe it might be inconvenient for you,

But showing up and helping them and lifting them up to somewhere where they feel safe.

So whatever it looks like,

Be like Robert.

Be impeccable in the world.

And pretty soon,

I'm sure you'll lead by example and everyone else will want to be just as impeccable as you.

See you next week for the very next episode of the podcast.

And until then,

I hope your life is filled with laughter,

Delicious meals shared with those you love,

And conversations with strangers who ultimately become your friends.

Thank you.

Thank you for hitting match when I asked you to be on the podcast.

Oh,

Thank you.

I appreciate your swell.

Swell,

I'm bringing that word back.

I love it.

I think we should.

What I thought was really funny is that my niece,

Who's about 15 right now,

She said,

Um,

Really in the 90s,

Did people,

Did people actually say someone was all that in a bag of chips?

Yes.

Yes,

We did.

Yes,

We did.

And,

And we'd also say that guy,

That is some Joe,

Some Joe bag of donuts.

That's what Larry used to say.

Some Joe bag of donuts called for you.

All these things that we'd say,

Where do these things come from?

That's so good.

That's a good one.

I forgot about that.

Yes.

And I,

I,

I said,

You know,

She said,

Why?

And I said,

I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean,

People just started saying it and you just said it.

But I love the Joe bag of donuts.

I've never heard that one before.

Yeah.

Joe bag of donuts.

That was my password for like eight years,

Joe bag of donuts on everything.

And then I've created a specific domain to help track how effective these podcasts are.

And so at the end of the podcast or sometime during that,

I would like to share that I've created nobody cares pod.

Com so that if anybody who listens to your podcast wants to,

They can go to that space,

Put in their information,

And then I'll mail them a copy of my book at no cost for the first two people who sign up.

And that way you can track people who are listening to your show and,

And connect with them directly.