00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 601 of the inspired stewardship podcast I met and I'm Jocelyn from the family life movement podcast. We challenge you to find a way to balance your work and your family. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this inspired stewardship podcast by my friend Scott Mader. I'm scared to put everything out there. I'm getting better at things. I'm getting better at being on publishing, being on video or being on, you know, we're recording this on video,
00:00:42 but the video itself is not going out, but I'm getting better with all that stuff. Um, but Matt pushes me faster than I probably would go by myself. Um, so that's my advice to somebody who is not as afraid in that particular area. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:01:16 Go learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can. In today's interview with Matt and Jocelyn Woodrum from the family life movement podcast, I asked them about how they take the opportunity to pour into others despite having such busy lives themselves. I also ask them to talk and share about the masterminds they're in and the masterminds they run and how they've affected their own growth as well. We talk about having a servant mindset when it comes to business. One reason I like to bring you great interviews like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others.
00:02:05 Another great way to learn from others is through reading books, but if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read and that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there that's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books.
00:02:43 The same way you're listening to this podcast. Matt and Jocelyn Woodrum had been married for 12 years and have three beautiful daughters and really they are. And later on you'll hear about their Facebook page. You see pictures of the kiddos on there all the time and they are acuities. They enjoy traveling while Jocelyn continues to work as a speech language pathologist. And yes, she's still working even right now during this time of covert 19. And they, they constantly move, they move locations every few months. I joked that every time I talked to Matt,
00:03:16 they're in a different house. Um, so Matt is at home with the girls homeschooling and at the same time they're trying to try to balance creating a business and of course maintaining their own household together. They host a podcast called the family life movement. I've been a guest on there that's focused on creating a community of family focused entrepreneurs who build profitable businesses that allow them to have a business without sacrificing their kids or their family. Welcome to the show, Matt and Jocelyn, thanks for having us. Thanks.
00:03:52 We're excited to be here. So, you know, part of what I, what I love about the two of you and, and you know, Matt, you and I have interacted a number of times over the year. I've gotten to know you and your family, you know, at least at some level. And I love how you're both constantly looking for opportunities to just pour out into others. Um, you know, I've, Matt, you've done a couple of different summits y'all have done. You know,
00:04:17 it, it's just there's always something, uh, that you're trying to do to pour into others. So how do you manage to focus on pouring into others when again, I don't have to know the details to know with three kids and all of the stuff that you've got going on, you've got an incredibly busy family life. Oh, I, I think for me it's about having this priorities in line. You know, Jocelyn was talking in the last episode a lot about having those priorities in line. So having God as our number one and then that trickles down into,
00:04:53 you know, having my wife, making sure I have my wife time and then once I have my wife time or I'm, you know, see things from her point of view as we discussed before, uh, spending some that great time with our children. And once that time is done, I can have some time to, you know, jump on zoom calls or, or, you know, try to invest in others, try to encourage others. And a lot of times one of the things I try to do is I try to,
00:05:23 uh, put those things together. So yeah, between certain times my, the cell phone is turned off, the sound is turned off that way I can, and I can dedicate that time to Jocelyn's, to my girls. And you know, nobody or nothing interrupts that time that that time is sacred to me. Um, and there's other times where I know, Hey, I've got some time here. Well, you know, I can use this. And so everything kind of funnels through, you know,
00:05:54 those couple of priorities is for me, you know, God and my wife had taken, if it's going to take me from away from either one of those, I, it's not something I can do at the moment. And I will say that this is definitely been a process for me because I've got that little thing called shiny object syndrome where something is shiny squirrel. Uh, you know, I, I'm, it seems like I'm automatically distracted, but sitting down and having a, uh, I have a whiteboard on my refrigerator where I write down different things that I'm going to do for the day.
00:06:30 I write down what time I'm going to do and what the time allowed it to those certain things. That way I can make sure that I've got things set up. I have my devotional time in the morning, I have my workout time, I have time to, you know, make sure I'm on awesome podcasts like yours. Uh, and then just really trying to schedule those times so that I don't overlap. There's different priorities. I really want us to say ditto to everything he just said. Um,
00:07:02 I'm in a helping profession, so I feel like I'm doing it all day at work. Um, and I think that's a cop out answer, but, um, but yeah, I think knowing your priorities is, is again, really, really critical. The other thing that I've noticed, and I'll observe this, you know, kind of from an outsider looking in, um, and, and honestly this episode is a good example of it. There's also times where, you know, Matt, you know,
00:07:30 I've seen you do it, Jocelyn, I've seen you do it. And you also own podcast episodes and other, you know, Facebook lives and various sites where it's like, you're also okay with the fact that because you have a family, because you have kiddos around because of all of that, sometimes there's imperfections, you know, and I put that in quotes because the real truth is it's not imperfection, it's just lights. And so the kiddo will walk through the back of the Facebook live, you know?
00:07:55 Okay. I always look at it as that's the worst thing that happened to me today that I'm doing. Yeah, true. So Jocelyn and I have always wanted a sense of authenticity. We don't ever want to make things look polished. We don't want things to look like they're perfect because life isn't perfect. I am a man who has messed up and fallen short more times than I can count. But when I allow those imperfections to be seen, those can be gifts or I help. And I encourage other men.
00:08:33 Uh, you know, a perfect example is a weight loss journey that I've been on in the past. I've gone from 262 pounds, which was the heaviest scale I've already taken to this morning. I was at 101 hundred 93.2. She was excited by that. But allowing people to see that, allowing people to see,
00:08:59 Hey, you can still do business stuff and your kids can be screaming in the background. Your kids are going to scream.
00:09:05 There's going to be days where you're doing podcast interviews and your daughter goes over and is playing with the,
00:09:10 uh, the power strip, uh, and different things. So I, but I think that those things make us relatable and I,
00:09:19 that's why they don't have to be perfect is there's somebody out there watching and they're seeing a live video and they get to see that there's a 21 month old baby and they're like,
00:09:30 Oh wait, if he can do it or she can do it, then wait, maybe I can do that too.
00:09:35 Right. I have a message, you know, I, I've taken my mess, my, the spots where I've messed up in life and I can use those too.
00:09:44 So like imperfect, imperfect action trumps perfect action every day of the week because there's no such thing as perfect.
00:09:53 There's always going to be mistakes. You're always going to look back and say, man, I could've done that better,
00:09:58 what ifs is and stuff like that. So imperfect action really is kind of a driving point to me.
00:10:04 I'm really good at imperfections. Yeah. Well. So the coaching group that I'm part of, we have two expressions and regular listeners of the podcast have heard me reference these before,
00:10:15 but you know, one of them is, it's a process, not an event. You know, it's never a one off.
00:10:20 It's always a process. And the other one is it's about progress, not perfect. Um, you know,
00:10:25 the, the truth is if you're making one step in the right direction really doesn't matter if it was perfect,
00:10:31 you know, you at least moved in the right direction. And so the rest of it doesn't matter.
00:10:36 Um, and, and I know, uh, you know, when I'm working with clients, that's those two,
00:10:40 let these, most of my clients can finish the sentence. I'll say it's a, it's a pro and they'll go not in a V,
00:10:47 you know, and they'll finish the sentence for me because they've heard me say it a hundred times because it's the truth.
00:10:52 That's really what life is about. So one of the things that I've seen y'all do as well, um,
00:10:57 you know, is participate in and even start, uh, some masterminds. And I'm a huge proponent of masterminds.
00:11:04 I think masterminds are a great way of investing in yourself, but also investing in interacting with others, uh,
00:11:10 in a very powerful way. So if you could share a couple of tips that you have for folks,
00:11:16 uh, around masterminds, either, you know, participating in one, starting with one, engaging with one.
00:11:22 Uh, what are some things that you would tell folks about masterminds? Oh, I would say that when you get into a mastermind,
00:11:29 when you join a mastermind, one of the very first things you want to do is go all in.
00:11:34 I feel like there's so masterminds where I've jumped in, so I'm in a weight loss mastermind. The easy thing is to start slacking off after a couple of months or feel like you've got it and said,
00:11:48 go out and make yourself uncomfortable. So what I mean by that and, and, and I'll use weight loss again as an example because I feel like that's one of the biggest things that people can relate to is that I had to go out and get uncomfortable.
00:11:59 I did a live video and I said, Hey guys, you know, my kids are home. I suffer with Jocelyn right now,
00:12:07 uh, I am at the tail end of a four or a of a 24 hour fast. And so when I did that and I,
00:12:16 and I did that more for me than I did for anyone so that the guys could hold me accountable.
00:12:21 Well, what happened was that two other guys decided to do a two or a 24 hour fast. And so again,
00:12:30 it's that authenticity, sharing your struggles and stuff to where your struggle was, can really encourage and help other people to get motivated.
00:12:38 Uh, so, you know, that's another thing is be authentic. This is a group of people,
00:12:43 you know, and again, in the weight loss group, it's a group of guys that we're doing life together.
00:12:47 It's not a one event. Hey, we did well eating. It's not a, Hey, we meet every week for half an hour.
00:12:54 It's eight throughout the entire week. What is it that we're struggling with? What is it we can help each other with?
00:13:00 Uh, you know, one of the guys sent me a message saying, Hey, I'm, you've inspired me.
00:13:03 I want to do a 24 hour fast. Can you give me some tips and tricks? And I was like,
00:13:09 wow, that's awesome. Incredible. You know, one, you can do it to keep yourself productive during the times when you're not eating.
00:13:17 Cause if you're productive, you don't have time to think about naughty. Um, it's harder because you have kids you have to feed.
00:13:26 Yeah. And that was another thing. He was like, how on earth do you do this with kids?
00:13:32 And uh, starving them for 24 hours, probably not. Pretty sure. Try to, sometimes they have hollow legs,
00:13:44 but you know it. And so pay. I've got a 17 year old son at home who's six foot weighs two 80 don't tell her,
00:13:51 don't talk about the business. A couple of business masterminds that I've been in, you know, we've read a book,
00:14:04 we've gone through the book and stuff like that. So take the resources, take the time to read the resources and then apply that to your life.
00:14:13 It's really easy to read through a book and go, Oh wow. I've, I've gone through this book a couple of different times.
00:14:18 Think and read that through the lens of whatever it is that you're going through and dealing with. So you know,
00:14:25 in this specific case I'm thinking of, we read through the, we read through the book, the obstacle is the way and it's really easy to sit here and go,
00:14:34 okay, yeah, our, our shrub was of the way. Yeah, whatever. But when I started looking at that book and saying,
00:14:40 Hey, wow, there's, there's a reason for the struggle. There's a reason for the reason that I'm getting setback.
00:14:46 There's a reason for distractions and different things like that. It was really interesting how my focus, my mindset,
00:14:54 my struggles all of a sudden became a blessing instead of a curse I guess. So for masterminds, I would say that the important thing is to do the work,
00:15:06 um, in between the calls or however you guys are meeting. Um, that's probably the biggest thing that I can think of.
00:15:13 Cause if you don't do the work you're getting, you're not getting as much out of it. If fear has ever held you back from investing in others,
00:15:24 then this may help. Matt and Jocelyn, what is the single biggest tip or piece of advice that you would give to somebody who is waiting to get started waiting to pour into others,
00:15:36 waiting to serve others because of fear? Yeah, it's funny, I love this question because when I was at the church to get married,
00:15:48 I looked at one of my friends, I looked at my groomsmen and I said, man, is,
00:15:52 is it worth it? Like is it, there's a lot of arguing. My parents have argued before there's,
00:15:58 you know, there's going to be kids involved. You know, Josh and I both knew way back in the day that,
00:16:04 you know, we, we wanted kids, we, we both love kids. She was working in the,
00:16:07 in the schools at the time and stuff. And I looked at my groups and I said, man,
00:16:12 it like, is it worth it? I'm scared. And he gave me a really good piece of advice.
00:16:18 He goes, Matt, that's how I know you're going to do it right. And I said, what do you mean by that?
00:16:22 And he goes, Matt marriage, and I'll say this for business, for kids and stuff like that.
00:16:28 These are such big monumental events that if you walk into it with a confidence of, Hey, you know,
00:16:36 I've got this and you know, there's nothing to worry about. You know, my wife and I are going to be perfect.
00:16:41 We'll have the perfect house. So I'm going to have the perfect kids. I'm going to have the perfect business.
00:16:49 We need to have another conversation. However, I think that that fear can be a motivator because what I didn't know and I didn't understand at the time was that I was fearful because of some of the things that are in my past.
00:17:03 I was fearful that I was going to mess up like some people that I know. I was fearful because I had seen my own father figure walk out of my aunt,
00:17:15 my mom and my sister. But the phenomenal thing about that is I've been able to use fear, the fear of walking out,
00:17:23 the fear of making the same mistakes, a fear of, you know, doing all these different things to do something right.
00:17:29 And that is be here for my wife to be here, for my kids, to be a homeschooling dad,
00:17:34 to, you know, do all these different things. So what I would say to somebody who is letting their fear rule them is you have fear,
00:17:43 good use it because there's a fine line between fear and excitement. You go and you will ride that roller coaster.
00:17:54 When I was a kid, I was scared. I was petrified. As an adult, I'm still scared.
00:17:58 I'm still petrified. But if you look at the mindset or the actions that my wife, Jocelyn has and the actions that I have,
00:18:09 it's very difficult. A lot of times see that there is an actual thrill or there's an excitement to the way Jocelyn's act and there's an anticipation.
00:18:19 I've heard that there are, the physiological reactions are actually the same. Your heart race, your adrenaline.
00:18:25 Yeah. They're very, they're almost exactly the same between fear and adrenaline or excitement. Yeah. So,
00:18:32 yeah. Yeah. The neurobiological responses is somewhat similar. Um, you know, that's, that's why,
00:18:38 you know, the truth is the fear response. Everyone always talks about fight or flight. It's actually three.
00:18:43 It's fight, flight or freeze. And if you watch somebody in a surprise situation where they're feeling excitement,
00:18:50 you very much see some of the same thing, fight, flight or freeze. You know, most of us react that way to surprise or to excitement as well.
00:18:58 Um, it's hard to tell a difference sometimes. Um, yeah, I used to lie to myself whenever I was getting afraid of like public speaking and just say no,
00:19:05 actually I'm just excited by the opportunity and if that actually worked cause I've heard that advice. If it does,
00:19:10 um, to some extent. I mean now, you know, I started doing public speaking when I was 12,
00:19:16 so, um, and, and so now, you know, at 52, you know, it's a very different,
00:19:22 you know, now it's like, yeah, whatever, um, the variety of an airplanes, I have an excitement.
00:19:28 No, that's not working. It's not going to work. Well, I, yeah, I love fly here.
00:19:34 I love being in airplanes too. So that's a, that's all good. But it is a matter of,
00:19:38 you know, there is some neurobiologic biology of convincing yourself that it's excitement. But, um, uh,
00:19:45 it, it, and, and really and truly the chemical signals are the same or very similar. So,
00:19:50 yeah. So what I would say about the biggest piece of advice for someone holding back because of fear is to get somebody like Matt as your partner is I am afraid of everything when it comes to starting a business.
00:20:05 I'll be honest. I mean, that's what we're about is being authentic. Um, I am, I'm scared to sell.
00:20:12 I'm scared to put everything out there. I'm getting better at things. I'm getting better at being on publishing,
00:20:18 being on video or being on, you know, we're recording this on video, but the video itself is not going out,
00:20:23 but I'm getting better with all of that stuff. Um, but Matt pushes me faster than I probably would go by myself.
00:20:31 Um, so that's my advice to somebody who is not as afraid in that particular area. And you need to balance each other out in those things.
00:20:41 And I would, I would, I would say one of the other biggest things about fear is that people compare themselves with people they see doing things well.
00:20:52 So starting a podcast, they're going to compare themselves to somebody you know, Dave Ramsey, uh, somebody who's been in the business for awhile.
00:20:59 And the reason why that's important is because we've got to remember that everyone starts somewhere. Everyone had a star,
00:21:07 everyone had a beginning. And so I'm willing to bet that the people that you look up to, the people that you admire,
00:21:14 the people you respect and business and marriage and having a great family, all of those people started with fear and they took one step.
00:21:25 You have to decide. You have to take that one step because once you take one step, that's the hardest step to make.
00:21:30 Once you take one step, you can take a second. And once you've taken a second, you're seeing you're taking those baby steps forward and you can take a third.
00:21:41 It seems about taking individual steps instead of the entire process, the entire goal. You don't climb out Mount Everest by one giant leap.
00:21:49 You climb up Mount Everest by taking one step at a time towards your goal. Exactly. Yep. So Matt and Jocelyn is as people of faith yourself,
00:22:03 what would be your best advice for a fellow Christian that wants to have a true servant mindset when they're looking at business,
00:22:12 when they're looking at their family, when they're looking at investing in others? Scott, this is such a great question and this is something I've struggled with for quite a while.
00:22:21 You know, we all know scriptures. Hey, you know, they Campbell can fit through the eye of a needle easier.
00:22:27 It's easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is to make it to heaven.
00:22:32 But somebody wants, took me back and really pointed out a parable. Uh, you know, if you remember in the book of Matthew,
00:22:40 Jesus was talking and he shared the parable of the good Samaritan. Now we all know this story. You know,
00:22:47 a guy is going, he's gets beat up robbers and stuff like that. And then, you know,
00:22:51 today's terminology, you know, a preacher walks past, walks around the other side. It says technology.
00:22:59 Uh, you know, or terminology. She's a speech therapist for a reason. Uh, you know,
00:23:07 maybe a priest walks by, you know, these are very religious people, people that we respect. The,
00:23:11 maybe the Pope walks by, I don't know. Um, I'm not Catholic, but, um, but then we see,
00:23:20 you know, maybe like somebody who's who's like a prostitute or somebody who's homeless, somebody who's really looked down upon on today's society and they take the person to the end,
00:23:31 to the, to the hotel and they say, Hey, take care of this person and they reach in their pocket.
00:23:37 Now this isn't in the scripture. This is just my imagery, my, uh, my, my kind of,
00:23:43 the way I imagine it, the way I interpreted it, the person reaches into their pocket, any hands,
00:23:51 the hotel, a good chunk of money, like I think a dollar bill. So maybe a prostitute would be the best bet in this.
00:24:00 Uh, uh, but he, they hand them a lot of money and they say, when I'll be back in a week and if this does not cover everything,
00:24:13 I will take care of the rest. That's a mindset thing because the person who was able to help the Samaritan in this story had the financial means to do that.
00:24:26 They had the financial means to take the person to the, you know, in our language today to the hospital.
00:24:31 They had the financial means to take care of the person. See, I struggle with this idea of Hey,
00:24:38 how much is enough? And, and stuff like that for quite a while. But when you look at things,
00:24:44 when you look at the parables Jesus told, we look at, we look at the lessons and stuff like that.
00:24:51 People always had the financial means to take care of some, uh, you know, again, in the story of the good Samaritan,
00:24:58 the, the person who picked up the Samaritan had the financial means to make the impact and make the influence.
00:25:05 And so I would encourage anyone who is struggling with that mindset to take a look what your goals are.
00:25:10 You know, well, what is it you want to do? Like what is it that you want to do with money?
00:25:14 What is it that you want to do it? Now, if your goal is just to build a whole bunch of houses and cars,
00:25:20 yeah, you're probably not doing it for the right reason. But when I had a friend sitting in and he goes,
00:25:24 okay, well why is it that you want or you need money? Oh I have a strong desire to get debt paid off that way my wife can be home cause I believe my girls deserve both of their parents.
00:25:38 You guys. Okay, what else? I said, well there's a lot of different human trafficking organizations that I would love to support because these are men's and women's daughters and sons.
00:25:50 They're being prostituted in other countries. He goes, okay, what else? And I went down and I rattled off these,
00:25:55 all these different things off and he goes, these are passions man. And I said okay. And he goes,
00:26:01 in order to support one or any of those missions all the way, you know, from from taking traffickers off the streets so that they can heal and then they can come to know Christ to bring in your wife home so that your girls have both parents.
00:26:17 He goes, what are, what is one thing that all of those goals take? Acidosis. There's take financial resources.
00:26:24 I can't bring my wife home from work when we're under a lot of debt and when she's the only one working,
00:26:33 know I can't help out these different charities and missions and support missionaries. I have, I've got a youth minister who's going over to Australia right now,
00:26:45 uh, to teach people about the word of God. In order to do that, in order to support him,
00:26:50 I need some financial resources so that he can continue to teach and preach the word of God. So the whole,
00:26:59 um, servant mindset, um, my first thought that was actually switching the chain, the wording of that a little bit to a servant leaders.
00:27:08 That's something that I heard a lot. Um, while Matt was attending a Christian Bible college. Um,
00:27:14 they really were trying to raise or teach, grow servant leaders. And I really, I mean, it's such an oxymoron if you really think about it.
00:27:23 Um, but I think Jesus was an example of that throughout scripture. Um, and the, the,
00:27:29 the story that comes to mind is when he washed his disciples feet. Um, and, um, that is so,
00:27:42 you know, we just gotta sh he, he, Jesus was a servant leader, he was a leader,
00:27:48 um, by example. And I think that's something that we really need to be trying to do. Is it easy?
00:27:56 No, not as easy. You can find out more about the family life movement over@familylifemovement.com, and you can find that community over on Facebook at facebook.com/groups family life movement.
00:28:15 You can find all of the social media links and all of that stuff over on the website as well as that great free download.
00:28:21 So thanks for much so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for having us. It's great fun.
00:28:37 Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
00:28:48 but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode,
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00:29:20 Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.