Welcome to Beyond the Break!

Contrary to our consumerist culture's preferences, our greatest, most valuable asset is not our income, but our time. Yet, many seem to think that there's never enough of it in a day to live the lives we want to live. We are all bound by time equally, yet some seem to have leveraged their time better than others. In this episode, Joe gives some meta ways to think about stewarding our time better and gives practical exercises to making the most of our most limited, but valuable asset.

It seems that the majority of good women aren't interested in marrying the majority of good men. This is causing the involuntary, prolonged singleness of many singles in the church and the delay of many faithful people getting married. Where have men gone wrong for this to be the case? In this episode, Joe explains what he believes men have been missing that women are looking for in a potential spouse and gives actionable steps to start building the necessary characteristics for any man to worthy of one of God's daughter's hands in marriage.

Haven't we all heard that nice guys finish last? In our culture today, weakness is a virtue and strength is a vice. In an effort to keep men from becoming brash and harmful from their masculine urges, our culture seeks to breed them into "nice guys." In this episode, Joe explains the detriment of being a "nice guy" and gives four major points to why nice guys do, in fact, finish last. He concludes with actionable steps every man can follow to shed off the nice guy and live worthy of their calling.

At both the macro and individual level, the stability and security of the blessings we hold dear are not guaranteed. The very systems that make our lives comfortable and predictable are fragile and losing them could lead to a complete societal collapse. With these systems in place, it's easy to get complacent and simply expect good routine outcomes all the time, but what if, by no fault of our own, unprecedented hardship came our way? Have we thought through how we would handle it? In this episode, Joe explains the importance of making peace with the worst possible situations of life and make preparations for them.

Ambition has the potential to restrain all of us. We live in a culture that subliminally calculates a person's value based on their career accolades and accomplishments. Our culture prioritizes wealth and status as the benchmarks of a person's worth. In this episode, Joe calls out the damage that ambition does to personal relationships and carves a better path for living a balanced and ordinary life.

Our world is full of hate, bitterness, and vengeful attitudes towards others. In our entitlement, we often believe we are justified in holding bitterness and resentment towards those who have wronged us. The truth is, whether we realize it or not, this is poison to our souls. In this episode, Joe explains the importance of forgiveness and gives practical steps to build the habits of asking for and affording forgiveness to others.

Nearly all human success comes from our dealings with people. With many basic truths about life and the world under attack in today's culture, qualities that we used to take for granted are being lost with every passing generation; namely, being normal and likable. In this episode, Joe explains why normalcy and likability are the most valuable skills a person can have for general life success and relationships. He concludes with actionable ways nearly everybody can learn these skills and even master them.