Interviews

Sam- Commitment, Loyalty, and Lord of the Rings (#7)

Listen to this episode on your favorite platform!
Interviews
August 23, 2020
46
 MIN

Sam- Commitment, Loyalty, and Lord of the Rings (#7)

Daniel and Andrew welcome their first guest, Sam, to talk about what commitment and loyalty means to him. Sam is a Texas A&M graduate, whose career choices have brought him into minisitry with a focus on helping others learn how to grow enough to travel abroad and introduce Christianity to other cultures without the usual misconceptions that are involved in cultural white-washing that is normally associated with this kind of work. If you've ever been curious about what it's like working in a church, or how to go abroad to make an impact on both your life and others, Sam is the guy you need to hear from.

*Dead by Tomorrow may receive commission on links in these and other posts on the website*

Show Notes:

The business term Daniel tried to reference is market cannibalism:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcannibilization.asp

How Adventure Time Makes you Better:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/adventure-time-is-making-you-a-better-person

Episode Transcript

Daniel: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to dead by tomorrow podcast interviews. My name is Daniel winter and my cohost is Andrew minerals as Andrew and I explored different, important topics that we shouldn't put off. We want to bring in guests to offer their own unique perspectives and experiences. We hope that you enjoyed hearing from our guests as much as we enjoy talking to.

Andrew: [00:00:20] This is Andrew. And today we have Sam with us and we're going to be talking a little bit about commitment and what Sam does as a career and how commitment plays into his professional and personal life. So thanks for listening. And we look forward to connecting with you soon.

Daniel: [00:00:41] Hey Sam, thanks for being our first ever podcast guest. We're pretty excited to get to talk to you. Hopefully this doesn't completely bomb. And at the very minimum, you'll get some, we'll get to take advantage of your social network with our product. Yes, here,

Sam: [00:00:56] we just have a lot of the same friends.

Daniel: [00:01:00] That is very true. What does, there's a business term for that? I should know this that's killing me. we'll put it in the post notes. All right. to start out, Sam, I would really just like to go into a little bit about who you are, what you've been doing, obviously, Andrew and I know you, I don't know if Andrew actually knows you that but

Sam: [00:01:21] he doesn't know me.

Andrew: [00:01:24] Where am, I

Sam: [00:01:24] doesn't know what you got,

Daniel: [00:01:28] but yeah, no, I would just really love to give the floor to you. First of all, just tell us about who you are, that kind of brief two-minute elevator speech, and maybe what you've been doing most recently.

Sam: [00:01:41] Yeah, I am Sam and I guess I'm working in what you would call a church ministry, Christian ministry, six years now.

That's the most recent past six years that I've been doing, I've worked at several different churches, but been doing the same thing. And yeah, I'm a Christian, that's a big part of who I am and Aggie class of 2014. So yeah, I graduated about six years ago,

so I worked for an organization called launch global. The summary snapshot. And you can ask more question is just that we work with local churches, too, train, cross cultural workers, the phrase we use, but you could insert missionary. That's probably more familiar to most people for overseas work. And so doing things like blessing other countries with good stuff and also carrying the message of Jesus to places that don't have it.

So we do that here in the States train and do all the psychological spiritual. Physical training and testing for people to go overseas, to make sure that they can thrive.

Andrew: [00:02:45] So are you training like locals? if you would come to it, Amarillo or Amarillo, church leaders would come to you and you would train them on going to somewhere like Ireland, which is probably a bad example, but you would train them on how to go somewhere with like maybe a language [00:03:00] barrier.

Or are you talking about pulling somebody from Ireland using the same bad example and training them on how to do something locally in Ireland?

Sam: [00:03:07] That's a good question. Most of what we do. So training like a consulting, a church will say we need help in this area and they will partner with our organization.

So we like come into their church and help them. Develop their missions’ program. You could call it, but we also do that overseas as well. So there are, we have teams that are in places overseas doing the same thing with Ireland or Irish people.

Andrew: [00:03:37] And I know we have some actual questions lined up for you, but I'm a little more curious than I thought I was going to be on that front. So whenever you're training these people, what are you teaching them like specific skill sets or are you trying to just point them in the right direction and be like, Hey, here is why you need to do this?

Or is there like a spy super skill set that you're like, Hey, this is how you deal with confrontation with authority figures in a foreign country, or is it more like here's how you spread the gospel?

Sam: [00:04:03] A little bit of both and we, yeah. So there are certain things that are very specialized. I can't help you with those kinds of security protocol questions.

If you're at a country that might get dangerous, just because it's a, you think of countries like Afghanistan or these places that are just unstable, you probably need some more specific training on

Andrew: [00:04:23] training.

Sam: [00:04:24] Now the cost of negotiation, but we do a lot of just the front end, how to just be a mature person who can live overseas, how to, honor someone's culture and not just destroy it.

Yeah. The reason we don't use the word missionary is that's associated with colonization and destroying culture and just bringing, making everyone American. And so a lot of what we do is helping deprogram that. How do you introduce another culture to? To Jesus. So by the way, it was not American, big shocker and let them follow him, let them express in their own culture, how-to follow-on worship Jesus instead of imposing our own.

So that actually takes a lot of training and it takes a lot of just figuring things out. yeah, we do a lot of stuff like that. A lot of it really is where I'm at. I live in college station and I mentioned that, but there's a lot of students. And so I was telling Daniel does, I think a lot of it is just helping them grow as adults so that they can actually live overseas and not just die or something.

Daniel: [00:05:24] Yeah. Obviously, I've known you for a long time. I think we met when you were in middle school. I might've been like a freshman in high school. Meeting at that time, I don't think either of us would have predicted our own career trajectory. So I'm just curious, how did you end up in this place that you are, what were some of the things that led to your career?

Sam: [00:05:45] That is such a hard question for me to answer. Cause I don't really know pretty wild. I think when I met today yeah. When I met you, Daniel was one of the most like. Least ambitious person, the owners. And I think I still have some of those [00:06:00] qualities, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I went to college, not really knowing what I wanted to do.

I had this vague idea of being a coach because I really enjoyed sports, played sports. And so that sounded fun. And then I think it was at a, yeah, it was at church camp, which I think all three of us I've been to before. I think even entry, you came with us a few times and see the Canyon back in the day.

here we

Andrew: [00:06:24] watch fight club one time with, with Greg.

Sam: [00:06:28] I think about that

Daniel: [00:06:29] every time I watch that, I'm like how in the world

Sam: [00:06:32] did get away with it? Yeah. There's

Andrew: [00:06:38] probably a soft band on us at SITA.

Sam: [00:06:41] Oh my gosh. No. I went back to that camp to help lead it as like a volunteer. I remember one time there just felt a strong impression from God that he wanted me to do this kind of stuff full time, just helping others, experience him, helping others know him in a very safe and just like a way where they can understand them.

That's what started it, I think. And I remember telling you about that Daniel, on the way back, I looked back at that moment, a lot of why I decided to work at a church after school to through a lot of things like that. I started working at a church as like an intern. There's really no specific direction.

And then when I started doing that, I took a class about just the world, basically it's called perspective. And it's all about just what's going on in the world and the history of Christianity around the world. And. The needs of the world, just the pressing needs dollar. And I think that's what really launched me into this.

Maybe more specific kind of ministry. But yeah, that moment at church camp, just helping kids through their problems and just talking to them about whatever was going on. That was really hard, but how God can help them. I think that's what sparked this desire to do that full time.

Daniel: [00:07:50] and one thing you said that it makes me laugh cause it's not untrue, but I think you sell yourself a little bit short is you said.

You know that you were probably one of the most unambitious people that I may have met at that time and on the outside, that probably was true in a lot of ways at that time. But I feel like a characteristic that you've always had that I think launched you to where you are now. Goodness, that is upon that.

I did not mean to

Sam: [00:08:16] get in there. email.

Daniel: [00:08:21] Scrap it,

but something that I've always admired about you that I think really sets you up to be where you are, is the fact that you're somebody that is really loyal. You're somebody that does really commit to things. I think a lot of people go and have these church camp experiences or these. Mountain top moments of inspiration where somebody feels like, okay, I have this path that I want to go down, or I have this thing that I want to do with my life.

A lot of people have those moments, but not a lot of people actually follow through on that. And on the other side of it, most people can, they look back and see, yeah, I wanted to do [00:09:00] that. I ended up in this other path instead. And for you, you experienced that. And then you stuck with it and you were loyal to that specific calling that you felt and continue to chase after it, despite what I'm sure you faced.

Plenty of adversity, plenty of moments where it seems like, this isn't going to work out or this isn't for me, or, there's an easier path, but instead you're somebody who stays true to the cause I think about like how long did you work in the mall at the ice cream

Sam: [00:09:28] shop? That is a great example.

When I worked there for five years. Five or six years, five or six years off and on I'll come back and work there during the break in college, I

Andrew: [00:09:42] still go through them all. And I'm like, Oh, they're Sam's old

Sam: [00:09:44] place. I never even stopped.

Andrew: [00:09:45] And saw you there. Like it was just, it became your thing because you were there so long.

Sam: [00:09:53] How

Daniel: [00:09:53] many teenagers do you know that? Stick with a job that long little and adult,

Sam: [00:09:58] not many. What's wrong with me. If you looked at that place.

Daniel: [00:10:05] But, yeah, I would describe scribe you as a loyal person. is that something you would describe in yourself?

Sam: [00:10:12] Yeah, for sure. you take the, you can take those like personality tests.

I remember you gave us one a long time ago. Daniel. I thought of this. It was like four animals. Then you could be, I was a dog or something. Yeah. That's amazing. The main thing was loyalty on that one, the Enneagram I'm a six. And so that's a big word associated with sixes. If you're familiar with Enneagram, which you don't really need to be, but.

Was that loyalty. And it's just my favorite word. I love that word loyalty. I just love it. When people commit that's those are my favorite characters and stories. I'm a Hufflepuff fan, Harry Potter, like that and said, no one ever sent me. No,

Andrew: [00:10:56] they made it come back, man. Everybody loves Hufflepuff,

Sam: [00:10:58] which

Andrew: [00:10:59] hurts my little solar and heart, but whatever.

do you have a favorite character then that you'd be like, Hey, this is my, this is the guy on a TV show or in a book that I'm like gung-ho that's who I want to be in life?

He was

Sam: [00:11:18] as a deal.

Seven tries.

Andrew: [00:11:28] They bring them to the edge of death and he would come back swinging admirable. What about a TV show? You grew up with her a book you grew up with?

Sam: [00:11:37] Samwise, Gamgee is probably one of the best examples in literature accurate. He's my namesake, but just his, yeah. Unflinching loyalty to Frodo.

Even above the task, it seems like a time. Yeah, I had great example,

Andrew: [00:11:53] Sam. Sam is awesome. I am so happy that post Lord of the Rings movie, I don't know how long it took, but yeah. And maybe it's just the [00:12:00] cultural revolution of memes and content sharing, but I love how everybody's like now Frodo was trash.

Everybody knows same with the real hero dragging Frodo to mortar. And then. Essentially finishing the job for him. So have you, when was the last time you watched a lot of the rings and saw your namesake slash token commitment person?

Sam: [00:12:20] No. Watch the third one. Cause it came out on Netflix and I was really bored.

And so I watched it in chunks. I did, I was like, I love Samwise Gamgee so much because. Even though he gets, it's that moment when Frodo tells him to leave and go home and he's gotten out of here. You're not, I don't need you anymore. Basically, Sam refuses to actually do it because he just can't.

It's like he can't leave. He has to come back, even though he was. had every right to just be like, fine, forget it. like whatever for Frodo to save them and to help them, you can take that through a lot of different ways where he could have just taken the ring and less, but it was, it seemed like it was more about photo than anything, he could, if he was more about taking the ring, he could have found it or something.

I don't know when I don't, I haven't read the book. So maybe there's some plot holes, but in the movie, it could have been, just been like grabbed the ring. Cause Pardot got stung by that spider and he was just like, He's all he's like basically dead and yeah, same way I have just taken it and gone, but instead he kept risking his life to make sure photo survive.

Daniel: [00:13:21] Yeah. I think that it comes down to, he was one of the purest characters. He was purely loyal. He wasn't loyal to Frodo because of wanting to be close to power or close to some sort of benefit. he didn't go on the quest because. He wanted glory or anything like that. Like, all it came down to is ultimately he was loyal to the master that he was serving and that was his pure.

If your motivation and anything else that happened along the side, that was the underpinning motivation, which I think that's always an interesting thing to look at. I think that's an interesting question to ask of people who, they look like they are really committed, really virtuous, really, whatever it is.

And just trying to see. Is that, what is the pure, actual motivation for that? Or do you have a deeper, more ulterior motives?

Sam: [00:14:13] Yeah, that's really

Andrew: [00:14:14] good. And the hard questions that's, you have coffee with somebody, find out their name and then ask them what kind of person they are and if they would, give their life for you.

That's how you make friends.

Sam: [00:14:24] Yeah. And other great example of a character that I love there's actually in the Bible is Mary Magdalen. If y'all thought about her. She's the one that came to mind, but I was trying to think of a more pop culture character, but he there's the story of when Jesus is like teaching or something.

And Martha, her sister's complaining and getting angry. Cause she's like trying to put together all the food for everyone and like cleaning and all this stuff. And, but Mary is just sitting at Jesus's feet, listening. Because she just wants to hear him. [00:15:00] And so there's all these little snapshots of just her commitment to him, no matter what.

And she's even the first one to go back to the tomb. When Jesus died, she goes back looking for him and just going to bring him stuff while all the other disciples. These are the ones that all the dudes they're just like. That leave or they run away. Cause they're scared, but she just stuck it out.

She would leave there when he was dying, when the other ones left. she was there when he was dying on the cross. And so she just embodies that a lot of just this loyal love for Jesus, that defied circumstances. She's one of my favorite characters. She's off.

Andrew: [00:15:44] I

Daniel: [00:15:44] feel like you've talked about too. Characters that are supremely loyal to the people in their life. And so I'm curious for you, is that what you find that your loyalty most strongly ties to an individual, to a person, your commitment most strongly tied to an individual or a person versus an organization, a task, a goal, that sort of thing.

how that look for you?

Sam: [00:16:08] Yeah, for sure. And I think there's some faults with that too. Like it's not always a good thing. I do think I look for a task for a vision for an organization before I join it. And I want it to be aligned with what I'm wanting to do. But I think what keeps me a lot of times is the relationships with people.

So the ice cream shop in high school is a great example of just, I loved working there. Actually I loved and hated it, but I loved it because my cousins worked there. I made friends with a lot of people who work there and it just, it felt Wrong to leave because these are my people. I can never leave this place because that, it definitely is a strong motivator.

Andrew: [00:16:50] I get that. It's hard, especially, like you said, your cousins are there or you feel like they're counting on you. it's sometimes almost easier to stay in a position like that, where you feel like it's, Hey, these people are counting on me. I'm going to put them first instead of my needs.

How did you make that transition? obviously you move, but would you have made that transition if you hadn't moved?

Sam: [00:17:11] Yeah. I think moving really helped just go into the transition of going to school, which was really hard for me to leave them a reload to go to school. Daniel knows that, and it was just hard for me to get out of.

there is some loyalty there, but there's also just comfort zone and fear too. So it's not just all virtue, where I was just, scared of leaving. but yeah, I think, the need to go to college, the great opportunity in conversation. Cause my sister lived here and I had free housing here and Daniel was here a good friend, so that pulled me out of it.

And all my cousins started leaving too. And other people started leaving the store. So that, that made me feel like I wasn't missing out the FOMO wasn't as bad when everyone else left. I do think there was just some [00:18:00] natural stuff in life that pulled me out of Amarillo and out of that job.

Daniel: [00:18:04] And I definitely want to get into.

Kind of two questions I have from that I'll ask both of them. So you can think about them and maybe intermix your answer. And one question I have is, yeah. At what point does loyalty become a hindrance to you? What point can loyalty hurt you? That's something that made me want to get you on the podcast and talking about it because we were playing disc golf recently.

And you made a comment about. Maybe just feeling like you were loyal to a fault and that it could be a, almost a detriment at times. And then the other thing that I'm curious about is what point does loyalty actually just become fear of change, fear of stepping out of your comfort zone and just being satisfied with the status quo or satisfied with comfort and how do you figure out.

When it's crossing that

Sam: [00:18:56] line, those are good questions. First one, I think in my current role, this one's more brief, but I worked with launch global and I'm married my wife and I, we both really have a longing to go overseas ourselves and do what we've trained others to do. And there's been a lot of opportunities to do that.

And sometimes though, I think I was. a lot of times I was really cutting off a lot of really good opportunities that we could have had to go overseas because I wanted to still work with launch global. And once global has limited options for good going overseas. There's a few, but not a lot. And I think I had shut off every other option because of my loyalty to launch global.

And that's what I was telling you about recently. Daniel was just, it finally dawned on me. If we leave launch global there's opportunities that fit us better and that are really off, we should do this, but it requires leaving. This great organization that I love and cherish. and that's what I was telling you about.

I was just like, no, and like my loyalty to them was blinding. It's probably too strong, but it was preventing me from moving forward in what I think we want it to do. And also what. as a Christian, I think God wanted us to do as well.

Andrew: [00:20:14] That is an awesome example of why having your own plan or goals set aside on what you actually want to do is because, if you're going to be loyal to this brand, but they're not helping you grow in the way that you had planned on growing.

That's a problem. And it's really hard to see. Cause I know I've been there where I might've been too committed to somebody or something and you're able to put it off, but if you've set a hard timeline or, a certain formula for Hey, if this happens or I have this much money, or if this opportunity comes up, I have to say yes to it.

It's really easy to say, no, maybe tomorrow, that's our whole thing because a lot of our stuff is right now, you need to say, this is something I want to. Commit to, or I want to chase down because, and not to make you feel bad, but your life could have [00:21:00] been drastically different if you would have said yes to one of those opportunities beforehand, but your commitment and your loyalty was too high that you might've missed out on a growth opportunity that hopefully you get it soon, that's scary to think.

Are you

Sam: [00:21:11] saying that I've read my life? Andrew

Andrew: [00:21:16] just needs to move on. Find a new man.

Yeah. Aged out you're 28, right?

Sam: [00:21:24] Yeah. You're done.

Andrew: [00:21:25] No, you still have the opportunity and that's what's we can always find new opportunities. They're always there. It's just they're once you die. So it's scary to think about is. What opportunities would have come up or the differences in your life that could have happened if you would've said yes to something else on a different day.

So there's bad sides to it as well. you could have said yes to something that really messed up your life, and there's no way to know that. So it's interesting, but if Travis abroad and doing your work is important, see, that's something that is really hard to be cognizant of in the day to day life that we have, I have when we're grinding out at work or social life balance, where you're like, This is great, but we've got to make rent this month and all the different things we use to justify an action.

I'm sure Daniel can say that if something came up, he would, Oh, like the wedding I'm going to use Daniel's wedding. As an example, Daniel trusted you to officiate his wedding. That is huge, right?

Sam: [00:22:25] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:22:27] I mean Dana, would you have that? Anybody else?

Daniel: [00:22:29] No, definitely not.

Andrew: [00:22:30] it's not because. He'd seen Sam do a wedding before it was the trust factor and the loyalty factor, right?

Daniel: [00:22:36] Yeah, for sure. And just, I think that's something that's really cool about loyalty and commitment and trust is that it does reap rewards with those that you're loyal to, or it should, right? I wanted Sam to officiate the wedding. Andrew, I wanted you to be the best man, because the two of y'all just stood beside me through so many phases of life through so much time of life, different.

I don't know, different time periods, all sorts of things. And we're still there. And so it's like those, y'all were the two people that I wanted to honor the most and recognize the most on that day, as I'm standing next to the, the person that I hope to do that with for the rest of my life, going forward.

And I think. That can be a cool thing that sometimes is maybe overlooked in weddings is take a look at a bride and groom. They're standing there to make that long-term commitment and the people that they should have next to them are the people that are the proof that, of what their loyalty and commitments have looked like, the people in their lives where that's come up the most.

And it's just saying Hey. People that have really been with me throughout this time, help me here in this next commitment, support me through it. And then also, if I'm looking at Hillary, I can look over and see. The proof of her loyalty and her commitment seemed wow, she's really fostered that well with others, I can look forward to, how we're going to do that together as a couple.

Andrew: [00:23:59] Yeah. She's a [00:24:00] Saint for putting up with you. dang,

she's going to be like, y'all have a

Sam: [00:24:07] podcast.

Andrew: [00:24:13] But no, the wedding thing is a great example on that loyalty front, because it is, you can almost, we've all been to those weddings where we look up there and we're like, Oh, that who are those people sitting next to the groom or the bride? I've never heard them mention them or seen them together.

It's almost liked a bad omen for the marriage itself because you're like, if that's who you surrounded yourself on this important day, you're in trouble. Or, sometimes it is Oh, I know that person, what are they doing up there? I would. Be careful admitting leave and know them. That's actually probably what a lot of people say when they see me at the wedding, they're like, Oh, Ooh, Anderson, this is been

Daniel: [00:24:51] dangerous ground to tread.

Andrew: [00:24:53] Yeah. I'll throw some stones in this glass house. you got to see if the windows are straight.

Daniel: [00:24:56] Yeah. And that's not to say that if somebody doesn't have friends, it doesn't have relationships or whatever. if you don't pick your wedding party, you're doomed to fail. But I do think it, I think it is an interesting thing to look at and.

The next time you're at a wedding. Maybe consider that in. Yeah. If it's a, if it's like a Catholic wedding that's super long or something like that, at least you've got some additional form of entertainment during that time.

Andrew: [00:25:21] It's like a plan of who murdered, who gained, but in this case, who's got good personality traits,

commitment, front, specifically commitment. we talked about maybe the opportunity to. Officiated wedding comes up, but it also has professional merits. People will have that same level of trust for you were in the wedding, since you'd never officiated a wedding, but you were trusted enough to figure it out and do it anyways, that kind of, that jumped from having never done something to doing something is really hard to make happen in the professional world.

A lot of people will not give you a chance, tackling a new project or a new skill set. Yeah. Or something that is really serious. marrying your friend. That is still a kind of important day. And being able

Daniel: [00:26:06] to from the guy on the podcast is not married, I

Sam: [00:26:10] guess it's well,

Andrew: [00:26:11] and maybe that's why I'm not married yet.

Is it? It is important to me to make sure I make that right choice. And that's the thing. you have that and it's. No, you don't want to just bring somebody on. That's Hey, I'm going to get married. Do you want to take a crack at this? You're not giving somebody an opportunity to mess up your wedding necessarily.

You're picking someone that you're like, Hey, I know this person's going to come through on me. And that's where commitment comes from is, and the loyalty, this person's going to follow through that goes hand in hand with the commitment and that on the professional world is how you make those big jumps in your place.

Sam. I'm sure what you're doing is not something that everybody at reach does, I would guess. And this is the thing, I don't know anything about your workplace, but I would guess you have more responsibility there than a lot of your peers, whether they're older or New York.

Sam: [00:26:54] I definitely do. I think what you're saying is super true and a really good lesson for anyone who's.

Just [00:27:00] now graduating college or jumping into the workforce. You're never that good at your job your first year, no matter how talented you think you are, like your first year of any job, usually you're just not that good at it. The longer you stay somewhere and commit to it, the better you get at it. And Yeah. I, a lot of times I will say things that work or do things and my coworkers will think it was really good. And I'm always like, I don't know where that came from. I think it's just because I've been here. And so I just know what's going on a little bit more, or. I saw someone else do that two years ago.

So now I'm doing it. And yeah, there's so much value in just working with something for longer than one or two years, because I really saw this with what I do now is my third in this past year. And really, I've been doing this kind of work for five years, but with launch global for my third, fourth and fifth year, I've just been so much better.

And I love it so much more because I'm just so much better at it. And I understand things a lot more, but yeah, there's so much value.

Andrew: [00:28:02] If you were punching your ticket. and not just, Hey, I need to get a paycheck and this is cool that I'm doing this job, but I need to go out and have drinks with friends, or I want to go watch Netflix with my wife.

if you were just punching that ticket and it weren't committed to the job, you wouldn't have that instinctual understanding you have. Now you could have easily. Coasted through five years of this and not been able to have an understanding, like a deeper understanding of what you're doing. it's really easy to just coast on by, and you could be in the same spot as you were five years ago with the same knowledge base.

But if you're committed to it, you start picking that kind of stuff up and absorbing that information and turning it around in your subconscious, which leads you to those moments where someone asks a question and you have the answer, even though it wasn't, that had come up before, but you start understanding the problem as a whole.

Because you've been actually focused on it for a period of time and you start understanding the underlying mechanics.

Sam: [00:28:54] For sure. I think this is a good, with launch global, a good lesson that I've learned and I want to take to other places I go is just the value of having a lot of people in an organization with a lot of skin in the game.

when the organization is hurting, Everyone is hurting in our organization because everyone is so invested in what we do. That's part of why that's the case is we're all self-funded. We all go out and raise funds for our position, and it's not just for the paycheck. It's really for that vision.

And so that I've just noticed how much that helps and I'm sure y'all could speak with your own work experience too, when people are bought in and they take it personally, if something is going wrong, it's just incredible what can happen at an organization or company, whatever you want to call it.

Daniel: [00:29:37] Yeah. That's something we talked a lot about and whenever. Episodes that, tied to commitment in the workplace. We talked about this idea of engagement, and I think that's what you're talking about there. That's when you are bought into the vision, you're bought into what's going on, you're actively interested in the company more so than just.

I said I would do it. So I'm going to do it. It's no, I [00:30:00] believe in it. And I think part of engagement is again that loyalty or that commitment to you have a bigger vision. Okay. We're all like for you with launch, it's spreading the gospel, right? It's. That's what you're ultimately committed to and loyal to not just the organization, not just the people, but that mission that is behind it.

And as long as you can tie what you're doing there to that overall vision and commitment, then hard things you get through them because you understand that it's still moving you towards that ultimate goal. Versus if you were only committed to launch as an organization, whenever things are hard at launch, it's ah, I don't know.

I don't know how, I don't know if this is really that beneficial

Sam: [00:30:43] anymore. Yeah. It's a good way to put it.

Daniel: [00:30:51] Awesome. So one last question, maybe serious question. And then we got to get to some fun stuff at the end, but, I know in your. Line of work. Working with college students recently graduated college students, preparing them. It's similar to what I have to do a lot of, or get to do a lot of, not have to do a lot of interviewing and then preparing a recent college grad for the workforce.

How does that look for you? what are your thoughts on the loyalty on the commitment of this most recent upcoming generation?

Sam: [00:31:23] I think they have a lot of conflicting motivations about anything that they do and. I'm not a psychologist. I can't fully understand what's going on. That we have noticed in our work, just difficulty in recruiting and getting young men, especially to do things and commit to things.

So young women, I would say by and large in our arena. And there's a lot of factors for this, but young women are just killing it. I think they outnumber. Men on the mission field seven to one at this point. And yeah, they are very committed. So we train a lot of women and they are amazing. I think some of the things that I've noticed is there are just some, from a Christian worldview sins that are just paralyzing a lot of young men that just keep them from moving forward in life.

Yeah, so we don't have to get into all that, you'd call them biases from whatever worldview you're looking at. There's just things that I think everyone would agree. That's not good. You're doing way too much of that, or something that is just preventing them from being able to move forward.

But another thing I think that's with loyalty, motivation goes back to what we were talking about being good at stuff and how long it can take to be good at something. I think a lot of people in this younger generation are looking to do something that they feel like they are competent at and they don't want to take a risk.

And they, I just hear it a lot with my work is they don't want to do this because they don't know if they'd be good at it. You don't know if they're going to be good at anything. So you just got to pick something and go for it. And. You're not going to be that good at it. Your first year,

Andrew: [00:32:55] you've watched venture time.

Absolute favorite lines from adventure time is Jake [00:33:00] talking to Finn and he says the first step at being good at something is sucking at something. And it's so true. No one just pops up and be like, Hey, look, I can do all of these things that people make money doing and be awesome at it off the bat.

You don't, you have to be bad at it.

Sam: [00:33:14] I feel like that's a big barrier and I've even felt that in my own life, but I feel like it's especially big now where they want us to really spell out exactly what to be doing overseas, how, what they know fits that and how their skills can be used, which is all good.

I'm okay with those questions, but a lot of it is just unknown and a lot of it is just you're going to be bad at this because everyone's bad at it at first.

Andrew: [00:33:38] Yeah, you don't get hand guide to success. Like you just got to jump in. And is that a thing for gen Z now? Are they having trouble understanding that they've got to try before?

I don't know. I've been called a try hard so many times. I can't tell what generation is actually angry about it, but that's my feelings every time.

Sam: [00:33:57] No word hurt. I don't know. I don't know if it's gen Z. What's the cutoff for gen Z.? Is it like 20, 97, 97?

Daniel: [00:34:04] And a seven is like the weird bubble where you're, you can be considered one or the other.

Sam: [00:34:08] I feel like we've worked with mostly millennials at this point, but there are some gen Z people coming through now. So yeah, it's a good mix. But the problems are similar though, from what I've experienced.

Daniel: [00:34:18] Yeah. and I'm just curious, cause we talked about that a lot on a previous episode, the idea that millennials are very flippant and they're not loyal, that's a rhetoric that's been out there.

So I'm curious if that has been. Your experience as well and interesting hearing from you that there's some of that happening, but it's not necessarily disloyalty at the heart of it. It's more just this fear of failure, is what it comes down to

Sam: [00:34:44] from my angle, and I have a very small sliver of the workforce, but it just seems There's a lot of fear in making decisions. And when you add religious motivations to, as Christians, there's also a fear around, am I doing this for God or for myself? Yeah. There's all sorts of different layers as well. Also, the parents are a big thing too. And what did we do?

Daniel: [00:35:04] yeah,

Sam: [00:35:05] sending their kids overseas is always a hard conversation.

Daniel: [00:35:08] and so knowing that, is there one specific thing that you lean on to try to, help somebody move past that you found to be particularly successful?

Sam: [00:35:18] Yes. One thing that we do and we try really hard is just to build trust and build strong relationships with people. And so the best people that we get to work with, I feel Are those who we met when they were a sophomore or freshman in college. And we've built a relationship with them over a few years to where when it's time to make that decision about getting trained to go overseas or even joining our organization, like coming on staff with us, there's just so much trust built up that they trust us.

And they, I think can alleviate some of that initial fear. yeah, I think that's my favorite way of doing it. Even with someone I meet, trying to lead or trying to help grow. Just building that trust is so important. And building that relationship [00:36:00] that's centered around like loyalty and trust with them before you ask them to do anything.

I think that's really important. So it's for me, a lot of it is just spending time with them doing things together, instead of just telling them to go do something like let's do it together and I'll show you how to do it. Yeah. There's all sorts of little tools like that. We try really hard not to do the whole.

Go do this and report back. It's coming. See, come let's do this together. If we're going to go and talk to someone from a different face and learn about their faith, let's go get it together. Not just, and I'm just going to throw you out by yourself, whatever it might be. I think that helps a lot.

It's just the. Being with them and all the different areas.

Andrew: [00:36:40] Awesome. Like a good way to do it.

Daniel: [00:36:42] Awesome. Yeah. That relationship aspect.

We got to reserve a little bit of time for just a couple more fun questions. So knowing. Andrew and I, for such a long time, is there any particular story or experience that you feel like really stands out as a, maybe as a defining moment for the relationship?

Sam: [00:37:08] So many funny stories about all of us with Andrew in particular.

I really always think of playing board games with Andrew.

Andrew: [00:37:16] Sorry about that.

Sam: [00:37:20] Something always happens when we play munchkin together in particular where Daniel and I have this unwritten Alliance and like every board game we play, we're basically always on the team, no matter what. And that there's the loyalty aspect. I'm more concerned with Daniel winning than myself. And usually Andrew's on the negative end of that.

Or Hebrew punished. Yeah. I also sometimes

Andrew: [00:37:47] instigate that I'm usually a little Mallory.

Sam: [00:37:51] Yes. Those are really some of my favorite memories with Andrew. For sure. It's playing munchkins. At his old apartment and a new, we got to play munchkins at your apartment that you live in now, I think, yeah,

probably my favorite games, but only with the right people. And you guys are the right people. And then with Daniel, one of my favorite stories and I'll try to talk quickly, but there's another story at church camp. Where Dana and I were both volunteers’ leaders at this camp, and there was a breakfast morning where they were serving French toast sticks, which you can look on Sonic and see what those are, but they're just rectangles.

Yeah, they're awesome. And they were just big goofballs with always played a lot of tricks and games with the. Kids.

Daniel: [00:38:37] We have two at breakfast because they roll in and they just hate the world. And so we had to bring the energy to another

Sam: [00:38:45] yes, without a doubt. And so we've had a lot of fun. And I remember this year, Daniel was just throwing stuff at me and like expecting me to catch it in my mouth.

And it was just funny, like doing it unexpectedly and, just like diving for it and trying to catch it. And so this [00:39:00] story is unbelievable. So some of you might not believe it, but it is absolutely true. The Daniel took off a piece of French toast stick and it's like Sam catch and threw it.

And I, it went like to my right or left or something. I don't remember, but I had to like kind of dive for it. Yeah, trying to catch up my mouth and I kid you not the French toast piece off of mine and landed in a kid's pocket who was walking by

Daniel: [00:39:27] the front pocket,

Sam: [00:39:29] just landed in it. And I didn't see Atlanta because I was, falling over, but like half of our table saw laying in the pocket and everyone was just like losing it.

And the kids didn't notice and he just walked off. And so we were just like, Oh my gosh, how did that happen? And then this wonderful child, I don't know what genius he had. The great idea of doing a magic trick on that kid who had the French toast stick, Oh my God. Okay. And so I went over and called the kid over.

I'll say, Hey, come on, do you want to see a magic trick? And he's yeah, sure.

Daniel: [00:40:10] Think he was like, yeah, sure. This was your classic case. Skeptical kid. Cause guys remember it like, this is. This is a church camp thing where and also in the era of you're worried about getting slimed and you feel like somebody's going to pull a trick on you whenever they bring you over to the table.

And everybody's like snickering,

Sam: [00:40:31] and we might've been known for that too. Just FYI. So Daniel plays it up and he grabs it at a fresh French toast stick. And he's here's, what's going to happen. I'm going to take a bite of this French toast. It. And that bite I'm going to swallow it and that bite will end up in your pocket.

And the kid was like, okay, whatever Daniel played out really well. I had an awesome acting job and took a bite of the French toast stick and swallowed it. It was just like, Check the pocket

and the kid reached in and I wish he could just see his face. He was so shocked that there was a piece of French toast.

Daniel: [00:41:16] He kept his hand in his pocket and he looked down at his hand in his pocket. Looked back up at us, still hand in the pocket, looked at back down again and looked back up and then slowly pulled it out and just asked, how did you do that?

Sam: [00:41:34] Yeah, it was one of my favorites. It's like my, that's my go to story at every party.

Cause it's just so amazing.

Daniel: [00:41:39] Yeah. And we never told him. So if he happens to hear this episode, his belief in magic is going to be ruined.

Sam: [00:41:48] He's just been trying to

Andrew: [00:41:49] write, create, recreate that trick for 10, 15 years now.

Sam: [00:41:55] I

Andrew: [00:41:55] hope he listens to this and he's Oh my God. And he's like flipping tables, [00:42:00] crazy.

Ruined his life. Oh, that's wrong?

Sam: [00:42:09] All

Daniel: [00:42:10] right. last one saying podcast is called dead by tomorrow. So we got to ask. If you were dying tomorrow, what are some of the things or, what is the thing that you would

Sam: [00:42:19] do? Several things that I would love to spend most of the time with Zoe she's my wife and awesome that's friends. So we'd probably find something fun to do.

Preferably sports related, I'd love to go to a Rangers game with her, something like that. That'd be awesome. Or maps, something like that. For Daniel,

you can come to. Yeah. And then I definitely want to see friends. I think what I'd probably do is think logically and write a lot of notes to people telling them what they mean to me. Yeah. And I'd also write a lot to my family, love my family, but they, something that's really important to me is my faith in Christianity.

And I just want them to know why that is. and I want to explain it to them again. Cause they're not Christians, but would just want them, I want, I'd want to make sure that they understand who Jesus was before I died, which I've told them before, but I'd probably read that reiterate, but definitely love them.

I love my nieces and nephews and would want to see all them write notes to them. so yeah, I'd probably spend a lot of time writing cause I would just want everyone to know what I thought about them before I left. yeah.

Daniel: [00:43:30] Yeah. That's great. okay. So my challenge for you then is to, you don't have to write to every single person or anything like that, but, at some point today, Just take some time to write one of those notes that you would write if tomorrow was your last day.

So just go ahead and do it today, make it happen. anybody listening, if you thought about that question yourself, that's my challenge for you today, as well as just start making one of those things happen or Sam, if you want to buy tickets to a Mavs game, that's fine. That's fine too.

But I think that would make things more meaningful.

You don't have to remind me. I still have six tickets that I don't know what's going to happen to them. And

Sam: [00:44:15] that's so sad.

Daniel: [00:44:16] Awesome. thanks for joining us, Sam. It was so great to talk to you to rehash some old story. It's just to hear a little bit about your views on commitment. it was a lot of fun.

we'll definitely have to have you back sometime in the future.

Sam: [00:44:28] Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew: [00:44:31] Dude, it was great having you. I really appreciate you hopping on with us. this was dead by tomorrow with Daniel, Andrew, and Sam. And we really appreciate you. Come on board and listening to us. Talk about commitment this time around.

Thanks. And we look forward to connecting with you soon.