Easter Insights - 11 Timeless Lessons From The Life Of Jesus

This past week, Christians around the world observed Holy Week, sacred time, reflecting on the final days of Jesus life, his death, and ultimately his resurrection, celebrated on Easter Sunday. Whether you're a person of faith or simply curious about the life and legacy of Jesus, this season invites us all to pause and consider the deeper lessons embedded in his story. Jesus of Nazareth remains one of the most influential figures in human history, not just because of his spiritual message, but because of the qualities he embodied in how he lived, led and loved. His life offers a powerful blueprint for personal growth, compassion, resilience and purpose. Values that transcend the religion and speak to the core of what it means to live meaningfully. In today's episode, we're going to explore 11 life changing qualities of the historical Jesus. Character traits that can inspire us, challenge us and guide us, especially in difficult times. These are more than just admirable traits. They are deeply practical, proven to enhance well being, strengthen relationships and help us become better versions of ourselves. We'll unpack each one with a real example from Jesus life, reflect on why it's important, share relevant research that supports its value, and suggest simple ways we can practice it in our own lives. Let's begin this thoughtful journey by asking, what can we learn today from how Jesus lived so that we too can live with greater clarity, courage and compassion? I'm Curtis, my compassionate, forgiving, courageous and loving pal. Over there is Joe and we are dudes in progress. Hey, Joe.

Hello, Kirk.

Good morning. I don't know what to say on Good Friday. You say, happy Good Friday.

Yeah. Good Friday is kind of a weird one, right? Because we know what's coming if you're a person of faith and clearly this is going to be a show about faith. But what do you say on Good Friday? Because traditionally we've labeled it Good Friday, but man, it's Good Friday because we know what's happening. Sure wasn't good for Jesus.

Was it? Feels awkward.

Yeah, sure does. Sure does.

It's a solemn day, especially if you do some of the church services on Good Friday. I took the day off from work. How about you?

I do not have the day off today. Traditionally, the company I work for has always taken Good Friday off. The manufacturing side of our facility is closed. They're a union shop and they negotiated Good Friday off. But we don't have Good Friday as a standard holiday. They've labeled it a floating holiday. I could have taken it off and used a floating holiday, but I think I'm going to work today at least a half a day and believe it or not. I might go to Kings island today, Kurt. It is. It is opening day for Kings island and my wife and I might just go there and walk around. But back to Good Friday. It is interesting because it's Good Friday because we know what's happening. But like I said before, wasn't a good day for Jesus, good day for us, because we know what's coming.

I suppose that's how you look at it. You can't have Easter without Good Friday. As you were saying.

That's right.

What I really like during the Holy Week is the historical programs that are on television. I was thinking I'm gonna go check out YouTube and see because I've seen some great historical things around World War II and those kinds of things. There's gotta be some really good programming, probably on YouTube. I just love the historical deep dive into his life.

I do too. I do too. And this is the historical Jesus. And the historical studies of Jesus was a linchpin, one of the linchpins, I guess you would say, if there is such a. Such a thing. But the existence of Jesus Christ as a human being and the historical evidence for Jesus Christ as a human being was one of the flags or linchpins that brought me to faith, brought me to Christianity, because the guy existed. Even the people who deny his deity and the faith aspect of it, historians all agree that this human being named Jesus Christ existed during the time that he. That the Bible claims that he existed and that we can expand that for as far as we need to expand that. But you got your own show to do.

Yeah, I know you haven't read the notes, but you will always contribute and I appreciate that. I was reading a book. I am reading a book by Mark Batterson. I've talked about it. It's around common. Well, I don't know. I can't say. Common. They're miracles that we don't really appreciate as much as we should. But he was talking about resiliency and I was like, hey, wait a minute, we missed last week because my computer kept crashing. I was having lots of problems. We're going to talk about in my wins for the week. I've resolved some of these problems, but this topic on resiliency, I was thinking, I'll do that. And then I was, hey, wait a minute, it's Holy Week. Who was more resilient than Jesus?

Oh, that's a great way to say it, dude. I love that. Who was more resilient than Jesus?

That's one of the qualities I think there's A lot of qualities from his life we can reflect on. I picked 11 of them. What I wanted to do was detail some examples from his life, why this trait matters to us. Now we like research. So I stuck in some little research points and evidence that support this value and some practical actions we can take to embody these 10 qualities of Jesus or traits of Jesus. First one is compassion. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, wept at Lazarus tomb even though he knew he would raise him from the dead. His compassion was deeply personal matters because compassion connects us emotionally with others, encouraging empathy and reducing loneliness and division. Studies show compassion improves mental health, enhances relationships and even reduces stress and inflammation in the body.

Isn't it amazing that compassion and emotion and action, because I think compassion is an action, right? Helps us physiologically. The idea of compassion helps us physiologically. And Jesus was definitely compassionate. If you take the whole story as God's compassion for man and what God needed to do to redeem man. So that's the ultimate compassion. But just the fact, like you said at Lazarus raising, he wept for the pain of his of Lazarus loved ones. He changed his path based on people's requests. It was Jesus was definitely compassionate, no doubt about that.

And Lazarus was Jesus's friend too, right? So he shows his human side with the crying and everyone being very emotional. He's right in there with the emotion even though he knows he's going to raise him from the dead. Very interesting. So some actions we can do. Listen without judgment, offer to help someone without being asked. I really like that. Reflect daily on how you showed kindness.

Compassion for somebody is an interesting dynamic. I remember somebody once said to me, well, if they would just ask for what they need, I could help them, man. But when people are in the pits of their desperation, whatever that might be, the pits of their despair, sometimes they don't know what to ask for. And to be intuitive enough to be compassionate enough to try to understand their situation. Maybe that's more empathetic. But I think connecting what, understanding what people need to compassion is extremely important.

I like the simple things like I'm in the grocery store or Walmart and someone who's shorter is trying to reach the top shelf and I come over and grab it for him. I just get a, like the research says that improves my mental health, makes me feel helpful for someone who can't reach the top shelf and it's quite easy for me to do.

Gosh, I hope this doesn't sound misogynistic, but never ever do that to a short guy. Kurt, I know you're what, six, two or six'four Unless they ask. Never do. Even if they ask, don't do it. But never do it to a short guy. If it's a short woman, okay, I understand. But man, you'll tear that guy down.

Thanks for the advice. I didn't think of that. I don't think I've ever helped a man reach the top shelf. They would never ask, that's for sure.

I'm 56 on a good day, so I feel their pain.

Servant leadership. Yeah, a lot of leaders probably can't characterize them as servants like Jesus. At the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, a powerful act of humility and service, which in their culture was very meaningful. Leading by serving others builds trust, unity and purpose. It shifts leadership from power to influence through love. Modern leadership studies show servant leaders foster more engaged, productive and loyal teams. When I started in the workforce, I don't know that this was common. I think there was a lot of top down, kind of everyone watching you kind of leadership. It started to change and I think it's really important in today's modern world in the workforce. You like to be watched over, Joe?

I do not like to be watched over. But this whole idea of servant leadership is important to the human interaction that we have. I have a question for you, Kurt. Are you familiar with the idea of feet washing? Have you ever been in a church or seen that act? Washing feet? Many churches do it as an example of humility. The Bible kind of uses that as an example of humility. My question for you is, would you rather wash somebody else's feet or have your feet washed?

Oh, I don't want anyone seeing my feet. I'd rather wash their feet, especially now.

And that's an act of humility as well. To allow. Allowing other people to help you, allowing other people to serve you is an act of humility. What would have happened if the disciples didn't humble themselves enough to allow Jesus to serve them?

Makes for a different story.

It sure does. Yeah, it sure does.

That's really interesting. Yeah, they knew at the Last Supper, which was last night. You think of the Holy Week calendar, they knew they had a pretty good idea who Jesus was by this point. I don't know. You could argue they weren't all. They hadn't really figured it out totally yet for sure, completely internally, which is a whole nother story. But yeah, they certainly knew he was the leader of their movement. Leaders that serve. I love working for those types of leaders. My current One is very technical and I love when he has either helps me out, answers a question for me and technically supports me. And I just love that when you get support from a leader, sometimes you just get stuck and they bring that ability to get you unstuck, unblock things. I really appreciate leaders that can do that.

Yeah. The idea of a servant leader is the most challenging thing that a leader can go through, I think, because you have to have the balance of leading. Right. And the balance of when to allow somebody else to struggle to a certain point and when to jump in and serve them and help them. So it's a delicate balance. But Jesus was definitely a servant leader. No doubt about that.

Actions we can take. I love this ask can I support you at work or at home? How can I or can I help you? Such a powerful thing. Just in that attitude. I love it at Disney World when you get that great service. Yeah. I think that's something that makes companies stand out. How can I support you? I love that just as my own personal way work, because I do a lot of this and if I go in with that attitude, hey, I'm just here to help. It's funny, Joe. I get people that come to me and say, I hate to bother you. They're like, really almost embarrassed. I'm like, that's why I'm here. If it weren't for you, it's kind of my job.

Right.

What would I do? This is what I live for. You don't have to apologize to me. Take on unglamorous tasks with humility. I love that too. Prioritize others growth and success. Here's one we've talked about before. We said we should do a whole show on forgiveness on the cross. Jesus said, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That one statement I've done the Good Friday services at church and the words spoken on the cross, that one is just one of the most emotional. I don't know. That gets me. Forgive them even though they don't, because they don't know what they're doing.

Right. That speaks to Jesus perspective. He knew the bigger picture. And we can use that. Right, Kurt? We can use that bigger picture. Is there anybody in your life, and this is more rhetorical. You don't have to answer this question because it could be a bit intimate, but is there anybody in your life that you need to forgive, that you need to. That you need to make amends with? If there is, let's look at the bigger picture. I remember battling with my kids in their Teens as they were rebelling and doing their thing and they did some stuff, they said some things that were hurtful and mean and are not indicative of a good relationship. Right?

Yeah.

Now I could have held on to that. And they said some things, did some things. Quite honestly, now I can hold on to that. But I have the perspective of a bigger. I took the perspective of a bigger picture to say, okay, one day this little punk is going to be 25 years old. Let's work on that relationship right now, the 25 year old relationship. What do I want that relationship to look like with that perspective? The bigger picture, the longer term perspective, which is what Jesus had. You can really take a step out of the vitriol of the current situation and be a little more compassionate, be a little more forgiving and understand that this is not forever.

Yeah, this works both ways too. I can't think of someone that I need to forgive. Luckily, at the current moment, I got some situations where I wish they would forgive me.

Amen, brother, Amen.

I sure would feel a lot better if they would do that. This is a powerful thing about forgiveness.

Talking about my kids, I had a moment with each one of my kids that I sat down and we had a big long breakfast together and I laid it out on the things that I felt were my failings as a father. Right. And I asked for their forgiveness on these things. And it was a very powerful moment, man. Very powerful moment. Both of both of us were weeping at some point. What was interesting at another point, the things I was asking for forgiveness for, they had a completely different perspective on it. No, dad, that was all right. I'm not harboring anything for that.

That's good. Well, at least you tackled it straight on, which is good on you. I know you've done this. Forgiveness frees us from bitterness and allows emotional healing to begin. It's as much for us as for the other person. So true. Sometimes they don't even like in your example, probably lots. They weren't really harboring any animosity towards you, but you were feeling it. You were stabbing yourself. Interesting. That hurts us more. It hurts the other person sometimes. Forgiveness has been linked to lower levels of anxiety, depression and improved cardiovascular health. Some things we can do, definitely. Take Joe's example. Take it on head on with an apology conversation. But write a letter of forgiveness even if you don't send it. Practice self forgiveness.

That's a tough one, man. Yeah, that's a tough one. That's not one I've conquered yet. I'll read My mail out loud. That's not one I've conquered yet.

I.

That's a. In the religious theme. That's a demon that I still fight.

Yeah, I had a situation, we talked about it before that happened this year and I beat myself up for a couple days on this one. Still due to some time has softened the blow a little bit. But yeah. Practice self forgiveness. Try to do better. Be cognizant of that thing. Replace resentment with curiosity. Why might they have acted that way? Yeah, sometimes you don't know what people are going through. Courage. Wasn't this one of your values for the year?

I believe, Joe, not exactly courage, but courage is definitely a value that I aspire to. I heard a great question about courage one time, Kurt, that if you let it sink in for a minute, what would you do if you were brave?

Oh yeah, for sure. That's a great.

If you just let that question sit for a minute, it can open up a whole flood of actions, ideas, thoughts, dreams, aspirations.

When I was thinking of resiliency, this courage of Jesus. Really? Yeah. He spoke truth to religious and power, political power, the Romans knowing it would cost him his life. You can't be more courageous than that. That's when you. Some of the examples in his life when he was being, I don't know if that's the right word, sarcastic to the leaders during his trial, for instance, you say I am or to Pilate.

Oh, Jesus did that all the time and it was glorious, man. Because he would take these gotcha questions and he would turn them right around or these moments.

I think I have that in my personality. That's why that resonates with me. But courage allows us to stand for what is right even when it's hard, uncomfortable, unpopular. Psychological resilience and moral courage are linked to higher self esteem and purpose in life. I can be accused of not having great self esteem. So this resonates with me. I was thinking billionaires and you start researching. I was thinking of doing a show on billionaires. One thing, one quality they have. They are courageous, they are brave, they just. They do things. I think that's why they're billionaires. They do things others won't do. You really look at some of the things I think of my job too. I had this conversation with a woman who is. This happens a lot. They're really anxious about technology and I have to talk them off the ledge a little bit. And inside I'm chuckling a little bit. Like this woman said she made a mistake on the permissions of her Website and deleted the permissions by accident. I saw her do it.

Oh, boy. Did you see it in slow motion? And you're like, no.

A lot of times they go too fast and they're trying to get ahead of me. And she said, oh, can we recover that? I said, no. I hate to give you the bad news, but that is not backed up. The permissions are not backed up.

Oh, boy.

As I peeled it back, she even came back to me the next day. You sure we can't. Yeah, I'm 100% sure. But when she said to me this impacted 40 people, I like inside of me, if I said it out loud, it would have been bad. When I make a mistake, it impacts 20,000 people. And the CIO and the chief operating officer sometimes. Matter of fact, I just had a project where we were changing the brand for the entire company and on one evening making changes. So I said, I have to apologize, but when I make mistake, it's 20,000 people. That takes courage to dig into technology when you know you're going to impact the entire company, not 40 people. You can recover pretty fast from 40 people anyways. Actions speak up against injustice in your daily life. Try something outside your comfort zone. I do that pretty good. Not always.

Here's the thing about courage. It's not the absence of fear. Kurt.

Right.

It's acting despite maybe being a little fearful, a little concerned, or a lot concerned. It's not the absence of fear. It's acting despite fear. And it genuinely is how love and justice moves forward. When Jesus cleared the temple in John 2 and he confronted both the political and the religious people there, the whole hypocrisy around what was happening, he had to muster up some courage, understanding that Jesus was human. So whatever we have to do as humans to muster up courage, Jesus had to do that same thing, too. It wasn't the absence of fear. I got to think that Jesus had some fear in him about, okay, I have to do the right thing here. I'm a little afraid, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that's courage. Right?

Speaking of YouTube, I like watching veterans, Congressional Medal of Honor people, of course they get the medal because they're so courageous. And to a person, they'll say, they're so humble about it. I just did what needed to be done, and everyone around me was doing this. The courage was everyone that I served with, not just me. In the Band of Brothers series, which is my favorite, the main character says his grandson said to him, grandpa, were you a hero in the war. And he gets all emotional. He says, no, but I served with a whole company of heroes. That's so powerful.

It is, yeah.

Stand up for someone being treated unfairly. I've always. That's always been a thing with me. We'll move on. But I was on the bus on a Friday, just trying to go to work. Only a few people on the bus. And this person came on inebriated at 6 o'clock in the morning to ride the bus. And there was a woman there and he was verbally abusing her. And oh, I could not take that, Joe. I was steaming. I just sat next to him. I got up and I sat next to him. I said, would you like to say some of those things to me?

Awesome. When did this happen?

This was a couple years ago.

Wow.

Not a young man. He was not a young guy either. But you don't know if he's got a weapon on him, that kind of stuff. I didn't think about that till later.

So what did he have to say for himself?

He changed his tune. He rambled on about some things and then he said, you're gonna beat me up, aren't you? Or something like that. I said, I don't know, I don't have to. This can. You can behave yourself. Just be quiet, go sit somewhere else and everything will be fine.

That's awesome, dude.

She thanked me.

It's nice to be six two, isn't it?

270. I know, yeah. That gave me some confidence.

Yeah.

Integrity. He refused to be a hypocrite. Challenging religious leaders for not practicing what they preached. Integrity builds credibility. Without it, relationships and communities break down. Studies link integrity with trustworthiness, better decision making and stronger leadership.

There's a story in the Bible about Jesus being tempted by Satan after 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus is clearly, if he's fully human, he had to be weak and mentally taxed and just in a bad way. And feeling every human emotion that he could possibly feel in Satan was tempting him with all of this stuff. And in his integrity, in his moral compass, he didn't crack under the pressure. He stood firm and denied all the temptations that that Satan was offering him.

I love how he challenged the religious leaders. Again, this goes back to and calling him out. And in the very controversial scene at Passover during Holy Week when he turns over the money changers tables and gets violent, which is an interesting thing for someone so peaceful, gets upset. And I love it when he challenges the pious for not really living what they preach.

What's Interesting about that story is to me is sometimes we can look at that story where Jesus turned the tables over and pushed everybody out and had this moment of what we think is of righteous anger. But it wasn't a fit of rage because he took the time. He took the time to fashion a whip. He took the time to make a whip, to take care of business. Can you imagine that? Him seeing this and then putting himself off to the side for a minute and saying, I'll teach these guys, they're going to feel the wrath of this whip.

It's an interesting scene. The review. Some actions we can do. Follow through on your promises. These aren't all easy. Admit when you're wrong. Align your actions with your values, even when no one's watching. Three good ones. Inclusivity. Jesus welcomed tax collectors, Samaritans, women, children and lepers. People society rejected. Another thing that I love about his life, when he has the dinner party and the tax collector shows up and everyone's, what's he doing here?

Right.

I love that. Inclusive behavior builds bridges and challenges prejudice, expands empathy and social harmony.

This is a attribute of Jesus that I think many Christians and traditional Christians struggle with. And they know it about Jesus, but they don't grasp it about Jesus. That Jesus was very accepting. He made it a point to hang out with criminals and tax collectors. And if you understand what a tax collector was at the time, they were the most despised of people during that time.

Right.

But he made a. He made it a point to hang out with these people because clean people don't need a shower, do they? Clean people don't need a bath.

Exactly.

And he accepted people where they were, no matter what. Now, he did expect them to do better. That's clear. When Jesus saved the Samaritan woman from stoning. And that's another point where Jesus question. Or his comments turned it on back onto the. Because they're ready to stone this woman.

Yeah.

And he says, okay, stoner, the one who is without sin can cast the first stone, throw it. And then they just dropped their stones and walked away. But what a lot of people forget about that story. Yes, he accepted this Samaritan woman and all the reasons that she was about to be stoned and accepted her where she was at the time. But she also said to her, okay, don't do this again. Go and send no more. He expects changes from people, is my point.

Yeah.

But accept some where they are in the moment and we can. That's a real lesson for us. He is very inclusive.

Yeah, that's power. It's beyond inclusivity. The tax collector was Luke in the Bible story, who ended up being one of his disciples.

No, Luke was a doctor.

Oh.

Matthew was a tax collector.

Matthew. Thank you for correcting me, Matthew. But still, Matthew is one of the.

Do you want to do that over or.

Nah, I'm good. Matthew was the tax collector. Thank you for correcting me. And he became one of the four gospels forever remembered in Christianity.

So Matthew was one of those guys that people couldn't believe Jesus was hanging out with.

He's the guy.

Come on, man. Okay, we'll accept the murderers, we'll accept the adulterers. We'll accept all those people. But Matthew. Nah. That's how despised tax collectors were at the time.

They turned them around to be a disciple who spread Christianity across the whole ancient world.

Yep.

Inclusive communities report higher happiness, lower conflict, and more innovation. This is one of the things, when I went to church, started being more involved many years ago, that. See, I didn't have a background of going to church every Sunday. I didn't have the. What's that word where you're just going through the motions?

Right?

And boy, when someone wasn't inclusive, I felt made some kind of comments that really. That always bothered me. Invite someone new into your circle. Challenge your own biases. Celebrate differences instead of just tolerating them. Wisdom. Jesus parables like the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, reveal deep, timeless truths in simple stories. Yeah, I love how he got his point across with some incredible stories. Wisdom helps us live well, make thoughtful decisions and understand life's complexities. Wisdom associated with life satisfaction, better relationships, and lower emotional reactivity. I like smart people, Joe, like you.

Jesus was certainly wise man. Not a wise man, he was a wise man, but he was definitely wise. And he used wisdom. And he used it in a way. And we talked about this a couple times. I think about in Matthew when they're talking about, okay, do we have to pay taxes? Jesus picks up a coin and he says, whose image is on this coin? He says, caesar's. Well, give to Caesar. What is Caesar's.

Hey, listen, the way that he worded something. Who's the religious leader who was part of the Sanhedrin? Or. I'm forgetting all the. And he was in the inner circle in Jerusalem, yet he would go out and listen to Jesus speak. Someone who is very smart and wise. Been around, you know who I'm talking about. And at his trial, I don't know if he defended Jesus. Not really defended him, but he was a sympathizer, but I think he was really amazed at his knowledge. Reflect before reacting. I'm pretty good with that. Seek diverse perspectives and read one proverb or parable and apply it daily. I like the proverbs and parables in the Bible.

Here's an act of wisdom. And in one act, I committed an act of wisdom and I sought wisdom. Over this past week, I had a presentation to the executive team at my company and I was struggling with how to present some financial data. Not some, excuse me, not some financial data, but some percentages, some growth percentages. It wasn't necessarily financial, but some growth percentages. So what I did is I sought out advice from one of the executives and the message I was trying to get across wasn't completely clear, but I didn't have time to massage it. I was giving the presentation the next day and I had some other stuff to do. So I sought his wisdom and I said, how would you. Here's what I'm trying to say. How would you say that? And because he's on the executive team and he gave me some tips and a couple ideas and I made a quick and dirty change to my presentation. And it did two things that the data that I was presenting, first of all, I sought wisdom from somebody that was that I needed to seek wisdom from. But also the wise act on my part was getting an ally in that room. Now he, since he gave advice on this slide, he had some ego invested in this slide.

Yeah.

And he supported what I was trying to say during that presentation.

Yeah, for sure.

And so taking a step back and seeking wisdom is in itself is a wise thing to do.

Great example. I've done that too in software design. I bring people in early, let them design it now, they kind of ownership around it. Peacefulness, he taught, blessed are the peacemakers and stop the mob from stoning a woman. We talked about that with calm and clarity. Peaceful people reduce conflict and bring calm to chaos. They become a grounding presence. Practicing peacefulness through mindfulness or conflict resolution lowers blood pressure and increases emotional intelligence. You can pause before escalating a conflict. Use non violent communication techniques and meditate or pray daily to cultivate inner peace.

Being a peaceful person doesn't mean you're weak. And it's not necessarily the absence of conflict.

Right.

But the presence, I think it's, I think it's the presence of a perspective and understanding that there's a bigger picture. And I'm not very good at this. I wouldn't call myself a peaceful person. I'M a little more bombastic. I'm a little more confrontational. Quite honestly, I work on this a lot, Kurt. Being. Trying to be more of a peaceful person and it requires connecting with God and God's character. But. Yeah.

Don't you love it? Don't you like the attribute, though, of someone who's calm in a chaotic situation?

Yes.

Isn't that a yes. Fantastic quality.

But that's interesting because in a chaotic situation is when I'm most calm.

Okay.

And when I am most peaceful. But day to day, not really.

Yeah. We all could use some peace in our life. Number nine, purpose driven life. Jesus often said, I must be about my father's business and lived intentionally, even when it led to hardship. It matters as a sense of purpose. Helps us prioritize, persist, and find meaning even in suffering. Purpose of living is linked to better health, lower stress, and longer lifespan. We do this podcast because we want to be purposeful.

Yeah. And our purpose fuels us doing this podcast. I think that's a great example. It fuels the perseverance required to do a project like this. There's sometimes we don't feel like doing it. There's sometimes that we're like, oh, boy, what do we even want to talk about? But because this podcast is important to us, the message is important to us. You, the listeners, are important to us. Our purpose drives what we're trying to do. It drives the perseverance. I think that's a great example, Kurt.

We always want to. You want. If you're supporting employees, let them have a purpose. I've heard people say that can even you want to have good pay. You want to pay good people and pay them well, but give them a purpose and they'll really be productive. I love that. Write your why or life mission statement. Say no to things that don't align with your values. Meet meaningful goals each week. Have a purpose. I like Joe and I love that one.

We need a purpose. No doubt about that.

Resiliency. What I started out with. Despite betrayal, exhaustion, public rejection, and even death, Jesus remained faithful, hopeful and focused on his mission. It matters because helps us bounce back, grow through trials, and stay grounded during storms. Boy, I want to be resilient more than because life is not going to be easy. You're always going to hit bumps in the road.

Here's the thing. You will never build your resilience unless you have friction in your life, unless you have some hardship, unless you have some troubles. If you shield yourself from friction and troubles and hardships and you're not Courageous and you don't take risks and you just leave a. You just live a this quiet, non confrontational. And I don't mean in the violent sense, but, but you don't allow any kind of friction in your life. No hardship, no, no risk at all. You will never be a resilient person. It means enduring with hope and faith. Right. And with hope and faith means that you've grown. And resilience is a much underappreciated attribute. And the fact that Jesus had amazing resilience is an example for us.

There's a great country song and the story is this hurricane just came through and took the guy's house. And they're talking to the guy, he says, this ain't nothing. This happened to me in the war and my wife died in my arms last year. Trust me, dude, losing my house is nothing. It's a powerful song.

That's rough.

Resilient individuals report higher happiness, emotional regulation and long term achievement. So keep a journal of challenges and how you've grown from them. When overwhelmed, pause and ask, what's the next best step? Practice gratitude in difficult seasons.

First of all, the phrase that you used is one of my favorites, man. What's the next best step? What's the next thing we can do if we don't know what to do? What's that very tiny step that we need to take? I love resilient people, man. I love to see people bounce back and grow and become a better person because of their adversity. Yeah.

Love, resiliency. Want to be more.

Yeah.

When you're going through a tough thing, just think, I'm going to be more resilient. This happens again.

Listen, Jesus. Jesus was misunderstood. He was a bandit. He was falsely accused, but he never wavered, man.

No, very powerful. If you look back on his life, family rejected him, friends, the entire community, he kept on pressing on, didn't he?

Yep.

Last one. Love. His entire ministry was rooted in love for friends, strangers, enemies and God. Love is the foundation of relationships, healing and justice. It drives compassion, forgiveness and empathy. Love boosts immune function, lowers cortisol and increases overall well being. Tell someone you love and appreciate them today, Joe, perform a random act of kindness. I love that one. Replace judgment with curiosity and compassion.

Well, love is so all encompassing, right? We use love. Sometimes we use love a little flippantly and back in there are. Gosh. We use the one word, love that means many things depending on context. But Jesus deeply loved man. He loved his enemies, he loved his friends, he loved the unlovable his love was truly to. To the extent of death and torture, sacrificial and unconditional.

Well, there is no stronger love than to give your life for others.

Yep.

There you go.

Yeah. Jesus called love the highest command. If you look in Matthew, the book of Matthew, it's the root of every other value.

Yeah. The golden rule.

Yeah. Although it's not in the Bible, but that's okay.

Okay. Thanks for correcting me through this entire episode. I appreciate that I've gained some wisdom from you, as always.

I think the golden rules in the Bible. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm proven wrong.

I think you're right. I think you're right. We could research that. There you have it. 11 qualities of Jesus and his historical life that we can use to improve. I know it's past Holy Week, but think of compassion, servant leadership, forgiveness, courage, integrity, inclusivity, wisdom, peacefulness. Have a purpose in your life. Resiliency and love. There you have it, Joe.

So before we go into our stuff, Kurt, I do want to say something about what happened yesterday, about what Easter represents. It represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the thing about that is, and this is one of the things that brought me to faith, it's the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's certainly one of the most talked about events in all of history. People have studied it, debated it, written about it for centuries. But here's the crazy thing. Even after 2000 years, no one has come up with an explanation of what happened on Resurrection Day. What happened to Jesus? There are all kinds of theories, but the truth is there's no solid explanation. Why did so many people claim to see him alive just days after his death? What happened to his body? What's even more incredible is how dramatically his followers changed after Jesus was taken in. Before his resurrection. They went into hiding. They were scared. Peter denied Jesus. They weren't standing by their leader. They weren't standing by their pal. They denied him. They went from that to boldly sharing his message again, even when it meant facing deep and excruciating persecution and death. To me, the only explanation that makes sense is that this human being named Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And who else can do that but God?

So I'll just. That he is who he said he is. Yeah, it's fast. It's the most fascinating story there is for so many reasons.

Pretty amazing, man. Pretty amazing to this day.

All right, thanks, Joe. Let's get into our stuff. What's your win for the week?

Well, we are just wrapping up an annual Campaign at work. And it's a campaign that I built from ground up. It's something that we had never done at work before. And as those numbers are coming in for the end of the. For the end of the campaign, it looks like we added just over $1 million in revenue from this campaign, and I'm pretty proud of that.

That's fant. That, man. Is that common or uncommon?

It's uncommon. We've engaged. We engaged our rep network like they've never been engaged before on the part side. And when I look at the effort involved, it was certainly a lot of effort, but with a little more focus and a little strategy change, that number could have doubled. Wow. But I'm pretty happy with the million dollars.

That's even good news, too, because sometimes when you hit a stretch goal like that, you're like, how are we going to do this? How are we going to top this?

And we're already in the. The. A new campaign is already in the works.

Good for you.

That will double that next year.

I'm so proud of you, Joe. That's fantastic. Thank you.

Kurt means a lot to me.

I love that. I really do. That's fantastic. It's good to win, isn't it, though, when we've taken enough beatings? Oh, yeah.

Yep.

Good to go. Sometimes not nearly as great as yours, although this might describe some resiliency. Joe knows. I've been having computer problems, Internet problems, over the last month or so. It was crashing on me one particular day. I was trying to do my podcast, and it was crashing. It crashed four times, and I got frustrated. My wife heard my frustration. She came in later that afternoon and said, all right, you can get a new computer. Here's your budget. And it was very nice. We actually have debated that number since.

It's like a budget. It's like you're given a budget, and then when you go to use the whole budget, they're like, well, you don't have to use the whole thing.

Well, I. I heard. I think I heard her say one thing, and she says she said another. But anyways, we compromised in the middle. I got everything I wanted pretty much. Although I might upgrade my keyboard and mouse, which shouldn't be too bad, but. Yeah. So I upgraded my podcast mixer, the recorder. You heard me talk about the Rodecaster. I got the Rodecaster Pro from my audience, helped me purchase that years ago. They came out with a Rodecaster 2, but I end up going with the Rodecaster duo, and I got a new computer. I've been talking about it. My son got me inspired about this because he was building his own PC computer for gaming and all kinds of bells and whistles. I really liked it. He showed me the whole thing. But I don't do gaming. I think even he he's a Mac guy from being the designer. And I had a MacBook Pro, so going to the Mac Mini was a nice step for me. I'll talk. I can talk more about that. But just the speed and dependency on my. And I got huge hard disk space. Joe. I ended up going with an external four terabyte drive.

Nice.

So I am fast. Things are copying and moving. And I even bought Final Cut Pro, which is the video editing software from Apple. I believe it's from Apple. I'm guessing it is. It was already installed on my hard drive. The migration went splendidly using the software that they have. The backup software from Apple went well. So I was able to get everything off my hard drive without it crashing.

Nice.

Before it crashed, which is an important thing. So I'm excited. I got new toys to make my life more productive.

Well, congratulations, man. Yeah, that's cool. I know that you were struggling for the past month or so, maybe even longer with your current setup. And everything about this just screams productivity. Right. The Rodecaster duo does exactly what you want it to do, but with a much smaller footprint and probably a little easier to operate once you figure out the differences. And I'm not a Mac guy myself, but I've heard a lot of great things about the Mac drive. And you're going to love the Mac Mini and you're going to love this SSD drive, dude.

Yeah.

Wide open spaces. Exactly.

Don't have to struggle moving things around for a while.

Very.

Figuring it out goes faster, too.

Good stuff.

All right, what's your resource tip or hack this week?

Do you ever buy anything off of Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or anything like that where people are selling things not necessarily from a company, but you're buying from other people?

Not a lot. But I did buy my subwoofer off of Facebook Marketplace. It was an interesting experience. I've not done a lot of that, but. Yeah.

Well, I discovered. Not discovered. I learned about a nice little hack on trying to find out how much something is worth if somebody's selling something like on Facebook Marketplace. A lot of times you can capture an image of that of that item. Let's say it's a couch or it's a refrigerator or it's whatever it might be. And sometimes people will use the marketing image that is used by the company, by the manufacturer. But even they, if you don't have that, you can take a snapshot of that image and drop it into the Google Image search and it'll find either similar products or the exact same product as what you're shopping for. And that what, what that will do is it'll give you a good guideline as to whether or not this person is asking for a fair price and how much you can, how much you can buy it for. I've seen people sell used items on, on Facebook Marketplace for more than what you can buy it directly from Amazon for. And sometimes you think, what are you thinking, dude? Well, what they're hoping is either they don't, they're overvaluing it or they're hoping people will just think that it's a fair price and move forward. I a pretty frugal shopper. So the last few things I've searched for I've used Google Image Search and just investigate it. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining how to use it because it's pretty detailed, but investigate the Google Image search and you can take an image from any of these posts on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or anything like that and use Google Image Search to try to find other places that are selling that item. It's a pretty, pretty awesome tool.

I've thought about this for getting a table saw. That's one thing I've looked at Facebook Marketplace recently for. There seem to be a lot of them. I don't know what good. You don't know what kind of shape they're in. But yeah, I love this Google Image.

Check it out.

You always have great software tools that you introduced to me. Well, even though I'm a tech guy, hardware is not always my specialty. And it's interesting, my computer was like 8 years old. I love talking to folks again. My son Harry helped me out making this decision. My daughter Lindsay is really good at this and her boyfriend is really deep into this and we got him on a chat when I was thinking about doing Mac and he led me to the Mac mini M4 Pro. You go on YouTube, watch the videos of people. This has been praised big time. It's such a small footprint. Five inches, five and a quarter inches, Joe. I've taken some pictures and shown it incredibly small. So I love the space that I'm saving. It's not stuck underneath my desk, although I might make a shelf. I don't know, I haven't decided. I end up buying this when I was watching the videos. They were showing this like, USB hub that sat underneath the Mac Mini so you could add more peripheral things. Important to me, for instance, is two monitors. And this makes that connection a lot easier. There's some other reasons. It just looks cool too. It just sits underneath. And I didn't know this till I started really researching it. It also can include your SSD storage. This one that I bought has 4 terabytes. So I ended up buying a Lexar. It was on sale for $250. I at first thought I was gonna get 2 terabyte, but for 250 I said, I'm going all the way. That's how I went a little bit over the budget was with my memory card. But I went all in. It's a solid state drive and it fits inside this Mac mini M4 hub stand that. I bought these all on Amazon. They came in pretty fast. And then lastly I said, well, I had a little bit budget, so I'm gonna upgrade my Rodecaster, which is the mixer and how I'm recording. My microphone's connected to it. I wanted to give you a little example of the feature. Joe, that's here, I'm going to tell you a joke. You ready?

I'm with you. What's the robot favorite kind of music? I do not. Well, there's your new toy. A voice changer. You might have to do the rest of the show like this. Huh?

Why they did the chipmunk bring a ladder to the dance party.

Why is that, Alvin? To reach the high nuts. That's funny.

Okay, now how do you turn this thing off?

I don't know, but I think you're gonna have to do the show the rest of the. In your Alvin voice.

I can do my voice incognito for the rest. What's your quote for the week?

That's funny. It's like you're on a witness protection, right? That's border. That's borderline Haunted house, though. Yeah. That's funny. That's funny. Well, here's my quote for the week. It comes from a guy by the name of Bear Grylls. Do you know who Bear Grylls is?

No.

He is a. He's from Britain. TV Special Forces soldier. He's probably best known for his survival shows like man vs Wild and those types of shows. He's traveled to some of the crazy places, extreme places, teaching survival skills and really pushing his own and helping people push their own physical and mental limits. But despite his rugged lifestyle, he's very open about his Christian faith. And he said as it often gives him strength and purpose and direction in life. To look at this guy, you'd man. This is a man's man. Right. His name's Bear Grylls. And Bear Gryll says the Jesus I read about in the Bible was fun, free and wild. He loved a party and he always hung out with the non religious folk. The only people he ever got angry with were the overly religious. I can't agree with you more, Bear. Good quote.

That is the thing that I love about the historical Jesus we talked about. For sure. That's fantastic, Joe.

Yep.

I'll have to look him up. I don't. I don't know why I don't know him. Is that his real name, Bear?

No, it's not his real name. I don't know his real name. But his last name is spelled G R Y L I S, I think. Or G R Y L L S. I think the Y is the I. So Bear Grylls, G R Y L, L S. Check him out.

The only people he ever got angry with were the overly religious.

Yep.

That's true hypocrisy.

Yep.

I quote, peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. That's from the red words, Joe, in the Bible.

Yep.

I love inner peace, resilience, wisdom. Yeah. Be calm in chaotic times. That's what you should get from Easter. I hope you do. I hope you continue to have all of these great feelings of Easter. You know, the weather's going to be warm this week too. I always felt like Good Friday rains and then Sunday it gets sunny. And it's been a cold, rotten week for weather this Holy Week. So I'm looking forward to some springtime beautiful warm weather, Joe. Hope you had a great Easter. Hope everyone did. Take us out, Joe.

Yeah, I look forward to Easter coming up Sunday. And as we're listening to this now, of course, Easter has passed. I too hope you had a great Easter. I'm sure I will. We're hanging out with the family and that'll be a blast. Yeah. Can't wait for can't wait for Easter dinner. Very cool. Our website is dudesinprogress.com our email address is dudesinprogress.com you can reach out to us and talk about the show, give us comments about the show, give us ideas about the show, or reach out to us about anything. Remember, progress is better than perfection. Just keep moving forward.

Yeah. We don't confess to get this all figured out. We're going to keep working better and harder this week. Joe.

Talk to you soon.