Living Fully in the Fourth Quarter, Part 2 | The Classroom of Silence

Have you ever felt like the world is just too loud? Between notifications, endless conversations and constant distractions, finding clarity can feel impossible. Today we're exploring a game changing concept from Matthew Kelly's the fourth quarter of your life, embracing what matters most. It's called the classroom of silence and it's one of my favorite things from Matthew Kelly. What is it? How can it help you connect with your true self? Stick around. We're diving into a world where silence speaks volumes. Well, hello, my silent but deadly friend. I'm kind of disappointed you didn't catch my joke there, right?

What, that I'm silent?

Never mind. Nothing like a good fart joke to go unnoticed. Daggone it.

Yeah, that's me. That's what my wife calls me. I didn't expect it from you.

What's shaking, buddy?

Yeah, just getting back into the swing of things and it's been a lot of fun. Getting back to work.

Is it really Sound a little facetious there.

Yeah, no, it's been good. It's, it's, it's good. It was pretty hot and heavy there the first week. It was. It's been good. No problems. I'm enjoying my, my morning routine and like I started during the holiday break and it. I'm interested that you're going to take this one chapter and get a whole episode out of it. I didn't. I thought you might do that, but I wasn't sure.

This is an important concept to me, Kurt. I read Matthew Kelly's book the Rhythm of Life several years ago. I've talked about it a lot on this show and I've probably read it a dozen times and I love the book. One of my big takeaways from this book is the classroom of silence. He talks about it in the rhythm of life and he talks about it in this newest book that you and I are going through the fourth quarter of your life embracing what matters most. And it really is a game changer for me. So much of what we need to know, we have within us. We have within us. Either to pull it from literally within us, our own experiences, our own memories, our own emotions, our own wisdom, or we have it within us to open up the universe, open up to God, open up to the untapped wisdom that's beyond us. We call it God. I call it God. Some people might call it something else. And that's okay. We don't have to parse words. But it's there. And it only comes from. From silence. It only comes from silence. And the way Matthew Kelly describes it in both the rhythm of life and the fourth quarter of your life. Let's set the scene first. Let's talk about noise. Not, not just the sounds around us, but the mental clutter, the endless to do list, the constant scrolling, the mindless chatter. If you're, if you're nodding along like I'm not nodding along with myself, you're really going to love what we talk about. Today, Matthew Kelly introduces a concept he calls the classroom of silence. It's not a literal classroom. You're not sitting at a desk waiting for a teacher. What it is, it's a space that you create for introspection and self discovery. So let's talk about the classroom of silence itself. First of all, let me ask you, Kurt, do you take time to sit quietly by yourself ever?

I am now. I mean, I've had periods where I do this more than often, more often than not. And I'm really enjoying this. And it's inspired by the reading I was doing during the break and this book, and there was another book I was reading, a couple different ones. And it's something I've been really enjoying. So I'm glad we're covering this today.

This is different from mindfulness meditation, which we will go in, which we'll talk about in a moment. But in Matthew Kelly's words, the classroom of silence is where we truly meet ourself and meet God. It's about carving time to sit in true silence, free from distractions, listening to your inner voice. It sounds pretty simple, right? But I tell you what, man, I, I struggle with silence sometimes. I've always got a podcast on. I've always got something playing in the background. I've always got the radio on, a baseball game, a football game. I'm talking to somebody. I'm listening, I'm watching a video, whatever it might be. Sometimes I struggle with silence, and I think it's because of this classroom of silence. I think it's because I don't necessarily want to face my own introspection. Does that make sense?

Yeah. What I was thinking, my struggle usually is I want to get to work, I want to go do something. And taking the time to do this can be a struggle. And it's really got to be a priority. You got to really come to enjoy it and look forward to it, I think, and, and get some benefits from it. There's, there's more than just being quiet to this. I think you're going to get into. And, and I do some of these, these things too, to help Me prepare. But, yeah, it. It seems like, again, I want to be doing something and not just being quiet. It can be difficult.

It's not just about being quiet, Kurt. It's about intentional quiet. The kind where you're not. You're not reviewing some mental list in your mind. The kind that. Where you're not thinking about, or thinking about what to do or strategizing your head or trying to figure something out. It's letting the silence teach you what you need to be taught. And you may not even know what you need in the moment until you really sit in silence. That's where you start to hear kind of the whispers of your soul. That may sound a little dramatic. I get it. But I believe it, man. I absolutely believe it.

Yeah, to me, too, it's a bit of a conversation. And going through a structure is what I read also in this chapter that I like. I've had a couple other structures I've been texting you, other ones that I've explored. And this chapter really jumped out at me because it was another really good structure. And I like that to have some prompts or somewhere to focus my attention to. So I find these very helpful. I can always remember going to church for many, many years and kind of being a beginner. When I first joined the church, funny enough, I went to Sunday school, I guess, but I didn't pay much attention. But my big question was, well, how do you pray? What's the right way? And I've researched and looked for ways, and this chapter is right along that line of teaching you how to go about this.

So one thing, I'm going to depart a little bit from the Fourth Quarter book and talk a little bit about how it's described in the Rhythm of Life, this classroom of silence. But the idea is still find some time to be quiet, completely quiet, and let yourself speak to you. Let the universe speak to you. Let God speak to you in a way that's awkward, but very effective. The. The first thing you want to do is you want to set aside. Set aside time every single day. Let's just start with 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes can make a huge difference. And once you find a real quiet place, it can be. It doesn't matter. A living room, park bench, go to a church somewhere, your car. Just somewhere where you're free from distractions. Turn off all your devices. Turn them all off. Now, all of this sounds pretty. Pretty normal, right? Like you're getting ready to be silent. But this is where you need to be very intentional about this. Use this time to reflect. Ask yourself questions like, what's been on my mind lately? Am I happy with the direction my life is heading? And sit in silence. There's a process to this, where you sit completely in silence. You sit with your back straight, your feet on the floor, your arms resting. You're supporting yourself so you're not slumped over, you're not sleeping. You have to stay awake during this, and you remain completely still. Now, this is the tough part. This is where Matthew Kelly in the Rhythm of Life teaches. The key here is to genuinely remain completely still. Don't itch, don't scratch. Resist all of that, because it's part of the process. Resist all of it and just sit in silence. Now, you can sit in silence and just look through the dark and look through your mind, whatever you want to call it. Or you can sit in silence and concentrate on some kind of important object. It could. Matthew Kelly, in the book Rhythm of Life, uses a rose because he feels like that symbolizes Jesus. And I think there's some. There's some truth to that. But whatever you want to focus on, focus on that. I. I like just focusing on nothing. And look. Look through the darkness with my eyes closed. And prepare your mind to just let information flow. Let thoughts flow, let ideas flow. Don't control them, don't move them. And this is where it's different from mindfulness meditation is. In mindfulness meditation, when you start having distracting thoughts, you acknowledge it and you set it aside and you go back to concentrating on your breathing. In the classroom of silence, you don't try to control anything. You just let the silence teach you, and you let it truly be a classroom. Whatever thoughts come into your mind, they're not good, they're not bad. Whatever ideas come to your mind, they're not good, they're not bad. You just let them flow in and out. Let them stay as long as they need to stay. Don't concentrate too much on any one thing, but just let them flow. And this is hard. What makes this hard for me, Kurt, is when I do this, inevitably my nose will start to itch or my hand will start to twitch, or I'll start to get uncomfortable, or I'll want to switch. The important thing is once you get settled in, you stay there. Because part of this process is controlling the needs of the moment. I guess you would say controlling the needs of the moment for what you're trying to accomplish with this silence. Right. Have you experienced anything like this?

No. I'm finding this interesting because he doesn't go into that kind of detail or talk about that at all. In this chapter of the Classroom of Silence, he doesn't do that. I can recall.

I think in this book he really wanted to keep the chapter short and sweet. And it's very possible that he has changed his kind of take on the Classroom of Silence, but I don't think so. I just think that he's. He's just trying to give you a general overview and connect this with. Connect this with prayer or something like that. And the important part is to let the silence speak to you. Because once you have your time set aside, once you've kind of asked your question and you sit in silence, you let the thoughts come in, you let the ideas come in, but you don't own anything. You don't control anything. You're just either. You're focusing straight ahead, and you're just letting the silence teach you. Where the lessons come is after you're done, once you're done, you take a moment and journal. I have found a powerful tool in ChatGPT to journal, where I can speak right into ChatGPT and just let my thoughts flow and that'll capture it and provide a synopsis for me. It's kind of a lazy man's way of journaling. But if you just want to write in the book and you just write the thoughts that come to your mind, the ideas that you have, right then you could get on a real terror man and start writing like crazy. Could just be some bits of wisdom. And this is a really powerful tool. And again, it's different from mindfulness meditation, because in mindfulness meditation, you don't let those thoughts stay. In fact, you try to intentionally but mindfully set them aside and go back to concentrating on your breathing or whatever it might be. I'm curious about your recent experience with the Classroom of Silence. Now, I know that it's probably different from what I've just described, but what is your recent experience with the Classroom of Silence?

I have a question before I answer your question. Are you. When you start, you say classroom of silence and being silent, but are you asking a question first and looking for an answer?

Sometimes.

Okay.

Sometimes.

I thought I heard you say that.

Yeah.

Because I think your sub. I've always heard your subconscious is a genius, and that's when you are really relax and quiet. I've talked about struggling with something, especially at work late in the afternoon, trying to figure out something, looking for answers, and just nothing's coming. Nothing to do next is really coming to me. And then maybe in the middle of the night or laying, laying in bed, quiet, in silence, or maybe in the shower, some idea pops in my head. Now I think that is the strength of your subconscious and you really can dig into that when you are quiet. So I think asking questions and looking for an answer. I had an experience just recently that's going to be part of my win for the week where I solved a problem. And in a way I was doing this process that he explains in the classroom of silence. He has seven, like a structure of seven parts to it. And that's kind of what I've been following along with. And it starts and it. I like. Even if you just combine what you just said to start out just being quiet and getting all the atmosphere and settled in before you do this, I think is important. But the structure he put down was gratitude being the first part, thanking God, having a personal dialogue, things that you're most grateful for today. And then there's. I can go through each one. But that's the process I've been experimenting with as of late.

I think this is where he departs in a way. And he's trying to combine two concepts. Number one, the clear single concept of the classroom of silence. And then an effective prayer habit, an effective prayer ritual, an effective prayer process. Because he does, in the fourth quarter book, he does tag on to the end of the classroom of silence, the prayer process, gratitude, awareness, significant moments, peace, freedom, others and praying of our Father. And I think we could probably talk about prayer because I think you've. You've discovered a couple processes or techniques or structure for prayer that I just love. And we might want to talk about that next time. But I don't want to let go of this idea of the classroom of silence and, and how different it is from mindfulness meditation, which is an important, which is an important exercise as well. But this is intentionally either trying to figure out where some struggle you're having in life or you may not even know what's going on and you just want to sit and let the silence teach you. I agree that we have inside of us. We have all of our life experiences, which is significant. We've both lived 50 plus years and we have our conscious experiences, our memories that we have, the lessons we've learned. Plus we have all those experiences that have happened around us that we may not even have been aware of, all those little bits of information and wisdom and things that have gone on in our life that again, we may not even have been aware of, but are still happening all around us that we've soaked in and that we've learned from. And then if we give ourselves the opportunity, along with some quiet time, for God to come in and speak to us, powerful, powerful things can happen. But I truly believe that it can only happen in silence. It can't happen when you're surfing the web or you're even reading a book or. Or you're. You're trying to brainstorm. That's. Those are all good things, right? And can be used as tools. But there's something very powerful to sitting by yourself in silence and letting the wisdom come from you, arise from within you, or letting God speak to you and whatever God means to you, Right? There's some real power in that. And again, in the rhythm of life, he goes through a whole process for the classroom of silence. And that classroom of silence is pretty. It can be tough, but it's an important exercise to sit there still and silent and let the lessons come to you. When I first started doing this, Kurt, it was brutal. Brutal because I bet I didn't last more than two minutes where I had to get up, I had to scratch my face, or I felt a little tickle in my throat, so I felt like I had to cough. But part of the process is controlling those things and realizing that you don't have to respond to those things now. You feel like you're going to die, right? But an itch isn't going to kill you, is it?

It's my sinuses I got to clear, especially in the morning.

But those little itches or twitches or sensations or whatever they might be, those little discomforts, they're not going to kill you. And it's part of the process to sit there in stillness and in silence and let the silence teach you. And I'll bet if you do it and you really let yourself sit in silence for a certain period of time, and immediately when you're done, write down whatever's on your mind. Again, it could be a. Could be a couple sentences. You could go. Like I said, you could go on a whole. A whole tear of just writing. Writing thoughts and ideas down. But just let it flow out immediately after. After your session.

Doesn't the monkey brain take over of thought after thought after thought?

It could. And that's okay.

Okay.

That's okay. You're just letting it flow through, man.

I mean, it could. It doesn't seem like a very good activity if you start going through the things that you got to do today.

Well, you don't sit on them.

Okay.

You just Let them flow through, okay? You just let that, that concept, that idea just flow through and just let it float around and doubt out there. Just let it float around in there. Whatever's coming in, whatever's coming out, just let it float around. Just let it float by, float up, float down. I know this sounds really woo woo, but actually this is pretty practical, man. It's a way of clearing out all that, all the mental, emotional and spiritual clutter that's in, in you right now and just letting the silence do its thing on you. Where we get into trouble, me, where I get into trouble is where I try to control those thoughts is right where I try to say, oh, I'm not supposed to be thinking about this, that monkey brain or I'm not supposed to be thinking about that. Instead of that attitude, you, you take the attitude of hey, there it is. I'm just going to let it flow, float around, hang around as long as it needs to hang around and float back out. When you stop trying to control it one way or the other by either pushing it away or focusing on it and you just let it float around, it'll serve its time and then it'll go and then something else will float around and then you'll have some silence and something else will float around and you just sit there in silence and let your mind do its thing. The power comes from when you're all said and done, sit down and write what's on your mind. I think you'll be surprised.

I love the quiet mornings like that for sure. So this is something I will definitely do tomorrow. But I would just continue to add what I've been doing with what he suggested here. Again with the gratitude. Thinking, awareness. Think of the past 24 hours when you weren't the best person. What did you do? Did you do something that you're not too happy about and to talk to God about that, maybe apologize and those significant moments that you experienced over the last 24 hours, what's God trying to say to you there? Like I've said before, I've heard from people say something that or something happens and I like to reflect on those the next day. That's where my thoughts, I want them to go to and to reflect on those things. If anxiety's been one of the things on my mind lately and, and to really reach out for, for peace from God has been a big part, something I've been focusing on and patience I've talked about as a, as a value to really concentrate on. When, when in the last 24 hours. Have I been patient or maybe not so patient? If I'm hearing something that I think he's calling me to do, that could happen in that silent conversation. And maybe that is something to journal about, or maybe the answer or a next step has popped into my mind that I can go take action on. Those are some of the benefits I get from this. And a real good calmness comes out of this and a positive outlook on the morning to go start the day.

You'll be surprised by the peace you have with this exercise. I do like in this book how he has tacked on the classroom of silence with a prayer process, because I'm process oriented and I know you are too, Kurt. And if I have a track to run on, I'm fine, man. And that's. That's what this prayer process does in. In the fourth quarter book. Pray about being grateful, aware, significant moments, peace, freedom, and others. This is something that we forget about in prayer. Lift up to God. Anyone you feel called to pray for today, asking God to bless and guide them.

Yeah.

Do you know when that really becomes tough, Kurt?

When someone's done you wrong?

Yeah. When you. When you. Because it says ask God to bless and guide them. Anyone you call. You feel called to pray for today. And you may be called and you're. And if you're listening to God in that still moment, you may be called to pray for somebody that you don't necessarily want to pray for. You may be called to pray for somebody that you don't think even deserves your prayer, much less God's blessing. And the power in that is incredible.

Yeah. I think we've talked about. You could do a whole podcast on forgiveness and the importance of that. And that's one of those topics that can come up in this silence classroom of silence, for sure.

I'm glad we covered this, and I'm glad I took a deeper dive into the classroom of silence and brought in a little bit from the rhythm of life, because he doesn't really expand on that a lot in this book. And the classroom of silence can be a very powerful thing if you let it be. You couple that with prayer and some other silent activities like reading the Bible or reading good books. It can be an incredible, important time. Take time to be quiet and just let. Let your. Let your own wisdom guide you and let God's wisdom guide you. And that can only happen in the quiet time. I believe that.

Yeah. He stresses this fourth quarter be a season of your life, of amazing spiritual flourishing. And then he emphasizes that in All Capital editors, how about this fourth quarter being an amazing spiritual flourishing time for you? It's a great start.

So, Kurt, that's the classroom of silence. I think it's practical. I think it's important to do. I don't think it's woo woo or weird in any way whatsoever. There certainly is a spiritual aspect to it, especially if you're asking God to speak with you. But even if you just sit with the still quietness of your own mind, I think you'll be amazed with the answers that come to you.

How come you didn't share this with me before, Joe? I didn't know you've been holding out on me all this time. And yeah, I'm definitely going to work that in tomorrow morning. And again, it's a good kickoff. I do like adding these structures of prayer and being very intentional about those and reading. I'm reading a book, a spiritual book right now, one that I've read before and reflecting on that. But this is a great start. That quietness just. Yeah, calm down the mind get silent. And I can't itch my nose or clear my sinus. That's gonna be uncomfortable, but I'll try.

Give it a shot. If I hear noises coming from Connecticut because Kurt can't clear a sinuses and we. Let's stop right there. How about that? How about your win for the week?

Yeah, my win for the week is my daughter asked me to do a project for her and she calls it a console table. And this is for her boyfriend's house. They have a couch there and there's about 10, 11 inch gap behind the couch in the wall. And I, I looked on YouTube and I found some designs and there's something I've. A couple things I've built that were in my mind and it's such, it was such a narrow space. I didn't know if this structure would stand up the way I was starting to design it. And I always take bits and pieces from different ideas. But the biggest challenge, I built the structure pretty quickly over the weekend. But the challenge she gave me was to build a top on it. And it's a nice premium piece of pine and she wants a hinge so that they can lift it and maybe put a little garbage pail behind it. This the real problem. And this came to me in the morning thought because I was struggling with this looking Amazon and YouTube of how I could do a hinge. So the hinge is inside and not on the top. She wanted a hidden hinge. And I've not worked with them much at all. I thought I found what I wanted. I ended up going over to Home Depot. Well, the thought that I had was without getting too into it, I found a hinge. And then I was trying to. I was in the store trying to move it. I like, I can't get this thing to work. It's a 90 degree hinge. And I said, I'm just going to buy it. I'm going to go home, I'm going to take two pieces of wood that are going to imitate, I'm going to screw it on. And I couldn't believe it. It worked. It did exactly what I wanted to do. I had to put it on a couple different ways to get it to work, but I figured out that challenge and now it's just a matter of adding it to the table that I'm building. But I was very excited about that. Joe.

That's fantastic. What I like most about this win, Kurt, is somebody close to you recognized your talent and asked you to enhance their life with it. And that's got to feel darn good, man.

It does. It's a little bit scary too, because it's okay, if I build something, I screw it up for myself. But she gives me the money for the material. I don't want to scrap too much. And I bought a few things on my own. But yeah, it's, you know, it's a little. It's a little different when you start doing something for someone else and you gotta get the criticism or make sure that was asking her different questions all the way through. And it's a simple thing. It really is not that complicated. But I had questions of how this was going to work and it. It's coming out.

I don't know.

If I send you pictures, I'll send you pictures of it.

Awesome.

That's your very week.

Well, my win for the week comes once a year, and it was another good one. My annual blood work came back normal. And it's so funny, Kurt, because when I have this, I. When I have this blood work done, and I don't care what age you are, if you're not getting regular blood work done, you're doing yourself a disservice. Because you can catch a lot of things, a lot of problems early by just having your blood work done, having your normal age and life appropriate tests done. We have technology out there that can catch stuff early if you just get these tests done. I know it's weird, but get your colonoscopy done, get your PSA tested, get your blood work done, get your A1C tested, get your blood sugar done, get your cholesterol checked, get all that checked, man. Because if you can catch that stuff early, you can save yourself a world of problems down the road. Right?

Yeah, I, I agree. I. You inspired me. I. I had already done my annual checkup in November, and I had my blood work done, but I hadn't really even checked my numbers. But I went in there, I was. I don't get all that personal about this, but I ended up going, checking it out and it was. It was doing. It was doing okay. So I, I had. He had told me for several years to go do it, and I kept not doing it. So I finally got it done. So it's in the, it's in the system. And the system they have is really fantastic. They load it up for you. It's not like the old days. And they manage all your appointments in there now. The system, it's pretty cool stuff.

Yeah. The good thing is my numbers came back normal.

Yeah.

I'll quote the doctor. He says nothing I'm concerned about is what he says. There's some work I have to do, there's some things I have to take care of, but the numbers are good.

I like it.

How about your resource tip or hack?

Well, Christmas time, I got a gift certificate. You may have heard me talk about my Sony PlayStation 5, which surprised me. I. I played that all year long. I mean, I had ups and downs, but I like the shooter games and the franchise I originally started with was Call of Duty. And I've had several of those games and they just come out with Call of duty Black Ops 6. And sometimes it takes me a while because I was really into one particular. It's hard for me to change and move into the next one, then get into it. But I am, I am into it now and I love it when you're. It's almost like when you're binge watching a movie or a series, right? You. You don't know if you're gonna like it and you start going into it and then all of a sudden, oh, yeah, I'm invested in this and that's the way I'm glad. That's where I get my enjoyment out of it. I've played it Sunday for like three hours. Like blew off football. My teams aren't in anyway, so I blasted away at bad guys for about three hours and blowing them up and everything else with my, my team of black Ops. So, yeah, I'm enjoying Call of duty. Black Ops 6. And I've got a couple other games I'm going to be getting into. I've got a sniper game that comes out at the end of January, that as soon as I'm done with this, I'm going to hop over to that one. So I'm excited to get back into my PlayStation 5 and get some entertainment.

So let me ask you this, Kurt and I, and this isn't a critical question. This is a question out of genuine interest, because you might ask me the same question for my. For my resource for the week. But how does this improve your life?

Ah. Oh, wow. It's a. It's escape from and relaxation and entertainment is what it is. And it surprises me that I have. You think it's a. Something for kids. And I have. And then I also have conversations with my boys who play the games and they ask me, dad, what are you doing with this? And that? So it's. It's been some conversation. I'm texting my son, Ben. Dude, I'm really loving this Call of Duty. He's like, you're a gamer, dad, that's. So he bought me for. He bought me a controller. It's got camouflage on it, so I'm using his controller. They got me for Christmas. And there's a. There's a little stand behind me with the Call of Duty guy holding the. The controller.

How cool is that, dude?

It's. Yeah. So it's kind. It's. It's kind of cool. He's. I don't know that I would go into a live. I haven't bought, like, the live version because those little kids would probably murder me if I went into one of those games. Here comes the new guy. But, yeah, I enjoy the campaigns. It's. It's challenging. And you're wondering what's going to come up next. They can be very addicting. Get the right one.

Well, my resource is what may appear to be similarly trivial, useless and useless. But I found it very interesting. There's a miniseries, I guess you would call it limited series, I guess they're calling it now on Netflix. And I think it just came out. I don't know when it came out, but I think it just came out on Netflix called American Primeval. And it is really cool. It's not for the faint of heart. It's brutal. It's set in 1857, and it depicts the real violent conflicts among the Indians, the Native American tribes, the US Government, the Mormon settlers. Man, there's a. And apparently this is historical fiction. And the show portrays the Mormon militia and their involvement in something called the Mountain Meadows Massacre. And I read a little bit about this after I watched this series, and it's about this. There's a couple storylines going on. One of them is a woman and her son are going out west to meet up with her husband or try to find her husband, and she's being accused of murder. She's a fugitive, and there's a bounty on her head. Then you have the storyline of these settlers heading out west who get attacked by the Mormon militia, and Native Americans are involved in their play on protecting their land. I think it's six episodes, I think between 40 minutes and an hour long each. So it's quite an investment. But I took the whole weekend and binge watched it, man. And. And when I do this, what happens is there's something else that I'm doing. I'm either doing some work on my laptop, I'm doing laundry, I'm trying to fix something or figure out something, and this has kind of got half of my attention. And I watched the whole thing this weekend, and it was awesome. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you like historical fiction and you like this kind of settler, these settler stories, these Head it west stories, you're going to love this. Again, it's not for the faint of heart, man.

It's.

It's brutal. It's brutal. But it's called American Primeval and it's on Netflix right now.

I appreciate this because I am one to search and search and search and find out. I've wasted an hour trying to find something that I might want to watch or I'll start get invested in something and I don't even finish it. I'll just say I'm going to bed. I can't. I'm not getting into this. So I appreciate it. Yeah, you know, I like this kind of stuff.

Well, dude, you did me in a few years back. You. You took my whole weekend a few years back with a Netflix docudrama on pirates. And that is fantastic, man. That is fantastic. I latched on to that like there was no tomorrow. And I just. I just couldn't get away from it. So that's fantastic, too. That's fantastic, too.

Did you ever watch the Band of Brothers?

Oh, yeah, yeah, Yeah.

I hadn't until recently.

Yeah, I had never. And it's. It's been around for a while, but I had never. I had never seen it, and I can't believe I'd never seen it.

Yeah, I Was feeling the same way. I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's my favorite of all time.

It's awesome. It's awesome. And that's another one that I'm glad I had something to do inside while I was on, because I stuck right there. So if you like American, if you like, if you like historical fiction, if you like the American west kind of stuff, if you like settlers and the Indians and conflict and wagon trains and dirt and bullets and guns and bows and arrows and mountains and all that stuff, right? Adventure, dirty adventure stuff, you're going to love American Primeval.

You get some gratefulness for what we have. We don't have to worry about some of those things that they were dealing with.

How about your quote?

I. I cheated and looked at your quote. We got the same author almost.

Oh, my gosh, I just noticed that.

I wrote mine and I said, I forget one. We'll quote Mother Teresa this week twice.

That's interesting.

In the silence of the heart, God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. And that's from Martha Theresa. Just fits really well. I didn't know you're going to go so into the silence part in today's episode, but maybe you learned that from. Or he learned that from Mother Teresa.

Well, Mother Teresa is somebody who has walked the talk, right. She has some wisdom to impart and she is somebody to emulate. Now, she wasn't perfect. I'm sure you can read some stuff about Mother Teresa that you may not like. But all in all, she's a life. You want to glean from her wisdom. Maybe emulate. It's not the. Not the best, best word, but somebody that you definitely can glean from her wisdom. You can glean from her life. You can glean from her her mind and her mindset and her willingness to do what God. What she feels God has called her to do, be damned. Everything else. Pretty awesome. My quote is also from Mother Teresa. We need to find God and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.

So interesting how similar those two quotes are.

Yeah.

But said differently.

Yep.

I love it.

I like the idea that it cannot be found, the noise and restlessness. God is not a God of noise and restlessness. He's not a God of anxiety. He's not a God of disarray. Now, you can read the Bible and certainly find some things that God did that are cause disarray. Right. But in the personal relationship with God that we want, I believe Mother Teresa here. God is the friend of silence.

Yeah, for sure. That's. That is the lesson that I'm. I am experimenting with in my morning routine and really enjoying it. And it can be tough for me because I want to get upstairs and start editing a podcast or whatever else I got going on. I want to get on with it, but I think it's just so important to start my day that way.

I agree.

I appreciate you sharing the. The classroom of silence, especially the silence part.

Well, as we wrap up, our website is dudesinprogress.com dudesinprogress.com our email address is dudesinprogress.com dudesudesinprogress.com if you want to email us, reach out to us, talk to us about the show, whatever you want to do, just do it right there. Dudesinprogress.com and remember, even in silence, you can make progress. In fact, that may be the best way to make progress in your life right now. Just sit down and be quiet and let the classroom of silence make progress for you. You're not going to be perfect at it, but you can make progress because progress is better than perfection. Just keep moving forward.

Yeah, I think I learned in my research about prayer. I was looking for a structure, in a way, and even Jesus gave us, of course, the Lord's prayer. But there is no perfect way to do it. There's no right way. Just do it your way and you'll get answers.

Awesome. Jake, talk to you soon.