I definitely know what it's like to be cloaked in shame and almost feel like you're suffocating. Shame is about what other people are thinking about you. It's external. There is such thing as healthy guilt where you realize, I'm wrong and I feel terrible about it, and it's going forward. I had to really find that avenue quick because shame takes you backwards and conviction is, I was wrong, and this is what I'm gonna do to make amends.

Carl Lyntz was once one of the most popular preachers in America. Carl Lyntz is the celebrity pastor whose.

Recent downfall has changed, triggered a wave.

Of scandals for the church.

Carl Lentz. You know, I lied to a lot of people. I've had to stomach that and will for the rest of my life. People often ask, how did it get so bad? Before you lie to anybody else, you lie to yourself. There's a lot of people watching that have had a bad chapter, maybe even a bad book. Greatest news on earth. At any time, you can change your story. Only you control that. Over half of marriages end due to infidelity. When I would get close to her for the first two or three months, her body would shake.

She would feel safe physically with you.

That's a horrible place to put your wife. Talking about shame. She just forgave me last year, and I asked her to pray for me. Man, I haven't talked about this. I should have saved this for my own podcast.

Hey, everyone, this is Lewis Howes, and I am so excited to invite you to the summit of Greatness 2024, happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event. It's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, Friday, September 13 and Saturday, September 14 for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special. Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishows.com tickets and get your tickets today and I will see you there. Welcome back, everyone, to the school of greatness. Excited about our guest? We have Carl Lentz in the house. And Carl, first off, I want to say I'm glad you're alive.

Thank you.

Because I know that there was a season of life where you wanted to commit suicide. And. And we're in a place of ending it all because. Because of the massive breakdown that happened. You talked about this on your own podcast that you started to talk about.

Yep.

A lot of secrets, scandal, a lot of pain and suffering that you experience and that others experience with your life. And my first question is, first off, I'm grateful you are alive and you're here.

Thank you, brother. Thank you.

And my first question is, with the secrets, the scandal, the suffering that you've talked about, what was the biggest shame that you lived with, and what is the shame that you still have today? If there is any?

I'm completely healed. Great question. I think the biggest shame, I think, would have been for sure lying to my wife. And it's so bad where I look back now after, you know, I've done a lot of work, as you have, so you learn a lot of ways to track your own patterns and behaviors. And towards the end of our time in New York, I had a really tough time being in proximity to her, and I now know it's because I couldn't look her in the eye. I just hated the lies I was caught up in, and I just didn't know what to do. And I think the shame of that took me a really long time to get through. And as you know, with shame, it's not like it's something that goes away forever. But you, for me, I've learned I can be on top of it better than other times. So, for me, I've moved away from the shame of a lot of it. But I remember it, and I treat it with reverence in such a way where I'm never going to be like, oh, that didn't happen. No, it happened. And God's been faithful, and he's been kind, and he's been gracious.

And thankfully, that shame doesn't have to have a hold on me. And there's a lot of people, as you know, that deal with shame. So now, when I do talk to people, they're not doubting whether I get it or not. Maybe before, if someone were to sit down with a pastor, I don't know if you can relate. I definitely know what it's like to be cloaked in shame and almost feel like you're suffocating. And I don't know if you've ever heard this differential, but someone told me shame is discouragement about what other people are thinking about you. It's external. That's one definition of it. And once you can get over that and guilt, there is such thing as healthy guilt, where you realize I'm wrong and I feel terrible about it and it's going forward. I had to really find that avenue quick because shame takes you backwards and it suffocates. And conviction is, I was wrong. This is what I did, and this is what I'm going to do to make amends. There's power in that. So I've done that dance for years, and doing my best to stay on this side of the tracks where I'm convicted to be a better man.

Sure, that's cool, Mandy. And for those that don't know who you are, who maybe aren't in the christian communities or in the church world, can you give a brief context of who you were then, before the massive scandal and breakdown and fallout of you being a pastor in a church and what happened? Again, you don't have to go into massive details, but kind of a brief context of what happened and to where you are now.

So we, if you're not familiar with the church world, we were a non denominational church that had a global reach. And our music at Hillsong church has been, you know, world renowned, really awesome. And in many respects, Hillsong gave people a different way to do church. Like, you're never going to walk into a Hillsong church and be like, this is, you know, this is boring, or this is, you know, weird. It was something that made sense to the regular person. That's why I fell in love with it. And in New York, we kind of took that to a very New York place. Cause I had a boss, his name was Brian Houston, who gave me the right to paint our own canvas. He was like, I'm not gonna tell you what to do there. I don't live in New York. You do. So take the spirit of this house in Australia and build a church. And we did that, and it was cool. I think that we made a big impact in New York, and it included the people who nobody knows and some people that everybody knows, and those people got all the press.

It was never a big deal. It's a big deal to the media. They're like, people are christians. Yeah, yeah, they are tabloid. It happens. But that. So our church became really high profile.

And how big was the church at that time? Like, how big did it get?

I mean, Hillsong church all over. It'd be like 100,000 people in Sydney, probably. It was like 40, 40 to 50,000 at one time. Ours, probably over ten, anywhere between ten and beyond. But it was a big church, and it was. It was a really incredible time. I had some issues in my life that I never addressed. And when you have a life that's smaller, you can get away with more and not even get away with it. You don't have to address stuff. But, as you know, if you're running from yourself, yourself is gonna catch yourself, and you can't outrun yourself. You can't do it. I did. For a long time. I was like an Olympic runner from myself, like, gold medal winner from running from myself. But eventually, it doesn't work. And it was found out that I had cheated on my wife, and that led to a whole unraveling of scandals that included the greater Hillsong church, other people who had some lives that were wrapped up, and my part to play in that was. I lied to a lot of people. And I've had to stomach that and will for the rest of my life, and I'm not proud of it.

I'm grateful that I get an opportunity to live a new kind of life that's honest. And the fallout was severe. We were a high profile church, so it was, like, one of the most covered church scandals ever. And it was hard for my family, hard for my wife. And we have done our best just to walk through it, as my wife has been brave, my kids have been brave, and I don't get any credit for my role in this. The fact that my family still, you know, is open to me is a miracle in and of itself. But that's. That's what happened. So, when you. There were documentaries made about it. There was, you know, countless narratives out there floating around, most of which weren't true, and we had to deal with a lot of that. Yeah, it was my fault. So, it's. Even when it comes to lies and narratives and accusation, even as mad as I wanted to be at some of it, it's like I could never get beyond the fact that I did this. I put my family in a vulnerable place for somebody to lie about us. And I remember making a dedication.

I will never do this again. I will never give other people the power to control or hurt my life and my family. That's what you do when you lie. You are giving up your agency because someone else now has the right to confront, and then you have no ground to stand on. So when you get caught lying like.

I did, and then people don't know what is the.

What else is a lie.

Yeah, well, you lied about this. Maybe you lied about everything else, and it's really honest about this. It's like they can now judge and very fair. Everything?

Yes. And that's okay.

Maybe you're telling the truth here, but I trust you that you're telling the.

Truth and you have no ground to stand on because you're like, that's true, but that isn't. Well, how do I know? Because if that lie is real, if you were lying as a preacher and a pastor, that goes pretty deep. So how do I know everything you're saying isn't tinged with a lie? And you learn quickly when you're in my shoes. I cannot control that. All I can control is the real truth, the real story. And by the grace of God, if somebody else ever understands, great. I have to live a different life and I have to convince my wife and my kids that I'm worthy of a second chance.

Wow.

So if anybody else ever believes me again, that would just be an awesome blessing. But I'm not living for that because those people have the right to judge however they want to judge. I can't force you to believe I'm honest. I can't do it. Honesty in truth is about investment. It's about, I'm going to give you equity almost, because I don't know you and I'm going to trust that you're a good person. And so for me, I have given up that task early. I used to think, how am I going to get people to trust me again? Now my only thought is I live honest.

Wow. I live honest because I can only imagine when all this is unraveling. And I've listened to your podcasts and seen talk to you about this privately, but I can only imagine the ego in you wants to defend.

Yeah.

Try to repair quickly, try to get people to understand you, what you were going through, create the full context. You know, people don't know the full truth. Yeah, okay, maybe there's some stuff I did that was really, really bad or that was wrong or whatever, but it doesn't mean I'm all bad. You know, I'm sure you wanted to defend and reply, make statements. I'm sure the ego wants to protect. How did you navigate the unraveling of everyone questioning you, some of your closest friends leaving you and not speaking to you again, feeling betrayed by people, even though you betrayed people as well. How did you navigate your ego and your heart and also trust in God?

Yeah, that's a freaking question.

I'm throwing a lot at you here.

Let me try to trace some of that back. I think I got a piece of advice from a very dear friend who said, you can't save your ass and your life at the same time. Something's got to give and you got to make a choice. And what he meant by the other one is just reputation, image, your narrative, your story or your life. And if you choose this, you have to choose it all. Dep, there's no, there's no, there's no Instagram post, there's no one interview. It's. I am foregoing the right to explain myself and defend myself because that doesn't matter more than my family does. I cannot do both. I was in such a, such a dark place in my own life that if I would have spent any time trying to do that, I don't think I'd be sitting here because it took every ounce of focus and desire to be able to go confront my own demons. And I couldn't do that with the pressure of trying to. It was just, it was just something we had to let go. And me and Laura stuck by my friend's quote, he said, carl, you gotta let the rain fall.

If you can let the rain fall, there's going to be some stuff that's going to grow, but you can't get in the way of the rain. It's going to let it go, let it rain on you.

It might take years of raining, man.

It was years. Might be floods and there might be some drizzling clouds for the rest of my life. That's my consequence. But we have become really strong and focused and united where we're ready for storms now. We don't run from storms in that regard. We're like buffalo, the only animals that run directly into it. So as a family, it's like, man, we have been through so much that you don't know what we're made of. You know, people have, there's always gonna be cruel people in your comment thread or whatever, you're, you're a giant public figure, so you know that you have the best podcast in the world. There's that one guy with three followers who's like, you're terrible. And it's like, hmm, that hurts. But at the same time, nobody can call me anything worse than I've called myself. So that's off the table. So it's like me, you can assault me all you want, trust me, I'm a worse critic of myself, I was than you are. So go for your life. If it makes you feel better to insult me, do it. If it makes you feel better to get on and send a comment, do what you have to do.

It's not going to work. But that's part of. That's part of the journey is getting yourself to a place where you're able to stand in that storm, man.

I mean, I've experienced an immense amount of shame throughout my life, decades of shame. I've lied, cheated, stolen, you know, been unfaithful in the past, in relationships. I've done all, you know, all these things that I'm ashamed of or was ashamed of before I started to repair and start moment by moment, day by day, shifting my identity and my behaviors and living a different way.

Yeah.

And the more you stack up those moments of integrity, of high values, of honesty, of sharing the things that you're ashamed of, even I don't want to tell this person, but I'm going to tell them anyways because I know it's my truth. And go, hopefully they accept me, but maybe they don't.

Yeah, that's the risk.

The more you do that, the more you can drop the masks like we talked about before we started recording, you can start to reveal yourself to yourself and to others and start building and repairing with self and others who want to be in that relationship with you. But it starts with the relationship with self and the wounded self. And you and I, you know, both experience sexual abuse, sexual, you know, stuff that happened to us younger. And I heard you talk about this when you went to rehab and therapy, that the brain, the chemistry in the brain really gets messed up when someone has been sexually abused at any age. Right. Something like fractures in the brain where you think a certain way about the world, you have trust in the world, and then you no longer have that thought or trust. Something that's fractured.

Yeah.

Especially at a younger age. And then there's a lot of shame about what is wrong about me?

Why am I doing this?

What's wrong with me? Why did this happen to me? And that shame and that doubt, he can creep into anything until you address it, mend it, heal it, and repair it. For me, it took 25 years until I started that process. And I'm assuming it took about 25, 30 years for you, too, until 45. So, yeah, so it took some time until you kind of addressed it, started healing and working on that journey, which is a journey. And then there typically are behaviors that come up for you, a certain addictive behaviors. For me, it was other addictive behaviors. And everyone has their vice. Right. Well, the vice that creates.

Yeah. Some are more judgy than others.

Yes.

Some vices are more.

Yes.

Are tougher to stomach than others, but.

Their vices, they are they are some are drugs, sexual stuff, porn, masturbation, whatever it might be. You know, you lean into something that creates a sense of comfort or something that you can avoid a feeling.

Yeah.

And that causes.

Get a feeling.

Something else.

Yes.

Some other fear.

Yeah. Yeah.

To avoid the feeling of pain and suffering and shame. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think that's where a lot of addiction can stem from. Is this shame or this feeling of, I don't want to address the wound. Yeah. Cuz it is so painful.

Mm hmm.

Now, that doesn't, you know, when we do something out of integrity, it doesn't excuse those things, the behaviors, the actions and the pain that is caused on others when those do that. So I'm curious about how you've dealt with the suffering yourself of like, that insecurity or shame of like, I'm supposed to be this preacher, right?

Yeah.

Is the thought. I'm supposed. I'm preaching to people. There's 10,000 people coming every week. You know, celebrities are coming to me, leaning on me for wisdom and spiritual counsel. Counsel. Yet I know I'm living a mask in some ways.

Yeah.

You know, however much judgment you want to create for that. Right. Levels of judgment.

Yeah.

How have you been able to repair that relationship with yourself about those years where you were suffering and feeling the pain? Because I can have empathy for you.

Yeah.

And also the tens of thousands of people that might have been thinking, gosh, was everything aligned? Was he was doing all these other things but telling us to do something else, like, could we trust or believe anything? And also, does that mean my relationship to God is not real? How have you navigated that, all of that? That's, you know, the pain that you've suffered, but also the pain that others have suffered.

Yeah. It's the top three question premises I've ever been given. Thank you. Golly, I think, okay, let me try to go from. So people often ask, how did it get so bad?

Uh huh.

How do you get there? Well, before you lie to anybody else, you lie to yourself. So at the end of my rope here, I had lied to myself for so long that I was lost completely. And it's the only way you can survive. Unless you're just a horrible, evil person. You are not designed to live with lies. You're not can't survive. But I had found a way to run from something I didn't understand. And it just was. I remember when I got to my rehab, a counselor asked me, why'd you let it go so long? And I was like, well, I didn't want to hurt people. She goes, oh, so you're the hero. Oh, you're the hero in your story. You were hurting people the entire time. And that was the beginning of the end for me with my facade, because I realized, because up until then, I still had excuses. And I'm glad what you said, what you said, doesn't matter how many times we say this, people are going to hear what they want to hear. When you give reasons for why you hurt people or made mistakes, they are not excuses. They're just ways so people don't have to do the same thing.

There is no excuse for my behavior. There was no excuse. None. I was wrong. I wanted to change my life, so I had to go backwards. And I am, and I've been doing this for a long time. I'll do it for the rest of my life. But I went all the way back to my sexual abuse, which I didn't start acknowledging till I was about 30. And I was praying for people at church who were sexually abused. And I had flashes in my own mind, and it just freaked me out. And I kind of tried to tell my parents a little. My parents are incredible. They were, they were, they are my heroes. I was abused by a house guest. And as a parent, it's your worst nightmare. It's like, you know, the one time you turn your back situation.

For me, it was the babysitter.

Yeah.

That I would go to the son, like a teenage son of a babysitter that they would send to after school. Yeah. Just like a nightmare. Because you send it to someone that you want to trust. Right. Like a babysitter.

Yeah. And. And so I. I had to start dealing with that because as I got older, those were more prominent. I started to realize how bad that moment was of abuse and what happened in my life. And then, so as I'm going all the way back, it starts to make sense. So I learned about brain chemistry. What happens when you're a little kid and you get sexually twisted? I was never faithful to a woman my entire life. I had two girlfriends in 6th grade. Why would I do that? Like, I. Even back then, I couldn't understand. Like, why would I? I always had a penchant to do something in secret and in private. Even if I was perfectly happy with every girlfriend, I'd have an amazing girlfriend that I was totally okay with. This is great. And then I would make a bad decision in private, and I would hate myself for it. And I don't know why I loved it. I don't know what is that? That I loved. And it took some of this deep work to understand. Like, in my brain, I associated, you know, that that day, sex with hidden, private, quiet.

And as a kid, maybe something felt good, even. We learned that in abuse circles that sometimes your body reacts to stuff that your brain has no idea about. So, as I grew as a pastor, I ran out of places where I could feel anything because my adrenal glands were in trouble already. We had such a big life that was kind of an impacting life on the outside that nothing really impacted me anymore. Like, I would always feel the weight of it, but it's not like speaking in front of crowds would. Would be awesome. Like, it's like what you live for. It was just part of my job. And I used to find these escape valves that were hidden sin, and they would get worse and worse and worse. And then it gets so bad, you don't know what to do, and then you just start living with it. You're like, well, if. I mean, it's so far gone now, Louis, what am I going to do? If I'm honest about this, it's all everybody that's tied to me. Every job, every employee, every parishioner, everybody. Everybody now is in this because of me. So what am I going to do now?

And that self loathing was a horrible, suicidal place to be.

Really?

Yeah.

Did you ever feel suicidal as a preacher before? Kind of. This started to unravel, or was it more? Once everyone hears about what I've done or my behaviors or my actions or even the lies that they're making up as well, it is. Now I'm suicidal.

Yeah. I'd never had a suicidal thought before that chapter, really. And they were. They were. They were. They were big. They were.

Afterwards. They were big. How big? How close were you to, like, wanting to end it?

There's, like, obviously suicidal ideation is. Is kind of the beginning of some of that picture, and that was constant. And it got probably to a place where I had envisioned, this is what I'm going to do, really. If I do this, this is what I'm going to do. So we're on the doorstep, and I am grateful to God that in that moment, I just realized, I mean, I've been so selfish. The ultimate selfish top card would be to now bail on my family and my children. So not only was your dad, he lied and he embarrassed you, and then he left. And I thought, I don't know if I'm ready to do that because I don't find any worth in myself. But I don't want those, gosh, you know, I don't want these babies to have a dad on top of this that left the earth because he couldn't handle his own music that he pressed play on. And so I can only give that credit to God because I don't have that kind of strengthen. I don't have that kind of confidence or wherewithal to go. I'm gonna try to own some of this.

And so I'm so grateful that didn't take place. I'm grateful that I found a way out. And I don't look at what happened to me as I got caught and God was mad at me. I look at what happened as God loves me so much that he allowed some of this to happen so I could somehow, you know, salvage the rest of this beautiful life we have in front of us. And there's old scripture that everybody knows, even if you're not a Christian, it's, you know, psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. And there's a part in there which says he makes me lie down in green pastures and he restores my soul. Makes me, in the image is a shepherd pushing sheep down who wouldn't lay down.

Forces.

Forces. And I see that now. I wanted the. Restores my soul without the pain, without the force to lay down.

Wow.

And God is too good for that. And I just. I sit there and I go, I wasn't gonna sit down. I had been running forever, and that situation was my. He makes. Makes you lie down in green pastures. He restores your soul. He restores your soul. You can't. You can't have the restoration without the lying down. And I'm gonna try to help as many people as I can, avoid that. In that way, everyone's gonna have a makes you lie down moment. Everybody. But there's a different way to go about it than lies, scandals, heartache, pain. But that's been my story. Psalm 23 is where I stay right now spiritually. I read it a lot. I think about it a lot. I meditate on it a lot, really? Because it resonates with me in a different way. You know, the very first thing, the Lord is my shepherd. Well, it means I'm not alone right away. I have a shepherd, I have a boss, I have a protector, I have a redeemer. I have someone who cares about me. So I'm not alone. The Lord is my shepherd. One verse of this beautiful psalm is enough for me to think about every day and go, all right, I'm not alone here.

I'm cared for, I'm counted, I'm known, I'm seen. And that's a hard place to be. It's a hard revelation to have when you haven't wanted people to see who.

You are and hiding these parts of yourself. Yeah. I mean, I lived for a long time not wanting to reveal all the shameful parts of me.

Yeah.

And like you said, it just kind of keeps building. Like, you keep hiding it until you get found out. Something gets found out. Something gets revealed, or you go through it. Yeah. A very sick time. Like the universe creates a near death experience, a physical breakdown, a spiritual breakdown, a relational breakdown. Something if you're not living that past, like it causes you to wake up.

Yeah.

However you want to interpret it. Right. It's like, and this is, what are.

You gonna do when you wake up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are you gonna wake up or are you not?

Yeah. Yeah. What are you gonna do with it?

How much more pain do you want to experience? What about, I mean, how have you navigated, so it sounds like that's how you've been able to navigate kind of your suffering and your pain and like.

Yeah.

Your journey. But how have you navigated suffering of the people that. How have you navigated the suffering, the people that, you know, looked up to you or they looked up to church culture, pastors that they, you know, put their faith in? And also, how have you responded to people either privately, publicly, those that you were close with, those that maybe felt you violated trust with them in certain ways, privately or publicly that you never met.

Yeah.

How have you navigated that?

Very hard. Very great question. I think you have to come to terms and make peace with the fact that, you know, in this twelve step plan, when you make amends, it has to be where it's appropriate and safe for the other person. And there are for me. And then if you're a public figure, which is a terrible term, if you have a life that's in public, that the desire to make amends personally is not realistic. So you have to find a way to make peace with that. And the way I've done that is I've decided to try to use the rest of my life to make a living amends in that we could go off into hiding. And people have asked, why would you guys do this? And I'm like, good question.

I think it's, go move to another country.

It's the lazy answer. It's lazy. And I think for me, it was a selfish choice for me to live a life in public fall. And then the thought of now just keeping this to myself, this healing. I don't know if you have experienced this, but I have access to help that not a lot of people have, and it's not fair. I remember going to rehab, going, how much is this? Oh, it's no wonder. Nope. Who could afford this? I had people send me there, and.

You go for a month. Who has the time to go for that long?

Do that. So I feel like part of my living amends is to let people know about what's helping me. I'm not an expert, I'm not a guru, but I am somebody you can probably relate to. And unfortunately, like, Laura and I are now, like, well, for the 98% of marriages out there that are broken and rough, we're with you. Let's talk. We can't help you if you're in that 2% where everything's perfect. You're perfect.

Yeah.

We're not for you, but we got to use what we. What hand I dealt us. And that means right now, you know, to make living amends. In my estimation, I'm allowed to narrate that as I want. That's what I'm going to do every single day. And if there's a reception for it, cool. If people want it, great. If they don't get that, too. But I'm going to try. And. And then if that doesn't work, I'll try something else. Personally, when I see someone, I. It's a joy. It's a. It's a. It's an honor to be able to look someone in their eyes. I'm so sorry, as your leader, for misleading you, for lying to you, for breaking your trust, for mishandling your beautiful investment of trust that you gave me. And my prayer is that. And I know God is so good, he's not going to let this be something that stops you from a relationship with him. I know I did that. Well, as a preacher. I never pointed to myself, ever. So one of the few things I did right was be able to teach people that the grace of God goes through somebody.

So when you see somebody preaching, don't get caught up in the preacher. They are just as fallible as you. You might not know it, but they have their own issues. I am an example of God using a broken thing to help produce beautiful things in people's lives, and God can do the same thing for you. So I have heard from people that have been disappointed and hurt, and they say, but you taught us right. You taught us to look over the human, because you're just a preacher.

Yeah.

Just a communicators. A pastor. You're not. You're not. You're not a deity. And then there's some people that are probably still mad. We'll be mad forever. I get that, too. My heart goes out to them. I pray for them, and when I'm able, you know, I make amends. But that's. That's the life that I have to choose to live, and I'm. I have embraced it.

Wow. And so you've. You've seen people face to face.

That I have.

What was that like when they. They kind of look at you maybe with a little judgment or frustration?

Never one. Never one bad experience. Really? Not one. Normally, it's tears on both. Both sides right away. Really? Yeah.

That's beautiful. Have someone come up to you and just been like, I can't believe I trusted you and I was in your church for this many years, and, like said, I don't care what you say to me. I'm never gonna forgive you? Have you had an experience like that or just like.

I've read experiences like that. Yeah. But never. Never. When I see people in airports or on the street, normally, it's unbelievably encouraging to me, and I feel overwhelmed that God is that kind where someone who has the right to say whatever they want to say chooses that route of. Yeah. Disappointed, hurt. But sometimes people will say, you gave grace to me and you prayed for.

Me, and so when I was going through my stuff.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah. And that's not owed, but, my gosh, it's appreciated.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

I mean, this brings up the concept of, you know, there are a percentage of people in the world, in all types of churches, who have experienced pain from their priest, preacher, church leader, or someone in the church. You know, you hear a lot of cases about sexual trauma, psychological trauma, just different types of abuses that people hear about.

Yeah, I.

And it's probably not. You know, it's there, but it's loud. Right. So it's not every preacher is doing this. It's not every church is doing this, but there are people who have horrible experiences that are just, like, lose faith and trust in religion.

Yeah.

Priests, preachers, church leaders. Because of what they've experienced.

Right.

My question is, you know, I'm friends with a lot of spiritual leaders in different religions. You are preachers in the christian faith, but also buddhist leaders, friends with a lot of people that I believe are doing their best to bring spirituality to the world. And I also know that human beings are flawed. Human beings are flawed. I grew up in a very, I would consider humble religion, a christian religion called Christian Science. I don't know if I mentioned this to you a little bit.

You mentioned a little bit. Yeah.

There's judgmental people in every religion. Right. I found people that were judgmental in this religion growing up as well.

How would you sum up the baseline of Christian Science?

Christian Science for me is founded by a woman in the late 18 hundreds who learned to heal herself by reading the Bible. She was experiencing a lot of physical pain, and she wrote another book called Science and Health, which is the key to the scriptures. It's kind of the spiritual and scientific interpretation of the Bible, which can be confusing for a lot of people. What does this mean? And what is the scientific, spiritual interpretation of this? But growing up in this religion, it was all about, we are spiritual human beings. There is no matter, there is no physical humanity. Now, we live in a world of physicality, but it is our duty to rise above it and be spiritual. Be mind with a capital m, conscious with a capital c, love with a capital l. And how can we stay in that space of spirituality as frequently as possible? Now, as a child growing up and having sexual desires and feeling like, well, I'm injured. What do you mean? I'm not a physical being. Right. But it was all about, okay, if you feel an ailment, if you feel sick, how can you heal it with your mind, with prayer, and with knowing the truth that we are spiritual beings, and therefore you cannot be harmed in the kingdom of God.

Right.

So there are a lot of beautiful lessons, but the thing that I wanted to speak about in this religion is that there's no preachers, there's no priests, there's no, like, leader of a church who could feel like they have a lot of power in this church. Yeah, there are. And in some ways, it's kind of boring to go to church.

Yeah.

Because there's no fancy music, there's no lights, there's no charismatic leader on stage storytelling. Yeah, it is. You go. And there are two people who are appointed to read the exact lesson of that week from the Bible and the science and health. And they read. What is the words here?

Yeah.

And they are appointed by the community of the church for, I think, one or two years. And then two other people read.

Interesting.

And they read, and they don't say anything else, so it's not about them at all. So in a sense, I appreciate that. It was never about a leader having like, any power with their. Their community.

Yeah.

Was the community appointing people and then reappointing new people every year or two? So it's always changing. And you followed kind of the script of what the Bible lesson was that week, but in some ways, it's kind of boring.

It's a give and take.

It's. Boy, it's like, okay, you sit there and you have to really be present.

Yeah.

You have to really be like, this is a silent, almost meditation prayer, and I'm a listening, and it's. It's peaceful. We sing hymns.

Yep.

But they're old. It's not like these cool, like, fancy, like, oh, we're like, yeah. Hip hop.

Hip hop. Yeah.

This is not like, oh, we're like dancing and, like, feeling the holy spirit up in here.

This is.

But there's also a. Almost a protective sense to it that it's safe.

Okay.

You know, what is your thoughts on preacher culture? People having massive personal brands and kind of almost having this authority to.

Fantastic question.

Well, charismatically fantastic, because they're great communicators. They're great storytellers. They might be great spiritual human beings, too, but really captivate and move audiences and bring people in and make sure that. How are people protected from that power, that energy, that force of community that is also into that energy? I'm not saying it's bad or wrong.

No, no, no.

But to also be aware of the pit bull. This is a human being.

Yeah.

They are not God. They're preaching a word that hopefully is inspired through them and to not let the message and the messenger get too mixed up.

Get mixed up.

I don't know if this is making sense. I'm trying to.

It is. It's freaking making a lot of sense. Your layered questions are unbelievable. I mean, I've seen it from my phone. But to actually sit here and have to field that question, it's like Lord Jesus, I think. So it has to be said that I think it's a hundred to one faithful pastors and priests to the ones who end up on the front page for living lies me. A hundred to one, if not a thousand to one. And that's what, that's what, that's what's hard about situations like mine, because that's going to get the press. The guy that's faithfully serving his church, loves his wife, takes care of his kids, preaches faithfully about Jesus, that no one wants to talk to that guy. So that. But it's awesome to have a moment like this, to be able to tell everybody, like, you know what, most of the pastors and the preachers that you're going to be around, they're awesome people. They're incredible. The trade off of a super charismatic gift is that it's gonna go bad. It's gonna always go bad. Not every time, but as long as that's in the picture, there's no answer for this because humans are gonna human.

Like we say, there's no such thing as a perfect church because if there were, nobody could go. So there's always gonna be preachers that fall. But I feel like that's life. Like, I don't want to trade somebody's beautiful gift because of the fear of, to me, that's a robbery. And I'd rather take my chances that God's going to be so faithful where my stories like mine will set preachers up behind us safer, better. And it can use a disaster like I went through, right, to be able to. Maybe we can see in the future less preachers end up on the front page for the wrong reasons because of the lessons that are passed down. And so I get the criticism of it, you know, the personality driven churches. I'm always like, there's a funny word play. You know, people are like, you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to entertain. You guys are entertainers. Well, do you know what the word entertain means? To captivate for a long period of time. That's true. If that is true, you know who the greatest entertainer of all time was? Jesus. So captivating that people would follow him through deserts, that people, they would risk their lives to get up in a tree just to get a glimpse of them.

So I always push back on the church is too entertaining. To who? First of all, get out. More people used to come to our church, be like, oh, it's like a rock show. A rock show. Have you been to Madison Square garden? Have you seen you two in the bubble? If this is a rock show, you need to expand your world. So to your point, I think I have hope for a brighter day. I think mistakes like I made sin like I had hidden. I can go back to when I could have helped myself. And I was about. I just. I didn't know. I didn't know what I needed to explain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I don't know why that's my path, Louis. I really don't. You know, I often have that conversation with God on some dark days, like, you couldn't have shook me awake and forced me to go tell somebody, hey, I got sexual issues. I got habits, I got inclinations, I got desires. I don't know what to do with them. Up until now, I just push them down and run, but they don't go anywhere. And if someone could have sat across from me and said, let's talk, let's talk about sexual abuse, let's talk about pornography's effect. Let's talk about what it means to have multiple sexual partners. Let's talk about what it does to your brain. Let's talk about how just because you became a Christian, that stuff's not going to vanish, right? Which is sometimes what we. If I just. If I just will follow God hard enough, this stuff's going to dissipate. That. That's some people's story. I've never known it. I've never met one person that has a story where just because you made a choice to serve God in a different capacity, all of a sudden every single thing you've ever done loses its power.

It loses its eternal power. You're forgiven, but the consequences of sin, they don't just evaporate. So I feel like we have an opportunity. That's why I'm doing this. I would love to continue to do what I was doing for the first two years, which is nothing. Taking care of myself, taking care of my kids, taking care of my wife, and everybody else can sort it out. God bless you. I'm gonna make money and I'm gonna do something that you know is better for us. That would be the option I would choose, but this life isn't about us. So you're gonna hear me talking about my humiliating moments for the rest of my life, because that's the. That's the only way I can redeem it. And. And I'm okay with that. I've come. I've come to peace with it. So, yeah, that's the guy who. Yeah, yeah, I'm that guy. I'm definitely that guy. But tell the rest of the story. I am the guy that had a great church. I am the guy that was known for this, and then he became known for this, but I feel like I'm known for this now. So please tell the whole story.

And I like that seat because there's a lot of people watching that have had a bad chapter, maybe even a bad book. Greatest news on earth at any time. You can change your story, you can change your chapter, you can change your narrative. Only you can change. Only you control that. As much as we want to believe it, somebody else. No, that's not true. God can forgive you, he can pick you up. You can write a new chapter. And there's a lot of us on that road with some scars and some ugly stories, but, my gosh, we got smiles again. It's possible to smile again, right? I didn't think that was going to be possible, but I don't think I've ever been more comfortable in my own skin than I sit here with you post scandal, with everybody knowing the worst of you. I'm okay.

Why do you feel good or okay you're not good? Why do you feel okay about you post scandal, post all these things that have happened and everyone knowing or thinking and assuming all sorts of stuff.

I'm honest. My wife knows me, my kids know me, my friends know me. I've got nothing to hide. I've got nothing to prove. That's a dangerous place to be. In the best way. I look at myself as a positively dangerous human being because I got nothing to. Nothing to hide over here. And I did pretty well hiding. Like, I. I was functioning on 40% health, and we had a huge impact. So if I can just get to 45%, heaven forbid, 80, 90, maybe we can really make a difference in this world. But I'm comfortable. I'm at peace. I'm okay with people thinking what they want to think. I was never okay with that before.

You weren't okay with people?

No.

What?

I had a deep desire to be understood, and it robbed me of a lot of joy. I wouldn't do something cause I didn't want someone to perceive it away. I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't do that. I would worry about this. I'd lose sleep over that. I look back at it now, it's like all those people I was trying to appease, they're terrible. They weren't there then. They're not gonna be here now. Why would I ever live like that? So it's been a fun journey of just being comfortable, waking up like there's nothing over my shoulder coming. Like I didn't really enjoy a lot Louis before, because no matter how big the win was, I still, I got something back here, really, that could come back to bite me so everybody else could be celebrating a win. We took some ground, did something great, but in my heart, it was never like a full celebration. You could have celebrated.

I'm a liardhead because under my, from my understanding, you were probably the most famous preacher pastor that there was at the time. Right. For a number of years, you were, like, building a movement. You had a lot of press and awareness, because if there were celebrity. The celebrities that were involved in your church that you were working with. So there was a massive audience staring at you all the time. Right? Is what it. From my understanding, you're one of the biggest in the christian world. You were one of the biggest leaders for a number of years. Yep. But you weren't able to appreciate or enjoy it because you were knew you were living this lie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I rationalized it and compartmentalized it. Everybody, to a degree. You're gonna have some things that people aren't gonna know about. It's not even their right to.

Yeah, yeah. They don't need to. That's not everything about your life yet.

I'm not saying every preacher in the world has to be like, hey, here's. You know, like, that's not what we're talking about. That's not real vulnerability necessarily. But, yes, the kind of stuff that I hid and buried, I said to somebody, I thought I was burying lies. I was really digging my own grave. Every day. You live with a lie and you think you got away with it. You didn't get away with anything. Nobody ever gets away with a lie, even if nobody finds out you robbed yourself your whole life.

That's true.

The moment you live with a lie, your heart is being taken up. Space is being taken up with a lie that was meant for love.

Oh, man.

If you start piling up those lies like I did, there's no space for anything else. Like, my arms were filled. I got. I can't. I can't have any joy. I can't have any presence. I can't have any peace because I got. I got to carry all these. You let those things go all of a sudden. Why do you feel so free? Why do you feel so light? Because I got room. I got space.

Right?

So you make the decision when you lie to take up space in your soul for something that was supposed to be healthy and beautiful and lovely and kind and explosively joyful, you choose the lie. And I have empathy for people that are doing that because I did it for so freaking long, all the way. Because, no, I never. I never told anybody about that abuse. No way I was buried, never told anybody about my private life in high school. No way. My parents found out I had sex when I was, like, 14, and I began lying immediately. I remember the day I lied about it. And that was the beginning of this cycle that landed on some big news cycles decades later. So there is joy and freedom, though, in discovery. There is. And it's one thing to get caught and be upset that you got caught and change some of your behavior so you can kind of just keep on living. Someone was like, would you have stopped if you didn't get caught? I'm like, thank God I'll never have to know that dumb hypothetical, like, I don't know. And God's so gracious, I haven't had to find out.

I did get caught, and I didn't turn myself in. I got turned in. I didn't valiantly come to somebody and say, here's what I'm doing. That's not my story. My story is embarrassing, it's humiliating. And it still led to me, you know, having a discovery about who I really am. And I gotta. I got a stain on that.

Wow, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's almost like you could continue to have all this outwardly success, but suffer inside for decades and never really be able to enjoy your life and your, your marriage and your kids. Because, you know, I'm. I'm living a lie or I'm a liar or I am a lie. Even though everyone's praising me, I know something is off and I haven't addressed it with me or the people closest to me. So you're gonna suffer. Unless you're a sociopath and have no emotion, you're gonna suffer, and you're probably to create cancer, disease, some type of pain that will manifest.

Have you heard somebody say, if you don't heal what hurt you and cut you, you will bleed on those who didn't hurt you or cut you? That's. I resonated with that. When I heard that, I was like, oh, my gosh. Cause I didn't. And the effect isn't even the people. Like, I never got back at the guy who abused me. Never wanted to, by the way. I mean, I made peace with that. Wrote him a letter in rehab, and that never went anywhere. But I was done. I mean, to do what he did to me, he must have had. I don't even know what would happen to somebody like that. But I feel like that is such a huge part of recovery is getting to that place where it's like I'm hurting the wrong people. My kids are suffering. They suffered during that scandal, and. Cause I didn't heal. And I just, I will never do that again. And I'm gonna be in the middle of the road for anybody else who might have some questions. Hey, I got some stuff. Cool, man. I'm your guy. Yeah. I can just show you messed up.

I'm here for you.

I got you.

Yeah.

I'm not ashamed of you. Not embarrassed about you at all.

It's almost kind of. It's like you have an opportunity. I don't know if you watch that movie. Catch me if you can.

Yes.

You know, it's like the guy who, like the Leo.

Yeah.

Did all the. Wrote all the bad checks and stole money or whatever from everyone, but. And then went to prison, but then, I guess, got out and his life became about helping the government, like, people.

Yeah.

And create better systems and, like, okay, now I need to serve.

Yeah.

And pay my debt almost. And just be of service.

It's called the grace reversal. The very thing that was killing you and you are using to kill becomes the very thing that gives you life and you help others find life through it. Wow. Only the grace of God can do that, really? Yeah, we can't. I can't do that. Nobody else can make that happen. But if you. If you have lied as a public figure and somehow God gives you an opportunity to tell the truth again, as. I mean, that's. That's a beautiful thing. It's like someone who commits a crime and then they go into prison, and the whole prison gets help because they're there. Whatever it is, like, whatever your situation is, if you're willing to put your hand up and say, I can't do this on my own, my invitation is that God can help you turn that thing around. You're in control of that. That's comforting.

I. You know, I listen to the. The podcast that you and your wife, Laura, have done is. I'm three episodes out right now. At the time of recording this are extremely powerful. You go into more detail about specific events, what happened, what didn't happen. We don't have to go into all that, because people can go listen to that and hear more and make their own judgments and listen to whatever might be there. But Laura has been one of the people that you've bled on from all this, from the pain, the sadness, the suffering, the lies, and, man, to hear her, I mean, meeting her last year and to hear how she has responded and how she has taken her power back and started to go to healing, using her voice, creating boundaries, creating a powerful relationship with herself first so that she can see if she wanted to stay with you, it's fascinating to hear her talk about this and even her say, you know, I told myself growing up, like, if someone ever did this to me, there's no way to stay. I'm out. I would leave. If they ever cheated if they ever lied, I would never be with this.

I would never put up with this. And then she says, and then you're in the middle of it, and you have to think about things differently.

Yeah.

And it is amazing to hear her journey of also being shamed on by lots of women messaging her, telling her, you're an idiot for staying in this relationship. Once a cheater, always a cheater. He's gonna do this again. I can't believe you're not leaving and standing up for yourself. All these different things that women have said to her.

Right? Yeah.

But to her to make a choice to stay with you, why did she choose to stay with you? And how is your marriage different now? 2.0 version.

Yeah. My wife is. She's a hero to me, to my kids. She's unbelievable. You've met her. She's explosively australian. And our love is really deep. I think that can get lost sometimes when you read about people you don't know and you see stories and it's like, no, we're regular people, just like you. Like, we've been in love for a very long time.

How long you been married now?

21 years.

21 years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's been a long time and dated for a couple years before that. So most of my adult life has been eye to eye with this, with this woman. And I think, you know, she's gonna continue to speak for herself. And I think what I love about watching her do that is she did take the harder road, but it wasn't what people think. It wasn't like, you know, I forgive you. She just forgave me last year.

Last year, three years in.

It was the first time, and I asked her to pray for me. And, man, I haven't talked about this. I should have saved this for my own podcast. Louis. No. I said, will you pray for me? And she said, I can't.

I can't.

I said, why? She's like, I haven't forgiven you yet. And she sobbed, this is in church. It's a quiet moment in church. And then she said, yeah, you know what? I'm going to choose to forgive you. I forgive you. And it was such a pivotal thing because I never expected her or had a condition that she forgives me, ever. It was just, I'm just happy to be here. Happy to be here, happy to be here. And if we ever. If it ever comes back around, cool. But I don't expect that. So she had really clear conditions. She had a support system of people. She had a bank account set up. She had a divorce. A divorce lawyer ready. We were gonna separate, but we just. It was. The logistics of that time were just a nightmare, and had it been more normal, she probably would have left. But, yeah, she gave me an opportunity to back up the words that I say, because when you're in the situation, words are words.

I'm not gonna do this again. Yeah, I don't believe you.

Who's not gonna say that? And so we had very, very clear boundaries, really. And I. My job is to. I get my orders every day. That's what I feel like. I feel like I'm a, you know, an employee. Like, hey, what do you need from me today? Let's go. Let me look at this. Okay? And I've learned to relate to that in such a beautiful way because it's a. It's a joy. It's not. I don't get defensive if she's like, hey, I was triggered yesterday. Why? Because. I don't know why. Maybe early on, it was like, I can't do any more than I'm doing. And then you mature and you grow.

You would do that?

Absolutely.

I'm trying to do everything. I'm telling you.

I'm frustrated sometimes. I'd be like, what? What more do you want? That. I was normally good, but there were moments where it would be like, what more do you want?

Yeah. You're like, I'm checking in every hour with you. You have access to every password. You're on, what you have.

Yeah.

Bank accounts, this. That you have. Know everything I'm doing. At every.

Everything I'm doing.

You know where I'm at. You've got a p's on me. You've got it.

I've got ankle bracelet. I got a monitor. I've got a heartbeat checker. Like, you know how many steps I've taken today?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think then you have to get to a place as a man, the. The one who broke the trust, where you realize, hey, guess what? This isn't ever going to be about me. Ever. And you do what you need to do. So now it's, hey, I feel triggered. I don't need a reason. My response is, what can I do? What can I do? I don't. Doesn't. It doesn't have to make sense. Really doesn't. Cause what I did. Sure, it didn't make sense.

Right, right, right.

So why am I looking for answers for you? So. And we've gotten to a really cool rhythm, beautiful rhythm, and there's always gonna be moments where she's gonna question me. That's my consequence. I'm up for it. I'm not running from that. I'm just gonna try to give as much evidence as I can that I'm worthy of the opportunity she's given me, and I don't have another shot. It's not like there's, you know, just.

Slip a little bit and be.

And rightfully so. There's not like a, you know. And having said that, she's been gracious in my recovery because I haven't done it.

All right?

I have fallen on my face since.

I've tried your recovery?

Yes.

And what was.

I had a relapse early on, and it was. It was. It hit me by surprise in such a way where I was able to tell her, this is what happened. I feel like I know what. I feel like I know the pattern that I didn't see coming. And she agreed. So it was a pretty specific situation. But all that to say, it's not like I've had to live on this perfect tightrope. She's not like that. And I could sit here all day and talk about Laura, but she's the light of my life, and I'm grateful that God gave me a chance to redeem some of this. So we ended our first marriage. We're on our marriage number two, and it's a beautiful one.

The first marriage has to die.

Oh, my gosh.

It has to.

You cannot. Have you ever seen somebody, like, try to make an old beat up car? They put rims on it, and you're like, bro, why didn't you just save that extra five grand and go towards just a better vehicle? Now you've got that old car with some shiny rims. I think sometimes trying to repair brokenness can be like that, where it's like, you know what? Let's just give this chapter to God. It's overdeveloped. Marriage number two.

When did that start? Was there a ritual you guys had? Was there a moment where you said, this marriage is no longer ours? Yeah, I'm not in this marriage anymore. If we're gonna do this, we need to create a new marriage, new vows. I don't know. What was the process or ritual like?

So I heard a woman named Esther Perel.

Yeah, yeah. I've had her on many times.

Have you?

She's great.

I thought like that, like a hero of mine. She's your friend. Got it. No, she has a lot. She has a lot to say. And I heard her talk about that concept at work.

You know, in her podcast, she's got a podcast that talks about, like, how to repair relationships that have gone through infidelity. And, yes, she is a beast.

I mean, in the most respectful way that you use that word. And I came back, I told Laura when I heard, let's do that. Let's shake on it. It's been real. First marriage, really hurry. Marriage number two, boom. And it was like, for both of us, just fresh air. Cause it's that marriage is done. It's a second marriage. So we both get to know each other again, and it's beautiful. You're on the precipice of one of the best things in life, which is marrying the woman you love, and you don't know who you are. When you get married, you have advantages because you're a little bit older, accomplished in life, but when you're 20 something years old and you're sitting there taking marriage vows, you're a baby star. Oh, my gosh. You're not the same person the next day. Like, you don't know who you're committing to. I look back at Laura staring in my eyes, early twenties, going, I give you my life. I trust you. We didn't know who we were. So now at 45, we're both 45. We feel better than we've ever felt, more honest than we've ever been, more authentic.

We have more fun. We have better intimacy. We have a better rapport. Like, I'm able to be who I always envisioned I could be for her. Yeah. Because there was this big blockage called the lies and the fake me that was between my wife and I, and that's not there. So she's able to see more of me, and I'm able to see all of her, and I'm just overjoyed with it. If we can do it, I think there's a lot of people that can have hope that they can do it, too.

And it doesn't mean if someone has betrayed you or lied to you or cheated on you or whatever it might be, that you need to stay with them.

If Laura was here, she'd say eight out of ten should go. Eight out of ten. So this isn't like a condemnation of people that left leave marriages when they're dangerous and they're in trouble. Or Laura would say that it's the man's responsibility to do the work. If he does the work and he shows up for it, then you have reason to maybe consider, right? But this blanket, I'm gonna stay married. Cause that's God's will. Number one, wrong. That's not right. Firstly. And secondly, you have the right to protect yourself. You have the right to walk away biblically, especially if somebody has broken their vows and you feel threatened in any way. That's right a lot.

How does that, I mean, because there's so many people that say once you get married that you're set for life. That's what the church or the religion has either told them or influenced them or. So how can someone who is a religious person or believes in marriage to one person forever thinking, thinking and believing, that's God's will, way, desires or the church's desires, and if I get divorced or separate, then God won't love me. The church will disown me. People will judge me. How does someone navigate that well right.

Away if someone thinks that there's a fundamental flaw in their prism about who God is, because they, in their mind, their salvation still has something to do with their performance, which. So in their mind, they're thinking, I did stuff so God would love me. And if I don't do those things, God won't love me. There. They haven't necessarily been shown what the grace of God is, which is mercy and favor and love that you don't deserve. But you get it anyway. You don't deserve this. God gave it to us. So I can't. I didn't earn it, therefore I can't lose that. So that's the first thing people understand. Like, God's not gonna, he's not a conditional parole officer where it's like, Louis, you were great in February. My gosh. Gold star, my guy.

Yeah.

Now March, you're on the fence. You're in. We don't know who you are. I don't know. We're gonna see. How many times can you go to church this month? And then me and the angels will have a look at helping you out. A lot of people, that's actually their framework, and it's very sad and it's painful to watch, but that's so it's when things go wrong. It's not God's plan that was the problem. It's humanity.

Yeah.

So it's not like the institution of marriage that God set up is wrong. I don't know about that. Why? Because someone broke the pattern and broke the plan. So I think removing that, and Laura would have something to say on that, because she did struggle with her relationship with God for a little, because she did everything right. She was faithful, she was resolute, disciplined, I mean, faithful and did all the right things, and she was put in this horrible position. It's fair to go. Is any of this real? Like, I mean, it's easier for me because I did. I made all these mistakes, so it's easier for me to come to grips with it, but for her to do nothing wrong, nothing, and have to carry the weight of that, you know, it was a big thing. She got through it and she's, you know, in a beautiful place with that. But it was definitely a challenge.

And not to get too personal here, but you mentioned intimacy being, you know, great between you guys. How does, you know, a woman who has been affected? And maybe only Laura can speak to this, but what she's told. I can relay what she said on the podcast that you guys have talked about. What is she shared on? How she's been able to allow herself in intimate sexual moments with you to feel safe again?

Yeah.

Like, how has she been able. You know, what does she share so far?

It's a lot. It's a lot of work. I think that it's a. It's been a.

Because she said to go through her own healing journey on her own.

Yeah.

She talks about in your guys.

She does, she does. I think hers was. She's a. She's a. She's a fighter, though. Like, so there's two ways to handle triggers. Run away from them or fricking go at them. And she's that type of person. Like, we just left New York, and some people are like, did New York trigger you? She's like, I'm not going to let my husband's old bad decisions rob me of the greatest city in the world.

Wow, that's interesting.

But that's our framework.

That's interesting.

So she thought about that with the bedroom. She thought about that with holding hands. It's like she can let this trigger her the rest of her life because that represents my husband's infidelity, sexual, emotional, physical. Or I can go confront that thing. And she chose that. And there were some really hard moments, like I've shared, you know, when I would get close to her for the first two or three months, her body would shake and she wouldn't know. That's hard to deal with.

She would feel safe physically with you.

Her brain is here, she's trying to talk to me, but her body is shaking. And that's. That's a. That's a very, very, very horrible place to put your wife. And that's. Talk about shame.

Yeah, it doesn't feel good.

No, those are the tough ones. Those are the hardest moments. And nothing to do with public thinking, anything like that. No one sees that pales in comparison to trying to hold your wife's hand and she's heard her body's petrified of you. And that's. That was part. That's part of my journey, my consequence.

Wow.

So, yeah, she. It has. Intimacy, we found out, is much, obviously deeper than sex. Sex can be sometimes a part of intimacy, but we're intimate with our. With our. With our conversation and our proximity and our. Outside of just sex. It's. It's.

We can look each other in the eyes.

Yeah.

With.

Yeah.

Consideration, care, thoughtfulness.

I could be across the room. She's across the room, and I know that somebody in that room sees me. That's. That's cool. That's a good feeling.

Wrong on.

Yeah.

What would you say are the three biggest lessons your wife has taught you in the last four years after all of this scandal has come out?

The three biggest that she's taught me.

Either through her words or through her behavior or.

Hmm. It's beautiful. I think she's taught me to be kind to myself, and coming from the person who I harmed the most, that's an interesting messenger. She's taught me to be kind to myself. She's taught me to be present and enjoy the blessing, because I go from being sad and sorry to, like, I always got to do something. Like, the guilt that I fight daily is a. Is a part of my process because I. Doesn't matter how good it is. It could be like, you know, like, we lost everything. So I always felt like I was on this climb to, I know this is good, but I got to do more. Got to do more. I'm so sorry. We're in the spot. I'm so sorry. Even with my kids, I had to work through some of that guilt because anything they do wrong, I'd be like, it's probably because I did all that.

Yeah.

It's not even on them. I had to really step through that. So she taught me how to be present, and she taught me to love again. Wow. That's what my wife has showed me.

That's amazing.

Be kind to myself. Enjoy the blessing and love again.

You know, it's interesting. I. You know, a few relationships ago that I was in, you know, it didn't end well, and no need to go into it all, but I was out of integrity in some of things, and we were off and on, and it was. It just didn't end well, and she wanted to go public with all of her thoughts and feelings about it on social media. And during that time, I felt like, what do I do? I was kind of like a mini, very mini moment compared to what you had was like, people are thinking things. They don't know the whole story, like, all these things, right? And I remember feeling a lot of sadness for people that I'd known for years that wouldn't even, like, just reach out and be like, hey, what is going on? Can I, like, hear from you what's going on?

I know their pain.

Even if you want, you know, even if you did something out of integrity in the relationship, like, can I at least hear from you and just give context or whatever it might be, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Then it happened. So it was hurtful, right? And we talked about this before we started recording, how, you know, when this happened for you. Some of your closest friends just disowned you and just said, I don't want to have anything to do with you. And obviously that's their own feelings. And I remember feeling like, shoot, I don't know who's on my side, who trusts me, who doesn't trust me, like, what's going on here? You know? Yeah, this is happening. And it just felt like, what do we do now? It wasn't to the stunt that you had, but it was like, a mini feeling of that. And I was interviewing a guy at the time I kept interviewing, which I don't know how I did it, because I was, like, in my. I was, like, all over the place, and a guy named Robin Sharma, I told him, like, this is what's happening. This is what happened. And that's what I'm dealing with. He's probably his sixties, right? Maybe later sixties, I think. And he goes, yeah, I've had a few of these things in my life. And he sold, like, I don't know, 1020 million copies of his books, and he's very successful and accomplished.

He just said, I've had these things in life where you go through breakdowns, where you go through breakups, and then there's, like, sadness and there's this, and there's hurt, and I've hurt people and they've hurt me, and it's like. And you don't know who your friends are and these different seasons of life, right? And as a public figure, you're gonna have more of that in terms of, like, it's gonna feel bigger. And he said, a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul. And for whatever reason, that stuck with me in that moment.

I love that.

And something unlocked inside of me because I remember thinking about all the challenges that I faced, the pain and suffering that I faced growing up, things that happened to me, things that I did wrong that caused me to learn lessons as well. As a kid growing up, breakups, breakdowns, injuries, all these things that were bad, bad for my ego or myself. And for whatever reason, in that moment, I was like, oh. Every bad thing that's happened has turned me into who I am now and has gotten me to this place. And so this bad situation is going to unlock a different level of, hopefully, lessons, blessings, abundance, peace.

So good, bro.

Healing, forgiveness, all these different things. If I choose to dive in and own it all and kind of, like, do the healing journey, it's. It will unlock.

Yes.

And I remember thinking like, yeah, there's nothing I would change in the past from injuries and this and breakups and pain. Because the lesson, and people say hindsight is 2020. And so in that moment, I was like, I'm stepping into future hindsight. I'm stepping into two years in the future, ten years in the future, 20 years in the future. I'm going to look back at this like, I looked back ten years ago from being injured and how I thought my life was over from a dream, but it actually set me down a new course that can impact more lives, that can impact me and people around me better. And I go, this is only going to benefit me if I choose to believe it and do whatever I need to learn in this process. If you could go ten years in the future, it's been about four now, and your healing journey has evolved and you feel a lot more peace four years later, and it's going to be ups and downs, I'm assuming, for many years. If you could have future hindsight in ten years out, what is the meaning you think you'll give yourself in ten years for why this has happened?

Gosh. Out of all the layered questions today, that's a heavy one. My goodness, why won't you even think about politics? That's what I don't understand. There's a lane for you. Okay, first thing, just a quick. You said ego, and I don't know if you ever heard someone explain it as ego stands for edging God out. I love that because that is, there's a healthy part of our confidence that we're not talking about, but there is something about eliminating anything that you know is self generated, and you just go, God, have your way. That's the first when you said that.

I was me generated, not.

Yeah.

God, through me, right?

Yes. Like, I can't do this on my own. With God's help, I can do this. So I think I would look back. I think the meaning of our lives is to always point to how good God is, no matter what it is. I wouldn't have chosen this path. I mean, if we're sitting, you know, as 20 year olds, like, hey, write what you want to be doing when you're 40, 45 years old. I would not have said this, but I have changed the way I relate to it as well, and I've changed the way I relate to my sexual abuse, changed the way I related to my own infidelity. And now I look at that as something that has been. It's a crucible moment where you come out of the fire, and you're just not the same. So I think the purpose of my life is to always point people to a loving God that can change your life no matter what it is. So that hasn't changed. And I think that I. We're in a really broken world, Louis. It's getting darker and darker and darker. That's why we call this thing lights on, because we still have control over where we shine lights.

And I want my life. It might be a dingy light sometimes, it might be not as. But I'm gonna try to keep my light on, and I want to tell other people that there's hope, no matter how dark it is. We're going to keep the lights on over here. We're not going to turn them off. There's no way. And you can't turn yours off. There's people probably watching that have, long time ago, shut down the restaurant, and the lights are off. You just need one person to just flick one light, and that's how it starts again.

Yeah. One of the things that I heard in your podcast, which, again, I want everyone to go listen to. It's fascinating to hear you and Laura talk about healing, trauma, dealing with the relationship, the mistrust, the betrayals of friends, family, having kids. Like, it's just a messy situation that you guys have navigated, and you open up about how you've navigated, what you guys have learned, vice versa, what you're still learning. She talks about how. You talk about how she did nothing wrong. She was always faithful, loyal, trusting, honest, whatever you wanted to do. She was there for supporting wife, motherhood, you know, leader of the church, like, faithful, all these things. Yeah, but she starts to say, you know what? I never had a voice. I never really owned my power. I kind of just. I don't know if she said blindly trusted, but it's kind of. That's what it felt like. I just.

Maybe more apt would be co pilot.

Yeah. Yeah. I was codependent. She said, yeah, she's living a codependent relationship and lifestyle, and she didn't own her voice. And when she went to therapy and healing and had counseling, she talks about that in your podcast, which is really interesting. And I want to speak to the women because we have a large female audience to the women listening or watching, to give women tools on how they can own their voice and power better in relationships, whether everything is going great and perfect or they're unsure about stuff or somewhere between maybe in their first year of relationship or 20 years deep in a marriage. I want women to have tools to own their voice and own their power to get clarity on where they're at in the relationship, whether it's little white lies, bigger lies, whatever it might be, but to create better relationships with their partners.

So good.

And hearing Laura say, you know, I never really had an opinion or a voice. I didn't know how to make decisions.

Yeah.

Hopefully I'm saying what she said correctly.

Yeah. It's in a box.

She was like, I needed to learn how to get my power back. That took time. I needed to learn how to practice it because it's something I'd never done in 40 years.

Yes.

I need to learn how to do it while healing, trying to forgive him, dealing with friends, be a mom, being a mom, all these things. Teenagers, dealing with my own health.

Yeah.

And it's a lot for women. I think it's a lot for women to try to learn how to.

The toll is greater.

The toll is great. There's a. There's a pressure, there's a. Yeah. Insecurity. There's judgments from other moms, all these different things.

Yes.

What do you think Laura would say? Or what has she said to you about how women can own their voice better in any type of intimate relationship, whether there's potential lies or stuff happening or not, but just to, like, I'm going to deepen and strengthen my relationship to get clarity, if this is the relationship I want to continue thriving into or potentially it's not the right relationship.

For me, I think she would say, and we've had so many conversations about this, put the growth of yourself in your own healing. Put that first, regardless. So when you get to rehab, they have this beautiful moment where they say, hey, everybody, this is not a marriage restoration place. We don't gimmick about your marriage. That's not why you're here.

The rehab.

You're here to fix your life.

Interesting.

And if you fix your life, your marriage will grow. Get your marriage out of your picture. We are not here to save your marriage. We're not here to help you with your wife. You're here to fix all the lies and the deceit and the crap that you've been doing your whole life that put you in this position.

Wow.

No one wants to hear about your marriage. Nobody. And I was like, okay, you know, I wish you could make it clearer. And I got it, though. Cause I was like, yeah, I'm not. I am not here to fix my marriage. My marriage is actually a product of my broken life. Therefore, if I'm healthy, makes sense that my marriage will be healthy. I think what happens, what Laura has told me with women is they just sometimes can put so much emphasis on, I want to make this marriage work. How can I make my husband understand? How can I support him? How can I make him better? All that stuff is huge and important and valid, but not at the expense of you growing and you thriving and you getting the help that you need and you getting someone to invest in you. And I think she would say, make yourself a priority, like you have to. And that means doing separate things. It means getting your own help. It means having your own life. And when that is thriving, this life over here of your husband, I mean, there's this beautiful symmetry that can happen with two healthy people.

But normally, there's, like, this horrible thing where the wife is so awesome, and she's healthy and she's trying, and this husband's, as a bum, broken. He just refuses to change. And it's just so sad to see. And there's vice versa, where it's like, you gotta. Sometimes it's. It's more rare, but you got a husband who's trying. The wife just has given up, man. It's a. It's a. It's a dark road. But if both people, especially. Because in our household, I can't speak for any other household, but Laura's roles are immense, you know, I mean, from mom to friend to wife to lover to provider, at times, like, where is she in all that? And I think it's my job to help protect her ability to hear her voice, know her voice, feel it. And that's. That was just not really on my radar before, really honest. I mean, I'm not proud of that, but I didn't know those. I didn't know that concept like, I know it now. I thought I did, but I thought, in my. In my estimation, I was like a trailblazer gonna make a path for my family that I love.

And I don't know. I don't know if that was. That's not the way I live now at all.

What are the things that men in relationships with women or married men can say to their partners or wives on a consistent basis to make them feel seen, heard, and safe?

I will talk about what I do.

Yeah. What do you do with Laura? I don't. To make her feel that way.

I. We have a. We have a really cool cadence of. My question to her commonly is, how can I make you feel safe? Do you feel safe?

You say that all the time, probably every day.

Yeah. How do you. How can I make you feel safer today? And it's gotten to the point now she's like, I feel safe. I feel freaking safe. You know, I can't feel safer. And. But that is such a non defensive, non aggressive question. It's not loaded. It's, hey, do you. How can I make you feel safer today? Do you want my phone? Do we need to go have dinner? Do you want flowers? Like, what can I do? And if that's a part of your routine, I think it's a really powerful thing to have, because it has nothing to do with you. It's not like, okay, tell me what you need just so I can get to this. Like, why don't you do this for me? Because sometimes I've talked to husbands in a lot, especially in these four years, and it's like, I tried what you said, and it didn't work. I'm like, it wasn't an event, bro. Whatever I explained to you, let me re explain it. Like, it wasn't a, I'm gonna do this, and it should produce this.

It's a way of living.

It's a way of being.

Yes.

And being is different than doing. If you just go straight to the do, you might get the have, but you miss out on the b. And I work with some coaches at novice global. Know, if you've heard of this firm, they're phenomenal, but they really go through a concept called be do have.

Yes.

Rather than I was a, what do I need to have? What do I have to do?

Yeah.

If I get around to who I'm being now, my whole life is flipped because of that concept. It's been really helpful for me. So who do I want to be today. I want to be faithful. I want to be loyal. I want to be comforting, and I want to be energetic. What does a man like that do? He does these seven things. And if you do those seven things, what do you have? Ah, now we're talking. And that. But it has to be in that order. It can't be, I need more money. What do I have to do? Well, you're still being a bad steward, so you never grow. So that that concept is like, it's not. I want to have a wife that has a lot of intimacy. Wrong. Who do I need to be to be the kind of man that creates safety, that makes my wife want to let her guard down and feel free?

Yeah.

These are two different conversations.

Yeah.

It's powerful. So that's. That's what we're in the midst of, and we'll be in that for the rest of our lives. We do not have it together. We are not, you know, marriage gurus. We are marriage survivors and now marriage proponents in marriage. I guess we're excited. We're in something that is a new phase. It's a moving, living relationship, and it's a cool place to be.

How have you navigated, you mentioned money and she, you know, I think when one of your podcasts, she was like an Uber eats driver and doing, like, multiple jobs at one point, because essentially you went from having money to not making an income.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, when I wouldn't say you were you. Well, you were kicked out of the church and in a sense of a community of people and pushed to the side for a season of life for a lot of people. Right. And not considered or not given opportunities.

Right.

I mean, how did you make money these last four years? How have you, you know, people giving you jobs? Did you give a chance somewhere? Did you make your own money?

Like, I'm good at making money. And. And so that's like, we had to get. I had to put my hand up and ask for some help. So I had some friends that loved us enough to be able to help us because we had some money, say, like, nobody, no one's prepared to blow up your entire life with. With no, like, plan. I mean, it was just awful and so very scary place to be. And by the grace of God, we made it out and we needed help to get to a place where I could, in a healthy way, begin to start businesses and do things again. So for that first chapter, I had a job with an amazing company, a guy in Florida named Joe Johnson, who just hired me I said, I need a job, and you have availability. And I loved it. I did that for almost well over a year. Laura had two jobs at that time, and we just were like, this is where we're at. Let's go make it work. We're gonna do it all again. And we have. And now our life is different, and it's a beautiful place to be.

But, yeah, money. We were in love without money. We learned how to love when we had money. And then we found out again, we're not about money. Cause we still love each other. And now we're doing better than we were. So I think, you know, it's definitely a cool story of God providing. And when people say the church kicked you out. Yes and no. There were churches and pastors that definitely helped us out. Absolutely. Yeah. No fanfare. Nobody knows. So that's not a completely fair shot of, like, all the church turned their back on you. No, mine did.

Right.

And that's actually okay because I was, you know, the way it was handled, whole nother combo. But there were. There was faithful people that helped us out. So we are the products of really graceful, precious friends that were willing to stand with us in the fire. Not just with words, with money, with help, with grace. And so I wouldn't be sitting here without them.

And how has your relationship with God changed since all of this?

So my relationship with God has been strong my whole life, even in the midst of my own sin and pain and lies. And it's funny because I used to work with a lot of, still do, a lot of drug addicts in New York. You find there's like this underbelly of functioning drug addicts. Heroin, cocaine, meth, you name it. And there's people who look like you, and they are dying as addicts. Wow, that was a. I became one as well. But I remember talking to a guy who said, man, I still hear God's voice when I'm high. And I know it's not right, but God never leaves me. I can hear him when I'm high, can hear him when I'm drunk, can hear him when I'm sober. And I used to wonder, I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm never going to tell somebody. No, you didn't. But I look back on my own life, and even while walking towards bad decisions, I can remember vividly feeling compelled to not do this. Or there's a way out and there's an option here. And so I've never been, like, mad at God, except for the combo about how I even got there.

But I had so many opportunities, Louis, to do this right, to own it, to get help. I didn't take it. So I was never like, why, God? I'm like, I know why. I'm. I'm dead without you. And I just haven't listened, I haven't obeyed, and this is the price. So I feel like my relationship with God now is much. I think there's a different type of pressure when you're a preacher, and it's not good, it's not bad. It's just different.

Yeah.

And I've really enjoyed this season of just being able to. Everything that I discover, I get to put it back in myself, and most of my life would discover something, try to do something, and you try to help other people with it. That's a beautiful thing to do. I love that. I love preaching. It's awesome. But in this season, it's like, you know, I'm gonna preach with my life when I can, but my relationship with God is just. It's. I would use the word, I feel soft, feels kind, feels generous, feels graceful.

That's beautiful.

Those are words I would not have attributed before. I felt like I had an agreement with God before that I'm a lost cause, but I'm gonna still work as hard as I can for you.

Wow.

And I want to make God proud. I want to let Jesus, who saved me, feel like I was worthy of the sacrifice. I'm going to try to do what I can do.

You're going to try to perform, right? Yeah.

It wasn't like I knew. It was more like I just. I knew that I was missing it in some areas, and I still wanted to be effective and I still wanted to be helpful.

Yeah. I want to go back for a second to something I meant to ask you about your relationship with Laura, your wife. You know, Esther Perel talks about this, and I've had a number of different therapists and experts come on and talk about this concept of gaslighting. And I heard Laura say this in your podcast. She was like, I was gaslit by you for many years. Right. And lots of term narcissism and all these other terms get caught up with gaslighting.

Yeah.

But how did that affect you? Because, again, I think a lot of women who have experienced that in some stage of their life.

Yeah.

Sometimes with their father, sometimes with their boyfriend, sometimes with whatever.

Right. Yeah.

When she said, like, hey, you gaslit me for this many years. You know, how did that impact you, or how have you been able to navigate, repairing that.

Yeah.

And Anna Gann, for the women watching or listening, how can they do their best.

Oh, man.

To sniff out.

Yeah.

And speak up when they feel like they might be being gaslit by someone in their life so that they.

Yeah.

It doesn't continue for years. Yeah.

So I think Laura would say on some of this, she should have gone with her gut and she should have taken it out of from me and went to somebody else and said, this is what I think is going on.

Not just saying, are you lying to me? And you say, no, I'm not lying to you. And then her be like, okay, I'm just gonna trust him.

So there was a moment in our marriage where I did that kind of gaslighting for a while, but there was a moment where she had kind of caught me in a lie that was tough for me to get out of, really. And I, she stared at me in the eyes and she said, why don't you tell me the truth? And I said, I'm telling you the truth. And I remember we had this combo and she said, I don't believe you. And that was the day that we were never the same as a married couple. I think in her mind it was like this protection mechanism where because up until the end of pre scandal. Oh, yeah, yeah.

She looked you in your eyes and.

Said, I don't believe you. I don't believe what you're saying, and I'm not going crazy. And I was, I'm not proud of this. It's hard to talk about, but I think I was at times cruel with the way that I would do, the way that I would present my own case. It was, it was a way that was just overpowering. So be like, I'm good with words, you know, as you are. And there's a way you can, you.

Know, manipulate language and the conversation and throw a bunch of stuff.

I think what Laura and I have found out is if you're a wife, there is a line of weird paranoia. We're not talking about that. We're talking about if you feel something's up, you probably need to get someone who you trust to soundboard a little bit. And I think as a husband, if there's mass defensiveness with aggression, you got serious problems. So I would, I would. On the side of the amazing women that are, are avid listeners, for you, it's a red flag for sure. Doesn't mean that there's something going on, but people who have nothing to hide hide nothing. So if it's. Let me see your phone? No.

Why?

Because of the principle. The principle of, like, it's. It's easier to slide that thing over, and then you can talk about, where's this distrust coming from? But it's after you have tried to, you know, validate how you feel. Like that's a validation. Doesn't always mean agreement. It just means, I hear you. Okay, that's a. That's a thought. And if you want my perspective, here it is. But to shut it down with a direct, you know, denial in a fight that typically leads to or is a symptom or a sign of some stuff going on, something. I mean. I mean, over half of marriages end due to infidelity. So this isn't, like, a rare thing. This is how you get caught up in lies. I don't think most men who set out the gaslight are trying to be evil manipulators. I think from my own experience, you just catch yourself in such a stupid position where your only hope is to just cause as much confusion as you.

Can to get out of it.

To get out of it. And that's. So Laura's talked to a lot of women, and sometimes now she'll ask me for my perspective as she's helping somebody. I think she encourages women to go with your gut. Go with your gut and ask somebody about it and try to gage the reaction of the man in question. Is he open to it? Is he trying to, or is he defensive like that? Defensiveness is a b word that Laurie uses a lot, and I still. It's still something I have to continue to always work through because I'm still getting through that. Like, from all the way back when I was abused, little guy, when I didn't feel protected, that this. I've always been a fighter. I've always been a guy who's like, tell me the rules so I can break it. Didn't know where that was from. Found out. And because my therapist asked me, she's like, have you always gotten in trouble? I'm like, oh, since kindergarten. She's like, if you're at a red light and nobody else is around, you running that thing all day, I'm like, everyone doesn't do that.

Right, right.

I'm like, why? That doesn't make any logically. Why would I stay? I mean, that law is stupid. And she's like, yeah, not everybody thinks like that. There's a lot of people who'd stay at that red light. I'm like, well, those people must be really fun at parties. But that the concept of understanding where defensiveness comes from. Everything has a root, and once I found out that root, I catch myself all the time. Now go, why am I being defensive? I have nothing to hide. Please, please start that again.

Wow.

I had an interaction with my neighbor the exact same way. She's an older lady from Ukraine, and we were having a very mild, neighborly conversation about where my dog leaves his, and it was going so bad. And I went, ma'am, do you mind if we start over? And she goes, no. And I said, I'm Carl. You are. Whatever. I started this. This is on me. I can make sure my dog doesn't do this. And we laughed and we be, but I had to consciously snap out of this. My fight first, defend first mechanism. So it's not something I just have arrived at. So I think, in general, defensiveness is typically something to look into.

What I'm hearing you say is, if a woman is experiencing uncertainty in their gut, lean into it, confront the man they're with, and if they still feel uncertain, if that man hasn't made her feel safe to what she needs to feel safe, whether it's justified or nothing, but it's whatever she needs to feel safe.

Yeah.

Then maybe you needed to find a therapist to talk to, a friend to talk to and say, hey, am I going crazy here? Yeah, I feel like I might be gaslit, but he's telling me he's saying the truth.

Yeah.

Something still doesn't feel right. And start kind of unpacking that and see how to take the next steps.

Yeah.

To get your. To create safety for yourself and clarity within the relationship.

We've been doing this for our whole lives. We've been helping couples, you know, and rarely there. There is the. The type of marriage with the. The wife or the woman is super paranoid, and it's crazy.

Mm hmm.

It's few and far between them.

Right. It's rare.

Very few. Is there? Where'd you go? To the gym. No, you didn't.

It's more of a probably wound they haven't healed correct from someone else.

Doing this is a legitimate thing. So for the guy who's sitting home right now to like, it's not me, I'm the other guy, it's like, okay, it could be, but that's why it's. It's always helpful to get another set of eyes in there to say what's going on. Let me. Let me objectively look at your situation and just try to give you all some wisdom. And it's crucial if we would have done that, who knows, right?

Man, this is powerful. I'm curious, how do you feel about the leader of the church who kind of helped you, brought you up? What's your relationship with him like now? What's his name?

Brian Houstone.

How do you feel about him? What is your relationship, or lack of with him now?

Four years after this, no relationship, zero communication, talked. I think we had one email exchange after I was fired and we haven't talked since. Really, it's nobody's fault. It's just kind of the way it is. I don't harbor any bitterness towards him. I think in that way, our relationship, I failed him as one of his leaders, and that's the reality.

And he failed you in certain ways.

Sure, absolutely. But I failed first, so that's what I get to focus on and how he handled it afterwards. That's another discussion for other people. It doesn't do anything for me. So I have learned how to stay free of offense, is to look at myself in the mirror. Where did I go wrong? What did I do? And then would I feel the temptation to point fingers or want to get mad, which is there. It can be sometimes. Often. Other times I don't think about it. There'll be some days where I'll just. Will be consumed with anger or bitterness or whatever. I just try to give grace because I need it. I need people to give me grace. So I don't want. I know the measure that I give will be give it back to me. So I think about that often when I want to judge anybody. I don't want that kind of judgment coming back at me.

So did you used to be a more judgmental pre scandal?

No, no. I think subconsciously I was way less judgmental because of the stuff that I was hiding.

Because you knew, you're like, oh, it's okay, you can, you know, I don't judge you because I know the back of my mind. Yeah, I'm doing some of this.

It was, it was. It was a. It was a juggle. I mean, because there are times where I would be hardcore, almost legalistic on some things and other things super gracious. So that was a confusion in my own mind, right. My own life. But with Brian, where we. He. I focus on the good too. You know, some people go through a horrible situation and they don't grieve properly, so all they remember is the pain. Yeah, I got great help with grieving, so I grieved my relationship with one of my spiritual heroes. He was that. He's like, I have the greatest dad in the world, Brian, was, you know, the next thing I had to a man that I really looked up to and trusted, helped me, gave me a chance to do great things, and it went bad.

Yeah. What do you say to people that. Or how have you learned to express this and feel this? That when a man or woman does a bad behavior or hurts someone or does something that they shouldn't do, legally, morally, ethically, all the different things that you could do, but they're not always that way. And a lot of the times, they are also doing some good or kind or generous or, you know, gracious or all these different. They graceful. How do we navigate this? The dynamics of, okay, there's a person in my life who did something really bad to me, but they've also done a lot of good. Are they a bad person? Are they evil and wrong? Should I never speak to them again? You know, it's like, how do you forgive? How do you navigate the mess of human beings when we make mistakes? I don't know how to answer this question, but I'm Chris, I'm not sure.

There is one answer to that. I actually think it depends on what's.

Your outcome, case by case, too.

What do you want? Do you want justice? Do you want accountability? Do you want peace? Do you want grace? I think it's just everyone has to make that decision of what am I after? So my relationship with Brian, am I after justice? Am I after accountability? Some of that stuff might be required. I'm after peace in my soul. So that's my choice. How do I get peace in my soul? I forgive and I give grace, and I leave the other stuff to other people and God, that's my choice. If I wanted justice, maybe I'd have a different response. So I think it's. What's your vision? Is a great question to ask people when you're mad. What's the end of the road here? If you don't know it, you got to rethink it, because then you're just wandering around, swinging it. Stuff you don't even know. Like, my goal for this situation here is to have a friendship again, so I'm gonna navigate it a certain way. My goal here is peace, and I never want to talk to them again. This is how I'm gonna.

I'm creating a boundary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Both are healthy.

Do you think you could ever have a relationship with Brian again?

I don't. I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. I think. Yeah, the short answer is God can do anything. Life is long.

Yeah, sure.

I'm good. Like, I don't think we'd ever have a. I can't say that. I don't know. It's not on my radar.

Not something I'm thinking about. Yeah.

I got so many. God bless you.

I don't care.

I don't care what you say, what you do. I hope for the. Hope the best for you, because I know that they've walked through some horrible things as well.

Sure, sure. If you could go, if you could sit in front of your 20 year old self right now with the wisdom you have, the lessons you have, the experience you have, knowing how you were thinking back then, the stuff you were carrying, the lies you were holding on to within yourself, the shames, the insecurities back then. And you could give a personal sermon to yourself from this perspective.

Yeah.

What would you share? And if you had to completely eliminate your. Anything about you and your ego, and it only came from the best way possible, it came from God, through you to this 20 year old version of you.

Okay. Love it.

What would you.

What would I say? Okay. There's two answers here. One is, how much do I want to play this hypothetical game? Because there is a part of me, I've been a youth pastor as well, and I have a teenage son. My brain at 20 is not the same brain.

You're not thinking. Certainly.

I preached messages to 20 year olds.

They're not gonna receive it.

And they nod.

They don't receive it.

They don't. They can't. They don't have the function. So for me to sit down with my 20 year old self and say, hey, bro, you got sexual brokenness, that's not your fault. But, my gosh, where that leads so much pain and carnage. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna send you to this place, and you're gonna talk about all the embarrassing that you've done and you're gonna this 20 year old do it, get the hell out of here. Like, I'm not doing that. I'm good. I'm running. God's forgiven me. I'm saved. I'm filled with the holy spirit. I'm doing good things with my life. I'm gonna get through it. God is a God that brings freedom. I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna get boom. And some of those things are true. But to sit there with that 20 year old and say, hey, this stuff is deep. Deep, deep, deep, deep. It takes a lot of work. Let's do it now.

Oh, Lord Jesus, I'm glad you said that because I can relate to that. Like, people would tell me stuff when I was a teenager, be like, I'm just gonna go after my dreams and do this and don't tell me what to do. You know? It's like, yeah, you may not be in a space to hear it, but let's imagine if I was. So I'm glad you said that, because I think people, you need to be open to receive a message all the.

Time, and it builds regret. Well, what can we do about that?

Of course.

But if we go back and we.

Do it, and it's possible, and say, you're a completely open soul, open 20 year old, open mind, open heart, and you say, whatever message I need to hear, okay, not that this is gonna change your life, but it's like, if you could just speak a message to your younger self.

What's funny about answering questions is you float in and out on your podcast of remembering. You have millions of people listening, and then nobody. It's very tricky because you feel totally free. You're just talking. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let me just make sure that I'm answering this. So I think I would say to that guy, let's start to feel all your feelings. What are they not going to judge them? I'm not going to put you down. You're not going to get in trouble. Let's talk about how you feel. And I would lay out all these topics, and I'd say, how do you feel about sex? How do you feel about this? How do you feel about that? Let's just talk about it. That is the beginning of freedom. And there is some backwards christian teaching that I probably was a propagator of, which is like, hey, die to your flesh. Die to your feelings. Which there's truth to that. But I'm not sure everything's flesh. I'm not sure everything is about this murderous killing of. I think there are things in us as humans that we need to talk about. And I have a friend, his name is Steve.

He lives here in California. And he taught me this principle of, like, if you had all your feelings around a table, who gets to talk?

Oh, that's interesting.

Who gets to talk? All of them should be able to talk. It doesn't mean they get the chair, but it means that wounded 15 year old, he gets to talk. The lawyer in you, he gets to talk. The guy that's bitter, he gets to talk. That's how you get to know who you are. Who's in control. Who's weighing in too much here? There's a part of me that really doesn't like people. Man. Just gonna say it now. I'm gonna direct that guy where to go. I'm gonna stay in control of it. But that's there.

Interesting.

Not right. It's not wrong. It's just how I feel. Oh, my gosh, Louis. Even talking about it feels good. It's, like, just beautiful. Like, we are so quick to judge ourselves and to hurt ourselves and to try to kill the bad stuff in us, and there's some beauty in that, and it's very dangerous because you might be killing something that's in the process of change. Oh, man.

That is so dangerous.

Maybe it just hadn't evolved yet.

That is so.

Maybe it's on the journey somewhere. Can you imagine? Like, I have a 15 year old son. Just can't imagine shutting him down forever because he was working something out. Doesn't make any sense. If someone tried to say that to my son, he has a feeling right now, and you just. You shut him down, you kill him. I would obviously defend my son because he's growing, and there are parts of us, I think, that can use a little bit less judgment, a little bit more discovery, and from there, let's go.

Let's talk.

This doesn't mean you're acquiescing to every feeling, and you're that part of the weird generation we live in that tells young people to go with what you feel, which is, like, I appreciate the sentiment, but if you live a life according to how you feel, we know where that leads. There has to be more to life than going with how you feel. Our feelings are so important, though. So what do we do? The world that I came from, it was all or nothing, really. It was like feelings don't matter. You know, kill them, stand on top of them. Be empowered. Do what God says to do. Read. It's this very empowering version of life change. Okay. And then we used to judge everybody else, really. Therapy people, the feelers, the inner child.

What's wrong with these people?

The inner child people. Oh, here we go with this guy again. Oh, I actually had someone tell me recently that when I use the word addict, I'm using victim language. Oh, yeah. And this guy's a smart dude. And I went, wow, man, that's really interesting. I remember I used to think like you. So I'm not mad. I'm not judging you, but I'm going to keep using it. Number one. Number two, passionately disagree. That by me admitting that I have addictions, that I'm using victim language. You're hearing what you want to hear, right? It's not an excuse. Because I had an addiction to something doesn't mean that absolves my behavior, just means I'm going to freaking fix it, because I know exactly what it is. It's not just a bad day. It's not just a propensity. It was an addiction. So if that's victim language to somebody, God bless you. To me, it's overcoming language when you can actually be strong enough to say stuff like that, man. It's. Listen, some of the strongest men I've ever seen have been in a rehab for people that have blown up their lives, and they're not strong because of their possessions.

They're strong because of what they're willing to change, what they're willing to talk about.

Yeah. What was the biggest lesson from rehab that you learned that how you learned growing up in church kind of dismantled certain things about your relationship to self or viewing other people who had been through challenges. What did that month long in rehab teach you?

My gosh, the longest month of my life. They call it hugging the cactus, which is my favorite way to describe what rehab is like. It's like, you gotta do it, and it's horrible.

It's painful.

Hugs, a hug. I think one of the things that I realized in rehab, especially with my faith, is that I think I was cutting the power of God short by not understanding how many people could help. So I am a guy that believes in the power of prayer. I believe that God is a redeemer. He's a forgiver, that he can break the yoke, break the chains. That's the God I believe in 100%. The way he does that, though, can sometimes be through a doctor in a white jacket. It can be through a counselor. It can be through someone who's not even a Christian or believes what I believe. Like, there's so many things, and I think I was such a true blue believer that I'm gonna. I'm gonna willpower this. I didn't see it like that. I thought it was God power, and I was mistaken, really. I was proud in my own ability. I'm gonna get through this. I'm gonna overcome this. And rehab? I left. I left like this. Huh? I'm gonna. I'm gonna be all right. I'm gonna be all right. I'm not crazy. I'm not a bad person. I have some issues, and I'm gonna freaking spend the rest of my life, uprooting them, making sure they don't transfer into my kids.

I'm gonna tell as many people as I can that freedom is available. That's what I learned at rehab, and I got a lot of work ahead of me, and I'm gonna embrace it. I'm not gonna reject it. And I just can't trade that experience for anything. I mean, it was. It was an awful, beautiful mess there.

Beautiful, man. Do you ever see yourself wanting to lead a church again in some way?

No. And yes. I think that no, and that it's not on my heart, it's not on my mind. No plans. I do love reading silly articles about myself. Still. Still fun. Once in a while. We have this big rollout. We're gonna do a podcast in the church and say, hey, hey, to break it to you. That's not us anymore. Like, we don't. There's no. There's no rollouts. We don't live that life anymore. We're doing a podcast because it's great and it's a venue and an avenue that's a smart. And we're gonna crush that. That's it. There's no. There's nothing. There's no church coming after this.

Yeah. Yeah.

But life is long, and I am open to whatever I feel compelled to do. If I were to ever do a church again, it would be completely different, and it would be vetted, and I'd have everybody that I trust and love stand in front of me and agree that it's a good idea. But that is. I can't fathom that being within the next 10, 15, 20 years of my life. I don't. I got so much I want to do.

Yeah.

And the world is so big. I could do a lot of great things, and we're seeing that already. So I feel like, especially because of the weight of what we went through, I think the appropriate thing to do is just continue to change my life and see where. See where we end up. So I'm open to it. I have no plans. But, man, I never would have thought I'd be sitting here talking to you in Los Angeles, California, talking about this. I mean, far be it from me to tell God what my plans are.

What'S going to happen. Yeah.

Here's how this is going to go.

Yeah, yeah. Here's my plan. He's going to say, nope, that's not it. I want people to. A couple final questions for you. But again, we're talking about a new podcast that you and your wife have launched called lights on with Carl Lentz. And the first few episodes are fascinating. Fascinating. And you learn a lot. You learn a lot about you guys. You learn about a lot about human nature and challenges that people go through and how to navigate, getting through them and realizing that there is peace, there is forgiveness, there is freedom on the other side if you choose to go through it all the way. So it's beautiful to watch.

Thank you, man.

I want people to check it out. Are you on social media right now as well? I see you're posting eclipse, but have you been posting other stuff, too? Carl Lenz on Instagram.

I'm going real slow into that for my own sobriety because I was out of it for so long and I didn't miss it for a millisecond, you know?

You weren't on social media for hours, huh?

No. For years, I put like, two posts up and that was it. Years. Just, just because. And so now I'm on Instagram and Facebook, but I have some people helping me with it. Yeah, keep it a distance, keep it off me. And I'm just using it for the delivery right now, not the interaction. Yeah, it's all answer five or six people just because I appreciate them being there on the comment thing. But, like, I'm not wading through it going, does this guy approve? Is this guy care? Like, I've been through too much to do that. So I am back on social media in what I believe to be a healthy, sure, sure, healthy way.

What are the lesson you learned from being off social media for almost four years?

That it is very, very, very effective if you use it wisely, very, very deadly if you don't.

Wow.

There's really no middle ground. So if you are prepared to handle social media in a responsible, diligent, intentional way, it's a beautiful thing. But if you let your guard down, it's going to be a doorway to images that you don't want to see, don't need to see, voices that have no right to spend any time in your head. Social media is a conduit of that. Like, who on earth told us that we get to open this phone and let the opinions of many, you know, torment our lives? What are we doing to. But we all do it. We all really do. Look at comments and approval. We know that it's stupid, and we all do it. I got some likes, got some comments, got some interactions. It's like, all right, we're gonna play the game if we have to, but this is so stupid. Like, that doesn't mean it was good.

Right?

The fact that, you know, your podcast is huge and great, and yes, it has mass interaction, but that's not where your value is. It just happens to sometimes line up with legit things. But I have a feeling you would still do what's on your heart to do, regardless of if it was filled with fanfare. I just have a feeling.

Yeah.

And there's a lot.

I started it with no one, nothing. Nobody was watching one person at a time. It was like. And I just did it because I enjoyed it. Right. I'm still doing it now because I'm fascinated by human beings and how we can all improve our lives.

Yeah.

But that's interesting. Yeah. I spent seven days recently without my phone on, and it's just freeing to, like, even just take a day or take hours where you're not on your phone is a freeing experience. It creates space.

You can think, oh, your brain is wired to not do that. Have you ever reflected on your life and been like, man, I wish I was on social media more?

Yeah. Never.

I'd never once.

Scary thing is to say, how many years have I been on social?

There you go.

Like, how much time have I consumed just on my phone?

Yeah. I've never once been like, man, when Roman was five and, you know, my girls were little baby girls, I wish I would have sat there and scrolled longer, like, it just never happened. So I want that to be a part of my decision making. I have gone. I wish I would have spent more time looking at my balls.

Yeah.

And just enjoying some moments. So that means in this chapter, I'm not messing around.

Yeah. I mean, growing up in christian science, the, you know, Mary Baker Eddy who wrote in the book science and else, she said Stan Porter at the door of thought. Because we need to be guarding our minds more. We need to be guarding our thoughts more. And Stan Porter. And make sure we say, oh, I see that. I don't want to be looking at that.

Yeah.

And, man, have I been guilty of, like, looking at the wrong stuff for most of my life.

Same.

Right. And those images influence your brain, your thoughts, your mind, your dreams influence your DNA. The more you are consuming things, listening, viewing, looking at whatever it might be, and then fantasizing, thinking about being angry about whatever it is.

Ruminating.

Yeah. And one of the things my dad did that I really appreciated as an adult when we were growing up is when they were commercial, we didn't watch the news because he didn't want us to watch fear based entertainment.

Wow.

So there was always bad stuff happening on the news. So he's like, why am I going to show this? We can read something and read this happened today, okay. I'm informed on the news. I don't need to be entertained by fear to create a reaction of more fear in me. So he, we didn't watch the news, but he was informed and read the paper. And we never watched commercials when we were watching tv because the commercials were filled with prescription drugs. And here's what's wrong with people, and here's what you need to solve it. Medication. Most of the commercials you watch today are about the medications based on a pain you have.

True.

And he didn't want us to be influenced on the material part of our body.

Interesting.

And needing medication to heal versus prayer. Harmony. Correct thinking to help heal. You know, my dad was not perfect by any means and had his own challenges and lies and problems that I had to deal with as well. But those things were a great reminder of, like, standing porter at the door of our mind and our thoughts and protecting ourselves from images. And Martha does a great job of reminding me, you know, I think men can probably, you know, allow images to come in more frequently in term, you know, just in general. And she's always like, we've got to make sure we're guarding our minds from news content, from images, from whatever we're seeing. And I. And our intention here at school of greatness is to hopefully put out positivity, hopefully put out as much information that is good.

Yeah.

Or that can help people.

Yeah.

And I'm grateful that you guys are putting out that information as well on your show. And before I ask a couple final questions, Carl, I want to acknowledge you for your journey, your healing journey, sharing with others that healing is possible, your healing journey privately with your wife and your family that most people will never know about what you guys have gone through. Obviously, you're sharing some of it. And I acknowledge you for just owning the things that you're ashamed of, that you aren't proud of, that you did to hurt yourself, that you did to hurt others, because it's really hard to do. It's really hard to do. So I acknowledge you for owning these things and for saying, I'm going to figure out whatever the meaning is of this and make the most of it to serve, which it sounds like you're doing. I want to serve whether five people listen, you know, 5 million people, if it's working at a job, if it's doing this, if it's just, it's what it sounds like you're doing now. So I acknowledge you for the journey you're at right now. I'm excited to see how you continue to serve people and how you continue to live your life.

And I'm just grateful that you were so open and honest here with everyone. I think it's really powerful. So I appreciate it.

You don't leave a lot of room. You don't leave a lot of room to take it. And I say this with that standing porter.

You say Porter, stand porter at the door of thought.

So, there's an old writer, Paul, the apostle Paul, take captive every single thought that is to me, where this keeps coming back to is like, we have to really be careful that we don't take for granted that the stuff we're thinking is good or bad. We need to check it out. But to me, that's a. It's such a concept that it flows in so many different ways. But when I read that in the Bible, I'm just like, I need to take captive every thought, and that's that to me. I've had to change my mind. I had to change what I say and in turn, has changed who I am. But it started, for me, changing my mind.

Wow. That's beautiful, man. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end. It's called the three truths. Another hypothetical question. You've had many of them today, but if you could imagine that you get to live as long as you want, you're very old, and you live a life of service, and you see your kids grow, all the good things happen, but it's the last day on earth for you. And for whatever reason, everything you've shared to the world, your podcast, this interview, books, anything you've ever put out there, we don't have access to. It's gone from this physical world. Got to go with you or somewhere else. But you get to leave behind three truths, and this is all the world would have of your content. It's kind of like, what would be the three biggest lessons you would share if it was the last day of your life and we don't have access to any other content that you have, what would those three truths be that you would leave behind? Wow.

Unbelievable question. Did you think of that?

Yeah.

Well, I have a feature on lights on where I end it with asking people the three truths like this. Just steal it on the spot. I think the first thing I would say is that God loves people, and he wants to have a relationship with you, so don't settle for distance. When you can have intimacy with God almighty and Jesus saves like that, to me is a beautiful thought that I would. That's the very. If I had to go today, I'd want people to. What did that guy say? He said that God loves us.

Wow.

I'd be happy with that. So the next two might be good, but, man, that's the, that's the one that is the. Has been the most powerful for me, when it went from religion to Jesus is real. I'm not crazy. The grace of God changed my life. Like, that, to me, is something I would love people to think about. And then the second thing would be be kind and then a period. Because to me, kindness is such a beautiful currency that the reason why we don't see it in our world a lot is because people don't see it in their own lives a lot. And we can't figure out why people are so nasty. Can you imagine people that are nasty to you? Can you imagine what their head must be like even going back into social media? I see some of the comments people leave me and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm not even mad. You must be brutal to yourself. So every day I try to remind myself, probably gonna have to end up getting a tattooed because I'm that slow, that thick headed. Be kind today. What does that mean? I don't know.

Let's go find out everywhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then be present. Because I feel like I spent a lot of my life going to the next thing, going to the next thing, going to the next thing, and never enjoying what I actually had. And I never want to fall victim to that again. I look back at my life and I'm like, I never, ever really took good control of being present. A lot of it was my sin, a lot of it was my brain, a lot of it was my life. And someone who was just regular human pressure. Now I'm forcing myself, and I'm an ADHD 45 year old bro. I'm not designed to be able to be the guy who meditates, but I have chosen to become a man that is willing to be present. And that means there are times where I need to sit down and I go, you know what? It's all going to be okay. It's all gonna be okay. So let me be present. And it's changed my life.

Beautiful, man. One final question, but I wanna make sure people check out the podcast. Lights on, please. Carl Lenz and your wife Laura, that shares so much. So again, if you're a woman watching or listening. Check it out. Cause you hear a lot from Laura, sharing all of her thoughts, all of her feelings, what she's dealt with, how she's recovering, how she's learned to forgive herself, you, all the different things.

Yeah.

And it's a fascinating conversations, multiple series, multiple episodes in that series. You got your clips on social media, Carl Lentz on social media, Instagram and everywhere else.

And then the b side is the platform that my podcast is on. So it's a platform built around vulnerability. It's almost like a recovery thing in that, like, the only thing that platform wanted to do was to build a place where you couldn't get canceled, and you had to be honest. So, only a couple voices on there, of which I'm one, but I jumped at the chance to work with them because the team is epic, and. But the platform, hopefully, is going to be what the future looks like for every platform. So it's like, from the. From the founder to everybody on it, our one goal, are we being honest? That is what the b side is, so people can check out that app. It's a b side app.

Okay.

It's just cool. It's just. It's stuff like, it's men like you, people who are changing what people think about vulnerable men. I doubt anybody would look at you and go, that's a weak dude. That day is over. People look at you, this huge, strong, charismatic, kind man, and go, oh, man, he's Annie's vulnerable man. Imagine if our world equated men with being kind and vulnerable. What kind of world would we have?

Absolutely, man. That's my mission, too, man. I mean, obviously, we're all imperfect in our own ways, but, you know, trying to become better every day is the goal. Same final question. What is your definition of greatness?

I think greatness is staying true to what you feel God has called you to do. That's great. It's the pursuit. It's not necessarily the outcome, because there are some things that look greater, like someone might have billions of dollars, but it wasn't great. And conversely, there's a man that's loved his wife, raised his kids, been faithful in his community, and that's what God called him to do, and he was faithful to it. So I feel like that, to me, greatness is. It's. We're all going to get called to do different things. But how did you. Did you stay faithful to it?

Wow.

That's what a great man is.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as athenae ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to let learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox. Over@greatness.com. newsletter and if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.