This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Ben Reuben, welcome to Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. Thanks, Kyle. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, I'm excited to talk to you about your Dominion experience and don't worry, we are going to get there, but let's just start easy. Let's start at the beginning here. Where are you located? What do you do for a living and how old are you? Uh so I live in Jacksonville, Florida, but I'm currently uh right now in Paramus, New Jersey. I work for an automotive group called Lithia Motors running their operations uh here in Paramus. I'll be 56 years old uh in about a week. Okay, very good. Well, happy early birthday uh to the rest of the audience, we'll say that as well. But uh I just wanted to be I'm curious, you know, how you found Undaunted Life to begin with. Saying you're from Jacksonville is a pretty good hint because as of now, uh that is our largest audience. It took forever for uh the whip to kind of finish cracking because I mean, I was doing stuff with 11:22 for years and it never cracked the top five and now it is solidly in the number one position. So is that how you found Undaunted Life to begin with? I did. You know, through Church of 11:22 and Pastor Joby and going to the men's conference and seeing you at the men's conference and hearing all about Dominion and watching your podcast. I just said, you know what? This is uh something I needed to take a deeper look at. Well, I'm curious for you because obviously, we've got 900 some odd episodes out there now. You know, people have heard me speak live, people have read my devotionals. We we've done a lot of things like that. Um I'm just curious for you, what about the Dominion program was enticing to you? Because I've talked a lot about Dominion. This is something we we started years ago because guys were just like, "Yeah, yeah, I equip to push back darkness. I want to do that, but I need help at at at my house at in my city, in my place of business. You know, what can you do to to go beyond the podcast or beyond the devotionals? But again, you know, I don't [clears throat] put a lot of detail out there for the generalized public. You really do have to do the application. You really do have to do an interview if you want to hear about what this program's all about. So, what was it that even got you initially interested? You know what, Kyle? I have been through a ton of like corporate style training, right? And and having that type of just personal accountability, but I've never invested in myself for personal growth. In listening to you and reading about Dominion, I went, "You know what? I'm at a time in my life, great in career and and but there's just still some personal growth stuff that I'm missing." And so, just reading about it, I felt like, "You know what? This is a program for me to hold me accountable to to break down some barriers in my own mind uh and just pass by those and and just continue to have personal growth." Okay, so let's let's talk about personal growth, but I want to specifically talk about barriers. Cuz every man I run into, Ben, that talks to me, they always have a a a long list of laments, right? "Oh, I'm not in shape the way I used to be. You know, I don't have the influence at work that I want. You know, I I don't really understand the Bible or theology. I don't know if my wife or kids take me seriously." Like, they've got this long list of laments, but they don't ever try to do anything to knock any of those barriers out of the way and and they certainly don't ever invest any time, effort, or capital in fixing those problems. And so, I'm just wondering again for you, you you identified you had some barriers and you had some areas of that you could improve upon, but you didn't just leave it there. No, I I I didn't, you know, and and just the there's there's a lot of books or there's a lot of stuff you can go through, but having having you and having a group of guys inside Dominion to hold me accountable for things that I'm not doing on a consistent basis. And one of them is, you know, the one that impacted me the most with your program is resilience over strength. Right? And And that was the one right there where I had to realize that that was my biggest weakness that I I was inconsistent of how I did self-care. Right? And And And whether that was working out or was reading the Bible every single day and it was making me the best version of myself for my family. I knew that's what I needed and I needed somebody like you calling me out and the guys that I'm I'm grouped with calling me out if I said I was going to do something and I didn't do it. And it just I was always good about holding other people accountable in my professional life. Mhm. But I was never good at holding myself accountable uh in my personal life. Well, Ben, even just to go a little bit further with that um there are plenty of guys that even come to that realization. Right? Where that's brought to their attention and then, you know, for Dominion it's like, okay, we require an application cuz losers aren't going to fill out an application. But then it's like, okay, we got to set up an interview, but it's not you're not even it's not a freebie, right? Like you I need a pound of flesh that if we're going to invest the time cuz the interviews are directly with me. Again, guys, if you want to apply for this, it's on undaunted.life/dominion, undaunted.life/dominion, or check the link in the show notes. But then it comes time to where it's like, okay, there's a couple of different tracks of this thing and you chose one and it's like, here's the expectation for time, here's the expectation for effort, here's the expectation for the financial investment. And you decide to go for it. And so, why'd you go for it? Yeah, Kyle, that's that's a great question. You know, that it is a lot of uh time and and money, right? And um you know, I I knew I needed to have the accountability, um the one-on-one accountability with you, the one-on-one accountability with the the my Foxhole brothers, right, that are in my group, our 007 group. Um but God didn't, you know, one blessed me financially and when I spend the money on doing something, I will I will stick with it, right? You you got to have some skin in the game to do it. If you have a free program, Kyle, everyone's going to bail off. For me, it was spend the money, get the one-on-one leadership with you, get the accountability with my teammates, um and then really just lean into your program because you could still pay for it, right? I could still drop the money on it and I could never shown up to any of it and got nothing out of it and just wrote it off. Um but you get what you pay for and you got to put your time and money into it and it uh it's well worth uh the investment to to get what I'm getting out of it. Well, Ben, you're right, you know, and I I've said this before, no one changes their life for, you know, some free app that they downloaded or some $200 online course they took or, you know, some weekend event. That's not typically what puts a man on a different trajectory. And look, we have guys that are well-established, you know, you know, we're on team six, seven, and eight now, but throughout the entirety of the program, we've had guys that were well-established, deep into their career, really high up wherever they were working, or really deep and successful in business. And we've had other guys that were maybe a little bit more like had to kind of figure out a way to to pay for the program to where they were still at a good place financially for themselves and for their families. And so it's it's everything all over the place and it's almost like the amount of money doesn't technically matter. It's what the money signifies and what it means because what I've seen and we've seen this since we started the program is when a man finally says, "Hey, I'm putting my yes on the table. I will give you my time. I will give you my effort." All that's left is do you mean it? And so like the financial piece is just a sorting mechanism cuz there's a lot of guys, Ben, that will say, "I'm going to give you my time. I'm going to give you my effort." But they don't mean it. But it's like that that pound of flesh that you have to put in the bowl for somebody to where it's like, "No, no, no, I mean it and this is how much I mean it." But I'm curious I want to go back to some of you you've brought up a few times just overall accountability. A lot of men don't even like that word. They don't want to be held accountable. They don't want it because it's like it it feels like dad's looking over their shoulder, right? Or you know, someone's breathing down their neck or constantly doing that type of thing. So, I'm just wanting to get your perspective uh since being in the program cuz we're about to wrap you know, the the the 6-month version of your program and then we're going to continue continue on into our alumni program which is called Watchman. But then I'm just curious for you, how is that accountability gone for you? Like did it work the way you thought it would? How has it, you know, kind of helped you and just kind of flow from there? You know, Kyle, the people say it all the time the the the words that you say are the worst are I got this, right? For a guy, I got this or I can do this on my own. Um men need to realize that it's it's okay one to be vulnerable. Uh it it's okay to unpack the messiness. Hey, one of the very first calls you and I had was a messy call for me, right? It was it was a messy messy call. Um but once you do that, that's the enemy putting that in in guys' minds too that's just saying, you know, don't unpack it. You don't need this. You got this. And and Kyle, that is the complete opposite. Men like to uh hold stuff in and not share it and then it ends up blowing up somewhere down the road whether you trash your relationship, you trash your kids, or whatever it is, it ends up coming out. So, you have to be able to deal with it with a group of guys that are going to hold you accountable. It's going to stay where you say it, right? What happens in Dominion stays in Dominion. And you got to be vulnerable. And once you're vulnerable with that, the accountability is just you being with yourself. It's just you I don't look at it as accountability per se, it's just I'm being honest. I'm opening it up. >> Yeah. There's there's there's no judgement from anybody within Dominion. Matter of fact, most of the time when you unpack something, someone else is raising their hand going, "You know what? Me, too." That's right. >> Been there, done that. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, cuz again, you've had some of the one-on-one aspect, you've had the team aspect, and it's just when you realize there's there's people all over the country, right? Because Dominion guys, we've had them from Florida to Alaska and California to Pennsylvania like and everywhere in between. You realize, man, there's people all over the country that feel the same way I do, that are working in in the same direction, just maybe with a different, you know, different seasoning in the gumbo, I guess you could say. But uh for the last question, Ben, I'm just curious what you'd say to this because there are guys that are on the fence right now about even applying. Again, if you want to put in an application, they are open now undaunted.live/dominion. But they're on the fence about, "Ah, do I even put in an application?" There are some guys that are putting in an application, but oh, man, they're on the fence about, "Do I take one of these interview slots?" Because I tell them, I'm like, "There's not that many." Right? Because it's me doing all the interviews, one-on-one. And so, it's like I'm not going to have an infinite number. They're like, "Oh, should I take one of these spots?" And then you got guys that, you know, perhaps by the time they're listening to this or maybe they're listening to it just a little bit later, they've gone through the entire process. They've heard about the program. They know what it's going to take in terms of time, effort, and capital investment. And they're on the fence about trying to decide, "Am I going to do this? Am I actually going to do this? Do I mean it? Am I going to give 6 months to this program? Am I going to invest this type of thing in myself?" What would you say to that guy that's on the fence? I I would say, "Do it. Um don't let the enemy tell you not to. Don't use the financial side of it to be a roadblock." You know, many men like to stop at a roadblock and turn around and go the other the Um but this program will will build something in you to where you no longer when something difficult comes, you no longer turn the other way or make excuses for your actions. You will find a way around it. Um It has been one of the most I'm going to say probably the biggest personal growth things I have I have ever done from any books, any podcast, anything like that. You are going to be greatly blessed by saying yes. Whatever level you decide to come into the program, whether it's just the group environment or you decide to do the one-on-one with Kyle, you're going to leave a better man. You're going to leave for on personal reasons, you're going to be a better husband, you're going to be a better father, or maybe it's a boyfriend to to somebody. You are going to come out the other side a much better version of yourself. Well, Ben, I appreciate your perspective. It's been great having you in this program, and I'm glad to have you in for the long haul as well. Thanks again for coming on. Thanks, Kyle. Appreciate you.