This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Richard, after all the times listening to the show, here you are on the show. Welcome to the show. >> In person. [clears throat] In person. >> Isn't that exciting? Yes, it's thrilling. Well, I am uh thrilled to have you on the show uh today and uh just to talk about your experience with Undaunted Life and your experience with Dominion, but let's just kind of start easy. Let's get your age, your location, and your profession, and then we'll get into the questions from there. Yeah, I'm 61. I'll be 62 [clears throat] in the fall. Uh Columbus, Georgia. And I'm an investment advisor. Okay, so uh for where you're at in life, I mean, you and I have done a a lot of coaching and a lot of different things together. You've talked about, hey, in the fourth quarter of life, but you are one of the most lean forward guys that I think I've met throughout all my time in this Dominion program. And we'll we'll we'll get more into that uh because, you know, Richard, just be honest, I'll meet guys that are in their 50s and 60s, and it was like they stopped living decades ago. And I'm like, what what are you doing? Like, you you've got time left on this planet, but I'm curious for you because I just love that my audience spans multiple generations from teenagers up to guys that I've gotten I've gotten emails from guys in their 80s. So, how did you initially find Undaunted Life? Uh I I found it through uh Joby Martin. I came across him. I'd never heard of Joby, and then I started looking him up and doing his podcast and listening to sermons and and then I heard about the Daily Blade. So, I started listening to that, and I'm like, who's this Kyle guy? So, I started checking out who Kyle is, and then I found Dominion through that. And so, after I dug into that, then I reached out to you or vice versa. I can't remember how the connection was, but that's how I found Dominion. So, you found me on accident through Joby, but at this point, I guess you could evaluate who you like better, right? I mean, me. Are you more of a Kyle guy or more of Joby guy? Cuz not everybody likes Joby. I'm a Kyle guy. Obviously. Obviously. That Joby Martin fella, he's got a few things going for him. He's got a big staff, and he's got that long beard and no hair. But hey, you know what? You can't win every title. Okay? Uh so, okay. [clears throat] So, you you find Undaunted Life. You got the Daily Blade. So, it's kind of a shorter time period cuz we started the Undaunted Life podcast in 2017, and the Daily Blade would have been what? Beginning of '25, right? And so, yeah, it's a little bit of a shorter timeline. And then, you hear me talk about Dominion. So, we open up the applications a couple of times per year. Again, undaunted.life/dominion. [clears throat] Undaunted.life/dominion. If you want to apply, apply now. Apply now. We got interviews coming up very, very soon. What was it about the Dominion program? Because honestly, I'm a little nebulous in how I describe it because I really need to explain it to you in a one-on-one fashion for you to really kind of grasp what the opportunity looks like. What was it about the opportunity that made you want to apply to begin with? So, I'm being in the being 60 almost two now. I'm in my fourth quarter, and I'm aware of that. I hope I play overtime, but you know, odds are, you know, I've got 20 years left, hopefully. And so, I've been in the season of like thinking through that, and God's been working with me on the several different things as I prepare for that or enter into that season. And I'll give you two examples of why why what drew me to the program. So, one and these are both These just both happened in the last week. So, it doesn't make any sense. They they don't >> [clears throat] >> But but they point back to why I did this. So, I was in Savannah, Georgia last weekend for a wedding. I started getting sick on Thursday. Had to drive down there on Friday. My nose is running. I feel terrible. I'm sneezing. It's bad. And it got worse on Saturday, and then it was rainy and cold on Saturday, and my family wanted to go shopping. So, we walked around downtown Savannah in the cold rain. Bad idea. I felt horrible. And the more time that went on, I started shaking, and I was I was cold. And and I literally wanted to die. It's a bad feeling. It's just a really bad feeling when you're that sick and you're out in the elements. And uh >> [clears throat] >> I kept thinking the whole time I was doing it, if I could only get back to feeling good. When I feel better, I'm going to go do this or I'm going to push myself harder here. I'm going to you know, whatever. But right now I feel like dying, but man, if I could just feel good again. So that's one thing. And then the second thing is yesterday I had to put my dog down. 13-year-old dog, my best friend, found her at my farm. She went everywhere with me, did everything with me. That dog could read me. You know, if I move left, she moved left. She followed me around the house, watched me like a hawk. We did a lot of life together, me and the dog. And I unfortunately her health declined quickly and we had to make a tough decision. We had to say goodbye to her yesterday. Doctor walked in and said, "Pancreas levels look bad. She's got a bad infection. It's not going to get better." What I was struck by yesterday afternoon after I did that was that day's going to come for me, too. The doctor's going to walk in one day and say, "Pancreas levels don't look good. Kidney don't look good. The lungs don't look good. Something." I don't know what it is. I might get hit by a bus, might not have to experience that. But I'm not going to get a second chance at that point. Uh there's no feeling better. There's no when I get over this, I'm going to. The day is coming when I'm not going to get that chance. For everybody listening to this, we don't know when that day is. So what I'm struck with was what am I going to do with the days I have left? I hope they're 20 more years. They may not be. But I'm in a season of asking myself, "What am I going to do with the days I've got left?" Because the days are loaned to us. We're on loan. And we're not promised tomorrow. So when when you came along and I started pushing into it and I started studying it and I heard the Tebow comment about, you know, "I want to leave everything on the field. I want to arrive at heaven exhausted to arrive well-rested would be a shame. I really decided I want to finish this well, as well as I can. So, the lean forward is like I don't want to pull back and coast and sit on the beach or play golf or do woodworking or whatever the things are. There's nothing wrong with all that, but but I I want to I want to finish stronger than I am now, faster than I am now, doing more than I do now, reaching more people than I reach now. And I saw your program as as the gateway to that or the next right step to it. So, that's really all those other things going on in my life this came along at the right time at the right season. I felt like God put put you in my path for this. That's great. I appreciate all all that detail. And Richard, I can remember I can go back to your interview and I remember explaining the program to you because it's a lot of information in a truncated, you know, time period. So, sometimes it takes guys a little bit of time to wrap their minds around it, but you got it immediately. You understood the value. You had done stuff that was >> [clears throat] >> maybe not terribly similar to this, but at least tangentially similar. Like you could see some different elements of different things. And you committed immediately. Like cuz I you know, I I tell people all the time. I'm like, your answer tomorrow is going to be same as your answer next week. So, let's just you know, let's dispense with all the the you know, oh, I got to think about it for the next 10 years. Like it's no, like we we we just got to take care of business now. You decided in the moment whenever I was like, yeah, you're you're clearly a fit for this program. Do you want in? And then you're like, yes, let's do it. So, talk about that because it's [clears throat] probably you know, even further from what you just got through talking about, Richard, which is like you already knew you you wanted to finish strong and you saw this is kind of a catalyst for that. Yeah, well, correct. And and and so I I paused for a second cuz I thought, do I take a day to think? No. No, no. It's fish or cut bait. Here it is. I've been nudged this way. I felt like God was moving me towards this. And then the offer comes. Frankly, I didn't know you were going to offer me to do it. I I thought I'm 61 and I'm maybe past the the level he he'd want to have a guy do this thing. Uh so when the offer came, I'm like, "Absolutely." I mean, "Just go. I mean, I I've I've made worse decisions with my money than this. If this turns out not to be great, I've made a lot more doing what I do for a living. I've made a lot more worse decisions than than that. So I'll I'll I'm I'm not going to let the money hold me back. I'm I'm going to do it. Let's go." So and Richard, let's go to the age thing because at this point I've I've done interviews on the show with a bunch of different guys from team one through all the way through your team, which is team eight. And it's guys from their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. And you are the elder statesman of of the Dominion program and then you're going to be going into Watchmen, which is our alumni program. And so for me, I never saw that as a deterrent because even I look at my own Sunday school. I mean, we have way too many people in there. So if you're listening to this and you're my Sunday school, probably find another one. There's way too many. I I can't remember everyone's names. But we have people from have babies at home, like babies babies, all the way up through have been empty nesters for years. And so the fact that we have that wisdom, that doesn't mean you can't learn anything from the somebody if somebody with a newborn. It doesn't mean you can't learn from anybody cuz you have 20-year-olds on your team. And the the but the value of being able to go back and forth, you know, we we've heard from some other guys that, you know, they're kind of doing what you do for a living, but they're 30 years less experienced than you are. And so your perspective that you can give to a program, it's like a cheat code for me. Yeah. Yeah. And I've learned our our group is yeah, your late 20s, I guess, to me. And so there's 30 years, 35 years gap in there. Mhm. But every single guy in our group has contributed something. I've learned from the 28-year-old or the you know, so it it's been and I I hopefully I've provided some I I got some experience We just celebrated our 37th anniversary yesterday. >> Congratulations. That's incredible, man. so yeah, there's nobody else in my group got 37 years. There's guys in my group that aren't 37 years old. So, they're looking at me going, "How'd you do that?" You know, so it's been great the interaction between ages. That has not been a deterrent at all. I don't come as the sage to all sit at my feet and understand everything I've got to tell you. I'm learning from them as much as they're learning from me. I hope. Yeah, and I think that's the the feedback that I'm getting from everybody is the spread because there's a lot of ways to break up the different teams cuz this time we had team six, seven, and eight. We had three different teams going. And so it's like, okay, you could break it down by geography, you could break it down by age, you could break it down by a million different things. I was like, forget the age thing. But we did kind of do a little bit more of a geographical team thing. So, guys would have opportunities to get together outside of our normal meetups. But just throughout the program because we're in, you know, the fifth month of your program. We're going to be wrapping up your program in June because we've got the new team starting in July. And guys, again, get your applications in. As of right [clears throat] now, I mean, it's first come, first serve when it comes to the interview slots. And we have a very limited number of those in the early part of June. But for you, just talk about your experiences during this program, you know, going through the six pillars of a dominion man, being a member of the team, the meetups, the one-on-one coaching, excuse [clears throat] me, that you and I have done. Let's just talk about your your the value that's been added in the things that you've appreciated from this program. I've gotten value from every part of it. I didn't think I was going to get a lot of value from the notebook. I've done notebooks the material, you know, I've done [clears throat] a lot of notebook things. I've gotten a ton of value from that. I've gotten a value from the the the Bible readings you're giving with it. I've gotten tremendous value from the group. Uh the we we meet our group meets once a week on Zoom. Uh and I I don't miss many of those. I missed last night cuz of our anniversary. But those are very valuable. We an hour in the evening and we we do life. We talk about gritty stuff sometimes. Tons of value from that. The meetup we did was fabulous. Being getting to see guys in person that I've been doing on Zoom call with for 4 months and actually physically meet them and hang out with them and do time with them and eat a meal with them was was was fantastic. And then the coaching the coaching has really pushed me. That's been That's been where I've gotten the most value from it. Was because you you have pushed me to the the more. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more, you know. And uh So the the whole package has been very valuable to me. Uh I I'm not dissatisfied with any part of that, any part of it. It's It's been well worth it. Well, the thing about it, Richard, and you'll hear this from other guys, you'll hear this from me a ton. Like you're going to get out of it what you put into it because I I mean I've told you guys on repeat at nauseam at this point, I'm not your personal cheerleader. I'm not your babysitter. Like I'm not any of those things. Like the I just imagine I I think of like the accountability context where you know, you a guy asks you to hold him accountable because he's got a porn problem or because he's got a gambling problem or drinking problem or whatever. And then you go to do your accountability time, your scheduled accountability time because you went to a Promise Keepers thing 20 years ago and it's like, "Well, we got to do it Friday at 6:00 a.m. That's when I'm going to call you." Then the guy doesn't answer and then you go chasing this guy around and then oh, he maybe he doesn't want to show up to accountability meeting. So you're like, "I'm going to go to your house and I'm even going to pick you up. I'm going to put you over my shoulder and throw you in the bed of the truck and take you to thing." How long is that going to work, right? Is your full-time job going to be babysitting a grown man, changing his diapers, and finding his blanky? And so it's like with you [clears throat] from the very beginning, you're like, "I'm going to absolutely squeeze every last bit of value out of this program." And not only has that redounded to your benefit as an individual man, but the benefit of your family, the benefit of the business that you run, the benefit of your team because not every team member is going to be in the same position in life and is is to give the same level of effort. But I think all of us have been on a sports team where we maybe weren't the most talented kid, but we saw the kid with even less talent than us working twice as hard as we were and seeing what that can do to the entire team. And so I think that that's that's had a tremendous impact. But as we as we round to a close here, Richard, you're going to have a lot of guys here soon that are that maybe they've already listened to this and now they're getting ready for their Dominion interview cuz you know, obviously you got to put in an application cuz if you're not going to put in an application, you're never going to do a program like this. It's going to be too hard for you. And then we do an interview process and we try to, you know, collectively determine, is this the right program for you? Is this the right time? But then it gets to decision time for a lot of people. And some, you know, like you, you took one beat and then you said yes. For other people it's like, oh man, I I really feel like I I want to do this but I need to think about it. Or maybe their their wives aren't as on board about the changes that are going to come for them as they are. Maybe they've done this this whole rigmarole before like, oh, I want to go to this camp or I want to do this program and it's going to change everything. Baby, baby, just let me go. And then they come back and they're the same jerk they were before. And so what would you say to the guy that is on the fence either about applying to begin with or on the fence about joining Dominion? I believe we are what we consume. Period. >> [clears throat] >> So what you can continue to sit there and consume Netflix and um social media and Fox News and all the things you consume and you will become those. Or you can make the choice to consume this material and get equipped and fueled to grow spiritually, mentally, physically to push back darkness. I mean, it's just a choice. I want to I want I want more of what you've got, Kyle. I want to I want to I want to be like you. >> [laughter] >> For lack of a better phrase. But it's it's the consuming the content. So I have consumed this content. I've dug into it. I've taken notes. I I I I'm all in. I'm I'm pouring everything into it I can. Because the alternative is I'm going to sit at home, I'm going to watch Fox News, and I'm going to get jacked up about what Nancy Pelosi said or whatever. It's just a complete waste of time. Um so I've got a I've made the choice to consume this and the other material I'm consuming because I want the output I'm going to get from it. And I'm going to I'm already getting the output. I mean I I'm already seeing a material change in my life from this because I made the choice when you asked the question to go, "Yep, I'm all in." Because I'm and then not only just be all in and write the check, but be all in and do the work. Do the work. And it's been worth it completely. >> You are what you consume. That is a great word. And and ultimately, guys, that's right. Because a program like this isn't just like, "Hey, listen to Kyle ramble about random stuff." You can do that for free here on the podcast, and some of y'all have been doing it for years. It's stuff that's going to take you back to the word. It's going to take you back to the source of ultimate capital T truth. And ultimately, it's providing you with some foundation to build what you say you want to build, which is the ability to push back darkness in your community. But Richard, thank you again for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom, and we'll talk again soon. Absolutely, buddy. Love you. Take care. Thank you. All right.