@ Sea With Justin Mcroberts

We are walking through the book Sacred Strides. Dan is asking questions, and we're re-narrating this book because it's cool. And I'd like to get it in your life somehow, shape, or form. So Dan has known me for a very long time; we've been partners for, goodness gracious, like a couple of decades, and we've done many different works together. And so he has a unique take on my work and what I'm doing with it. And it's been fun to walk through these chapters, have Dan point stuff out, and show me where the work could have made this a better project. - What a terrible podcast! I'm kidding. Join us as we go over the lessons and stories of Chapter 7. Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble 

This week we take a look at Chapter 6 of Sacred Strides. There's a turn in this chapter and it has to do with value. I get a glimmer of what it is to work hard on something and to do that with friends, true friends. It's been a minute as the holidays and all kinds of stuff happened. I turned 50 this month and in this episode, we explored a bunch - Check it out. Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble 

Welcome to the odd, like a spiral, like a downward spiral of information and conversation that has become this podcast because, in essence, I am the host, and I am hosting Dan Portnoy, who is playing host to me.  Let's start calling a media company, Meta. There are lots of triggers going off right now. Some of them are justified, but not all of them. Today, Dan and I walk through the book Sacred Strides, digging into the story and talking about the themes, giving you an opportunity if you liked book, which I think you did, if I'm honest. And give you an opportunity to dig a little bit deeper and hear more about it. And if you have not come across the book or giving it a shot, giving you all kinds of reasons to to do it. This is a chapter chapter five. That is entitled, Pacing Myself or Coffee, College, and knowing my limits. Dan, welcome back to the show. Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The

We are marching back through the book Sacred Strides, looking at different chapters, chapter by chapter. We're on Chapter Four, digging into elements of the book that will just kind of follow the arrows that the book provides. Because when I write, and I wrote this book, I never really intended for a book to be a whole thing. I intend for a book to point to other stuff and you are in the culture around you. So we're following those arrows and having the conversations around him. So welcome. Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble 

Another episode with producer, Dan Portnoy, marching through the book Sacred Strides. We're going to dive into Chapter 3 today - Staying In My Lane. This is a chapter about limitations - something we love to talk about.  Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble 

We are doing a series in and by which we're digging back into and through the book Sacred Strides - chapter by chapter talking about the dominant themes in the book or extras on top of the book what you know what it looks like to apply some of the things that I get to in the book. Dan, who's been a friend for a long time and has produced this podcast from its beginning, has a really unique perspective on my work and on me as a worker. And so it's fun to talk about my stuff and have Dan poke around a little bit at, "Hey, what's behind this or underneath this? What's after this?" And so we've enjoyed doing this podcast series up to this point and we expect to continue to, and we think you are as well, judging by the numbers, the metrics. So this is chapter two of the book Sacred Strides, and will you please welcome Dan Portnoy to the microphone? Let's dig in.Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - Th

Dan and I are doing a series of podcasts focused on my book. Reintroducing folks to the book Sacred Strides. We began last week with an overview of the book before it got into the introduction. And like why I wrote the book and some surrounding themes. This week, we will dive into Chapter One and talk about it. Dan is going to draw some stuff out. One of the things that's great about Dan and my partnership with Dan is that Dan has a unique perspective on the work I'm doing. Working more collaboratively with people is an enjoyable part of being an artist. So, welcome to this episode of The @Sea Podcast and interview with me, conducted by producer Dan Portnoy, centered on the book Sacred Strides. Here We Go. Summary The book "Sacred Strides" with Justin McRoberts and Dan Portnoy. 0:07 Balance and prioritization in life and work. 1:15 Work-life balance and prioritizing projects. 5:43 Work-life balance and self-care. 9:39 Creativity, passion projects, and work-life balance. 14:24 Creativity, identity, and disillu

Welcome specifically to this new series. It's going to be a deeper dive into the book Sacred Strides, which I released earlier in the year. And I get to spend some time talking with my friend Dan Portnoy, who is also the producer of this show. So if you've been around the @Sea podcast for any amount of time you have benefited from and enjoy Dan Portnoy his work, I deeply value him as a friend and really value him also as a work partner. So what's gonna happen is instead of me just talking about the book, or trying to interview myself in some sort of like, like comedic Monty Python style, although that was, that was an that was an idea entertained. Dan's gonna ask me some questions beginning with this first episode, talking about some of the history leading up to the release of the book, why it was important and what I was hoping to do with it. Links For Justin:Coaching with JustinOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and Th

Several years ago, six-ish, I think I don't really remember. Years ago, I started making myself available to artists, to ministers, to entrepreneurs, folks who had worked in fields that I had worked in, and I started doing so for free. And I wasn't calling it coaching. At the time, I was just making actual meetings to answer questions, and they were questions that had been coming up. And if you've been in an industry for long enough, this happens to you, as folks start asking you, Hey, how did you get there? Or what did you do about this? Or hate if x happens? Do you have a solution for scenario questions begging for some sort of wisdom from someone who's further down the line? So it's a little bit natural. And it was at the time, it felt like a very natural outpouring of me being in music and art and in religious practice. for a really long time, folks started asking questions. I started making it a serious thing by setting meetings, now called coaching. At the same time, a number of those same folks were as

 I used to think the phrase, everything in moderation sounded like wisdom. I mean, it was the piece of wisdom folks would dole out when we talked about work-life balance and we talked about alcohol. And we talked about video games, everything in moderation, everything in moderation seemed like the thing that one would say that the goal would be to find the correct balance between all of these things. And that meeting in the middle of all things is still his dominant value. I just got an email, actually, from a work friend with whom I'm putting together this project. And there are differing opinions about how to spend the time on this retreat. And one of the participants said, Well, we will meet in the middle where everyone is happy. It says the notion that somehow there's this middle space between all things, and if we can just find the middle space between all things. Everything in moderation, we'll all be happy. And I'm just kind of over it. I no longer think that everything in moderation sounds like wisdom

A few weeks ago, I was in the middle of a call with a client, an artist I'm coaching. When? Well, we talked about the project he was doing, which is a project, by the way, that he'd been dying to do for three or four years. We finally created the time we got some money involved. And he was able to put this project together. And what he said to me in the conversation, he said I know that it's good. I just wished that it was great. So we dove into that. But what's the difference between this being good and being great, and the more he talks, the more he self-identified with that tension. In fact, at some point, he said, I know that as an artist, I'm just good. But I wish I was great. Which then begs another series of questions. And it's led to this reflection, and we've talked three or four times since then. So we've talked about these things. And this reflection comes from those conversations, that in every facet of his career, he will look at what he was looking at, what was in front of him, and what he was a

During the first round of the 2023 playoffs, Stephon Curry of the Golden State Warriors, my favorite team, was on the sideline, and his head coach, Steve Kerr, came to him and said, I'm going to rest you for a little while to save your energy. Now, let me hit pause here and confess, admit to pointing out, yes, you are getting a sports analogy. And so if you're not a sports See, type person, and you're not down with the sports ball, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for several reasons, one of which is that they are just such great analogies and images. Sports really do provide some wonderful parallels to the practice of life in general. So yes, I'm a sports fan. And yes, I like the Golden State Warriors. I love Steph Curry. And having lost both my other teams to Las Vegas. I'm celebrating and savoring my relationship with the Golden State Warriors. So with a few minutes left, I believe in the third quarter, head coach Steve Kerr comes to Steph Curry, potentially the greatest point guard in the history of basketball, and s

One of the conversations that I've been in for many years led to the desire to put together the book, Sacred Strides. And one of the conversations that comes up now that the book is out in the world has to do with burnout; you have most likely been around or been privy to or been in a conversation about burnout. One of the pivotal scenes or moments in the book sacred strides is one in which I point out how many folks actually experienced burnout in the ministry field. That's something along the lines of three out of every five persons who functions as a minister experiences burnout. 60% of the people who work in ministry claimed to admit to experiencing burnout. Usually, with statistics like social stats, the number tends to be a little skewed. Because with something like burnout, there tends to be kind of a shame piece where folks don't want to say they're burned out, so they don't. So if it's three out of five, and if it's 60%, by stats, you can assume there might be a few more folks than even that. Psychol

I have had a somewhat unusual summer. And so far as I've taken a little bit of actual vacation time, I actually don't vacation much. I've never been one to enjoy vacation very much. Which isn't to say I don't like getting away. I do like the getaway; I like having days off. I like adventure, all that kind of stuff, vacation.It just has had historically this really odd association to it.Some of it has to do with childhood stuff, I think. But a lot of it just has to do with the experience I've had when taking vacations, and maybe you're like me in this, that for many, many years, I would be on vacation. And it would I would find it profoundly disappointing or profoundly unsatisfying. And then I'd come home from vacation and feel like I either wasted my time or I felt tired, or I would re-enter my life like something other than refreshed and ready. So the book Sacred Strides actually commits a couple of pages in a chapter to a conversation about vacation and some reflection on our American practice of getting aw

The more conversations I have about the book sacred strides and dig into the themes in the stories, the more I find myself going back to some of my own source material, which is not to say the stories I wrote about my own life, but the words and the reflections and the teachings of the people who informed that life again, it's not experience that we learn from it is a reflection upon experience. And some of the people I've read over the course of the last 15-20 years had been very, very helpful in clarifying and helping me to learn from my experience, maybe none more, quite as profoundly as Parker Palmer, when it comes to vocation, you may or may not have read the book, let your life speak is really a book about vocation. It's about how we do what we do and who we are in it. In that book, he writes about self-care. And it's linked to service, which is a conversation I end up having, specifically with pastors, but with pastors and artists in my coaching context, but also, again, in the conversations I'm having

My last couple of weeks, two weeks really almost at the mark right now, have been turbulent; I would say they'd been rough. But that's mostly just been turbulent. It's been hard. Not because I wasn't a part of and doing some really great things, I was. I had a wonderful time in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and I was in Santa Cruz with Young Life staff. And I was doing things that were wonderful. I was only somewhat present in some of those things. Because internally, I was really having a hard time. And while there are a number of factors to that, one of the main factors is the two weekends ago was Father's Day weekend. And it's almost always a tricky, sticky, and other kind of icky weekend for me; as a dad, I love being celebrated. Obviously, I like being with my kids. But man, as time has passed, I just miss my dad more on those days. The older I get, the closer I get to his age; when I lost him, the harder it is to miss him when I miss him. So it happens more. It happens less frequently than it used to happen. Bu

I have been, in some way, shape, or form, engaged in conversation about AI technology and our relationship with technology for a really long time. In 1999, or 2000, I read Ray Kurtzweil, his book, The Age of Spiritual Machines. And I was shocked if it was way beyond my understanding the terms he was using the vision he was painting of how life would work in relationship with technology like I didn't have a context for it. And then as time went on, and this is part of what good books do as they provide us with language for things we haven't encountered, yet, I started seeing some of his predictions come to life that we would become not just more dependent upon the machines we use, we become more like them. And they would become more like us; it was a fascinating sci-fi-ish kind of adventure for a long time. And now, I'm going to hit pause here for a second because the place I'm not going to go is this place of sort of Luddite ism, where, like, I'm anti-technology; I'm actually not anti-technology; I love that

You have used the phrase or heard the phrase, 'let's make some memories' or 'let's make some moments.' If you pay attention to the podcast, you know that for the last few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about the passage of time. It's one of the things that came up a lot as I wrote the book Sacred Strides. I'm not just thinking about the way we experience time; I'm thinking especially about how we experienced the time that has passed. And I think, less than experiencing time, the way the calendar dictates it in blocks and then lists, I think we experience time more. So in moments, these clusters of emotional explosion, or implosion, in my reckoning, I think these life moments happen in two ways. Or at least for me, they do. There are probably several more; this is just my little spectrum. One of those ways is moments, I find myself in things like birthdays, or finish lines, you will get tired of me talking about turning 50 This year, but I do; I turned 50. This year, it's a big deal for me. I'm having a momen

 It has been said, and I've come to believe this as a truth, that writing for an author is as much as anything else, a process of self-discovery, that one of the things that happen necessarily, in the process of writing, actually writing is that I see myself, I look into my own soul, I recognize things about my own life patterns, history, my moments, I learned me as I write. And I've been asked a few times, including last night at the book release party for Sacred Strides. What are the things that I learned about myself in the process of writing Sacred Strides? And I think there are three there; there's more, some logistical stuff. But internally, when it comes to my soul, there are three things that I've come to over the course of writing this project. And the first one is this, I really do prefer and want to live a smaller life, not just to live the same life at a slower pace; I want my life to get smaller. And here's some of what I mean by that. There are relationships in my life, institutional and interpe

If you pay attention to my life in any way, shape, or form, you know that I have a 12-year-old, almost 13, and a six-year-old; she just turned six. My six-year-old, I call her the bird. She has a really unique and interesting relationship with time. And over the last, I don't know, three, four years, I've been paying attention to and learning from the way she actually experiences time. So when she has a memory about something, and it's something that was significant to her, if it's something that was important, or she feels impacted by, she'll say that it was yesterday. That's it's the word she uses. Do you remember yesterday? Now, when I hear her say that, my brain registers this calendar image, and I know that the event she's talking about wasn't yesterday; it was maybe two weeks ago; it could have been a year ago. But for her, the relationship she has to the moment to the memory isn't actually predicated on or measured by some, like, grid of blocks with dates and colored words. It's in her soul. That thing