(0:00) Welcome to the BLTNT podcast. I’m your host, Matt Loria, serving up real stories of business, (0:05) life, technology, and transformations. You’ll hear from interesting people about big changes from (0:10) career shifts to life-altering decisions and the innovations that help make it all happen.

(0:14) It’s about sharing those light bulb moments, pivot points, challenges overcome, and the journeys (0:19) that inspire us to think differently. If you’re on the lookout for insights to propel you forward, (0:23) stories that resonate, or just a bit of inspiration on your next BLTNT move,(0:27) you’re in the right place. Let’s dig in.

All right. Welcome to this episode of the (0:40) BLTNT podcast. I’m sitting here with my friend, York Moore, and I’d like to tell you that (0:46) he’s going to kick off this summer with a series that we’ve got that we’re calling (0:52) The Summer of AI.

Intriguing. (0:54) Yeah. And with his topic of the AI and the mind of God, you’re going to be pretty impressed on (1:03) where we’re going to start this and give you a vision into what we think is going on with AI, (1:08) what it could mean for the world, and get your thoughts on it.

So, (1:11) thanks for being a part of the kickoff episode. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

(1:15) York is the CEO of the CCO, the Coalition of Christian Outreach, and he’s also well known(1:21) as the founder of the Every Campus Movement, and he’s going to explain to us what that is at various (1:27) points throughout this episode. But you’re going to give us a really interesting life story that (1:34) has elements of homelessness, to data science, to being the CEO of a multi-million dollar (1:45) organization, and a professional speaker, and an author, and a dad, and a farmer, (1:54) and an armchair psychologist like myself, and a fellow germaphobe. So, we got it all going on today.

(2:01) We got it all going on. So, yeah. So, you know, I would describe you to my other friends as a (2:08) fashion forward man.

(2:10) Okay. I’ll take it. (2:11) Always good looking.

(2:12) I’ll take it. (2:12) So, and you were just telling me that you make that shirt look even better than what it looks like. (2:18) I try.

Anything for you, man. (2:20) You keep it up. (2:23) You know, the other thing that we’re going to talk about today is one of your talks that I can’t wait (2:29) to hear the summary of, and I actually purposefully did not look it up, purposely did not ask you any (2:34) more questions of it, is the AI and the mind of God discussion that you’ve given.

So, we’ve got a (2:42) lot to unpack here. The various layers of the onion called York Moore, and a good smelling onion (2:49) too. He does not smell like an onion.

(2:51) I feel like this is our first date, man. (2:53) It is. (2:54) I’m getting a lot of compliments over here.

(2:55) Well, we did have that time of our long walk on the beach. We should start the show off by (3:02) explaining to people our special moment. (3:04) That’s right.

(3:05) So, I’ll let you do it. (3:07) So, we’re in the first meeting I’ve ever met, Matt, and we’re introducing ourselves to a large (3:12) group of people. And they say, Matt, what do you enjoy doing? And Matt says, well, I enjoy long (3:19) walks on the beach with my new friend, York Moore.

I didn’t know this guy from Adam. Who is (3:24) this guy? Had me cracking up since the first time, and you’ve had me laughing ever since. (3:28) Oh, thanks.

Well, you’ve had me thinking ever since, and I appreciate your friendship and (3:32) mentorship and everything that you bring to the relationship, especially those long walks. (3:41) Okay. So, let’s start off with a little bit of background, (3:46) talking about childhood, getting us through college, and kind of bump us into (3:52) some of the career stuff that you had going on.

(3:55) Yeah. So, started early on in my life in abject poverty here in the great city of Detroit.(4:03) My dad was a serial womanizer.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my mom was the other woman. (4:09) And so, my dad had a house, a family, multiple kids, and he had this thing with my mom. I didn’t (4:17) know that we were the other family.

I just thought we were poor. And poverty went even (4:23) further into poverty when drugs and alcohol entered into the story, and we ended up in (4:29) homelessness. And we were in and out of homelessness for most of my childhood.

Now, our homelessness (4:34) was not what I would call typical homelessness, even though drugs and alcohol were a part of that. (4:41) Really, our homelessness was an intellectual homelessness. My parents were followers of a (4:46) philosopher named Ayn Rand.

I’m actually named after her. My first name is Rand. (4:51) She’s the founder of a philosophy called objectivism, which is a very ardent atheistic (4:58) philosophy.

And mostly because of their belief in her philosophy, they embraced a way that really, (5:05) I think, set us up for homelessness. Radical individualism, a lack of respect and dependency(5:11) on the state. So, social programmings were something that they weren’t interested in.

(5:16) And much of that came from Rand. I was homeschooled. Learned how to read by reading(5:22) Rand literature, Atlas Shrugged, We the Living Anthem, those kinds of things.

So, it’s just a (5:29) very odd kind of homelessness, but I didn’t know any better. My parents were both educated to the (5:33) master’s degree level. They were very intellectual.

In our homeschooling, you know, they had us doing (5:39) things that were unusual for children our age. And so, when I finally actually went to school (5:45) in the fourth grade, because they were being threatened, the school, the state was going to (5:50) take us away because we were not in school. Insurance officer.

Turns out, Matt, it’s actually (5:56) much harder to homeschool people in the 1970s than it is in 2020. It was unheard of. So, (6:02) they finally sent us to school.

But at the time, we were actually squatting in an abandoned building. (6:08) So, we were stealing electricity, stealing water. You know, it was a duplex.

So, we would just (6:13) hotwire right into the next house. And we lived that way for over a year while I attended school (6:18) for the first time in fourth grade. You know, those were just interesting times, so.

(6:24) Wow. So, where did you go from there? You got out of homelessness at some point. (6:32) At some point.

(6:33) Got through high school in the east side of Detroit or west side of Detroit? (6:39) So, we were homeless. Most of our homelessness was on the west side of Detroit. When we got out(6:44) of homelessness, we were living in a city called Inkster, Inkster, Michigan, which is, in some ways, (6:50) it was worse than being homeless.

Because then there was a normalized, you know, it was the (6:55) height of the crack cocaine epidemic in the late 1980s. Prostitution all around my home. Toxic (7:02) waste dumped right down the street, which we were litigating against.

There was a class action (7:07) lawsuit, which is part of how I actually escaped poverty, was we actually had a very large settlement (7:12) against this treatment plant. But yeah, it was just a, you know, the best way that I can (7:21) describe it, Matt, is being homeless is like a scar on your soul that you constantly are reminded (7:28) is there. So, even though now I’m 56, I’ve been out of homelessness since, you know, my late teens, (7:36) but it’s a scar that will never go away.

And so, just like physical scars in our lives, I think we (7:41) can use them to our advantage. Scars from childhood trauma are not like physical scars in (7:48) the sense that we get to show them off at the bar and tell a great story about them. They’re more (7:53) like the kinds of scars that you want to hide, you want to run away from.

But I think if we’ll let (7:58) it, and we talked a little bit about this at lunch, if we allow ourselves to actually live into (8:02) the pain and the trauma in a redemptive way, we can actually find a better story on the back end. (8:08) We can find freedom from the things that used to oppress us. We can find an opportunity to be (8:14) a better version of ourselves.

And that’s what I chose to do when I went to the University of (8:19) Michigan. I started running from poverty. And that’s what you don’t want to do is just run from (8:25) your trauma, run from your problems, because eventually… Is that the natural behavior, (8:31) though, of a human? It’s the knee-jerk response that we all have to pain just in general, (8:35) whether it’s small pain or significant pain.

But I think over the course of our lives, (8:39) if we want to actually benefit from the scar, we actually have to re-wade into those waters (8:46) and ask ourselves, how did that shape me? How is it continuing to shape me? (8:51) You’ve mentioned that we’re both armchair psychologists, so I don’t want to get (8:54) too psychotherapeutic on you, Matt. But I think that’s what I’ve probably spent the last 30 years (8:59) of doing is unpacking a lot of the childhood trauma, which, as you know, drives you. It can (9:05) drive a person like you, like me, to actually succeed in life by people’s perception.

We might (9:13) look like successes and lots of people walking around with scars. That doesn’t mean that actually (9:19) they’ve dealt with it. They’ve just turned that into some kind of success story.

(9:23) Sure. You diagnosed me a bit over lunch and actually pointed something out to me that(9:37) was really profound, the words that you used. Do you remember what you said? (9:42) Yeah.

Well, immediately, as soon as I met you, I’m like, oh, this guy has ADHD, which who doesn’t(9:47) everybody has ADHD now. But what was unique about you is that you are successful, you’re productive, (9:55) you command a room. Boy, I’ve been in some rooms where you just have the entire room hanging on (10:00) every word that you say.

I thought to myself, here’s a person who’s probably in a good deal of (10:07) turmoil or inner battle on a daily basis. You have a lot of adrenaline probably, a lot of highs, (10:14) a lot of lows. So your inner world is probably a mixture of exhilaration and anguish.

(10:22) Frustration. (10:23) Yeah, frustration and anguish. (10:25) Yeah.

And then you said that you’re kind of the opposite, an opposite diagnosis of yourself. But (10:39) going back to what you said about people with ADHD and what you said to me about (10:45) when you have that high drive, fast moving, you’re productive, to really watch out when (10:53) you have those down times, especially when retirement comes, to really be prepared for (10:59) how do I handle those times. So I thought that was a profound thing to be thinking.

(11:04) And we have a whole generation, I think, that’s over-medicated. I have a 15-year-old who’s (11:08) adopted so her medical, psychological history is hidden to us. We don’t have access to it.

(11:14) And she has significant ADHD and almost to the point where she can’t function. (11:19) So medication for her, it was life-changing for us when we got the diagnosis. We put her (11:25) on the medication and she started living a new kind of normal.

I think a lot of times, (11:30) though, we’re too quickly to medicate our children. We have a generation (11:33) of people who could be the next CEO of an Oxium and we’ve dulled their intensity down because we (11:41) worry about or it’s difficult to put up with the side effects of ADHD. We’ve dumbed them down (11:48) and their ceiling is much lower now, what they’re going to be able to accomplish.

(11:53) So it’s not necessarily a bad thing to live with the kind of inner turmoil that you (11:58) probably experience on a daily basis. The question is, it’s all relative. Every person (12:03) is different.

But I do think we should be thinking pretty hard about whether or not (12:10) medication is always the solution. What kind of great minds, what kind of women and men are we (12:17) losing to our knee-jerk response to Medicaid and perhaps over-medicating because we don’t(12:23) want to deal with the consequences of disorders like anxiety and ADHD. Some of those can be very (12:28) debilitating.

So I’m not knocking. We have medicated our daughter significantly and now (12:34) she’s regulated. She’s actually able to function at school.

But not everybody needs to immediately (12:40) be medicated. I think sometimes that prevents our society from experiencing the very best (12:47) versions of people. You think of some of the great scientists, you think of some of the great (12:51) entrepreneurs before these diagnoses were available.

What they were capable of doing (12:57) because they weren’t medicated is pretty profound. So I guess it’s a more complicated (13:03) conversation. And parents who are living with this, I’m not throwing any shade (13:08) on parents who medicate and who seek treatment.

But I’m just thinking, boy, it’s a (13:15) complicated set of decisions and we’ve over-responded to the opportunity to medicate because it’s there. (13:20) Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we could pull this string on this sweater until the sweater was (13:26) bare.

But so much of that I think also revolves back to how much time is in the day to be able (13:33) to deal with the problems at hand, right? And when we look at societally, you know, that right now (13:38) we’re requiring essentially to live, we’re requiring a two-income household in most cases. (13:43) And so just the time that’s allotted for the parenting tends to be pretty constricted. (13:49) So it’s, like I said, I think we could pull on that string and it could rip the sweater bare, (13:56) but good thoughts.

What would be one piece of advice you could give to somebody who’s (14:02) considering it maybe based on just what you’ve learned and maybe your observations out there? (14:08) Well, you know, there are two audiences to the answer to that question. You know, I think you’ve(14:14) hit on something pretty key that in our society, unfortunately, you know, we’re forced into(14:21) a two-income, in most scenarios, a two-income kind of home where parenting is done on the margins (14:27) and our professional life is the main thing that we focus on. You know, a person like you, (14:33) like me who occupies a CEO role, those demands are even greater, you know? And so I do think, (14:41) you know, identifying and finding help early on.

Not everybody has the financial means to (14:48) hire an assistant or a nanny or a live-in cook. Most people don’t have those options. (14:53) But most people do have some version of those options.

You know, can you budget so many nights? (15:00) Now, I think a lot of people are over-door dashing, but, you know, could you schedule some (15:04) nights where you’re having food delivered so that that cook time could be spent with, (15:08) you know, your child at the kitchen table, maybe doing homework or something (15:12) tedious like that, you know? Whatever it might look like, I think identifying resources, (15:17) no matter what your income level, no matter what your challenges are, (15:20) finding resources that are going to be able to supplement your ongoing rhythms, I think that’s (15:26) number one. And really, quite honestly, I think number two would just be the role of faith. You (15:32) know, I don’t want to get overly religious here, but I do think that at least, you know, as a (15:36) Christian, I believe that there are, you know, spiritual contours to the problems that we’re (15:41) talking about.

And so regardless of your faith background, I mean, I was an atheist for, you (15:46) know, the first 20 years of my life. And even as an atheist, atheists pray, you know? And so whether(15:54) you want to call it meditation or prayer, I don’t care what you call it, you can’t solve complex (16:01) problems, whether it’s mental health challenges or poverty, which are the two problems that we’ve (16:06) talked about so far. I don’t believe the durable solutions to problems that are that complex (16:12) are as simple as medication or door dashing.

There is a faith component that if we open (16:18) ourselves up to, we can discover solutions that we didn’t know were available. (16:24) Um, you also gave me, and the reason why I want to bring this up and get back into the (16:29) psychology thing for just one more minute, is you also kind of gave me a diagnosis that (16:34) you and Dr. Chet GPT came up with together, um, for yourself, which, which really, (16:41) what I appreciated with it was it really gave me an understanding of how your mind works. (16:46) And I think it would be great for people to understand, you know, how you, how you think (16:51) and how you think maybe differently than, than others.

And maybe they can relate to that, (16:55) or maybe they can at least just go, you know what, now I understand that people think differently (16:59) than I do. Yeah. Well, I mentioned I went to school for the first time in fourth grade (17:03) and immediately I began to realize something was different and I thought different was wrong.

(17:10) I thought, uh, you know, maybe there’s something wrong with me. And, um, what I mean by that is (17:15) that as I would, um, answer questions on tests or have conversations with kids on the playground, (17:21) I immediately noticed that they, my, my experience of reality was different. (17:27) And over the course of time, I learned that I have kind of two, a confluence of two, (17:33) I wouldn’t even call them disorders or just kind of like their truths about me, (17:37) about my inner world.

And one of them is that I have low latent inhibition with high intelligence. (17:42) So a person with low latent inhibition experiences all of the extraneous data that a normal brain (17:49) will filter out over time. So there are, there are three wall outlets across from us right now.

(17:55) There is one light switch behind your head, behind your head. You know, there’s a decorative (18:00) plant behind your head. Now, if I were to come into this studio every day for the next 15 days, (18:05) I wouldn’t be able to tell you that I’d have to reexamine on purpose those (18:10) factoids about this room.

But a person with low latent inhibition, their brain did never filters (18:16) out that extraneous data. And so it’s always fresh and brand new. I gave you the illustration (18:21) of when we have a farm, we have acreage on the farm and we’ll walk our trail and I have a couple (18:27) of favorite spots that I like to, you know, just, just take a breath and notice.

And one of them (18:32) is a beautiful hickory tree in the back West side of the property. And every time I walk by this (18:38) tree, I stop and I breathe in deeply and I experienced the tree as if it’s the first time (18:42) I’ve ever seen it, even though I’ve walked by this tree hundreds of times. And I think that’s the, (18:47) that’s the lived reality of a person with low latent inhibition.

Low intelligence oftentimes (18:52) presents as kind of an autistic expression. So the data becomes so overwhelming to the person (18:58) that they, you know, it’s almost like a rain man kind of response where they, they turn inward and (19:03) they resist the, you know, that, that data, a person with high intelligence can actually navigate (19:08) that in all that data and use it to her or his, you know, benefit. The other, the other condition (19:15) that I just discovered that I have is a time distortion disorder, which sounds terrible, (19:22) but I think it’s pretty awesome.

You know, so as I was, I don’t know if I was listening to NPR or (19:27) something, it was some, you know, maybe it was a podcast and they were talking about this disorder (19:31) and I’m like, wow, that’s exactly how I experienced life. It’s almost as if everything is in slow (19:35) motion. So athletes will refer to this as flow.

People who, who study the psychology of athletes, (19:42) you know, you can be doing a, you know, a sweet layup. We’re watching the NBC NBA championship (19:46) right now and it’ll undoubtedly be the Pacers and the, and, and who else won the other night? (19:53) You’re asking the wrong guy. (19:54) I’m asking the wrong guy.

You’re, you’re, you’re, your game is golf, but you know, (19:58) the studies. (19:58) Seven times last year. Yes.

(20:00) Seven times more than, but a person will drive the ball down the court, (20:05) they’ll get into the paint, they’ll do a layup. And all of that took like point, (20:10) you know, 2.8 seconds on the clock. But the athlete experiences that as a very slow motion (20:17) kind of lived experience.

And that’s how I experienced everything. So my day is like (20:21) literally five days in a normal person’s experience. So you take that low latent (20:26) inhibition where I have all this extraneous data and this time distortion disorder that (20:31) I have where I experienced life as if I’m just like, you know, circumventing the room (20:35) in slow motion while, while everybody, everything else is, you know, (20:38) everybody else is experiencing that fast.

(20:40) I have a disadvantage when it comes to actually being in a room with people thinking about (20:46) ideas because I’m thinking about them in this flow type state. (20:51) But you’re also being, you’re almost getting to research longer in the, in the true time allotted. (20:58) Yeah, that’s right.

(21:06) This episode of the BLTNT podcast is sponsored by Oxium, (21:10) business IT and cybersecurity designed to outsmart chaos. Empowered by Juniper Networks, (21:15) automate your network with Juniper Networks and the Mist AI platform, (21:19) the world’s first AI driven wired and wireless network. (21:30) And, you know, for you and I, we’re like kids in a candy store, whether you’re on (21:34) that end of the spectrum, you know, you have this ADHD that you struggle with.

(21:39) I have these two disorders and now infused in that moment is I think one of the (21:48) biggest evolutionary moments in human history with the onset of generative artificial intelligence. (21:54) So now to your brain that thinks in this way and to my brain that thinks this way, (21:59) we can insert a third brain. And I use lots and lots and lots of different AIs.

(22:07) And boy, it’s, I’m 56. I wish I was like 26. I wish I was at the beginning of my life (22:13) at the beginning of this technology, because what it’s been able to do (22:17) is fast track the best version of myself and supplement the way in which I think about the (22:24) world and the way in which I create content or whatever it might be.

I have a third brain, (22:30) right? So that’s, that’s pretty amazing. That’s awesome. Yeah.

(22:34) Let’s also touch back here. Cause I want to understand how you, how you became a farmer, (22:38) but, but you, you did mention earlier, you were an atheist for the first 20 years of your life. (22:44) And then, and then you found the Lord and you and been on a different path ever since.

And (22:49) you’re a pastor now and got quite a story. So walk us through a little bit of that. And then, (22:56) and then want to hear about farming and definitely want to get on this AI training as well.

(23:01) Yeah. We’ll call this, we’ll call this podcast, the potpourri, cause you’re getting a little bit(23:05) of everything. Some armchair psychology, some gen AI and now Jesus Christ, right? So like, (23:11) yeah, I was atheist.

And my parents, when we weren’t homeless, we had a sign on the front (23:15) of our home that said the Moors, the atheists, we had a barrel for burning Bibles. So we weren’t (23:20) your garden variety, occasional kind of decorative atheists. We were serious about this.

So when I (23:25) went to Michigan, my nickname and my fraternity was Satan, persecuted Christians, wrote papers (23:30) against Christians. But I went to college, unlike most people who wanted to go to get a great job or (23:35) find the perfect, you know, soulmate. I went to discover the meaning of the universe.

Can life (23:40) have meaning and purpose if there’s no transcendence? So I’ll use that word in place of (23:45) God, because I know that not all of your listeners, um, you know, have a, have a faith journey, (23:50) but I would say that for me, I was unwilling to simply just consume. So I think most people (24:01) in America are what I call functional atheists, even if they’re church people, what we basically (24:08) are are consumers and we’re consumers of pleasure. We’re consumers of goods and we’re consumers of, (24:15) you know, experiences.

And so we like to curate these experiences. We curate our experience of (24:21) coffee. We curate our experience of sex.

We curate our experience of fill in the blank, (24:27) but basically we’re curators, um, of things that don’t actually have any kind of permanence or (24:33) transcendence. And so for me, I was unwilling at things that rust. We have things that rust, (24:39) things that won’t last things that don’t have any kind of eternal purpose.

And I thought, well, (24:43) okay, if there’s no God, that means there’s no eternality. Um, and therefore nothing has (24:49) permanence. Can we have meaning in a world where there’s no transcendence? That was the, that was (24:54) the reason I went to college.

And so I spent my first three years trying to answer that question, (25:01) became an honor student in the psychology department and the philosophy department (25:05) and that one, two combo. I thought, well, I’ll find some, if there’s meaning to be found, (25:10) I’ll find it in those realms in the psychology department. I was driven into the data science, (25:15) you know, comport, uh, portion of that because I didn’t want to go back to poverty.

So I knew (25:20) philosophers were largely poor, right? Or they went on to law school and that didn’t really (25:25) interested me too much. And, uh, I didn’t want to go back to poverty. So I did the data science and (25:29) I became an honor student in both departments.

But all the while I’m trying to ask, answer this (25:33) question, can life have meaning without, without transcendence? And, you know, after three years, (25:38) Matt, I decided the answer was no. Like I had done all, I’d done all the reading and read the (25:43) Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. And I talked to Christians and Muslims and went to mosque and I (25:49) read all the great philosophers, you know, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and, you know, (25:53) try to figure out which has a better value ecosystem and why.

And I did all the things, (25:58) which is also where I started getting into artificial intelligence back in the, literally in (26:03) the 1980s, artificial intelligence was a thing. It was the property of the cognitive science realm. (26:11) And I went deep into that.

And my, my plan was to go to MIT to study AI in 1991. That’s when I (26:17) graduated. But I remember, you know, turning my honors thesis into my, the chairperson of my, (26:26) my program in the philosophy department.

And basically Matt, it was an articulation (26:31) of my atheistic conclusion that there is no God, life has no meaning, transcendence doesn’t, (26:39) it’s occasional or it’s a manufactured, it’s a contextual, you know, conventional. And because (26:46) that’s true, there can actually be no meaning in the world. And so if there’s no meaning, why, (26:53) why should I live a day or a hundred million years? If I die and cease to exist, why not just (26:57) get it over with? Because it doesn’t matter how much sex or material possessions or, you know, (27:02) success you have, why not just die? And so I decided that I was going to kill myself.

(27:08) And before I did that, I thought, well, you know, out of all the gods that I’ve studied out of all (27:13) the religions that I studied, the only one that I’m going to have a problem with is Jesus. Because (27:17) the Bible is the only religious text that said very, you know, dichotomous, not dichotomous, (27:27) very black and white statements, like it’s appointed unto us once to die and then to (27:33) face judgment. So if the Quran and Allah were the true religion, I could work myself out of hell.

(27:39) If Buddha or Krishna were the true gods, I’d have lots of opportunities around the (27:44) wheel of reincarnation to get it right. But if Jesus was the one true God, then well, (27:50) I was going to be making a big mistake by killing myself. So I went on an interviewing spree.

I (27:54) interviewed my pastor. I had a pastor friend simply because, you know, the girls in church (28:00) were a little easier to get along with, if you know what I mean, than the ones out on the street. (28:04) And, you know, all of the Christians that I interviewed and, you know, I went back and (28:09) tried to reread the Bible.

None of them really didn’t, it didn’t connect with my soul. I didn’t (28:14) see the reason. And so I decided to kill myself.

And so December 24th, 1989, I’m in a car driving (28:20) 90 miles an hour, fully determined to kill myself in my car at the viaduct near my home. And my, (28:27) my decision was to smash the car and kill myself. And as I got that twisted sense of courage, (28:32) fully intending to do the deed, I would say now in the words that I’m able to use now, (28:39) that a power and a presence entered the vehicle and steered me to safety.

Now, I still didn’t (28:43) know which God did that. And was it God? It was just enough of an experience, Matt, to get me home (28:49) on Christmas Eve. I woke up on Christmas day.

And for the first time in my life, I prayed a prayer (28:54) of desperation. I said, God, if that’s you, I need to know right now, because I’m still going to kill (28:58) myself. It wasn’t, the experience was extraordinary.

It was a super phenomenal experience, but it (29:04) wasn’t enough to actually change my mind. So I went into the other room and, uh, you know, my two (29:10) older brothers were also at Michigan. We were all home for Christmas.

And one of them had brought (29:17) the poem, Footprints in the Sand. It was a framed picture frame poem of the story of Footprints in (29:23) the Sand, which if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s just almost like a Hallmark card type story (29:28) about how God is caring for us, even when we’re not aware of his presence. And particularly during (29:33) times where, um, you know, we are at our worst, God is, God is working in our lives.

I’m looking (29:40) at this, uh, this picture and I had read it before. And I thought, ah, this is nonsense. (29:45) But as I’m reading this for the first time, I actually hear the voice of God(29:50) louder than I could shout to you in your ears.

It was as if his, his voice was saturating my (29:56) entire body. And he said three things that changed my life. He said, number one, I do exist.

(30:01) Number two, I’m the reason why you exist. Those are the only two data points I needed as a (30:06) philosopher. Everything else would have been a derivative.

But the third thing he said, (30:10) sent me into the other room in tears. He said, and I’m the one who kept you from killing yourself (30:14) last night, which meant that God knew who I was. He was involved in my life and he cared.

(30:18) And I went into the other room and I said, well, God, if you can take my life and make anything (30:23) out of it from this day forward, I’m going to live for you. So that’s how my faith,(30:27) my faith journey started in a very unusual way during an attempted suicide, (30:31) not because I was depressed or distraught, but because I had made a rational decision (30:36) that none of it mattered. None of it mattered.

That’s right. (30:43) Um, okay. That’s heavy duty.

Um, I can’t beat that. I have no story that beats that. (30:49) Yeah.

Well, we could talk about your bare ankles. That’s, that’s true. You could.

Yeah. (30:53) But the camera’s got those hidden right now. So that’s, that’s a good thing.

Um, (30:59) so, I mean, what a, what a shift from, you know, full on atheism, not just passive, but, (31:06) but exceptionally active to now here you are a pastor, um, uh, and running a Christian organization. (31:14) So, um, tell me how you, how you leverage that experience of how you grew up, maybe different (31:23) than the person who, you know, in Catholicism, they call it a cradle Catholic or a cradle Christian (31:28) or whatever, like from somebody who grew up with that, where it’s the only thing we’ve known, (31:32) you know, um, our whole life. How, how has that partly and make you a better (31:37) leader in the, in the, in the, in the realm that you’re in? (31:40) Hmm.

Well, I think the one word that I would use would be transformation. (31:44) When you’ve had a series of transformative moments in your life, where there has been these (31:49) incredible ups and downs, like literally living in an abandoned building, you know, (31:55) having to use the bathroom in a can, um, you know, being on the verge of suicide, (32:02) having this radical experience, Christians call it becoming born again, whether or not you like (32:08) or hate that, that phrase or not, I had a born again experience. And so because of that, I think (32:14) as a leader, I know that change is possible.

So I took over the organization that I’m running right (32:21) now. It’s a 50 year old legacy organization. It was dying.

It was struggling financially. (32:28) Uh, it had recently had a fairly public scandal, but I’m in the business of seeing resurrection. (32:34) I’m in the business of actually seeing that what once was dead and hopeless is now (32:40) alive and flourishing.

And so it was an opportunity for me to actually take (32:45) my life experience and actually apply it in the professional setting. (32:49) We’re not a PNL organization. We’re a nonprofit.

The rules of engagement are exceedingly different. (32:55) You know, our bottom line isn’t the bottom line, but I think the principles are the same. (32:59) The principles of leadership of curiosity and understanding the moment and the market context and (33:05) understanding that people aren’t oftentimes inspired to do their best work simply by the (33:11) paycheck that we can provide them, but by the mission that they’re on every, every PNL business, (33:17) I think is always going to be better if their employees are actually tied to a core mission (33:21) that fits their vision for the world and for life.

And you understand that here at Oxford, (33:26) you know, so we’re, we’re doing that in the religious nonprofit space. So like, (33:31) we’re a college ministry that was for 50 years operating largely in one state. (33:36) Now we’ve grown 50% in the last 36 months.

Uh, we’re operating in 16 states with a couple of (33:42) hundred employees and our next three year strategic plan is to grow another 50% and, uh, multiply our (33:50) presence across the United States. I think all of that’s possible when leaders who have had (33:55) transformative experiences, apply those experiences to their leadership in the business (34:00) place, in the workplace. I mean, and it gives hope, right? I mean, I was speaking with a gentleman (34:05) who was on another pastor and he says, look, even if we’re all wrong, at least we have hope.

Yeah. (34:10) Right. Um, you know, we, we lived with hope.

Um, so I think that’s always, um, uh, you know, the, (34:16) the, the final, final saving grace, even if we’re all wrong, but, um, um, and I think that the hope (34:22) though, for you, right? What, what you’re able to instill on people who you’re trying to (34:27) transform is that you actually know what low feels like, right? Yeah, that’s right. And you know, (34:32) what, what, what, um, hopelessness feels like. Yeah, that’s right.

And we’re working with (34:37) college students, which in my mind are the elite of the elite. I don’t know if you knew this, (34:41) but only 1% of the world’s population has a college degree from a four-year college. (34:45) And the United States leads the way by far academically when it comes to, (34:50) you know, access to public, not public, but to higher education.

And so you’re, you’re working (34:56) with women and men who are at the beginning of their trajectory. And so what we’re trying to (35:01) do in the coalition for Christian outreach is mentor these women and men into the workplace. (35:06) So you, you’ve seen a lot of employees come and you’ve seen a lot of employees go (35:11) and the best I would be willing to bet, Matt, that the best employees that you’ve experienced (35:15) are people who are mission-driven people who not just know how to do a task, but (35:19) they have a purpose.

And so we’re mentoring, we’re working now with 18,000 students in 16 states (35:25) and we’re mentoring them into the workplace. So they go into the workplace with a sense of mission(35:30) and drive. And that I think is incre, incred, uh, increasingly rare in a world where, uh, first(35:37) millennials and now Gen Z, they’re entering into the workplace.

Um, they have no sense of (35:43) corporate loyalty, uh, yet they, they are mission-driven and they are driven by these (35:48) greater kind of global ideas, uh, a longing for justice, a longing for a world made right, (35:54) which is one of the topics of, of one of my four books. Um, and hiring those kinds of people are (36:01) going to save you time, energy. They’re going to be self-driven.

They’re going to need less (36:04) management, less oversight. Uh, you’re not going to have to worry about compliance because they’re (36:09) working for you and it doesn’t matter if they’re working for us in a religious nonprofit or a PNL (36:15) oriented business, they’re going to work with a sense of inner drive that is peculiar. And that’s (36:22) what we’re doing in the CCO Coalition for Christian Outreach.

We’re launching an army of young people (36:27) who are going to go into the workplace, into pharmacy and physics and chemistry and generative (36:32) AI with this inner drive that they’re actually making the world a better place through their (36:36) employment. Um, uh, apropos that you and I were in the workshop with, uh, Jay Reifenberry the day (36:44) that we, that we were, um, uh, chatting it up where he says, you gotta come up with your core (36:50) four. What are your core beliefs? What is your mission? Yeah.

Right. And, um, how’s that? How’s (36:57) that? Those people that are, that you’re mentoring are tying themselves to the higher mission, (37:05) the highest mission, I should say. Um, that’s truly driving them.

Yeah. So, so you’re trying (37:10) to build a valuable human in the workplace, you know, uh, regardless of what the, what the, um, (37:18) industry is that they’re pursuing. It’s funny because you actually mentioned how odd it is (37:23) to talk to some religious people, right? And religious people make everything almost as if (37:30) it’s another world.

Church talk. Church talk. I think that’s the phrase you use.

And what’s (37:35) interesting is that if you study American evangelicalism throughout American history, (37:41) largely what we’ve said to people either directly or indirectly is that the highest version of (37:46) yourself is to read your Bible, pray and go to church and everything else is superfluous. (37:51) And I just don’t believe that that’s what the Bible teaches. And our organization teaches that (37:57) a pastor, a missionary, an evangelist, that’s not some higher calling than being a physicist or (38:03) somebody who’s training large language models.

You know, one of our, one of the, um, best stories (38:09) recently that I’ve heard was a guy who became a Christian through our, our organization and he (38:14) went into the family business, which was a chemical company and they were making paint. (38:20) And, uh, I flew down to visit with him down in Cincinnati. And he said, you know, York, (38:25) when I began to realize that God cared not only about the money that my paint was making, but he (38:32) cared about the polymers and the chemical transformations that produce the paint, (38:36) I became obsessed with the science.

So I bought out my competitors. Now I own three chemical (38:42) companies because I want to do the science. I don’t want some other schmuck to do the science.

(38:47) I want to do the science, right? So like, I do think the way in which we think about our place (38:51) in the world as participating in the redemptive purposes of God applies to every single area of (38:58) life, not just the people who go into religious work, you doing your work as the CEO of Oxium, (39:06) it has a redemptive part to play in God’s world and God’s desire to make everything new. (39:12) Whether or not you believe that or not is beside the point. I think God is going to use (39:17) your talents and your company for his purposes, whether or not you give him the glory, (39:22) whether or not you give a nickel of your profits to other non-profits or whatever it might be.

(39:32) All of what we’re doing is all I think a part of God’s redemptive purposes to make all things new. (39:36) Now there’s some exceptions, of course, people who are, you know, I did 15 years of anti-trafficking (39:41) here in the United States and Cambodia that has no redemptive value. People who are producing (39:46) pornography has no redemptive value.

That’s not something that God is going to use for his good. (39:51) I’m talking about like the work that God has called us to. It’s interesting, Matt, (39:56) I think the very first story that we get in the Bible is a story of the gift of work, (40:01) where God says he puts Adam and Eve in a garden and he blesses them with the gift of work.

(40:07) Work became cursed after sin entered the world, but his first charge to human beings was be fruitful, (40:13) subdue the earth, multiply and fill it. That’s called work. So there is there good news in work.

(40:18) I just had my friend Paul Glantz here yesterday and, you know, he wants to remain productive (40:25) until the day that he dies. You know, he feels like he’s doing what he’s supposed to on this (40:30) earth if he’s being productive. You know, he wants to consistently deliver value in excess of his (40:35) cost.

And people have heard me say that I actually didn’t realize until just the other day. I said, (40:39) I think that might have been you that told me that first and gave him some credit for that. But(40:46) yeah, that Paul asked you to silence your cell phone.

He did. Yeah, there was a whole trailer (40:50) at the beginning of our discussion here, which was which was tough for me to have to do that. (40:55) But I did it.

I did it for the hour and a half that we talked. But no, just that redemptive (41:00) value or that that I mean, we think about when you and I don’t want to say that everything that (41:05) feels good is good. But after a hard day of work, it feels good.

Right. After, you know, (41:11) you’ve contributed to society. That’s right.

It feels good. If you’ve if you’ve served somebody (41:16) else, it feels good. And it feels good for the right reason.

The the thing about hard work, (41:23) you know, always makes me think about you being a farmer. Right. Did you ever did you ever think (41:27) you were going to be a farmer? Never in my wildest dreams.

I didn’t even know how people (41:32) got into and now you’re fending off killer ox with things left and right. Groundhogs. (41:38) I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the knock when an employee knocks on your office door and (41:42) says, got a minute, and you immediately know it’s some sort of incident.

But Oxium IT can help (41:48) whether you’re having a problem, need consulting, an upgrade or a managed IT approach. (41:52) They focus on preventing cyber attacks and proactive solutions that deliver results. (41:58) My friend Matt Lauria and everyone at Oxium are ready to help before or after you get the knock.

(42:04) Visit Oxium.com and let Oxium IT help you outsmart chaos. (42:10) Now, it started with my wife. Actually, we had decided to move to Orlando right before the (42:15) pandemic and we flew down there several times.

We found a house in a community that we liked (42:20) and our intention was to sell our house and move to Orlando. And then we get back and she just (42:26) had something a different spirit about her. She said, you know, I think we’re making the wrong (42:30) choice.

What if we stayed in Michigan and bought a hobby farm? And I said, I’m a black man from(42:37) Detroit. I don’t even know what a hobby farm is. I had no idea what a hobby farm was.

And she said, (42:41) I’ll just keep an open mind. So then she started taking me to these places, terrible places. I (42:45) wouldn’t put my dog in these places.

And I said, oh man, maybe she doesn’t even know how to use (42:49) Zillow, right? Because she’s taken me to a terrible. So I put in all of the parameters, (42:53) barn and acreage and up popped this beautiful home. I’m like, why didn’t she show me this? (42:57) Well, it was like $1,000 over the maximum that I gave her.

Oh, okay. She should have just ignored (43:02) me. So we went out and we looked at this farm and it was a little slice of heaven, 115 year old, (43:08) beautiful farmhouse, eight buildings, cinder block barn, uh, sitting on 10 acres, uh, which (43:14) I’ve discovered when you buy land, you know what you want more of land.

Oh yeah. So we would love (43:19) to have more land, but we went there. And of course the realtor then says, uh, you know, (43:24) she shows us the house and says, oh, but it’s sold.

That just shows you the heart of a realtor. (43:29) They’re not, they just want your business, you know? So if you’re a realtor out there, (43:32) you know, key, keep your number to yourself. Don’t friend me on LinkedIn.

(43:36) Realtors aren’t my favorite people, but the realtor said, generally speaking, (43:42) there’s a couple of good ones out there. They are my LinkedIn friends. Um, but, uh, you know,(43:49) the realtor has made the mistake of telling my wife, well, you can always put in a contingency (43:53) offer.

Well, I gave my wife hope and you don’t know my wife, but my wife is like a dog with a (43:57) bone when she wants something. So she went home and this was before chat GPT. It would have been (44:02) an even better letter had we had chat GPT in 2020 and she wrote this great letter about how we’re (44:08) going to bring farms back to the animals back to the farm or we’re going to raise our kids there (44:13) in his big sappy letter.

And believe it or not, the estate that was selling the farm literally (44:17) let their previous buyer go and sold us the farm really at the same price point. Like, (44:24) so we actually literally stole the farm. And then I get there, Matt and I’m like, (44:28) and bought the farm.

Yeah. We bought the farm and stole the farm, both, both idioms there. (44:32) And I get on a farm and I have this experience that like, I didn’t know what was happening at (44:37) first as a pandemic.

So we’re, we’re locked down, you know, literally you can’t even drive your car (44:43) across state lines. If you remember those early days and we’re fixing everything and we’re killing(44:48) everything, we’re doing all this work on the farm. And all of a sudden I started realizing like, (44:52) this is good for my soul.

Like I had lived my entire life running away from poverty (44:59) and how oftentimes we express that in our trauma is we, we control what we can control. (45:06) So you see power, you know, people in poverty, they’ll control their outfits or their hair or (45:10) their cars, always polished. You know, we call it ghetto rich, you know, ghetto fabulous, ghetto rich.

(45:16) And it’s an expression of control in response to the trauma of poverty. And for me, I was living (45:23) with this without knowing that I was living with this. So every house that I had owned before was (45:26) a brand new construction or it was a, you know, a flip.

It was immaculate. Everything was perfect. (45:32) The grass and landscaping was beautiful because I could control a 60 foot lot.

When I moved to (45:38) 115 year old farm on 10 acres where everything’s trying to kill me or I have to kill it and (45:43) everything’s broken, gutters hanging down over here. So all of a sudden I’m becoming handy, (45:47) but I’m also experiencing a level of freedom and restoration and healing that therapy couldn’t, (45:53) couldn’t give me. So you talk about the good work that you go to bed with that feeling of good work.

(45:59) Yesterday I did. And so people who farm will understand what I’m talking about. Cause I don’t (46:02) have a quick hitch.

I had to change implements on my tractor and I had to put the brush hog, (46:07) a deck on for the first time this season. You want to talk about a bunch of rigamarole, (46:12) you want to talk about something that is somebody should, well, they have, (46:16) they’ve made something called a quick hitch. I don’t have a quick hitch.

It was very frustrating (46:21) and I’m sweating and I’m filthy and I’m covered with grease and I go in, I’m just like, Oh, (46:26) that’s the best day. You know? So there’s something I think that’s like healing about (46:31) work. We were made for work.

Right. And so when we actually live into work in a redemptive way, (46:37) embrace that. So I think I actually, I had an experience moving to a farm that has been, (46:45) Oh, it’s just been like medicine to my soul.

And now we have cows and goats and chickens and ducks (46:51) and bees. We got all the things. But to me, like the real gift of the farm is the gift of work.

(46:56) That’s great. You also brought up to me, you know, you said people and people from, from poverty, (47:05) what, what, what kind of how, how their trauma kind of expresses itself. Right.

And you use (47:12) the words ghetto rich, ghetto fabulous, you know, perfection in, in these objects. (47:17) And then you talked about you know, that it’s, it’s really just, we’re all kind of negotiating (47:24) our inner world in some way. Right.

And we’re trying to make right something somewhere. We’re (47:28) trying to fix something, even if we don’t know it. Right.

And, and then you said, look in the wealthy (47:34) are, you know, kids from wealthy places dealing with their inner problems are dealing with things (47:41) like eating disorders and things like that. Yeah. Talk about, talk about that and how, (47:46) how, or why you think we’re all seeking that, that, that, I don’t know whether it’s a healing (47:52) or whatever it is that you, that you’d think.

I think the world and human beings along with (47:57) the world was created for order and beauty. And so my third book, do something beautiful, (48:03) um, it talks a lot about this. I think for people, no matter what their trauma is, (48:09) the response to disorder and ugliness, whether it’s the ugliness of physical or sexual abuse, (48:16) or it’s the ugliness of, you know, yet another crack cocaine user being found dead in the (48:24) burned out building across my, across the street from my home, you know, that’s ugliness.

And (48:29) that’s something that that’s not the world that got created. It’s not the world that we were (48:33) created for. And so because of that, I think, um, whenever we experienced that our knee jerk (48:39) reaction is to control what can be controlled.

And you see this in young kids, you know, they’ll (48:44) hold themselves, they’ll rock themselves. They express a high level of control around their (48:50) physicality. And the older we get, the more sophisticated ways we find to control our (48:56) circumstances.

I think people who have a lot of resources will oftentimes be more prone to (49:02) eating disorders. And that’s certainly statistically true that we see eating disorders (49:07) exponentially higher in, you know, families of wealth. Well, that’s a child or a young girl, (49:13) oftentimes trying to express a level of control in otherwise uncontrolled situation, you know,(49:20) regardless of what, you know, she’s struggling with.

So I just think that’s kind of like (49:24) in human nature is to control what we can control as an expression of response to trauma or a set (49:33) of circumstances that are habitually out of control. I think that’s natural and normal. (49:38) Again, I’m an armchair psychologist.

So like, I, you know, I don’t, I’m not consulting the DSM, (49:43) whatever we’re up to. Yeah. Right.

5 or 6 or 7, wherever we are now. Um, you know, I, it’s funny (49:50) to talk about order and control and everything like that. And I’m thinking to myself, the article (49:56) that I just read, um, I can’t remember which, which guy it was.

I could look it up, but it’s, (50:01) um, one of the, one of the major, um, uh, artificial intelligence platforms. Um, (50:08) he came out and said that he’s predicting that 50% of, um, 50% of white collar jobs could be gone (50:17) in, I’m sorry, 50% of entry level white collar jobs will be gone in the next one to five years. (50:25) Okay.

And then he’s saying that, that he believes that that will lead to 10 to 20% unemployment.(50:32) Right. Um, so obviously let’s just say he’s half right.

Okay. Um, or, or let’s say that the (50:40) economist, I mean, you’ve, you’ve seen the article that I wrote about the, the economy meeting with (50:45) AI meeting with other, uh, automation and perhaps some policy concerns, um, kind of all (50:52) intersecting at the same time could really cause some, some major, um, major disruption in our (50:58) economy in the 2030s. And so, um, a lot of trauma lies ahead, right.

For a lot of people. And the (51:06) preparation of that is, is, uh, I mean, we can’t just be sitting here ignoring it. So when you (51:13) talked about this AI in the mind of God, help, help us understand, you know, how maybe we can (51:19) get ahead of certain things.

Um, help us understand why it can be such a beautiful thing and great for (51:25) our society and just everything that you talked about. Cause I’m only surmising what you may have (51:30) talked about in that, because as I told you before, I didn’t read it, I didn’t watch it or (51:35) listen to it because I wanted to hear it fresh from you for the first time myself. (51:38) Well, it’s funny how I actually got, uh, I invited myself to speak at the conference.

(51:44) It’s the largest conference on AI in North America. It’s called AI for, (51:48) and it’s in August in Las Vegas. And so the algorithm knew that I was interested in AI and (51:54) said, Hey, you should go to this conference.

And so I registered for the conference and it was a (51:57) pretty expensive registration, a couple, a couple grand. And within 30 minutes, the conference (52:03) messaged me back and they said, Oh, you’re a CEO. You don’t have to pay.

We’ll pay for you to, (52:07) you know, we’ll pay your registration. I said, boy, that’s really generous. You know, (52:10) it would be even better is if you had me speak.

And they said, well, that’s unusual. And I said, (52:16) well, this will hop on a zoom and I can tell you why you need me there. So I wasn’t, of course, (52:20) I wasn’t trying to speak on our platform.

They had very, very important people on the platform. (52:25) Executive VP of AWS gave a fantastic message demonstrating how we were really at the less (52:31) than 1% marker in terms of where this is going. Yeah.

And so it was, it was an exhilarating (52:37) conference, but I jumped on the call with the guy, Dan, who owns the conference. And I said, (52:42) Dan, you have a philosophy degree from Rutgers and I have a philosophy degree from Michigan. (52:47) You and I both know that Gen AI is actually not going to solve the enduring questions of (52:52) transcendence, meaning, purpose, belonging, God, faith, whatever you might put into that bucket.

(52:57) It’s going to accelerate those questions. We’re now asking questions about sentience,(53:03) singularity, uh, you know, if there’s no distinguishable difference between a large (53:07) language models behavior and from a sentient, you know, by the way, be sure to define each of the (53:14) words that you’re using here, just in case. Yeah.

So like the idea of singularity is this idea of (53:19) like, you know, the Genesis of sentience in, in an artificial intelligence. And so I think it’s (53:27) the time is coming very quickly where we’re not going to use the word artificial. It’s an (53:31) intelligence and it might not be sentient, meaning that it has self-awareness.

Um, but we’re at the (53:37) beginning of what I would argue is the greatest evolution of what it means to be human in all of (53:43) human history. And I mean that with all my mind, AI changes what it actually means to be a human (53:48) being. And what I mean by that is not going to change our DNA.

I don’t believe that, you know, (53:53) you know, there’s a whole, it’s probably 40 something years old. This whole idea of, (53:58) you know, integrating our consciousness with machines. I don’t, that’s not what I’m saying.

(54:04) But what I am saying is that if you think about like the lived human experience before air travel (54:08) was possible, air travel changed what it meant to be a human being. You could live here and transport (54:14) yourself over time to another part of the continent or even another continent. Uh, you could (54:19) do that through ships and, but air travel changed what it meant to be human.

The internet has (54:24) changed what it means to be human. I think we are at the precipice of what we are calling generative (54:31) artificial intelligence. And I think it will be called something different sometime soon that’s (54:37) going to change the lived human experience, whether or not you’re sleeping or awake, whether you’re (54:41) having intercourse with your wife or enjoying a great meal like we just had, artificial intelligence (54:47) is going to touch every single aspect of the lived human experience.

That means that it has to be (54:54) thought of critically. We can’t just allow this technology as a convenience to come into our lives (55:00) and into our world without critical thought. And so oftentimes, you know, Americans have, (55:06) they assign utility to everything.

Everything has purpose because it has utility for me. So (55:12) meaning comes from purpose or it comes from like the functionality. So I have a water bottle here, (55:18) which is quite popular.

It’s a made by, it’s called the Awala water cup. My drinking consumption of (55:24) water has grown 3000% because of this, this technology. All right.

So it has meaning (55:30) because it serves a purpose or a function in my life. (55:34) Gen AI is not like that. Gen AI actually transcends the functionality that it presents.

(55:40) Right now, you and I use it as CEOs quite often in a wide variety of ways. We’re using artificial (55:45) intelligence, but I think artificial intelligence is actually going to not just be a tool that human (55:52) beings use. It’s going to shape what it means to be human.

And so you talk about the loss of, (55:57) you know, entry level, you know, white collar jobs. The internet did the same thing. (56:01) It replaced automation.

So I don’t have a teller anymore. I go to an ATM. I don’t have a clerk.

(56:07) I go to the self checkout line, internet, internet 1.0 displaced large numbers of people(56:13) for jobs that were redundant and something that a machine could easily learn to do.(56:19) This is not like that. This is going to be so disruptive that it’s going to upend, you know,(56:24) lawyers, um, you know, contract lawyers and people, the Supreme Court justices across(56:30) the country are already using artificial intelligence to examine case law and, you know,(56:37) compliance and regulation and all these kinds of things.

It’s already being integrated into (56:41) every aspect of life. So it doesn’t have normally taken hundreds of thousands of hours of (56:46) exactly interns or, or clerks or paralegals to go through, prepare, try to summarize, (56:52) find and bring it to the, to the person in a digestible format. (56:57) Yeah, that’s right.

So I think the scale that we’re looking at for disruption, I don’t know (57:01) if I would agree that 10, 20% unemployment, human beings are incredibly adaptable. It turns out, (57:07) and it turns out that every disruption, whether we’re talking about the industrial revolution (57:11) or the aftermath of great wars, it turns out that people have a resilience, (57:16) uh, where they find themselves having meaning and purpose. We cannot not.

And here’s where I’ll go (57:21) with what I presented at AI for, we cannot not make meaning. It’s always in our nature to make (57:28) meaning. So if I go back to Genesis one 26 and this isn’t a church and I’m not trying to preach, (57:34) but Genesis one 26 or 28 is God’s first instruction to human beings.

It’s what theologians (57:40) call the cultural mandate. I prefer to call it the meaning mandate. So at AI for in my session, (57:46) which by the way, had a line out the door and down the hall and people were on the floor and (57:51) pressed up against the wall at a tech show at a tech conference to have a conversation about (57:57) the generative AI and the mind of God in sin city.

That’s right. So it was no small feat. (58:03) In fact, I told them, I said, my wife’s asleep upstairs in the hotel room and she’s never going (58:08) to believe that anybody showed up because I wore a terrible shirt.

She mocked me for my shirt. (58:11) And I said, and it was the time slot where I got to check out of the MGM. And so everybody’s (58:16) rolling with their roller black, their roller bags.

And I said, she’s never going to believe (58:20) that anybody showed up. I got to take a selfie. So I have a picture of this, you know, all these (58:24) CTOs CIOs pressed up against the wall, hedge fund geniuses.

They’re there. Why are they there? (58:30) Because they’re hungry for meaning and an interpretive lens for this moment that everybody (58:34) in the industry, everybody understands this is like, well, this is more powerful than a nuclear (58:42) bomb. And we’re playing with either something very beautiful or very destructive.

And it’s really, (58:47) it’s both in. And so Genesis 1, 26 through 28 says, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and (58:55) subdue it. And when God said those words, he didn’t just, he wasn’t just imagining eating fruit (59:00) trees, free eating fruit from fruit trees and making babies.

He imagined nanotechnology and (59:05) espresso machines and the Roman road and cruise ships and airliners and you know, all the things, (59:12) including generative artificial intelligence, all of those things that human beings have created (59:17) over the course of the eons, all demonstrate what God deposited in our soul in Genesis 1, 26, (59:25) you as a human being, Matt cannot not make meaning you get up every day, whether or not it’s (59:30) meaning that you’re creating something that is for the benefit of mankind, or maybe your family, (59:35) or maybe it’s destructive, but you, it’s in your nature to make meaning. So here I’m in this room(59:41) to make meaning and, and, or find meaning both. Yes, both.

Yeah. And that’s, I think if we had (59:47) longer, we could talk about, you know, finding meaning and where do we actually find meaning, (59:51) but we all want to be, I mean, to, to, to just dumb that down just a little bit is we all want (59:56) to be meaningful. We all want to be relevant.

We all want to be impactful or like Paul said, (1:00:02) I want to be productive. That’s, that’s part of meaning. Yeah, it is.

I think. And I think we’re (1:00:07) so driven by it that when we’re not in a meaning making pattern in our lives, the results are (1:00:14) things like alcoholism, things like suicide, things like self-harm things like, you know, (1:00:19) all the self-destructive or we destroy others, you know, but work and meaning making is, I think (1:00:26) the pathway to finding purpose in the world. So here I am in this room and we do 10 minutes on (1:00:31) 10 minutes off.

And I said to them, I said, you know, I don’t care if you’re atheist or agnostic (1:00:35) Hindu Muslim, I happen to be Christian. We need to talk about how to think through an ethical lens,(1:00:43) using our worldview to have a conversation of meaning and purpose when it comes to Gen AI. (1:00:48) And then I said these words, and literally I had people choking up with tears in the room.

(1:00:54) I said, what you all are involved in is creating something that is so meaningful and beautiful (1:01:01) that it’s going to change the world. And in fact, it’s already changed the world.(1:01:05) You’re involved in a spinning world of wonder that has the potential to usher in the greatest (1:01:11) moment of human flourishing.

It’s going to have some disruption. There’s going to be some, (1:01:15) some collateral damage in the long run. I think what Gen AI has the potential to do (1:01:20) is redefine what it means to be human in a way that actually restores what we lost (1:01:25) when sin entered the world.

And I’m saying these words, I said, this is my worldview, (1:01:29) as a Christian, this is what I, how I interpret this moment that we’re in. I had people crying, (1:01:36) you know, um, and they feel like they’re a part of something and they share them themselves. (1:01:40) That’s right.

And they should, this moment that we’re in and you read what Altman is after, (1:01:45) you read what, uh, what Musk is after, you know, the vision that these, (1:01:50) that these great women and men who are involved in this moment, what they’re after, (1:01:54) it’s not going to change the world. It has already irreversibly changed what it means to (1:01:59) be human. And we’re literally at like less than the 1% marker where this is actually going.

(1:02:05) It’s funny. I just had a little glimpse into, um, uh, the thought of a thought of that about,(1:02:11) about how dramatically changing this all is. And you use the ATM and the teller and use those (1:02:17) examples.

And then you talked about the scanner at the, at the grocery store and changing the (1:02:23) human experience. Like, I think what, what people don’t understand is that it’s not going to just(1:02:28) be that there’s not a person at the cash register. There’s not even going to be a store, right? The (1:02:33) store can be an automated thing that is sensing, you know, what needs to be at your home at any (1:02:41) given time.

And we’re already started down that road. I mean, if you don’t think AWS and or Amazon(1:02:46) and all of their services are highly AI driven, you’re missing them. Well, it’s in the obvious (1:02:53) in-store experience at Walmart’s about to change.

I don’t know if you saw that, but they’re (1:02:56) integrating AI into the in-store shopping experience. Well, they did it at Sam’s club (1:03:02) already where you can, you can scan your own items as you go. And that’s just the start of (1:03:06) it and just walk right out.

That’s right. Which is why I’m a Sam’s club member instead of a Costco. (1:03:09) I’m both.

I’d rather be Costco, but I’m not standing in a Costco line. I don’t care how (1:03:14) good the whipped cream is. It drives me nuts every time to have to show that receipt.

(1:03:22) So build on what I’m saying. What are some of your visions of what the future will look like? (1:03:27) How dramatically different will human existence be that maybe others haven’t thought of, (1:03:34) like that you might be able to share what’s in your mind? Well, I mean, I can’t even imagine, (1:03:39) you know, that’s why I said, I wish I was 26 instead of 56. I wish I could see how this thing (1:03:46) actually evolves, but I think there’s a, there’s a, if we can think of terms of movie metaphors, (1:03:53) I’m a, I’m a huge fan of the horror genre and all, not all of the sub genres, but I, I I’m (1:03:59) obsessed with horror movies.

I think there’s a horror movie version of how this could go. (1:04:03) And I think if you listen to Altman and people who are thinking thoughtfully about this, (1:04:08) um, they know that the horror show version is a real possibility and probably a probability (1:04:15) given the fact that human beings tend to use technology to destroy their enemies and pleasure (1:04:20) themselves. Right.

And the internet is the internet today because of video games and pornography. (1:04:25) Like it wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for those two drivers in the early days of the internet. (1:04:30) So Jenna AI is definitely going to have not just a shadow side.

I think it’s dominant (1:04:35) expression is going to be used, you know, to capitalize at the expense of the marginalized (1:04:42) and the at risk. Uh, it’s going to be used to, to pleasure ourselves with, uh, all kinds of, (1:04:50) you know, unimaginable expressions of eroticism. This is just the, unfortunately because of sin, (1:04:57) my worldview, this is what we do with everything that we create.

A shovel isn’t just a shovel, (1:05:03) man. It’s also a weapon that I can use to decapitate you. Right.

That’s in the mind of (1:05:08) every person. So I think there’s a horror show version of this. Um, I think that after a time (1:05:17) of disruption, we’re going to figure out the dangers and the risks, whether or not that’ll (1:05:21) be too late or not, whether or not we’ve handed ourselves over to the machine.

So to speak, (1:05:26) it’s interesting that all of these, uh, old, uh, Skynet, uh, Terminator films are all, (1:05:33) all over. Every time I turn on the TV, it’s like a Skynet Terminator movie. And I think that’s our (1:05:39) greatest fear is that we’ve created something that now we are going to actually be subjugated to.

(1:05:43) And I think we already are in some ways, right? Like my phone is listening to this conversation (1:05:48) right now. I’m going to get in my car, drive back to my farm and I can guarantee you in my feed, (1:05:54) they’re going to be elements of this conversation, but I’m already subjected to (1:05:59) unwillingly. Now I, I tend to opt into everything.

I always say, Oh, you know, (1:06:04) Google has made my life better. It would make it even better if I clicked. Yes.

And every single (1:06:08) thing, I’m that guy. But I think at its best, I think that Jenny, I actually represents an (1:06:14) opportunity to accelerate the kind of human flourishing and the flourishing of the world (1:06:21) that God had in mind in the garden. What was lost in sin can I think not be restored through (1:06:27) technology.

I wouldn’t be naive enough to say that, but I do think that just like the creation (1:06:33) of antibiotics or, you know, the creation of fill in the blank, anything that actually has produced(1:06:40) a good in the world, I think Jenny, I can actually be exponentially more powerful.(1:06:45) Sure. You think about, you know, one of the most interesting conversations I had(1:06:48) at the AI for conference was at the speaker’s cocktail hour.

I met a guy, a genius, just a (1:06:54) guy who was, um, using general AI to in DNA sequencing to create new drugs, to treat (1:07:01) untreatable diseases. And I’m listening to this guy’s vision for the world. And he’s an atheist.

(1:07:07) He’s telling, he tells me, he said, why are you, why are you here? And I said, well, I’m,(1:07:10) I’m going to talk about the Bible at this tech show. And he’s like, that’s odd, you know? And, (1:07:16) but I was willing to listen to his story. And as he’s giving me his vision for what he wants to (1:07:20) accomplish, and he’s from the UK.

And so he had a real sexy voice too. So I was already interested (1:07:25) from the get go, you know, his vision is to make people well, right. And so I think the best (1:07:32) version of ourselves can be more possible, more likely because we have this powerful (1:07:38) third brain in large language models.

(1:07:41) Um, I’ll give you just a simplified today version of, you know, of that. My aunt was(1:07:48) just recently diagnosed with, with cancer that came, that came back and is metastasized in a (1:07:53) lot of places. And between my cousin and I, we, we took her medical records, pumped them into chat (1:08:02) each into our own instances, pumped them into chat, GPT found the, the three hospitals that (1:08:10) were best suited for her, for her, uh, particular strain, if you will, um, got to see everything (1:08:18) that was going to be the, the proposed treatment plans and everything like that.

And it worked out (1:08:22) almost spot on to exactly what the doctor said. Wow. Now was there value in that? I don’t know.

(1:08:30) I didn’t really get speed to treatment, you know, because of that, but I can tell you this,(1:08:35) I normally speaking, I would have been calling her and saying, what happened at the appointment? (1:08:40) What did they say? And then you dig in and you hang on to every word that the doctor says that (1:08:44) gives you hope or gives you dread or whatever, whatever emotion, you know, the word exhibits in (1:08:50) you. And I’m thinking, man, I have not had to call her once and ask her what’s happening next. (1:08:54) I already know what’s happening next.

You know, so I’m just able to just be there for her (1:08:59) as the human, right. And not have to be this inquisitive, anxious human going, (1:09:04) wonder what they’re going to say when, no, I kind of knew what they were going to say. (1:09:07) And the same for my cousin, she was able to keep the calm.

So we’re the steadfast ones in the, (1:09:12) in the, in the storm with her, you know, while she’s, while she’s dealing with it. (1:09:16) First of all, let me just say, I’m sorry, the diagnosis. So, well, thank you.

Thank you. I (1:09:21) mean, hope so far she’s doing okay, but we’ll, we’ll keep praying that she keeps going in that (1:09:27) direction. But, but it’s just like, you know, there’s so many great things, but then, but you (1:09:31) pointed out the, the negatives that are going to, I mean, we’re human.

They’re going to, we’re (1:09:36) going to, we’re going to pull some bad stuff together here. Well, the best use case of chat (1:09:39) GPT which is one of the AIs that I use on a regular basis. The best use case was when my, (1:09:47) my super cute, super single 22 year old wanted to break up with a super clingy guy.

(1:09:54) And she’s a people pleaser. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it. And I said, let’s,(1:09:59) let’s use our third brain.

And we crafted the most beautiful breakup text that you would ever (1:10:04) have read. And she broke up with him. She called, he called and thanked her for breaking up with (1:10:10) him.

Like the power of chat GPT, it can actually do that and the relationship well, as a use case(1:10:16) is an example of what is possible. But I mean that third brain, that third brain was,(1:10:22) it took elements of human emotion that it could understand right through the large language models (1:10:27) and through the different processing and it, and it was acting, you know, as a, as a different, (1:10:33) I mean, you’re a dad, man, you’re, you’re, you’re loaded for bear, right? And she’s, (1:10:38) she’s emotional about it. And she’s also a people pleaser, like you said.

So that third (1:10:42) brain was bringing in the, the, you know, the psychologist or the, you know, whatever the sage (1:10:47) advice in that situation. So that’s fantastic stuff. So let’s talk about your family real quick (1:10:52) here.

Tell everybody about your, about your family. I know you have a super cute, super single(1:10:59) daughter now, right? Got a couple of them. I got an eligible bachelor.

He’s 25. He’s a nationally (1:11:06) ranked speed shooter in a couple of different leagues. You know, 22 caliber speed shooter.

(1:11:15) Okay. Michigan grad making his dad proud and he’s a scientist. So he’s living his best life (1:11:21) at home as many 25 year old bona fide kids are, but he’s doing his best.

And then my 22 year old (1:11:31) is both my two biological kids, Matt were two pound preemies. I don’t know if you knew that. (1:11:36) Oh no, I didn’t.

Yeah. My wife almost died in both situations. So she had something called (1:11:41) helps high enzyme, low platelets.

Some people call it preeclampsia, but it’s actually more (1:11:45) complicated than that. And so she came very close to death with, with both kids. And so we said, (1:11:51) we’re no longer going to have kids.

And she said, Oh yeah, well I’m not agreeing to that. So we (1:11:57) adopted a third kid and I’m glad we did a beautiful 15 year old who’s living her best 10th grade life (1:12:03) and doing all the 10th grade stuff, boyfriend job. She’s very driven person.

So, and she, (1:12:10) she has the ADHD. She’s the one who has the ADHD, but she’s such a driven kid. And my other two (1:12:16) kids wouldn’t have done this, although they are self starters.

But my, my 15 year old actually (1:12:20) said, dad, how much does the car cost? And I said, well, it depends. And she said, well, (1:12:25) how much does this car cost? And so I gave her a dollar figure. She said, are you going to buy (1:12:28) that for me? Right.

And I said, no. So our deal in our family, Matt, is that when you get of age, (1:12:33) I give you one of two pathways. I’ll either lease you a brand new car.

If you give me the down (1:12:37) payment and I’ll pay for it. But at the end of that, you get nothing. You got to have a plan on (1:12:43) how to get your next car.

The other path is I’ll buy you a great used car. You still have to give (1:12:48) me the same down payment, but you won’t have any payment. And at the end of the, you know, (1:12:51) you’ll have the car.

So I had one kid that did one thing, the other kid that did the other thing. (1:12:57) And so my youngest, uh, Gabby, she says, well, this is the car I want. And you’re going to lease (1:13:03) the car.

And, uh, in the 36 months that you’re paying for the car, I’m going to give the same (1:13:09) dollar amount to myself through my, my work that way. When my lease is up, I’ll get an even better (1:13:14) car. How’s that work? I’m like, that’s the one with ADHD.

So I think there’s probably two places (1:13:21) where she’s going to land. She’ll either be the governor of the state of Michigan on her way to (1:13:24) the white house, or she’ll be running the most sophisticated cigarette Ponzi scheme in federal (1:13:28) penitentiary we’ve ever seen. So one of those two, I think is going to be true for her either way.

(1:13:34) She’s going to make her mark on the world, maybe leveraging some generative AI along the way. (1:13:41) Um, so you have a couple of, uh, things that I want to make sure that we, that we highlight. (1:13:47) Um, and, and then I can let you back to the rest of your day.

Uh, you’re, you’re the founder of (1:13:52) the every campus movement. Um, you’ve got the Jubilee conference. Um, can you talk about some (1:13:58) of that stuff and maybe, um, even feel free to kind of plug it a little bit here on what that, (1:14:04) uh, looks like.

And by the way, you didn’t mention, you mentioned your wife and her (1:14:08) struggles during the, um, pregnancies, but, um, but let’s give her a couple of props here. (1:14:13) Tell everybody about her. She’s amazing.

Yeah. Love of my life. Been married 28 years.

I met (1:14:18) her on her 19th birthday. So I consider myself God’s gift to her. She, she would probably have (1:14:24) a different interpretation.

Yeah. I’ve been married 28 years and the three kids and she’s a, (1:14:29) uh, you know, project manager for a disaster restoration company, which, you know, she loves (1:14:35) and hates depends on which day and what she’s actually doing. So, and then the every campus (1:14:40) coalition is a data driven coalition of 130 organizations in our industry.

So there are (1:14:45) about 130 organizations that do direct ministry with college students in the United States. (1:14:51) And in 2017, I said, man, we should all just get together. There’s a bigger story to that.

And I (1:14:56) had a couple of co-founders with me. So it wasn’t as if I just went out and did this with my own (1:15:00) idea, but I did start the process and that coalition grew from two to 130 organizations. (1:15:06) And it’s a meaningful, deep partnership model.

So we have organizations in the coalition that (1:15:12) share employees, share costs, share social media platforms, all of the organization’s shared data (1:15:19) and all lives on a shared platform that we have access to. So it’s a very meaningful coalition. (1:15:24) I know a lot of times coalitions are, you lend your name to a cause, and this is a real data (1:15:29) driven coalition.

And, and then the Jubilee conference is a conference. Unlike I’ve ever (1:15:36) seen, and I’m a conference guy, except I’ve written four books and I speak at all kinds (1:15:40) of conferences and I’ve never seen a conference like this. So when I became the CEO of the CCO, (1:15:45) which has taken me three years to say, part of the reason why I said yes, is because our (1:15:51) organization has this phenomenal jewel of a conference called the Jubilee conference happens(1:15:56) every February in downtown Pittsburgh, which I’ve discovered everybody wants to go to in America in (1:16:01) the middle of February, they want to go to downtown Pittsburgh.

I tell my wife that every year. I mean, (1:16:05) it’s a hotspot, which is why, you know, we get the best rates at the hotels. And I call it an (1:16:09) upside down conference because there’s really nobody famous on the platform, the big, big (1:16:14) gathering where there were thousands of people, working professionals, college students, you know, (1:16:18) we have people from all over the United States come to this.

Nobody’s really that quite that (1:16:23) famous on the platform, but then you go to the seminars. We have 72 seminars. So it’s a lot of (1:16:29) seminars.

We have lines out the door for these seminars. So imagine if you’re somebody in (1:16:34) construction management, a student at Texas A&M, or you can get a degree in construction management. (1:16:42) Instead of just, you know, coming to some religious conference, you’re going to come to a faith and (1:16:46) work conference where you’re going to get to go to a seminar.

We’re going to sit under the McGowan (1:16:50) brothers who own Storyland Studios, who own these companies, who redesigned Disneyland, who (1:16:56) now are doing a $700 billion project in Dubai. You’re going to be able to sit under their wisdom (1:17:02) and their instruction to hear about faith and work. You know, if you’re an architect student, (1:17:06) you’re going to be able to sit under the instruction of David Greisel, who designed PNC (1:17:12) Park and, you know, another, you know, bulk iconic hotels across the United States.

So I call it an (1:17:18) upside-down conference. It’s for working professionals. You could go.

I’d love to have you come, Matt. (1:17:22) In fact, you’ll get an invite from me. It’s for students.

It’s really for anybody who wants (1:17:27) to learn more about this meaning-making that I’m talking about. So great. Yeah.

Great. Thanks for asking. (1:17:33) No problem.

What’s one thing you want every viewer or as many viewers as possible or listeners of the(1:17:40) of the audio version of the podcast to walk away with that they maybe picked up from you? (1:17:45) Yeah, I would say the number one thing that I would say is that your best version of yourself (1:17:51) is one where everything is integrated and not dichotomized. Because so oftentimes we think (1:17:57) about our professional life, our family life, our leisure, it’s almost siloed. I’ve made a (1:18:04) commitment over the course of my life that I’m just one same simple person.

So you and I know (1:18:10) each other through Vistage, which is a phenomenal opportunity for people in our seat to collaborate (1:18:15) and build each other up and be the best CEOs that we can be. Well, I’m the same person when I go to (1:18:21) church on Sunday. I have the same conversations that I’m having here with this podcast that I have (1:18:26) with, you know, people at church and people in my organization.

So I would just say like (1:18:30) the best version of yourself is an integrated version. And if there’s one element that people (1:18:35) oftentimes dichotomize or silo, it’s their faith arena, right? So I would say that most people (1:18:41) are predisposed to faith, even atheists. We all pray, never let an atheist tell you that we don’t (1:18:46) pray because for 20 years I was an atheist and I prayed almost every single day.

We pray in secret (1:18:51) and we don’t call it prayer. We call it something else. But so many people, particularly people who (1:18:57) are raised in the church, atheists are actually more likely to integrate their faith with their (1:19:03) life than Christians.

People who go to church every Sunday or maybe their Christmas Easter, (1:19:09) you know, churchgoing folk, they are oftentimes most at risk of dichotomizing their faith from (1:19:17) the rest of them. We have our religious self, which is a Sunday Bible prayer self. And then (1:19:23) we go to work on Monday as if that’s totally a different realm.

And I think, boy, that’s just a (1:19:29) horrible way to live. You know, it’s duplicitous, it’s dishonest. But I think worse than that, (1:19:34) it’s the barrier to keeping you from your very best self.

(1:19:38) Trevor Burrus That’s powerful stuff. And when you really (1:19:41) net it out, what’s the thing that you love most about a person and the people you want to be (1:19:48) around? It’s that you want to know what you’re getting every time. You’re getting their authentic (1:19:53) self.

You know, I want you, I want to know that you’re the same person in every setting. (1:19:58) Corinne McArdle That’s right. (1:19:59) Trevor Burrus You know, (1:20:00) which is why I’m surprised you haven’t pulled out the… (1:20:02) Corrine McArdle Yeah, right.

Yeah, I haven’t. (1:20:04) Trevor Burrus Some of your antics. (1:20:04) Corrine McArdle I haven’t pulled that out ever on the (1:20:08) podcast.

But one of the guests we have up and coming was one of the speakers whose (1:20:16) session I actually used that in. So we’re going to keep that a secret, what it is, and we’re going (1:20:20) to let Corinne talk about that on her upcoming podcast with us. So anything else you want to(1:20:27) let us know? Corrine McArdle (1:20:28) Man, just love getting to know you, man.

You’re a unicorn. You’re an amazing guy. (1:20:33) Trevor Burrus You too, man.

(1:20:34) Corrine McArdle You’re on my toes. (1:20:35) Trevor Burrus Yeah, I appreciate the friendship and (1:20:37) love that we’re getting to know each other better. (1:20:39) Corrine McArdle Absolutely.

(1:20:39) Trevor Burrus All right. Well, thanks for doing this.