Chris Grainger: 1:10

Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, fellas, this is your meat episode. I'm excited to have you here with us.

Chris Grainger: 1:21

Ok, so let's get right into our scripture of the week that's in the book of Romans love Romans, chapter 15, verse 13 says May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, as you trust in him, so that you may overthrow, overflow with hope by power of the Holy Spirit. So, fellas, love, love, love that verse. Go back and listen to the spiritual kickoff episode. Just be one back in your podcast feed, all right, took some time to unplug that to help you simplify and apply it to your life, and it's really all about the reflections. That's what the spiritual kickoff episodes are all about Just those simple reflections and insights to hopefully help you take this scripture and apply it as a disciple of Christ. Ok, so again, if you like the spiritual kickoffs, we do those Monday through Friday within our community. It's a great way to get plugged in to start, you know, leaning in further to your discipleship journey. So the lion within dot US how you can find all that All right. So for this conversation, it's going to be a very upbeat. Ok, I'm going to go ahead and it's going to be upbeat.

Chris Grainger: 2:27

Conversation Brought in Matt Drinking. He's a great guy. Love got to meet him. He wrote a book called the Eternal Optimist. He's always on fire and his career when you look at the things he's done, it's really been highlighted by his passion for serving others. That's what it comes down to. He had a very successful career in sales done some great things. Career in sales, done some great things. He's grown uh who how he serves others on different platforms just by simply doing the right thing. He's got a ton of energy. Uh, he's got very enthusiastic as well. You can also hear his story. It's got some some some twists and turns in it. Okay, and hopefully it's going to encourage you. Uh, you're going to hear we're going to talk very directly about steps any Christian man can take today to start leaning in and improving the lives of others. So he lives in Charlotte, north Carolina for you North Carolina guys. He's married to his wife, julie. They got three young daughters.

Chris Grainger: 3:25

He is a scratch golfer, by the way, so that's pretty awesome. He's a real estate investor and he's a big time sports fan and man. He's all about the family. So I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation, so sit back and just enjoy. Enjoy this one. Well, my friend Matt Drinkin. Well, matt, welcome to the Lion Within us. How are you doing today, man? Oh man, thanks, it's fantastic.

Matt Drinkhahn: 3:49

Is there any other answer? I'm not going to say to you I'm good, how are you? I'm good, that's just. I'm past that. I want to give you a real answer, man. I'm doing fantastic today because there's so much joy and so much positive things I can look forward to. You know, we've already overcome a storm of just immense challenge in life and everything moving forward is just God's grace, God's will, and I'm incredibly grateful for so. That's how I'm doing today, man.

Chris Grainger: 4:20

I'm excited to be with you. Amen, amen. Well, I know we're going to get into your story. Before we do that, though, man, tell us something fun about you, matt, that not many people may know about.

Matt Drinkhahn: 4:30

Okay, something fun well, I will, I'll let you in on the nerd side is that my wife and I are competitive speed puzzlers. We're competing in the united states championship of jigsaw puzzling in april and dc, so that's something. I don't know if that's fun or not for everyone. It's super fun for us. Uh, also, I happen to have three daughters that are nine, eight and six, and every day when I finish up work we hop in the car and we drive 1.3 miles to their elementary school and we play soccer with boys who are a little bit older than them. So we just love to go play a little bit of soccer. So those are a couple of uh, I say fun things that are going on in life right now.

Chris Grainger: 5:11

Well I gotta ask how did you get into competitive puzzling man? What led you down that path?

Matt Drinkhahn: 5:17

And Julie and I were just sitting around one night and she said to me that she would love to do a puzzle. This is about eight years ago. So we did a puzzle together and this is some of the most connecting quality time for us. You know, there's no TV on. We put some lovely music in the background and we will stand around our kitchen in the island and do a 1,000 or 3,000 piece puzzle and it's just a great time for us to connect and talk. And it's not in a sedentary position on the couch, it's standing up and connecting. So that's probably why we do it is so we can connect. And then we just started to find we're pretty good at it and yeah, so it's kind of caught on. And now this is our first time in 2025 that we're going to compete in the world championship.

Chris Grainger: 6:06

That's incredible. Well, we got to get an update after the. After the competition man Love to see. I want to see the trophy because I know you're going to win it.

Matt Drinkhahn: 6:14

That's awesome, okay, okay, listen, I'm an eternal optimist, my friend. But I can tell you this right now we are not going to win that trophy. We're not going to put in the time, energy and effort and this may be an opportunity for me to coach myself in a life learning lesson If you are not going to put in the required time that it takes to become the top blank insert in a blank, to become the top puzzling team, if you're not going to put in the time, energy and effort to train to be the top one then I'm not going to brag that we're going to win it.

Matt Drinkhahn: 6:44

So when you say it, I'm like, yeah, I want to win the trophy too, but we're not going to puzzle train for hours a day, man, it's just a fun hobby.

Chris Grainger: 6:51

I hear you brother. I hear you Enjoy that time for sure with her. Good luck to you. I know you have a very inspirational story and a testimony and I just want to give you a free space here to kind of get the listeners up to speed on who you are and why you're so passionate for the Lord.

Matt Drinkhahn: 7:10

Fantastic. Well, let's go back in time with some bullet points for context. As of right now, I'm 47 years of age. I've been married to my amazing bride, julie, for the last 10 years and we have three amazing daughters. So that is where the family is right now. We go back in time, my faith walk, which I'd love to share with you. I'd love to dive in because I believe that a lot of your listeners they may relate to it, and I don't talk about it out loud, publicly that often on podcasts, because it's something, that it's a challenging story. There's a little bit of embarrassment and I want to be transparent about it because we're fully walking with the Lord right now.

Matt Drinkhahn: 7:56

We started our life at least I started my life in 1977. I've got my father, who's in the military, in the Air Force. My mother's an English school teacher and they met when he was in the military. So they met, they got together and then we moved 17 times in 21 years. Chris, just imagine this man. We are moving every year. Every year and a half we're moving to a different place. 13 of those moves were different states, so we simply picked up and left.

Matt Drinkhahn: 8:26

And throughout all of this, one thing that was consistent the entire time is that we always went to Sunday church, whether it was living in Michigan where my dad's side of the family were Lutherans, and we would go to the Lutheran church. Lutheran is very how would I say it? It was something where we would go and the pews were big and it was a hollow sound in the room. It was very. I felt it was a hollow sound in the room. It was very. I felt it was kind of formal. It wasn't catholicism formal I'll get into the catholic journey in a little while but in lutheran it was uh, it was an old tradition and we went to lutheran churches wherever we're in michigan and when we're living in the south we went to baptist churches because my mom grew up southern baptist. So we would go to revival. It's amazing Now that I'm talking about it, I remember some of my most fun times are going to revive, like we'd have revival week in the summer.

Matt Drinkhahn: 9:19

We'd be with grandma and we would go to church several nights a week and have our revival out in the back outside. That was pretty fantastic, but the church was a constant when I was growing up. But the church was a constant when I was growing up. So I can honestly say, living to the 10 commandments, living to the golden rule, studying the Bible these are all things that were normal part of life growing up and I loved it. I felt that there's this way that I can live with these, what I would call these right values, and it would grant me a spot of eternal life. God in heaven, I mean, these are ideas that I love growing up. So we're thoroughly and heavily involved in the church growing up.

Matt Drinkhahn: 10:02

And then something happened, chris. Something happened. I was 16 years of age and this is the first time this happened in my life was 16 years of age and this is the first time this happened in my life. The church we were going to, the pastor of said church, had an affair with someone in the congregation and that was the first time that I'd ever had anything that really tested my faith. Is that the place that we were tithing, the place that we would spend and listen to this man of the church and he was doing the things that we're talking about we don't do, and to me as a 16-year-old, that didn't really compute. So that was a little bit of a challenge for me to deal with at that time. Sure, okay, so we moved. Broken trust.

Matt Drinkhahn: 10:50

Yeah well, let's's continue, because this daisy chain Of broken trust Happens A couple more times. The next church that I went to I was moving, I was going to high school the lead pastor had A split and a rift In the church Because of a political issue and the entire church Dissolved. One of the biggest churches In the city we lived in it dissolved. He left and went somewhere else and the church just dissolved and it was a major church. So we stopped going to that church. That's the second time. And then, when I was off at college, the third time. When I was off at college, the third time the pastor of the church also had an affair with someone that was on the clergy staff. So to me these are three and there ended up being some embezzlement. That happened there. Those are three specific instances where I'm going to church to study, to learn, to live in the faith and to be kind of re-energized and, I want to say, chris, to be maybe even shielded from some of those worldly things that happen, and this is the centerpiece of those worldly things happening. And I didn't know how to at that time in my life, I didn't know how to reconcile that. Okay, here's what kind of ended this chapter of my faith walking life.

Matt Drinkhahn: 12:13

20 years old, I'm at college and my girlfriend. At the time she was living in a suite with seven other girls, young women at college, and, unfortunately, the most horrible thing happened. One night it was a Friday night One of her suite mates was assaulted on the way home from a party and that particular time that it happened she was cornered and trapped and she was assaulted by a homeless person out there and she became pregnant. And the challenge then was that she went to the clinic to have an abortion and in my mind at this point, abortion is no, we don't do that. I didn't see any reason or way to do that, and this is the first time in my life that I am faced with someone close to me was assaulted. They're pregnant, they want to go to the clinic, they're asking me to take them. So I got in the car with the girlfriend and her friend and I took her to the clinic and I felt that this was right, even though I had some inner conflict about what I'd been raised to believe.

Matt Drinkhahn: 13:30

This is at the age of 20, and I'm at college, so roughly around this time, my faith walk had started to fracture a little bit. I still have the Ten Commandments, still have the Golden Rule, but my physical relationship of going to church and being with actual like a pastor in the church, chris, this season in life it came to a pause of me going to church. Okay, all right, so compound. The next thing is that I got a job in sales, my first real job of my life where I could earn commission and I could earn more than the $5.50 an hour that I'd been earning in the summers or the tips I've been earning serving for three years at Macaroni Grill or a couple other places. So now I have my first job in sales and making good commission, and I am now because we grew up very meager and poor, I would say. I mean, we weren't having to search for our meals and we always had a place to live on the Air Force Base, but we certainly shopped at the thrift store and got our stuff from Kmart. So we're in this place now where I'm not going to church. I've got this career going and I'm starting to make money and I've never actually seen money before. So I'm all into it and just take off in this wild roller coaster of building businesses and becoming financially successful and that was really the focus.

Matt Drinkhahn: 14:57

And I went away from my parents for a few years and just focused on the business and I certainly wasn't in my faith walk Put into this the temptation of the lifestyle that I was living, of running this big business and going out on the weekends with my team or with friends. There was a lot of alcohol involved. It was a time when I'm not proud of it. I want to share it transparently. I was secular, I was out of my faith walk, okay. And then the Lord reintroduced himself to me in 2005 on late, on memorial day, because I've been sharing with my father over the past year and a half.

Matt Drinkhahn: 15:43

Uh, at the time I was, I was 27, I shared with my father that I was doing really well in business and, um, I got a big paycheck I shared. I called him to share with him. I got, I got a huge check, a bonus check, biggest check in my life at that point, 27. And um, he said to me I'm happy for you, son, I hope you don't, uh, don't do anything dumb and don't go out and drink and drive, okay. And I said well, dad, I don't, I don't drink. I can tell you what I do. I don't think you'd like it. And that was where I made a mistake. My ego was up and I wanted to prove to him something. And he's like what do you mean? And I said well, dad, I don't drink On the weekends. I smoked pot. I shared that with him. This is in my 20s and some time ago I know my kids are going to hear this at some point and I want to be transparent that I did that in my 20s and he wasn't fond of that. So we didn't talk for a long time. We were at that point.

Matt Drinkhahn: 16:45

We were out of communication for a while and my mom brokered the conversation to come back and have a play game of golf together one weekend of Memorial Day 2005. Right, so we go to play golf with dad. We have a three-day golf outing together. As soon as I see him on the first day I haven't seen him or talked to him in months show up. I got a tear in my eye the moment I see him and I just I confess and I apologize that I'm emotional about it. I only saw my dad cry twice in my life when he was alive and those two times were at the death of his mom and his dad. He had a little bit of a wetness in his eye at that moment as well. So we came back together. Things were amazing for those three days.

Matt Drinkhahn: 17:26

I left that Sunday or that Monday night, memorial Day weekend, feeling full and connected again to my family. It was a big, big, big weekend. Tuesday morning I get the call at 7.04 am from my mom. I left their house that night to drive back to Atlanta two hours away. And I got the call from mom at 7.04 am in the morning. Matthew, I need you to come home. Your dad just died. Matthew, I need you to come home. Your dad just died, right, and that was by far.

Matt Drinkhahn: 17:59

It was the worst moment of my life. It was the worst day of my life and there's no amount of optimism that's going to change that. In my mind, nothing good happened in that moment or in that day and it's a little bit of a blur. All I remember is that my two-hour drive to get to them or to get to my mom now it only took about an hour and 25 minutes and when I saw his body lifeless, just utter shock and I couldn't believe it and I just kind of stared at him and no words came out, just all tears and emotion. I couldn't speak. So I shared this critical juncture because at this point, I was, I was. I was away from the Lord. I was in a different place, uh, driven by worldly things, still wanting to serve people, but do it through a more selfish, ego-based lens, uh. But this was a big wake up call and, um, it definitely drew me closer to mom and it started to bring me back closer to faith, but I wasn't there yet, chris.

Chris Grainger: 19:05

Hey, matt, before you keep going, let's take a quick break and then we're going to come back and let you keep unpacking this incredible testimony. We'll be right back, guys. I don't know about you, but I used to find Mondays really rough. I would find myself trying to reset for work, trying to get my bearing on the family calendar, trying to find time for my own spiritual growth and development, and often I found myself overwhelmed or just flatly ignoring aspects of my life that I know are meaningful to me. What I learned was that if I had immediate access to important and impactful spiritual topics and reflections to start my week well, after the allure of a Sunday sermon has passed, I would set my whole week up to be more meaningful and for the opportunity to make a true impact.

Chris Grainger: 19:59

If you think that getting such a boost would help your week to get started on the right foot, we would love for you to sign up for the Weekly Roar, which is our newsletter that is produced by the Lion Within Us. Each week will deliver a powerful reflection and practical steps to help you apply scripture with clarity and purpose, all being rooted in light and truth. So in just a few minutes, we hope to arm you with insights for living out biblical leadership with confidence and strength, and maybe even have a little extra bounce in your step. If that sounds useful, head over to thelionwithinus slash ROAR to sign up today that's thelionwithinus slash ROAR to get your weekly ROAR today. All right, matt, just feel free. All right, matt, just feel free, just keep rolling. Man, what a powerful testimony. All right, man, just feel free, just keep rolling. And man, what a powerful testimony.

Matt Drinkhahn: 21:01

You can hear me and see me. Everything is good so far.

Chris Grainger: 21:04

Yep, you can hear me at least.

Matt Drinkhahn: 21:05

Okay. Well, so after dad passed I came to some conclusions that you know I'd like to try something different and do something different, kind of shift up and go to a different chapter in my life. So I got out of the business that I was in and I went to try to play pro golf. My mom showed me my dad's his diary and it said in it that his only regret in his entire life, chris, was he didn't get to caddy for me on the pro golf tour.

Matt Drinkhahn: 21:36

Entire life, chris was he didn't get to caddy for me on the pro golf tour. Didn't mention anything in there about being proud or or happy about the financial success which to me growing up he never really had money. So to me this was a way that I could prove my worth. I could show him that it's I'm doing really well and it was a point of pride. No point in his journal or his diary did he ever talk about that. It was always about he just wanted to spend more time with me and he wanted to go caddy for me on the pro golf tour. I let go of pro golf to go and run businesses and now I came back to it. So I went to that season. Obviously, I did not become the next Tiger Woods, as Tiger Woods was becoming Tiger Woods, so that wasn't the place that we ended up, but that was the next journey after my father passed and then, a couple of stints in corporate America.

Matt Drinkhahn: 22:30

It did really well there. And then I met Julie. I met the woman that I would marry and now we've been married for 10 years. All right, our faith walks together because she grew up in a Catholic house Okay, and I grew up, you know, baptist, lutheran, protestant, went to a Methodist college. She grew up Catholic. Both of us were. We had grown up in the church but neither one of us were really there at the moment when we met, and I was in my mid-30s and she was in her early 30s. So we met.

Matt Drinkhahn: 23:06

We didn't really have a faith strategy or a connected plan in our walk in faith. It was kind of an afterthought to us. We felt we were good people, we were more spiritual than going to church. But after we started to raise our children, we had all three of the children in a few year time span. We felt that we were being called back to the church in some way. But we had so much, so many scars. She has her own scars from the church and I had mine, but we had so many scars that it just took us a little while to rectify that.

Matt Drinkhahn: 23:41

And once we did and now I am very excited to say. I'm proud to say and we'll share with everyone, that we have been back in the church now for the better part of this year. We haven't missed any Sunday. You know we're both taking part in Sunday school classes. We're heavily involved in our church and we just signed our annual tithing card offering for the first time that we've ever done that together as a married couple and our faith journey, both heavily involved from birth till 18. And then exposed to some real-world scenarios that challenged us. Foundation's still inside, but we didn't go to church for some time.

Matt Drinkhahn: 24:28

A couple decades pass and now, at this season in our lives, we realize, because we're having children, that we want to give our children the same gift that we had growing up. We want to help build a strong foundation based on these right moral and principles that we learned from our faith walk with Christ. And we have now done that. And just to see our kids light up when we have dinner every night and we like to ask what was your high of the day, what was your low of the day? And whenever we have a meal on Sunday night, we always get the same answer we love going to church and these kids are only nine, eight and six, right.

Matt Drinkhahn: 25:06

So any of you parents out there, you think about your kids in church. It's not always easy to get a four, five, six-year-old to sit still in church, right? Well, now we've got our six-year-old. I mean, she's not looking at the sermon and taking notes or anything, but she's quiet in church. She's mostly paying attention. The eight and nine-year-old are paying attention and we're having great discussions about it on the way home and at lunch and at dinner table. So our walk has started to come full circle.

Matt Drinkhahn: 25:37

And some of the questions that we just didn't ask for the better part of two decades. We're asking again and every time we ask it we feel good asking it. We're not questioning the values and challenging everything. You know, like Satan might get us to try to do and tempt us. We have done our very best to let to try to do and tempt us. We have done our very best to let go of some of those temptations. We've cut alcohol completely out of our lives and I think that's an important point. I'm going to pause for a second.

Matt Drinkhahn: 26:07

I just hit you with a lot of stuff that one part of going to church every week and the kids involved in Sunday school being people who are leaders and starting to teach in the Sunday school classes that part along with. We like to journal and or meditate and pray every single day, right. So I have a journal over here that I write in every single day about the things I'm grateful for that the Lord has given us Every day three magic moments I write down. I've been doing that for nine years now, right, and we pray together every night before we go to bed, right. Those two simple practices have really started to just regenerate and reinvigorate us in our walk with Christ and that's why I love to be with you today. Chris, is to share that.

Matt Drinkhahn: 27:04

There may be some unrequited guilt or shame that we were out for so long and we've got to have a little bit of patience and grace with ourselves and not judge ourselves too harshly for those things that we've done. If anyone out there is saddled with this and they're feeling this consistent guilt, our Lord is one who wants us to be accountable for that but also is forgiving and we can have patience and grace with ourselves. So that part, that part, has been a challenge and we're learning to let go of that and focus on where we are right now. I have a quote for you, and I think this is an original. I don't think I heard it anywhere, but if I did, then pardon me if someone else said this, if someone else said this, but I would say that the antidote to anxiety, to perfectionism, to temptation, is in being present, and I found that whenever I start thinking about the past and the sins we've committed, or turning our head the other way when we see sins committed, there's maybe some guilt or shame in some of that.

Matt Drinkhahn: 28:33

But that goes away when we're present with the Lord right now, amen, and the future same thing, right. If you have anxiety about the future, the way things are going to go or not go, and you're always thinking about that, then back to it being present with yourself, with the Lord, right now. That is the antidote.

Chris Grainger: 28:47

And.

Matt Drinkhahn: 28:47

I keep finding in my study out here, because I'm one of these personal growth junkies as well, and I coach a lot of personal growth junkies, and I say that lovingly the more I pray, the more I find myself in this place where I'm just present now, like we are right now. There's no anxiety for the future, there's no shame for the past. It's just right now, pouring all we've got into the people that we're with at the moment. And I found that I feel closest to God and closest to Jesus and closest with my family when I'm present in that moment. Does that connect with you? I mean, how do you interpret that idea that the antidote to temptation and anxiety, perfection, is in being present with the Lord right now? How does that strike you, chris?

Chris Grainger: 29:39

I mean. One thing I say all the time on the show and when I help others as well, is just be where your feet are. And if we could just be where our feet are right, that fixes so much, whether it's with your spouse, with your kids, with the board meeting, with a customer, wherever we are, and it's the distraction world that we live in with the cell phones and the notifications and the updates. I mean it's just, it's hard to be present. So that's that's an easy way for me to remember. But I love your quote as well.

Matt Drinkhahn: 30:08

I think you're right. Yeah, be where your feet are, that's that's. It's beautiful in its simplicity and just to think about be where your feet are, just be there. Know, I think you look at the, the masculine energy of always go, go, go and doing things, and there's like a feminine energy of being, uh, and being present in that moment. Whatever you want to call that, I, I tend to try to be more present now, right before it was all do, do, do, go, go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve.

Chris Grainger: 30:37

and now that we're back in the, in the light of the lord, and we're studying and reading our bible every day, now I find just being present in that moment is like a, a big channel, right, just a straight in line connection, straight to god there's something interesting about your story I want to explore with you, because I've heard this with lots of, with different guys as well, and I see this in our church and churches that I've been a part with is you have the kids, you have the youth, you know. You kind of you get them to college, like to the college age, and then cause I mentor some college kids now too, and they say, when they mentor some college kids now too, and and and they say, when they come back to church now they don't feel like they fit in because they're not married. You know, they don't have kids, they're not a kid anymore, they're in that weird stage of life. And I just found so many times, matt, that churches, the discipleship journey, first of all, discipleship, is not even on the radar for many churches. We're trying to get them through the waters of baptism, then we just we leave them, we're not, we're not truly discipling them. But, man, this it seemed like just hearing your story.

Chris Grainger: 31:45

You came back, obviously, when you had got married, had the kids. It makes it perfect. I'm so happy for you, but I'm just wondering are there, is it an opportunity for churches to learn from these different stories, to lean into discipleship more and teach them more earlier so that you know in their twenties, they, they, they have a sense of purpose and they, they want. Now obviously you you had three back to back to back examples that were just horrendous. Man, but I mean, even in churches that don't have that, they're losing them. They're losing them when they go to college. They're losing them in their 20s and 30s and their high-earning years. I'd just love to get your insights on what do you think we could do different?

Matt Drinkhahn: 32:25

Well, it's a great question. I love the question. I'll give you a parallel example of why I feel this is a real challenge for the church. I feel it's a real challenge for a lot of organizations or families. I don't know if you've ever said this out loud, but I've said it a number of times that I wish in school they would teach more about financial literacy, how to balance a checkbook. They would teach leadership, good decision-making.

Matt Drinkhahn: 32:52

But those aren't core curriculum classes in most schools, right? Well, take that same thought that if we were to go to school and teach those things, what impact would it make on our children as they go through the education system? Well, apply the same model to our faith and our churches In churches. If I'm just going to go back in time and think I don't know if this would work or not, it makes sense that it might to me. I love to go back into Sunday school when I was a teenager. I'd love for my leader to come in there and give me a real-life example like the one that I faced when I was 20. No one had ever asked me that question before. No one in the church had ever asked it. It was a very black and white. There's no gray area.

Matt Drinkhahn: 33:38

But if the church would be a place where we could go and discuss real-life, challenging things we're going to face, I feel that might be a more, maybe a way that, if they would evolve to that, that we could prepare our kids a little bit better so that when they're tested in that real life scenario, they'd already practiced it, they'd already talked through how to do it. It's the same thing I do professionally in coaching high-level leaders to be prepared for anything. Well, if you've never tested them and their first real test they face, they've not been trained for it, or at least not maybe in theory. They've been trained but they've never been asked the real question and now they've got to face it on their own. They're away from their parents, they're away at school, somewhere. Of course, there's going to be a strong temptation to not follow our principles that we were raised with because we weren't taught how to use them in a real-life scenario. So the same thing that we see in financial literacy in school same thing I might want to talk about at a teenage age when I'm in Sunday school, growing up and I didn't get that.

Matt Drinkhahn: 34:50

So that might be one thought that comes to mind, chris, when you share that is, how might we incorporate real-life scenarios and real-life challenging decisions that we're going to face? How might we incorporate more of that into our Sunday school or into our church and have real, transparent dialogue? Because I'd love to go deeper with that. My kids are nine and eight and six, so especially the six-year-old and maybe the eight-year-old a little bit. It's tough to start to talk about some of those more challenging things now, like I'm not going to talk about abortion today. I don't think that's really the place. Yet you know what? It would be nice to talk with them about some of these things they may see on the news or see, and so not the news. We don't even have news in our house, we don't have cable, but it would be like the social media if they ever get that. Yeah Right, just, things are going to see, right.

Chris Grainger: 35:40

Yeah.

Matt Drinkhahn: 35:41

How does that connect with you?

Chris Grainger: 35:42

I think it connects well. I mean, I have some other thoughts as well. We're going to take a quick break. Quick break, guys. We'll come back and keep digging into this topic. When I reflect on the kind of things that the men who participated in our discipleship masterminds had in the past, I am overwhelmed by the quality of their comments and commitment to each other. Several of the guys commented that this was the most meaningful leadership experience they've encountered, and we even had one man log into a discipleship mastermind while a hurricane was hitting his house. He was that committed and received that much from his peer group that he didn't want to miss it. Because of this extraordinary commitment and because it's a true gift and pleasure, we made them a core part of our community and we hope you might join us. We sit up men with their own peer advisory group of seven individuals that meet every other week for 12 weeks. Each member shares areas they want to focus on, such as improving their prayer life, being more intentional with their wives or maybe shedding a few extra pounds Together.

Chris Grainger: 36:59

We help them strategize, make commitments, find accountability and learn. It's been our experience that most guys want a community of trustworthy men to share their ideas and create support for each other with, and it's been our experience that most men don't either create this for themselves or seek them out. So we do this because we want you to have that in your life, and all that is needed to begin winning is you. All that is needed to begin winning is you. If this sounds interesting, check out our community to see the dates and times of when these different groups meet. Visit thelionwithinus to start your free trial of our community. To get started today, that's thelionwithinus, and I would love to see you lean in and tap into the power of our discipleship masterminds. Matt, one thing I was thinking as well. I love that. You know teach them, of course, your kids age. From my standpoint, that's what we're supposed to just be teaching. You know we're supposed to be trying to lay the foundation, the groundwork. So, like you're doing a phenomenal job, you and your wife are doing that in your church as well. I'm wondering and guys won't have to take the lead on this I had no men discipling me in the faith.

Chris Grainger: 38:19

I had my father, which was awesome he's my hero but I had no other men who were further along in their faith journey that were coming alongside. And I don't think you put a group of 20 year olds together and just give them a Bible. I think it's a recipe for disaster. It's a dumpster fire in the way, in the light. Nothing good is going to come from that. The same thing that I also feel that you put a bunch of 30 year old couples together and let them try to figure out life. That's a dumpster fire.

Chris Grainger: 38:47

At some point you got to have some seasoned wisdom, some veterans coming in, speaking life, encouraging others, and I think, man, we have the chance to do that. No matter where you're at on your spiritual journey, you have people behind you, no matter where you are. So just find that one guy that's behind you and take that time for mentorship and discipleship and just kind of what you're doing with coaching. I mean, it's the same thing People look to you for, for wisdom and for coaching. It's the same type of thing, but from a spiritual standpoint it's a massive gap and I just I don't. I don't know how we fix it, I just know that that is, that is a. To me it seems like that potentially could be a way to really start closing that gap. I don't know if that resonates, but it resonates.

Matt Drinkhahn: 39:29

It resonates really well, and I am not one to say that there's a problem and talk about it and complain about it, or just. I don't want to idolize or just put the problem on a pedestal without crossing that bridge and offering a solution, because then it may sound like I'm complaining.

Matt Drinkhahn: 39:49

So I'd like to offer a solution to what we're talking about, because I've not offered one yet. Here might be something. As someone who coaches high-level business executives, one of the things I do is I facilitate mastermind events. So I can imagine that there's a place where, let's just say, we're in Sunday school, we're in the youth class, the teenage, like I'm in high school, like junior year or higher, or freshman year to higher in high school, maybe the college kids come back. But I'm facilitating something where maybe I have a six-part series where I have six male leaders in my church, six female leaders as well.

Matt Drinkhahn: 40:26

But since we're talking about men right now, let's just say I've got six male leaders in the church of varying ages, varying demographics, and they come and share their testimony and they share some of the more challenging decisions they've had to face and transparently they share what they did. If we could get some real life progress, real life feedback, real life story of what happens in the real world with our biblical principles, where we live to them and sometimes we don't live to them, if we could share transparently and have someone kind of coach or share their testimony more frequently, more often, more powerfully, I feel that might be some solution or start to a solution. I've not seen that in any of the churches I've been in yet. Sure, some of them are probably doing it, but I've not seen them yet. That could be one thing. We could have something like that.

Chris Grainger: 41:17

I think that's great, man, I mean because that gives them opportunity for that outside perspective as well. And just, you never know how the Holy Spirit is going to move, and I'm curious your thoughts on this. So for the last I think five or six years I've been mentoring and doing direct one-on-one mentoring. He's 16 now and he's a little punk, but I keep pouring into him all the time. I've constantly, you know, check him, but we have those hard conversations. I mean, he's got a girlfriend now and he, we're talking, you know, I've talked to him very directly about, you know, your, your biology is going to outpace your theology, bro, so you need to make sure that you're not in a room alone, you know, room alone with her, and we're not on couches doing what we want to do, because couches and movies never, you know never, ends in good stuff when you're 16 years old. So you're 16 years old, so I mean, but he doesn't his father's past, he doesn't have that man speaking into his life.

Chris Grainger: 42:14

But for me, man like that's, you know, hearing a story is one thing, but like what I like so much about the mentorship with him is just a connection, just hey, what questions do you have? You know, and then he'll just the most random stuff at some times. I'm like, all right, let's go there and let's figure it out, and then I'll make it uncomfortable, you know, I'll just come out. Hey, have you looked at any pornography lately? Or something like that? Right, I mean, I just hit him but he'll never see it coming and a question, and it's just. But we've developed that type of bond and now where he comes to me, I feel like I'll come to me when things get real. But man, that's nothing. That's not like a program at the church or a flyer, that's just time and investing time and it's not sexy. But I wish we could find a way to really challenge each other as men, get one or two of those young Timothys in our lives and start cultivating them, you know.

Matt Drinkhahn: 43:13

Yeah, what you're saying is such a powerful testimony, chris. What if we thought of tithing? Of course we thought of tithing in terms of financial resource but what if? Tithing was in terms of every leader, every male in our church, you know were to invest some time into their know, were to invest some time into their own development or to invest some time into the development of someone younger in the church.

Matt Drinkhahn: 43:37

You know that might be a way to get everyone in our spiritual community more involved. So where is the place if you're listening right now, where is the place that you have given back to the church, not just in financial and not just in going and packing lunches for the homeless and doing things that your community outreach, but the actual younger people in the church? How have we created these mentorship, stewardship programs, discipleship programs where they can walk with someone in this stage of life? And I feel that your idea is a great idea, so I would trumpet it. I think that that would be a great place for us to start. I don't know.

Chris Grainger: 44:19

And for me. You're a business guy and we're always driven guys like us. We try to figure out how to scale stuff right. We want to scale it. I don't know if you can scale this so much, but I do know one thing Looking at Scripture scripture.

Chris Grainger: 44:36

It seems like we need to have a few pauls in our life, the guys that are further along that we're learning from, you know, and and those are the guys that need to be speaking and kind of chipping away to us. I meet, I'm meeting with my later today, he's 86, and when he talks I shut up and I'm just quiet and I listen to him and I'll tell him how you know a story and he'll just tell me that I'm a moron and he'll, you know, correct me and gently, because he loves me and he's got that wisdom and I trust him. Then we gotta have some barnabases, man, we gotta have some, some peers that they would do life with right, they're just going like you're a barnabas, I can tell that you're just an encourager, you know you. Just you lift people up.

Chris Grainger: 45:07

Then we better have a few timothys as well, and I don't have the right number. I don't know what the number is. I think it's individualistic to the, to the man, but I know one thing it's got to be bigger than zero for all levels, you know, and so I don't know if that hits, but that's just. To me it's like we could if we had a, if we had a few paul barnabas's and timothy's in our life, man, I think we'd find a lot more fulfillment and, to your point, optimism.

Matt Drinkhahn: 45:30

Yes, and, by the way, I am very glad that you keep saying Timothy and Barnabas and Paul, because those are three names in the Bible of people I know, like Samson and Moses and Elijah. These are names of stories I know well. I'm glad you didn't plot a name, I didn't know. But yes, yes, no-transcript, and come more towards that with strong leadership leading the way. So what are we doing to give up a little bit of ourselves and offer to our people in the congregation, to our peers, our brothers and sisters? What might we do to pour more into them? And that, my friend, I think that's a very challenging question because you've got to give up a little bit of self and not take, give.

Matt Drinkhahn: 46:38

And that's a tough existential question because we've got so much going on. We've got distractions, we've got temptation, we've got life, meeting the bills and jobs and kids that might drive us crazy and we love them so much. So we got all this stuff going on. And so how do we help our radiance, our light, outshine the darkness? And when we do, people gravitate towards that. We just need a little bit more light. You move more towards light, get a little bit brighter every day. There's going to be days. We're dark, I know, I know. And how might we have more light days and dark days and be a little bit more of a magnetic sun or radiance, you know, than just lukewarm or not present?

Chris Grainger: 47:19

I am, that's, I'm with you, bro, I'm with you and I'm super curious because you're, you do have a lot of success. We we have. I mean, we built this line within us. We disciple leaders, so lots of our guys who listen, they are successful. I'm curious for you what's the uh, what are you looking for and how do you find those? Those spiritual mentors? You know how have you found them in your life? You know that are that are going to be helping, guide and direct you. Like what's the green flags? We all know what the red flags are, but like, what are the green flags and what are you? What are you looking for there to uh that that has helped you? Because obviously it's easy to think like, well, if I hear matt, he's, he's led all these businesses, he's so successful he probably doesn't need anyone. And I know that's not accurate, but I'm just curious what would those, those green indicators be for you as you look for that?

Matt Drinkhahn: 48:08

Thank you for saying it, and I got an answer for this one. Before I share the answer, it's easy to look at people that are on your podcast, that maybe have the term successful, you know, and people consider them to be successful. Oh, it was all easy for them. They could say it because look at them, they've made it. They're whatever they are, they're successful. I look at them, they've made it. They're whatever they are, they're successful.

Matt Drinkhahn: 48:32

I tell you what, though, my friend, part of the reason that I've been able to find success in business is because of my strong upbringing. Strong, go back to the light, go back to the good, strong habits and disciplines, and this has never been easy, right? So let me just dispel the myth that success is a piece of cake. It's not, and it's not easy, and it may seem really cool and calm and collected, but, like a duck under the water, I'm going 100,000 miles an hour right now, and have been for some time.

Matt Drinkhahn: 49:05

It has become easier because I've grown and gotten a little bit I'd say a little bit bigger and expanded, because I do so much reflection, do so much self-study, do so much journaling, reading humbly, sharing the hard stuff and having deep conversations around it, and this is the hard work that it takes to become successful. So I don't want anyone to think, oh, he's so successful, I don't have much figured out, I just wake up every day with a great attitude and just give it my best. So I don't want anyone to think, oh, he's so successful, I don't have much figured out, I just wake up every day with a great attitude and just give it my best. So, having said all that, I actually forgot your question the green flags for the mentors in your life.

Matt Drinkhahn: 49:45

Yeah. So this is again a place that may be very uncomfortable, because they're not just going to find you. If you want something, you've got to go and find it and create it. It's always been the way that I've lived and I'd say this that the people I find as mentors right now my mentor right now is a man named Mark Victor Hansen. He has created the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. He's sold over 600 million books more than anyone in the history of the United States and this particular gentleman has a strong walk with Christ and he is one of the big influences that has helped bring me back to Christ.

Matt Drinkhahn: 50:25

So I look, how did I find him? I didn't just get lucky and end up at a table with him one day. I had to seek out strong male guidance and leadership, and I went looking for that, and when I started my podcast, the Eternal Optimist podcast, I sought out this, coincidentally, how we met as well. I sought out looking for people that have done amazing things, that have overcome amazing challenges and learned from their stories, and I've learned from you and yours. I've learned from him and his. But it wasn't by accident that you and I came to meet together. It wasn't by accident that I found my mentors. It was because I am on a quest to learn from and be with people that well, quite frankly, they have achieved some level of success, but it's not just financial success. It's a success of inner peace that they have found by being with the Lord. So that is something that I don't think. I voiced that on a podcast, or at least in a long time.

Matt Drinkhahn: 51:29

That's one great way to look at success, and if you want that, or if you want a mentor, you've got to own it yourself. My friends, they're not out there looking for you. At least they might be, but it's like a needle in a haystack finding people to be our disciples or people that we can mentor. So if you really want a mentor, you've got to go out there and find it. And if you really want a mentor, you've got to go out there and find it. And if you're not sure how, reach out to chris, reach out to me and we can point you with some resources or point you in a direction. Maybe even we can help serve you. But I, I truly believe that if you want something, you have to take personal accountability and responsibility for it and figure out how to find it and if you don't know how, reach out to to me, reach out to Chris.

Matt Drinkhahn: 52:13

And we'll give you some more feedback on that, but that'd be my response is you got to go and find it.

Chris Grainger: 52:18

You got to go and find it. That's it. That's it. Well, matt, this has been. Your testimony is incredible. We always love to play a lightning round toward the end of our conversations. If you're willing to jump in and have some fun at the end, man, well, how about we do it?

Matt Drinkhahn: 52:32

I love it. I love lightning around me. I I don't know what you're gonna ask, so I'm excited about it and let's go, baby, all right all right outside of puzzling what's your, what's another hobby you enjoy doing for? Fun scratch golfer. I love playing golf. You know if my dad growing up I've had three hole-in-ones and one double eagle and I love to play golf, baby.

Matt Drinkhahn: 52:49

So I'd say that and the kids do come with me out there, I bring them, they ride in the cart and now they have clubs so they get to play from time to time. So, yeah, it's golf, definitely golf.

Chris Grainger: 52:58

What's the greatest? Okay, it's just going to be an off-the-cuff lightning round question Where's the greatest place?

Matt Drinkhahn: 53:03

that comes to mind is I played the TPC at Sawgrass, where they play the Players' Championship.

Matt Drinkhahn: 53:09

I played it with my friend, william McGirt, who I played with at Wofford, and he won the Memorial with Jack Nicklaus a few years back and I got to hit balls on the pro side of the driving range right next to Vijay Singh when he was I think he was 52 at the time and the guy was still hitting it as far as I've ever seen anybody and it was amazing. But yeah, tpc at Sawgrass is the most beautiful place. I got to say if I could play anywhere right now other than Augusta National, I want to go back to my old high school stomping grounds in Peru, indiana, and play Peru municipal golf course with my high school friends. Okay, so that's the answer there.

Chris Grainger: 53:45

There you go, brother, there you go. How about favorite food? What are you eating?

Matt Drinkhahn: 53:50

First thing that comes to mind right now because I'm looking at the lion within, right behind you I had some delicious venison and, by the way, I love to go and find and kill and eat everything that I would kill, everything I would hunt and do, but we don't like it as much when people do it for us, so I want to go and find it and want to kill it and I want to eat it myself. So anything that I can go and find and eat like that, like fish or venison.

Chris Grainger: 54:21

I love that as food. There you go, there you go, all right.

Matt Drinkhahn: 54:23

Love it. How about an all-time favorite movie? What's your go-to movie, matt? Oh my God, you're making my ADV mind go crazy.

Matt Drinkhahn: 54:33

I have to say Caddyshack man, because I love a good laugh and that's one of my most quoted movies of all time, uh, but if I'm gonna bit the masculine energy, I'm going 300, because I love the leonidas inspirational story there. Those are some, but you know what? Okay, since we're on the faith walk, I absolutely love facing the giants back in the day. You know when mark rick came out that movie and he was the Georgia coach then. But that Facing the Giants movie came out like about 12 years ago or 13 years ago. I really enjoy that one.

Chris Grainger: 54:56

Awesome, brother, awesome. So if you could have a superpower, like, which one would it be and how would you use it? Matt?

Matt Drinkhahn: 55:03

Whew, man, all right. So I thought about this in great depth. If I had a superpower, it would be the ability to read minds, to be able to understand you know, why are they actually doing it that way? I am so confused sometimes by things that just don't make sense out there, and I'd love to understand why people think the way they do and really get it in depth. So I'd love to just read some minds for a little while, like Mel Gibson and what women want right, but not for any bad reasons like that. But I want to be able to understand the deep why people do the things they do and what went into their thinking. So that would be one.

Chris Grainger: 55:41

There you go. There you go. If you were to look at the last six or 12 months, Matt, where did you spend too much time? What did you waste time on?

Matt Drinkhahn: 55:50

Oh, I wasted time on Twitter. I wasted time on social media. As a result of that, about three months ago, I took Facebook, instagram, youtube, linkedin. I deleted all them from my phone and that has made a huge impact. So now if I want to do social media, I actually intentionally have to sit down at my desktop and go to my computer and, frankly, I have not done that. Since the day that I let go of my social media. I've not looked at it once. So, yeah, that's been really helpful.

Chris Grainger: 56:18

Love it, love it. Obviously, we love talking about God here on the Alliance. So, very simply, what's your favorite thing about him?

Matt Drinkhahn: 56:28

Well, my favorite thing about God is that is that a couple of things I'll start with a is that I firmly believe in, can quote memorized. I love the 10 commandments. I love a set of system and principles that just feel right to me. So I love that from a structure standpoint. But the thing I love most about God is that he will take me as I am, all the stuff I got, all the warts and everything, all the mistakes that I've made, all the times that I have not been right with God, especially in my 20s and early 30s. In that time period in life, he never let go of me, even though I let go of him for a while. Now that I'm back, I can honestly say thank you, lord, for still being with me, not casting me out forever, and now I'm back to be a great testimony for you forever. So I think that would be my response.

Chris Grainger: 57:16

Amen.

Matt Drinkhahn: 57:17

Let's flip it 180. What's your least favorite thing of the evil one?

Chris Grainger: 57:28

My least favorite thing, yeah about the evil one.

Matt Drinkhahn: 57:31

I'm not sure I understand the question about the evil one. I'm not sure I understand the question. The evil one, satan.

Chris Grainger: 57:36

What's your least favorite thing about Satan?

Matt Drinkhahn: 57:39

Man. He's everywhere, at all times and he never lets off. And you've always got to constantly be on guard to protect against the tiny temptations that just start as tiny little ripples and they become huge tears. Watch out. My least favorite thing is that he can just get you. In the moment when you're most challenged, when you're at your most vulnerable, that is when he tries to get in there and get you. So, for all my fellow Christian warriors out there, let's keep training together. My fellow Christian warriors out there, let's keep training together. Let's keep working on how we show up for each other, for our faith, for our Lord, for what? Everything that the Lord embodies. Let's keep working on that together so that when the time comes and we're truly tested, even more than we've ever been tested before, we're ready. You know we've got our repetitions and we're prepared. You know, to tell Satan get the hell out of here, because we're going this way and we're going to beat you because we follow this.

Chris Grainger: 58:36

I think that would be yeah, that's it, that's it, that's it. Last one for you, man, is what do you hope the listeners remember the most from our conversation today?

Matt Drinkhahn: 58:47

Patience and grace with yourself, my friends, the past is in the past. If you can learn to forgive yourself and just take moving forward just one moment at a time with your walk, with christ. He's there with you. Patience and grace with yourself, just one day, one step at a time, with the lord, you can do it, my friends. You can do.

Chris Grainger: 59:10

Well, Matt, where do you want to send a listener to connect with you the wonderful things you're doing? Obviously, your book. I just want to give you a place to direct guys right now.

Matt Drinkhahn: 59:19

Yeah, I'd love to send you to the eternaloptimistpodcastcom. That's where you can find my book, you can find the podcast, you can find my episode with Chris. You can find a lot about my life's work. I've not talked about what I do professionally. You can find a little bit about it there. If you just look me up online, there's only, I think, 12 people in the whole world that have my last name. So just look up Matt Drinkon and you'll be able to figure and find me there. But again, I just want to say thank you, chris, for taking the time and inviting me to be with you and your audience. And you know, team, you can do it. Whatever it is, you can do it. Patience and grace with self, you can do it. That's my message for the team today.

Chris Grainger: 59:57

Amen, bro. Thank you, matt, so much for your time. You have a wonderful day, sir. You too, brother, I find it helps me to have a guide at times when I'm reading and studying the Bible. One way that helps me is by using devotionals to guide not only what I read, but insights into the scriptures themselves. So we were blessed to become an author on the YouVersion Bible app, and we saw an immediate opportunity to help others with devotionals around the areas that we spend the most time talking about at the Lion Within Us.

Chris Grainger: 1:00:31

So if you enjoy the show, you may enjoy these devos as well. We have some guys that are using them as part of their small groups as well, as they're a great way to get conversations going. So to see the ones that we've created, head over to thelionwithinus to learn more. So that's thelionwithinus, to get started with your own men's devotional today. All right, fellas, I told you it was going to be a good one. Matt did not disappoint. Thank you, guys, so much for listening. Look, the question I want you to think about as you leave today, okay, is what gives you hope when life feels overwhelming or sometimes uncertain, and that hope has to be centered in something. Fellas, you're going to anchor yourself to something Now. Maybe it's something of this world, maybe it's your checking account, right, and you feel like you know, if you could just have this number in there you'll be okay. Or it could even be a person, a spouse or mentor, or something.

Chris Grainger: 1:01:28

Here to tell you if you're anchoring that hope in anything outside of Christ, be careful, because that at some point is going to let you down. It just takes one phone call, one trip to the doctor, whatever it may be, and things can come unravel. However, if we have that hope firmly planted in Christ, nothing can shake that. So anyway, fellas, hopefully you enjoyed that with Matt Great dude, loved his energy, thank you. I'm really appreciative for him coming on and sharing his story Again. Head over to thelionwithinus to find all our resources. Fellas, all the ways we try to help, that we try to serve, everything can be found right there. Thelionwithinus is how you get connected today, okay, so thank you again. We'll come back on Friday. We'll have some really good fun Friday tips and things like that that we try to serve you with on Friday.

Chris Grainger: 1:02:17

And if you can just give us a rating and review the lionwithinus, check out our weekly roar, our Christian assessment. Join our community. I'm going to say it Join the community. Quit waiting, get off the sidelines and go quick. Quit waiting, get off the sidelines and go join the community today. All right, the lion thing that you guys have a great day, get after it. Remember, keep unleashing the lion within.