Chris Grainger: 1:38

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, it's fun Friday time, let's go, okay. So now Scripture of the Week this week has been Psalm 23, verses 5 and 6. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So, guys, beautiful scripture. Absolutely loved it. Go back and listen to a couple podcasts ago in your podcast feed, our spiritual kickoff episode, where we tackled this head on to try to help you simplify and apply it to your life. And, guys, we do this Monday through Friday within the Lion Within Us community. That's all part of what we do, thelionwithinus. I'd encourage you to just head over there right now, because there's so many great ways that we've changed and updated the site and lots of resources, so go plug in and get started All right Now.

Chris Grainger: 2:37

We had a really fun conversation with Charlie Watkins. If you guys haven't listened to that one yet, you probably should. He talks about throwing no rocks and just love Charlie's, his demeanor, his approach to life, his approach to leadership, how he's trying to lean in and encourage other Christian men in their walk. So much to learn from you know, part of the cool part, one of the cool parts of being a podcast host is you get to hang out with some of these very successful guys who have proven themselves, who have done just incredible things. You get to share these stories. I find myself quite often just sitting back just soaking it in With Charlie. It was just like that, just soaking in his wisdom, his discernment, the different things he shared Again head over. Check out that site, that episode rather, and hopefully you guys enjoy that. So now, fun Friday time.

Chris Grainger: 3:27

What we do on fun Fridays is we try to get some tips. We always throw in a book of the week and some dad jokes Very simple structure. It's usually a shorter episode, by the way, but we try to do that just to encourage you, just to help you with your walk. Okay, so we always do a health, wealth and a self-tip. So our health tips always focus on mind and body. How do we strengthen those From a wealth tip? It's all about stewardship. How do we be better stewards of our finances and our careers? And self-tip is ultimately husbands, fathers. That stuff is hard. So you got any tips on being a better husband and father? Well, I don't have all the tips, but we try to just give you a little encouragement each and every week. Ok, so let's jump right into it. So the health tip this week is bookend your day with wins. Think of how bookends work in a library. Right, so you keep the books together.

Chris Grainger: 4:14

So start that morning right. Maybe it's prayer, and I also would encourage hydration. Okay, start there. Maybe the end of the day is gratitude and stretching. I don't know. That's. They're simple little things, but what they do is they start bringing, building in the right types of habits and rituals to anchor your day, to get it started right.

Chris Grainger: 4:36

Okay, because you know how it goes, fellas, if you start your day right, usually the day just has a tendency to keep that momentum. But if you start today and it's a dumpster fire and you forget to pray, you forget to spend the time of God's word, and you and your wife are bickering with each other as you're walking out the house and you and your kids are yelling at each other, that day just gets stressful, right. So take control. Start with wins. Put some wins in your corner out the gate. That daily time of prayer, just some hydration, some time alone with God non-negotiable, non-negotiable. All right, fellas, that's it. Booking those day with wins. Wealth tips Consider doing a three-minute resume review review.

Chris Grainger: 5:22

So today, sometime, just open up your resume, wherever it's at, and if you only had three minutes to update it, what's missing? That shows your leadership and impact. Okay, we start there. And I'm not saying you have to do this if you're not even looking for a job. This is just a good exercise to do in general, because what it's going to force you to do is think through the role that you're in right now. How is the role right now impacting your leadership? How is that manifesting itself in the work that you do? Then how would you articulate that to others? It's just a good thought exercise around stewardship of your career that will help you just recognize the value that you bring, or recognize the deficiency that's in your career right now. And if there's a deficiency, then you have something you can work towards. So a three-minute resume review, okay, all right. Self-tip Be the first encourager.

Chris Grainger: 6:19

Say that again. Be the first encourager. Say that again Be the first encourager. Your wife, your children, the people in your home need to hear encouragement from you first. Okay, if they hear it from the world, great, I hope they do, but they have to hear it from you.

Chris Grainger: 6:38

I'm telling you, I got guys in my life right now who send me texts, send me emails, messages, and it's always a note of encouragement, and they have no idea how much of an impact that makes for me. My pastor, pastor Joby in Florida. I sent him a weekly encouragement email every week because he told me one time he's like man, bro, he's like. You know, pastors, we definitely, particularly someone who has his platform. It's not a lot of positive stuff to come across. People are very quick to point out the shortcomings or their perception of shortcomings. So I made a point. So every Thursday I send them a note of encouragement.

Chris Grainger: 7:30

And you know what the guys who take the time to encourage me along the same type of structure means so much. And that's the power you have, like, I tell you those stories just to give you an example. But you have that power right now with your wife. When's the last time you told your wife? You know what, babe, you are such an encouragement to me. I just want to just tell you you do an amazing job as a mom, as a mom, as a wife Like I am beyond blessed. I know I don't show you often or tell you enough, but thank you, and you do stuff like that.

Chris Grainger: 8:06

First of all, she may be like, what do you want? Like it's not happening tonight. So you may have to get over that. But if you, if you, if you just actually come through, come at it with sincerity, man, it could do some powerful things for your marriage.

Chris Grainger: 8:20

And look, the evil one wants our marriages to fail. He wants all of our marriages to fail. Let's just face that. Let's call a spade a spade. That's all he wants is to steal, kill, destroy your marriage. I don't want that for you. I want so much more for you. But it's not like it's going to happen by accident. It just doesn't. It happens through intentionality and effort. That's what it's going to take. All right, fellas. So your three tips your health, wealth and self Book in that day with wins. I'm serious man. Think about that. The wealth tip three-minute resume review, three minutes how would you elevate that? And then self-tip be the first encourager. Okay, now the book of the week. We talked about this on Wednesday, the episode right here.

Chris Grainger: 8:59

But Charlie Watkins' book Throne of Rocks A Man's Guide to Success Through Partnership with God. Love the book, love Charlie. He's just a fun guy to be with. He's in Virginia as well, which is really close to where we're at Fellas. Just highly encourage you to take some time, consider adding this one to your library. Charlie's just a wonderful writer. He's got lots of really good practical insights into this book.

Chris Grainger: 9:25

Again, those seven strategies just to kind of reiterate what those are the strategic imperatives. You've got time, money, gifts and talents. He lumps those together Relationships, identity, authority and spiritual warfare. He mentioned the authority. One was the hardest one for him to write because of the issues he had with his father. Maybe that just resonates with you. Warfare, and he mentioned an authority. One was the hardest one for him to write because of the issues he had with his father and maybe that's you know, just resonates with you. But I guarantee you all these seven areas. If you're just in tune to these seven areas and start thinking about them, it has some practical insights. The way Charlie gives you right here it's going to help you in your walk and again, there's so much alignment to the lion. You know the health, wealth, self, mind, body, career, finances, husband, father, spiritual leader, all that stuff. There's lots of alignment. So we're just highly encouraged by Charlie.

Chris Grainger: 10:09

Okay, all right, fellas, let's get into our dad jokes. So the first dad joke is my wife said I should do lunges to stay in shape. Huh, that would be a big step forward. I'm sorry, that's pretty good, bro. That's it. Number two what do you call a line of rabbits hopping backward? Okay, well, that's called a receding hairline. I think they're both good this week. I'm sorry, number one. Number two my wife said I should do lunges to stay in shape. That would be a big step forward. Number two what do you call a line of rabbits hopping backward A receding hairline? All right, fellas. Now look, that's going to get an eye roll, that may even get a chuckle, and you know what If it gets to a little smirk? Just right, hey, you know, touch down, let's go.

Chris Grainger: 10:57

So question of the week this week is are you living from a place of abundance or fear? My prayer is that it's abundance, but if you're living in that fear, you don't have to stay there Again. Go back to the spiritual kickoff episode. We talk, we help you walk through this to unpack it at a deeper level, fellas, but so blessed and honored for each and every one of you listeners out there.

Chris Grainger: 11:19

The Lion. There's been a lot of things happening at the Lion with Dennis since we got started with the podcast. Then we have our YouVersion devotionals, then we have our YouTube channel and then we have the mastermind groups that are starting up. Obviously, we've always had the community and things like that that are happening. There's just been a lot of change. I feel like it's been throttled down since the moment we hit launch. It wears you out. I'm just going to be honest. It wears you out. I would just covet your prayers. This has been a difficult season as I'm recording this. I'm actually recording this in March. I'm not even sure when this is going to come out, but we try to stay so far ahead. There is no massive team, fellas. It's not a massive team. It's from a podcast standpoint. It's me and one other brother and it just wears us out. I'm encouraged by you sharing, by you listening. Check out also.

Chris Grainger: 12:14

We started some new things on our YouTube channel called Bible Briefing for Men. It's really awesome. It's a fun videos that we do one a week. They're super short, like three minutes or less, and we just try to give you OK, what happened in Scripture? Ok, so what? Why does it matter? And then now, what do we do with it? And it's, the structure is awesome. I'm having a ton of fun making them and I'm hoping that you're going to enjoy watching them.

Chris Grainger: 12:40

So, again, head over to our YouTube channel. That's that's exclusively where we put that content. Check that out and then head over to the Lion Within dot US to get started with our mastermind groups, All the stuff we talk about within the Lion Within us. That's how you can help the most. If you want to be a monthly donor, that would be awesome, just to support the show, what we're doing, what we're building Fellas, you can head over to thelionwithinus slash, donate and connect. We would love to have you as a partner to come alongside with us as we're just laying in. We're doing the hard work and if you enjoy the podcast in any way or any of our content in a small way, your support would go a long way. And I just wanted to say thank you. All right, so have a great day again after. Thank you so much for listening. Leave us a rating and review if you get a chance and you know what's coming. Keep unleashing the lion within.

Chris Grainger: 13:30

We're making a big change that I think you're really going to enjoy. I spent a lot of time thinking about our spiritual kickoffs and, honestly, I love doing them each week so much so we started doing them live every Monday through Friday inside our exclusive platform. And here's the best part We've decided to give full access, completely free, so now you can join our daily spiritual kickoff space at no cost. Every day, we go live to read the word, to encourage each other and find simple and powerful ways to apply God's truth to our lives. You'll even have the chance to engage with me directly, and if you missed a live stream, don't worry, the videos are posted the same day so you can catch up whenever it works for you. This is exclusive behind-the-scenes content that is not available anywhere else, and now we've removed every excuse. So if you're ready to get started, head over to thelionwithinus and grab your free access today. Let's grow together.