The Uncommon Path
"The Uncommon Path" is a podcast that intimately explores the transformative journeys of individuals, featuring raw and unfiltered testimonies that celebrate the resilience, growth, and shared human experiences, offering listeners a source of inspiration and connection on their own life paths. Join us as we unveil the extraordinary stories that shape who we are.
The Uncommon Path
Daniel Coutcher - Rising Above Adversity: Unexpected Leadership, Faith, and Personal Redemption
When a key employee leaves unexpectedly, chaos can ensue. This week on the Uncommon Path Podcast, we share an inspiring story about resilience and unexpected leadership in the face of adversity. As a small landscape business owner scrambles to find a replacement, a surprising hero emerges from within the team, challenging our perceptions of capability and potential. Join us as Daniel Coutcher recounts this pivotal moment and unpacks the growth it sparked, offering valuable insights into handling unforeseen hurdles with grace and optimism.
In a candid conversation, Daniel opens up about his faith journey, highlighting the liberation found in authenticity and vulnerability. We explore moving personal stories of transformation, from Daniel’s powerful testimony to Ryan's candid recounting of struggles with faith and addiction. These narratives weave a tapestry of spiritual growth, family legacy, and personal redemption, leaving listeners with a profound sense of hope and encouragement. By sharing these raw and genuine experiences, we invite you to reflect on your own path and find strength in your unique journey.
Celebrate the beauty of life's unexpected twists with heartfelt anecdotes about family dynamics, homeschooling decisions, and the joy found in powerlifting and fatherhood. Discover the reassurance of a partner's steadfast support and the guidance of mentorship in overcoming addiction and achieving success. As we wrap up with some lighthearted banter and gratitude for our time together, this episode offers a powerful reminder of the impact of faith, family, and friendship on our lives. Tune in for an episode that's as uplifting as it is entertaining, offering a fresh perspective on navigating life's challenges.
Hey everyone, this is Chris. I'm Ryan From the Uncommon Path podcast. The scripture, Revelation 12 11 says and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.
Speaker 2:Our hope is that as you listen, you will be encouraged in the Lord. This podcast was created as an avenue to share people's raw and unfiltered journeys. We hope this brings breakthrough intimacy with Jesus through their testimony of what God is doing for you with their lives. I'm not going to be able to do the intro to this episode, because whenever I see, daniel, I can't not laugh.
Speaker 3:I'm just trying to be the realest version of myself. That's what I'm brainwashed to be. The realest version of myself is lovingly being good-minded. I love him so much that he's in that circle of I can be really mean to you, but actually this is me loving you. I hope that's appropriate or not? Good, good.
Speaker 2:Working out is doing well. I called Daniel late last night because I was working out my back. I can't seem to contract my back muscles so I don't even know if I worked out my back, but I did everything the video said to do, so I'm hoping something will build back there, was it?
Speaker 1:buns of steel. What did the female yoga instructor tell you to do? Pilates.
Speaker 3:Killer Pilates workout. Do you have the twos, the two and a halves, the threes? Tell you to do Pilates. Killer Pilates workout. Do you have the twos, the two and a halves, the threes? What did you? Potentially, the amount of weight that you lifted might have been the issue, not the effort that you put in.
Speaker 1:It was those little sand-filled eggs.
Speaker 3:Egg weights.
Speaker 2:Since I gave you that prophetic word before you spoke it solely, I feel like our relationship has been knitted together. We have a good that was a very strange day.
Speaker 3:That was a very strange day yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:Thank you for coming on to the podcast today. Really appreciate it. I'm very excited to hear from daniel coucher, who left us a two-star gleaming review when we first got off the air earned it. He quickly edited it to five stars, but that was kind of confusing. Funny story was one of our close friends named daniel he sometimes changes his like as a joke changes his last name, so we thought he left the review and daniel, I think, commented on it and was like who did that? And we were like danny mccouch. Dude, that had to have been you.
Speaker 2:That's what I was thinking anyway and he was like it wasn't me. I was like it totally was you. And then I was like is that Daniel Coucher? Maybe that is, but he said he liked the podcast. Why would he leave a two-star review? He was very serious about it yeah, I was very confused.
Speaker 1:I was encouraged, discouraged and confused all the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, it was, uh, it was interesting, it was our first review as well.
Speaker 1:It was like we were pretty new into it and it was like well, we got a review. Okay, two stars, all right. That's not great. The best part is like how positive how positive it was.
Speaker 3:Right. It's like, hey, man ryan had told me. He's like, hey, we got this. You know, podcast it's going on. You gotta gotta go review it for me if you actually like it, and I did.
Speaker 3:It was a genuine man, like I feel like you guys try to do your best to share the heart of the lord and just have great conversations, so I'm grateful that I got to write that review and honestly review it at two stars and then feel convicted about how I really felt about it and actually change it to five stars so that it could help move the podcast up the rankings well, thank you, yeah, it means a lot I believe that daniel coucher is the owner of landscape solutions, so if anyone in the rdu area needs landscaping done, please reach out to him.
Speaker 2:He is incredible at what he does. And he runs a very successful business.
Speaker 3:Almost as incredible as Ryan Medlin Electric, your local electric supplier, if you need anything.
Speaker 2:But that's not nearly as good as Raleigh Flooring. Raleigh Flooring is incredible.
Speaker 3:All of us are just handing each other 20 bills, as this is happening and being recorded right now. It's just incredible. This is the small business version of the of the uncommon path podcast today thank you guys for tuning in. Nothing of substance will be communicated other than pitching our businesses.
Speaker 1:So glad you're listening you're just bragging on his business, because he's our only sponsor I am, the wings are good, and what can I say?
Speaker 3:that sponsorship? How did the sponsorship taste today, ryan? That's what I would like to know how were the. Was it satisfied with those? Wings warren and I would love to know I mean I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna you know, elaborate on exactly how much has been spent on food, but it is in the thousands. Of dollars has been spent on food for ryan my gosh, all right.
Speaker 2:One thing I love about you, daniel, is you and I can be as silly as we want, but also as deep as we want. Yeah, I would love about you, daniel, is you and I can be as silly as we want, but also as deep as we want.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would love for you to kind of share what has been going on recently. And then you've heard the podcast before Me and Chris will just kind of direct you and we want to know your past with the Lord, what he's doing in the present, what he has on the horizon for you in the future. Um, we want you to camp out on whatever you feel like you need to camp out on, whatever the Holy spirit wants you to kind of camp out on. We also want you to know that we have loosely an hour, but we can go over that. Um, we'd rather you feel more just open about your story. We can always go back and edit stuff out. We've had people share their story and decide not to air it at all, so we've abided by that. We've had people share their story and they want to get rid of names or whatever, and Warren.
Speaker 2:Warren, yeah, redacts all of that, so. So anyway, we'd rather you flow with the Holy Spirit, share as vulnerably as you want, and we'll give you a copy of it and you can tell us what to edit out, what not to edit excellent, so I just wanted to be the realest version of myself today right as I thought about this.
Speaker 3:I mean, gosh, how long has it been? Has this been coming? You know, I don't know if people know the backstory about you and me and the jokes with the podcast, but yeah, sure, sure, sure, like briefly share how the name came about and stuff.
Speaker 3:So Ryan Medlin, beautiful man, came up to me, you know, just to get distracted by Ryan as as as striking as he is, and he's like man, I'm just really struggling with the name for this podcast. I'm like, ryan, this is easy, man, this is easy, we can name a podcast in an hour. And I was like I'll have two names for you in the morning. And he's like what are you talking about? I'm like I'll just pray about it, wake up in the morning and I'll call you with what comes to mind. And woke up the next day I call you. I was like, hey, man uncommon path podcast.
Speaker 1:You're like I actually don't hate that. It's like, really. It's like yeah, no, I actually don't hate that. Wow, so he prayed about it, got a prophetic name, and then your response was I don't hate it that's how most reactions, most interactions with ryan go.
Speaker 3:It's generally pretty abusive.
Speaker 1:So you guys are both really into the glowing two stars, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:It really is.
Speaker 3:But then by God's providence we.
Speaker 1:Amazon review this spatula One star would definitely buy again.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3:The transparency is incredible it is incredible. It's so good, I love how everybody just gets to pick on you and just warren gets to enjoy all of this as he sits back he's like, yeah, I'd be saying stuff about ryan too. Does it bother you that that people love to pick on you, right? No, I love it okay, just making sure I want to be respectful I love it in a very unhealthy dependent way.
Speaker 2:No, I'm kidding, I do. It's always been a sign of love in my family to joke or kind of poke fun in a healthy way with each other, like everyone knows when they take it too far, or what not to say.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And when, not to say it. But um, that was yeah. I love relationships where we can all be the butt of the joke comfortably and be confident in who we are.
Speaker 3:Totally.
Speaker 2:All right, I want you to take us, give us something fresh.
Speaker 3:Something fresh. Well, I've got that. It's uh, it has been a raw two days. Um, yesterday, one of my longest term employees, that is, uh, a massive cog in my business, gave his resignation, effective immediately. So if I had to list out a list of my employees and say who did, I think would be one of the last ones to leave. It would have been him, because I was training him in operations, in operations management, in sales, in estimation and really all the skill sets related to the business, in the hopes of one day allowing him to run and operate my organization so that I could, you know, take more of a visionary role instead of, you know, being in the trenches every day. And I don't really have enough answers because this happened yesterday. But he turned in his resignation and no, two weeks notice, no nothing he offered it.
Speaker 3:But I feel in my personal experience in business in the past is that generally, if someone decides to resign, that the amount of time that they spend at the organization can become more of a negative than having the physical labor there for the two weeks. It really can be um very demoralizing to the other people on the team. Right, because he is a leader. Right, if he doesn't want to be there, then you're free to go, so, um, I I accepted his resignation effective immediately.
Speaker 3:I'm stunned by this news and I just pulled over in the northern tool parking lot and just prayed God, I cannot solve this. So if obviously the people that are listening don't know, but I run a small, um small landscape landscape company based in Cary. We do a residential and commercial installation work and maintenance. This person ran my maintenance division, so all of his responsibilities for customer um commitments have now fallen on me. So I don't even really know where to start, right it's. I don't know who is had commitments, I don't know who's accepted estimates, I don't know who has, you know, said what. I really I don't have good information. So I just kind of sat in that parking lot and just asked the Lord to solve the problem for me and and then went about my day. So basically my head spun for a good two, three hours. I went directly to my maintenance division um the foreman and the driver and the technician that are on a commercial job site that day I went there, met them, got in front of them to be able to have a conversation from my perspective about what happened, what's going on, where we're going going forward and um, they received it pretty well, right, like best we can. We're all just kind of shocked and, you know, taken back by by the scenario leave there, go and tell the other, the other installation guys, and let them know what's going on. Got everybody on the same page and then just kind of tried to start putting out fires because I know they're, I know they're coming.
Speaker 3:Um, the coolest part is, like what happened at the end of the day is probably the least thing that I expected to happen, which was the person that I had wanted in that role, in that maintenance manager role, had not been ready for the, had not been ready for the responsibilities. So today, of all days, when this all happens, when this falls apart, he tells me he's ready for the responsibility. And I could not believe it because he had rejected the responsibility two times in a row. So I didn't think that there was any way that I could even offer it, or that was even something that came into my mind as a potential solve for my issue. It just didn't come in my mind. So when he, when he called me at the end of the day, and decides to meet me at the commercial site after his work day is over, because my maintenance guys work from uh six, six to three, uh, so six am to three pm. So he meets me at three pm at the commercial site where we have a. We have a hard, a hard finish date to complete the project by a festival that's happening at the site.
Speaker 3:He meets me there to meet with the facilities director who had been working with this other gentleman, um, and basically like grab the bull by the horns from the least expected person that I that I I could not have planned or written it to work out that way. That's how unexpected it was for me, because I I had invited him into leadership, I invited him in to other places of um responsibility and he'd constantly denied them. So so it was really really shocking for a guy that I would have loved to accept this responsibility. Come to me and say, give me the responsibility, I'm ready, coach. And then started coming with ideas. And so last night, all night, he's like hey, I texted these people, I let them know what's going on. I found out that we had a job schedule for Wednesday. I called her and asked her if she wanted to reschedule. So really I got to watch this kid that's worked for me for almost four years start to become a leader.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:How much more can you ask for as a leader? Right, leaders want to encourage and train and develop other leaders, to then send them off to do other things or, to, you know, grow within the organization. Right, like, let me teach you as much as I can, um, because I love to. I love to do that because I've failed so many times that if I can prevent some of your pain or some of your failures from the things that I had to learn firsthand, then let me save you those scars, because yeah you know they hurt, so that's a pretty amazing solve.
Speaker 3:And then I went from being frustrated and angry to really just kind of hurt and heartbroken because the individual was my friend almost more than he was an employee and a peer within my organization. So the friendship piece where I had personally invested in his life and his heart and his development and you know his personal growth, that was the part that really hurt. So I spent the evening kind of trying to get my schedule back on, back dialed in, to know what I needed to do. Um, and I woke up in the morning and my beautiful wife, uh, claudia, we have three kids together Camilla, who's seven, mariana, who is almost three, and then Daniel Wayne coucher, the second, who is, uh, 15 months months. So she woke up, went to the gym and came back.
Speaker 3:I was trying to meet up with this individual for coffee this morning ryan medlin of ryan medlin, electric and carrie if you need any, any electric work done, reach out to him. But I had the most beautiful thing happen and and that was my darling wife. She does not comfortably pray out loud. It's just not something that she grew up in for her household, from her background, so she doesn't do it and I never pressure her to do it. But she looked at me, seeing me heartbroken over the loss of a friend, more so than the loss of a employee, and she looked at me in my eyes and she grabs my arms and says you know, what can I do for you? And I asked her to pray for me and she did the most. She's the most beautiful thing. She put her hands up the sleeves of my shirt and put her hands on my chest and I'm a man, so I have a lot of chest hair. I'm a man, so I have a lot of chest hair so she grabs onto my chest hair and begins to pray one of the most beautiful and eloquent prayers I have ever heard in my entire life, for a woman that doesn't think that she knows what to say. And in that moment I saw the Lord comforting me through my wife, through these beautiful words, and then she just looked me in my eyes and told me that she loved me and everything was going to be all right. And immediately I was overcome with a sense of peace and I realized that, had I known what I would have had to pay to get that, that I would have sacrificed the best employee and the future of my organization, for the closeness and the intimacy of that moment with my wife.
Speaker 3:If the Lord said, hey, daniel, it's going to cause chaos in your organization. It's going to be really hard to sort this out. We've got a lot of commitments. We're going to have to, you know, disappoint a lot of people, and I know you want to do a really good job, so you're going to have to let those people down. But tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning, your wife is going to step in to where I've been calling her into, which is a greater depth of relationship with, with the lord.
Speaker 3:Will you pay that price? 10 out of 10, man, I'm taking that deal. 10 out of 10. There's, there's. There's not a doubt in my mind that I would sacrifice everything related to the things that bring me joy, relating to business, which I love. I love how I have this comic story of ending up in landscaping when I hated being outside. It's just. It's just. The lord's sense of humor is hilarious to me. But I would trade all of those things for her and I's walk to just become the next step in stride. The next step in stride because my wife and, lord willing, my three children are the only thing that I'm taking to heaven with me.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 3:And so yesterday was one of the worst days of my personal life and my professional life, and today is probably the best day that I can remember. I also have this really cool thing about Hawks. So my father was a man of God and is with the Lord. He died in 2015 and whenever I talked to my father on the phone randomly, you know, from as long as I really can remember, my dad would audibly say oh, there's a hawk right, like we'd be talking, we'd be having some random conversation about something to be up hawk just flew in front of my car. So, like, I always had this, this memory of hawks related to my father and then, around the time, my father's death.
Speaker 3:I just happen to see a lot of hawks, so it has been something that's significant to me. And then how the lord, you know, refers to himself as a hawk right, he refers to himself as a lion and a hawk and the lamb right. So, like, I just always think of my heavenly father and my earthly father when I see a hawk. So today, about 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm in a potential client's front yard and a gigantic red-tailed hawk swings down and just barely misses a squirrel on the ground, like 40 feet away from me, it was just like, oh man, so I just like totally felt the lord's, lord's presence today and just just having this sense of peace about don't worry about the outcomes, just do your best.
Speaker 3:It's really really cool 24 hours journey adventure that I've been on.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, and you've known about the podcast a long time, but you specifically had a number of episode that you wanted to be the guest on I forgot all about right that is.
Speaker 3:That is comically true you chose 33 I did choose the 33rd episode. Half truth on that is I was like well, if Ryan is this serious about this podcast, we'll see if it makes it to 33 episodes. So I was really just biding my time, but I did feel like 33 did pop into my mind. So the irony of having something really fresh and raw to come here with, um other than just my story, right, but I'm just so grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I don't think we've had a guest yet. That said, yesterday is the worst day of my life. Today's the current leading candidate for best day of my life. Thanks for having me on the podcast today. That's pretty unique A couple of days, pretty strong, yeah so, and the fact that you, over a year ago, decided you wanted to be the 33rd episode on a whim and that happened the day after all that is nice and, guess what?
Speaker 3:it is only one o'clock Eastern time, so there's still more day to come. I'm just hanging on for dear life right now. Entirely honest, I also got uh, we're in the middle of a really large contract renegotiation with my largest client. That is probably the most important to like my continued success as far as like just covering overhead and stuff like that. Um, they sent me an email on the way here saying hey, we'd like to have a conversation with you on Thursday, ask, uh, finalize a couple of details. So I'm pretty excited about the opportunity for that. I'm not I'm not cashing any checks by all means, but the irony of losing the person who that directly affected yesterday and then today getting the news that this is, I mean, this has been, you know, a month that we've been waiting for some kind of an answer and, you know, wants to have a conversation tomorrow about it. So it's just just really cool the lord's timing on things that I'm just gonna show up and do my best every day.
Speaker 1:And then the rest is up to him. The rest is up to him. The rest is up to him. Man, I have kind of a fresh testimony about that as well that popped into my head as you were sharing. One of my sons got real behind on school. Some of that was his own issue, some of that was just circumstances, but anyways, he got to work. Oh, they're homeschooled. Yes, they're homeschooled. And he had a big test coming up and really needed help preparing for his biology. My background is biology in college and I was like, well, I guess my schedule happened to open up. Two meetings got canceled on that Monday and I was like, well, all right, I'll take this day and I can help you, you know whatever.
Speaker 1:So I just stayed home from work, handled a few things, minor things, but I just was like feeling stressed for about four hours and I was like Lord just shout up a quick prayer, just saying Lord, can you just handle like the work, I'm stressed about my work. I'm taking this whole day off. It's a Monday, they're usually very busy, as we all have Mondays that are busy.
Speaker 1:I just said can you handle it, can your grace cover this? It was also about to have probably the worst on on numbers wise, a month that I've had in 18 months. I don't stress about that too much these days, being in the business as long as I have, but it was still like I was on my mind I knew about it.
Speaker 1:And then I go into work on tuesday and it's like I had gotten an email on saturday but I didn't see it till tuesday morning because I didn't work the entire day. My day that was like hey, I need to move over hundreds of thousands of dollars. Can you open me up a new thing? Okay. So that was my first part of my day, tuesday. Right. Second part of my day, tuesday was note my uh admin person noticing like coming in saying hey, uh, this guy you know john doe, is uh, have you talked to him recently? He's like no, why he's moving hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past few days and he didn't say why. No, second, okay.
Speaker 1:So I went from having the worst, potentially the worst month, uh I've had 18 months to exceeding my goal by 100 times, not 100 times by exceeding my goal by 2X-ing my goal, so 100% more that's so funny.
Speaker 2:100% more. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Pretty wild.
Speaker 1:How did the studying go? Yeah, he got a great grade. He passed his test.
Speaker 3:It was wonderful, was that like a state test or something?
Speaker 1:No, it was just like a state test or something. No, it's just like a biology test. It's like it's basically equivalent of high school aap biology but he's homeschooled very cool, so it's like what it's the biology and, as in college, I took biology 201 or whatever it was and this is like that, but he's taking it at 14, I took it at 18, wow wow, it's incredible.
Speaker 3:We actually just decided to pull our kids out of, uh uh, child care, um daycare. My wife quit her job in january. Uh, she was a human resource manager for a software company and decided to quit her job because she felt called to be mom and it's like been the most amazing and difficult thing that we've done. So then we decided to pull. She felt very strongly that the lord was telling her to pull our oldest daughter, camilla, out of public school. So she went to public school kindergarten and first grade, getting ready to go into second grade and she's like, hey, I, I think this was to homeschool.
Speaker 1:So it's been a pretty fun adventure that we've been on here recently wow, well, not to go down that rabbit hole, because that is a long rabbit trail speaking of rabbit trails, my grandfather always said the deepest rabbit trail leads to the juiciest carrot I feel like I've heard that before. Well, you probably haven't, my grandfather said it, so I've never heard it before, but yeah, I happen to be a resource for that. We've been homeschooling for eight years, nine years. That's super helpful.
Speaker 3:Eight years, super the community, anything that we can just kind of start helping to get plugged in. We got, um, we got into a, a co-op, so pretty excited about that on Thursdays. It's very helpful, so enjoying that.
Speaker 2:Take us All right, take us back to your roots with Jesus, christianity, god Wow.
Speaker 3:Well, it was born in Pensacola, florida, in 1985, completely on a saturday morning at 6 38.
Speaker 2:I was named daniel anthony coucher, my father, daniel wayne well, you, you can, oh, like I didn't know how far back, because that's where I was born then, so that's where, technically, me and jesus started, and then I have been what about conception?
Speaker 1:can you take us back to that?
Speaker 3:praise the lord. I have no memory or conscience. Conscience thought of that process still kind of confuses how it works myself.
Speaker 1:But well, I just studied biology, so I can tell you offline.
Speaker 3:Could you draw that out?
Speaker 2:for me to maybe help me yeah, thanks, appreciate that.
Speaker 3:Ryan is blushing like a school girl. If you guys could see him right now, it's incredible. It's radiating like the sun. Take. Take us back on track, right?
Speaker 2:what's the history? What is your history with the Lord? Like was it? Was it something that started as like a relationship? Was a relationship with God or Jesus something that you struggled with growing up? Was your walk with him instant, or was it a gradual thing?
Speaker 3:There's lots of questions. Yeah, I'll just kind of pick one. I'll just kind of pick one wherever you, I'll just kind of pick one of those, and then you go ahead and start man go hold on, go ahead and start now the questions on this podcast are incredible.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what I'm glad. This is very scripted and very, you know, clear and concise as the what information you'd like me to provide, other than all and or some, if none, or any information. That's fantastic, ryan Medlin. Uh, so, yeah, I'm really, I'm really blessed.
Speaker 3:I grew up in a. I'm really I grew up in a Christian household. So my parents were Christian missionaries, uh, for the navigators organization, for most of my life. So my dad was in collegiate ministry um, until gosh, catch me lying. Uh, I think it was about 2003, 2004, when my dad went on a sabbatical and then came back and switched from collegiate missions to a missions, still at NC State, but then took on a role of a chaplain. So that's really like how I grew up. So we always had people coming over to my house. My parents were very outspoken God-fearing people. My mother is still alive she lives in Cary but huge support for my father as well. So that's how we grew up. We were pretty legalistic, so it really was just about following rules. That's the way that it was perceived. Do X and you will be loved.
Speaker 3:So, to keep it concise, I had a bad experience at the church that I was in growing up I was an itty bitty little guy and I got picked on a lot at church by the youth group and then I got picked on at school. So, like, I just kind of started to become an angry young man at about 14, 15 years old, become an angry young man at about 14, 15 years old, and I chose to run into darkness headlong. At no point in my rebellion Did I ever not have head knowledge and know for a fact that Jesus Christ was King and that he was Lord and that, um, you know, the earth was made and you know, six days and on the seventh day's days rested. All those biblical truths were in my mind and in and in my head, but I didn't live them out. So I basically ran, ran from god, still believe that god existed, I just didn't want him telling me what to do. So I we couldn't talk about the things that I did on this podcast, um, but it was dark.
Speaker 2:it was dark and we can talk about anything on this podcast the last episode and the episode before that. You don't share anything. You don't feel comfortable, sure, but there is oh are we getting real, real and raw? I mean yes, there is no.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm not, I'm not scared, I'm not scared to talk about it, right. So for me, I got into doing drugs because of some buddies. So basically, when I turned 17, I started doing drugs. So basically started out smoking pot, like everybody does, right, smoking pot and then experimenting on with hallucinogenics right, got into doing hallucinogenics, right, gotten gotten to doing hallucinogenics. Um, then got into some harder stuff, gotten to XC and other pain pills and then, uh, the pain pills really uh kind of gripped me when I was about 21. Um, I had some oral surgery and got some Oxycontin prescribed and enjoyed it. So basically, the drug binge of 21 to 23 began.
Speaker 3:So, like, I was in this just really dark place of like trying to get messed up every night. Man, that was it. I worked really hard. I mean, I always had a job. Um, I actually worked for my father at the time, um, on the side, as well as having other different careers in and out from. I was a machinist, I was a butcher, I, you know, worked in concrete. I mean there's all different types of things that I that I had done throughout my life.
Speaker 3:But the the drug times were, I was trying to fill a hole that I thought could be filled by anything other than Jesus. And I and I and I truly went into dark places. I was chasing a girl, um, who by God's grace and mercy I did not end up with her. She decided she didn't want to be together anymore. We'd been. We had been in a long distance relationship. She decided she didn't want to be together anymore. We had been in a long distance relationship. She decided she didn't want to be together anymore. She kind of tortured me and played games with my emotions over the amount of time that we were not together but still having conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically manipulated you. Yeah, basically just playing games with me. I was 22.
Speaker 3:I was easily manipulated, right so I was milking that emotion of, hey, I like feeling bad for myself, right so, like drugs and alcohol were just, you know, making it worse, um and then, and then I started hanging out with another group of friends that were doing harder drugs.
Speaker 3:They were more into the heavier pain pills, and then some of them were doing heroin. That girl um that she was she got pregnant by her new boyfriend and had an abortion. And I told her, why didn't you call me? And she goes well, I know you would have told me to keep it. And you're like, and I was like, yeah, you're, and I'm like I would have raised it. And she goes, she's like well, I've been partying and you know the baby was probably going to have, you know, a birth defect. And it's like okay, but that moment was like a really dark moment and like I went and did heroin that night moment. And like I went and did heroin that night, um, and I mean, it's hard drugs, right, there's people's people's addicted, right, it's like, oh man, this feels really good.
Speaker 3:And I remember I left that guy's house and went home to my parents house I still live with my parents at the time, um, and there had a swing in my, in my parents backyard and I got on that swing and I was listening to fish farmhouse on an ipod which is something that old people used to listen to music on. Um, and I was listening to fish farmhouse and just feeling incredibly high but low at the same time emotionally, like raging through this, these feelings of like I love this person. Why did she abort her baby? Why'd she kill the child? Am I going to be a drug person? Okay, I saw it very clear. It's like, oh, this is why people get addicted and this is why people do hard drugs, because it feels really good, god's providence.
Speaker 3:Um, I went back and hung out with that friend the next night. We did heroin again and then I woke up the day after that and I told my dad that I needed to change my phone number and my dad had been asking me for almost a year to change my phone number, um, so that girl couldn't get ahold of me. And then the guy that I was hanging out that I was doing hard drugs with that, I'd had to walk away from that friendship altogether, who was a lifelong friend. I mean, I'd known him since we were in high school together and we had really been buddies. We were digging into automotive, so um so there was there.
Speaker 2:There was like a consciousness of being like dude. I've got to get out of this lifestyle, no matter what the cost, even though, like my body doesn't want to quit.
Speaker 3:Well, it was like I knew where the I knew where the road went right, it's like this is. I'm at the entrance of this road and I know where this just ends up in addiction, right it's either incarceration or homelessness or you know, desperation.
Speaker 3:So I, by god's grace, man, like I just look at it now and just see god protecting me and giving me the courage to say she said pretty much the only thing that can make me not want to talk to her. Right, it was like, oh yeah, you would have, you would have done the right thing. It's like, oh, sorry, then him that that you know same time offered me hard drugs. Yeah, doing the hard drugs. It's like, hey, it's it's time to to make a turn in the opposite direction. So I wish that I could say that that's, that's the happy ending of the story, right? Well, I was addicted to opiates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this was 23. This is I was 23.
Speaker 3:Yes, so 23.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how did the journey from like that?
Speaker 3:So basically, I did not do heroin ever again. I did it those two times and that was the end of it.
Speaker 2:And then I which is a miracle in itself. Amen to that?
Speaker 3:Well, he was the access right, so that's why I changed the phone number.
Speaker 3:So I didn't know any other people that could get that but him. So I still ended up with an opiate addiction, which was through the Oxycontin, which I'd been struggling with or enjoying, um, since I was 21. Um, but those were at the time were much easier to get, um, so I still I still did them that way. But God brought this pretty, pretty little Mexican into my life named Claudia Flores and uh, yeah, man it was, it was pretty beautiful. So, ironically enough, I met Claudia when she was 12 and I was 17 and she was my little sister, emily. She was one of her best friends. So, like we kind of just always flirted ever since, you know, she was like 12, cause we lived on the same street, ironically enough, like five houses down.
Speaker 3:So Claudia was, you know, always, you know, over at my house, but we always, you know, had these little, you know just shy, you know little shy marks remarks to each other from then. So then she had been in a long term relationship with a guy and then I had been in that toxic relationship with with that girl and then she broke up with him and I broke up with her and then we were together at a one another, one of my little sister's uh friends birthday parties and we just like danced together all night and it was like how old are you now? She's like 19. It's like, oh, all right, cool, you got a fake ID. You get a fake ID. Really. Give your sister's ID and she's 21.
Speaker 1:I'm like huh.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, this can work, this can work. So then, um, ironically enough, you know, gosh, I'm a, I'm a is like the myth, the mythology of our relationship. I go to the store and buy a new shirt. Gosh, who would I buy a shirt from? At that time, I think it was like, uh, oh, man, I can't remember. It's a store, that it's not hot topic, it's another one of those like stores you know that I go in and buy a new shirt for our date that, and then she calls me and cancels, cancels our date after I buy the shirt and I'm all upset.
Speaker 3:It's like oh man, she's wasting my time right then, two weeks later, I get a phone call from her um and she's like where are you? I'm like I'm in holly springs. Where are you? She's like I'm at your parents house. So that's really. We haven't been separate ever since that's awesome. I drove from holly springs back to my parents house, to where they were hanging out at my my parents house.
Speaker 1:So she just wanted you to be where she was at that moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she was not sober. She was not sober. She was at my parents' house because my parents were out of town and we started our relationship that night. Gotcha, that's the end of it, man.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:Haven't been together, haven't been apart really since. I haven't been together, haven't been apart really since. So the reason why I brought up Claudia after the you know the hard drug addiction is, two years into that relationship, I think that I'm getting away with everything's got free. I've got the drugs I've got. You know, claudia, I've got all these things going on and I'll never forget this day.
Speaker 3:We weren't living, we weren't living together, uh, but she, you know, come hang out in my house, my apartment, all the time in in, uh, in Cary and West side of Cary, and I go in the bathroom and I was snorting pills, right, and she texted me while I was in the bathroom and said do you not think I know what you're doing in there? So it was like I came out with my head held low, right, it's like, oh my gosh, this is just so embarrassing. And and she's like I'm not going to marry a pill head. And that was the catalyst that pushed me to get, to get, uh, to get free of opiates. So really it was, um, pretty much, pretty much cold turkey after that.
Speaker 3:And by God's grace I didn't get dope sick. I didn't uh, I didn't go through crazy withdrawals Like I had. I hadn't been taken a lot. But I mean I'd been on them for four years, pretty much all the time, right? Well, let's be realistic. As often as I I could get them, I was on them, and that's directly correlated to how much money I had at the time. So I was on them as often as I could afford to be on them um well, but uh yeah.
Speaker 3:So she was the catalyst to me getting getting clean, and I still smoked pot for a little while after that. But then I um a job opportunity for a automotive parts company a local automotive parts company to go into outside sales, and outside sales came with a company car. The company car came with a drug test requirement. So it was like, if you want to have this opportunity to go, be promoted and to do outside sales, um you you have to stop doing drugs.
Speaker 3:So I quit smoking pot just as like, hey, I'll just pass the drug test for the car. And drugs. So I quit smoking pot just as like, hey, I'll just pass the drug test for the car and, you know, start smoking pot again. But then, like I thought I was getting superpowers because I could remember everything and when I say everything.
Speaker 3:I mean like I became a steel trap of just knowledge and information and random, like it was. Like god had said hey, I'm gonna heal your brain cells really, really quickly. I know you've been destroying them for the past, you know six, seven years but when I quit smoking pot, like I felt better than I ever did in my whole life. I was like this is amazing, like I didn't. I did not have the desire to get stoned again. It was like it totally gone.
Speaker 3:Because I'm like, oh man, I'm like I was already kind of at a high level, given the opportunity to do outside sales as it was, because I was, you know, I had a really good personality for outside sales. I'm an, I'm a, I'm an outgoing extrovert. It's like, come on, dude, like literally they built the book for outside sales around guys like that. So I'm really grateful that, um, I got to do that and and you know, god had some people that I'd had influence with that allowed me to get that job that really I didn't deserve, because I had no college education and I had no outside sales experience. But I had a guy named Steven Stein who's still a mentor of mine to this day.
Speaker 3:Um, but I had a guy named Steven Stein who's still a mentor of mine to this day. Take me on a sales call with him. When he's like, hey guys, I just think this kid might have it Like, can we just take him once? So he took me on a sales call a day, working in the field in automotive parts distribution, and he takes me to the field and he's like this guy is just like a natural man, he just loves talking to people and connecting with people. He's like this guy's going to do really well.
Speaker 2:So so what, oh, I'm sorry for. Could you apologize to Ryan Uh Fern, the studio dog my feet, unbeknownst to me. Um, so take us through meeting the Lord and from that point on, going into sales and you and Claudia's relationship, like how did how did you end up?
Speaker 3:Sorry, I got I got a crazy rabbit trail there that I didn't expect of, uh, you know, ended up in automotive parts distribution. That doesn't matter. I didn't find the Lord until, uh, my dad died. So, in 2014, my father got sick. He got, uh, he turned yellow and he got, he had jaundice. We didn't know what was going on with him. So, uh, my God, fearing my God, fearing father um was given six months to live.
Speaker 3:He got pancreatic cancer and, uh, he, he tried to fight it. He did a couple of different things Naturopathic, he did, uh, chemotherapy, but uh, you know, pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is pretty much a death sentence. So in 2015, when my dad died, I uh ran from God. Uh, because I knew that the Lord was calling me into a greater, a greater level of relationship with him and I became an alcoholic. So, from 30 to 35, so really the 2020, I ran from God. I still believed in God, but I did not have um any, he did not have any input in my life, and so how did you know he was calling you to something greater like how did you know to run?
Speaker 3:that's a great question, ryan. How did I know to run and the man that I lived my faith through vicariously? It was like I'm a Christian. My dad's in really close with Jesus, so he'll put in a good word for me I don't need to have my own faith because that's who my dad is. I didn't have to have my own faith.
Speaker 1:So what was the running about?
Speaker 3:Was it. I don't do half in very well, so I would say that I do all in and like I didn't want to be all in as a christian, because I knew what it meant, which was, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell out for Jesus. But I thought that I could still try any other thing to fill that hole other than him. And that's what I did. I ran. I mean drugs first, relationships right, alcoholism for those five years.
Speaker 1:But what I you ran because you knew the cost. Dude, I knew it like discipleship I.
Speaker 3:I had grown up in a god-fearing house and knew exactly what following the lord looked like. I saw it modeled from me every day, every day. My dad was totally and wholeheartedly sold out for the Lord since he was 17. Like he caught fire at 17 and burned bright his whole life. So I saw it modeled out I'm not even exaggerating Pretty much every night that I came home hung over, stoned. My dad was in the kitchen on the table wearing little tiny glasses, looking up at me, with a highlighter and a and a see-through ruler underlining, underlining verses in the bible reading every night, constantly growing in his knowledge of god's word. Like that's what I saw, lived out, and he was super consistent in loving me, regardless of the stupid decisions that I made did you trying to capture the feelings you might have had at that moment?
Speaker 1:were you? Were you thinking like I could? I know what this looks like, I can never be like this, or I know what this looks like and I know I can be like this.
Speaker 3:That's why I gotta get the heck out of here it's interesting that you say that, because that ties something together that ryan actually brought up not too long ago.
Speaker 3:So when, when my father is dying, um, he refused to take painkillers because the doctors told him that he would not be able to have conversations with his children. So my father, when he's got a tube out the side of his body that is pumping black liquid out and it's the only reason why he's still alive, because there's a bag from the kidney that's like dumping out into a bag that we have to clean out and he's refusing to take painkillers so that he can be clear of mind to have conversation with his children. Buddy, that's raw, it's raw, it's raw. So when, three days before my father dies, the last conversation that I have with him is he'd finally given in you know, 11 months of pain and no painkillers to the morphine. He started taking the morphine and this is a Tuesday morning. He died on a Friday and I said to him that I had big shoes to fill, so I knew there was this oak of righteousness.
Speaker 3:that was my father's life, that the Lord was calling me into that and I didn't think that I could ever live up to who my father was. I said I had big shoes to fill and he looked at me and he said you be you. The Lord was never calling me to be my father. The Lord is calling me to love him and seek first the kingdom of God as his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. It was never about what I could achieve for the Lord. It was never about what my dad could achieve for the Lord. It's about what Jesus achieved on the cross and just being able to look at myself as someone who is valuable enough that Jesus died for me and loves me and can transform me into himself this side of eternity, and then literally in the next self this side of eternity, and then literally in the next.
Speaker 3:Ironically enough, ryan medlin, sweet, sweet boy, tells me, I don't know, maybe six months ago he he says hey, man, I got this word from the Lord and it's kind of strange. Can you go to your father's house and put his shoes on? I never told you that story. So on my phone I go two weeks ago, because I knew the podcast was coming. I go and I tell my mom. I said, hey, I need to put my dad's shoes on and they fit.
Speaker 3:I'm exactly who jesus wanted me to be and I can speak to a very specific group of individuals yeah because of the pain and darkness that I went into willfully and chose to walk into, and god says no, no, no, no. That darkness, darkness. I can flip that darkness on its head. So now I'm not scared to talk to anybody about my faith. I'm not scared to talk to anybody about Christ and anyone who's been in darkness. I can commiserate with them. I can say no man. I've been there, dude.
Speaker 3:I chased the bottom of the bottle, I snorted everything, I smoked everything. I was in the same place. It's a bottomless pit. The only way out of the pit is to be on your back and look up and see a savior Reaching down to say, hey, I've got so many great things in store for you that you can't imagine. You couldn't write a better story than the one that I'm inviting you into.
Speaker 3:But you have to turn and walk the opposite way. Don't think you have to change yourself. I'll change you. I'll give you a new heart as soon as you're ready. But you've got to start picking up your cross and following me, and you're gonna fail, man, but like the verse that gives me so much hope and so much peace, when I fail, a righteous man falls seven times and rises again. It's not about my failures, but it's also not about my successes. My failures don't define me, but neither do my successes. It's about Jesus. It's about my identity in Christ. I'm a child of God, totally loved by an infinite, all loving being that created me for a purpose to look at other broken, tattooed men and say, yo, dude, there's a better way. I'm not going to drag you there, but if you'd love to have a conversation, I'd love to tell you about the king. I know him personally.
Speaker 1:I love that, your dad's words to you and that you be you. I love this because if, if out of context, that phrase is kind of a like, if I just go up to somebody randomly on the street, that's not a kingdom phrase, that's not a, that's actually very much the opposite. It's just like you power positive thinking, you ubu just like kind of, kind of like, whatever the universe will decide your future, sure, but for you, your God-fearing father, who followed the Lord is basically his entire life, from 17 on, to gives you the same phrase and it's exactly what you needed to hear to send you on a kingdom trajectory yeah, and another really cool thing is like I was mad at god because I didn't understand when my father died, I I would not be who I am today if my father didn't die now, man, do I wish he had met my kids?
Speaker 3:I have some awesome kids and I see my father in them, but one of the best things that ever could have happened for me and my family Claudia and my children is my father dying. How can you possibly say that? Because I ran and then the Lord got me on my back and then he picked me up and he built a rock solid foundation of me finally being brave enough to say you know what, if I really believe this thing, I'm going to ask all those questions that I just really don't understand. I'm going to ask all those questions that I just really don't understand. And that's really what happened in March of 2020.
Speaker 3:Like this journey of you know, I really I really don't. I really don't understand, um, how you can have a scientific and a biblical worldview at the same time. It's like I just I just don't, I just don't get it. And then the the Lord turned me on to, uh, dr, dr Michael Heiser and Dr Stephen Meyer and like, oh, you can. There's actually incredibly intelligent and scientifically minded people that believe in God and that don't try to make the Bible something that it's not so like. I was able to go and watch those debates Christians versus atheists that I was scared to watch because I thought it would poke holes in my faith and it, um, emboldened me. It's like, oh, if there was this glaring hole in what the bible claims to be, or who Jesus claimed to be. They've been trying to tear it down and stop it ever since its inception and they haven't been able to two thousand years later. So I'm pretty confident that I'm going to put all my chips in on Jesus.
Speaker 3:Christ of Nazareth, died and resurrected, king of God, king of the world, seated at the right hand of God. That's where all my chips are in at. Nothing can convince me otherwise, because I've already asked all the hard questions for myself and the lord has been kind enough to guide me along my path to answer those questions. A perfect example when you say, oh, what questions might you be talking about? I really struggled to understand how Jesus Christ existed before everything existed.
Speaker 3:If God created humanity, it's like well, how was Jesus Christ of Nazareth like? How was he pre-existent? If he, you know, if he's the Trinity right, like how did he exist before all of that? And understanding that the angel of the lord was the visible version of of god but the man jesus christ had to be born into the world before he existed. And like it was something that like really like, like shook my faith man, like I just really didn't understand that concept. But again, you know, dr heiser, he was like he died ironically he died of pancreatic cancer a few years ago.
Speaker 3:But like, helping me understand that like you can get answers to really complicated biblical questions if you just go out there and look for it. But the Lord has helped me answer any question that I have, like any of them, any hard scripture that like is strange or weird or I just really don't understand, like I I've I had to go all the way in to get all my questions answers that I could walk back out and say, hey, like he is good, he is true, there's, there's hope and in a world that desperately needs hope, I have so many friends that don't fear the Lord, don't have any relationship and it just breaks my heart. I'm burdened for them. Same, you know, my favorite color is red.
Speaker 1:That was your next question.
Speaker 3:I just knew it. I just knew it.
Speaker 2:We're close to about an hour already, which I feel like we could go a lot longer. Yeah, from 2020 to now. Give us I know there's a lot there, yeah, but give us what you feel like is on your heart. What has the Lord done? What is the Lord doing?
Speaker 3:You ask a lot of questions at the same time.
Speaker 1:Good, you've heard the podcast, you know what you're getting into.
Speaker 3:I got it, I just figured it, I figured there'd be more scraps of paper all around the place.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to hold your hand through this, Daniel.
Speaker 3:You're literally holding my hand right now, there's no camera here.
Speaker 3:People are actually holding my hand, wiping the tears away from my face as I weep over the death of my father. Um, so I would say that these past four years for me, the Lord will take me as deep into a relationship as I want to go, and he will do that for anyone one if you. If I truly desire to walk with the lord, I can have a really close and intimate relationship with him, and there's tangible ways to do that. And like I don't need to give you a list of things that I do on a day in or day out basis that are crucial to my walk with the Lord, the only thing that I would say is my life changed when I said you know what? I'm going to get up five minutes earlier and read my Bible for just five minutes.
Speaker 3:That was the catalyst. I'm not going to change anything. I'm not going to change what I watch on my phone. I'm not going to change what I watch on my phone. I'm not going to change what I watch on my TV. I'm not going to change what I eat. I'm not going to change anything, I'm just going to start reading my Bible, and I got engulfed in flames.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:It started an unquenchable desire for me to be able to say anyone that will listen. I'm going to encourage them, wherever they're at, in their walk with the Lord and say go deeper, it gets better. Your suffering isn't pointless. Deeper, it gets better, your suffering isn't pointless. The loss of your loved one isn't pointless. You're not going through unnecessary pain. Whether you understand that on this side of the eternity or not, you can have the best relationship with the Lord, and I love this analogy. Have you ever seen the movie Ryan doesn't own a TV? Have you ever been to someone's house and they were watching the movie? Tenant T-E-N-E-T.
Speaker 2:I love tenant Tenant's incredible.
Speaker 3:I watched tenant and.
Speaker 2:For your information.
Speaker 3:Who's the director?
Speaker 2:Christopher Nolan, of course. Good job, I'm proud of you Ryan Memento's his best movie.
Speaker 3:Memento's a great movie. Tenet opened my eyes to the concept that we don't exist in time, right Like we are in time, but God is outside of time. So therefore, really right now, I am seated in the beam of seat with Christ and first person point of view I am living through my life until the day when I open my eyes and I see Christ. So if every decision that I can make, I can look at it as I'm already seated with him, do the best you can in this scenario. Do the best you can. Oh, you failed, man. That's terrible, guess what? Get up and do it better, man, you really could handle that conversation with your child, your daughter, better. Do better tomorrow. Don't beat yourself up. Don't have unnecessary and unrealistic expectations of perfection and sinless perfection in your life, but do your best. And what does your best look like? You're already seated there, being rewarded for the things that you're doing. So make decisions based on that and look backwards and say I am walking towards the greatest thing that's ever going to happen to me, which is my removal from my flesh and me being changed forever to being like my king. Therefore, I'm going to make every effort to make the best decision that I can, and when I fail, I'm going to pick myself up, because Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 16, says let us find mercy and forgiveness in our time of need. Run boldly to the throne, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to run boldly to the throne every time and I'm going to encourage other men to run boldly to the throne, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to run boldly to the throne every time and I'm going to encourage other men to run boldly to the throne every time they fail, and stand up over and over and over again, until the day that my legs give out and my heart stops pumping blood and I'm reunited. I'm not only reunited with my father, but I'm reunited with my creator and all my ancestors who chose righteousness. That's the decision that I'm gonna make every day, and I just want my kids to follow behind me. Hmm, I'm blessed with amazing family.
Speaker 3:Let's get after it, man. Let's leave it all on the table. If I'm gonna run a landscape company, I'm gonna do the best I can in everything, in scheduling, in in in speed of estimation, in in how I communicate with my customers. If, if I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna just totally sell out and be the most badass dad that's ever lived. To the best of my ability, I had an awesome dad. I'm so grateful for that. I'm going to just totally sell out for Jesus in every area of my life. And if you don't want to do that, that's fine, but for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord.
Speaker 3:You want to tell someone? Hey, you want to talk to someone on fire for Christ? You give them my number. Anytime, anywhere I run my own business, I can do whatever I want. That's one of the freedoms that I love in having my own business. Christ can pull me out of what I'm doing to go do something way more important which is working for him. We're doing silly podcasts with Ryan Medlin man, that is good why did you name your son what you named him?
Speaker 3:because you're daniel I'm daniel anthony anthony couch. Your dad is daniel wayne coucher.
Speaker 1:Your dad is daniel wayne couch your son is daniel wayne coucher junior or the second the second.
Speaker 3:He's the second because, okay, so I am daniel anthony. My father was daniel wayne, his dad was quentin daniel. His dad was was daniel miller coucher. So there's, I was the fourth gen and I wanted the fifth gen, um, to be named after my father, just to honor my father's legacy of the man that he was and the gift that I had. My father had some flaws, I mean, he was a bit of a hothead and you know, people who meet me say like I'm really calm and really composed and not very intense at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the vibe.
Speaker 3:I think that's coming through the pod pretty much everybody that's ever met me like I would. I'd like to play monopoly with that guy. I bet I don't end up eating any of the monopoly pieces I bet so my dad was a bit of a hothead and, like I don't, I, I'm so grateful that I can see his flaws, so I don't have to think that I have to be this perfect dad.
Speaker 3:But man, I'm just so grateful, just so grateful that the lord opened my eyes, grateful that the Lord opened my eyes to where I don't have to live with any regrets. Yeah, there are things that I would do differently if I could go back and do them again, but I don't regret anything because it made me this version of myself and I don't know what you guys believe, but I like to think that at the end of my life there's the version of me that made all the right decisions that that I could have been if I was totally sold out for Christ, and I want to get as close to I can as that version of me. When I meet my creator, we'll sell out now. So, the King, when I meet my creator, we'll sell out now. Serve the king, that's all that matters.
Speaker 2:Daniel, thank you for being here, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, and for sharing your story.
Speaker 1:Found some juicy carrots I gotta man, I do have one final question oh, please whether it makes it onto the pot or not, I don't know it probably will.
Speaker 2:Warren will probably edit it for um.
Speaker 1:you mentioned when your wife prayed for you. Yeah, and she reached in and grabbed your chest hair. For listeners that may not be blessed with chest hair, can you just describe how awesome that is? Asking for a friend.
Speaker 3:It's pretty incredible. My father used to make fun of me. He said that I got my mother's brother's genes and that they were still in the trees, as he likes to say no wonder you had all these questions about evolution. Yeah, absolutely, and and uh, a six-day literal creation, an old earth or a young earth? It's like my dad's like.
Speaker 1:you're closer to the gorillas than we are His lovely sense of humor.
Speaker 3:But but yeah, I, I'm a, I'm a big fan of of the gym. My wife is is a previously state record holding power lifter, so she's, she's a, she's a force. So basically I couldn't run when she put her arms up there and grabbed onto my chest hair, or I would have lost, you know, two good fistfuls of chest hair, um, had I tried to run. So she was just locking me in and saying, boy, I got you as god as you can get.
Speaker 2:So how can you? Can you say how much she weighs and then how much she claudia?
Speaker 3:claudia walking around. Weight is. She's 126, on average at 117. She squatted in competition uh, 290.2. Um, she has hit 310, oh, 300. And this this woman is itty bitty and you can see her quads from behind her she is, she's just powerful, powerful, like, like it's. It's incredible.
Speaker 3:I'm not I'm totally getting off track here, but man, the, when I got her into weightlifting, when she was a runner and and she came to the gym and we did the bar and I was like that looks pretty easy for you. We put a little bit more weight on and looks pretty easy. She got up to like 125 pounds the first time ever squatting in the gym. And I'm like, hey, I'm not saying this because you're my wife, I'm not telling you this because I love you. I'm saying if you want to be a competitive squatter, you have one of the most natural squat forms of anybody that I've ever seen and I used to train people at the gym when I was younger. So like, if you want to do this, you can be really good at it.
Speaker 3:And then very quickly, I mean in a matter of three years um, she had outgrown all the teaching that I could teach her and she ended up getting a coach uh, like a professional powerlifting coach to help take her, her diet and her um specific training. Cause, when you get into powerlifting competitions you do like you know, deload weeks and stuff like that. It's basically optimizing muscle growth and training. So she did that for a little while there and then I kept getting her pregnant.
Speaker 3:I don't understand how that happened, but yeah, that's how we ended up with three babies, and then she competed after the first baby. So she's competed post-cesarean, you she's. She's competed post cesarean. You're kidding, she's competed, yeah no, I didn't know that yeah, she competed post cesarean.
Speaker 2:Holy Christ.
Speaker 3:She's just incredible, incredible. One of the craziest things is we actually just found out that she has two hernias recently Just found out she's still been at the gym and I'm like you're just a freaking. Oh my god, dude, she can flat bench 150. I know great like I'll bet 20 bucks that I can find a guy that makes me feel good at the gas station that can't bench 150. It's like dude, it's amazing. So like I'm just I'm really blessed with her.
Speaker 3:And then um, yeah, just this is really cool how god has given that something that we get to do together as husband and wife. We used to be able to train together all the time. Now she trains in the morning and I train in the evenings, just because of work and life and kids and all those things. But yeah, it's really cool, man, and I just love being dad. My little Mariana man. She's a female version of me. She is intense bro. I am not concerned at all about her dating and she's not even three yet. Good to go, Go out. I will pray for that boy right now. I'm praying for Camilla's husband and Mariana's husband right now, for different reasons.
Speaker 1:Praying for Camilla's husband and Mariana's husband right now for different reasons. You know Ryan Medlin is has produced some male junior versions of him that are very slow to speaking or calm. It'd be a good counterpart. That's good. You know opposites attract. You think so, so maybe that's why you guys are friends. Maybe maybe the boys like I think people are gonna on this pod, maybe like try to slow down parts of it to like half speed and then speed up the other parts to 2x speed probably yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't want to dare start talking about being related to Ryan Medlin by law. This was going really well and I just feel like it kind of went sideways there, because I don't wish that on my worst enemy. I guess this is a good.
Speaker 2:I guess this is a good stopping point it was your best day ever.
Speaker 1:It just got ruined by thinking of having to be related to Ryan Medlin.
Speaker 3:It's like, oh for the love, be merciful, lord, take me home before then I'll joke to the side. Thank you for having me. This was great, this was fun, this was very good a lot of fun. What do we sing now? Bye, thank you.
