Eliminating Distractions to Live with Purpose with Matt Farnham

How can Christian entrepreneurs can eliminate distractions, escape comparison, and focus on what truly matters? Garrett is joined today by Matt Farnham and together, they challenge the hustle narrative by encouraging listeners to work from approval, not for it, and to focus their energy on what brings purpose, significance, and eternal value.

From the tension between work and family to the trap of perfectionism and the power of divine appointments, this episode is a roadmap to purpose-driven living in business and beyond. Garrett and Matt also introduce the launch of the One Life Podcast, created to help Christians live intentionally and fully aligned with their calling.

Key Takeaways:

✅ Distraction is one of the enemy’s greatest tools—eliminate it to refocus on what’s eternal
✅ Comparison culture robs contentment and clarity
✅ Harmony, not balance, is the key to integrating work and family
✅ You are already approved in Christ—work from that truth
✅ Focus on things that make tomorrow better than today
✅ Spiritual warfare often looks like busyness and perfectionism
✅ Your God-given talents point to your unique calling
✅ Delegation and simplicity can free you to focus on significance
✅ Presence > proximity when it comes to family
✅ Faith should anchor both personal and professional decisions
✅ Divine appointments often require slowing down to notice
✅ You don’t retire from a life of purpose—you lean deeper into it

Episode Chapters:

⏳ 00:00 – Introduction to the One Life Journey
🔍 03:03 – Breaking Free from Comparison & Finding Purpose
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 06:08 – Harmony Over Balance: Reclaiming Time for Family
💡 09:09 – Working From Approval, Not For It
🎯 12:00 – Identifying What’s Truly Significant
⚔️ 14:59 – Distraction as a Form of Spiritual Warfare
✂️ 17:58 – Removing Distractions to Find Fulfillment
🏘 20:07 – Serving Your Community Through Real Estate
🧭 22:49 – Recognizing & Responding to Divine Appointments
🧠 24:49 – Where Life and Business Collide
🎙 28:30 – The One Life Mission: Living with Clarity
🚀 34:45 – Launching the One Life Podcast

Resources & Opportunities:

📩 Are you tired of the hustle? Download my free guide: 3 Lies Christian Agents Believe—and the Truth That Will Set You Free
🔗 https://www.210collective.com/podcast

📞 Want to be in Business with Garrett and Christian agents around the globe? Schedule a call with Garrett to learn about the 2:10 Collective on the eXp Realty platform
🔗 https://calendar.app.google/YmCPQRhWJaV7owmw6

🙌 Join Garrett’s FREE online community for Christian agents who want to sell 3-4 homes/month:
🔗 https://www.skool.com/servingnotselling/about

📩 Send Garrett your Hampton Roads & Richmond, VA buyer/seller referrals:
🔗 7572662876

📲 Follow Garrett on Instagram for more insights and encouragement!

🔗 https://www.instagram.com/garrettmaroon/

Transcript

0:01

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Christian Agent Podcast. I have an incredible guest for you today. You're going to get to meet him here in just a second. We're so excited that he's joined us today as we're going to talk about eliminating distractions to focus on significant things, but from this big idea of the one life and our guest today just so much in common in terms of his heart and what we're trying to do, not just succeeding in business, but succeeding in life as well. So I'm super excited for today. As always, brothers and sisters in Christ, if you're not part of the school, go check it out in the show notes. Would love to see you there on our live coaching calls every single week to encourage Christian agents to sell three to four homes a year. And you're to get some great resources from our guests today as well. So before I introduce him, I'm going to have him tell you a dad joke. because i want you to decide if you like him before you hear anything about him so let's see what we've got uh... i keep wanted to use your name i'm trying to keep it secret is that's fine with so probably seen the title anyways but brother give me your christian dad joke let's see how it goes So why did they not play cards on the Ark? Why? because Noah was standing on the deck. oh I like it. That's fantastic. Okay, uh What did the lawyer ask when someone started talking about God's will? It was close was it notarized That's That's fantastic. I like it. See, you know, so here's what happened Matt Farnham is our guest today Well, that's that's fair you're totally right about that. So here's what happened man, so I stopped like at one point man i i started in my real estate business i was telling a joke of the week on face book since twenty sixteen analysis like so tired of it so my wife comes in one day she's like you don't have to keep doing this like to what i have to do this it'd be years right and said then the podcast starts and i think in twenty twenty maybe twenty twenty one and i'm telling a joke there to in the same thing i was like you have to tell joke it's okay cuz you know i'd like seen every single joke it's stupid how much time it takes me to find one i haven't heard or seen right and so but what comes ahead you don't tell it people like it anyways i get such a hard time for it well i go like three episodes without it and then i start getting messages the only time anyone messages me on the show is i a word of jokes we've missed the folks like you guys they thought it was that so thank you for participating in that brothers and sisters we got matt farham with us in amazing man of god and agent from las vegas most importantly not only is he a lover of jesus of course but he's married for twenty years has three kids he said by far his favorite thing about his life he's been a broker a high producing agent and a team leader and he's got so many cool things to share with us again about this idea of a one-life journey we're gonna come back to this concept here uh... in a little bit but eliminating distractions to focus on significant things so matt thanks so much for joining us brother give me kind of a quick background on you and we're gonna dive into the good stuff Cool man man so excited to be here. Garrett, I love what you're doing bro. The impact and ah specifically the niche you carved out to encourage other believers in this business. Because we were saying right before we started right, it's a very discouraging industry in the sense of what the world tells us we're supposed to focus on or what we're supposed to accomplish. So bro, love what you're doing and honored to be a part of it. tell us that story real quick, Matt, because you teed it up really well. You were talking to me about your coach, right? So just dive into that, man. Tell me that story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was a time, it's part of kind of my one life journey, and I know we'll get into some of that. at one point, you know, it's this idea of comparison we all struggle with, right? We're in this performance culture, this comparison culture, and especially in this industry, we're constantly looking over our shoulder at what Garrett's doing great or what she's doing well, and you feel like you should be doing it all, right? So we're constantly feeling like we're failing all the time. Well, I having a little pity party one day with, with my coach at the time. He's, I mean, one of the most extraordinary coaches in the country, coaching some very high caliber clients. I was probably the smallest fish in his pond. And I remember I'm having this moment with them, Garrett, like just, I should be doing this. And I feel like I'm failing here. And he just kind of interrupted me. He's like, Matt, he goes, I feel like you're probably comparing yourself to a lot of the people specifically that I coach. I'm like, well, that's true. Cause I knew all his clients too. He goes, Matt, listen, he goes, Let me just encourage you, if you could see behind the curtain and see the full picture, the marriage, the family, the community, the contribution, right? The whole life, the health. I promise you, you wouldn't trade your life in a heartbeat for any of them. And it was so encouraging to me, Garrett, at that time, because I needed to hear it. You know, I'm embarrassed to admit that, but I did, because, you know, I think the world just can beat you up and tell you that you're not doing enough. But are you focused on the most significant things? And that's really that one light, every area of life, right? So, you and I, our first conversation we had, like, what's the point of crushing it in business if your marriage isn't thriving, right? Your kids don't talk to you, like, what's the point? Yeah, man. It's so interesting because, so my wife and I actually this week, Matt, are on a social media fast. And part of it for both of us, but for her recently, we've got four kids, right? One on the way, she homeschools, they're all little, is she just feels like she constantly gets these new ideas from social media, like Instagram, here's something you could do with your kids. And she feels like she's behind. Instead of, let's focus on the things we know we should do and let's just try to do them well. and take some off that uh... you know all of those ideas off your plate whatever because it is this constant comparison game of you're not good enough you're not doing this you're not to whatever it is right and what's crazy to me man is we all know that's true but we still do it Right? Like, I feel that way in business, right? I mean, Matthew 6 talks about if we seek first the kingdom of the God, the Lord will give us all, and all these things will be added, right? It's how you finish that and all those things. The Lord's going to provide food and clothing and all the stuff that we actually need. But then we go look at Instagram or we go look at what other people are doing in the industry, like you said, or talking to your coach, whatever the scenario is. And we say, but hold on, Lord, this is what provision is. I'm going to define this for you, Lord. And you need to provide this. This is what I want you to add to me. And he's like, that's not what I'm going to give you. I'm going give you something different, but we look and think, well, then this is not provision. I need to go seek it out myself. I need to go strive at whatever it's this vicious cycle. Right? So when you had that moment, Matt, you're doing well, you're coaching with one of the top coaches in the industry, right? What was it? Was it just that comparison game? And even though things are going well in your home, Everything in the industry has taught you, but focus on your sales. Is that why you felt maybe not as significant? What was the challenge there? Yeah, you know, I think it's really part of the whole story where, you know, it was, it started from this moment of burnout where I'm running a brokerage. I'm still your friendly neighborhood realtor trying to help my clients and really doing two full-time jobs at that point. My family's getting the leftovers and I knew something had to change. It kind of started this journey where I'm, it all of a sudden it changes what you read, right? It changes what you listen to. I'm in more conversations around trying to seek out this idea of work-life balance, right? This elusive balance we all strive for. Which side note, I don't think is possible, but harmony is possible. And that's what I love to share with people is how do you have harmony between it all? And then it's start, you know, there's the journey of starting to buy more freedom, right? We're starting to leverage more and you're getting in proximity around your loved ones more, but proximity is not presence. And then I'm trying to become more present. So what does that look like? And you start to build the business to support the life. But then you get to this part where you start to be around your family more. I'm starting to make those choices more often. finding myself with the wife and kids more, but when you get there, it's the guilt. It's this programming where I'm underperforming my potential. I should be doing more. I could be doing more. Or if I'm at work, I'm missing it. I should be a more present husband and father, right? I'm missing this, I'm missing that. And you're constantly this tension, this guilt of feeling like you're failing in one area the other. But to your point, I'm making choices and I had a mentor tell me one time he's like, Matt, when are you going to just own your choices? I'm like, what do mean? He goes, you're making choices. You should be very proud of, but you're buying into some lie that you're making poor choices or that you're, missing out. He's just own your choices, right? Everything's a choice. But I think part of it too, is you said something a moment ago and I was, I wrote down as you're talking part of my story too is, and we all struggle with this is are we like, number one, what I, what is our identity? founded on, right? What's our foundation? And then once we know that, it's still the constant tension, but we're working for an audience of one, right? But when you're working for man's approval, it's exhausting. Like it's exhausting. We can't ever do enough, sell enough, uh say the right thing. It's absolutely exhausting. And you you quoted the scripture a moment ago, there's a verse that I love when it comes to getting out of debt and it says, you were bought at a price, don't become slaves of men. But I also think about that verse when I think about working for your approval or for her approval. Because if I'm working for your approval, I'm a slave to man like Christ died for me. So I didn't have to be in bondage to anybody, right? The verdicts in I'm accepted. So now I'm working from approval, not for approval. Major difference. Now, do I need to remind myself that on a daily basis? Absolutely. But that's the difference, right? Verdict is in, gavel set. To tell us I paid in full working from approval not for approval. But it's a daily struggle for all of us, bro. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. So good, man. I said something the other day to somebody. can't remember the context, right? But I said, are we working to create our identity or are we working from our identity? Right. The same thing that you're talking about because reality is it's and I do it all the time, right? I think one of the, you know, truthfully, one of the struggles, Matt, that I have is, you know, start at the faithful agent and have this podcast, whatever you're up on stage, whatever it is and, you're teaching and People naturally just assume, I must have it all figured out. And that's the furthest thing from the truth, right? Like every single day for this morning, literally uh in my quiet time and I'll journal after my quiet time. One of the things I wrote down was Lord forgive me because it's so easy for me when I'm supposed to be spending time with you, when I want to spend time with you, that I'm distracted by my business. I'm distracted by how do I get ahead? I'm distracted by all these ideas and the confession that while I'm working, I'm almost never distracted by you. right and and i and i think that that's true and in the lord's kindness he's gonna soften my heart and he's gonna he's gonna grant me uh... in his kindness is for a grant me just that good distraction that i want to have as paul would write in his letters i'll be talking about whatever like and praise to our glorious god reyes just distracted by the glory of the father that doesn't happen for me that often and it's no what you know it's a choice like you said it's easy to say well industry taught me in bubble bought social media but like bro you made a choice at the end of the day you choose where you focus you choose where your attention is right in whatever choice you make is going to have a consequence good or bad right and that's just what's going to happen so when you talked about earlier eliminating distractions to focus on significant things i think there's two pieces there eliminating distractions and significant things so talk to me first about how do we know what is significant i think that's my first question You know what's interesting is part of my story too is I coach with Tom Ferry I have for years and he used to say all the time he'd have these five questions that a mentor took him through years ago and I heard him say this in a live setting multiple times, Garrett, and I always got frustrated when he would say, because he'd say, number one, what's your purpose? That I knew my purpose is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and make, I also want to make him known, especially with my kids, right? Make him famous. That's number one, that's easy. The second question he would ask though, he'd say, what are your God-given talents? And I would always get discouraged because I'm like, selling real estate is not a God-given talent. Like I'm good at it because I'm interested in real estate. I like people, I'm competitive. I wanna sell, I wanna win, but it's not a God-given talent. I literally wrestled with this for a couple years. Started coaching in another program called Strategic Coach and it talks about unique ability, like really finding what your gifting is. And then just ultimately begging God for clarity. Part of my story too is spending a lot of time in Romans 12, uh do not conform to the patterns of behaviors of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, right? By changing the way you think. And a lot of this was just begging God, sorry. And it goes on to say in Romans 12, if you have the gift of teaching, teach. You have the gift of encouragement, encourage. If you have the gift of leadership, take that responsibility serious. And through this journey and all this time in the Word and just seeking counsel, it became clear to me what my gifting was and that was leadership, communication and encouragement. So leaning into significant things for me is leaning into the gifting. What did God wire me to do best? And selling real estate is not it. Now it's definitely, you know, I can honor the Lord through the way I do real estate and love on families and contribute back to our city through the business and all the things. That's the idea of one life, all these things working together. But significant things for me when I say that, it's leaning into what I think God created me to do and where I think He can use me for His glory the most for His kingdom, specifically in our industry, and that's using my gifting. And the way I do that is through a number of different ways that God has opened doors for me through, you know, I have a Bible study that I lead nationally. We talked about that, this idea of one life community I'm starting to work and build. Those are the significant things that I'm using my gifting for. I love that dude because there's so many things there. Here's what I would say as well is I'm taking the other shoe because a lot of people I talk to will say, you know, for example, because I'm trying to grow into this area, right, Matt, where I'll say, well, these are the things I do and these are the things I don't do. Right. And, you know, most of the time they're just giving me a hard time, whatever, like, oh, you don't do that anymore. Like, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it. Right? Like there are meetings now I won't take and I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm not trying to pretend like I'm better than I'm not trying to do that at all. It's an understanding. Like you said, Matt, and as an encouragement to our agent, but it's an understanding of these are the things I think the Lord gifted me in. What's the only natural outcome of that is he wants me to do more of that. That's why he gifted me. I didn't choose what I was gifted in. I didn't choose to be barely five, seven. right i would have chose something else because that's fine uh... with that something will have to impact later for a longer episode is high you know poor my heart out of that when i'm on your show that that's all we're talking about yet go ahead open real quick. So Rory Vadin is an author. He's the CEO and founder of Brand Builders Group. I've really been following him a lot recently. He loves Jesus man, great leader, but he has a book called Procrastinate on Purpose and he talks about the idea of significance and the way he defines significance. There's two parts to this. He says significance is giving yourself the emotional permission to work on things today that makes tomorrow easier or better. And the way that I translate that is what moves the needle for like real impact that lasts longer than today, than this moment. Those are significant things, number one. But he also says anything other than the significant thing is a distraction, right? And here's what you and I know, Garrett, is the enemy's number one tool for us is distraction. And bro, what I realized is we think of spiritual warfare as, oh Satan's attacking my marriage or he's attacking my reputation in this area because I got accused of something out of nowhere or something, whatever. We think of these big things. But bro, as I started to reflect on this, what became apparent to me is I'd never thought about spiritual warfare coming down to the daily disciplines of my schedule. Because here's the deal, man. If we want this dopamine hit where we check all these things off our list, that is not the highest and best use of your time, as you just mentioned. But Satan loves it. If we can just do the thing that we could have easily delegated or that really wasn't that significant that makes tomorrow easier or better or more impactful, he wins. Because anything other than the thing that God has planned and purpose for me to do, Satan's happy with. As long as it's not the thing that's gonna move the needle for the kingdom, right? It's literally spiritual warfare, bro. And I've never thought about it like that until I started to think about this idea. Yeah, that's crazy. mean, but it's totally true. So I was reading this Daily Devotional from A.W. Tozer for a long time. He's dead and it was amazing. He was a terrible husband, actually, weirdly, right? He was terrible husband. Yeah, but he was just, I don't know. It's very weird. Anyways, we won't get into that. But he was writing this one day and one of them was, yeah, because the devil can't destroy us, right? Because we are sealed with the inheritance of the Holy Spirit. What does he do instead? He distracts us. Like you said, it's just to say, I can't, I can't pull you away out of the grasp of the Lord. Praise God that we can't be lost, but I can try to tilt your head a little bit, right? And how easily we, we do those things. And so that is so true and so good to get to that granular level to say, even in your schedule, where is he trying to keep you from doing what he wants, what the Lord wants you to do? Right. You look at the story of Jonah, right? Jonah could have just gone straight. Nineveh and shared the gospel and instead it wasn't the Lord that distracted him from his mission. It was the devil. Now his own sin, right? He was tempted and by his own sin he sinned against the Lord, but this temptation comes to say, hey, you don't need to listen. I mean even the original sin, like you don't need to listen to the Lord, but he gets tempted and so he turns away. Well, that wasn't the Lord turning him away, right? The Lord said, here's your purpose, here's your mission. The beauty is the Lord got him to the mission anyways. It could have been a lot easier, a lot smoother, right? For him to just have gone straight there, but he allowed himself as we often do, the distractions. And I think you said this earlier, but when we chase after the world, it's this never ending cycle that we never catch anyways. And so it's exhausting, right? I think the crazy thing is like the world paints it as it, and if you don't know Christ, this is what it is, right? But the world paints it as if there's one person that gets to the top of the mountain and that's it. So we're all trying to be the guy that gets there. well the gospel comes in and is like if you're in christ you've all already earned the prize you've already one and you just want others to have the same price and praise god for that right we're not all vying for the one spot in heaven the lord in his kindness is that you've won this already right how cool is that so i love that idea of i don't love it but it's very helpful idea right of like those distractions in your day so ok so significant things what god has created me to do leaning into the gifting which i love that how do we eliminate then those distractions we understand what those significant things might be in a good like you could take a while right and that's okay brothers sister keep doing the work but how do we eliminate distractions that keep us from getting there Well, for me, there's kind of two parts of that. There's the day to day, right? And that's knowing you're gifting, getting the right people around you, delegating tasks to other people's unique abilities, which also, by the way, brings them joy and fulfillment and all the things. But when it comes to me, when I say that to you earlier, when it comes to part of my story, it's for a long time, I was a broker owner for 12 years here in Vegas. I started a new cloud-based brokers before. I'm with the EXP now, but before EXP, I partnered with um a new brokers that I was helping expand nationally. So I spent 18 months there, helped open, I think 17 states. But because I was the corporate broker for a state, and then of course the broker owner of Indy Brokerage for 12 years before that, I spent the last 14 years being the guy that had to create it, had to come up with it, had to build the SOP, had to create the form. Everything was extra work. And bro, for the first time ever, like the wind is at my back. I have eliminated all that stuff off my plate. or I'm focused on just a couple simple things that's serving clients at a higher level in my city. That's loving Las Vegas through real estate is our mission. We do that by giving them the best results and experience possible. But also all of our clients know that we invest in some really amazing city engagement partners serving the most vulnerable in our city. So the first portion of everything we yearn goes right back into the city foster care, sex trafficking, homelessness and poverty, some amazing different lanes of eradicating hunger. So that's significant thing number one and number two would be for all that stuff that came off my plate that time is now being reallocated into this idea of rooted in one life and the podcast I'm launching and all the things that now I can Do the things I feel like God's plan a purpose for me that I didn't have time to do before So it's not eliminating distractions. Like those were bad things. I was doing before they just weren't They were preventing me from moving the needle in the areas that God has really been tugging on my heart, you Man, that's such a good distinction because the word distraction has such a negative connotation, right? So like that's a distraction, meaning that's a bad thing. It's whatever. Exactly. We just said such a good distinction. It's not that it's bad. It's that it's keeping you from the things that the Lord is calling you to do. And if that's true, you know, if the Lord, if the Lord says to you, whatever, you, if he actually verbally said, you need to go to whatever Spain and be a missionary. and you knew that you would do whatever the heck you had to do to make that happen. You just would, because you're like, he told me to do it. But yet I think inherently most of us know that however we show up every day is not exactly what we're supposed to be doing. Right. It's not that the Lord wrote it down. It's not this whatever it's that we know that maybe we were made for something else. And yet we refuse to go after it. Right. We kind of get stuck in the same idea of like, I to sell houses today. I got to show, I got to this. And it doesn't mean that's not true sometimes, but it means What if the Lord is trying to make clear to you, I want you to go do something else on top of this or whatever the scenario is, right? You would do whatever you had to do to make that happen if he wrote it down. Well, what if he wrote it on your heart and you're just not paying attention and instead you're like, I'm just going to keep doing the same old, old, because it's a little bit scary to try to do anything different. That doesn't honor the Lord, right? Yeah, please. my mentor said to me a long time ago something to the effect of, know, you have too many things on your plate to where you're not sensitive to the voice of God, you're not able to take advantage of those divine appointments that come along or on a bigger scale, like we're talking about step into what he's planning a purpose for you, then you have things on your plate that God never intended to be there. And that doesn't mean they're bad things, right? Just like even going to church, sometimes another program, it's a good program, but that doesn't mean it's what we really should be focused on sometimes in church. Same thing in our business, dude. But I think part of it for me, Garrett, is for years I used to say, I'm a perfectionist, I'm a perfectionist, because I just have my way, want to do things and they got to be perfect. And number one, what I'm learning is that's really rooted in the fact that I care way too much what people think about me. That's really what perfectionism is. But because of that, I think it prevented me from stepping into some of this stuff sooner because I didn't want to let go of being the guy that was, you know, getting the credit for creating all the stuff and, you know, being the biggest fish in the pond and a lot of the settings I was in for you. Now I'm a, I'm Menno, I'm on sharks and whales with the new partners I'm with. It's insane, but, but yeah, I think a lot of it, it comes to that perfectionism too, that, that we don't want to let go of certain things, you know. Yeah, right. To let go into what the Lord has for you, right? The cool thing is the Lord is never going to say let go and then just sit there and do nothing. He has a very specific purpose for every single one of us, right? And, you know, and let me add the caveat here. Praise God how gracious He is because it takes us a really long time to figure that out, right? What should I be pursuing, Lord? And now He's given us some things. If you're a husband, if you're a dad, those are the things you need to be pursuing first. You know, your relationship with the Lord. then your spouse and then your kids. Those are the things to pursue first. But then after that, we happen to be in an industry too, which is such a blessing where, you you could kind of choose every day. What do I do? But that's also challenging because then we either choose the things we shouldn't or just making that choice can be difficult. So seeking that out, love the idea of spending time in Romans 12. We're going to shift here to this one life idea, but spending time in Romans 12, just Lord, what am I good at? and saying those are the significant things anything that keeps me from those i will label a distraction doesn't mean they're bad but i will label them a distraction from what the lord has me to do yet go ahead the second part of Romans 12 is when I got into the, it talks about the gifting. But when I spent that time really in Romans 12 where it says, don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, I was like, okay, well God, what are the behaviors and customs of this world? And for me, it became apparent that that's comparison and performance. Like in my industry, the way I'm wired, most of my struggles come down to the root of comparison and performance. Hmm. But those are the very things that prevent us from being present with our spouse and our kids because the world says I should be doing more, right? Or I feel guilty also of stepping out of the office at three o'clock to go pick up my kid. I'm in a results economy. I'm an entrepreneur. But we're also wired by the world that we're in this time and effort economy that if I don't work eight hours, number one, time and effort, eight hours, you work eight hours, you get a paycheck, right? That's what most people do. But then the other problem with that too, as an entrepreneur is I feel guilty leaving at three o'clock because I feel like I'm supposed to work till five, right? So it's like, you got to undo all this programming between the comparison, performance, the way the world raises us in today's society and all these things. It's all working against us as a faith driven entrepreneur, but we got to get rooted in his word, man. Like that's what the playbook for life, right? oh No, you're right. Right. If we want to know what the world says, it's out there. If we want to know what the Lord says, it's in the word. Right. And yeah. that we're all being formed. Every single one of us is being formed every single day. The question isn't are we being formed? The question is what is forming us? And outside of His Word, it's all these things we're talking about. It's performance, it's comparison, it's perfectionism, it's uh whatever, distraction, all the things that Satan thinks it is. And he doesn't care if we go make three million dollars if it's not what God wants us to do. But we gotta get in the word, man. That's the foundation to, yeah. good yet there's so much of and i've shared the story before i think but one of my mentors is is it any seventies and he had built out this big engineering company and sold it for i don't know ton of money uh... million million made many millions of dollars and but for the first ten years while he was building it he was in the believer that he gets saved and member asking him i was kind of in the beginning stages of my real-estate journey been in for eleven years madden so this probably five six years and i'm like Hostile and doing all the stuff and I'm reading everything. I'm this self-development junkie. Whatever and that that helped it worked, right? I'm not gonna say didn't but you know, it's just obsessed with it And so we're sitting down for lunch one day and I just say hey his name is butch I said butch when you became a believer like what changed? What did you start reading that you weren't reading before because he was self-development guy too. And he said Garrett uh Basically now I only read the Bible and I'm like no. All right, that's fine. Of course you got to read the Bible, know, but like what else are you reading and he said that's pretty much it was like i think it doesn't make sense to me right what about all this other good stuff he said here for i have a hard meeting open up the word before you know i had to fire someone open up the word before i'm about to give somebody promotion open up the word and he's like exactly said madis he's like it's not that there's not understanding or or clarity in other things but nothing all the wisdom we need is already here in scripture someone might help me understand it But if whatever I read doesn't align with scripture, it's not true anyway. So like, wouldn't I just go to the source? So it's like, know the word, know the Bible and be around people who do so that you're not unequally yoked. And they're going to say, no, go pursue the world, man. That's where life is. You're like, that's not true at all. Right. So, all right, let's shift real quick. So the one life journey, tell me what that is. What is that idea? Yeah, so as I've kind of unpacked much of the snippets, right, but much of the journey with you already, but really this idea of like, I'm trying to, what I found in this discovery phase or season, if you will, is that I was compartmentalizing my life. Like I had my business, I had my marriage, I had my kids, I had my community contribution, know, Matt and Leslie, my wife and I contribute to this. I'm part of this international mission partner thing. There's too many, it was like all these spinning plates. And finally, what God said, he's like, man, you got to blur the lines, right? It's this idea of this collision of my marriage and my family through my business, my faith fleshed out through my business, our contributions uh outside of our tithe, you know, to different mission partners locally and internationally aligned with my business. It's this idea of this collision, this one life of faith and fulfillment and purpose and mission and family all fleshed out through the business. So What does that look like practically for us? Well, all of sudden we said, you know what? I'm rebranding the company, loving Las Vegas through real estate. I'm on mission through my business. It's not Matt and Leslie doing this. We're giving off the top. The whole, every agent, every staff member's in on it. They know what we're a part of. Our clients know what we're a part of. We took the kids to Guatemala to serve at the orphanage instead of just a mom and dad doing it, right? It's, we took the kids to serve in the city, the sex trafficking outreach and homelessness and poverty. Like actually, to taste it and feel it. And it's not just mom and dad throwing money at something. But here's the difference, bro, is now, praise God I am home for dinner most nights as I've worked on this over the last number of years. But let's just say I'm not, because some nights I'm not, right? That's our entrepreneurship life. But if dad's not home for dinner, it's because we're on mission as a family and my kids know that. They know the bigger life and the bigger story we're building together. But before they didn't, we weren't communicating about, you know, Why doesn't all dads just cares about making money more than maybe spending dinner with us? They don't who knows what kids are the narrative they're telling themselves. But when you align now it gives literally when I wake up bro, I'm on mission. I'm building a life. I don't want to retire from you know what I mean? Like if you're if we get to this, let's just say 65 years old. Sorry to pick on you if you're you know 64. You don't have to retire next year if you don't want to. But the world again back to this world programming. We work until we're 65 and then we start to die. Like that's just the sad fact of how our world operates. But imagine that you're a year away from retirement and your life is full of purpose and meaning and impact and all these things like all those one life, you know, family mission is left out through your business. You're not going to retire from that life, right? So that's what has really been inspiring to me is to start to really build this life that I never want to retire from. And the second thing about that too, bro, that's freeing to help you be present with your wife and kids and community, whatever that is that God's put on your heart, is if I'm building a life I don't need or want to retire from, now I can remove the deadlines. Like most of the stress we put on ourselves as an entrepreneur is deadlines. And again, it's this comparison performance world. You hire a coach and you compare yourself to all these other extraordinary team leaders or realtors or entrepreneurs. And of course the ambition, you know, part of all of us wants to set the goal by this date. But if I'm building a life I don't need to retire from, why do I need to set a deadline? Right? I can be present with my wife and kids today because you know what? As long as I move the needle a little bit today, I can do it tomorrow. I can do it the next week. It changes everything, dude. When your faith and meaning and purpose and all that's fleshed out through your business, it changes it all. So good. Man, yeah, I love, there's the story. So I'll talk real quickly, but a woman in our two-ten collective, she was widowed at age like 32. She's amazing woman of God. Her husband, this is like seven years ago, 32, two little kids. And she was telling us this story. Her father-in-law actually passed this last week. He was a pastor for 50 years. And she said, here's what's crazy, right? She's just lost a lot of people in her life. But she said, here's what's crazy. My father-in-law, He literally, like until the very last moment of his life, was working to bring Christians together. Like he was working on this, this uh, prayer day of prayer they have in their city. And he had literally like the day before he died said, did we send out those 60 letters to every pastor as well? This guy's mid to late seventies. can't remember exactly how old he is. And it's like, that's what we should do. You know, there's an aspect of this isn't my life. Retirement is not a biblical concept. Let's be honest, but. Like this is not my life. I'm stewarding this life that the Lord has granted to me. And so to your point, what a great reminder. mean, I've never heard it that way, said that way, Matt, where like, if I just realized I'm going to do this forever, I don't need a deadline. So if that means my, you know, my oldest is seven. If that means my seven year olds like daddy, can we play a game today? No, I can't always say yes. Right. Sometimes I'm saying whatever, but like the answer can be of course, baby, because if I move the needle and I can get to it again tomorrow, praise God for that. Right. Like my responsibility at end of the day is to uh be a gospel witness to my kids. And what does that mean? I got to spend time with them. I got to be present. So such a good idea. Now, yeah, go ahead. point though, Garrett, like those listening to this, Garrett's 100 % right about everything he just said, but it's also that harmony, right? Because we also have responsibility to teach our kids what discipline and hard work look like and stewardship of what God's entrusted to us. it's, but again, bro, that's like, we talk to our kids as we lay down, as we sit down to eat, as we walk, right? They're seeing the one life, it's work, it's contribution, it's time as a family, it's all those things. But it's making choices, right? And this time you get to choose throwing the ball, next time you're choosing returning the phone call or headed to the office. They're both great. It's just, it's that intentionality of all of it. Yeah, you're right. So good. So I love it, man. Okay, so the podcast is out or it's coming out. Give us a detail there. Talk about Rooted and then however people want to connect with you. Yeah, yeah. the One Life podcast will launch very soon. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to a podcast. We talked about this. So, well, if we talk about, you know, entrepreneurship, wearing multiple hats, doing different things, it's very difficult to, you know, spend a lot of time on something that doesn't create any revenue. So I'm trying to get the content together. I'm going to release season one all at once here in the next few weeks, probably, you know, no more than 60 days out. awesome. But I'm building community around it as well. So we just launched a course that I'd love to share with your listeners, Garrett, it's called Beyond the Grind, where it's a talk I've given multiple times. But basically we built it into like a five module course to help entrepreneurs really start to look at their philosophy, but also some practical handles and tools and exercises to really start to move the needle in this idea of harmony between work and life. I've touched on some of these concepts very briefly in this conversation, but uh But yeah, I'll make sure you have that so you can put it in the show notes. Sure, and then yeah, rooted is awesome. So rooted I mentioned I coach with Tom Ferry and Garrett, know anybody listening to this, you know that when you go to a real estate conference, you're always excited to go, but you leave more stressed out than when you got there, right? Because the dude, the. bit later conference uh... has said come with christian agents and you'll feel fulfilled they go mad at it so i got yet at that yes yes that's right long and like, man, I should be doing what he's doing or she's doing and it's it's exhausting. So God put it on my heart a while back to kick off these conferences rooted in Christ, getting our minds and hearts rooted in him before we kick off these busy two or three day conferences. So we started doing these meetups before the conferences. That turned into a weekly Bible study. So Monday mornings nationwide, we do a Bible study called Rooted. It's for Jesus following Realtors, entrepreneurs, primarily Realtors in the group. And man, we met this morning and it's just, we're going through the book of Acts, one chapter at time right now. We did the book of John, we've read books together. God has just done some really cool things through this group to just encourage and uh yeah, just really encourage and challenge other believers to figure this whole thing out, right? uh God honoring business, but rooted in Him, of course, that's how we do it, so. That's awesome, bro. How do they get access to that? that a Facebook group that I can, yeah, I think you gave me access so I can put that in the show notes as well. Yeah, okay. Okay, perfect. Okay. Is somebody because I'm very just like you, Garrett. I'm very, very clear about what the group's about. I think that's fair. Clarity is kindness, right? I want people to know what they're going to be a part of. You know, very, very I guess a statement of faith, if you will, like what the belief is and all are welcome, but I just want people to be very clear what they're coming to. So I'll share that with you as well, bro. And but yeah. I mean, to answer your last question is if anybody wants to just connect it at Matt Farnham is my handle, but shoot me a DM. Let's connect on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, but I would love to share all these things with you. One life beyond the grind rooted all the stuff. Man, appreciate you so much. Seriously, thank you for coming on. I was encouraged today just hearing another brother and what we're trying to do. I'm constantly encouraged that when I come together with a brother or sister on the show, or just in general, right, to see not only is the Lord working in all of us, because that's what he does, but we're all also trying to figure it out. And when you get to a place where people like you come on and we're willing to be honest, it's not, look how great I am and now you need to leave and go do a bunch of things. Right? It's quite the opposite. It's look at how good the Lord is and go seek out what is it that He wants you to do and then don't do the other things. Right? And what a reminder and a mercy of the Lord to say, number one, the main thing you're trying to earn, salvation, you didn't earn it, but I gave it to you anyways. Right? So we can rest in that alone and then show up and say, okay, Lord, well, you gave that to me. You bought me. Now what? Right? And we can just be honest and be before Him in that. So anyways, Matt. Love you bro, thank you so much for coming on Christian Agents, we love you too. Hope you'll check out all those resources that Matt shared with us. Make sure that you check out the school, connect with me on Instagram as well. Still says weird to DM me, but you can and I'll check it once a week and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. But I love you Christian Agents. Make sure when you check it out that the One Life podcast is coming out soon. We'll make sure that everybody knows and is aware of that in the faithful agent community as well. So we love you Christian Agents, we will see you next week.