Tag: Coaching

You Can’t Lead Who You Don’t Know

How Well Do You Know the Woman You’re Trying to Lead?

THIS WEEK

We’ve said a leader goes to God first, and serves before he leads. Here’s the third need, and it’s the one most of us are worst at — including me.

You cannot lead a person you don’t actually know.

A shepherd doesn’t lead sheep he’s never studied. A good one knows them. He knows which ones wander, which are anxious, which are hurting. And a husband who wants to lead his wife spiritually has to start by knowing her. Where is she struggling? What is she afraid of, and what does she long for?

Most of us think we already know her. We’ve been married twenty, thirty, forty years. But knowing her schedule is not the same as knowing her heart. And the only way in is a skill most men were never taught — listening.

You’ve been married long enough to predict what she’ll say. That’s not the same as knowing what she means.

· · ·

The counselors at The Ravines, who do intensive marriage work, named the problem exactly:

“Too often, couples speak to be understood rather than to understand. Servant leadership invites spouses to listen without planning a rebuttal — truly receiving the other’s heart.” — The Ravines, on servant leadership in marriage

Listen without planning a rebuttal. Be honest: how much of your listening is really just waiting? Waiting for the pause so you can say your piece. Waiting to correct the detail she got wrong and waiting to fix the problem so the conversation can end.

That’s not listening. That’s reloading.

Authentic listening—truly understanding her—means setting aside your own response and genuinely receiving her heart: not fixing it, not defending yourself, and not solving it —just receiving it, the way you’d want God to receive you.

And here’s what most men discover when they finally do it: the woman they’ve been married to for decades has depths they stopped exploring years earlier. She’s changed. She’s grown. She’s carrying things she never told you because you never really made space to hear them.

· · ·

There’s a beautiful line in the Song of Songs where the lovers call each other friend. Under all the romance, that’s what a marriage is supposed to become — a deep friendship.

A man who listens is doing the quiet work of leadership. He’s learning the terrain of her soul so he can lead her through it well. You’d never try to guide someone through country you refused to learn. Your wife’s heart is the country. Study it.

The husband who knows his wife’s heart can lead her. The husband who only knows her schedule can only manage her.

DO THIS THIS WEEK

Ask her one real question this week. Don’t say a word until she’s fully done.

This week, take time to sit with your wife and ask her a question you haven’t asked before. Avoid logistics and focus on meaningful topics like, “What have you been holding onto lately that I might have overlooked?” or “Where has your faith been feeling strong or drained recently?” Listen attentively until she finishes, avoiding the urge to respond, fix, or defend yourself. When she stops speaking, ask, “Is there more?” Your goal is to understand her heart so you can lead it. Be open to what she shares.

THE BROTHERHOOD

No man leads his marriage well alone. Here’s how to work this with other men.

Listening is a skill, and men sharpen skills best around other men who are working on the same one. Nobody gets better at this alone. If you regularly meet with a group of men, here’s how you can practice this together.

→ Report what you heard, not what you said. When your group gathers, have each man share one thing he learned about his wife this month by listening. If a man has nothing, something’s wrong. He didn’t ask, or he didn’t really listen. Let the group gently press him to try again.

→ Practice on each other first. Men are out of practice at being heard. Take turns letting one man talk for five minutes while the others listen—no advice, no fixing, no reloading. Learning to receive a brother’s heart trains you to receive your wife’s.

→ Keep each other from ‘fix-it’ mode. Give each other permission to ask, “Did you listen to understand, or listen to respond?” Most of us don’t even notice we’re doing it. Another man’s question wakes us up.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” — James 1:19 (NIV)

The order is the whole lesson: quick to listen, slow to speak. Most of us reverse it, speaking quickly, listening slowly, and getting angry when we feel unheard. James offers an antidote in one verse. Lead your marriage with this order and see what opens up. Consider: When last did you listen to your wife without planning to respond, and what might you learn if you did so this week?

THE REBOUND LETTER — FREE · EVERY WEEK

Know a man who’s stopped really knowing his wife?

There’s a man in your life coasting on autopilot in his marriage — married for decades, but not really knowing her heart anymore. Forward him this letter. Sometimes one nudge is all it takes to get a man to sit down and actually listen again.

Forward this issue to one man →

You Can’t Fix Them. You Can Pray for Them

The quietest leadership is a man on his knees for the people in his care.

THIS WEEK

We’re closing this stretch of letters with the quietest man of all. Most of you have never heard a single sermon about him. I’ve never preached a single sermon on him! His name was Epaphras, and he shows up in just a few verses near the end of Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

He was, as best we can tell, the man who first brought the gospel to his hometown, Colossae. He planted the church there. And then, while he’s away with Paul, he can’t stop thinking about those people.

So he does the only thing a man can do for people he loves but can’t be with. He prays. He prays hard and constantly.

Paul, who knew what real labor for the church looked like, watched this man pray for his people and was moved enough to write it down.

· · ·

“Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.” — Colossians 4:12

Always wrestling in prayer for you.

The word “wrestling” is derived from the same root as “agony.” This isn’t a man tossing up a quick blessing over dinner. This is a man laboring in prayer, sweating over it, fighting for these people on his knees the way a wrestler fights for a pin.

And what’s he praying for? Not small things. He’s asking that they’d stand firm, mature, fully assured. He’s praying for their character. Their depth. Their faith. He wants them to become everything God made them to be. Since he can’t be there to make it happen himself, he wrestles it out before God on their behalf.

Epaphras couldn’t be there. So he did the most powerful thing a man can do for the people he loves — he took them to God, over and over, and would not let go.

· · ·

Here’s what I want you to see because I think a lot of us have this backwards.

We treat prayer as the thing we do when there’s nothing else we can do. It’s the last resort. “Well, all we can do now is pray.” As if prayer were the weakest option.

Epaphras shows us the opposite. Prayer wasn’t his last resort. It was his leadership. It was the strongest, most active thing he could do for the people in his care. He threw his whole body into it.

Now think about the people in your care. Your wife. Your kids. Your grandkids. The men you’ve been learning to believe in and stand beside these past weeks. The people at your church. The friend in the hard season.

You cannot fix most of what they’re facing. You know that by now. The second half teaches a man his limits. You can’t make your grown son choose well. You can’t heal your friend’s marriage. You can’t reach into your grandkid’s future and steady it.

But you can wrestle for them. You can take every one of them to God by name and refuse to let go. And that is not the least you can do. According to Scripture, it may be the most.

You may not be able to fix the people you love. But you can carry them to God. This one action changes things you’ll never see this side of heaven.

· · ·

There’s something good about learning this in the second half.

In the first half, we lead by doing. We build, provide, fix, and show up with solutions. And that’s good, in its season.

But there comes a point where the most important people in your life are living lives you can’t control and facing battles you can’t fight for them. And a man can either rage against his own limits — or he can get on his knees and become a wrestler like Epaphras.

Nobody will see it. Nobody will give you credit for it. Your family may never know how many mornings you carried them before God while they slept.

But it will be some of the most important leadership of your entire life. And one day, you’ll find out just how much it mattered.

DO THIS THIS WEEK

Wrestle in prayer for one person by name this week.

Pick one person in your care — your wife, a child, a grandchild, a friend in the fire. This week, pray for them by name every single day. Not a quick blessing. Wrestle. The way Epaphras did. Pray that they’d stand firm, that they’d grow, that they’d become everything God made them to be. Set a time and keep it — same chair, same few minutes, seven days. Don’t tell them you’re doing it; this one’s between you and God. Watch what it does in you as much as in them. This is real leadership. It just happens on your knees.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” — James 5:16 (NIV)

Powerful and effective. Not sweet. Not nice. Not a last resort. Powerful. Effective. Prayer does something. It moves things you cannot move with your own hands.

Who in your care most needs you to become a wrestler in prayer for them? What would it look like to start this week?

THE REBOUND LETTER – FREE EVERY WEEK

Know a man carrying people he can’t fix?

Somewhere in your life there’s a man quietly breaking over a kid, a marriage, a situation he can’t control. He needs to hear that he’s not powerless — that he can still wrestle for the people he loves. Forward him this letter. It might be the word that gets him back on his knees.

Obeying God When You’re Afraid

You don’t have to be fearless. You just have to be willing to knock on the door.

THIS WEEK

There’s a man in Saul’s story most of us have never stopped to think about. His name was Ananias, an ordinary disciple living quietly in Damascus, minding his own business.

God hands him one of the hardest assignments in the whole New Testament.

Saul is in the city, freshly blinded, freshly broken on that road. God comes to Ananias in a vision and tells him to find Saul, lay hands on him, and pray for him. Go to the man who came to Damascus for the express purpose of arresting and imprisoning people exactly like Ananias.

That’s crazy! God is asking him to walk straight toward the most dangerous man in the region—the man hunting his church, maybe carrying his name on a list—knock on the door and touch him.

So Ananias argues.

· · ·

“‘Lord,’ Ananias answered, ‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.’” — Acts 9:13 (NIV)

In other words, “Lord, do you know who this is? Are you sure? Because I’ve heard the stories, and this is the last man on earth I want to go anywhere near.”

There’s something freeing in that. Ananias wasn’t a fearless spiritual giant. He was scared, he was honest about it, and he said so right to God’s face.

And then he went anyway.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s obeying God while you’re still afraid.

He walked to the house. He knocked. He stepped inside to meet the man who terrified him. And the first words out of his mouth may be the two most beautiful words in the chapter.

“Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord — Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here — has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’” — Acts 9:17

Brother Saul.

The first human being to call the great persecutor a brother wasn’t an apostle. He wasn’t a hero. It was a frightened, ordinary man who almost didn’t come — and obeyed God when it scared him half to death.

· · ·

Ananias appears in exactly one scene. He shows up, he obeys, he says the words, he prays, Saul’s sight comes back — and then he’s gone. We never hear his name again.

But without that one act of quiet, frightened obedience, there is no Paul. The most influential man in the history of the church needed one ordinary disciple willing to do the hard, unseen thing that nobody would ever put his name on.

That’s what most real leadership is. Not the visible kind. The kind where God asks you to do the frightening, thankless thing in private — make the call you don’t want to make, go to the person you’d rather avoid, obey the nudge you’ve been talking yourself out of for weeks — and you do it, scared, with no guarantee anyone will ever know you did.

God’s biggest work often runs through the obedience of men whose names never make the story.

You don’t have to be extraordinary. Ananias wasn’t. You only have to be willing to go when God says go and trust that He knows what He’s doing on the other side of that door.

· · ·

So let me ask you: Is there a ‘go’ you’ve been avoiding?

A person God keeps putting on your heart that you keep finding reasons to put off. A hard conversation you know is yours to have. A nudge toward someone difficult — someone you’ve quietly written off, someone it would be so much easier to keep avoiding.

Ananias permits us to be afraid of it. You can even argue with God about it, the way he did. But the blessing is on the other side of going anyway.

DO THIS THIS WEEK

Do the one thing you’ve been avoiding.

You already know what it is. The moment you read “is there a go you’ve been avoiding,” a specific name or conversation came to mind. That’s the one. This week, go — make the call, have the conversation, show up for the person God keeps bringing back to your mind. You’re allowed to be afraid. You’re allowed to tell God you don’t want to. Go anyway. And when you get there, lead with grace — be the one who calls a hard man “brother,” who offers the kind word first. The blessing is on the other side of the going.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” — Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

God doesn’t say you won’t feel afraid. He says: Don’t let the fear rule you. God is with you wherever you go. Including the doorstep of the person you’re dreading.

Ananias went scared, and God went with him the whole way. He’ll do the same for you.

What is the one ‘go’ God keeps setting in front of you — and what would your obedience actually look like?

The person you’re avoiding is so often the person who needs you most. God knew that long before He ever nudged you toward them. Go this week. Someone is waiting on the other side of your obedience.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Sometimes the ‘go’ you’re avoiding is the work on yourself.

For a lot of men, the frightening thing God keeps nudging them toward isn’t out there — it’s in here. The honest look at your own life you’ve been putting off for years. The Rebound program is eight weeks of finally going there. If the ‘go’ you’ve been avoiding is your own, this is it.

Learn about the Rebound program →

— Ron

Somebody’s Waiting on You

There’s a kind of leadership we don’t think about. It doesn’t require a title or a platform. It just requires a man who’s willing to see the potential in someone before it’s obvious, and to say so out loud when it costs him something.

Sometimes the most important thing a man can do is believe in someone before anyone else will.

THIS WEEK

We’ve spent a lot of weeks on you— your own heart, your own marriage. This week I want to turn us outward. I want to turn us toward the men and the people around you who are waiting on something from you that you may not even realize you have to give.

Let me start with a man most people move right past when reading the Bible. His name was Barnabas.

You know the story of Saul on the road to Damascus. He was the great persecutor of the church, knocked flat on his butt and changed forever. It’s one of the most dramatic conversions in history.

But here’s the part we forget. After it happened, nobody believed it.

Saul comes to Jerusalem, trying to join the disciples. They want nothing to do with him. This is the man who held the coats while Stephen was stoned. He was the guy who dragged believers out of their homes. Now he shows up saying he’s one of them, and every man in that room is thinking the same thing: it’s a trap.

“Every door in Jerusalem was closed to Saul. And then one man opened his.”

· · ·

Here’s what Scripture says. It’s a short verse. Most people read right over it.

“But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.” — Acts 9:27 (NIV)

Barnabas took him.

Think about what that cost. Barnabas put his own reputation, maybe his own safety, on the line for a man everybody else considered dangerous. If Saul turned out to be a fraud, it was Barnabas who’d vouched for him. Barnabas would be blamed.

He did it anyway. He walked Saul into the room and said, in front of everyone: I’ll stand behind this man. I’ve seen what God is doing in him. Trust me, and give him a chance.

And because one man was willing to believe in Saul before anyone else would, Christianity got Paul. The letters. Half the New Testament. The gospel carried across the world.

“None of it happens without one man willing to say: I believe in you, and I’ll put my name on it.”

That’s a kind of leadership we don’t think about. It doesn’t require a title or a platform. It just requires a man who’s willing to see the potential in someone before it’s obvious, and to say so out loud when it costs him something.

· · ·

Here’s why this matters for you in the second half.

You are surrounded by people who are waiting to be believed in. A son who’s not sure he’s got what it takes. A younger man at work who’s talented but unproven. A guy at church that everyone’s a little wary of, who might need one person in his corner. Maybe even your own wife, carrying a dream she’s never said out loud because she’s not sure anyone would take it seriously.

You have something powerful. You have the standing that comes with age. When a man who’s been around says I believe in you — it hits differently. It carries weight a younger man’s words don’t.

You’ve spent decades earning that weight. The second half is where you get to spend it on somebody else.

DO THIS THIS WEEK

Tell one person this week that you believe in them, and be specific.

Pick one person who’s waiting to be believed in. Your kid. A younger man. Someone who’s been written off. This week, tell them that you see something in them and you believe in it. Don’t be vague. Name the specific thing you see. “I’ve watched how you handle pressure, and I think you’ve got something most men don’t.” Then, if you can, do a Barnabas — open a door for them. Make the introduction. Put in the word. Vouch. Your name still carries weight. Spend some of it on someone who needs it.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV)

The name Barnabas was actually a nickname. His given name was Joseph. The apostles started calling him Barnabas — which means son of encouragement — because that’s just who he was. He was the guy who built others up.

Imagine being so consistent in believing in people that they change your name to match it.

Who in your life is waiting for you to believe in them out loud? What has your silence been costing them?

THE REBOUND LETTER — FREE · EVERY THURSDAY

Know a man who needs someone in his corner?

There’s a man in your life right now who’s been written off, or who’s written himself off. Forward him this letter. Sometimes believing in a man starts with simply handing him something that says: you’re not finished, and somebody sees it.

Forward this issue to one man →

— Ron

See Her Again

You spent twenty-five or more years building your family and your life – career, house, kids, reputation. And somewhere in all that building, your wife shifted from being the person you were curious about to being your business partner or roommate.

But the woman sitting across from you at breakfast is not the woman you married.

The love didn’t die. You just stopped looking.

THIS WEEK

We spent eight weeks talking about you.

Now I want to talk about her.

For the next four newsletters, we’re going to look at the marriage you’ve been coasting through — and what it would take to rebuild it in the second half.

Let me start with a question.

When’s the last time you really looked at your wife?

Not glanced at her. Not checked whether she was upset. But looked at her the way you did before you knew what she’d say next, before you could predict her opinions, before she became part of the furniture of your life.

Truth is, it’s easy to stop looking deeply. I know it’s not because you stopped loving her.

“The love didn’t die. You just stopped looking.”

· · ·

Here’s what happened, and I’ve watched it in a hundred marriages, including my own.

You spent twenty-five or more years building your family and your life – career, house, kids, reputation. And somewhere in all that building, your wife shifted from being the person you were curious about to being your business partner or roommate.

You know her schedule. You know what she’ll order at a restaurant. You know exactly what she’ll say about her family. In fact, you stopped asking questions because you thought you already had the answers.

But the woman sitting across from you at breakfast is not the woman you married.

She’s been through things. She’s changed her mind about things. She has thoughts she’s never told you — some of them about you — because you stopped creating the space where those thoughts could come out.

She’s a stranger you happen to know everything about.

· · ·

Look at what happens in Genesis 2. God brings the woman to the man, and Adam does something specific.

“The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.’” — Genesis 2:23 (NIV)

Adam sees her. And then he says something out loud about what he sees.

That’s the first recorded human speech in the Bible. It isn’t a command. It isn’t a prayer. It’s a man looking at a woman and telling her what she is to him.

“The first thing a man ever did in Scripture was see his wife — and then tell her what he saw.”

Most of us have gotten this exactly backwards. We think about her. We appreciate her silently. We assume she knows.

She doesn’t know. She hasn’t heard it in years.

And a woman who hasn’t been seen in years starts to disappear. She adjusts. She lowers her expectations to match what she’s actually getting. And that adjustment is not acceptance.

It’s grief that has learned to be quiet.

DO THIS THIS WEEK

Notice one thing about her. Then say it out loud.

This week, try to look at your wife as if you’re still discovering her. Focus on one specific thing: observe how she manages a challenging situation, something she excels at that you haven’t talked about in a while, or a quality of hers that you admire. Then, share that with her. Do it directly, not in a card or as part of a larger conversation. Simply look her in the eye and express your thoughts. Aim to do this once a day for seven days, and pay attention to what changes.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.” — Proverbs 31:30–31 (NIV)

Notice the instruction at the end. Honor her. Not appreciate her privately, not think well of her. Honor her — publicly, out loud, in front of people.

What is one thing your wife has done that you have never actually thanked her for out loud?

Go tell her.

________________________________________

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Rebuilding the marriage starts with rebuilding the man.

Weeks 4 and 5 of the Rebound program go straight at this — coming home, pursuing her again, and doing the honest work of showing up in your own marriage. If this letter called out something real in you, that’s the next step.

Learn about the Rebound program →

— Ron

Embrace Your Second Half: A Path to Purpose

What do you want people to say about how you spent the second half?

Not what you accomplished. Not your bucket list. But what kind of man did you become?

Your best years aren’t behind you. They’re what you’ve been getting ready for.

THIS WEEK

Eight weeks.

That’s how long we’ve been at this newsletter together. Thank you for staying with me. You read the hard letters. You sat with the questions most men avoid. You kept showing up.

But I must be honest with you about something.

Reading about the rebound is not the rebound.

The men I’ve watched change are the ones who stopped reading and started doing. They took one thing they’d been thinking about and made it real.

“Renewal that stays inside always fades. Fire that doesn’t burn outward burns out.”

So this week, let’s talk about what comes after you’re through reading.

· · ·

I ask every man I work with the same question. Nobody has ever answered it quickly.

What do you want people to say about how you spent the second half?

Not what you accomplished. Not your bucket list. But what kind of man did you become?

Most men get quiet when I ask. It’s not because they don’t care. Nobody ever asked them before. The whole first half went to what everyone else needed.

The second half is where you get to answer.

“You don’t earn the right to a meaningful life. You decide to live one.”

That decision is available today. Not when things slow down. Not when you feel ready — because ready doesn’t come first. It comes after.

· · ·

Here’s what I’ve noticed about the men who step into the second half with purpose.

It’s rarely dramatic. It usually doesn’t look like a bigger stage or a louder voice.

It looks like the grandfather who shows up — the way he couldn’t for his own kids, because back then he was too busy building.

It looks like the mentor who finally has something worth giving, because he’s been through enough to know what matters.

It looks like the husband who stopped performing and started being there.

It looks like a man using what his suffering taught him to help somebody younger who’s right in the middle of it.

That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole thing.

And it’s available to you. Wherever you’ve been, however far you feel from where you thought you’d end up.

“Your road here wasn’t wasted. It gave you something to say. And someone out there needs to hear it.”

You carry more than you know.

· · ·

Let me close the way I close the Rebound journal.

Eight weeks ago, you were the man in the driveway. Not sure if you wanted to go inside.

You went in anyway.

You stayed with these letters. You sat with the hard questions. You took the second half seriously.

So here’s what I want to ask of you.

Don’t just read this and move on. Do one thing this week. Have one honest conversation. Make one decision you’ve been putting off. Take one step toward the thing you know you’re supposed to do.

It doesn’t have to be big, but it must be intentional.

Your best years aren’t behind you. They’re what you’ve been getting ready for.

Go find out what that means.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” — Matthew 25:21 (NIV)

The master doesn’t say well done, you feel better. He doesn’t say well done, you read the right books.

He says well done to a man who took what he had and did something with it.

That’s the standard. Faithfulness with what’s in front of you, in the time you’ve got left. That’s what the second half is for.

THREE WAYS TO KEEP GOING

KEEP READING

Stay with The Rebound Letter.

This closes the first arc. The letter keeps coming every Thursday — new ground, same honest conversation. If something’s been moving in you, the best thing you can do is stay.

GO DEEPER

The Rebound 8-Week Program.

If eight weeks of letters meant something, eight weeks of real work will change something. One hour a week, the journal as your guide, and a man who’s walked the same road.

Learn about the Rebound program →

START A CONVERSATION

Book a free 30-minute call.

Not sure if the program is for you? Start here. No pitch. Just two men and an honest conversation about where you are.

Book your free Rebound Call →

— Ron

Who Are You When the Title is Gone?

Somewhere in the second half of life, most men run into the same moment.

The career ends. The kids leave. The role they have held for twenty years changes or disappears. And standing in what used to be a full life, they realize they don’t quite know how to answer a question they have never really had to answer before.

Who am I now?

This is the most important question that the second half of life poses.

THIS WEEK

Before anything else this week, here’s what I want to say: You’re not behind, and you’re not too late. Whatever you’re feeling about the season you’re in right now—whether it’s uncertainty, quiet, or wondering if the best moments are already past—know this from someone who’s been where you are: they’re not behind you, they’re ahead. The question you’re holding on to isn’t a sign that something’s gone wrong; it’s the most important question your life has ever asked. So let’s sit with it for a while.

· · ·

Somewhere in the second half of life, most men run into the same moment.

The career ends. The kids leave. The role they have held for twenty years changes or disappears. And standing in what used to be a full life, they realize they don’t quite know how to answer a question they have never really had to answer before.

Who am I now?

I know that moment. I lived it. That feeling is disorienting in a way that’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been through it. It’s not grief exactly. It’s more like standing in a room where all the furniture has been moved, and you’re not sure which direction is which anymore.

But here’s what I’ve learned — and what I’ve watched happen in man after man who has done this work honestly:

“The title was never who you were. It was the most visible thing you were doing. You were always more than that.”

The second half of life is where you finally get to find out what that means.

· · ·

In my experience, the answer to “Who am I?” tends to come from three places.

It starts with the things that made you lose track of time—not the ones you were supposed to love because of your role, but the ones that pulled you in long before that role even existed and never truly let go. The conversations that fueled you instead of draining you. The moments when you glanced at the clock and realized two hours had flown by, feeling like only twenty minutes. Those moments aren’t random—they’re revealing something about who you really are.

The second thing lies in what your suffering has taught you. Anyone who has faced burnout, failure, loss, or aimlessness knows things that someone who hasn’t simply can’t understand. That hard-earned knowledge isn’t a consolation prize for the struggle—it’s a credential. It’s the exact language someone younger and nearby is longing to hear from someone who has already walked the path they’re on.

The third is in what makes you genuinely angry. Not irritated — the deep anger that rises when something you care about is being neglected or broken. That anger is not a flaw. It is a compass. It points at the things you care about enough to fight for, which is about as close to a definition of calling as I have ever found.

“Your gifts are what you are good at. Your calling is what you are for. They overlap — but they are not the same thing.”

Most men in the second half have spent their whole lives deploying their gifts in service of someone else’s vision. What the second half is asking is a different question: what were those gifts always building toward? What was the suffering equipping you for? What has the anger been trying to tell you all along?

Those are worth wrestling with. Write them down this week if you can. The answers won’t be perfect. But they will be real. And real is what we’re after.

· · ·

I said you’re not behind, and I want to linger on that for a moment because I believe it’s something most men in this season need to hear the most, yet find the hardest to believe.

Moses was eighty when he stood before Pharaoh. The most significant work of his life began at an age when most men in his culture were considered finished. Abraham was seventy-five when God called him out of everything familiar and into a promise he couldn’t see the end of. Anna was eighty-four when she recognized the infant Jesus in the temple — and the text says she spoke about him to everyone who was looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. She had not stopped looking. She had not given up.

These are not inspirational footnotes. They are the pattern of how God works.

The man who has been through the fire — who has failed and come back, who has been humbled by his own limits, who has watched things fall apart and found God present in the ruins — that man has something to offer that no amount of talent in a younger man can manufacture. He has wisdom. He has scars. He has the capacity, if he is willing to risk it, for a quality of love and mentorship the world is genuinely short of right now.

“The second half is the deployment. Everything the first half built in you — including the hard things, maybe especially the hard things — was preparation for this.”

You don’t have to have it figured out today. You just have to be willing to ask the question honestly and stay with it long enough to hear the real answer.

Who are you when the title is gone?

You are who God made you to be. You just haven’t had the space to meet that person yet.

This is the space.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

The word translated as ” handiwork here is poiema in the original Greek — the root of our word poem. You are not a production unit. You are not the sum of your output. You are something God crafted with intention, with a specific shape, for a purpose that was prepared before you arrived.

The good works are still waiting. They are not behind you. They are ahead of you — in the season you are in right now, in the man you are still becoming.

If you actually believed the best of what you have to give is still ahead, what would you do differently tomorrow morning?

It is not the end of your story. Not even close. What you’re describing — the disappearing feeling — is real. And it is also the exact threshold you have to walk through to find out what was underneath the role all along. If you want to talk about where you are, just hit reply. That conversation is exactly what The Rebound exists for.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

This is the work Rebound was built for.

Week 3 of the Rebound program is called Identity Reconstruction — because the question this issue raises is too important to sit with alone. If this letter puts words to something you’ve been carrying, the program is where we work through it together.

Learn about the Rebound program →

Three Things that Really Helped Me

A man who falls alone stays down longer. A man with a brother nearby gets up faster — not because the brother fixes anything, but because the brother is there, in the actual moment, saying I’ve got you instead of here’s what you should do.

THIS WEEK

I have an entire shelf of books that focus on how a man can rebuild his life after experiencing burnout and drifting. These books explore the journey of returning to God, reconnecting with his marriage, and rediscovering himself in the second half of life. Many of them offer structured approaches, such as the seven habits, the five disciplines, or the twelve steps, to achieve a renewed spiritual life.

Some of it is good. I’ve recommended a few of those books myself.

But if I’m honest, most of those lists weren’t what helped me. They were good ideas I read and quickly forgot.

This week, I want to share what helped me rebuild. Not the polished version, but the true one.

There were three things. That’s it. No twelve-step plan. Three things that were simple enough to do, and true enough to matter.

· · ·

The first one was small, and it changed everything. I stopped performing.

For years, I presented a version of myself to others that was capable and steady—the guy who seemed to have it all together and didn’t face the same problems as others. Maintaining that image took more energy than I ever acknowledged, even to myself.

What broke it open wasn’t a retreat or a sermon. It was one conversation. I sat across from a friend I trusted, and instead of giving him the version of my life that sounded fine, I told him the actual thing. The thing I was usually embarrassed to talk about.

I remember how it felt afterward. Lighter. Not because anything was solved that day. Lighter because for the first time in years, I wasn’t carrying it by myself.

“The thing that lives only in silence has power over you. The moment you say it out loud to one other person, that power starts to break.”

That single conversation didn’t fix my life. But it was the hinge on which everything else turned.

· · ·

The second thing was finding one man who could say “me too” instead of giving advice.

I didn’t expect this when I started. The most helpful support I received wasn’t from a counselor using a specific framework—although I recognize that counseling has its value. What made the biggest difference was a man who had experienced the same things I was going through and could simply say, “Me too.”

Advice can often feel overwhelming when you’re facing something difficult. Everyone seems to have their own theories to share. But what I really needed wasn’t another theory. I wanted someone who had genuinely experienced this kind of darkness and emerged on the other side. I needed someone who could calmly assure me, without any guarantees, that there is indeed a way through to the other side.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. — Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 (NIV)

A man who falls alone stays down longer. A man with a brother nearby gets up faster — not because the brother fixes anything, but because the brother is there, in the actual moment, saying I’ve got you instead of here’s what you should do.

I didn’t go looking for a mentor. I just found one man who’d been through something like what I was going through, and I let him know me. That relationship did more for me than anything I ever read.

· · ·

The third thing is harder to explain, so let me try.

For years, I read the Bible the way a preacher reads the Bible. Every passage, some part of my brain was already asking how it would preach. Where the illustration was. What are the three points?

I had turned the Bible into material for something I delivered on Sundays.

What helped was learning to read a passage and let it speak to me. Not mine it for material. Not manage it. Just sit with it.

“The road back wasn’t more discipline. It was the strange, uncomfortable practice of needing God again, instead of just managing my relationship with him.”

I still catch myself slipping back into the old habit more than I’d like. But every time I catch it and choose differently, something in me settles that nothing else touches.

· · ·

That’s it. Three things: I stopped performing, found a friend who said “me too,” and allowed the Bible to be honest with me again, instead of just being useful.

None of it is complicated. It’s really one decision, made three different ways — stop managing your life from a distance, and actually let yourself be in it.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. — Galatians 6:2 (NIV)

Not carry your own burden well. Not manage it quietly so nobody has to see it. Carry each other’s.

The question for this week: Who is actually carrying anything of yours right now? And if the honest answer is nobody — what’s the smallest step you could take this week to change that?

THE REBOUND · FREE 30-MINUTE CONVERSATION

If you read this and realized you don’t have a man who can say ‘me too’ — I’d like to be that conversation, even if just for thirty minutes. No pitch. Just two men talking honestly about where you are.

Book your free Rebound Call →

— Ron

What God Does with Broken Men

The thing that happened to you — the failure, the loss, the transition, the season that felt like exile — is not disqualifying you. It is equipping you.

There is a pattern in Scripture nobody told you about. It will change how you read the season you are in.

In recent posts, I have been candid about the reality facing many men in the latter half of life—feeling depleted, adrift, operating on empty, and trying to build on a foundation that was never meant to support the weight they place on it.

This honesty is important. It continues to matter.

However, this week I want to share something different. I believe this new perspective can change how you view the current season of your life—whether it feels like stagnation, loss, failure, or simply the quiet drift of a life that seems to have lost its direction.

Here it is, as plainly as I know how to say it:

“God has never used a man without first breaking him.”

Not just occasionally or in some cases, but every time. In every significant story within the biblical narrative, there is a period of hiddenness between the calling and the assignment. This season may feel like being forgotten from the inside.

You are not forgotten; you are being formed.

The Pattern Scripture Keeps Repeating

Think about Moses for a moment.

He grew up in Pharaoh’s house. He has a position, education, and what looks like a clear path to doing something significant for his people. Then, in one impulsive moment, he kills an Egyptian soldier and flees into the desert. The dream dies. He ends up in Midian — tending sheep, married to a shepherd’s daughter, completely invisible to the world he was supposed to change.

For forty years.

Not forty days. Forty years.

And then, on an ordinary day in that wilderness, a bush catches fire and doesn’t burn up. And God speaks. And Moses — the fugitive, the man whose best years seemed to be behind him — becomes the instrument of the most dramatic act of national liberation in human history.

The forty years were not a detour; they were the necessary curriculum. The man who entered Midian as a prince emerged as a shepherd. Ultimately, what God needed to guide people through the wilderness wasn’t a prince; it was a shepherd.

The breaking made him exactly right for what came next.

· · ·

David is another one.

He was anointed king as a teenager — oil poured on his head, the prophet of God speaking the word over him. And then almost immediately, everything goes sideways. He spends the next decade running for his life from the man he was chosen to replace. Caves. Deserts. A band of broken men following him through the wilderness. The promise of God has no visible path to its fulfillment.

Years of that. Years.

But here’s what happened in those years. David learned things about God — about being sustained when everything is stripped away, about finding the presence of God in places where no sane person would look for it — that he never could have learned on a throne. The Psalms came from that wilderness. The songs that have carried broken people for three thousand years came from a man who was living inside the breaking when he wrote them.

His suffering became his language, and that language has spoken to the human condition ever since.

· · ·

Peter denies Jesus three times on the worst night in human history. He doesn’t just distance himself — he curses and swears he never knew the man. And then Jesus is crucified, and Peter goes back to fishing. Back to the lake. Back to the nets. Back to life before, as if the three years never happened.

Can you imagine carrying that? The specific weight of having failed the one person you most wanted to be loyal to, at the exact moment it mattered most?

There’s a beach, a charcoal fire, and Jesus—risen and alive—doesn’t begin with an accusation. Instead, he starts with breakfast. Then, gently, he asks three times, “Do you love me?” Each question corresponds to one of Peter’s denials. It’s not to reproach him, but to restore him.

The man who preached at Pentecost and saw three thousand people come to faith in a single afternoon was the same man who had failed in the most public way imaginable six weeks earlier. The brokenness didn’t disqualify him. It prepared him. A man who knows what it is to be restored from the inside is exactly the right man to lead a movement of people who need to know that restoration is real.

· · ·

Paul — before he was Paul, when he was still Saul — held the coats while Stephen was stoned. He spent years hunting down the early church with a warrant and a fury. Then he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, and the entire foundation of his life collapses in an instant. He goes blind. He fasts for three days. And then he disappears into Arabia for three years.

Three years of silence. Nobody hears from him. No letters. No churches planted. No sermons recorded.

We don’t know exactly what happened in Arabia. We know that the man who emerged from it went on to write half the New Testament and plant the gospel across the known world. Whatever the three years were, they were necessary. The formation that happened in the hiddenness produced something that the earlier version of him couldn’t have carried.

What This Means for You

I’ve spent a lot of time with men who are in the hidden season. Men who feel like they are in the wilderness between what was and what’s supposed to be next. Men who can’t see the path forward, who wonder if they missed their window, who carry the weight of past failure or current stagnation, and quietly assume that the best of their life is behind them.

Hold on to this promise:

“The hidden season is not the end of your story. It is the part before the part that matters most.”

The thing that happened to you — the failure, the loss, the transition, the season that felt like exile — is not disqualifying you. It is equipping you. Not despite the breaking, but through it. Exactly the way it worked for Moses, David, Peter, and Paul.

Your road to this point is not wasted. It is the specific, hard-won knowledge that only comes from living through what you have lived through. And somewhere, someone younger is in the middle of exactly what you have been through — and they need what you know.

The only way that knowledge gets from you to them is if you stop treating this season like a sentence and start treating it like a school.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”— Isaiah 43:18–19 (NIV)

Do you not perceive it?

That question is not rhetorical. It is an invitation to look at the season you have been enduring and ask a different question than the one you’ve been asking. Not why is this happening to me? But what is being built in me that couldn’t be built any other way?

The question worth sitting with this week: What has this season given you that you could not have received any other way?

You have not missed your window. That is not a conclusion Scripture allows. The men who went through the hidden seasons were not early — they were exactly on time, arriving at their assignment with precisely what the assignment required. The road is longer than you expected. That does not mean you are lost.

If this is landing somewhere real for you, leave a comment. I would genuinely like to hear your story.

THE REBOUND LETTER — FREE · EVERY TUESDAY

Know a man who is in the wilderness right now?

If this issue put words to something you’ve been living, there is almost certainly a guy in your life who is in the same season — and has no framework for what it means. Forward this to him. Sometimes the right letter at the right time is what turns the page.

The Real Reason You Burned Out

It’s not what you think. And the distinction changes everything.

Many people assume that burnout, a drifting marriage, or midlife emptiness is simply a result of overwork. They suggest solutions such as getting more rest, setting better boundaries, taking vacations, seeking help from a good counselor, or practicing self-care.

I held this belief for years and tried many of these approaches. Some provided temporary relief, but none offered a lasting solution.

Ultimately, the issue wasn’t about capacity; it was about identity.

Here’s what I mean.

The Engine Underneath the Exhaustion

Many men who experience burnout are not simply those who work too hard; they are often those who have worked from the wrong mindset for too long.

There is a type of work that flows from one’s identity—a deep understanding of who you are before God that is independent of your output. This kind of work can be challenging and demanding, but it does not drain you. It draws from an account that does not rely on your performance to remain full.

On the other hand, there is a type of work that defines one’s identity—where what you produce becomes the proof of your significance, God’s approval, and your worth. This kind of work is always exhausting because it draws from an account that requires constant replenishment through your output. If you stop producing, that account runs empty, and when it does, you feel empty as well.

Most Christian men I’ve worked with are in the second category. Not because they are faithless. Because the culture they were formed in — church culture, achievement culture, Christian masculinity culture — told them, implicitly and explicitly, that their value was tied to what they produced.

The good husband. The reliable provider. The faithful elder. The man who shows up, delivers the goods, never complains, and keeps the whole thing running.

There is nothing wrong with any of those things. The problem is what happens when they become the foundation of your worth rather than the overflow of it.

The Sequence That Changes Everything

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” — Mark 1:10–11 (NIV)

I want you to notice something easy to read past.

The Father speaks before Jesus has done a single thing.

No sermon. No miracle. No healing, no teaching, no confrontation with the Pharisees. No proof of anything. Jesus has just come up out of the water — and before the ministry begins, before a single act — the Father speaks.

“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Approval before performance. Identity before assignment. Son before servant.

“The Father’s declaration does not say: perform well and then you will be loved. It says: you are loved. Now go.”

Most men I know have this completely reversed. They feel like sons on the days they’ve performed well — as fathers, as husbands, as providers, as leaders. They feel like a disappointment on the days they haven’t.

The exhaustion of living that way is not a spiritual failing. It is the completely logical result of building your sense of worth on a foundation that shifts every time your output does.

Until you live as a son first — until the Father’s declaration becomes the thing you stand on rather than the thing you strive toward — you will keep performing for an approval you already have.

And you will keep burning out. Not because you are weak. Because you are building on sand.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! — 1 John 3:1 (NIV)

Our identity is declared, not earned. It is given to us generously and unconditionally, before we have done anything to deserve it.

Consider this thought for the week: If your worth were truly untouchable—if nothing you did today could add to it or subtract from it—how would that change the way you show up?

Your answer reflects the distance between where you are now and where you want to be.

This gap—between understanding something theologically and living it out personally—is something I frequently see in men who come to Rebound. While their theology may be correct, the foundation is often grounded in performance.

The process of rebuilding begins with addressing that gap. If you find yourself in this situation, please feel free to reply. I would like to hear about where you are.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Son before servant. That shift is what Rebound is built around.

The 8-week Rebound program exists to take a man from performance-based identity to son-based identity — not as a theological exercise, but as a lived transformation that holds. This is the hinge on which everything else turns.

Learn about Rebound →

— Ron