ATW - Chat with Lance Byers

Season #2 March 27, 2024

Summary

In this conversation, Melissa Lapin and Lance Byers discuss their personal journeys with God and how dissatisfaction played a role in their spiritual growth. Lance shares his experience of growing up with a distant relationship with God and how he eventually pursued a deeper connection in his mid-twenties. He also talks about the role of dissatisfaction in his life, from relationships to career choices. Melissa emphasizes the importance of acknowledging discontentment and seeking God's guidance in finding a better path. They both reflect on the lessons learned and the freedom that comes from embracing dissatisfaction. In this part of the conversation, Melissa and Lance discuss their personal experiences and lessons learned. Melissa shares her experience of feeling dissatisfied with her previous business venture and how she had to let go and find peace with the outcome. Lance talks about his journey of leaving his engineering job and pursuing his purpose in entrepreneurship. He emphasizes the importance of finding alignment with one's purpose and being willing to explore different paths. Both Melissa and Lance highlight the significance of mindset, identity, and problem-solving in their respective journeys. In this conversation, Melissa and Lance discuss the importance of giving oneself permission to explore and process different interests and passions. They talk about the cultural and familial expectations that can limit individuals from pursuing their true desires. They emphasize the value of learning from experiences, even if they don't turn out as expected, and the importance of embracing the journey of self-discovery. They encourage listeners to listen to their dissatisfaction and have grace for the process of finding their purpose.

Takeaways

>Dissatisfaction can be a catalyst for spiritual growth and a sign that there is something better.

>Acknowledging discontentment and seeking God's guidance can lead to finding a better path.

>It's important to take responsibility for one's own journey and not blame others or circumstances.

>Reflecting on the lessons learned and celebrating personal growth can bring a sense of peace and freedom. Letting go and finding peace with the outcome is essential for personal growth and moving forward.

>Finding alignment with one's purpose and exploring different paths can lead to greater satisfaction and fulfillment.

>Mindset and identity play a crucial role in pursuing one's purpose and overcoming challenges.

>Problem-solving skills can be applied in various areas of life and business, and finding joy in problem-solving can lead to a fulfilling career. Give yourself permission to explore and process different interests and passions.

>Cultural and familial expectations can limit individuals from pursuing their true desires.

>Learning from experiences, even if they don't turn out as expected, is valuable. Embrace the journey of self-discovery and have grace for the process.

Episode Transcript

Melissa Lapin (00:07.767)
Hey everybody, welcome back to After the Well. This episode of the podcast, I'm going to have my friend Lance Byers on. And this is going to be a treat for you guys and me because I really don't know Lance that well. So we're going to chit chat and I don't know, get to know each other a little better. And thanks for joining us. If this is your first time, welcome. Not every episode goes this way. But you know what?

Lance (00:21.483)
Thank you.

Melissa Lapin (00:37.631)
It's I am game for whatever and if this is not your first time here welcome back and I appreciate the patronage so my guest today, like I said is Lance Byers and Lance and I met through School of Kingdom and which is an online ministry school that we both attend and well they attended before us and now do you guys do all the

social media and marketing and that kind of stuff for it. And the techie stuff, yeah, for the school and for Deb Alexander's ministry to his other, I guess all his stuff, right? Yeah.

Lance (01:07.306)
That's correct.

Lance (01:16.545)
Yeah, just all the School of Kingdom and the podcast that he has. Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:19.935)
the podcast, yeah, which is the Joe Kingdom experience. If you haven't listened to that folks, go listen to it, cause it's amazing. So Lance, talking a little bit with you beforehand and understanding that After the Well, just talks about our everyday hanging out with

with Jesus. So let's go back to the beginning. When you were just a lad. Now talk about your relationship with God. How does that work for you? What does that look like? What is your everyday? Tell us about yourself. Just talk.

Lance (01:50.962)
Yeah

Lance (02:06.798)
Yeah, so I actually didn't really like kind of went to church growing up. I'm not super involved with the church. We weren't like the Christers, so the Christmas and Easter attenders, but we were like, we were more than that, but we weren't like, you know, there every week, every session, every service. It was like once every other week, every couple weeks. It's only that I didn't really go to youth group. For the most part.

because I was in wrestling and wrestling took up most of my time. So, I was at German on Sundays, Saturdays and Sundays, and in high school we had meets every Wednesday so there's no church services on Wednesday. I'm at wrestling. So, didn't really like, there was like, so the God was there but not really there. It was like a distant uncle that you see every so often. So I knew relatively like the major Bible stories.

Melissa Lapin (02:40.615)
Yeah, that's consuming.

Melissa Lapin (03:01.61)
Yeah.

Lance (03:06.142)
you know, Genesis and the fall and Jesus and all that stuff. And you know, the major, right. I didn't know that. It was like, it was like, I grew up Lutheran. So like being saved wasn't really the, I don't know what the terminology they use. So like, so there was that. And then so like, it wasn't till like in my mid twenties is when I actually started like pursuing a relationship with God. And it was like after a bad

Melissa Lapin (03:11.911)
enough to be saved. And keep you straight.

Melissa Lapin (03:21.463)
terminology. Hmm.

Lance (03:34.882)
Like you go through the bad spell of like, you know, like, like said, the woman at the well had all these bad relationships, a lot of bad relationships will kind of lead you somewhere. And sometimes good, sometimes bad. And so it was like, at that point in time, I'm like, all right, I give up. Like I've been in all these like multiple relationships, hasn't worked, I'm done. And so kind of like put dating off at the time, I was like, I think I was like early twenties, like 23, 24.

Put Daniel off, I'm like done. And then so like at the time I was driving a lot and so I just listened to the radio and you know, I just happened to find a Christian radio station and got saved through the radio station, which random. Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (04:19.679)
Well, that's kind of cool. Okay, so let's pause there for a second. So growing up non committed denominational, which is also my story. I'm like, you know, my parents weren't atheists or anything, but God just wasn't a thing. So what? What was it?

Lance (04:33.825)
It's the way.

Lance (04:38.402)
Right.

Melissa Lapin (04:47.631)
about that encounter because you and I know that was Holy Spirit moving on your heart, right? So what about that encounter was Holy Spirit? What need was he meeting or what or she what was she saying to you that caught your attention to go hmm let me get committed with Jesus? Does that make sense? Okay.

Lance (04:56.119)
Right.

Lance (05:14.862)
Hmm, yeah, so I would say it was more or less just like the just brokenness and like just a History of like things that I didn't know that I needed to deal with at the time I still didn't realize I needed it, but it was like almost like the brokenness of like Being removed in a sense. So it's just like a peace and calming

Melissa Lapin (05:41.011)
Wait, you said, like, a... being removed?

Lance (05:45.026)
The brokenness was kind of like, I wouldn't say it was removed, but it felt like it was lifted. Yeah. Yep. And so that was kind of what drew me in. And it was almost like a relief of like, huh, I can do things differently. Right? So yeah, it was definitely an interesting period because it was like, I gave up on dating at the time and met Jesus and then like

Melissa Lapin (05:47.067)
Okay, so...

I got you. Okay.

Lance (06:15.346)
Not even like three months later met Berlin which is now my wife And she was kind of on a similar like different journey, but similar Similar thing with like she was done dating at the time and then we happened to meet and then yeah so

Melissa Lapin (06:18.94)
I'm gonna go.

Melissa Lapin (06:30.995)
You know, but that's so funny though. I was never single in the Christian world. Because Scott and I married when I was 19 and he had just turned 20.

and I wasn't a Christian until I was like 18 and a half, you know, so I can't, you know, there was no uh flirt and convert and all the things to, you know, go into the quote singles group to get hooked up, you know, um, but it's so true that I've seen from an out with an outside perspective that

Lance (06:59.679)
Yeah.

Lance (07:04.939)
Hahaha

Melissa Lapin (07:16.865)
to get hooked up, it'll happen. You know? And it doesn't even matter if you're Christian, you know? It's like, it's the people who are so obsessed with being married or, and I get we're made for a relationship and nobody wants to be, you know, that weird aunt or uncle at a reunion that has never been with anybody, you know, when you're 80 years old, unless it's my choice. But

Lance (07:19.967)
Yep.

Lance (07:23.96)
Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Lance (07:41.654)
Right? Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (07:45.979)
But it's like that too, I believe, in a lot of areas of our life when we stop focusing on the one thing and we just sit and hang out with God.

Lance (08:05.686)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (08:06.543)
Like, all these things are added unto you, right? Like the scripture talks about, you know? Cause we, I think we just get so, such blinders on that like, okay, I have to go to the well and get water. But you know, it just happens when we stop obsessing.

Lance (08:11.906)
Yeah.

Lance (08:23.65)
Right.

Melissa Lapin (08:28.275)
So how does that truth, okay, what was their truth or what was the truth that came out of that encounter for you other than the feeling of the peace?

Lance (08:41.734)
Um, yeah, so the piece, it was just like a quiet piece. And then I'm like, okay, like, I can live life differently. Because at the time I was like, you know, been in a lot of relationships. Um, and they're usually longer. I wasn't like in it, like, wasn't like a week here, there was like a couple of years and a couple of years and a couple of years. I'm like, it's just like moving on. And then, um, but at the same time, I was also living with...

Melissa Lapin (09:00.126)
Yeah.

Lance (09:09.982)
I just moved out from living with a couple friends, and so like we were three early 20 year old guys and like we drank and partied a lot. And so it's like maybe I can do life differently. Maybe it doesn't have to look like everything I've thought, you know, or everything I've seen, you know. Maybe there's a different path that I can take. And so I think that was like really like the dissatisfaction with like where I was and like a hopefulness for what could be different.

Melissa Lapin (09:20.61)
I'm gonna go.

Melissa Lapin (09:24.82)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (09:32.355)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (09:38.953)
Okay.

Lance (09:39.97)
I think was like the big drawing thing. So.

Melissa Lapin (09:43.695)
So then is that a truth and a core value that you've carried with you? You gotta know how old you are. How old are you? Okay, so for the last... you said that happened when you were like 24?

Lance (09:50.375)
38

Lance (09:55.59)
Yes, like last 15 years. I actually didn't realize it until like I was thinking about like what I was gonna talk about here I'm like, oh, yeah, that is kind of like a bit of thing and like the dissatisfaction I feel like that's the way that Holy Spirit kind of like shows me like, you know, like the thing the woman of the well she shows up to the well Probably dissatisfied with life and Jesus and Jesus there's like here's a newer version Something give you hope and like kind of pulled her out of that

Melissa Lapin (09:57.376)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (10:21.561)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (10:25.122)
dissatisfying life of something better. And so I think that as I looked through the things, it was like that. And then like, okay, I started working. We got married. Well, a month before we got married, I lost my job. We got married. And then my job, yeah, yeah. So that's the time I was working in construction, and so the job just shut down. Just nature of the work of, you work 70 hours a week or you don't work at all. And so it was...

Melissa Lapin (10:41.905)
She married you anyway, okay!

Melissa Lapin (10:48.756)
Yeah.

Lance (10:54.994)
And then so got married and then like a month later, they asked us to move across the country to Rhode Island from Michigan. And so we went there for a few months. And as we're there, we're a month married. It's just her and I and a Chihuahua in a hotel room alone. So it's a great thing, but at the same time, she's the one that was dissatisfied. She's like, I don't want to live life. She's like, I'm by myself. You work 10, 12 hours a day.

Melissa Lapin (11:11.412)
I'm going to go to bed.

Lance (11:24.802)
14 hours a day, six, seven days a week. There's like no time, like, you know, and like, I didn't get married also for you to travel and us not to be together. So it was like that dissatisfaction of like, what does this lead to? So like, after that job finished in a few months, we came back home and I went back to school. I got my engineering degree. Yep, back to Michigan. Yeah, we're born and raised in Michigan. So went back to Michigan, got my engineering degree and like, thought that's what I was gonna do because I was dissatisfied with.

Melissa Lapin (11:34.177)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (11:42.355)
Home is Michigan. Okay, back to Michigan, okay.

Lance (11:54.102)
Construction, even though it was like, it paid well when you're working, needs something that was more family friendly, right? So, got my engineering degree, and then it was like, there's a lot of, we just had a lot of family things going on at the time, between her family and my family. When I finished school, we were married at like, it had been like four years at that point in time we were married by the time I finished school. And...

It's like I had job offers, a bunch of job offers in Michigan and one in Texas. And they're like, well, we're dissatisfied with life the way it is here. We've never been anywhere else. So let's see what life looks like somewhere else. And I feel like that dissatisfaction isn't like, I don't feel like God is like, I don't want people to mishear what I'm saying is it's not so much God that is like making us dissatisfied. I think he's just like bringing the light. Like this isn't what there's something better. And so it's like almost like this.

Melissa Lapin (12:43.357)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (12:49.41)
Blissful dissatisfaction. I've heard it say her someone call it like you're satisfied things are good, but also, you know, there's Like you're unsatisfied. There's something better and so it's like this weird

Melissa Lapin (12:59.199)
Yeah, there's, well, there's a, it's a discontentment because when you're content, it's like you're, you're okay with everything that's happening, you know, doesn't have to be bad stuff. Doesn't have to be great stuff. You're just, you know, but the contentment, the being discontent, you know, and that's, that's when I get, start feeling that way. Um, you know, I'm like, God, change my heart or change the situation.

Lance (13:02.797)
Yeah.

Lance (13:07.841)
Yeah.

Lance (13:12.702)
Right? It's just like...

Lance (13:22.059)
Thank you.

Melissa Lapin (13:26.451)
And he's going to do one or the other. And that gives him permission to go, OK, change my heart, whether it's a relationship or a job. It doesn't matter. We just left our church. We were there for almost four years. And two months ago, we left because we're like, God, change our heart and change the situation. And then we're just like, deuces, we're out. It's just some things that we weren't satisfied with. And

Lance (13:43.82)
Wow.

Lance (13:55.127)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (13:55.431)
Some things that concerned us about what we were seeing, but allowing God to work on me first, not just like you said, like go through relationship to relationship to relationship. You know, you tried for a couple years with the relationships, you know, and it's like, you know, it's either going to work or it's not, but it's how you, I think how you acknowledge yourself in the situation and acknowledge

Lance (14:10.975)
Right.

Melissa Lapin (14:23.747)
the situation itself, you know, there's a bunch of layers to that. And so you acknowledging that you were discontented in Michigan. So you're just going to give Texas a shot.

Lance (14:35.799)
Yeah, and like I don't know that I even recognized what it was at the time until like looking back And just seeing the pattern throughout my life like because I had a blind time is like we were still kind of like we started we're in church at that point and it was like a Bible church shows like non-denominational denomination of like We're Baptist, but we're not calling ourselves Baptist It's essentially what I saw and I didn't know any different. I didn't know like anything else but anyway, so like

Melissa Lapin (14:55.607)
Right?

Lance (15:04.81)
There's a lot of things just going on that we're like between like just like the church life and family life and all that and just like all right let's just go. It's the two of us if we're gonna move we can always move back. It's not it's easier to move back home to where you're from than it is to move away. So like the hardest step is to say yes and go. So we met moved in 2015 and we've been in Texas ever since.

Melissa Lapin (15:15.662)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (15:30.222)
And so it's just been a funny journey of like just that discontentment of like, you just realize you start realizing and it's like a, like I said, just it's there and it's just like, all right. So now starting to listen to it more of like, where's, why is it there? What is it coming from? And, um, where is it leading me to? So like the last, um, let's say, like I started a job here, fresh out of school. And then like after a couple of years, I'm like,

Melissa Lapin (15:34.752)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (15:46.627)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (16:00.354)
things just didn't seem right. I wanted something different, but I didn't know what it was. It was like a slight dissatisfaction. But the longer I worked and the more I was there, the more I realized maybe engineering wasn't right for me. There's a dissatisfaction of engineering. I'm like, I don't know, maybe I wasn't supposed to be an engineer. And so that took me through a whole journey of a lot of anger and stuff. It's weird how things like that, you start processing, why'd I go to engineering school? Well, it's because I was good at math.

Melissa Lapin (16:15.218)
Okay.

Lance (16:30.378)
And that was really it. That was the extent of it. I was really good at math in high school, and what can I do that has, you know, would be a good stable family life job. And that was it. That was the amount of thinking that went into it, and then I went to engineering school and got my degree, and that was it.

Melissa Lapin (16:48.444)
So it wasn't the problem solving. It wasn't any of that.

Lance (16:54.262)
No, I was good at, like, I took college calc, my senior year of high school. And there's like a group of us that went through like all, we finished all the math our high school offered and all the science classes by our junior year. And it was just like, it was easy, like, and so I went to college calc, took college calc. It was easy. I'm like, huh, well, maybe that's what I'm supposed to do because it's easy. But realize like, just because something's easy doesn't mean that's why you should do it. Like.

Melissa Lapin (17:22.011)
Amen! I was just gonna say, we get... there are so many people in bondage and hating their life because they're doing it because they're easy and they think that's what they were created and made to do, you know? And it's like, you do ma... so okay, so I'm intrigued and I kind of want to go down the rabbit hole here for a minute.

You've taken the personality test and things like that. You're a C, D.

Lance (17:53.61)
I'm a DC. Yes, which I didn't realize that until I took it, but the way I was raised, I was very much like more of the C type. Like grades were everything, school was everything. But also I had this very competitive side, like in wrestling, so I was like state champion wrestling in my high school, had a bunch of records and all this, so I was really good at wrestling. So I had this weird thing, but like, it was always, the C part always was what was

Melissa Lapin (17:54.783)
Do you see? Okay.

Melissa Lapin (18:02.624)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (18:23.498)
the perfection of that and the excellence. And so that's what I always led with because I didn't know any better. And so that's part where the anger came up is like not like, wasn't really allowed a lot of space to explore when I was younger of like different things. So like, you know, it's like, this is the way it is. You know, I didn't know anybody that like did business. Like where we're from is like, everywhere we work for the factory, for the most part or something.

Melissa Lapin (18:24.737)
Sure.

Melissa Lapin (18:29.8)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (18:50.464)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (18:52.526)
supported the GM for … because that's what everybody does.

Melissa Lapin (18:56.411)
My family is all in Indiana, so there's Chrysler, General Motors, Delco Remy, yeah, all that.

Lance (19:03.846)
Yeah, and the school I went to is mostly, most of the people that got out of school go into automotive engineering of some sort. So it's like me going into something different is kind of like more of the odd sheep, oddball, odd sheep, black sheep, whatever you want to call it. And so it was like, yeah, so just like being raised that way.

Melissa Lapin (19:09.47)
Hmm.

Melissa Lapin (19:17.939)
Yeah, the black sheep, yeah.

Lance (19:27.242)
I think that was part of the dissatisfaction of like, there's something wrong, because I don't, like part of me wants to do this thing, but then there's like this other part of me, the C part of me that says no and just kick, that's not the safe route. And so it's like, I don't know if people aren't familiar with it, it's called a disc test. And the disc, it's basically four quadrants and it kind of shows your primary, like where you're bent towards different things. It's like either you're dominant, where you're like more driven or you're like more.

Melissa Lapin (19:42.497)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (19:56.426)
towards like analytical or you're more like a people person, like more like that fun, like the fun friend that you can think of or yeah, or you're like the person that like cares about everyone, wants to take care of everyone. And so those are the four basic styles of the diss test. And I think when I learned what I was, that I was more primary D and that driven piece, it gave me a lot of freedom because I think that like, that again, that was like that dissatisfaction of like being the way I was raised of like, this is what's important.

Melissa Lapin (20:01.695)
The cheerleader.

Melissa Lapin (20:25.692)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (20:26.218)
And I didn't really like, it just didn't sit well with me. And that's why I think that's hard. Part of the reason why I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do. Cause I like, I'd already had a degree at that point. I was going back to my second degree. So that's my second bachelor's degree. And so like it was, um, like I said, I was like, Oh, I'm good at math. It's a secure because living growing up in the world of like automotive and, you know, my dad was worked in the factory and, um, my uncle's it was like, it's feast or famine a lot of times. So like things are going well. But then when like that recession hit in 2008.

Melissa Lapin (20:35.777)
Okay.

Melissa Lapin (20:52.882)
Yeah.

Lance (20:56.33)
Michigan got hit really, really bad.

Melissa Lapin (20:58.663)
Yeah. Or they decide to go on strike. It's just, you know.

Lance (21:04.254)
Right. Yeah. And so there's not a lot of options sometimes. Even if people don't want to go on strike, they don't really have, there's not a lot of options for the people. But so it was a, it's been a journey, but I think like finding out like how was it, like that disc test helped me a lot. And I realized like, oh, I have other options. Like, you know, I may be good at engineering, I may be good at math, but that's not...

Melissa Lapin (21:06.728)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (21:25.905)
Yeah.

Lance (21:32.626)
what I was supposed to do and I finally, it took me a while to come to terms with that and like be okay with it. Because I spent a lot of money on it, like a lot of money, a lot of energy, a lot of time going to school in order to graduate really like at the top of my class and then you come to find out it really doesn't matter as long as you get like a B average or above. It's just like a whole thing and like just like look back at all the wasted energy and time and money. But.

Melissa Lapin (21:39.433)
Uh huh.

Lance (21:58.422)
Now I've come to peace with that. I think that's the other thing, like that was dissatisfied with this whole, my whole path going up to this point. And I'm like, I don't like engineering, but I don't know what to do. And so it's like this weird, but it's in this weird place, right? Like going to college kind of breaks you into a prison almost. Cause if you specialize in something, like I specialize in electrical engineering, you come out, usually there's only certain jobs you can get.

And if you want to do something completely different, you're going to take a huge pay cut to go do that, which is fine if it works for you. But not every—a lot of times when you come out with specialized degrees, you also have a specialized student loan program that goes with it. So, yeah. And so it took me—I was mostly angry about that and dissatisfied like, oh, I went through this whole time, spent all this money, and how do you want to do it?

Melissa Lapin (22:41.56)
Right? Yeah.

Lance (22:55.574)
five years into it and I just, the day drags on every day. And so like this huge dissatisfaction was like, not only was like where I was at with that, but like a whole journey leading up to where I was at for like the last, you know, almost eight years from the time we were married to where I was at, like finished going to school, finished in school in engineering, I'm like, well, shoot, I'm in my mid thirties now, what do I do? You know, I'm like, so.

Melissa Lapin (23:22.315)
So is that where you are today? Just trying to figure it out? Transition?

Lance (23:27.282)
Um, so today, so I actually, um, I think that helped me a lot was like, okay, being okay with dissatisfaction and knowing that it's just part of my journey and not regretting it and not being angry at people or situations or however, like, you know, if this would have happened, then I could have been doing this or whatever, but that just, that doesn't serve anyone and it doesn't serve you. And I finally had to realize like it wasn't serving me and who I was and what I wanted to do to sit there and

Melissa Lapin (23:49.861)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (23:55.796)
Yeah.

Lance (23:56.734)
Blame okay. Yes, and they may have cut someone could have done something different in my life And maybe pointing me a different direction, but you know what? It's their fault, but it's still my responsibility now to fix so I have to take responsibility for it and fix it and change Where do I want to go? and so like that started a couple of your journey like probably 2019 2020 we started like

Melissa Lapin (24:07.51)
Sure.

Melissa Lapin (24:11.424)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (24:20.595)
Yeah, we all had a lot of time to sit and think in 2020, right? What do we want to do with the rest of our life if we all survive this Holocaust? You know, this is the social experiment.

Lance (24:27.166)
Right. So, right. So it's like, all right. So what do we want then? Like we want some freedom, like, because at the time, you know, you're, I worked for a defense contractor, you have zero freedom as a defense, like when you work for a defense contractor, I mean, you have some, but they know everything you're doing. And there's a lot of rules of what you can and can't do, where you can and can't go. And so like, we want some freedom. We want geographic, all the freedoms that people want, right?

And so we started to start looking and I'm like, all right, we're dissatisfied with the life we have. What is it? What is that? So we started finding stuff on the internet, do things to do. It's been a journey. It's again, like you, there's this great almost like picture metaphor of like, you go to door A and you're beating the shit out of door A till you're bloody bruised, crying, can't get through door A. But when you're at door A,

you see door B. And so you go to door B and you start beating on door B, but then nothing happens there either. But then, but if you would have been at door A, you wouldn't have got to door B, which would have never seen door C cracked open that you can go peek into and start to see what else there is. And so it's like, just like, okay, well it's okay that I spent all this time and money doing this journey, because we're here where we're at and it's leading us to something different, something better. And just following that dissatisfaction of like,

Melissa Lapin (25:38.505)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (25:51.435)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (25:56.586)
and just being okay with it and being okay with the journey.

Melissa Lapin (25:56.971)
Yeah. So, so let me ask you this. Have you in this processing you said, because it's been a couple of years, have you sat with yourself and made a list of all the pros and things that you've learned? The lessons, not like academic, you know, I learned this algorithm, you know, kind of thing. But like, have you sat and made a list of

Like a celebration list. I can celebrate that I learned this or I learned this. Because I'm hearing a lot of cool things come out. But have you actually sat and listed, like experiences, like you said, if you hadn't done this, you wouldn't have got to do, you know, if you didn't knock on door A, you wouldn't have got to choose door B. You know, it might have taken you longer than it needed to walk away from door A, you know, because we had some of us.

Lance (26:53.063)
Right?

Melissa Lapin (26:55.463)
have to get very dissatisfied before we decide to go, okay, I guess I'll move on, right? Have you sat with that and asked Holy Spirit to show you even the heart lessons that you've learned from that experience, like the college? Because you talk about the dissatisfaction and the frustration and, you know, because I did the same thing. I, you probably don't know as well, but I had an art studio.

Lance (26:57.718)
Hehehehe

Lance (27:02.314)
Right. Yeah.

Lance (27:12.667)
Um, yeah.

Melissa Lapin (27:25.247)
that I opened in 2019, you know? I am opening an event facility when nobody can meet, right? And we closed a year ago, September 1st, so last year, 2022. So I was open barely three years. And I sat on the beach July 29th last year.

Lance (27:35.042)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (27:53.567)
down in Daytona where my mom lives and cried to God because God, I spent all this money, you know, it was a thing, the last three years. And no, cause like I, we spent 1500 bucks a month and for three years and I might've made $2,000 in that three years. And

So it was a constant, it became a drain. It was an emotional suck. So, so talk about being dissatisfied. And, but then sitting on the beach and Holy Spirit said, if you don't stop white knuckling the parlor, I can't give you what's next. You know, and so I'm like, okay, God, I'm so, you know, I'm like snot crying on the beach and so ugly crying and I had to let it go. But

Lance (28:26.403)
Yeah

Lance (28:36.942)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (28:47.147)
then I had to sit with that and it was this was like all within like an hour span sitting there and like once I just like because the worst thing I could have done was start crunching numbers right it's like I've spent 55 000 and this is what happened holy spirit said so there are people that spend that on one year of college

Lance (28:55.854)
Thank you.

Lance (29:01.925)
I'm sorry.

Melissa Lapin (29:14.931)
and look at what you got. And Holy Spirit started throwing out all of these encounters that I had, the things that I've learned about myself, and that those three years were college for me. They weren't emotional college, they were spiritual college. The very first, our opening night, we had some friends of ours came and played, and we had like an open house.

Lance (29:15.218)
Hmm.

Melissa Lapin (29:44.311)
party kind of thing. Complete stranger came in off the street and walked up my stairs and said, I don't know why, but I need you to pray for me. The first night, you know? And so I'm like, okay, God, I'm doing this. But even now, I can't drive down the street where the studio was at. It still hurts so bad. There's still something lodged in there that...

Lance (29:54.636)
Thank you.

Lance (30:12.031)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (30:13.067)
for me that I'm having a hard time let go of because there's that, oh, I let God down. He asked me to do this. And I failed. So having that, like I missed out on this, so I can totally relate of God, I just poured, you know, 10 years of my life into doing school and now I've got this debt and here I am sitting with nothing. God, why?

Lance (30:20.962)
Hmm

Lance (30:36.18)
Thank you.

Melissa Lapin (30:39.615)
But so I say all that to encourage you, if you have not already, to sit with it and ask him to show you cool things that happen and things that you can, you know, like your aha moments, your well moments, you know, in the middle of projects where you got some brilliant revelation that you couldn't have got without Holy Spirit, you know?

Lance (30:51.735)
Yeah.

Lance (30:59.466)
Yeah, so I haven't really done that. So I've just kind of got to the point where I'm like, I'm okay with it. Like not just got to the point, but I've been like probably the last year got to the point where I'm like, okay with what happened, that I've done it, that I did it, that this is my path. Um, and then being okay with going forward and just kind of being also at the same time, stop being so angry about it and just almost being thankful. Cause like, I know a lot of things wouldn't have happened.

We would never have met the people we would have met. We wouldn't have had the friendships.

Melissa Lapin (31:29.419)
Mm hmm. Well, see, you can put that on your list. That's what I'm saying. It was like, have that conversation. And I think I think that for me, too, it helped the redemption of it. And it helped me get past. Not shame or I felt guilty for spending our money, you know.

because we funded this thing. It wasn't like I got a loan from somewhere else. This was like, okay, do we pay the parlor rent or do we pay our house mortgage? And so that's working through, but understanding and allowing God to speak to my heart that it's all okay. Every conversation mattered, every encounter mattered, every problem solving situation mattered.

Lance (32:12.278)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (32:21.671)
and then for, you know, just asking how and why. Yeah.

Lance (32:25.418)
Yeah, I should probably sit with that and just see what all God would show me there because I think there's probably more, I think there's probably a lot more, but it's just more or less, I haven't done it. But I do know that, I do know good has came from it. So I want to be here and things like our anniversary was in March and we went out to dinner for our anniversary, did some other stuff. We just sat there and just like, and just like, I don't know why we had the conversation like

Melissa Lapin (32:38.324)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (32:46.465)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (32:54.038)
Do we think that we'd even like, what would our relationship have been like if we would have never moved out of Michigan? My wife and I were like, I don't know if we'd even be together anymore, just because all the family stresses that were going on at the time, just the personal things and all the stuff that was going on, it's like, what strain would that put us on? But I think moving away, and it hadn't been for me going to college, and me making that choice, and then

Melissa Lapin (33:05.395)
Hmm. Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (33:21.825)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (33:23.362)
getting these opportunities for jobs in a different place, we wouldn't, I don't know, we wouldn't ever move and end up completely away out of the country, or not out of the country, across the country, like we did. And so it was like, you know, I'm thankful for that because it being separated, family is great, but also sometimes family's not great.

Melissa Lapin (33:36.18)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (33:48.461)
You don't have to tell me twice.

Lance (33:50.822)
And so, and it's just like everybody's dealing with their own things and they deal with it in different ways. And so like, and then they have these pre-built expectations that they have on you. And so it's like this, you know, like, oh, you're this person. And so that kind of keeps you in a box sometimes. And then moving away, you're just allowed to just discover and try new things and not be put in a box. You're like, let's go try this place to eat. And just like simple things like that. But it's like, it's so much bigger than that because then you're able to.

Melissa Lapin (34:16.457)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (34:19.382)
just completely changed what you're doing and almost who you are is, because of a change of environment. Environment was such a big thing, like moving, and so like, I'm thankful for that because I know that like that played a big part in our marriage and like the strength of our marriage now, is just being away the two of us. And so like, even go back to when we first got married, when we moved away, that was like, this is the two of us three months away in a hotel. I mean, yeah, we didn't see each other a lot, but just the two of us gave us a lot of time to.

Melissa Lapin (34:26.676)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (34:48.747)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (34:49.494)
acclimate to each other, right? Like you're, you know, we got married and then moved in together afterwards. So like we didn't live together before we were married. So it's like, there's a lot of like getting to know someone like you date them, but then you like move in together. It's a completely different thing. So like, but then also moving here to Texas was also kind of like really good thing. So like part of going to college was, you know, for that reason. And so like now it's been, so that was in like March and then like,

Melissa Lapin (35:03.964)
Oh absolutely, yeah.

Lance (35:18.314)
like three days before our anniversary, I quit my job as an engineer. And so like that was, so it's been seven months now, something like that. And so it's been a, it was a journey to get there. And I think like part of it, like obviously there's so many, like I can't say one thing made it all, but it's like completely like the dissatisfaction of like being there. And then like, like last year was like a year of, I'd say healing for me. And so like.

Melissa Lapin (35:22.519)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (35:47.978)
We went to, or I went through a lot of counseling and heart healing last year, and I was gonna do some twice a week. So I was doing heart healing, counseling, sometimes both in the same week, just dealing with a lot of stuff that I said earlier with the brokenness and things that, things I didn't know I needed healing for, but were there and causing beliefs and lies for me to live through that were not beneficial for me or where I wanted to go. And so it was like this whole process of

basically unraveling a lot of lies, working through a lot of crap. But like, I don't know if it was for that I would have quit, because I was still stuck in the, I knew like, knew my personality, but I was still stuck in like that overly safety part of the sea. I'm like, well, that just doesn't make sense to quit my job and to go do this other thing. Like I have an engineering job, it's stable. Like there's always gonna be need for defense contractors. Like I can go to another company.

Melissa Lapin (36:34.477)
Hahaha.

Eh.

Lance (36:45.366)
Like it's stable and we are comfortable. So it's like, you know, but going through that process of like, just unraveling all these lies and like just dug deeper into like, and a lot like people aren't familiar with heart healing. It's basically Jesus, you go in and you meet with Jesus and he shows up, comes in and kind of, he shows you the truth about a situation or where he was in the situation, what really happened. And a lot of times it's just, it's a reframing of our perspective of what went on.

Melissa Lapin (36:50.388)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (37:03.536)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (37:13.124)
Yes.

Lance (37:14.662)
in that time of trauma. And trauma is just any time that you felt like you were alone. And so it could be as simple as you were rejected or abandoned or whatever, but you weren't really, but that's the way you perceived it and Jesus shows you the truth. And so it's a very healing process. And so between that was like, there's a lot of dissatisfaction with my past, and so that was working through it. And highly.

Melissa Lapin (37:28.183)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (37:42.306)
highly recommend it if anybody is feeling like they have things in their past that just seem like they're triggers for no reason at all. I feel like that's probably there's some trauma there because there's certain things that I would get triggered on that didn't make any sense why it was like inconsequential but I'm like irritated by it, it's heart-fated and like so mad and so.

Melissa Lapin (37:49.6)
Ahem.

Melissa Lapin (37:56.755)
Yeah. Well, and we can't...

Yeah, we get so frustrated because we try to fix ourselves, you know, because we don't know to reach out. We don't know how to recognize it. I am all for emotional intelligence, you know? And if you're triggered, and why, and doing that. And I'm trained in sozo, and I love the heart

Lance (38:18.123)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (38:30.871)
four weeks after that, five weeks after that, I had a heart healing session with Bianca. And it was just ridiculous. It was amazing. And I hadn't had one in a while and I do them periodically just for maintenance. I don't wait for some traumatic.

Lance (38:43.542)
Yeah.

Lance (38:47.378)
Right, yeah.

Melissa Lapin (38:51.071)
thing to happen, you know, to go, hey, God, let's have a check-in. And sometimes it's something that we can't do ourselves. A lot of times it's what we can't do ourselves because we're too close to the situation. We're too jaded. We're too hurt. We're too wounded. It's not like you're gonna freaking give yourself open heart surgery. You know, you can't do that. You have to have someone else give you, help you with your open heart surgery, you know. So...

Lance (39:03.912)
I'm gonna go.

Lance (39:10.335)
Right? Hahaha.

Lance (39:16.718)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's for like, I think for me, it was like, I was playing this video of like, in black and white in my head of what happened, and it was easy to say like, like right there, look, that's what happened. And I was angry and like, did I have a right to be angry? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But like, I was, and then, but it was holding me back from really moving forward. And so like, going through the process of

Melissa Lapin (39:26.141)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (39:30.326)
Yup.

Melissa Lapin (39:35.521)
Yeah.

Lance (39:45.174)
like heart healing and counseling, oh, like now the movie's not black and white anymore, it's actually 3D and in color, and I see a whole different perspective. And yeah, is there still, like the view I had, yeah, that was there, but there's also so much more that was happening at the time. And so, you know, it was, it just helped me kind of work through the process. And I don't know if it was for that, I don't know that I would ever quit my job, because I was just too, there's too much fear in me to like.

Melissa Lapin (39:49.815)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (39:53.323)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (40:00.523)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (40:10.879)
Well, sure there is. I mean, and you guys like not having children. So people hearing this who have children who that's a whole other aspect of, especially as a man, because, you know, the man provides for the family and, you know, all the things that men do, you know. And there's that role and that's fine. And that's great. And there's honor in that. But that's it's a huge deal.

Lance (40:28.514)
Right.

Melissa Lapin (40:39.007)
when you make a decision concerning your finances. Especially in our country, especially today, with what's happening in our economy and that kind of thing. So kudos for you for just doing the brave thing and just saying yes, because you knocked on door A,

Lance (40:42.535)
Uh-huh.

Lance (40:49.183)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (41:05.555)
You had this contractor's job, you know, the big job, the nice job and steady income. You came back out of door A and now you're in door B with your wife, which is tell us about that. With the wild crafted woman. Is that is that what it is? Wow. You walk out to beauty. Okay, yeah. So what you guys do now?

Lance (41:17.92)
Oh.

Lance (41:22.982)
Wildcraft of Beauty is the web... Yeah. And so now like part of what allowed me to leave is I have a... we have like a friend that does Go of Kingdom and he needs some help on some backend tech stuff so I started with that. So like I knew that was gonna be coming in but like that wasn't like as much work as he had it wasn't still not... wasn't enough to cover all of our expenses but it was like a good portion of it so

we were gonna be living on savings part of it. And so, but my wife and I also have a business called Wildcrafter Beauty. And at the time it was, we were just doing skincare and that's kind of evolved. Like you just listen to the market, like you listen to what people want and like she's doing content. I do all the backend stuff for the business. So like take care of the website, finances, you know, a lot of the like helping with basically all the backend pieces and she's the face, you know. So.

Melissa Lapin (42:04.599)
Hahaha

Melissa Lapin (42:08.232)
Uh-huh.

Melissa Lapin (42:20.523)
The face and the hair.

Lance (42:21.986)
Right, yeah. And so like, I, you know, we initially started with just skincare, and that was doing alright. And then, but people kept asking her about her hair because she has braided dreadlocks. And they kept asking about it. And so she started talking about it. And we started like seeing like how much interest is there in this. And then we decided to, okay, well let's see like if we partner with someone, I know what a lot of people buy. And we found someone, we partnered with them. And...

She started promoting their stuff and we had like within a couple weeks, like 50, 60 people said, oh, I bought dreadlocks through that person. I'm like, okay, maybe there's a market for us to do this. And so like we spent the last, that was like April, we spent the last six months basically putting that together. And so it's funny, people ask what I do. I'm like, I sell hair. Right. Yeah. Hair and hair care. And so she's...

Melissa Lapin (42:55.238)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (42:59.463)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (43:11.806)
The bald guy that sells hair!

Lance (43:18.314)
So she does like the braid and dreadlocks and we have a couple, we have some products for braid and dreadlocks to help them make it easier. But yeah, we do that. And so that's between that and School of Kingdom. That's what I'm doing. And it's like the amount of freedom you get from like, yeah, you know, we've been pulling from our savings for the last seven months. But you know, it's like, I have never.

Melissa Lapin (43:37.163)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (43:47.766)
Like I stressed more about money when I was working than I do now. Even though we don't have enough each month and like we're pulling from savings to make things as the business has been, like our business has been growing, as it's been growing. But still it's like, man, I'm not even stressed. Like had this been like two years ago, I'd been freaking out. Like we never would have made the jump. And if our expenses were more than our income, like that would have been a panic, even if it was just for a month.

Melissa Lapin (43:52.748)
So what? Yeah.

Lance (44:18.41)
let alone seven months of like, you know, upside down finances, but things have worked out and like, it's just, yeah, it's been a, it's been fun. And it's like, you're just figuring it out.

Melissa Lapin (44:33.979)
So, so what have you learned about yourself in the, um, in the last seven months? That is kind of your well moment. Have there been some moments that you've had promises from the Lord? You know, what have you sat with him? What are some of the truths other than going way back and

pulling from, okay, I have peace about this, I'm gonna move in with it, you know what I'm saying? Cause I mean, well, yes, that's a fantastic, cause there are so many people that just don't know how to grab onto peace and walk in peace, just do that. So, but in this season, what do you think has been the truth that has allowed you to not be freaking out?

Lance (45:01.928)
Yeah.

Lance (45:09.417)
Right.

Lance (45:23.106)
Honestly, I'd say that I feel like it's more my purpose. So, before I just didn't feel aligned with like engineering and what I was doing. And where now is like, I feel like this is more now what I was supposed to do. Because I was always interested in business and investing and that type of thing. Like long before I, like when I was in high school, I remember reading like Rich Dad Poor Dad. And like, okay, I need to figure out how to.

Melissa Lapin (45:26.519)
Okay.

Melissa Lapin (45:41.994)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (45:49.301)
Hmm.

Lance (45:51.218)
get a, you know, start a business. But this never had like, but then that part of me that's like, oh, I want to be safe and secure, help me back. And so, but I think it's like being here now, it's like, oh, I actually feel like I'm in my purpose and it actually works. Like, like doing it, like even though, yeah, things may not be going well and we're finally getting to the point now where like, we finally actually, like things are, I think this will be the first month where we actually will be above.

Melissa Lapin (46:09.173)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (46:21.102)
above water on our bills compared to income. But it's been a, it's just been like, oh, I'm in purpose and I'm doing it and like, I was made for something like this. And that before is like, it was always like question of like, what's my purpose, right? Like, especially when you're an engineering job and you're like, every day like drags on and you're like, and it's nothing wrong with the job, it's nothing wrong with the people, which is like me sitting here at a desk doing engineering all day, it was just like, it literally like sucked everything out of me. In the end of the day, I was like,

Melissa Lapin (46:32.151)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (46:51.914)
I said at the desk all day, I shouldn't be tired. I should be like, I just sat at a computer, looked at a screen and worked, but I was exhausted at the end of the day. And then I'm not.

Melissa Lapin (46:52.391)
Well, it was... yeah.

Melissa Lapin (47:01.695)
Oh, it's because you were living someone else's dream. You were solving other people's problems. So which goes back around to the beginning, doing the engineering. Engineers are problem solvers. They engineer answers, regardless if it's construction engineering or financial engineering or home-based business engineering. But this...

Lance (47:13.59)
Right.

Lance (47:23.828)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (47:26.831)
You have buy-in with this. You have ownership with what you're doing. And like you said, and I think that's very important for the listeners to understand is, and I think I mentioned it earlier, we did talk about it, you know, just because it's easy for you doesn't mean that's what you should be doing. But on the other side of the coin, if it's easy for you,

Lance (47:49.163)
Right.

Melissa Lapin (47:53.243)
and you're not satisfied where you are, find somewhere else to do that thing. Don't keep, like don't keep making money for somewhere else and you always be broken and don't have two quarters to rub together. Figure out, okay, God, this is how you've made me. Where, where am I supposed to do that? What do I need to tweak? How do I get?

Lance (47:58.677)
Yeah.

Lance (48:09.214)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (48:21.267)
you know, and it goes through what you talked about, just purpose, which is what I love about School of Kingdom. Plug, plug for School of Kingdom. Is this just your truth? Um, about, well, mainly about God, but how we see, how we see ourself.

Lance (48:27.196)
Right?

Lance (48:34.762)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (48:41.655)
co-laboring with God and being in communion with God and fellowship with God and what that relationship looks like and how Empowering that is for us that we have the power to say no and we're able to trust to go. Okay God I'm not happy in behind door a anymore. I want to come out and I want to go to door B

Lance (49:03.046)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (49:03.119)
Okay, door B shut. Oh, let me go to door C because whatever strength and courage I got to go knock on door B has made me good enough for door C. And I use good enough loosely because it's not about being good enough, because we are good enough, you know? We absolutely do.

Lance (49:13.134)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (49:16.426)
Right. Sometimes we have to believe it though. We have to believe we're good enough. It's not so much whether we are or not or whether we are worthy. It's just like we have to believe it. And I think that was a lot of that was a lot like working through last year with that healing was like, Oh, I am good enough. Like I can do this. And I never put together like the whole problem solving thing. I was like, I was just problem solving in the wrong place. So like, because that's all business is, is like, you're just problem solving in like, but it's a

Melissa Lapin (49:25.895)
It's all mindset. Absolutely, it's mindset.

Melissa Lapin (49:33.558)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (49:39.58)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Melissa Lapin (49:44.053)
Yeah.

Lance (49:46.086)
It's just different. And so it's like a different set of problems and ones that I find interesting. And so that I want to solve like, well, how do we do this? Let me figure it out. Let me go research this and figure it out. Whereas like before, like when you're at a job, it's like pretty described of what, like, you're problem solving within a box. Whereas now it's like, we can do whatever the heck we want, like, because it's our thing and, you know, and take care of problem however we see fit. And so it's, and that's what I enjoy about it.

Melissa Lapin (49:47.467)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (49:53.865)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (50:03.895)
Mm-hmm. Yup.

Lance (50:15.438)
and it's a problem solving. And I think it's definitely more my purpose. I don't know that it's exactly my purpose yet. I think there's still more, but it's just one step on the journey of figuring out what that is. Because I feel like some people do know from a young age what their purpose is. If we're gonna talk about purpose, I feel like some people know, I have a sister, she wanted to be an eye doctor from like...

Melissa Lapin (50:36.523)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (50:42.55)
time she was young and she's got practice now she's an eye doctor super happy it kind of was like always her thing and where me is like I never knew what I wanted to do could never figure it out and because I think I didn't have that identity piece that healing piece to know then where okay well my identity is well this is my personality identity and so many other things make up by your identity besides just like personality but it's like you take those into account the healing and then okay now you can start to find your purpose okay well I like problem-solving

Melissa Lapin (50:54.23)
Yeah.

Lance (51:11.694)
And so like, what does that look like? You know, and then having the, giving yourself the ability to explore and not being judgmental about the exploration process of like trying different things. I don't know how many, I love my wife and she's very supportive and I'm thankful for that. But I have bought more courses, more online things than I'd like to admit that I tried and, and most of the, like all of them would have worked if I would just stuck with it long enough. But it was just like,

Melissa Lapin (51:20.5)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (51:26.788)
Hahaha!

Melissa Lapin (51:30.495)
Hahaha!

Melissa Lapin (51:41.202)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (51:41.866)
I would try it and do it and just get tired of it. And like, well this isn't a thing. And so I'd give up on it and I'd try something else. And so it was like one thing after another of all these different things. But it's that exploration process of like, oh, well I know a little bit of all this stuff and let's put it together. And now I can see how to kind of the big picture and kind of move now, where am I better suited to be working through my purpose? What problems do I wanna solve?

Melissa Lapin (51:50.134)
Yup.

Melissa Lapin (52:04.624)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (52:12.214)
Well, I like marketing. I wanna solve those problems, like how do we get more people to come in? How do we get more people to see it? How do we engage with more people? Like that's the things that I enjoy. And like, so if you read like all my bookshelves, like I love to read. Growing up, I hated reading. Like I actually struggled to read. But it was because it was like something that didn't interest, the reading didn't interest me. So as soon as I found something that interested me,

Melissa Lapin (52:17.248)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (52:22.923)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (52:35.902)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (52:38.774)
Now I have, you only see one bookshelf right now in the back, but I have two bookshelves like that are completely full of books. And there's like three fiction books on there. All of them are non-fiction, marketing, business, all that. And so it's like finding that, allowing myself to explore through the process because most of the time you don't know what you like or you don't like. And like, I didn't know I wasn't gonna like engineering. And so I'm not mad at myself anymore for going that route. It's like, it was part of the process of like figuring out, oh, that was...

That's like one facet of problem solving. There's a billion other facets of problem solving that you can do besides engineering. And so letting myself move through that and get to where I'm at now, it's been a, it's been a good journey.

Melissa Lapin (53:14.396)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa Lapin (53:21.735)
So I think a big truth, what I'm hearing, a big truth for you is you've given yourself permission to process buying the courses, reading the books. And y'all, his bookshelves are pretty, they're all color coded. Looks like a rainbow going across his living room. But you've given yourself permission. And it's probably just a cultural thing growing up in the Midwest.

Lance (53:39.574)
I'm gonna go to bed.

Lance (53:43.307)
Yep.

Melissa Lapin (53:51.199)
I did this, your grandfather did this, your great grandfather did this, you're gonna do it too, you know? And so we, just like you said, like the family and the culture and like, it was a sad thing, but like, I don't know where I would be if my dad hadn't died when I was fifteen, you know? Because of the way he was growing up in that Midwestern.

Lance (54:13.911)
Yeah.

Lance (54:17.358)
room.

Melissa Lapin (54:19.455)
type family, you know, we've all worked at the factory. What the factory is not good enough for you, you know, and so we're forced into these things and just.

Lance (54:26.296)
Good luck.

Melissa Lapin (54:36.223)
pieces and parts of life and situations where we feel helpless and control, hey, because, you know, we don't want to go against our family or it's easier just not to say anything. And so when you talk about, you know, leaving and how that was a big part for you guys and growing, I mean, we did the same thing, you know, my husband and I and getting out but giving yourself permission.

Lance (54:56.299)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (55:06.443)
to just be okay with the process. You know, be okay that you have 500 books on your bookshelf and only two of them are fiction. You know, it's okay. But we don't do that. We have to learn to give ourselves some grace. We have to be okay with pissing people off. We have to be okay with letting people down because we are not responsible.

Lance (55:12.42)
All right.

Lance (55:20.02)
Yeah.

Lance (55:26.318)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (55:31.199)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (55:36.395)
to make them look good to their friends as children. Don't even get me started on this, but this whole other podcast.

Lance (55:39.095)
Right.

Lance (55:43.118)
I mean, I've heard some explain it and it really hit home with me is he's like I had to die to my, he was talking, he's a well-known internet marketer, but he's like I had to die to my father or I had to die to myself and so which one was I going to choose and so he's like I had to basically in very similar process of like he was, you know, like living his father's dream. And not so much.

Melissa Lapin (56:00.577)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (56:08.457)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (56:09.754)
I'm not saying that's what I was doing, but I had to let go of their expectations of me and what I was supposed to do or be or go or whatever. Just kind of let myself discover. My parents raised me with such importance on school because he didn't want me to go into the factory. He didn't want me to work there. But the only way he saw was to go get a do-get-in-school.

Melissa Lapin (56:32.353)
Yeah.

Lance (56:37.782)
Then you go to get into a good college, do good in college, get a degree and get a good job. That was like his mentality because that's what he saw. Whereas he's like in the factory, he's like, I don't want you to be there. He's like, because it's, you know, like things like feast or famine, if people aren't buying cars, then we don't have a job. And so he's like going to something more secure. And I think I held onto that so heavily, even into my adult years, and like without even knowing it, like these subconscious things of like.

Melissa Lapin (57:02.423)
Sure.

Lance (57:07.53)
man, I can't do that because that just wouldn't be safe, basically, that security. And so I had this huge security piece that I had to finally let go of. That's not for me, that was for him that he wanted. And I know they wanted what was best for me. They didn't want me to go and work in the factory like that, but at the same time, create this other aspect that I had to work through. And so that's part of the healing process last year that I discovered.

Melissa Lapin (57:11.351)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (57:27.476)
Yeah.

Lance (57:36.174)
You know, they weren't trying to purposely push me in a bad direction. They just thought what they were doing was best and pushing me away from the direction they didn't want to be. So I mean, you know, it's part of just working through that and finding those lies of like, oh, I don't need that. I can, I don't have to go that route. I can go my own route and be okay with if, you know, maybe they are disappointed or not disappointed or whatever because I left my job, you know.

Melissa Lapin (57:40.655)
Bright.

Melissa Lapin (57:45.28)
Right?

Melissa Lapin (57:53.065)
Yeah.

Lance (58:04.53)
It is what it is, but I'm happy and I feel more in purpose and more fulfilled than I did ever any job. So yeah, right. Right? Marketing here, right? And so it's, yeah, it is a process. You got to give yourself permission to explore and process and know that, you know, I see you doing all sorts of different creative things and I think it's super cool. You're trying, like you're doing like...

Melissa Lapin (58:14.052)
That's awesome. Making hair. Selling marketing hair.

Lance (58:33.986)
the metalsmithing, you do art, painting, you make jewelry. And so it's like exploring these different pieces of art to see, well, what are you good at? And then just watching that process of the different things you're doing, I think that everybody needs to take that process with just everything. You can't expect, I know people that have their kids and they like.

basically pick like an activity, right? The kids pick an activity and you're like, you're doing this activity and that's it. Like you're gonna play piano. If you pick piano, you're gonna play piano. Well, what if they don't like piano? What if they just, they don't know until you try. And it's kind of like that same thing. And like parents really need to foster that ability for kids to start exploring young of trying different things. Well, let them try piano. Well, if they don't like piano, like let them go try dance. Let them go try sports. Let them go try art, whatever it is. Like let them try the gamut

Melissa Lapin (59:15.903)
Yep.

Melissa Lapin (59:22.773)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (59:30.377)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (59:33.118)
what's out there because I mean that's all we're doing like as an adults we're still exploring to see what's out there. You know and so if you start that process off young and like letting them figure out like oh this is what I like I like this about that but I like this other thing about this other thing and see how they can bring it together and so like one of the most interesting stories of that I've seen is there's this girl called her name is Lindsey Sterling and she

Melissa Lapin (59:39.743)
Right?

Melissa Lapin (01:00:00.571)
Love Lindsey Stirling. Oh my god. We've seen her at concert. Yeah.

Lance (01:00:03.45)
She's a violinist. So did we. She came to Amarillo last year and we saw her at the Christmas concert. It was the best concert, literally the best concert I've ever been to. Not that I've been to a ton of concerts, but I've been to probably 15, 20 concerts in my life and probably it was the top concert that I've been to. But what she does is she started, she did dance and violin as a kid and realized that she liked them both a lot and she figured out how to bring them together. So she plays the guitar.

Melissa Lapin (01:00:09.757)
Yes.

Melissa Lapin (01:00:20.125)
Absolutely.

Lance (01:00:32.342)
violin while dancing. It's the most entertaining thing you'll ever see in a concert. Like the con... we saw it was a Christmas concert that she did and so it's like the best... it was like the emotional journey she took you through of excitement and like just joy and just like heartfelt moments and like all the things as an entertainer the best I've ever seen. But she did it by combining because she did dance and she did violin and she figured out how to combine the two of them and it's a whole new thing that no one else has done. And so like...

Melissa Lapin (01:00:35.287)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (01:00:50.43)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (01:00:55.391)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (01:00:59.295)
Yeah. And she makes her own costumes too. Yeah. Yep.

Lance (01:01:02.29)
Right, and so yeah, she likes making her own costumes, so she makes her own costumes and does like, I think she does all the choreography as well and like, she brings in all these pieces of like, the things she enjoys and like, well, what does that look like? And so, it's.

Melissa Lapin (01:01:15.607)
She's phenomenal. I freaking love her so much.

Lance (01:01:19.754)
I'd highly recommend anybody if you get a chance to see her, just to see the excellence because she, not only can she play violin, she sings, she dances, and she does acro- she's doing acrobatics in the performance. I'm like, there's like, the amount of stuff-

Melissa Lapin (01:01:22.439)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:01:32.79)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, she's got one part of her show where she's actually on ballet pointe shoes and dancing pointe shoes, on pointe shoes while she's playing the violin. I'm like, is there anything you can't do? Oh, you're all five foot one self. I mean, she's a tiny little girl, but she's amazing. But yeah, I think we just, yeah, we limit ourselves and it comes down to we just don't understand.

Lance (01:01:43.822)
I'm gonna go.

Lance (01:01:48.312)
Right?

Lance (01:01:51.616)
Yeah.

Lance (01:01:55.266)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:02:04.639)
who we are and how God sees us. You know, it is simplest form, we just don't understand.

Lance (01:02:07.232)
Yeah.

Lance (01:02:12.902)
Yeah, and that is a process. We're not given a manual for ourselves. And so the process is it's self-discovery. And if you aren't open to self-discovery, then there's probably going to be some dissatisfaction somewhere. Either you're going to be, you're going to swallow it and you're just going to take it and you're going to live that dissatisfied part or you're going to start to explore. And that's kind of what I did. I finally realized dissatisfaction started to explore in all these different areas throughout.

Melissa Lapin (01:02:17.655)
great.

Lance (01:02:42.618)
journey and like being okay with it. It's okay to try something and not like it and try another thing and not like it but eventually if you keep it it's unlikely that you'll try for you know all these different things that you eventually will find something you like or a combination of the different things and so you know especially with like you know take for you the art like you're gonna combine different things from the different you know you'll make

Melissa Lapin (01:02:59.424)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (01:03:07.841)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (01:03:10.11)
you know, jewelry and combine it with like the painting somehow and like something new is going to come out of it and it might not just be the one thing you learned but you took you all the, you had to go through all the different classes and the different things in order to get down this one process that you make up and you do in order to, that's what you're doing. That's what you like to do. So it's a...

Melissa Lapin (01:03:13.44)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (01:03:21.321)
Uh huh.

Melissa Lapin (01:03:24.576)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, the big part of the journey for me when I talk about it, because I'm the same way. I've been I've taken so many online courses and workshops and 50 bucks here and $200 there. And I've never ventured out to, you know, to drop five grand on a course yet. Yet there's, there's one that I'm looking at. But, you know,

Lance (01:03:40.523)
Thank you.

Melissa Lapin (01:03:55.591)
And there are those out there where you can spend. Yeah, like there's one that coming up in January, that's like 10 grand. And I'm like, what for three days? What? But yeah, that'll be doing that one. But in it, though, I've learned it's more important. And I think there's very much a balance of learning.

Lance (01:03:56.89)
I have. I've spent more than that on a course, more than $5,000 on a course.

I'm sorry.

Lance (01:04:09.494)
Hmm.

Lance (01:04:13.934)
Hahaha

Melissa Lapin (01:04:25.375)
what you don't want versus what you do want, you know? And in me taking these classes, like different blogging courses and writing courses and marketing things and stuff, it is like, yeah, I can't do that. That's not in my wheelhouse. It's not something, you know, I just don't feel like learning that. It's like, no, that was painful. Check that one off the list, right?

Lance (01:04:48.118)
Right.

Melissa Lapin (01:04:49.991)
So I think, because we go through life looking for a magic key or a magic formula, you know, that we're going to take the one class or have the one conversation that's going to blow our life wide open. And, you know, we're going to be the it of whatever it is we're trying to do. Right. But I think it's just as viable to learn. Like it's, it's not a negative to learn.

the things you don't want to do. You know? And I think we've spent so much time focusing on, do I want to do this? Do I want to do this? Oh, I wasted the money or I did that, you know? And we feel, we feel, it's completely improper grammar, but I don't know how to say it. We feel more bad, but we feel worse and feel like a failure for that instead of celebrating, okay.

Lance (01:05:21.468)
Mm-hmm.

Lance (01:05:40.567)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:05:46.275)
I did not spend 10 years of my life doing that because it sucks, right? You know what I'm saying? And so cutting, I think it just, that just kind of wraps up what we were talking about is just giving ourselves grace to learn the process, to be okay with the things that we don't like, we don't want to do that aren't in our wheelhouse because maybe eventually that could come back around, but you had to learn X, Y, Z before you could do A, B, C.

Lance (01:05:51.792)
Right?

Melissa Lapin (01:06:15.771)
you know? And so picking pieces, everything. I'm a learner. I am a learner. I mean, I will learn going through the grocery store, right? I just learn constantly. And so I am always, okay, what did I learn from that? What did I learn from that? What can I take away from that? I learned. And it's, I don't think like there's a positive and a negative. I think there's good and better, you know? Did I fail at that?

Lance (01:06:15.893)
Exactly.

Melissa Lapin (01:06:44.839)
It didn't work out like I wanted, but what did I learn? You know, so I am that Pollyanna when it comes to that kind of thing is like everything is what's the positive spin on it? What's the good that I can take away? I hate that and I will never do it again. That's a positive, you know? So.

Lance (01:06:56.374)
Yeah.

Lance (01:07:02.442)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's like I've heard the saying go, it's like the mountain of success is a mountain of failures. And so it's like, but not the learning to rephrase those not as failures, but like, what did I learn from this? Because it didn't work. Or I didn't like it. But what did I learn from it? What did I like? Or what? What can I take from this process that I learned or whatever it is, and just move it on to the next thing. It's like, like you said, like, it's like you got to learn.

Melissa Lapin (01:07:18.059)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:07:22.089)
Yeah.

Lance (01:07:31.61)
A and B before you do C and D, but it's almost like, I've heard it explained with a chain, right? If you need a chain of 30 links in order to do this thing, but you can't go to one place to get all 30 links, you got to go to 30 different places to get the 30 links. Then you got to go to the 30 places and just know you're going to get something from every single place. Sometimes it's just as important what you don't like. It's probably more important what you don't like than what it is that you do like, because a lot of times it's easier to identify, I hated that.

Melissa Lapin (01:07:36.884)
Uh huh.

Melissa Lapin (01:07:45.624)
Exactly!

Melissa Lapin (01:07:55.772)
Absolutely.

Lance (01:08:01.146)
and I don't want to do that again." Okay, great. That's actually like, they can probably cross off a whole bunch of things just by that one experience of saying I hated that. And so, yeah, it's a, yeah, being okay with the process. Like, yeah, I feel like, you get to an adulthood, you're like, you feel like you kind of made it when you get to this point, but it's like, or you feel like you have all your ducks in a row at some point.

Melissa Lapin (01:08:10.25)
Yep.

Melissa Lapin (01:08:16.267)
Yep.

Lance (01:08:28.126)
And you don't. I don't remember if you... As a kid, I remember thinking like, oh, they have it so, like they know everything that's going on, they're like... And you get there, you're like, man, they're just winging it. Ha ha ha.

Melissa Lapin (01:08:29.047)
Mm-mm.

Melissa Lapin (01:08:39.251)
Right? And you know, and not that it gives excuse, but there's, I think there's more grace when you start working on it. Okay, they were trying, my parents, they were doing the best they could with what they had, you know? And then I have repented to my children a number of times because, like...

Lance (01:08:50.698)
Yep.

Melissa Lapin (01:08:59.811)
I'm doing the best I could bro, you know? Yeah, I was harsh, I made you burn all your Pokemon cards, I'm sorry, because they're probably worth some money nowadays. You know, that kind of stuff.

Lance (01:09:06.605)
Hahahaha

Lance (01:09:11.451)
Oh man. Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:09:12.915)
We're just, it's their first time being a kid and it was my first time being a parent. And you know, in this podcast thing, some people would start listening to this podcast and cringe because I didn't have the perfect intro and I'm like, go listen to someone else's podcast. You know? I don't need you to listen to mine to feel like a success. But, so.

Lance (01:09:19.178)
Unfortunately, there's...

Lance (01:09:33.377)
Yeah.

Lance (01:09:39.414)
Yeah, I mean you get better every time, right? That's the goal is you learn something every episode and you get better and you're like, oh, I can do this slightly different and do this a little bit better. And that's all you can do. After you do it, it's unlikely that if you stick with something long enough that you won't become really good at it. It's just gonna take that. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. And so I know a guy that's like,

Melissa Lapin (01:09:43.111)
I hope.

Melissa Lapin (01:09:58.907)
Oh yeah, putting in that 10,000 hours. Become an expert after that 10,000 hours. Yeah, yeah.

Lance (01:10:06.654)
He's a huge on the internet, but he's like, I did a podcast for five years. He's like, before it was really like, well, listen to it. Watch. He's like, those five years was just me developing my voice and myself and. Whatever. So it's like, yeah, but yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:10:11.997)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Lapin (01:10:18.983)
Yeah. And that's the thing too. It's like, I know people who have done things where literally week after week after week, it was themselves talking into a camera and nobody was on the other end, you know? They had no listeners and now they've got, you know, decent platform because they stuck in. I'm like, every day I'm like, God, why am I doing this?

And then I'll get a message from somebody that, oh, I just listened to this podcast. It was great. And I'm like, okay, God, there's the one, you know? And I just like, I have to cut myself some slack about the perfection because there are some pretty excellent podcasts out there and there are way better speakers. But I also have found, and I understand, this is what I was made to do. I'm not looking to be a Joyce Meyer or Beth Moore or...

Lance (01:10:57.3)
Thank you.

Lance (01:11:13.047)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:11:16.863)
T.D. Jakes or whatever have a massive platform and audience. My podcast will never be as big as Joe Rogan's, you know, and I'm all bro, that man, I pray for that man all the time because I think it's phenomenal what he does. But he also started out with a, with a following from, you know, UFC and all of that. So it wasn't like he started in his spare bedroom, you know.

Lance (01:11:25.456)
I don't know that anybody's will be that big.

Lance (01:11:31.829)
Yeah.

Lance (01:11:42.934)
And he's been doing it for, I think he started like 2010 or 2011, something like that. So he started early. Right.

Melissa Lapin (01:11:46.311)
Yeah, yeah, before it was all cool. So anyway, we I think you and I could chat all day long, but we have lives that we have to get back to. So is there anything that you would like to leave the listeners with just a nugget of encouragement or a quote or a book you're reading that's been good?

Lance (01:11:54.274)
You're sure?

Hehehehehe

Lance (01:12:15.486)
Um, I'd say if you're dissatisfaction, look at what the dissatisfaction, where that's coming from and what is that pushing you to do. And be okay with maybe changing directions or trying something new. Because if there's dissatisfaction in your life, it's there for a reason. And for me it was because I wasn't in my purpose at certain points in time or like there's a better path.

And then just being okay with like, oh, I spent 10 years doing this and $100,000 on school. It's okay. I'm here. So it's good. It worked out. So I just, yeah, that grace, listen to dissatisfaction and have grace for the process.

Melissa Lapin (01:13:01.616)
Yep, keep yourself grace and move on.

Lance (01:13:05.974)
Right?

Melissa Lapin (01:13:06.955)
So, well thank you Lance for taking time to hang out with me today. This was fun. And it's been neat to watch you guys develop because the hair thing, oh my god, has just blown up and I just see all the social media things happening and everybody's like, oh my god, my braids are amazing and I love them. And I had them once years ago. I'll have to see if I find you a picture.

Lance (01:13:09.558)
Yeah, thank you.

Lance (01:13:13.962)
Yes, thank you.

Lance (01:13:30.106)
Yeah.

Lance (01:13:35.731)
Oh really? You two stare at her, great.

Melissa Lapin (01:13:37.928)
Yeah, Scott's forbidding me to do it again, but... Because he didn't like it when I did it, but I was like, whatever, it's my hair, I'm gonna do it anyway. But yeah, just watching you guys and then just the new season that you are stepping into is gonna be awesome. Yeah... It'll be alright.

Lance (01:13:40.93)
Hahahaha

Lance (01:13:45.384)
Alright.

Lance (01:13:57.734)
Yeah, it's been exciting. Nervous and exciting, but yeah, it's been good.

Melissa Lapin (01:14:05.839)
You'll make it. You will live. You will live. So I just want to say thank you to all the listeners again, if this is your first time. Hope you enjoyed hanging out with us. If this is not your first time, welcome back and thank you. Either way, I would love for you guys to like us, love us, share us on all the social platforms, give some feedback if you had any questions about things that Lancer Eye.

Lance (01:14:10.2)
Yeah.

Melissa Lapin (01:14:34.615)
said, contact me. Any of the information to connect with us will be in the show notes and I will put links to Wildcrafted Beauty, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. I have her card hanging up in my the mission statement that she did a while back hanging up in my bathroom. I read it about being a yeah.

Lance (01:14:51.198)
Yep, welcome to beauty.com.

Lance (01:15:01.906)
We still do that, yeah. We still got it. We still send those out. Ha ha ha.

Melissa Lapin (01:15:05.303)
But yeah, that's pretty awesome. But yeah, so I'll have the links to that for their social so that you guys can connect with them and support the small business and the big dream they have going on. So yeah, appreciate you guys and catch you all on the next episode.

Lance (01:15:17.538)
Thank you.

Lance (01:15:24.419)
Thank you.

ATW - Chat with Lance Byers

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