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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
The Call You Don't Want to Get with Rob Bremer
00:00
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the podcast by Restoration Project. I'm one of the co-hosts, Jesse French, and I'm thrilled to be joined with my partner in crime who is Chris Bruno. Good to see you guys. Or I can't see you. This is a podcast, but I can see you guys on screen. It's true. Yeah. And Chris, we're excited because today we are joined by a good friend of ours who we have gotten to know over several years.
00:28
in Restoration Project types of events. And this is a man who I am grateful to call a friend, but also be able to see how he has fathered his kids. I've been able to guide some trips for Restoration Project that Rob has attended. And just, I have always left saying, man, I want a relationship like that with my kids that he has. And so grateful for Rob. He's more than just a dad, but just excited that Rob Bremer would.
00:54
Join us here on a episode of the podcast. Rob, thanks for joining us. Oh, you're welcome, Jesse. Thank you. That's really kind words. Thanks. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you and where you located. Tell us about that family that Jesse referred to and, and then we'll dive in. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I live in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. If you're not from Colorado, that's just like Southern suburb of Denver. And I've been here for 20 years or so.
01:22
move my wife is a native Coloradans. Those are hard to find nowadays. And, uh, wife and I, we've been married for 26 years and, uh, it's always nerve wrecking when I say the number, cause I could get it wrong. Um, like all of us, right. She's like getting corrected. Um, and three, three kids, uh, two boys and a girl. So Ben is, uh, 19. He's in college his second year of college and then have twins.
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Abby and Nathan, they're 17 and they're junior year of high school. And so we're headed into that whole college search process times too, which is just insanity. It's unreal. May the Lord be with you in this journey. Oh my gosh. My time's hard enough. Yeah. My choice growing up was, do you want to go to Ohio State or Ohio University? Which of the two state universities? Take your pick.
02:21
That feels like there's some beauty to that simplicity, right? I wish for that. Maybe. Yeah. Oh, well, Rob, it's great to have you on the show. Great that, you know, as in our friendship and collaborations through the years just continues, I want to dive in with just give us a sense. I know that you have had a really challenging last couple of years and there's been multiple things that have, you know, kind of come in waves.
02:49
that have been set against you. And we'd love to have you kind of unpack that for us and let us know what's happened. And then we wanna dive in a little bit to how that's been for you as a man. Yeah, yeah, gosh, we're to, it has been a lot in the last year. So it's hard to know where to begin with all of that. I guess sort of the journey, I would say using some of the sage language that we've talked about or do talk about is coming to the end of ourselves.
03:17
as the as the necessary step into that, you know, next phase of life into our second journey. And so I think coming to the end of myself began kind of in the towards the end of 2021. So a couple of years ago, where I had been with the same, same company for 17 years, well, maybe only 16 at that point. And our CEO that I had worked with the whole time I was there was retiring. And so I was
03:46
one of two internal candidates to succeed him in that and was informed on during a college visit by the way with my son in New York. Oh man. I got a call from a board member saying no thanks, thanks but no thanks. And that was just an interesting, I had to get, you know, I had to stop on the turnpike with my son. We were going from one school to another school to do a second visit.
04:13
And I'm like, Hey, I got to take this phone call. It's kind of important. I'm like sort of unusual that the, of the board chair is calling me. This is probably not a good call and, uh, jump right back in the car and say, okay, let's, let's head across state to the next visit. And, uh, it's a good time with my son and just it immediately put it in perspective. Like what's I'm here with my son. We're doing this.
04:39
We're making a memory, just the two of us, you know, traveling across the state of New York, looking for colleges and knowing that something that I had wanted wasn't going to come to fruition. So that was the beginning of that. I look at that. I look on it now quite differently than I did right then, but that began a whole process of what do I, what do I do with the rest of my career? Do I stay at this company? Do I do something else?
05:09
And the fact that I've been doing this for so long just sort of elevated that fear of what else would I do. Am I qualified to do anything else? I've just been here for so long as part of what I contribute there just because I have this knowledge and background that if I go somewhere else, I won't have that. That'll be gone. And so that sort of just led a process.
05:36
During the following year, we were figuring that out and it was becoming clear that I needed to go do something else and there was something else in store. I wasn't sure what that was. And I was afraid to take any like real concrete steps towards that. And then in the process, my wife, who had just started teaching, lost her job. And shortly thereafter, I decided to that I.
06:04
needed to leave my job after being offered, not being asked to resign, not being fired, but being offered a demotion, a different position in the company. And that was, that's kind of the push I think I needed to say, all right, it's time for something different. Wow. Rob, I'm struck. I'm struck by like you're in the car with your son and you get this call from the door chair and you had been at this job as long as your son has been alive.
06:34
Yes. Yeah. Just, just about good observation. Correct. 17 years old looking for college, getting off. He's 17, 18. You were at this, at this company for just as long. So I mean, there's, yeah, amazing. Ever known is me working at this company. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. True. Yes. Yes. And then like the requirement of you to step back in the car and reshift,
07:01
You had dreams, he has dreams, he's looking for places to go further his life. You were looking at the next stage of your life in a career space, and yours just got shut down and you're still facilitating it for your son. Yeah. Yeah. Holy cow. What a car ride. It was. Yeah, it was. It was. Yeah. And I think there was there was part of that desire. OK, I've got to put away or I've got to put off.
07:29
my own grief about this. I don't want to have that influence the interactions that I'm having with my son, but we were able to talk about that. Like, he kind of knew to like, before, you know, I went inside and, you know, had the phone call, we were talking about that a little bit, like, this seems odd. And so it was good for us to be able to hold, I think for both of us to kind of hold. Yeah, I know that
07:56
I'm doing this. He's looking forward to the next phase of his life and what that looks like. And I'm forced to begin to look at the next phase of my life. Yeah. In a very different way from a very different perspective for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I imagine that some of the guys that are listening have, you know, have some similar stories where their hope for career, their level of investment that they have.
08:25
made into a specific place, into the workplace. Even some of the, you know, and I'd love to hear more about this from you, Rob, like even some of the identity that was that guy who's woven and married into this specific role, company, trajectory, whatever, that all of a sudden just the sucker punch of that phone call just feels like, oh my gosh, what next? How...
08:50
Tell us a little bit about how you how you rolled with that sucker punch. What happened? Mm hmm. It was tough. Yeah, take take the gut punch. And then what next? It was not. It was not easy. I think that I think I mentioned kind of doing the doing the dance a little bit. The new CEO came on board and I'm like, well, you know, I can I could kind of roll with this and figure this out. I won't have the responsibility of the big boss and it'll be okay.
09:20
And I think all along I was really just fooling myself that it was going to be okay. Yeah. That it would be like, I could do this, right? It's I could stay, you know, I could earn a good paycheck and, and focus on other things. And I, and it was, it was questioning. There was a lot of identity and self-worth tied up in what I was doing. For so many years, um, had gotten.
09:49
You know, accolades and promotions and, you know, Oh, Rob's such a great leader and thinker and he can help us solve probably like all those like puffs you up. Right. I like felt good about that. And it was starting to fall apart because the new CEO had different perceptions that weren't that. And I couldn't, and as much as I, for a time tried to change those, well, I'll, I'll, you know, she'll see, you know, all.
10:16
I'll try harder. I'll do this. I'll do that. And it just wasn't, it wasn't working. And so I just, I had to, that was like, that was a bit over a year, but I, I did that. Wow. That's a long time. Yeah. Yeah. It was a long time. And I was, it was miserable. Yeah. Jesse. Yeah, no, I, I was just going to ask like, what was the cost of that dance? Like you just said it was miserable, but like what?
10:45
What did that require of you? And then what, yeah, maybe start there. Yeah. What did it require of you? I think it required, it required me to continue to just not pay attention to what I was really feeling. Um, and just sort of, um, go on kind of, I guess, autopilot, right? I'm just gonna, I'm going to chug through this and I look back now, like if I would have gotten that job, I think I would have chugged through doing that for a lot longer.
11:15
Like I'm like looking back now, I'm like, wow, God, it even, I think it was Karen, my wife, who said like, you know, God protected you through this. Like it was better for me, God knew that it was better for me to not pursue that, that he had something else in mind that it was not that. And so I think, yeah. God bless her for saying that. Oh, yeah. And it's only in retrospect that you can say that.
11:44
Cause when you're in retrospect, right? You can look back at it. Otherwise it just feels like when people say those kinds of things in the moment of like, well, God has a better plan for you. Yeah. Yeah. And I say that she said that to me sort of well down the line. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like it had to be respectively like, okay, we can see where God has been at work. Whereas in the moment it feels like what the heck come on. Right. That those kinds of words in the moment are like,
12:14
You're like, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Even then with the whole, like the dance helped you stay away from what you were actually feeling. Right. Right. Would you like, can you unpack that for us? What, when you became aware of what you were actually feeling, what did you find? A lot of fear. Like what's, what's next? I think some, some inadequacy, some shame that I couldn't make this work.
12:42
that I had to deal with that I wasn't, I wasn't as capable and competent in every realm and coming to terms with the fact that, you know, the new boss has different directions and different ideas and we just didn't mesh. And I think at first feeling like that was something that was a flaw in me. There was something wrong there about who I was or what I was doing that I needed to change rather than.
13:12
I mean, it took a lot of time to come. It just wasn't a good, we weren't gonna match. Like I said, that dance is a good analogy because we were stepping on each other's toes, right? We were not good dance partners. You talk about the recognition of feeling in that moment, the kind of the lack of capability that you felt. Or a couple of years after that happened. And so I'm hesitant to, again, kind of what you and Chris are talking about, to put this neat.
13:41
bow of resolution around it. And yeah, when you talk about you coming to the end of yourself, like I feel like I hear you saying the end of myself, yes, that included a change in employment, but the end of myself was actually a recognition around how you have viewed your capability. Like is that, is that true? Does that feel accurate to some of that? Yeah, yeah, I think that feels accurate. If I follow, you know, what you're saying, I think the...
14:10
You know, there's Richard Rohr's book, Falling Upward. Chris, you quote his work a lot in your book, The Sage. Yeah. Right? And one of the things that he says that I wrote down here in taking some notes for our podcast is the first half of our life is about finding the starting gate. And I feel like that's so true. I feel like I've just begun. But it's a wholly different race. It's not the same kind of race. And it's not in the sense of like, wow, I just
14:37
screwed up the whole first half of my life. Now I'm going to go do what's really important. That whole first half had to go that way. That was necessary to get to that second half and the next piece. So I like what you said about tying it up in a bow. It's anything but in a nice, neat, wrapped up bow. It's still ongoing. Both my wife and I have a lot of pain and grief over what
15:05
very similar circumstances in, you know, and I wrestle with that every, every day. Like just that sort of narcissistic injury, if you will. Yeah. Like you want to, you know, it's like, Oh man, I wish I would have just quit earlier before, you know, and had control over that situation in a way that neither one of us felt like we had control. And that was, yeah, that was part of it. I guess back to your earlier question was just a loss of control. Like I am not in control of this situation.
15:35
Which is a terrifying place to be for men, not in control. I like being in the driver's seat. Heck yeah. That's where I need to be all the time. I just love, Rob, even you quoting that of, you know, like the second, the first half is finding the starting gate and how much freedom that might actually bring us when we think about the ups and downs and the challenges that we face.
16:01
in our lives right now as we are coming to the second half. Like it's just about finding the starting gate. And I wonder what that looks like for each man differently and all of that. Yeah. And another phrase, another thing that he says is finding the task within the task. Cause I think it's important too, because when we went to the Sage trip that we went on last year to Ireland and you know, I was knowing that there was some
16:29
change happening. There were a couple other guys there that had big major career changes. And so there was this beginning, this thinking like, Oh, in order to do this, I have to like change what I'm doing. And that's not that that was ended up being the case for me. But finding that like, second half journey, the task within the task doesn't mean that you have to like change jobs and go be a monk. That's, that's more impactful to the kingdom of God. That could be right very well.
16:58
could be, but doesn't have to be. It's more like, how am I going to, how am I going to approach this? Right. And that I'm not as in control as I think I am. I don't need to be as competent as I think I need to be. I don't need the accolades like I used to, right. Getting to that point where it's like those things, you know, start to begin to feel less important. Yeah. Not that they're unimportant. Still, right. Just not as important as they were. As important. Yeah.
17:28
think about this journey that you've told us about. What are some of the things that you've noticed inside of your own self that you could say, God has forged me here? This experience, these last years, this has forged me in this way. I think that, you know, the thing that comes to mind first is the dependence on God. Is that I'm, that whole piece of losing control.
17:55
in beginning to see that that's okay. That's not, well, that's not just okay, that that's necessary, that that's good. That God's got this in me. And he's brought me through this whole period. Karen and I sat down at the end of the year and we wrote down like all the things that had happened to us. And that could have gone in like a really dark direction, like, wow, look at all this. But it like led us to look at all of God's goodness throughout all of this.
18:25
that it forced both of us, me in particular, to just depend on God in new ways that I had not really even been aware of. Yeah. Wow. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got to give credit to our friend, Drew, because I was talking to him towards the end of the year, and he was mentioning...
18:51
You know, you, you, you both need to sit down and write words of blessing to each other. And that was the, that was sort of that beginning process was chronicling all the things so that we could bless what had happened in the midst of that. And I, and I know I think we're over time was that, so when we need kind of a monument, how do we mark this? And that it feels like a new day for us. So we like that kind of feels like a sunrise. We were engaged in Rocky mountain national park.
19:20
26, 27 years ago, whenever engagement happened. And so we have a photograph in a room in our house that we often sit of a sunrise in the wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Wow. And even after all the hardship that you were brought back to a place of blessing. I love that. Right. Yeah. Rob, you have so much wisdom and experience and it's hard fought for, I am sure.
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And I just love what you bring to us and to the podcast and to the Restoration Project community. So thanks so much for being on the show today. So good to have you. I've been blessed as well. Thanks Chris. Take care.