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Tomorrow can be different from today.
Our lives often leave us feeling hopeless—like nothing will ever change. But perspective is everything. When you know where to look, hope can be found in the spaces and places you least expect.
Join Jason Gore (Lead Pastor of Hope Community Church) for a fresh perspective, practical steps, and weekly encouragement that hope really is possible… even in real life.
It goes a long way toward fulfillment
and seeing yourself as a part of a bigger picture.
And I'm not just holed up in my office for nine hours a day.
Yeah. Um, I'm serving people while I'm doing this.
If you can get there. Um,
at least I was personally shocked at
how much you can take a job like Starbucks
and suddenly realize like, I'm a valuable part
to my community here.
Yeah. It's pretty crazy.
Welcome to the Hope and Real Life Podcast with Jason Gore.
Our team is passionate
and committed to bringing you more hope in the everyday
real areas of your life.
If this conversation and content is valuable for you,
please do us a favor, like, subscribe, and even share.
You never know how valuable it could be
to share a little bit of hope with someone else.
Let's get the conversation started,
And here we are picking it back up in the second half
of our episode with Ben Foot talking about how
to approach work in our life.
And we said in the first episode, we recognize that we spend
around 90,000 hours in work in our lives.
And so, man, we should probably spend some time taking a
look at how it applies to our lives.
Let's tune back in and get it rolling.
I was talking with, um, John Delony was on the, an episode
that we, uh, Dr.
John Delony, if you don't know, you should check him out.
Um, great guy speaks a lot into the mental health world,
but, uh, in his most recent book, he talks about
how there's certain things that we have
to choose in our life to avoid anxiety.
And there's certain decisions that we have,
but one of them is this idea of mindfulness.
And it, it's, uh,
and I might even be misapplying so sorry, John.
Uh, but his, the idea is like, we actually have to choose
how we view certain things,
and then we operate out of those decisions.
Mm-Hmm. And so if our paradigm is I must work
for money, then if we're not making
that money, then we're not living it up.
So, like, to your point, we,
we don't have the freedom that we need.
And someone could say, well, I don't want work to be
for money, but right now I have these bills Mm-Hmm.
And I have this house, and I have this
car, and I have this debt.
And I know in the state of America right now,
there's probably some people that,
I mean, it's expensive Mm-Hmm.
Right now. But we don't, maybe,
maybe we don't have to have the house that we have.
Mm-Hmm. Maybe we don't have to have the car that we have.
Maybe we don't. Because what happens is all of
that stuff comes in
and clouds our ability to actually go
to the root of what you're saying.
No, no, no. Let's start with the vision.
Maybe not even for work, but the vision for my life. Mm-Hmm.
And then let's move that into our vision for work.
And then, you know, we can figure out, okay, well,
what do we have the means for?
But ultimately, at the end of the day, this over here,
this paradigm and how we live
through this is more important than
how do we just play catch
up for the rest of our life. Right.
Right. Let's jump on this. You, you travel quite a bit.
Mm-Hmm. With your new career. Mm-Hmm.
Uh, I'd, how does that work out with, for you and Ali?
You got kids at home?
Well, so Should we phone her in? I'm
Gonna, let's see what she said.
Right now. She would say it's terrible. Yeah.
We've got like two sick kids and all that.
Uh, overall I, I'm like a little spoiled
because some people travel and they travel
like for months at a time.
I, I don't have that, you know, most of my trips,
I'm gone Saturday and Sunday.
Uh, North Carolina, like here at Hope, those are longer.
It's four day trips for us, though. It's balanced.
Well, 'cause I'm not on a staff anymore. I work from home.
I create my own schedule.
So it's like, on the one hand I travel,
which I never used to really do.
But on the other hand, like, I pick my kids up from school,
like basically every single day.
Yeah. You know, and I get my work done.
So I pick 'em up and then I'm like, what do you guys,
what's, what do you guys wanna do together now?
Yeah. So, um, it balanced out for us.
Um, I mean, the travel is something I'm still getting used
to and, and, and Allie
and the kids are still getting used to it,
but for the most part, it's like
almost been counterbalanced.
Right. It gets tons of more, more time.
That's something a lot of people don't realize, um,
about ministry work if they've never done it.
It's like, dude, it's, it's a lot of work.
Yeah. Well, if you, if you ever decided
that you didn't want to travel as much,
I'm sure you could find a church.
I wonder will Air somewhere
that would be more than happy to kinda set you guys up.
I don't know who would happen. I'm gonna shut. Yeah.
I'm just, I'm just, hypothetically speaking,
if you're listening, feel free to drop a comment
and tag, um, where you think Ben should go and work.
So we'd love to see that. Hey, look, what about this?
We got a lot of people who's like, okay, work. Yeah.
Purpose. Purpose, yeah. It's about purpose.
I, I don't like my job right now. Mm-Hmm.
What would you say,
Dude? Okay. So,
or
I don't like it. Or
I would love to change my job,
or I want a different role within my job.
Mm-Hmm.
I think I still think the first filter for figuring
that out is purpose is the problem.
Purpose. Yeah. If it's not, okay.
So if it is, maybe that's all you needed.
You just needed to clear your head
and go like, no, what I'm doing is important.
Okay. If you get through that
and you go like, yeah, no, this job doesn't line up with
the purpose of my life at all.
Yeah. Or it does. And I'm still miserable.
Um, that's where I think the math is so helpful, dude.
It's, that's, it's 22% of your waking life, man. Yeah.
It's 90,000 hours of your life. Yeah.
Again, your family's 42,000.
If things were like terribly broken with your family,
you would, I mean, I'm, I'm,
I think most people would do anything possible to fix it.
Yeah. That's your family. Well,
this is your job is you spend twice
as much time at your job.
Yeah. And then for some reason though,
we'll sit in it even though it's broken.
Right. Even though it's unfulfilling.
Um, and we'll just go like,
I guess these are the cards that I got dealt.
So, uh, I just gotta tough it out for the rest of my life.
Um, again, start with purpose.
But if you get past that, like maybe it's time
to just make a risky move and mix things up.
'cause I mean, this is the majority
of your life is spent doing this. Right.
So how about this? How about, okay,
I do need to make a move.
I'm not gonna be here forever. Or, um, okay, yeah.
Let's just live with that. I'm not gonna be here forever,
but right now I can't pull the trigger for whatever reason.
So now I'm stuck and maybe I don't like my boss,
or I don't like my organization, or I don't like my job.
Um, man, that could take some people to a dark place, right?
Mm-Hmm. That could take people to, Hey,
I'm gonna change things myself, whether people
around here want to or not.
Mm-Hmm. Which maybe
that's healthy could also be done in
a terribly unhealthy way.
I'm just gonna start letting people know
how dissatisfied I am with, maybe not with my words,
but with my attitudes and with my actions.
Um, I'm just gonna start stealing
people's staplers off their desk.
I mean, lots of different things
you could do. Is that a Yeah.
Is that a tactic? Or, I don't,
Hailey, how that help on our team
continues to steal my staplers side.
Oh, gotcha. That's a jab. Okay. I'm kidding.
Uh, what, uh, yeah, how,
what would you say, how do you speak?
What, what would you say to that person?
How should I handle myself?
I'm not asking about myself,
but if I were, how should I handle myself
before I make a change in the role that I'm in
that I'm not super happy with?
Well, I, I was unhappy for a year and a half.
So like, I, I think I can
a little bit speak from experience.
It's like we're still responsible to show up.
You're still responsible to show up.
Well, I mean, this is where I, I mean,
I guess if you don't follow Jesus
and you have, I, I don't know, do whatever you want,
I guess, like chop people out from under the knees,
you know, if you have to, to get ahead, I guess.
But, um, even if you're unhappy
and you can't pull a trigger yet,
like you're still responsible to show up.
Well, to work hard, um, to be a team player,
like your dissatisfaction doesn't give you the right to,
um, work poorly.
Yeah. So, I mean, no one wants to hear that,
but if you're completely dissatisfied
and you can't pull a trigger, you can't quit your job,
you can't, you know, switch, uh,
within the organization, whatever it is you want to do.
Um, well, it doesn't give you the right
to start talking trash about your job.
Yeah. Um, to airing your dissatisfaction Yeah.
At, at the, you know, at the lunch table or whatever.
Like, it's just, uh, not an option for you.
Yeah. I think, um, you know,
you hear different stories, you experience different things.
And I think what, for me, what, what I would love
for our listeners to get outta this
who might be in a dark place
or in a, let's say a hopeless place as it relates to work,
is no matter what you think
or feel, um, especially no matter what you feel,
you are not going to make things better for yourself
and certainly not for anyone else.
Mm-Hmm. By not handling yourself well. Mm-Hmm.
And I know you get in those moments
and it seems like, ah, well to heck with it anyway.
'cause I'm not gonna be here,
or I'm gonna give these people what they deserve,
or I'm gonna bad mouth,
or I'm gonna, like, toxicity doesn't bring hope to anybody.
Mm-Hmm. It, it might bring a dopamine rush, you know?
Mm-Hmm. It might feel good in the moment,
but at the end of the day, you are not making things better
for other people or for yourself or for yourself.
Yeah. And, and in fact, you're actually teaching yourself
some pretty negative behaviors
that if you reinforce those enough times, you might turn
around and go get your dream job, uh, and then,
and blow it, dude, and blow it
because you've learned to carry yourself.
Mm-Hmm. Um, mm-Hmm. A bad word. Mm-Hmm.
That I will say, you know, hope in real life family.
I wanna pause for a moment
and let you know about an opportunity
that I believe can help you find a bit more
hope in everyday life.
Listen, I know a lot of our viewers probably aren't a part
of a church, or maybe you gave up on the church a long time
ago and, and believe me, uh, possibly for good reason.
I understand. Uh,
but I don't want you to miss out on the hope
that you can actually experience by journeying alongside
of a group of people that really are seeking
God's best for their lives.
If you are the least bit curious, uh, we try to make this
as simple for you as we possibly can, wherever it is
that you digest digital content podcast, you can go
to the podcast story.
You can check it out on YouTube
and just search Hope Community Church.
You'll be able to find our messages
there and check those out.
Or if you actually want to tune in during a service time,
uh, you can go to get Hope TV at four 15
or 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
or you can tune in at nine 30
or 11:15 AM Eastern Standard time.
Again, that's at Get Hope tv.
We hope that you'll take a chance with us
and experience what it is God has for you in your life.
You're gonna find practical messages
that will help you find hope in
the everyday moments of your
life. Hope you'll check it out.
You know your people the most. Yeah.
So when it comes to this issue of work,
what do you think is the number one thing
that like people need to hear right now?
Yeah. I, I think number one,
you hit the first one outta the gate.
Like work is, we were created to work.
And so, and in today's world, I think
whether it's coming outta Covid or what Mm-Hmm.
I think there's two different types of people right now,
uh, in, in the world.
And, and I think what's weird is organizationally so many
of 'em are at the same place.
And I don't know how they got here,
but in my observation, folks either
are like picking up a ton of slack from other people
and they care so deeply about what they're doing.
They're overworked to the point of like,
they don't need a nap.
Like they need to refuel. Mm-Hmm. And so I see that a lot.
And to those people, I would say, Hey, you were created
to work, but you also were created to rest.
Like, God took a Sabbath on the, you know,
he took a rest on the seventh day.
That's a part of it. You know, we, we should rest so
that we can work just as much
or maybe more than we should work so that we can rest.
So rest is a part of it. So that's to, to one individual.
But on the other hand, if I'm just being honest, there's,
I think there's a lot of people right now that somehow just
don't feel the need to carry their own weight
as much as they used to.
Mm-Hmm. And so to those folks,
I would say, I know you're tired.
I know that the world is more disorienting than we
realize right now.
Mm-Hmm. From social media to,
we don't interact with people enough.
And I think people actually can give us fuel
to find our purpose.
And we don't interact with people the same way.
And so I would say, man, you can sit around
and complain about your job not being perfect, about
not necessarily having the energy
that you want to have to do your job.
And you can do that, but it's not going to help.
You're, you're actually, okay, so what now?
You're not going to live into what you were created
for in the image of God Mm-Hmm.
To be productive. And so you're actually going
to spin out into more helplessness and hopelessness
and potentially even bring others people with you.
And so I think there's a whole nother category over here
that's like, Hey, you need to work.
You actually need to put in the energy you need to put in,
put in the gas to be able to get it.
Now if your boss is a jerk, and the organization's terrible
and look, make a change, right?
We talked about that. Mm-Hmm. Find your purpose.
What's your vision statement? Go get it.
But, um, but it's not just
because you need to work hard, it's
because of what you said initially where we started,
you were created to be productive.
Mm-Hmm. You were created to be creative.
You were created to add value to subdue, to oversee.
And, um, so I think that's, that's one thing.
Like figure out which category you're in.
'cause I, I don't know that we've ever seen such a
dichotomy of that.
Um, now granted, I,
I didn't live in the fifties and sixties Mm-Hmm.
Um, I've heard stories.
Um, but I mean, it, it just seems like there was, um,
a greater understanding back then of like, Hey, you show up,
you go to work, you punch your time card,
and maybe people didn't make as much money
and maybe things weren't as creative,
but like, man, it seemed like families were stronger.
Hmm. Seemed like communities were stronger.
And so I would think that's a large part of, of, of it.
The other thing I would say is if, you know,
I I say regularly, you know, to our listeners
that maybe aren't following Jesus,
'cause I know we have some, um,
but I would say, man, to our listeners
that are following Jesus, that paradigm that you spoke to
about realizing that the secular
and the sacred are not separate Mm-Hmm.
They're, they're, they're one and the same.
And so where God has you, where you live, learn, work, play,
you have a responsibility
to actually be a light in those places.
And that actually is an act of worship. Mm-Hmm.
And so please, please, please
don't go through life thinking.
I do my church stuff over here
and maybe I serve in the kids' ministry, which if you go
to Hope, uh, which is the church
that actually puts this podcast together
and you don't serve in Kid City, we'd love to have you.
Um, but it, but it's not like,
that's not the spiritual side.
And then the work is the spiritual side.
Just the very act of being everything from being creative,
whether you're the plumber
or you're the guy who's cutting the grass,
or you're the painter, or you're the business
executive, you're the lawyer.
Just producing that for our society is worship all the way
through to the people that you rub shoulders with
who might need to see Jesus in a very tangible way.
Mm-Hmm. And so I think, man, if we could get
that outta this podcast and we could get a, a bunch
of people actually living that out, man,
I think that would take a bit more hope.
Mm-Hmm. Into the world. Mm-Hmm. mm-Hmm.
Dude, I don't How long are these?
Uh, we, I mean, are we done?
Yeah, we could be done, or we could do,
Can I tell one quick? Yeah, yeah,
Yeah. Super quick story. Yeah.
You, we don't even have to edit this out.
Ben just asked how long we had because he didn't know,
or you can't edit it out.
Either one. Yeah. I'm
Like two a DD for podcasts, I feel like.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. So you just gotta
tell me like, okay, it's done.
No, we're Good. Um, so I worked at Starbucks
for like almost a year.
Okay. And it was outta school.
I thought I was gonna go into the publishing world.
So I had done an internship at a magazine afterwards.
They're like, Hey, we wanna hire you,
but we gotta wait a few months, um,
for this position to open up.
So I'm like, in this, in-between time allie's,
a dental hygienist, she's like, her career is off
and running, and I worked the morning shift at Starbucks.
I would wake up and put that green apron on. Yeah.
There's nothing more emasculating Right.
Than putting an apron on to go to work. Yeah.
Um, and just in a bad head space, you know? Yeah.
Like, just the headspace was like, I'm fail, I'm failing.
I'm failing Allie, I'm failing myself.
Like, I so bad Headspace. And, um,
Your Starbucks priest is gonna love seeing you the next
time you roll up in the,
Um, so then I'm at Starbucks.
This corporate trainer comes in,
and I don't remember her name.
I don't remember what she trained us on,
but then I just remember when she's leaving, she like kind
of stops and like thinks and then looks at us
and then goes, I wanna tell you why you're
important to your community.
And we're like, okay.
And she goes, it's because you don't serve coffee.
You serve people. Hmm.
And then she gave us this vision that I,
I don't, I'm gonna paraphrase here.
I don't remember exactly, but it was like this vision
of like, you're serving coffee to the single mom who like,
just finished her first job.
She's got an hour to herself before her second job.
Like, this is her only time in the day to herself.
And you're serving coffee to the dude who's exhausted
because he's working 80 hours a week
to get his tech company off the ground
and make his dream come true.
Like you're serving the, the guy who's, you know,
just came back from his overnight shift as a firefighter
and, and wants to drop his kids off to school.
Like, these are the people you're serving. Right.
You're not serving coffee, you're serving people.
And I worked there for like four
more months, something like that.
And that alone, I, at the time, I wouldn't have realized
that that was a vision statement
or that she was basically telling us your job is spiritual.
Yeah. Um, and it's ministry.
I didn't, wouldn't have phrased it
that way, but that's what happened.
And it totally changed the game for four months.
I loved working at Starbucks for that last four months.
Yeah. 'cause I, I, I caught on to what she was saying. Yeah.
Um, so again, like, just to harp on it one last time,
if you can figure out how your job itself
is, uh, serving the world
and moving the creation project forward,
if you can fill in the blank of, my job serves people,
because fill in that blank,
it goes a long way toward fulfillment
and seeing yourself as a part of a bigger picture.
And I'm not just holed up in my office for nine hours a day.
Yeah. Um, I'm serving people while I'm doing this.
If you can get there, um,
at least I was personally shocked at
how much you can take a job like Starbucks
and suddenly realize like, I'm a valuable part
to my community here.
Yeah. It's pretty crazy. Yeah.
So that's great. Yeah.
I think we'll end on that one. Boom.
Okay. Like, I've got like,
do you have time for four more stories? Yeah. Okay.
We do. We're gonna turn the microphones off
and we'll save it for the next episode.
No hope in real life family.
I want to take a moment and let you know about a resource
that we have for you, for your own personal development,
spiritual enrichment, and really a way for you
to find a bit more hope in real life.
We have a tool for you called the Hope in Real Life app.
It offers things like parenting tips, financial resources,
marriage insights, uh, if you're looking for it,
there's even Bible reading plans in there.
And there's a community
where you can even share prayer requests
and know that someone is praying for you for whatever it is
that you have going on in your life.
It's available right now in the Apple App
Store or in Google Play.
You can search hope in real life in both stores,
or you can use the download link that is in the show notes.
Remember, tomorrow can be better than today
and hope is possible even in real life.
Hey, listen, thank you all so much for, uh,
tuning into this episode.
Everything that we talked about.
I mean, even the, the question that Ben just ended with,
we'll make sure that's down in the show notes.
We'll make sure some type of framework for recognizing
and looking for, Hey, what's the vision
for my life, for my job?
We'll make sure that we've got that there for you.
Hey, look, if you've got someone,
maybe it's a college student, maybe it's a brother
or sister, somebody else that you know, that you work with
that might be dissatisfied
with what's going on in the work life balance
or in the workspace, please share this content with them.
You never know how valuable it could be
to just offer somebody little bit of hope.
Love you guys. Thanks for tuning in, Ben.
Thanks for being here with us again.
Thanks For having Me. Yes, sir.
We'll see
you guys on the next episode.
Thanks for tuning into this episode
of The Hope In in Real Life podcast.
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