The Role of Accountability in Helping Others

Summary

---

The Collage Podcast

Episode: The Role of Accountability in Helping Others

Release Date: March 8, 2026

Host: Jeff (Feed My Sheep)
Guests: Brian Hawkins (Executive Director, Cove House, Copperas Cove), Caleb (local business owner)
Location: Feed My Sheep, Temple, TX

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the complexities of “helping” people—especially in nonprofit settings—when those being helped seem unwilling to move beyond basic relief into recovery or restoration. The conversation explores the tension between compassion, stewardship of resources, organizational mission, and the concept of accountability. Multiple perspectives are brought together: Jeff as the nonprofit director, Brian as a seasoned minister and shelter leader, and Caleb as a younger business owner. Together, they dissect what it means to help others well, when helping becomes enabling, and how kindness and accountability intersect in real-life situations.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Relief, Recovery, Restoration: The Helping Model (00:22–04:36)

• The episode follows up on a continuing discussion about how nonprofits—and well-meaning individuals—move people from immediate relief to recovery and finally, restoration.
• Jeff questions: How long should support be extended to someone who seems uninterested in leaving the “relief” phase?
• The team agrees that many organizations struggle when their goals for individuals (restoration) don’t align with the individuals’ own intentions.

2. Choosing a Lifestyle & Accepting Choices (07:54–13:14)

• Brian: “Some people don’t think life is supposed to look like we think it’s supposed to look like.” (07:54)
• Both Jeff and Brian note that some individuals consciously choose homelessness or a relief-only lifestyle to avoid responsibility and accountability.
• Brian: “The hardest thing for people to do is understand that some people don’t want what we would call better.”
• They’ve shifted from calling exits “evictions” to language that emphasizes client choice: “We agree with your decision to no longer participate in our program.” (13:14)

3. Stewardship of Resources & Emotional Limits (13:25–17:11)

• Extending resources to those uninterested in change comes at the expense of those earnest about moving forward.
• Brian: “You can spend money one time...so whatever you expend financially, emotionally, [or] physically on any one person, it no longer exists for somebody else.” (14:09)
• The group discusses the Christian ethic of “the least of these,” with Brian pointing out Scripture also emphasizes accountability (16:05) and stewardship.

4. Practical Accountability: Setting Expectations (18:18–22:53)

• Brian outlines his shelter’s approach: “Our little slogan is we're a launch pad, not a crash pad.” (19:18)
• Expectations are clearly explained up front, with regular benchmarks and follow-ups. If there’s no progress in 30 days, the program exits the participant.
• Many opt out upon hearing about requirements: curfews, check-ins, or work.

5. Business Parallels & True Kindness (23:47–29:16)

• The parallels between business and nonprofit worlds: in both, accountability and expectations lead to healthy outcomes for all involved.
• Keeping someone in a job or program they show no interest in is not kind—to them or others.
• Brian: “Sometimes there's kindness in the withholding...but when you keep providing, you're telling them, ‘I don't think you're capable.’ That's degrading.” (28:30)

6. The Fine Line: Empowering vs Enabling (29:16–39:11)

• The challenge is knowing when “help” merely enables someone to maintain their current situation.
• Jeff: “Am I empowering a person to possibly move towards options...or am I enabling them and keeping them in the place they are currently at?” (29:56)
• Examples are discussed: panhandling as a lucrative job ($100–$150/hour in some estimates) and well-intentioned but mismatched gifts (e.g., 18 pizza boxes given to one uninterested recipient).

7. Mission Clarity and Donor Stewardship (37:09–43:04)

• Each organization must be clear about its mission—some may focus solely on immediate relief; others on transformation.
• Brian: “If God tells you to give that money away, then do it. But if you're doing it to make you feel better, that's probably not what God wants you to do.” (37:17)

8. Respecting Adult Choices (45:39–47:17)

• Organizations and donors must acknowledge personal agency—even if the choice is toward continued homelessness or dependency.
• Brian: “People choose us over other shelters all the time. People choose homelessness over either shelter all the time...The hard part is accepting that choice.” (46:59)

9. On Hitting ‘Bottom’ & The Weight of Accountability (47:18–52:04)

• Discussing addiction or ongoing need: enabling can delay—but not prevent—a person reaching the “bottom” where real change may occur.
• Brian: “The only way for them to learn is the consequences of that wrong choice...What keeps parents enabling is fear: if I cut them off, they’ll die and it’ll be my fault. Nothing could be further from the truth.” (48:06)

10. Detachment, Dignity, and Love (54:22–61:50)

• Helping must be separated from feeling sorry; maintain respect for the person’s dignity and choices.
• Brian: “My job wasn’t to feel sorry for them. My job was to help resource them.” (54:22)
• Detachment is crucial: “Quit feeling emotionally attached to that decision. They’re not trying to hurt our feelings. They don’t know us.” (56:16)
• Jeff: “I can be kind with no strings attached to people and love on them as human beings. The resources I provide do not have to be that same way. There’s expectations in everything we do.” (57:02)
• Emphasize process over outcome: not everyone will reach restoration; kindness doesn’t mean rescuing against their will.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Brian Hawkins [07:54]: “You can’t do it for them, and you can’t do it in spite of them.”
• Brian Hawkins [13:25]: “If you’re not careful, you exhaust so much energy on the ones who don’t want what you’re trying to give, you don’t have any energy left for the ones who do.”
• Brian Hawkins [16:05]: “The scripture also says if a man won’t work, he shouldn’t eat.”
• Jeff [19:18]: “We’re a launch pad, not a crash pad.”
• Brian Hawkins [28:30]: “Sometimes there’s kindness in the withholding...when we keep providing, you’re telling them, ‘I don’t think you’re capable.’ That’s degrading.”
• Jeff [29:56]: “Am I empowering a person to possibly move towards options...or am I enabling them and keeping them in the place they are currently at?”
• Brian Hawkins [46:59]: “People choose us over other shelters all the time. People choose homelessness over either shelter all the time...The hard part is accepting that choice.”
• Brian Hawkins [56:16]: “Quit feeling emotionally attached to that decision. They’re not trying to hurt our feelings. They don’t know us.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening and Episode Setup: 00:22–04:36
• Lifestyle Choices and Nonprofit Challenges: 07:54–13:14
• Resource Stewardship and Emotional Limits: 13:25–17:11
• Accountability in Practice: 18:18–22:53
• Kindness vs. Enabling and Business World Parallels: 23:47–29:16
• Panhandling and Mismatched Help: 31:23–39:11
• Clarifying Mission and Stewarding Donor Gifts: 37:09–43:04
• Respecting Choice and Program Philosophy: 45:39–47:17
• Parents, Tough Love, and Hitting Bottom: 47:18–52:04
• Separation of Emotion & Action, Dignity & Detachment: 54:22–61:50
• Wrap-up, Next Topics, and Parting Insights: 61:50–66:51

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, candid, and often humorous, balancing deep empathy with practical realism. There’s a shared insistence on dignity and respect for those being helped—understandable skepticism for easy solutions, and a recognition of the limits and costs of compassion. Biblical references and real-world examples ground the discussion, making it accessible and nuanced.

---

Summary Takeaways

• Not everyone wants to move beyond relief; respecting adult agency is crucial.
• Clear expectations, accountability, and resource stewardship protect both organizations and those most ready to move forward.
• Kindness does not always mean giving; it sometimes means withholding or redirecting efforts.
• Enabling can feel compassionate but often strips individuals of dignity and agency.
• Detachment—from outcomes and emotional enmeshment—is vital for healthy helping.
• Each organization (and individual) must clarify its mission and accept that sometimes others will choose a different path.
• Ultimately, helping is “walking with,” not forcing, and respecting choices even when it hurts.

---

For more discussions on practical compassion, local stories, and the realities of serving others in the community, stay tuned to The Collage Podcast.

Transcript

[Brian Hawkins]

Foreign.

[Jeff]

Hey, we want to welcome everybody to another edition of the Collage podcast. We appreciate you being there, wherever you are. Okay? We appreciate you being there. We appreciate you tuning in to hear this. We're going to continue a discussion slightly different. Okay. But along the same path. We've been going down this path because we're really trying to navigate. And then to talk about this difficulty in this world, in the world that we're in, of this mindset of where do we fit in this path of immediate relief, recovery, and then restoration. Okay? So these three models is what, you know, the Red Cross. That's what they use on tragic events. Okay? Relief, recovery, restoration, they all are necessary in this pattern. Today we're going to look at kind of the broad topic is what is interesting is to look along the way is how long do you keep working with somebody who's staying solely on their own intent? For all of our perception that does not have any desire to get out of the relief phase, okay? Because in the nonprofit world, we. So just to back up, and we're going to get started here, I'll tell you who we got. We're at Feed My Sheep and Temple. Not. Not that that matters, but so you can have a point of reference if you're listening out there. Temple is a little town in Central Texas. Okay? So I've got. So guess I got Brian, and he works in Copper's Cove. So Cove, an even smaller town, even smaller town than Temple, but in. In ours, in the same area, but it's different. Cove is a different town than Temple. We got Caleb again. So Caleb is coming. He runs a business. So Brian works in the nonprofit world. Got business sense, has to navigate in world. But all of us, I'm the director here at Feed My Sheep. So we have three different perspectives for all of you out there. Nancy bailed out and she had no good excuse to not be here today. So if you happen to see her out and about, point that out to her. But we're going to look at this because in the nonprofit world and in the business, I'm interested to see, because we all have theology in our belief system as well. Okay? So we're going to have these things coincide here is to see if Brian and I's theory on how long you keep somebody going on, even if they don't ever want to get to restoration, okay? If that's never their goal, it doesn't matter what your organization's goal for them is. They're not going to get there if they don't want to get there. They're not going to get there. Okay. If they don't even want to get to the recovery phase, because there's some steps that they have to do in recovery. Doesn't matter what your organization's goal is. They just want to stay here. I want this brought to me. I want this. I want this. So that's the discussion. Okay, so we'll go around again. So, Caleb, tell them again a little bit who you are and so they'll recognize your voice when you interject.

[Caleb]

Yeah, just was here last week and it was a great time, you know, couldn't miss it this time. No, last week was, was a great talk. And I know Jeff for about, oh man, it's been, it's been going on about 10 years, I guess, at least, which is crazy to think about. And he, he, he helped me through a lot in my, my, my soccer career. Career and umhp. And you know, he, he pushed me in the right directions and got to catch up with him recently. And now we're getting to talk about all the great things. So it's a, it's a good time.

[Jeff]

And then you're coming. You were, you were speaking on behalf younger and business owner.

[Caleb]

Yes.

[Jeff]

You're new in the business world, not new, but this is you. You have a business of your own.

[Caleb]

Yes, sir.

[Jeff]

Okay, so we're going to interject. Brian.

[Brian Hawkins]

All right. I'm Brian Hawkins. I'm the executive director at the COVID House in Copper Scove. I've been doing that for about 11 and a half years. I've been a licensed minister for 39 years and have worked with different levels of nonprofit, different levels of homelessness and needs based ministerial support for almost 40 years. And I've seen everything you can think of. And I still get surprised. We always joke about we need a TV show because you could not write the stuff that we do if you sat around the table. You could not make this stuff up.

[Jeff]

And I agree, like to the end, I'm not going to interject on that. But like every day, like Casey and I, like you would like to believe that I have you and I, between the two of. Not that, not that we're experts or anything that you would go. I think I've seen about every possible scenario for a human being to be in.

[Brian Hawkins]

You think, you'd think, but then you'd be wrong. You were wrong.

[Jeff]

Like every day, still something new every day, every day. Like I'll go to Casey at the end of the day and I'll go, hmm, didn't see that one coming.

[Brian Hawkins]

And you're like, all the time.

[Jeff]

All the time. And I say the same thing. If there was way, and there's no way, like, this is, this is the, the drawback. If there was a way to show what goes on here every day at your ministry and at this ministry, people would tune in. This would be the thing. They would not believe television, it is unbelievable. But out of it, it wouldn't be disrespectful to me because we know the people, but it could be perceived as disrespectful. And people watching ours.

[Brian Hawkins]

Right?

[Jeff]

And you're going, well, can't do it because of that.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because we're not trying to make anybody look bad.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

We just can't help being surprised by some of the stuff that they're. They say and do.

[Jeff]

But it's just.

[Brian Hawkins]

Anyway, I don't want to digress. No.

[Jeff]

But for today, it cracks me and I'm, I'm. I'll tell you on this, okay? So, like, not that this sentence is loaded, okay? Brian, in this world is the real deal. Like, he walks the walk in it. He knows this path and has been doing it. So that takes several things. The heart to do that, the heart for God to do that, and duration. You have to walk in this walk for a bit to have to go, man, he's walked the walk. He understands a little bit of this. So I'm intrigued by the discussion today, okay? And so we're just going to launch off into this and to see where it goes. The discussion today is let's pretend that we have an individual over here, okay? Because we have, in our world, we have a lot of programs. There's a lot of stuff out there. And in the governmental type deal, there's a lot of funding out there that go to, quote, unquote, support people and to help move them up in the latter. Okay, so let's ask this question. Let's just start here. In the nonprofit world, so much of what we do is dealing with people in our perception, that don't seem to want to move out of where they are. Okay? Is that a fair statement?

[Brian Hawkins]

That's a fair statement. And I would tell you that the thing that I've learned is you can't do it for them, okay? And you can't do it in spite of them. And so if they don't want to do it, the hardest thing for, for people to do is to understand that some people don't think life is supposed to look like we think it's supposed to look like. Okay. So I have a hard time with the mentality of people who choose to stay homeless. Now there are a lot of people that they had something wrong go in their life. They. They need a place to plant their feet and move forward. But what's hard for people to understand is there's a certain group of people that have chosen to stay homeless because they don't want any of the responsibility or any of the accountability that goes with what we would call moving forward. And so because we go to work every day and we earn a living and we keep a roof over our family's heads and we take care of all these things, it's very hard for us to understand the mindset of somebody who doesn't want to do that. Now, who we normally focus on helping is the people who do want to do that and just need the opportunity. But I think the mistake we make is assuming that everybody wants to do what we would call better, and so we're going to help them no matter what. And the truth is, some of them are don't want that. And, you know, I don't want to get. Turn this into something political, but we do this as a country. We assume because we love this country so much that the rest of the world should be like us or want to be like the United States. And sometimes we go out and try to just make that happen. And, you know, I don't know that that's what we're supposed to be doing. So what we focus on is the people who do want to move forward, we give them those resources. And the people who don't, we accept their choice and allow them to go do whatever else it is they're gonna do. They don't do it from our property with our resources.

[Jeff]

Okay, fair. You expecting a call from Copper's Cove?

[Brian Hawkins]

No. No, nobody knows I'm here.

[Jeff]

I was like, what are the percentage

[Brian Hawkins]

chances that I get a call every once in a while from the United States? I don't know who that is either. So.

[Jeff]

Interesting. And we can't not stay there for a second because we're going to come back and look at. Because obvious question that's going to come at a deeper deal is how do you discern who's serious and who's not? How do you discern? Am I trying to force my theory of what they should do as opposed to enlightening them on possibilities they didn't even know about? So then some of those. Okay, so in it, what's interesting is I would bet you and I, okay, Caleb may be even surprised, but you and I would. It doesn't even make me miss a beat to go, yeah, there's people that choose to live like this. Like, this is not necessarily. Like maybe some event occurred way back when and they're like, that caused this moment, but they're like, yeah, I'm fine with that. I don't have to do nothing. Well, I stay in a house, but it's not mine. It's abandoned. There's no electricity, but, oh, well. And I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. Nobody's looking for me. Nobody's hunting for me. They choose this life.

[Brian Hawkins]

They do.

[Jeff]

And there's people out there listening this that are going, bull crud.

[Brian Hawkins]

No, they do, though. I see it all the time. And. And they would look at us and say, well, you get up at a certain time every morning because you got to be somewhere to earn a living. And if you don't earn enough money, you're going to be out of that house that is so important to you anyway. And I don't have any of those headaches. I don't have any of that stress.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

And some of them clearly have chosen it. And years ago, when we moved somebody out of the program, we used to refer that as evicting them because it seemed like it made sense. And so we'd write them up their eviction letter from the program and give it to them. Well, about five years ago, as I was praying through what we're going to do different and how to make this look different, I just felt like, okay, that's not really what's happening. If they're getting moved out of the program, it is because of their choices. They either break the rules or they don't meet the milestones. So we're not getting rid of them. They have chosen something else, and we're agreeing with that choice.

[Jeff]

Okay.

[Brian Hawkins]

And the challenge that we had run into was we wanted to fight that choice for them so badly that then we'd get basically fed up and we'd kick them out. Well, now we're not doing that now in a pretty short period of time. And we can go into the markers that we look for, we figure out if they're going to do the things or not. And then the letter they get now says, we agree with your decision to no longer participate in our program and you'll have this amount of time to vacate the premises. And so we've changed that whole dynamic to where we didn't make a choice to get rid of them. We agree with their choice to not participate in the program.

[Jeff]

Yeah. And that's difficult, isn't it?

[Brian Hawkins]

It is. It was a hard, it's a hard thing to do. But what we found, and I was talking to Nancy about this a little bit yesterday.

[Jeff]

The one who's not here.

[Brian Hawkins]

The one who's not here. Yeah. You know, John always referred to himself as the disciple Jesus, love, loved.

[Jeff]

Yeah.

[Brian Hawkins]

We'll just refer to Nancy as the one who is not here. That's because we love you, Nancy. But what ends up happening if you're not careful is you exhaust so much energy on the ones who don't want what you're trying to give them that you don't have any energy left for the ones who do. Okay. And now everybody loses. You've wasted the resource because you know, you know you can spend money one time.

[Jeff]

Yeah.

[Brian Hawkins]

And then it's gone.

[Caleb]

Yeah.

[Brian Hawkins]

It's no different in your business.

[Jeff]

Right.

[Brian Hawkins]

You know, you can't, you can't spend it three times, you get to spend it once. So whatever you expend financially, emotionally, physically on any one person, it no longer exists for somebody else. Fair. So if you insist on investing that in somebody who doesn't want it, then you're no longer being a good steward. You, because of whatever inside of you, your selfishness, your pride, your desire. I'm going to help them no matter what. You now squander a resource that God has given you that would have been far better used on somebody who did want it, who was going to do something with it and who is going to move forward. And then everybody loses because you've wasted the resource. So when you, when you realize that's what you're doing, then you start setting, putting together some milestones and some markers where you can realize, okay, this person doesn't want this. And so we're, we don't, we're not gonna start disliking them. We're not gonna make their life hard. We're just gonna quit wasting resources. We're gonna be good stewards and take these resources and use them on the people who are trying to move forward. Now what a lot of good hearted, well meaning people will do is they'll quote you the scripture where it says, well, where you've done for the least of these, okay, for me you've heard it a million times.

[Jeff]

Especially when you like here in our world, if you do, somebody has made decisions on their own accord that they now the resources are no longer There they will say, first thing, I thought you said you were a Christian. I thought you said you were Christian. And then if they really scriptural and they knew it was coming, then they're going to say, but it says whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me. This is what you're going to do to. How many times you heard that?

[Brian Hawkins]

A million?

[Jeff]

A million.

[Brian Hawkins]

And I've gotten to where I respond with two things. One is the scripture also says if a man won't work, he shouldn't eat.

[Jeff]

Okay?

[Brian Hawkins]

So if you're not going to put any effort in on your own and be a good steward of the resources God has given you, then you're going to die of attrition. And that's just. That's going to be.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

The other lesson that I, I've put in my mindset of and how we came up with these milestones and markers is when Jesus was talking to the rich young ruler and he said, what do I have to do to have eternal life? And Jesus said, we got to sell all this stuff and follow me. Well, Jesus didn't really care about what he had or how much money he had. What he needed him to do is change his focus about what was important.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

But the lesson for us is when the young ruler said, that's too much, and walked away, Jesus did not invest any more resources in him. He accepted his choice and he went back to reinvesting in those who were going to use those resources and be good stewards of them. He didn't say, hey, you're making a big mistake. He didn't say, I know you're in a tough spot. And so I'm going to argue with you until you realize what's right, which is what we do.

[Jeff]

Yeah.

[Brian Hawkins]

When people reject resources, we want to say, hey, you're making a big mistake. Nobody gets this opportunity, you know, blah, blah, blah. When really what we should be doing is saying, I accept your decision and maybe someday God's going to work them back around into a place where they can be better stewards of their life and their opportunities that he's given them. Because what we fail to realize sometimes is when we have a resource and we provide that to somebody else. Now it is their job to be a good steward of that resource. Now the problem we have is we want to force them to be good stewards. And sometimes they're just not. And so for us to then continue our good stewardship, we have to respect the fact that they're just not going to do anything good with it, so we're not going to waste any more either.

[Caleb]

Okay, and what do you think that that looks like as far as helping somebody become a good steward? You know, like, how do you, how do you think that you can start leading someone in the right direction? I mean, I mean, how do you do it? I have the 30 years, I guess, is my question.

[Brian Hawkins]

Okay, so it's not easy. Um, the, the first thing is just to example. It just to example stewardship. But most people don't know what that word is. Church people would know what stewardship is. Most people don't. What it really means is just being a good manager of whatever resources God has given you. And that, you know, we focus a lot on money, but it's also your health, it's your time, it's your emotional resources. All these things that God has given us, we can need to manage it. Well, I'll, I'll use that word because more people understand managing it than stewarding it. So when, when we take somebody in the frontline, thing that we do is we go over all of our expectations and what we have found is if you don't tell people what the expectations are, they will, they will miss them every time, 100%. So first thing we do is lay them out. We tell them all the things that, that we're going to be looking for. We, they have to initial about 14 different markers that they agree to try to achieve. And we tell them that our little slogan is we're a launch pad, not a crash pad. So we're a good place for you to plant your feet and push up, but we're not a good place to lay around.

[Caleb]

I like that.

[Brian Hawkins]

And so up front, very first meeting, here's your expectations. And then for the first 30 days, we follow up with them weekly to make sure they're meeting those milestones. So if we get to week one and nothing's happened, that's when we start talking to them about, okay, we're serious about these expectations and we're serious about these resources, how they've been provided, what's expected of you to do with them. And then they've got 30 days roughly to start moving in the right direction. If we get to the end of 30 days and they have done nothing, then that's usually where their time at the program ends. But all during that time is when we're telling them, you have a responsibility to manage these resources. You have a roof over your head that for right now costs you nothing. You have food to put in your stomach, you have toiletries, you have a bed, you have all these things. But there's an expectation that you're going to do the right things and the positive things with that. And when they make the choice not to, then we disagree with that. So part of it is just laying down the expectations. Part of it is four follow ups, letting them know, here's your resources, here's the expectation of you managing those resources properly. And then if they've made some movement, then, then they can continue working. We're basically going to. Our goal is to be the last agency they have to work with before they're in permanent housing. But that's about accountability. And that's a word that a lot of people don't like. And it's a word that when you start using it, people shy away from you. I can't tell you how many times somebody has called our agency and said, well, I need a bed. Okay, well, here's some of the things we're going to expect. Oh, y' all have a curfew. Never mind.

[Jeff]

Yeah, agreed. Yep.

[Brian Hawkins]

Oh, I've got to check in. Never mind. Oh, I've got to work. Never mind. So a lot of them, we save both of us time and energy because we're laying out those expectations up front. And a lot of them just decide, I'm not doing that. But for the ones that do, then we start doing those milestones and markers. Now, by the time we get into 90 days in with them, we got a pretty good idea which way they're going to. Now, we've still had some people that have had catastrophic failures after that. They'll bring drugs or alcohol onto the property. That is an automatic deal breaker. They can come back after a window. If we saw, if we have a bed available again. But there's some automatic deal breakers, but most of them are using that 30 to 60 days to help them understand the management institution and to learn to manage their resources. We want them to see them as their resources that they have to manage. It's not our resources that they're managing. We've given them to them to now manage. And it's like in, in your business, I'm sure you have employees, you can't do it. All right, Right. So you have to have people that you trust and you give them certain things to manage. But what do you do if they don't manage them very well?

[Caleb]

Well, then you've got to, you know, again, set expectations and follow through with whatever you say is going to be that like kicking somebody out. I mean, it'd be the same thing as firing somebody, I guess. You know, I mean, just if they don't meet the expectations that you've laid out, then fortunately, you have to let them go.

[Brian Hawkins]

Right. And that's not what you want to do.

[Caleb]

Right.

[Brian Hawkins]

You don't wake up as a business owner going, man, I hope I got to get rid of everybody today, because that means you got to do everybody's job until you replace them all. Nobody wants that. I'm not in the. I'll say. The business of running a homeless shelter. You're not in the business of doing feed my sheep and taking care of people because you don't want to help people. We're doing this because we want to help. But I've learned the hard lesson that you can't make people do well with the help. And I've also had to learn the hard lesson that what I think is moving forward is not moving forward for everybody. Okay.

[Jeff]

And so here's interesting, like, that where we're heading, because I would not disagree at all. Like, in this, like, Caleb, I would go, if you got an employee, and you go, man, I need you to do this, this, and this. He does none of those things. And to keep him around, you're not doing right by your business. I mean, you couldn't look at that. And then I would also say I've now wheedled, like, whittled it down a little bit more. I'm not sure you're even being kind to that person by keeping him around in a position that he doesn't even want to be in. Okay. You can look at it in your man, but I really like his kid, and I really like his wife. She's really sweet and whatever. In the business world. And, oh, man, I don't want him to lose his house. And we make all these suppositions that we don't want, but I'm not sure you're being kind to keep this person in that place that he's shown he really doesn't even want to be right.

[Brian Hawkins]

And then what happens to the rest of your employees?

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

You got five other people out there working like crazy.

[Caleb]

Yeah.

[Brian Hawkins]

And they see this guy getting away with everything. Then what you end up with is the only person you have left is the person who doesn't want to do anything because everybody else has already bailed out right now.

[Jeff]

So interesting on this. And so then in the business world, it makes. In both of our worlds, it should make sense. Okay. But business, you can at least have this variable that you can look at net profit. At the end of the day, you got to make money.

[Caleb]

Sure.

[Jeff]

And you're going to keep those around. If you got a salesman selling your pools and the dude ain't signed a deal in the last six months, guess what? He's a former employee. Okay. I mean, because you got to make money. Okay. Pretty easy. And you can justify. Yeah, nonprofit, we can get confused because there is money that plays in the resources. But at the end of the day, you want to help all of those people, and then you also. You don't want. At the end of the day, at the start, you never go into any of the stuff a feeding a feed my sheep going, whoo, I hope you're going to set up to fail. I want to make sure that I can tell you the sentence that you don't want that. But it's the nonprofit. I'll tell you this. Here's the struggle, okay? If you lay down expectations on a human being, which I don't know, we would maybe agree that in the sports world, here's the position you're playing, here's what it looks like, here's what I want you to do in this game. I want you to do this, this, this, and this. Okay? Can you do that?

[Brian Hawkins]

Yeah. Okay.

[Jeff]

We would never argue that expectations on a human being in a relationship are wrong or unjust in the nonprofit world. I can't even tell you in the last six months how many other people that are working in the nonprofit world will come and say, well, that's just not nice, that's unkind that you did that to that person. What do you mean? It's unkind? And I would say so for mine. I've now taken the word back to how does it look to be truly kind to. And kind and caring to me are kind of one in the same. How to be kind and caring to a person, does it truly mean to keep pouring stuff on them that they don't even want? Is that kind?

[Brian Hawkins]

I don't think so. I think that ties back into. Part of it goes back to accountability, and part of it goes back to when you want the best for somebody that's not always just giving them whatever they want. Okay. I use the example of children, okay? And I don't want to get sidetracked on whether you should spank your kids or not, but I got spanked when I was a little kid. That's just the way it was. So take that for what you will. But when I wanted to touch a hot stove because there was something on it that looked cool and I wanted to get my hands on it. And my mom or dad said, don't do that. And I reached for that stove again, and they pulled me away from that stove and spanked my behind. Well, they didn't like doing that. That wasn't the nicest thing they could have done to me, but it was the best thing they could do for me because the only other alternative is to just wait around until I've seriously injured myself and then say, well, I guess you won't do that again. So sometimes there's kindness in the withholding of what we're trying to do in the moment. But what a lot of people don't understand about providing for the people that we think. And I say we by people who work and have income and all those things. When we see somebody that doesn't work and we don't think that they have income, we feel like, well, there's all these things they need and I'm going to give it to them. And really, in some ways, you're just telling them, I don't think you're capable of doing this yourself, and you're not smart enough or strong enough or you just can't do it. So I'll do it for you. And even if you reject it and you don't want it, I refuse your dignity to make your own decisions. I will continue to force this resource on you until you do things my way, and then you'll be better.

[Jeff]

Exact. Okay.

[Brian Hawkins]

And it's degrading to people, which pushes

[Caleb]

them farther away in terms of. Right.

[Jeff]

I agree. Okay. So here. That's where I. So. And we would say mine. Doing that, taking somebody's dignity and their ability to make decisions for themselves away from them is, I would say, unkind.

[Brian Hawkins]

I'd agree.

[Jeff]

And selfish. Okay. So, like, that's where I'm. I'm kind of coming to in my transformation. It feels good for the person doing it. Oh, I saw Brian over here, and I. I thought he needed McDonald's because he had that sign up. So I got him a whole bunch of McDonald's and bottled water and this and this. And I leave and I feel good. But I've told Brian, hey, you know what? I don't think that you can do anything for yourself, and I'm going to do it for you. There's assistance. Okay. So then we. I get it. We get into difficult areas. Okay. That you could go. If I was philosophically. Okay. Because Brian and Caleb are smart. So let's say then somebody I'm on the other side, which I'm not. Okay? So but if I'm on the other side, I'm like, well, hold on, these people are drowning. They could die. You're going to sit on the side of the pool and not give them the resources they need to get out of the pool? What would you say to that?

[Brian Hawkins]

So what I would say to that is what is the time frame that they've needed that. Okay, so let's say you see a panhandler, okay. And it's the very first time you've seen them. So it's possible that something catastrophic happened in their life. They can't get a job for whatever reason, so now they resorted to the only thing they feel like they can do. So how long are they doing that? So now if you see the same person out there six months later, now you got to start asking yourself, am I helping or hurting?

[Jeff]

Okay, fair.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because.

[Jeff]

Fair.

[Brian Hawkins]

What a lot of people don't really realize, and I won't get too deep in the weeds on the math on this is, well, people will say to me all the time, well, did you see that homeless guy on the corner? Why aren't you helping him?

[Jeff]

Right kid there.

[Brian Hawkins]

So I'll tell him two things. One, because I can't kidnap him. That's illegal. He's got to want help.

[Jeff]

Okay.

[Brian Hawkins]

But more importantly, I'll tell them, don't assume that he's homeless.

[Jeff]

Fair.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because that's probably his job.

[Jeff]

Yep.

[Brian Hawkins]

And people will say all the time, oh, nobody would do that for a job. I said, well, you don't know how much they're, they're making. I, I think, and I've talked to several of them and I have. I work part time at the Chick Fil a and Copper's Cove. So I have a window where I can see panhandlers right out at the corner. And I estimate that they probably take in between eighty and a hundred dollars an hour.

[Jeff]

Okay, great. So cash. Cash.

[Brian Hawkins]

And, and the one who chose not to be here today told me yesterday that the average estimate in the city of Temple is up to 300 a day is what they make panhandling. And that's tax free income, cash. So if you make $100 an hour, if you had a taxable job, you'd have to make 130 to 140 an hour. That is major organization, CEO level income. That's a quarter of a million dollars a year. So don't be fooled by that now are they investing it? Are they paying for a house? I don't know. Probably not. I doubt it. But don't assume that they're trying to get by on five or six dollars a day because they're getting five or six dollars a car that stops to help them.

[Jeff]

Yeah. I'll tell you like I have. This is nothing, Nate. We're not going down that path. But just to give people slight insight, this is just our perspective, okay? Because people can argue, whatever. Okay. I will ask the people here at Feed My Sheep. They would call it flashing sign. Okay? So flash inside means I'm gonna hold up the deal. We'll work for food, you know, and all that stuff. Hey, how much do you hope to make doing that? 100, 150, you know? 100, 150. How long does it take you to do that? All day, usually about two hours most. Okay. And you're like. And then they stop because that's all they need for that day. Okay? And so then an hour might be

[Brian Hawkins]

all they need for the week. You might not see them for several days.

[Jeff]

Agree. And then. And then in again. I'm not going to get down. Every person has a right to spend the money where they would want to spend. Okay, whatever. But there was one on 31st Street. I went because the police will call me sometimes because it's not legal to flash sign panhandle in the city of Temple, okay? They don't want to arrest that person. They want. If this one says, I'm hungry, okay, I need some help. They'll say, jeff, hey, go check this guy out on 31st street, okay? And see if you can bring him into resources. I'll go, okay. This guy. Go over there. He was. He'd been there for a bit. This is six months ago. Whatever. Okay? He's in one location. He's agreeable because I can. It's going to get cold. And I was going to take him to the warming shelter. Okay, okay. So we go to where he's keeping his stuff. Okay? So that's over in the bushes. Not where he was. We go over to where his cart was. I'll never Forget, he had 18. 18 Little Caesar's pizza boxes that were fairly fresh. 18 because he was near a Little Caesar's. This is nothing negative on little, but that happened to be where he was. 18 different people invested in pizza for him. Okay? So here, feed my sheep. That's almost one whole lunch. I could serve 200 people with. 1800 people. 1800, okay, 18 pizzas. So whatever. So I go there, here's his car, he's entitled to have 18 pizzas, whatever. And he's got all this different stuff. And he's got McDonald's bags, he's got all the normal of that shopping cart is full. And he says, hey, do you like pizza? Because he said, I can't stand it. I don't like tomato sauce. I don't want any of these. 18 of those could have fed 200 people here. And so we brought. And I'm going, okay, not helping. And then I like what you said is you're going by doing that and just simply doing that. We would never do that to our own kids and call it kind if they came after school and said, I want a bag of M and Ms, whatever. You go, no, here's an apple, it's better. Okay? You would, because you would not be kind to allow them to keep doing that. And you'd go, but I don't like you. Okay? And I agree. Okay? These are not my kids and all that stuff. I'm not going to go down that path. It's not kind. I don't think it's kind. And so then the word I'm coming to in that is I'm trying to discern and I'm not hitting it at all. Right, okay. Is am I empowering a person to possibly move towards options for them? So mine the word, I would say self sustainability, what life abundantly looks like for them. It may not be my life abundantly. They're not called to my life. What life and life abundantly, they're called to live. Am I leading them to paths that they could walk down to get that for them, or am I enabling them and keeping them in the place that they are currently at and am I helping to keep them here by doing this? So mine the struggle, honestly, is some of the resources. And if we had just a debate, like if Brian and he's not or Caleb wanted to say, Jeff, I'm not so sure that you're not just keeping people in this condition by providing unlimited amount of lunches throughout the month.

[Brian Hawkins]

Right.

[Jeff]

I couldn't. That'd be a tough debate to win.

[Brian Hawkins]

Well, and some of it just goes back to what is your mission?

[Jeff]

Okay.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because maybe somebody's mission is I want to be the person that provides these bare minimum things for all the people who've chosen that they don't want more. And if that's what God's called you to do, then that's what you should do. People will ask me, well, Should I have given them that money? And I'll tell them, I don't know if you should have given them that money or not, because I don't really know what they're gonna do with it. But here's what I will tell you. If God tells you to give that money away and that's how he wants you to use that resource, then that's what you should do. And then don't worry about what happens to it after that. But if you. If you're doing it to make you feel better or you're doing it to keep you from feeling guilty, then that's probably not what God wants you to do. And you could steward it better. Take those 18 pizzas, for instance. If those people had brought those pizzas to you, or if they just donated that $180 to an organization that was going to steward it better, then it would have gone further. And that goes back to this. Us not understanding what they need. In my mind or the person who gave him that pizza's mind. That guy's hungry. I can afford to get him a pizza. I can't buy him a steak dinner. So I'm going to go get him a pizza fair. The challenge is they're giving him something that he has no use for. And it's not that he may not be hungry. He can't eat pizza sauce. Maybe he's lactose intolerant, he can't eat the cheese. Well, you don't know that, but you felt good about spending the $10 and giving him the pizza, and so you move on. I've often thought about standing on street corners with the sandwich board. They said, if you really want to help the homeless and the needy, scan this QR code and make a donation to an organization.

[Jeff]

Yeah.

[Brian Hawkins]

And you know, because in a lot of ways, those resources get wasted. That guy's got 18 pizzas sitting there that are all going to get thrown away. And it's not because he's a terrible person. He doesn't eat pizza.

[Jeff]

Agree.

[Brian Hawkins]

And nobody ask him, hey, well, I've got $10. What would be the best way for me to possibly help you? Because he would tell them. He would be honest and say, well, I don't really like pizza, but I really like cheeseburgers.

[Jeff]

Or he might say, I could use a pair of socks.

[Brian Hawkins]

Right. But we don't have time at the red light.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

To do that interview and then go buy him what he really needs.

[Jeff]

Right.

[Brian Hawkins]

So we go buy what we think is going to make him Feel good and we give him that. But you know, one of the things that I think in my opinion, agencies that want to steward their resources better have to get good at finding out what the people they're trying to help really want to accomplish instead of deciding, here's what we want them to accomplish and here's what we're willing to do if they accomplish the things we want them to accomplish. And the hard thing is if somebody says, well, I don't want that. Just saying, okay, I understand. A lot of times I'll feel like my dad when I was growing up, when I was a teenager said, I think I should come in whenever I want to. I'll never forget my dad saying, well, son, you can do that. You can come and go anytime you want from wherever you can afford to do that from, but you're not doing it from here. And you know, I feel that I have that same conversation with people. I'll have grown men that'll tell me I should be able to have a drink anytime I want to. And I'll tell them, hey, I don't disagree with your right to drink alcohol as an adult, but I do disagree with your right to expend money on alcohol because you don't have to spend money on the roof over your head because I went out and raised the money for that. So while you're here, that right will be temporarily suspended so you can save that money and then when you can afford your own place, drink every day. I don't care. This is not about me caring if you drink alcohol or not because I don't. I don't care. I don't want you to be an alcoholic, but I don't care if you drink. What I care about is how you're spending your money while you're using these resources.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

And so one of the things we do in our follow ups we is they have to turn in their pay stubs. They have to verify that they're saving money and they have to turn in an account of how their money got spent. Not down to the penny, but pretty close to the dollar. Okay, so if their pay stubs say they made $400 that week and their savings is improved by $50 and they can only verify that they spent $50 on groceries or whatever. Our question is, where's the other 300 bucks? If they can't answer that, then that's a milestone that they're not meeting and it's going to become a problem for them staying in the program pretty quickly. And I've. Adults say the same thing. What's none of your business? House, spend my money, and I'll tell them the second you can afford your own place. It is absolutely none of my business, but you've made it my business by using these resources because it's also our donor's business, and it's also the staff that has invested in countless hours in grant applications and reporting to provide these resources. You've made it our business because you choose to use these resources. Now, the minute you choose not to use these resources, you can do whatever you want to, and we'll respect that. It just won't happen here.

[Caleb]

So, like how you're unable to control what happens whenever you give somebody that $6 at the red light. Now you're able to kind of have a little bit more control over that because they're using the resources that are provided. So you can say, all right, no, you. You can't use money on this. Alcohol and drugs, on whatever it is. You have to be studious of how you're doing everything. I guess.

[Brian Hawkins]

Exactly. If you. If that same $10 you were going to hand him in a red light, you said, okay, I've got $10 for you. I need you to get in the car. We're going to go back to the house, do some work. I'm going to take care of this. I'm going to be in your business for a little while. But you're going to get 10 bucks out of it. Well, at that point, that person has a choice to make. Yeah, I'm gonna say no to the $10 or I'm gonna say yes to the requirements to go with it. And if they choose to say no, then they've made their choice. It's no different than anything else that we do. I have employees. Sometimes it'll tell me I don't have a choice but to be here. I'm like, oh, sure you do. Well, I gotta make a living. Hey, I get that. But there's a choice that now I have money. There's a choice to do all the things that come with. You can change jobs. You don't have to be here. You're in the pool business, Right? I'm going by your hat, right? You could choose to be in the car sales business. You could choose to be in the homebuilding business. So if you ever make the phrase, well, I'm stuck being in the pool business, well, you're not, right? You've chosen to do that for all the list of reasons you had when you Started that business. And if you ever have an employee says, I'm stuck doing this, well, no, they're not. Right. And so everybody has a choice. The problem is we don't want them to make those choices. We just want to feel good about our giving. So it's easier for us to just give them $10 and forget about it. But in most cases, we're not really helping in the way that we think that we're helping. And when you have requirements and when you have accountability, that is also our choice. Our choice could be to just give them whatever they need, not have any expectations, let them drink and do drugs on the property, whatever. We could choose to do that. It's not going to be a manageable way to sustain an operation that's not going to get destroyed and implode on itself. But we could do that. We choose not to. And it all comes down to choices. When you ask the question, am I being kind by just providing them a meal with no expectations and no requirements? Maybe you are, if that's the mission of this organization. Because it's very hard for us to sit back and say, well, if that person won't do anything, then they should die. They should starve to death. That's what should happen. Nature. Now, whether we believe that or not, it's still a hard statement to say. Agreed. And it's a hard line to live by.

[Jeff]

Agreed.

[Brian Hawkins]

Even if you can argue for the truth of it. So there's going to be some organizations and people ask me all the time because they'll compare us to other shelters in the area and I'll tell them, hey, we just have a different mindset. Yeah, there are some shelters that are designed to be the crash pad and not the launch pad, but that's what they've chosen to do. So I don't have a dog in that fight. Or whether that's the right thing or not for them to do. It's not what I've been called to do, but it doesn't mean it's not what they've been called to do. So I'm not going to get in the way of that. And I'm not going to try to make them look bad and I'm not going to try to ruin what they're doing because there is a group of people that just aren't ever going to do very much for themselves. So unless you're going to adopt the ideology that they should starve to death, then there's going to have to be some agencies that are providing those Bare minimums, without any requirements, without any expectations. If you're going to be the agency that has those requirements and expectations, you just need to be clear about them. And people need to make the choice that they're going to make. People choose us over other shelters all the time. People choose other shelters over us all the time. People choose homelessness over either shelter all the time.

[Jeff]

Agreed.

[Brian Hawkins]

In the hard part is accepting that choice.

[Jeff]

Agreed.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because the choice doesn't make any sense to me. It makes sense when they choose our program.

[Jeff]

That's a good choice. The other ones are.

[Brian Hawkins]

The other choices are questionable. Yeah. But the truth is it's their choice.

[Jeff]

Okay, agreed.

[Brian Hawkins]

And I use the example of our kids. Well, there comes a time in every kid's life and the hardest thing, and I have four kids, the hardest thing to do as a parent is to sit back and watch your child make a decision that you know is the wrong one.

[Caleb]

Right.

[Brian Hawkins]

But you also know they reach a point of accountability where the only way for them to learn is the consequences of that wrong choice. And what scares people is you've heard it a million times. You hear this in addiction all the time. Well, they're never going to turn around till they hit bottom. What people get scared of is that bottom will be death.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

That's what we get scared of. That's what keeps parents enabling their drug addict kids all the time.

[Jeff]

You're right.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because they're afraid if I cut them off, they're going to commit suicide or they're going to die of an overdose and it's going to be my fault.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

Nothing could be further from the truth. It's virtually impossible to convince them of that.

[Jeff]

Right.

[Brian Hawkins]

And that's what scares us, is that somebody's going to die and we're going to feel like, man, I shouldn't have put them out. I should have just said it was okay for him to break that rule that time. Because you know, as soon as we moved them out of the program, they lost hope and killed themselves. Well, as hard as that is to live with, it's not true. They didn't do that because you had accountability. They did that because their choices were going to make that an inevitability at some point.

[Jeff]

Agreed. So what I like, and it's Christianity 101. We're not. This is like remedial, but it's not. But like we were talking about, it's this, these people, because they are people, they have dignity and worth and they are intelligent, individual people. They make choices. We must respect choices. And I'm with you. I'm old. We're so. Caleb's young. Brian and I are old. My kids are slightly older than Caleb. Yeah, we're older than Caleb. But it is tough, okay. On the ones that you love, when you say love, sometimes you have to watch decisions unfold. You try to interject. It's not like you sit by passively and go, good luck. No. Sometimes you realize they're at an age they are going to make decisions that man, you know, it's not going to work out well. But that's their decision to make. And you sit there so, like, biblically, we would look. I mean, in our world, the prodigal son. Not that you would, but you'd go, he made a decision. The father was like, no, man, this ain't the bestest decision, but I respect it. You're right. Okay, I'm going to. You can do this. But know when you go here, basically, he said, you're done. I mean, you're gone. I will mourn you because you're going to go. But you have a right to do this, and I respect that because you are my son and I love you and I respect your decision. And the kid went and did it and made terrible choices and then had enough sense to realize, I don't want this anymore. Dad didn't do that for him. Feed my sheep didn't do that for him. Go house didn't do that for him. He reached a place that he said, I can't do this anymore. I want life. He came back and he was received. And the father said, my son was dead and now he lives again. Okay. And. And truly celebrate because he did mourn, we cannot discount. So, like, what? Brian and I would agree on this. Okay? I cannot tell you it does not hurt and hurt bad. We had one that just recently passed away.

[Brian Hawkins]

It's the hardest part of this business. It is. It is the single most emotionally draining job I have ever agreed.

[Jeff]

My life and you can't not. Okay. There's not a part of you at moments. Okay, wait. So and so I won't say name. What? She's dead. I saw her the day before. I knew what she was doing. I knew what the life was going. I could not say that I was surprised by the outcome, surprised by the day. I didn't know. It's going to be Christmas Eve. Awesome. She's going to die on Christmas Eve. But I could not say I did not know the probability of this occurring. And then you cannot not come to the place in this world going. I just sat there and watched. Okay, you can't not go. I just sat back and I did. Could I have done more? Should I have done this? Could I have drug or degree at the end of the day, okay, I can love her well and I can respect her as a person. I cannot make the decisions for her.

[Brian Hawkins]

Can't do it for them. Can't do it in spite of them.

[Jeff]

That's right. I can.

[Brian Hawkins]

Best we can hope for is to do it with them.

[Jeff]

That's it. And to keep options like in this room, okay, I can't do one thing for Brian that Brian don't want to do and I can't do one thing for Caleb that Caleb doesn't want to do. I can maybe if I'm in different positions have options that I can keep in front of them over and over and over and over. Not with strength, but hey, ever considered this? Ever considered this? Options, okay? And my job is to provide options and then whatever obstacles in their trail that I could possibly clear and to make the path as easy, easy, not. Not easy might not be the right word, but as free of barriers because some of our societal barriers are unbelievable obstacles. Getting a driver's license, that's an obstacle. I can help take that barrier out of the way because you can't get to the dmv, you can't do the computer. Take that out of the way that frees up path. They still have to do it. They have to show up for their appointment. They have to do taking obstacles out of the way that lead a person so out of this. Same as we would say we would not. It would be unkind for Caleb for you to have an employee to say, hey, great, think you're going to be a great employee. Go work, go work. Huh? But am I a backhoe driver? Am I a finisher on the what do I do? And what does success look like for you in this position? Clear expectations, like Brian said, you make it for anybody. Here's what it means, okay? This is what it could look like for you. And here's how you can see. Do you choose whether you want to do this or not? Can't do this for anybody. And it's hard because it hurts in this world because nobody can in our own opinion because we only know our own deal. When you look at the person on the side of the road or some of the people that we deal with in the homeless world, okay, we won't even go down the path of this. There's some that I think that we deal with that are not in the place right now that they can make right decisions for themselves for their own benefit.

[Brian Hawkins]

And I'm never trying to put people in a spot that can't make the right choices, but the people who don't make what I think are the right choices. And really, one of the things that helped me turn the corner was to stop feeling sorry for people and just realize that my job wasn't to feel sorry for them. My job was to help resource them. So you take a business owner like Caleb. Okay, I don't feel sorry for him now. But here's the thing, here's the point I'm going to get to. If I wanted to help Caleb and a friend of mine said, hey, I'm thinking about putting a pool in, I'll say, call Caleb. I just met this guy who's got a pool business. You should give him a shot. Now, I don't have any expectation that Caleb has to take that person on as a customer or that they're going to choose his company, but I've still offered the resources.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

But I don't have any emotional attachment to it because I didn't do it because I felt sorry for Caleb. And at the same time, If I referred 20 people to him and he never took on those jobs, even if they wanted him, well, then I'm just going to quit referring people to him. But I'm never going to think anything about cutting off that resource. When we feel sorry for people, we take on this different burden. And really, it's no different. You're providing a resource. They're choosing if they're going to use it or not. And if they choose not to, then you've got to be able to emotionally detach yourself from their decision. And it's not easy to do, but it will make. It'll make what you have to do more palatable, less painful when you quit taking it personally. Because what happens to us is we feel like they've rejected us.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

And not the resource.

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

Because most of the other relationships in our life, if somebody didn't do something with us or appreciate us or whatever, that was some kind of personal rejection. Well, most of the people that we help on the front end don't know us. All they know is the resource, and they choose it or not. So we've got to quit feeling emotionally attached to that decision. They. They're not trying to hurt our feelings. They don't know us. They don't want to follow these rules. That's their choice. That doesn't mean they don't like me. Doesn't mean they don't like my staff. Doesn't mean they don't even think that our program is a good one. They just don't want it.

[Jeff]

Okay, interesting. What I like on this. This is kind of cool because what we thought we went in a direction, we kind of knew this direction, but the discussion that we were going to have was looking at some other stuff.

[Brian Hawkins]

We can come back and have that

[Jeff]

discussion, but we never even touched that. And I hope you're out there listening because even for me sitting here, highly intriguing discussion like this is one we could have even more because it is, it's monumental in its, in itself weight in the world right now. I mean, like so much of this, it does matter of how, as a society and how as individual people that we can be kind and caring to other individuals in our community. I mean, and then we get the right, right mindset again. Loaded. Because right mindset is. That's my mindset. Okay, so then I've already flawed in my logic before I even begin even I'm saying this, but we could come to this, understand of how complex this topic is, but also how simple it is. And then what Brian said, in this world that we're dealing with, when we're done with this podcast, I'm going to make decisions here at some point in this day that some are going to like and some are not going to like every one of the decisions that are unliked, okay? They're going to make it personal. And Jeff is a sorry individual for doing that. And you can feel it because we are people. And you go, man, maybe I am and maybe I am. I probably am, but the God that I believe in is not. And then how he treats us, it's so easy that a rejection of these things that we believe to be so right for them is a rejection of us and we get personally hurt. So we look at this and we're like, oh, God, golly, I'm bad at this. And it's so easy to get into that mindset. And like Brian said, at the end of the day, I'm providing resources by relationship, okay? That's a whole other deal. I can be kind with no strings attached to people and love on them and to care about them as human beings. The resources I provide do not have to be that same way. There's expectations in everything we do. It is a disservice. Like Caleb and I Know each other from the sports world. It is a disservice to keep somebody on the field that does not want to be there and has no intention of being there. You are hurting the other ones who do, and you do not. You don't win anything with that. You don't. And so everybody loses. Everybody, even the person you're trying to

[Brian Hawkins]

make better ends up on a losing team. So they're still. There's still a loss. And no matter what.

[Jeff]

And they know, okay? They. You don't think they're ignorant? They know I'm the one nobody likes. I'm the bad one, okay? And that you just compounded the problem even more. They didn't even want to be there.

[Brian Hawkins]

Right.

[Jeff]

Maybe they weren't even meant to be a soccer player and daddy thought they were supposed to be a soccer player, and they're just out there to keep him happy. And they were never supposed to be out there. But nobody had enough guts to say, maybe this isn't the place that you were called to be. That's all you said. You didn't say you're a bad human being. You didn't say you're horrible. You didn't say anything. Maybe there's someplace better that you could really find your giftedness and go move towards what you're really called to be. Anybody would do that. But in this world, we're like, going, I don't want them to be mad at me. I want them to be this. And I want to feel good because I help.

[Brian Hawkins]

And who doesn't reject our success onto them?

[Jeff]

That's right.

[Brian Hawkins]

You know, if we're not careful in this business, we associate our success with what we think is success for them. So if everybody gets pushed out of the program and nobody ever moves into permanent housing, then we feel, I guess I'm a failure. Well, no, you're not, man.

[Jeff]

We could go a whole other deal. Because, oh, man, me and Brian, you

[Brian Hawkins]

know, let's come back to the metrics.

[Jeff]

Yeah, yeah. Because.

[Brian Hawkins]

Yeah, the metrics.

[Jeff]

So we go down the whole. What are your metrics of success? How do you gauge success? You know, I was. 78% have moved on to permanent housing. 62%.

[Caleb]

How.

[Jeff]

Show me success. I want to see somebody that started from here and they ended here. How many times did that occur? And then you're validating funding and then you can get caught in. That's whole other. Whole other path of going, whole other discussion. So this one is simply for us out there to understand. Kindness is not always just providing what anybody thinks they need at that given moment. And kindness is not trying to interject your thoughts and beliefs on somebody you don't even know.

[Brian Hawkins]

Right.

[Jeff]

Okay. There's not a. I don't even know who's listening. There's not a person out there that you don't know, Jeff. At all. Okay. And you'd go, yeah, I want him to make all the decisions for me because he knows what's best for me. I don't even know you. But we do that for all kind of people. I'll go by Home Depot and a guy's got a sign up and people are going to give him money. And I mean, like, hold on. The dude is in housing that the city's paying for. He doesn't need your money. He's doing this because he thinks it's funny. And he's going to go to little Bobby's as soon as you're done, which he has every right to, but you're not helping him and he just kind of thinks it's funny and he's making more money than you. Okay. No offense to that. So I'd like. This discussion is interesting because we're just looking at different mindsets and it's not. Brian's not saying he's the rightest thing. There was never a sentence of that. Jeff's not the rightest thing of right. Caleb's. We're all looking at this because it's so confusing how to lead because unfortunately in this room, how we believe these principles is how our organizations are going to believe them as well.

[Brian Hawkins]

Well, if you have me back again, we'll get back to relief, recovery and restoration.

[Jeff]

I'd like. And then we're going to. And then the one that shall not be named will come on this one because interest. I think it'd be really interesting discussion of that.

[Brian Hawkins]

And we talked about that yesterday and I'll wait till. Yeah.

[Jeff]

And she's the one who had to come in.

[Brian Hawkins]

Like she was not here. Yeah.

[Jeff]

She was like, hey, I hope you don't mind, but I've got. Brian Hawkins is going to come for the podcast tomorrow. Okay. And I'm like, okay, cool. Are you coming? I guess I should ask that question. But again, luckily Nancy's going to get the pass in that we can go. We cannot control her decision making. We'll have to respect her poor decision and we'll be on board with it.

[Brian Hawkins]

I'd be glad to come back anytime. You do have me. I'd love enjoy this.

[Jeff]

I'd like. This is good discussion and I hope out there you listen to this. And at the end of the day, what we said and what we're trying to discern with each other is we said people matter. We do. We believe people deserve to be cared for and they deserve to be treated kindly and well. We are just trying to navigate and understand what that truly means because I think some of our definitions of it are not kind. They're not kind. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just trying to navigate in my head and having discussions and having talks with people who are much smarter and we look at this thing and to go, man, it's complicated because sometimes I make decisions that if I really look at them, they make Jeff feel good. They make Jeff feel good. I don't want that. But yeah, I do want that and how to stay in that and then throw in this deal of we're all trying to serve this God that's even bigger and more all knowing than all of us. And to try to stay within that and to stay in this place of I'm reflecting his unconditional love that he pours upon me on others. And then there's just, they're a dangerous word in there of unconditional. And then all of this stuff and love, hey, let's get on that. And there's no parent. That's a whole other discussion. There's not a parent anywhere that would say love means doing everything your three year old kid wants to do. There's not one. There's none.

[Brian Hawkins]

Not this one for sure.

[Jeff]

No.

[Brian Hawkins]

Agreed.

[Jeff]

Or your teenager because they know everything. Or your 20 year old son who's now going down this path that is destruction. Okay. That you go, yeah, I love you.

[Brian Hawkins]

Love you.

[Jeff]

Love is a very difficult word and it's actually a verb. Okay. It's an action verb. And so we'll look at that. We will continue this. I found it very intriguing and interesting to look, I hope you at least be challenged. And if you're listening in your car right now, again, we did not say the guy you're looking to the right of you over there at the intersection. We're not saying he's a bad human being. We're not saying don't help him. We're not saying that at all. We're just saying we're trying to figure out what being kind to that person looks like. So hope you have a great day. Hope you really ponder some stuff. I hope you find a way to show kindness and love to a whole lot of people today. And most importantly, to you. Okay. And we start from there. So that is that. Appreciate Brian, you being here. We're going to definitely have him back. Intriguing. Like I'd like to be Caleb. Don't. Don't think that. I didn't forget this one was supposed to be. We're going to come up with a topic that's going to stump Jeff. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. I think it'd be tough on Brian, too.

[Brian Hawkins]

Is that what we were supposed to be doing? Stumping Jeff? I did not read the notes before the show.

[Caleb]

That is what me. And that one shall not be named.

[Jeff]

That's why she brought Brian. And we're gonna go bring it on Brian.

[Caleb]

So we gotta get that one.

[Jeff]

I bring it. I think Brian could. I think, like, out of that, we could have some interest. Because in these things, we're not the answer. You know, we're just trying to. We're trying to figure this path out together and to go, what in the world? But I do. I'm getting much clarity. I do believe there's some wrong ways to do this and to try to stay out of that. So appreciate it. We will do this again next week.