CO-HOST | Make Money by Thinking for Yourself: How Questioning the Script Can Change Your Life

Summary

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Travis Makes Money

Episode: Make Money by Thinking for Yourself: How Questioning the Script Can Change Your Life
Host: Travis Chappell
Guests: David Gutman, Eric Skorzinski
Date: July 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Travis Chappell shares a candid conversation from a guest appearance on David Gutman’s podcast, focusing on the power of independent thinking and the importance of questioning established life scripts. Travis opens up about breaking away from the path laid out by his fundamentalist upbringing, building a new life—and income—by forging his own entrepreneurial journey. The episode explores mindset shifts, the courage to diverge from groupthink, and the self-awareness needed to rewrite your own story.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Growing Up in a Religious Bubble

• Travis recounts his upbringing in the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement—a cloistered community with "cultish" tendencies.
• From kindergarten through college, he lived, studied, and worshipped on a single 40-acre campus, internalizing the ideology and limitations of that environment.
• “I graduated kindergarten, eighth grade, high school, college—all on one 40 acre campus, which is also where my church was. Pretty literally seven days a week from 5 to 21, I was at the same place, seeing the same people, same ideologies, same concepts." (02:10)

2. The Default Script & Limited Options

• The IFB world presented only two life paths: full-time ministry or “good luck.”
• Career counseling didn’t exist—those not choosing ministry were left without guidance and often went to local junior colleges, or the military.

3. First Steps Away: Sales & Ministry

• Travis majored in Bible and church ministries at an unaccredited college, while starting a door-to-door sales side job in his junior year.
• "I realized that at that time that I enjoyed my job selling more than I enjoyed the internship that I was doing. But in that world…if you don't do this one thing...[you’re] backsliding.” (04:30)
• The community pressured him to stick with ministry, but a unique offer from a young pastor named Josh—who offered full, part-time, or any involvement Travis wanted—was liberating.
• "He was the first guy who basically told me, 'Look, whatever you decide to do...we'd still love you just to come up and be a part of the church,' and it was the first time anybody ever gave me that option." (07:36)

4. The Pivotal Break: Life Outside the Bubble

• Travis's brief move away for a corporate job (the only 9-to-5 he's ever had) provided enough distance and clarity for a life-changing decision.
• "That four or five week time period was the first time I had ever been away from the place I grew up. And that was all the time I needed to be able to clearly and freely just say I do not want to do this ministry thing." (08:30)
• He left ministry, recommitting to high-commission sales and later discovering the world of podcasting.

5. Building a New Identity & Network

• Leaving the IFB meant losing his entire social structure—"my entire support structure was gone, like, because everything that I knew was there."
• Travis made it his mission to rebuild a network of people, leading to his podcast, first called Build Your Network.
• "I want to be in business. I've never met a millionaire, let alone had a relationship or personal connection to one...Build a Network was kind of like my personal mission to rebuild a world of people who I could actually rely on." (19:04)

6. Understanding Groupthink—In and Out of Religion

• The conversation broadens out to groupthink in all parts of life, not just religious environments.
• “Most people are sheep. Most people, you know, don't think through the path they're on at all.” – David Gutman (22:41)
• Travis realizes how easily societal expectations (“you have to buy a house, you have to go to college…”) replace insular religious ones.

7. The Power of Self-Awareness & Questioning

• A profound realization: “I am literally going to go down this path so that those people...will be happy with me for the seven to nine days a year that I might see them... I am the only person that has to wake up with me every second of every day...Why would I optimize the other 358 days...just to please other people who don't give two shits about me?” (23:13)
• This became the catalyst for asking what he really wanted—unprompted by anyone else’s script.

8. Critical Reflection Without Bitterness

• Eric asks about resentment. Travis explains why he doesn’t hold a grudge:
  • “Resenting somebody only hurts the person who's doing the resentment.” (29:10)
• He believes most people in his old community genuinely think they’re helping, and he has empathy for their intentions.
• He keeps the good:
  • “Some of those deep personal development things stem directly from the Bible and biblical principles...You don't have to give up everything and burn the entire playbook just because you don't believe in this one core tenet anymore.” (32:36)

9. Self-Awareness and Accepting Truth

• Travis admires the phrase, “Accept truth wherever you find it. Truth is never afraid of questioning.” (33:31)
• Leaving required self-education and confronting how “wrong I turned out to be when I used to feel like I was so right.”
• “It was just that I had to deal with it... I think it kind of forces you to grow up really quickly and mature more emotionally...You can't help but have some level of self-awareness.” (34:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “In that world, you’re so ingratiated in this one mindset where if you don't do this one thing...you're backsliding, you're falling away from God and you're being tempted by the devil to make money instead of prioritize the ministry.” – Travis (04:35)
• “You are the warden of your own prison. You can let yourself out anytime you want. There's no indentured servitude—you’re allowed to leave. But you're so brainwashed…” – Eric Skorzinski (28:37)
• “Resenting somebody only hurts the person who's doing the resentment. So I think that was the first thing...I do believe that...the majority of the people that were there 100% believe they were doing the correct thing.” – Travis (29:12)
• “Accept truth wherever you find it. And truth is never afraid of questioning.” – Travis (33:29)
• “Most people are sheep. Most people, you know, don't think through the path they're on at all.” – David Gutman (22:41)
• “Why would I optimize the other 358 days for something that's only going to be seven days just to please other people who don’t give two shits about me?” – Travis (23:24)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:10 – Travis describes his upbringing and the insularity of his religious world
• 04:30 – Realization that a sales job gave him more joy than ministry
• 07:36 – Pastor Josh’s unique, liberating offer
• 08:30 – First true independence: “That was all the time I needed…”
• 13:12 – Scope of the IFB community described (“the Mecca of that world”)
• 19:04 – Losing and rebuilding support/network
• 22:41 – Eric & David discuss groupthink in both religious and secular society
• 23:13 – Travis’s key realization about living for himself, not others
• 28:37 – Eric’s “warden of your own prison” analogy
• 29:12 – Travis on why he chose empathy, not resentment
• 33:29 – “Accept truth wherever you find it…”
• 34:03 – The forced emotional maturation and self-awareness from leaving

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Takeaways

• Challenging the prescribed path—whether religious or cultural—requires internal strength, honesty, and a willingness to lose your support structure.
• Self-awareness and questioning are ongoing, necessary processes for growth and fulfillment.
• Resentment holds you back; empathy and objectivity help you move forward after leaving any high-control community or mindset.
• Success and meaning come not from following someone else’s blueprint, but creating your own—through trial, error, and honest questioning.

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Episode Tone: Open, reflective, candid—with moments of humor, humility, and raw honesty.
Language: Conversational, authentic, with both gravity and hope.

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Transcript

[Travis]

I was recently on whatnot the other day, just shopping around, looking frankly, because I was just blown away that this is something that people are doing with their time.

[David Gutman]

And so I was like, I got to go see if this thing is

[Travis]

real before I talk about it on the show. And so I'm browsing whatnot, looking around, finding things, and it's crazy to see the volume of people that are just having fun in the chat. They're watching people do live shopping. It's like, it's like, you know, QVC directly on your phone. It's something you need to try, I'm telling you. Not just buying, but the selling piece too, where these people are just starting up pop up shops and businesses, selling whatever product, finding their people, building community, getting repeat customers that come back to see your face as the seller. Not just a logo or a brand anyone can sell. Whether your business is big, small, or yet to exist, people selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on any other major marketplaces. And that's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers across whatnot. The number of sellers making over $1 million a year has now doubled. The consistency pays off for those sellers. It's not just side hustle, it's a real path to building something that lasts. Because whatnot buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app, they're not just browsing around, they're engaged, they're buying, they're coming back. You go live, show off your products in real time and turn what you love into real income. So search whatnot whnot in the App store, download it today and get started selling right away.

[David Gutman]

You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast. On this episode of the show with this is a Q and A episode which is normally co hosted by my producer Eric. But on this particular episode we decided to take a clip from a conversation that I had on somebody else's podcast recently, David Gutman. And in this clip I talk a little bit about thinking for yourself, forging a path that is one of your own choosing, rather than following the path that everybody else wanted you to go down. So enjoy this clip from my episode with David Gutman on his new podcast,

[Eric Skorzinski]

Going Back to your. You know, what did your folks do? What kind of put you on the path that you're on.

[David Gutman]

Yeah, man, I grew up in a. I always go back and forth on what to call it, man. I, I, I try to Stay, steer clear of the word cult because it's kind of a buzzword. But by all intents and purposes it was kind of, it was at least cultish, culty. You know, it was, it was a bubble in the least. I grew up, it was a fundamentalist Baptist world. So I graduated kindergarten, eighth grade, high school, college, all on one 40 acre campus, which is also where my church was. Okay, so pretty literally seven days a week from, you know, 5 to 21, I was at the same place, seeing the same people, same ideologies, same concepts and thought. That's what I was going to do for the rest of my life. So when you, when you grew up there, when you go to the high school, there's, they don't have like career counseling or anything like that, you know what I mean? They basically, they basically have, they have one of two paths which is either full time ministry or not full time ministry. And if it's not full time ministry, they say good luck. And there's not really any like next steps. There's no, you know, well, hey, you want to be an engineer, you got to get these types of grades and you want to apply to these types of colleges, like none of that. So typically the people who were not ministry path either ended up not going to college or they went to the local junior college or they went to the military. And then the people who said yes to ministry there was not, there were not options of like here's the, you know, schools that you could go to the seminary at. You know, it was like, well we have a college on our campus and obviously it's the best college in the country, so why would you go anywhere else? Here's an application to our college. So I was the ministry path. I was all in, bought into that world. And so I went to the college there for four years, got my bachelor's. It was unaccredited. So it's kind of still up in the air whether or not I got my bachelor's because it's more useless than the paper it's printed on, you know, in terms of what it can actually do for me. But I got my bachelor's in double majored Bible and church ministries. And then my, my junior year I was interning to church and I also started in door to door sales at that time. Like so in college it was just like to make extra money, you know, put some money away, things like that. And I realized that at that time that I enjoyed my, my job selling more than I enjoyed the internship that I was doing. And kind of immediately was like, so I'm, but I'm, I have to quit this in like a year to go do this thing that I don't really want to do and I have to give up the thing that I really want to do. But in that world, you're so ingratiated in this one mindset where if you don't do this one thing that, you know, you're, you're, you're backsliding, you're falling away from God and you're being tempted by the devil to make money instead of prioritize the ministry or whatever. And so there's a lot of back and forth, a lot of deep thinking, a lot of thought process, the processes that went into that and basically got to that decision where my senior year I was interviewing for jobs at churches and things like that. And eventually it was just like, I really don't see myself doing this. But I kind of kept it bottled up because anybody in that world that I would talk to about it would immediately just be like, no, no, no, no, like, you got to go into ministry, man. Like, what are you doing? You know, this is what we've been doing all this stuff for. So I ended up. There was one, there was one pastor, his name is Josh. And this, this one pastor, he was up in Fresno. So I grew up in Southern California, like LA county area and then in Fresno, which like Central Cal is where he had a church. And he was, he was the first guy who basically told me like, look, whatever you decide to do, he's like, we have a full time position open for you. We'd love for you to take that. We also have a part time position open and you can take that and work something on the side. And if you don't do either one of those things, we'd still love you just to come up and be a part of the church and just like do whatever you want, but then just be a member of the church because you're the type of person that we want to be here with us. And it was like the first time that anybody ever gave me that option. So I immediately took it. And so I took the part time position because I knew on my like exiting the college that people were just going to be like, well, where are you going to serve? Where are you going to serve? Because that's like the numbers that they track for the college is how many students they've deployed into ministry. So I knew I'd have an answer for them when they would, you know, ask me that question. And I go, I'm going to serve up with, with you know, Pastor Emma up in Fresno or whatever. And then I, I got up there with the intention of working at the church and I worked there maybe like two days. But what happened was I was 100% commission sales guy. And this is post the real estate market crash. When I was, you know, I graduated college and growing up in a real estate household, I wanted to buy a house out of college and we moved. And the only way that I could do that was if I had a salary. I didn't have a hundred percent commission income long enough for the bank to give me a loan, even though I was making decent money. So I transferred internally at the company I was working for to get a salary at this, at this place. And during that time, because I was, I was a newbie in that department, they made me work Sundays so I could not do that part time ministry job because they, they required work on Sunday. So I was like, oh, I'll just, you know, I went to the pastor, I was like, I'll just do this. I'm only doing this so I can get a house and once I quit I'll be done, you know, I can come back and, and start working with you guys again. I had that job for four weeks, five weeks. To this day it's the only like nine to five I've ever had. And I hated it. And as soon as I closed escrow on the house, I quit the job. But that four or five week time period was the first time I had ever been away from the place I grew up. And that was all the time I needed to be able to clearly and freely just say I do not want to do this ministry thing. And so I actually never, I think I got one paycheck from a church, from that church for like 200 bucks for the work that I did before I started that job. And then that started me down the, down the sales path. I went directly back into 100% commission door to door. And I did that for a number of years and then eventually got into podcasting game because I was just kind of like, I don't want to, I know I don't want to do door to door anym, but it's also like the only thing that I know I can make money with. And then the other thing that I'm qualified to do, which is ministry, I don't want to do now the thing I know I'm good at, I don't want to do. And I was applying for like Regular sales jobs. But for some reason people wouldn't hire me, which to me now, especially as a business owner is ludicrous because it was like, wait, so you're making six figures as 100% commission door to door sales rep. And like you as a sales manager aren't like jumping out of your seat at the opportunity to hire me right now. Like you're going to give me a company car and company generated leads and benefits and a salary and, and you don't think I'm going to crush this, you know what I mean? Like, but nobody would give me a job. And maybe I was just terrible at interviewing, maybe I was too cocky or something like that, which totally understandable, but couldn't get a job. So I was now at that point was just like, I don't know what I'm doing man, Like I'm doing the work of a 15 year old. You know, what do I want to do with my life? I looked at FBI applications, I looked at the fire department, I looked at real estate, I looked at everything. And during that time was the first time I ever really dove headfirst into self help, self education, continued education on my own. And I found podcasts and I liked the medium. I was not like a big reader at the time, was not an avid reader, so I liked consuming information that way and then eventually figured out that this podcasting, that people are actually making money doing this and they're like just talking and learning and having cool conversations and they make money doing it.

[Travis]

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[David Gutman]

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[Travis]

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[David Gutman]

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[Travis]

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[David Gutman]

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[Eric Skorzinski]

of taken me Travis, I have so many questions.

[David Gutman]

Let's do it.

[Eric Skorzinski]

I have so many questions. So how big of a community was it? Because it sounds like it must have been pretty good size because they've got their own college.

[David Gutman]

So we were at the sort of mecca of that world at the time. So in that movement it's called the IFB Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement, actually a documentary on HBO that my producer is one of the Main talking heads of his name is Eric Skorzinski. He has a podcast called Preacher Boys which exposes as abuse in that. In that cult community. And there's. There's an entire HBO doc called Let Us Pray P R E Y Let Us Pray and gives people kind of more of a background on the history of the ifb. But when I was there, the. The church that I was at, that I happened to grow up in was kind of like the place to be. So it was like the mega church of that, of that culture. So there's probably like maybe 5 to 10 million people total all over the world who are maybe in that movement or go to those churches. But majority of those churches are. They're dead, they're dying. They're, you know, 100 people or less in scattered places in, you know, podunk communities throughout the country and around the world. But ours was a growing community. To give props to that pastor who happens to share the same last name as me. Total coincidence that. That he took over that church in 1986 with 12 or 13 members. And I think today I have around six or 7,000 members. Wow. Multiple multimillion dollar buildings, a full college publication ministry, you know, elementary school, high school dorms for the college students, gymnasiums, like all that kind of stuff. So it was kind of like the place to be at the time, you know, where everybody. Like that was where the leadership conferences were held, that was where the youth conferences were held. That was kind of like the place.

[Eric Skorzinski]

And do you have siblings?

[David Gutman]

I have one sister.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Okay, and is she still in the church? Does he live at church as well

[David Gutman]

or goes to church? But she, she actually lives in China, so she's been teaching in China for the past like seven or eight years. Okay, so she, she does not go to an IFB church, but she still goes to church.

[Eric Skorzinski]

And are both your folks still.

[David Gutman]

They are. They are, I would say churchgoers and Christians, but they do not go to like the IFB church anymore.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Why do you think Josh gave you that opportunity? Because it sounded like you didn't even know that was even possible. Yeah, right.

[David Gutman]

He was kind of this breed of people that came to be referred to as the new ifb, which was just like younger guys that were coming up. He was a younger pastor, you know, at the time when I was coming out of college and I was 21, 22. He was probably 33, 34 or something like that. So they were part of this kind of like newly branded new ifb. They got a lot of, you know, got A lot of. From the old IFB guys for being too contemporary, for. For being compromisers, for being too liberal. You know what I mean? So I think they just had a different way of doing things. And when he identified people who he thought would be a good fit for the culture of the church that he was trying to build, he just really wanted to get him out there. So he was the only one that was like, you don't like. When I. When I finally got there and we had a couple, you know, meetings, when I was trying to figure out whether or not I should keep working there, he was the first guy to just look at me and be like, look, Travis, if you don't feel called or if you don't feel like you want to be here in this position, it's like, we don't want you in this position. It's like you're. You're robbing yourself of what you could be doing potentially. You're robbing somebody else of having the position, and you're robbing us from having somebody in the position who wants to be there.

[Eric Skorzinski]

You know what I mean?

[David Gutman]

It was the first time I was like. He just. He just gave me permission to finally just be like, you know what? You're right. I think I. I think I should probably just do what I feel like I need to be doing, you know?

[Eric Skorzinski]

Right. Well. So the. It's funny you talk about commission only. The. The best salesperson I had. The telemedicine company I ran. Yeah. The job she had before, that was commission only, and she made like 250k the year before. Doing commission only. I'm like, like. And I think her commission was like a thousand dollars for each sale. I was thinking. And she was a mother of four. I was like, you're hired.

[David Gutman]

I'm like, if I could do that, this should be because you're smart. Well, yeah.

[Eric Skorzinski]

You.

[David Gutman]

Some of these managers are.

[Eric Skorzinski]

You can close.

[David Gutman]

Yeah, I felt. I felt like they were. I felt like they were almost like, again, I might have presented myself as, like, to some cocky, you know, young asshole or something. I don't know. Can I cuss on the show?

[Eric Skorzinski]

Yeah, absolutely. By the way, you don't come across that way at all. You come across as quite humble.

[David Gutman]

I don't know. Maybe at the time I did. I don't know. I don't know what it was. I clearly did not interview well, whatever that was. You know what I mean? But.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Right.

[David Gutman]

It was like, maybe. Or maybe they felt like if I came in, I would be shooting for their job. Or something. I, I don't know. But either way, I figured out pretty quickly, like corporate path is not going to be for me because I hate dealing with stupid like this. Like, give me a shot, man. Like, I'll outperform all of your guys in the first 90 days, guaranteed. You know what I mean?

[Eric Skorzinski]

So what's interesting to me is like, because I, again, I. The little I know about, you know, some of the more cult like stuff is Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientology where if you leave the faith, you're basically excommunicated. You people lose touch with their families and all that. It sounds like your church wasn't like that.

[David Gutman]

It wasn't, it was not officially like that. So they didn't have like in the Mormon church, they will literally say like, you can't come back or you can't have this level of, you know, communion with us or you can't enter the temple or whatever. You know what I mean? For us, it was more of just like a, an unspoken thing, you know. So what I tell people is like when I left, most people fell into one of three categories. It was they. There was a small group of people who were actively rooting for my failure and demise because they hated the idea of somebody leaving that world and still being successful.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Right?

[David Gutman]

Because the stories that I would hear growing up are the ones of the people who left and then they're addicted to crack and they're, you know what I mean? They try to paint it as like, if you leave here, this will be the worst decision of your life. You'll be out of God's will, you'll be unsafe, you'll be unhappy, you'll be addicted to, you know, drugs within a year type of a thing. So there were some people who I, who were actively rooting against me, who I saw, like people I grew up with, who I saw texting friends of mine about, just, just talking about who I was, right? So I knew there was a group of people that were like that. I would, I like to think and hope to think that that was kind of a minority. Then there, the, the other minority were like my actual friends, my, my, my real friends who, you know, some of them are even their pastors in their administrative to this day. And they still love me and I still love them. And I appreciate, we appreciate each other. We don' lot just because we have different values and different, you know, ideals and things like that, but they still, they still root for me, you know, actively and want to see me, you know, be successful and and have a good family life and all that kind of stuff. And I think the probably majority of people would probably fit in the middle of that, where it was just like, okay, fine, you do the. You do whatever you want, but we're. We're done. You know? Like, so it was. When I left, it was very much like my entire support structure was gone, like, because everything that I knew was there. You know what I mean? Like, all my. When you go to church and school, like, most. Most kids, they go to church on Sundays, and they go to their school and they have their sports and they have their. There's different social groups and different friend groups from different areas of their life. For me, it was like everything was there. So when I left and those people were just kind of like, all right, well, hey, good luck. You know what I mean? Like, nobody. Nobody was there to support whatever I was working on. So it was very much kind of a starting from scratch in terms of relationships. Luckily, there's a couple of my friends who kind of have. We've kind of, like, ended up more or less on the same page, and a couple of those guys are, like, still like my best friends to this day, because we've known each other since we were three years old and went through a lot of the same, like, similar. You know, neither one of them actually went to the college that I went to. They kind of bounced a little bit before that, so a little bit of a different experience, but, you know, they're, again, they're like brothers to me. So there's. There's a pro in the sense that, like, most people don't have those. That deep level of friendships with people. So that. That was one of those cool things. But, yeah, for the. For the. That was the whole. That was the whole idea behind the. Build your network, which is what my show used to be called before we rebranded to Travis makes Friends. That was the whole concept behind it. It was like, I want to be in business. I've never met a millionaire, let alone had a relationship or personal connection to one. You know, texting one, forget about it. Calling one who, you know, so build a network was kind of like my personal mission to rebuild a world of people who I could actually rely on for any sort of opinions, advice, hanging out, you know, borrowing a studio. You know what I mean? It was just. It was kind of a personal mission for me to. To start from scratch and go get to know some people.

[Eric Skorzinski]

The analogy, I'm thinking, I don't know if you know this, but in the circus, what they do with baby elephants is they, they basically, you know, you put like, a stake in the ground, and they tie a rope around their, the stake and their foot into a little baby elephant. They can't, they're not strong enough to pull it out. But obviously, as they grow, you know, a giant elephant, you know, they're, they're basically trained and conditioned basically that they can't pull the stake out. So when they're a giant elephant fully grown, they still never try to pull the stake out of the ground. Yeah, it seems like you were somehow able to pull that stake out of the ground, which sounds like a lot of people don't, don't figure out.

[David Gutman]

A lot of people don't figure it out. And I am, I am under the belief that most of those people will figure it out. It's just going to take them a little bit longer and, and it looks a little bit different for everybody, you know, So a lot of my friends have figured that out, but they've, they've remained relatively close to home, you know what I mean? So, and, and, and I'm, by the way, totally fine with that. I, I never am in a position where I'm like, trying to get people to believe everything that I believe. I'm not trying to evangelize people to my cause, you know what I mean? All I care about is just like, have you at least just ask the questions, right? You know, why you're even still there? You know what I mean? Or is it really just that this is all, you know, and this is the only thing that you've ever believed, therefore you will continue to believe it because why seek truth elsewhere? And that's kind of something that I, not necessarily have a problem with. I just, I don't resonate with that style of thinking, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I want, I want to know more and I want to ask more questions, and I want to relate to other people who have a different opinion than I have. And I think a lot of those people were just totally cool with the Us for no more mentality, you know?

[Eric Skorzinski]

You know, it's funny. I, I, I think that people, because people could easily look at that situation and be like, well, that's really messed up, and da, da, da. I think people grossly underestimate how much groupthink there is just in society in general. And while this might be a little bit more of a sort of smaller microcosm of that same thing, I remember when I was in business school, like, literally, it's like if you didn't get a job in consulting or finance, you were basically like, everyone's so much group think about. And I. You know, it's like, you have to buy a house, you have to go to college. You know, it's like all the things you're supposed to do, because that's just what society trains you, that you're supposed to do. And I think that. So it's easy for people to kind of look down their nose at it, but the reality is, most people are sheep. Most people, you know, don't think through the path they're on at all.

[David Gutman]

I had a. I just had this one realization one time which kind of led me down that path. And it was. And it sounds super simple when I say it. Like, when I. When I. When I say it as something that's super profound. It's kind of like, well, that makes sense, Travis. Duh. But at the time, it was really profound to me. And that was. I knew because, like I said, that church was kind of the Mecca, right? So I knew that whatever ministry I went to serve in that we would go. We would end up back on that campus for leadership conferences or youth conferences or whatever. And I just had this realization one time where I was like, I feel like I am literally going to go down this path so that those people who I was raised with will be happy with me for the seven to nine days a year that I might see them for seven minutes at a conference. And it was. It kind of just struck me like lightning in that moment where I was like, I am the only person that has to wake up with me and spend every second of every day, 365 days a year with me, right? Why would I optimize the other 358 days for something that's only going to be seven days of the year just to please other people who don't give two shits about me if I don't do the thing that they wanted me to do.

[Travis]

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[David Gutman]

in the first place. And it just allowed me to have the freedom to finally start asking myself those questions of like, what do I, what do I even want? What do I really want to do? And that was the first time I'd ever asked myself that. I committed to the full time ministry when I was 12. God. So when I made that decision, it was at a youth conference, right? So like now it's so obvious for me to look at the emotional situation that they create there. But their job at youth conference is to get applications for their college. So all of the preaching, all of the sermons, all of the media, the songs, the videos, everything's kind of, kind of put into this package to convince the youth that are at the conference to give their life to God for full time ministry. So I'm 12. It's my home church, right? There's a youth conference. So there's dozens, maybe even 100 plus churches that send kids to this youth conference. There's thousands of kids. There's my pastor's preaching, the final message, the message is called who will go? The, the invitation that they give, which is like after the sermon they, you know, everybody bow your head, close your eyes. Who wants to, you know, make this decision? The song that they sang was a song called Here Am I, I will Go. And they sang it 12 to 14 times in like a 30 to 45 minute invitation. And it was like, it's so easy and clear for me to be like, like, yeah, it's, it's a sales event. Like your engineering. Like the, the temperature in the room is set. It's literally like going to a real estate conference where they're gonna pitch a product at the end. The, the, the thermostat is set to a certain temperature to keep people awake. The, from the Moment you step in, every single part of that experience is engineered to con, to persuade my 12 year old brain to believe that if I don't do this path that I am, that I am morally compromised because I would rather pursue my own selfish interests than go win the lost for Jesus who are dying and going to hell.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Right?

[David Gutman]

So when I look back at that, it's really clear and simple for me to see. And Obviously I was 12, extremely impressionable and had a lot of reasons to, to, to try to impress the leadership at the church because they were held in such high regard. Like the, the celeb, the, the pastors and the, and the missionaries and the preachers in that world, they're like, they're like celebr. They're, they're revered above celebrities in, in our eyes at that point, because all celebrities are worldly and bad. You know, so these guys are the real celebrities that, that we want to aspire to be, which again is engineered to make you desire to be that person so that you make that decision at that time when the invitation's extended to you. So it's really clear now for me to see it, but at the time it was like, I made that decision. And then when they look at it, they're like, well, you made this, you committed, you know, you somebody who goes back on your commitments, right? I mean, it's like I was 12, man. What do you mean? I didn't even, I didn't even know, like, not. I didn't know anything. It's 12 years old. You think I can, you think I know what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life when I was 12, like, give me a break. I obviously have the ability to rethink some decisions that I made when I was 12, now that I'm an adult, you know what I mean? So, yeah, it was, it was obviously engineered to make that happen. But they, they hold you to that commitment.

[Eric Skorzinski]

I think it's more profound than you give yourself credit for. I mean, I frequently tell people, in fact, I remember having this conversation with my daughter when she was in her first job after college. And I was saying to her, I'm like, you do realize you are the warden of your own prison. You can let yourself out anytime you want. Like just take the key and unlock the door. Like there's no indentured servitude, like you're allowed to leave. But it's like you're so brainwashed. And let me ask you this. And no judgment in this question. I hope you, I Hope you hear this in the, and then in the way I mean intended, which is you don't seem to have resentment for it. I think if I were, if I felt that manipulated at 12, I think I'd be a little angry about it.

[David Gutman]

Yeah, I, I have wrestled with this a little bit. First of all, I don't find it helpful for anybody in that world or anybody that's considering leaving that world and, and, and needs some sort of like, question or guidance to leave that world. I don't find it super helpful because I was on the other side of it at one point and I would see people who left, who became like staunch atheists and would do. It seemed like when they posted on Facebook was talk about the church and talk about anybody who believed in God and how ridiculous it was. And I saw that vitriol came through to the other side and it was like, this is only further entrenching everybody in this belief system to continue believing what they believe. So I didn't soup. I didn't find it super helpful for any, any reason. Even for my own internal piece. It doesn't make any sense. Like resent, you know, resenting somebody only hurts the person who's doing the resentment. You know what I mean? Does that hurt anybody else? So I think that was the first thing. The, the second thing is that I, I do believe that at least the majority of the people that were there, 100% believe that they were doing the correct thing. And that's, that's more of like the empathy that I have for, for a lot of those people. I like the majority of them. And I'm sure there's a couple bad apples who are just doing it for seeking power and, you know, regular status claims and things like that. But I do believe that a lot, a lot of the people that were there, they genuinely 100% believe that they have the absolute truth of life and it is their highest directive and calling from God himself to ensure that as many people as they can have influence over follow this path, because that is the highest possible calling in life. So when I look at it, you know, from that perspective, I'm like, well, then you, do you like, you know, like that, that is, that is what you should do then, you know, if you, if you truly believe that literally everybody you meet is dying and going to hell, then it is, it is your prime directive, you know, to, to make sure that you inform them of the error of their ways. I just don't believe that now. So I, it's kind of lost on me, but I at least have some empathy to, to be able to see their perspective and say like, no, I get it. And frankly, like if you're in that, in that world and you're more like lukewarm, one toe in, one toe out and like, I almost have more respect for the people who are like giving their entire lives for it and willing to lay everything on the line and sacrifice everything in order for that pursuit. Because there's something at least pure in the pursuit, even though I believe it's misguided and misdirected.

[Eric Skorzinski]

That's a very. So because you're like what, 32 or.

[David Gutman]

I just, actually just turned 33 last.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Okay, 33. Same. Same age as Jesus Christ.

[David Gutman]

That's my Jes.

[Eric Skorzinski]

You Jesus here. That's a very. That's an unusual level of self awareness for any age, let alone someone as young as you. Where do you think that came from? Was. Did you. Was it one of your parents that was that self aware? Was there someone that was a mentor to you that gave you that? Do you think you're just wired that way?

[David Gutman]

I don't know if it's necessarily. I was wired that way. I do my best to be as objective as possible. Obviously none of us can be completely objective. It's impossible.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Right?

[David Gutman]

We all see the world through our own eyes and you know, none of us, none of us see reality for as it is, we see our version of reality. So I, I think I kind of had an understanding of that and then, and then like I said, I, I just, I wanted, I wanted to. I didn't want to wish ill will on others for the sake of my own betterment. And, and I think honestly some of that comes from, from that world. Like the, you know, some of those deep personal development things stem directly from the Bible and stem directly from biblical principles. And I think that there's a lot of truth to be. To be had in that. So like even that, the whole thing about bitterness, you know, making only. Only hurting you, it's like, well, I learned that in the church. But that is a principle that translates to both. You don't have to give up everything and burn the entire playbook just because you don't believe in this one core tenet anymore. You know, you can look at everything objectively and there, there was this really great. I don't totally forget who I heard it from, but I quote it all the time. I should probably figure it out. It's accept truth wherever you find it.

[Eric Skorzinski]

Oh, I like that.

[David Gutman]

And I. And truth Truth is never afraid of questioning. You know what I mean? So I, I've at least figured out that like, I don't. Just because I don't believe everything that they believe does not mean that I have to, I have to throw rocks at everything else that they believe because there is a lot of great truth there. You know, there is a lot of great, you know, things that I can take into, you know, into my life that I learned in this situation. But I, it also, I think, just came from the fact that I was so bought in that I had to figure I had to, like, I owed it to myself, to my family, to my future, to deep dive and read and learn as much as I possibly could about what other potential paths there were forward that it, it was almost impossible to leave without some version of self awareness to how wrong I, I turned out to be when I used to feel like I was so right. So I think, I think I was just forced into that perspective at a really young age, like, you know, early 20s. And I knew that I didn't want to just waste my life. I knew I didn't want to just like, you know, go party and, and flush my life down the toilet. I knew that I still wanted to do something big and something productive. So I think it was just a matter of I was forced through this, you know, whatever struggle, period, cocoon, whatever you want to call it, you know, where you, you kind of just come out the other side and when you come out the other side, you can't help but have some level of self awareness. I think it was just, it was just that, it was just that I was, I had, I had to, I knew I had to deal with it. I knew I couldn't just like, put it on the side and just be like, well, that was that, you know what I mean? It was just like I, I gotta, I gotta deal with this the best way that I know how. And I think it kind of forces you to grow up really quickly and, and you know, mature more emotionally really quickly and like I said, force some version of self awareness out of you.