An Uncomfortable Confession

Hello, everyone. Frank Kern here. I hope you're doing well. I'm recording this for you front of the fire. Once again, in my little office, it's about seven morning, beautiful morning here and now to live up to the title of today's podcast, which is an uncomfortable confession. Here it is. My name is Frank Kern and I am a Christian.
That's not a very popular statement to make these days and have no fear. Today's message is not to try to convert you or change your thinking. And I will actually tie all of this back into marketing, but let me explain. So when I was a little kid, I went to a Christian school and I were Marotta Florida, but I believe it was called Island Christian Academy where I was baptized in the faith.
And this was one of those, um, I don't know what the term for it is, maybe evangelical or something, but, uh, it was one of those deals where everything was evil. Like they taught us everything was bad. Like literally even the weatherman was evil because he was trying to predict God's work. I remember that.
I remember the big, like worst thing you could do would be to write the name of a heavy metal band. On your note pad or something like kiss or ACDC or something. Like if you wrote that on your notepad, you know how kids like write graffiti and stuff on their books and their notepad, then you were definitely a goner.
So, um, that really turned me off to the faith. You know, I was like, this isn't really, I don't, I don't necessarily follow guys. Sorry. Now another weird twist. Uh, fate, uh, is the fact that I don't really know how else to describe the situation, but I was raised in what some would call a cult for lack of a better word from the ages of six until present day.
Um, my mother. Has been involved in something called city yoga, which I think is a very well-meaning organization. And I think it's, you know, I don't mean it in a negative way, but it's, uh, seems a little culty to me, but nice. Well-meaning people nonetheless with a generally good message. And that was a very interesting experience.
Um, as a kid. At our church or rather our house, like our personal residence, uh, w for many years, was the church for this thing. So every Wednesday. Well, you would have all of the other members of the thing and they would come to the house. And this is one of those deals where they have an actual, honest to God guru, you know, and the, uh, pictures of the individual all over the house and they chant and Sanskrit and play these instruments and stuff.
And, um, It was really something, you know, and, uh, I didn't much care for it because it was different, you know, and you're a kid and you're trying to fit in and good Lord. You know, I grew up in Macon, Georgia. Sakina, that's kind of, not really the type of city where it's a widely, uh, tolerant for lack of a better word.
A bunch of folks sitting around singing the songs and Sanskrit and having dots on their head and pictures of, uh, Indian deities all over the house. So it was a, it was an interesting way to, to be brought up for sure. Not necessarily unpleasant, but, but different. And I mean that organization, no disrespect, by the way, I think.
Good people just not for me, you know, but all of those things, those two experiences kind of gave me a very, a negative slant, I guess, in the, when considering. Religion, um, growing up and all throughout adulthood, the experience of the, the school saying everything was evil. And I just couldn't accept that.
And I was like, I don't think so. You know, I don't think that rock and roll music is evil necessarily. I don't think. Weatherman, you know, trying to help fishing boats not get caught in hurricane is doing bad stuff. And, and nor do I think there's a whole lot for me anyway, and this, this cult-like thing that at least that was my opinion of it at the time and still is.
So, um, for years I've just never really gave any of it, any thought, you know? And, and didn't. Care much about spirituality one way or the other. And, um, I'll never forget when this happened. I was in Paris with my wife one day. Really good place to go, Oh, by the way. And she was getting ready. We were going to go to dinner or something and I was in the parlor.
I guess. That's what you call it of the suite we were in. And then, uh, we were staying at a four seasons, um, in Paris, which if you ever get a chance to stay there, it's pretty good. Although personally, I'm a Ritz Paris guy. Now, nonetheless, there, I was hanging around, waiting on the misses, you know, and, um, I don't want it on when I was reflecting on how cool it was.
I was like, man, this is so great. I'm here in this unbelievable hotel. I've got this business. It's successful. I'm a happy person. I've got these children. They're great. Everybody's healthy. You know, I'm married to this. Ridiculously good looking woman with apparently very low standards and men, which is a rare but wonderful combination.
And, um, I was just having a little moment, you know, like this is so cool. And to say that I heard a voice would not be true because I didn't hear a voice, but I had what can only be described as. An unexpected thought come into my head. That wasn't my own, if that makes sense. And I know, you know, borderline sounding weird here at the moment, but I am weird.
So, you know, this should be no surprise, but yeah. Anyway, the thought voiced or whatever it was, it said you did not get here on your own. And it was in that moment. They embraced God and Christianity, and there's no other way to explain it. It's, you know, I didn't see anything. I didn't have any tragic experience.
And nor after that, did I have any like mindblowing, you know, the sky opened up and light came down and angel sang or anything. I just knew in that moment, I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, this I have nothing to do with this. Really? This is all through the work of God. And. As a result of that, I've made an attempt.
And the key word here is attempt to be a better student of the teachings of Christianity. Now, again, I'm not going to try to push this on you because I respect everyone's faith. You know, whatever you want to do is your business. I'm not one of those folks try to change somebody's thought unless they come to me for help, which I would probably refer them to somebody else.
Cause I'm not sure that I'm qualified. So within the world of Christianity, as you might know, there's a whole lot of different, uh, I don't know what you call it, you know, branches or something teams. I don't know. I think it's all the same team. Um, personally, I, I study, uh, Orthodox Christianity. I've not been baptized Orthodox, but, um, I studied every day and I get a lot of comfort from that because I like it.
You know? So I want to tell you a couple of things that I've learned from it. And then how they apply to marketing. See, I told you we would get to marketing and making money and that general happiness, uh, because ultimately what I want as a result of you listening to this is to be happier and to make more money regardless of your religious beliefs or lack thereof.
All right. All right. I have to pause while I looked to this thing up for you. Okay. So one of the folks that I study is a fella whose name is Abbott Trufant, T R Y P H O N. He is a monk at, uh, the vast Sean monastery. I'm probably. Pronouncing that wrong. Anyway, he's an Orthodox monkey. He's in his seventies and I'm going to read a passage to you, and I'm going to read two passages to you, and then I'm going to tie these back to marketing.
So just bear with me. All right. I know this is off the beaten path for us here, but I think this will help you. Okay. So this is from his book called the morning offering. He has a blog by the same title, if you want to find it. All right. So this is from a passage where he's talking about. Sharing the Orthodox face, faith with others.
All right. So I'll begin his passage here. He says we've found a great treasure and we wish to share it with those we love and are confounded and disappointed when they don't see what we have seen. The best way to share the treasure that is orthodoxy is to live orthodoxy, living a serious and loving life of commitment to Christ.
And our Orthodox faith will bring about many, a change of heart and those who are outside the church established by Christ himself. Okay. Now just hold that. All right. I promise you, I'm going to tie this back into what you're here for. I'm not trying to trick you. I've got one more, little thing to read and then this will tie back to making a making of the money.
So let me look up this other passage. All right. So this next little sentence here. It's from a specific prayer said at the beginning of the day, as part of something called a prayer rule. And every everyone in orthodoxy essentially has their own prayer rule that is assigned to them by a spiritual father.
Um, I have just made my own up, uh, at this stage. So I'm going to read this one sentence from this one, prayer to you. It says, teach me to act firmly and wisely without making others bitter or embarrassing them. All right. And so that's the end of that little sentence there. So what are these two passages have to do with making money and selling stuff?
Essentially, what they have to do is this, these are both coming back to the principal, which I have taught forever and have done my best to practice, which is there is nothing more persuasive than demonstration. Right. So when imagine that the thing you want to sell, you view it as something and we all do, right.
Hopefully we view whatever we're selling as something as precious and, and. Good as a religion itself, just like Abbott tree Fon is describing someone's view of orthodoxy when he says it is like, we have found this treasure. So imagine we have this thing that we want to sell to others and, you know, it could be a book of course, or widget, whatever.
So we have two ways to try to sell it. Right. We could, we could say, look at this thing. No, really this thing is awesome. Those other things are terrible. This thing is great. Right. And that's, you know, that's what most people do. And sometimes it works or we could just demonstrate the thing, the oldest trick in the book, like I've said forever demonstrate we can help them by actually helping them.
So that was the meaning that I read as, from a business perspective, from that first little passage I read to you the part from the morning prayer, uh, which is to. Teach me and help me greet everybody and treat everyone well without, uh, w firmness and conviction without embarrassing them is about Goodwill.
So I have this formula that I've been teaching for years, which is Goodwill plus offers times frequency equals money. If you have. And demonstrably have Goodwill towards your market. And so the seeds of Goodwill within your market through acts of kindness and actually helping them, they K oldest trick in the book.
The more you do that, the more successful you will be hands down. This is without question. A foolproof formula if there has ever been one. Um, and finally I'll end it with, um, a lyric from I'm a Christmas Carol. And I've mentioned this before, actually a couple of years ago. And I can't remember the dang Christmas Carol was just playing.
Um, but it says peace, peace on earth, Goodwill towards men. It's in one of the Christmas carols. And, uh, I've always enjoyed that lyric. And I've also. No, that we have peace on earth because of Goodwill towards men. And, um, obviously I don't just mean men gender wise, but I'm just trying to stick to the actual verse, you know, but Goodwill towards one, another Goodwill towards all there is peace on earth when there is good will.
So Goodwill brings. Peace Goodwill brings prosperity. The best you can do is to go out and help your market and your fellow man. And if you do that and wrap an offer in there, the offer's probably going to be pretty well received. And you probably don't have to really be that persuasive with it, you know, which is good.
And by persuasive, I mean, you probably don't have to do any arm twisting or cajoling or, you know, jumping up and down or back flips or whatever. So I hope that this is a well received, um, uh, podcast. And if anyone. Once any of these books that I referenced, um, the one that I liked to read, I read it every day.
Yeah, just one page a day. Cause there's like one little message every day. It's called the morning offering by Abbott tree fund. If you want a copy, I will 71 email support at Frank Kern help desk and say, please send me the book by the monk and I will do it. Um, you can also buy it. Uh, online, just Google it.
Uh, Apple tree phone also has a podcast by that same name, but I don't really listen to the podcast because I like reading the book better. Um, but I'm sure the podcast is fantastic. And if you have any questions about orthodoxy, do what I did, which is to Google it or, uh, when, when the election. When the government decides it's okay for the constitution to be relevant again, don't go to Orthodox church and ask them about it.
Okay. I hope you guys have a great day. Thanks for listening to this one. I know we're a little bit off of the normal beaten path, but I figured I'd share that with you. Take it easy.