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Uncomfortable Truths, Constant Surrender | Patrick Lonergan
47 Plays12 days ago
Patrick Lonergan is a tax strategist and founder of Vital Strategies who knows the difference between a "check-the-box" faith and the violent pursuit of the Kingdom. Patrick opens up about the "firefighter" mindset—the willingness to run into the heat of uncomfortable truths, even when it means telling a friend that culture is lying to them about their marriage.
The conversation pivots to the refining fire of 2008, where Patrick watched a multi-million dollar net worth vanish and found himself paying $15k a month on assets he no longer owned. He shares the counterintuitive "test of the tithe" during his darkest financial hour and the five-point decision model he uses to discern God’s voice over the noise of his own ego.
If you are a high-capacity leader struggling to shorten the timeframe between "grinding it out" and total surrender, Patrick’s perspective on the "REACH" framework and the ruthless elimination of hurry will recalibrate your definition of an optimized life.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:56
Steven J. Neuner
Welcome to Unstuck and Alive. This is podcast that is not about hacks, highlights, or how to optimize your life so it looks better on the outside. This is campfire type of conversation where people tell the truth, not because it's strategic, but because it's necessary. And I'm excited to introduce our guest today, my friend Patrick, who actually reminded me of this recently. And I had been praying while about a friend and his situation, and have just been sitting in prayer and just really trying to listen about whether or not to have a hard conversation with someone because I loved them. And so anyway, as I go through and I pray and I'm praying and I'm praying, I watch my friend Patrick sit in a conversation with them, hear the person's story and immediately lean into uncomfortable truth that I think most people would avoid. And I was certainly trying to pray myself into having it. So anyway, really grateful for that reminder, grateful to have you here, Patrick.
Faith Beyond Ritual: Daily Challenges and Responsibilities
00:02:08
Steven J. Neuner
And I'm excited just to get to know you more and learn more who made you, how you became that way.
00:02:14
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm, I'm excited about this conversation because I think it, you know, that, that, that conversation fits into, you know, think a larger narrative just about, you know, how we're, we're called to live our lives as, uh, as believers. And, uh, it's not always easy. Uh, it's, you know, on one hand, it,
00:02:35
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
Marriage and Faith: Insights and Personal Struggles
00:02:42
Steven J. Neuner
Thank
00:03:02
Patrick Lonergan
They were talking about some marriage challenges and said, I think it'd be better for our kids if we got divorced.
00:03:08
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
00:03:10
Patrick Lonergan
And I just, there was,
00:03:10
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Hmm. true.
00:03:13
Patrick Lonergan
there's a lie that culture and Satan tells us that, yeah, you know, yes, if you're, you know, separated, it's better for the kids than to see you guys, you know, fighting on a regular basis. And the truth of that answer is, and I leaned into this, I said, it is not better for your kids. What's better is to have,
00:03:29
Patrick Lonergan
their parents married in a loving, healthy relationship. I just said, look, I say that from experience. My wife and I, we've got three daughters. They're incredible, but we've been on the brink. We've been almost divorced. There's been times where my least favorite person on this planet was my wife. It's somewhat embarrassing to say that because I'm called to lead our marriage well. But it was the truth of the situation. And I can look at it on the other side and be like, look, it was a lot of work to get back a healthy spot.
Faith Journey: Embracing Challenges and Growth
00:03:57
Patrick Lonergan
And, but it's worth it. It's absolutely worth it to, to put in the energy and the effort to,
00:04:03
Patrick Lonergan
of bring that marriage and that relationship back to a healthy spot. That's where all of that came out from. I appreciated you after the fact saying, hey, thank you for speaking some truth into that situation. I don't know. It was one of those things. It's like, I'm okay. I'm getting more and more okay. I still have a lot of work to do here, but being being uncomfortable for, for kingdom purposes, right?
00:04:26
Patrick Lonergan
Like let's, let's, let's bring the truth in a, in a loving, respectful way, but, uh, let's bring it.
00:04:27
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:04:31
Patrick Lonergan
So yeah, that, uh, that was, uh, that good. I, and I, and I really appreciated your encouragement there, uh, after the fact. So.
00:04:55
Steven J. Neuner
was just watching just, you're like a firefighter running into the fire. And it was, it was beautiful it was encouraging and humbling.
00:04:59
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:05:11
Steven J. Neuner
I'm sure you didn't grow white, like wake up and just say, okay, I'm going to violently attack my flesh.
00:05:14
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:05:18
Steven J. Neuner
So take us back a little bit, if you would, and maybe tell us the version of your story that you wouldn't say on most other
00:05:19
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah.
Business and Faith: Intersecting Paths
00:05:26
Steven J. Neuner
podcasts.
00:05:27
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:05:27
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, yeah, this is good. So I think the I look at my life and think back to when I was a kid and I was was a decent athlete and I was was was never afraid to work hard. They were they were like kicking me out of the gym, which was was good. You know, I that that served me well and laid a solid foundation. think sports a great like way to learn about life, conflict and adversity and all those other things. And I fast forward and I'm grinding in sort of life. And I grew up in a
00:06:02
Patrick Lonergan
in a faith that was more around like checking the boxes. Hey, do these things and you'll be okay. And I remember sitting in church and this is beautiful Basilica and I'm just feeling empty in regards to like, there's more. I know there's more than what I'm feeling here. And it was just incredible how the Lord started working on me from that point forward. We had a business, a real estate business where we were buying property. We were sending letters out to landlords that were evicting tenants. So messy properties. And I,
00:06:33
Patrick Lonergan
I send a letter to this guy. He's about my age, early 20s. And he's like, hey, I got a property I want to sell. He owns it with his dad. And we start working on this deal and we get it all figured out. I come to find out that his dad's a pastor in an urban church. And we lived in the Twin Cities at the time.
00:06:51
Patrick Lonergan
And we get the deal done. He's like, hey, you want to play in this golf league? And I'm like, yeah, sure. I'd love to. And, you know, just a few things just to see how like there are no accidents. Like I would send these letters out sporadically when I needed to do some deals and I'd find one. And then and so like the fact that, you know, these guys got this letter, you know, it was.
00:07:09
Patrick Lonergan
Not an accident. And the fact that they called me and wanted to figure out a deal and we got a deal done and everybody was happy about it wasn't an accident. And the fact that they knew I was new to the area and they invited me to play in this golf league also wasn't an accident. We're walking down a fairway and I'm like, Pastor, I'd love to just sit down with you and talk you about this whole thing.
00:07:27
Patrick Lonergan
faith thing. And he's like, yeah, sure. Let's do it. And, it was the first time that somebody, and I, I, like, I, I, so I grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic school, went to Catholic church
Trust and Provision: Financial Struggles and Faith
00:07:36
Patrick Lonergan
and nobody ever like sat down with me and said, look, the wages of sin or death were all sinners.
00:07:54
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:07:54
Patrick Lonergan
Jesus warns us about that.
00:07:56
Patrick Lonergan
Like, hey, you got to decide. Are you willing to... repent of your sin, repent of your old lifestyle and like do something different. And I couldn't really wrap my head around that. It took me a minute to like come to terms to what that, that actually meant. But I met this pastor every week, uh, doing some Bible study and it really started to, to sink in. And, and I, the interesting thing is like, it was a,
00:08:18
Patrick Lonergan
a messy path. I'd love to just say, oh yeah, I came to know Jesus and my life was just better. Money raining from the sky and relationships were all amazing and all those other things. It was almost the exact opposite of that. I was going broke. My wife and we moved. I thought I had some systems and processes in place and we didn't. And I get a call from my bank like, hey, you know, there's property, there's not been a payment made for, you know, a few months. I call my property manager. I'm like, what is happening? And they're like, well, yeah, you know, we were short. And I'm like, are you
00:08:49
Patrick Lonergan
call me maybe next time before you just decide going
Decision Making: Community, Wisdom, and Biblical Guidance
00:08:51
Patrick Lonergan
to stop making mortgage payments. And so we're trying to figure that out. We're also running, the reason we moved is we were running another management company trying to get this new thing off the ground. And it was just,
00:09:05
Patrick Lonergan
There was a period of time where I had done everything. was leaning into that hard work that I was talking about when we started this conversation that learned in sport. And I was like grinding and nothing was working.
00:09:16
Patrick Lonergan
And I was relying on my strength. I was like, Pat can figure this out.
00:09:19
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:09:21
Patrick Lonergan
And I remember we didn't have enough money to even pay the next month's rent. And we're like, all right, so let's just go to church and we're just going to like, we're just going to give this a little bit of money away, whatever we got left. Cause I'm at my wit's end. Like, Lord, you, you manage this. And then I also, we, we, there was clearly some, some,
00:09:41
Patrick Lonergan
money management issues on my end. So I took a dollar bills worth of change and I divided it up into this strategy. And it was 10% for giving, 10% long-term savings, 50% for necessities, 10% for education, and 10% play. And I think that might be close to all of it. I'm probably forgetting one, long-term savings for spending. so i like i like took my change and i put it in these like buckets like lord okay i'm i'm now going to be obedient in my spending and i i'm just it's all yours like help me and uh it was so interesting to see how the lord showed up in those those scenarios we
00:10:20
Patrick Lonergan
we got a 7 500 check uh from this project we were working on and had no idea when it was going to pay out my wife got another some vesting that came in and it was like okay like and i don't tell this story to be like hey you do these things and then you like hit the lotto it was more like i'm going to be obedient and and the scriptures say that you the the lord clothes the the flowers of the field and feeds the birds of the air and he loves us more than that And when I think about that, I'm like, okay, cool. We're going to lean into this. I'm not going to go hungry and I'm going to have some clothes on my back. And he provided. And it was just so cool to see that. And then there was obedience there. And one of the things that I've noticed in my life is I'm trying to shorten that timeframe from when Pat is holding onto it and grinding it out to when I submit it to the Lord and just be like, I'm just going to trust that God
00:11:10
Patrick Lonergan
you've got this.
00:11:10
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
It's
00:11:10
Patrick Lonergan
So that, that was, I think maybe the, the, uh, the beginning of that, that like, right.
00:11:15
Steven J. Neuner
It's inflection point.
00:11:17
Patrick Lonergan
I'm going to, going to start being, uh, obedient to the Lord's call and, uh, just see where it takes me. So, yeah.
00:11:22
Steven J. Neuner
And if I could circle back and like just slow down the game footage a little bit here. So I'm curious, you said it took what first like back to salvation or I guess, you know, yeah, I mean, salvation.
00:11:27
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm.
00:11:33
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm.
00:11:37
Patrick Lonergan
Yep.
00:11:37
Steven J. Neuner
you said it took a while to sink in. What were some of the lies? What were some of the hangups that really allowed that, that required that to marinate in you? What had to come down for that to open up for you?
00:11:49
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, it was, was so self-reliant and I felt like everything that I accomplished was on me and had to do with me and I had to go earn it and do it. And, and it was just a complete mindset shift, both from how I operated in life and sort of my faith background was like, it was doing, doing got you to a certain point. And, uh,
00:12:20
Patrick Lonergan
Everything from the breath in my lungs to all of the abundance around me is because the Lord's put it here, not because I've done anything remarkable. So that was the key piece. And it took me some study and scripture, just asking questions and really getting into like, what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? I don't get it.
00:12:44
Patrick Lonergan
I kind of thought I was before that point.
00:12:45
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:12:45
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:12:45
Patrick Lonergan
I thought I was saved because I was a good person.
00:12:48
Patrick Lonergan
But now it's relationship. And how do I have a relationship with this the spirit, right? Like that, that's the, that's the hard part that, you know, took me a little while to, to, to really come to grasp with.
00:12:57
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:13:02
Steven J. Neuner
And as you made like, just curious, like, so again, just slowing down to the game footage.
00:13:04
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:13:06
Steven J. Neuner
So between that and that opening up for you, right, and the relationship deepening, what type of timeframe or like, because I'm sure when you hit that spot and you started making these financial calls and we're going to, we're going to handle God's mind different.
00:13:20
Steven J. Neuner
What was the time differential between those two inflection points?
00:13:23
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah. I would say there's probably two or three months that were really impactful. And what I started doing was, and there's no criticism in these statements I'm making, but I was going to the Catholic church by myself on Sundays.
00:13:38
Steven J. Neuner
Sure.
00:13:41
Patrick Lonergan
My wife was at home and we grew up Catholic. We got married in the Catholic church. all that stuff. And she considered herself very much Catholic. I started going to the Baptist church where this pastor was from. And she was like, time out. We are not Baptist, you know?
00:13:56
Patrick Lonergan
And so we, she was like, I'd like to just meet this guy.
00:13:57
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Ugh.
00:14:00
Patrick Lonergan
And my wife is a hard driver. She graduated, got her undergrad degree in two years, got her master's degree in another two years. At this point, she's in her early twenties.
00:14:11
Patrick Lonergan
She's the director of an oncology unit. So she's, she's a boss of all of these doctors that have God complex. Okay. And not 25 yet. So she's just like, you know, used to just getting things done. Right. And so she sits down, we sit down for lunch at, I believe it was Panera Bread and, uh, uh,
00:14:34
Patrick Lonergan
She's just like firing questions at pastor. And it was so beautiful to see how he managed it. Because what he did was like, hey, we believe that the Bible is true, right?
00:14:45
Patrick Lonergan
And yes, we believe the Bible is true. And he's like, okay, well, let's just see what the Bible has to say about that. He wasn't giving his opinion. He was just bringing the truth. And it was just so, so powerful.
00:14:53
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
00:14:56
Patrick Lonergan
And it showed me the value of like, understanding the scriptures. And the cool thing is there is a, so that was the first meeting. The second meeting we have,
00:15:07
Patrick Lonergan
And like, it was hard, you know, it was just like firing shots the whole time and just this graceful response. And then get done and I'm like, Oh my gosh, pastor.
00:15:16
Patrick Lonergan
I'm like, sorry. You know that, uh, but there was a softening that was taking place.
00:15:20
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
So good.
00:15:21
Patrick Lonergan
That was really cool in my wife's, uh, heart.
00:15:24
Patrick Lonergan
And, then our second meeting is, he opens up the Bible and like, wives submit to your husbands, uh, husbands, uh serve your wives like jesus love your wives like jesus loved the church right and he died for the church so it's like you know and we we walk through that uh because the submission thing is not that's something we like to talk about as society But ultimately, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, like you're a servant leader of your household.
00:15:50
Patrick Lonergan
And so you're you're not going to abuse that submission. You know, you're going to like serve people well. And so I think my wife coming
Managing Expectations: Personal Growth and Perspective Shift
00:15:57
Patrick Lonergan
along in that process as well, like was also really powerful because now now we started doing Bible study together every day.
00:16:01
Steven J. Neuner
Thank
00:16:05
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Awesome.
00:16:06
Patrick Lonergan
And. it started, we could have these conversations internally. We could go find the answers. And that was really, really kind of a powerful point in that process, you know, two or three months in that we're really starting to figure out what our faith in this relationship with Jesus means to us.
00:16:26
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Pat, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing. And I think so many folks that listen that are running after something in the business world can relate of they start into something, know, there's both spouses are working hard.
00:16:27
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm.
00:16:37
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
They're chasing and pursuing. They're not finding it. They don't know what they're not finding, but they know they're not satisfied.
00:16:44
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm.
00:16:44
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Marriage is not like, you know, it's talked about before or, you know, what you have envisioned your mind.
00:16:44
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:16:50
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
So you find this pastor, he starts introducing you to the gospel. Continue that story in. What does it look like for the gospel to go from a ticket punch to heaven, little bit of fire insurance to pull you out from a pit into something that truly is a main point of every day of your life?
00:17:13
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, yeah. I think there's big things at first that start to happen. You start to look at your life and like, oh,
00:17:22
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, I'm in clear disobedience here, you know, and and you start to work on those things. Again, I would love to say that they are just like instantly better.
00:17:29
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:17:32
Patrick Lonergan
Right. But it's it's a process. It's maturing. I think in America, we love drive through breakthroughs, right?
00:17:39
Patrick Lonergan
Like we want seven minute abs and then five minute abs comes out and better buy that one. Right.
00:17:45
Patrick Lonergan
But that's not how abs actually work. It's like you show up for a decade eating well and putting the work in in the gym, and now you've got a nice-looking body.
00:17:52
Steven J. Neuner
was a humble brag. Patrick's ripped, by the way.
00:17:54
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:17:54
Steven J. Neuner
Keep Sorry, brother.
00:17:55
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I know. can see.
00:17:58
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
With a bald head like that, dude, he literally just got out of the pool.
00:18:00
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:02
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
He swam three miles, and now he's on a podcast not even breathing hard.
00:18:06
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah. No, no, this is good.
00:18:11
Patrick Lonergan
So I think we want those like drive through breakthroughs and you start to make progress in these big things. And then one thing that the pastor said to me that I did not comprehend at the time was I pray for the Lord to reveal my sin.
00:18:26
Patrick Lonergan
I'm looking at
Alaska Reflections: Personal Glory vs. God's Creation
00:18:26
Patrick Lonergan
this guy, and I'm going, there's no sin in your life. What do you mean? You have it. Then you start to slow down, and you hear Jesus say, if you look after a woman with lust, you've committed adultery.
00:18:37
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:19:04
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:19:10
Patrick Lonergan
I think that was a point that started making some changes and just thinking about how we're doing things.
00:19:17
Steven J. Neuner
I love it. There's a quote. So Patrick and I know each other through Strategic Coach. And there's a quote inside of one of the rooms at the Chicago office. It's one of Dan's quotes. And it's, once you experience positive momentum, you never want it to stop.
00:19:35
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:19:35
Steven J. Neuner
And when I'm listening you, Patrick, that's amazing. what hear your faith walk.
00:19:43
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. And one thing that I found that is, we have this saying in our family, it's, do hard things, right? Like, and it goes back a little bit to that, that my early comment about, you know, that, that taking up your cross daily and that like violence, you know, it's like, it is not a soft thing. It's like, you have to do the hard things. And I think about all of the good that comes out of the hard things. And I can look at this in every area of my life.
00:20:14
Patrick Lonergan
We can start in sport and just go look, just grinding away, like produces some results. My marriage, man, the work that we've put in there, it produces the counseling, the hard conversations, the figuring out that my wife does not think like I do and like
00:20:22
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:20:51
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:20:55
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:20:58
Patrick Lonergan
Then there's also a Jocko Willanick saying that we really like and it's good.
00:21:03
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Good.
00:21:04
Steven J. Neuner
Good.
00:21:04
Patrick Lonergan
Good. He's got a two-minute video that it's so good.
00:21:07
Steven J. Neuner
So good.
00:21:09
Steven J. Neuner
Got me through COVID.
00:21:09
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Everybody should listen to it.
00:21:11
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, it, uh, and I've got a, uh, my daughters are pretty decent athletes. one's a high jumper uh, High jumping in the spring in Iowa can be an adventure.
00:21:23
Patrick Lonergan
We could literally have snow. We could have 80 degrees. We could have wind. We could have whatever. And so we've just gotten to the point where it's like, oh, it's snowing today.
00:21:28
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:21:31
Patrick Lonergan
Good. And because most people, it's good for a few reasons. A, our competition's complaining about it. Like, oh my gosh, can't believe it's snowing.
00:21:42
Patrick Lonergan
For us, it's just creating this mental toughness. Good. All right. We got new opportunities. We're going able lean on this in the future that will produce this...
Pursuits and Rest: Balancing Ambition and Spiritual Alignment
00:22:02
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Good.
00:22:08
Patrick Lonergan
That's Jocko's, the essence of what he's saying there.
00:22:11
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
For sure.
00:22:12
Patrick Lonergan
Good, all right, hey, it's sideways, good, rejoice in all things. Like there's going to be some positive that comes out of this, so.
00:22:18
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Patrick, flesh that out. Like you, you know, you run a business, you are, you're, you're successful from the world standards. You're trying to love on your three girls. You're trying to pour into your, your marriage, your wife, you know, you're the scriptures woven throughout all that, like, you know,
00:22:35
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
for the last 20 years, like what have been some of the examples of, you know, where you face something hard, where you felt like you, you know, the odds were stacked against you, where you had to, to break through like the old way of thinking no longer worked.
00:22:41
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:22:47
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
And that's, sometimes that's a business way of thinking. I mean, it's all, I'm convinced it's all holistic. It's like, we don't have business principles that are different than scriptural principles. It is like all together.
00:22:58
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
And, you know, you are, You are the target for the folks that are listening to the podcast of, you know, we're not we're not going after folks that want to sit around and be monks all day long and just grow in their their walk.
00:23:10
Patrick Lonergan
Right. Yep. Right. Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:23:11
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
They want experience all life has to offer. And sometimes that can be up on stage in front of folks that can be, I mean, leading in the room, you know, all those things. So. Tell us a little more, like, how have you gotten to where you are today? know you're humble. I'm not asking you to, you know, brag too much, but like, yeah, tell us some of the breakthroughs you've spiritually, personally, professionally.
00:23:29
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. So I think the, they all seem to tie together, right? The, that's the beautiful thing about the scriptures are they're, they're,
00:23:34
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Absolutely.
00:23:44
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Amen.
00:23:46
Patrick Lonergan
You talk about being a monk and it's like, no, we are called to go out into all the world and be productive and do it with excellence for the Lord. And so I think about, there's some key points in my life.
00:23:54
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:23:59
Patrick Lonergan
So there was, we lived through, we had large real estate portfolio 2008, nine, 10. right when the real estate market was melting down. And we were in our late 20s and had net worth that was tremendous on paper. It was like, this is amazing.
00:24:19
Patrick Lonergan
And the cool thing is we got into some deals with a partner that... was the reason we got into the deals. We had no recourse. We had very little cash invested. We were putting tons of energy and effort. Our balance sheet was impressive. We got a phone call one day.
00:24:32
Patrick Lonergan
This partner also had other assets that Prudential was our lender that were not performing. Most of our property was multifamily property in Texas. If you remember 2008, 9, and 10, it was $4 a gallon at the gas pump.
00:24:45
Patrick Lonergan
Texas was doing fine because oil was crushing it. The rest of the economy in the United States was not.
00:24:48
Steven J. Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:24:50
Patrick Lonergan
And so our partner had commercial and industrial spread all over the United States. And so it was like, hey, these non-performing assets and these performing assets, we're just going to take it all to sort of become whole.
00:25:01
Patrick Lonergan
And we were like, huh, OK. So we went from very healthy net worth with healthy income to none of it. And then we own some of the smaller stuff that was falling apart and somewhat like I mentioned with mortgage payments not being made and whatnot. And those five-year notes were coming due.
00:25:19
Patrick Lonergan
And not that the assets weren't necessarily cash flowing, but the equity was gone. And so it was like, hey, we need you to either put cash in or fix this problem. And and fix it in the sense like sell the property. And it was like, well, we were running out of cash trying to fix these problems. We're trying to sell these assets for less than they were owed. And remember we were just very forthcoming with all the lenders like, hey, this is what we're trying to do. And we got those deals all sold. And there's a key scripture, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
00:25:52
Patrick Lonergan
Well, when I signed on the dotted line that I'd pay that money back, we had a couple options, right? We could file bankruptcy, which would have been the, I'll say the worldly perspective, or we could have, uh, let our yes be yes and be like, okay, we're, we're, we're gonna, we're obligated to this. And so now what's happened is my net worth is upside down. It's a negative number. And, uh,
00:26:13
Patrick Lonergan
My cash flow is also super sideways. And I've just started my financial advisory. My wife, they had a mutual partner with our other partner that she's got a background in hospital administration. She was managing the 1,500 apartment units that we owned at that time.
00:26:29
Patrick Lonergan
there was a mutual partner that had a senior housing management company with two assets that were on their third management company. The bank was ready to take the properties back. He was like, hey, you got the skill set. Do you want to try to spin up a management company and save these things? was like, have anything else to do. Let's go. In all of this,
Holistic Life Optimization: Integrating Faith and Community Impact
00:26:49
Patrick Lonergan
we're broke. We're starting new things. I'm starting financial advisory. If you think about an entrepreneur, their income is the profit at the end of the day or their salary.
00:27:00
Patrick Lonergan
Well, we had none. If you looked at all the payments we had going out, there was no money left over. And so we decided And this goes back to the first time that we were broke and we gave the money away. We're like, Lord, we have no idea. So we started tithing on the top line number. So was like, okay, what are the revenues that are like coming into our world? That's, we're just going to give 10% of that away.
00:27:23
Patrick Lonergan
And the Lord feeds the birds of the air and close the flowers of the field. And he loves us more than that. And so that was freaking hard. That was a really hard period of time. think I was like negative. Like I was paying 15 grand a month on properties I no longer owned anymore. Back to banks that, you know, and I got three kids at home and we're trying to figure it all out.
00:27:45
Patrick Lonergan
And, you know, the just being aligned with my wife. We were both committed to doing what it took. We were also aligned with the Lord, like, Lord, and he tells us to test him in the tithe. And so we're like, all right, fine, here we go. I've got faith. Let's see where this goes. And so it was through that, I think, hard time that I had a lot of refining that was taking place in me, you know, and you think about refining, it's going through the fire and it, uh, it's painful, but it just created this foundation that was so healthy for us, uh, from a business point of view, a faith point of view, marriage point of view that was, was just really good to, uh, kind of get us back on a healthy track.
00:28:31
Steven J. Neuner
Man, I love
00:28:31
Patrick Lonergan
So yeah, I think that's my, you know, if I had to look at a hard time, you know, in a business sense that ties a lot of those pieces together, my faith and my personal life, like there's example.
00:28:31
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Awesome.
00:28:42
Steven J. Neuner
I'm curious, and I mean, like, just going there, I'm curious. So, I mean, man, thank you for sharing that. I mean, the generosity of that is awesome. And, uh, uh,
00:28:53
Steven J. Neuner
put me in gratitude because it caused me to reflect on a couple of similar fires that I've been through. The thing I'm curious about is, you know, how is your perspective on debt changed?
00:29:04
Steven J. Neuner
Because when think of you mentioning scripture, I think about the borrower being slave to the lender. Boy, I mean, that sounds so heavy handed regards to like, hey, we're just going to take it all.
00:29:13
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:29:15
Steven J. Neuner
Like we're just going to figure this out. Right. Yeah.
00:29:18
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah. I, this is good because we, when I think about the scriptures and the slave to the lender, it doesn't say don't do it.
00:29:27
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:29:31
Patrick Lonergan
It just comes with these bright flashing lights, like warning, slave to the lender, right?
00:29:39
Patrick Lonergan
Like they will own you if things go sideways. And so when I think about that, especially as an entrepreneur,
00:29:42
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:29:52
Patrick Lonergan
A, debt erodes our ability to build wealth, period, okay? And so I think I also put it in a couple different categories.
00:30:04
Patrick Lonergan
I don't think personal debt makes any sense whatsoever. live below your means, pay cash for just about everything, uh, and get rid your mortgage as fast as possible. Even though economically I can prove to you, that's not a great strategy, right? Uh, you know, get the arbitrage, go invest the money over here, but you know, again, slave to lender on the business side.
00:30:23
Patrick Lonergan
we think about it, you know, Dave Ramsey, I love his story. You know, he might be the first billionaire to ever get there without using leverage. But there's an economic discussion about like, okay, using leverage allows us to build wealth faster than we could otherwise.
00:30:41
Patrick Lonergan
But I think there's a wise way to use it. When we were taking on that commercial debt in the mid The commercial debt was just, it was as wild west as the residential debt. We were 95, 98, 92% loan to value on this commercial financing. Now, the beautiful thing was it wasn't recourse. So it was like they weren't coming after my personal assets if the thing went sideways. So that was kind of the nice piece of it. But again, they took all of my assets, right? Like I had a very healthy net worth and then it all went away. And so
00:31:15
Patrick Lonergan
I think that is one of those things that I don't know if it's necessarily sin. It can be sin in the wrong situation, and it can be sin for you and not for me, depending on what's going on. If I've got a spending problem, man, I should probably stay a long ways away from debt.
00:31:29
Patrick Lonergan
I think there's a level what is the Lord speaking to me?
Conclusion: Reflections on Faith and Continuous Growth
00:31:32
Patrick Lonergan
You know, we have this five point decision making process that I think is good and we're sharing.
00:31:33
Steven J. Neuner
Say more. Yeah.
00:31:37
Patrick Lonergan
So, and we try to like lean into this in all major decisions in our lives.
00:31:43
Patrick Lonergan
So, A, what is the Lord saying to me through prayer? What do the scriptures say? What does wise counsel say? What are the circumstances telling me? And what does my experience say?
00:31:53
Patrick Lonergan
And so it's like, if all of those things align, it's like, yep, we can move forward. But if you start to get, you know, one of those five falls apart and you're like, hey, I'm considering taking on this debt and buying this thing that I know nothing about. Like,
00:32:08
Patrick Lonergan
don't do it. So we like that decision making model and we slow down and we're mindful. And then especially with deals, we'll call it whether it's a business deal or a real estate deal, the way the deal starts and the way the deal finishes are from like first,
00:32:25
Patrick Lonergan
being aware of the deal to closing, the deal will evolve and you have to be looking at it and reanalyzing it. And because you get super emotional about that deal and you get excited about doing that deal for what it means for your ego and, you know, all these like worldly things. And if you don't slow down for a second and go, Hmm,
00:32:45
Patrick Lonergan
I need to re reanalyze this. Uh, we, we help our clients with this on a regular basis too. Like, Hey, this deal has evolved and I don't think it's a good deal anymore. And we should step back and figure out if we should move forward or not. And we need to make some changes or walk away. And so I think that's a, an important piece too, is just, making sure you're not real emotional about the, the opportunity.
00:33:07
Steven J. Neuner
Give me the five again.
00:33:08
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
It's good.
00:33:08
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you. slow down.
00:33:09
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:33:09
Steven J. Neuner
Give me the five again. I want capture them. Okay.
00:33:11
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:33:12
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. So what is the Lord saying in prayer?
00:33:13
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
The Lord sang.
00:33:14
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. And, uh, and that, that ties back to, I think first Thessalonians, and I didn't understand this as a Catholic, uh, pray without ceasing, you know, I'm like, pray without ceasing. What the heck?
00:33:25
Patrick Lonergan
Like, am I just saying our fathers hail Mary's all day long? Like this doesn't make any sense to me. And so it's just cute.
00:33:31
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
How am I supposed to get any work done?
00:33:32
Patrick Lonergan
Right. Like what the heck?
00:33:35
Patrick Lonergan
But no, it's not that. It's just communing with the Lord on everything, right? Like I am just, I am checking in with the Lord on all of these decisions. Now I might hear some response.
00:33:44
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Hmm.
00:33:45
Patrick Lonergan
And if not, I've got the core values in me and I know what to make for a decision. So step one, pray. See what the Lord has to say for you. Second, what does scripture say? You know, scripture is just very clear. Like, don't do that thing. You don't do the thing.
00:33:59
Patrick Lonergan
Then I think about wise counsel. You know, if I, if I've got, uh, and for me that that's other believers, uh, and if I'm making a business decision, I'm going believer. That's also a business owner, right? That it's been there, done that. And they can, they can speak into my life.
00:34:14
Patrick Lonergan
Now, what are the circumstances say? think we oftentimes, let's keep it in the business realm, right? Like I'm making a business decision, real estate's on fire.
00:34:25
Patrick Lonergan
those circumstances might be, hey, this is not a great time to buy, you know, because we've already run up and we could be, you looking at, you know, a downturn or it's a downturn.
00:34:29
Steven J. Neuner
Right.
00:34:35
Patrick Lonergan
like, okay, is this a good time? You know, is there an opportunity to do this deal and have it perform well? And then my experience, like what have learned? What do I know that applies to this situation?
00:34:58
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you. And you say that you help others with this, right? And, you know, definitely want to talk, you know, let you talk a little bit about your business too. But I'm curious of the five, are there, maybe start off telling us what you do, but then I'm curious of the five, what do people generally, find you have to help them with most often?
00:35:17
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:35:17
Steven J. Neuner
Where do people get stuck?
00:35:18
Patrick Lonergan
So, yep. Thank you. So we, uh, we're tax strategists. We help our clients with a fractional family office type structure. We work with entrepreneurs that are generally frustrated by their tax bill.
00:35:31
Patrick Lonergan
And then we, that's why they come to us. Uh, we can quantify the value there. And then we, we lay a foundation that just allows them to, uh, pay less tax, build more wealth and live an optimized life.
00:35:42
Patrick Lonergan
So that's, that's the, that's the goal. Yeah, I would say the, when we're thinking about our clients, most of them have achieved a level of success that most people have never gotten to.
00:35:54
Patrick Lonergan
So they have quite a bit of experience. They've got some track, some mistakes they made. That's where wisdom comes from, right? You screwed up a bunch stuff along the way and you figured out how to like do it better.
00:36:02
Steven J. Neuner
I've
00:36:04
Patrick Lonergan
So, you know, the wisdom piece, I would say, you know, we're agnostic to the client. Like if you're not a believer, I don't care. I'd love to share the truth with you. But I think that's something we're just not afraid to bring into the conversation is here's what the scriptures say. Here's, you know, I was praying about your situation this morning and some people are like, what? And on our podcast, it is very,
00:36:29
Patrick Lonergan
Very technical. We're talking about business things. We're talking about, but we're also having spiritual conversations. A couple times a year, will do an episode 100% on Jesus and here's the truth and let's debate it. Let's talk about it. I get really good feedback from that. People are like, hey, thank you. I appreciate you having this conversation. I would say that the prayer and the scripture piece are the thing that are most often missing. And the interesting thing is like culture will tell us to live a certain way.
00:36:57
Patrick Lonergan
And we're called as believers to plant a flag and say, no, we're not going to pursue that thing. And because I would say there's one example coming to mind. There was client that was looking at buying a business and was just really emotionally tied up in it. And we're sort of presenting the truth like,
00:37:12
Patrick Lonergan
this deal has sort of migrated away from a good deal. And I think there was, there was pride, there was, you know, perception on if I don't do this deal, it's going to mean something to me, you know, and it's like, there's just an interesting opportunity to have a conversation about, well, we'll,
00:37:31
Patrick Lonergan
Why does that ultimately matter? And maybe we should rethink about our priorities and what people think about us. And so, yeah, I would say those two are probably the big one, the scripture the prayers, where most people are leaving out some of those.
00:37:46
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah, that's good.
00:37:47
Steven J. Neuner
Can I click one?
00:37:48
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:37:51
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I've had something written down to ask.
00:37:53
Patrick Lonergan
Okay.
00:37:53
Steven J. Neuner
Ask.
00:37:53
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
So Patrick, you've been hitting on this concept that we talk a lot about, almost where it's like somebody else has told us what's right and wrong.
00:38:04
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
And you said, debt for some people can be okay, for other people it's not okay. You've talked about principles, praying through like how, I think so many times we're trying to live under everybody else's expectation of us.
00:38:19
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
And that's where it's like, we're not, we're not stuck in sin. We're stuck under the load of an expectation. And, you know, if my parents told me that's bad my whole life, and there's this deal that honestly, it's like, I don't know, it's a tool.
00:38:25
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:38:32
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I don't, I'm not tied up in it. I don't, I don't worship it. That's just a tool to get there. But I feel like I can't do it. Like we feel so much weight and, and, You help people make really big decisions about their money, about their life. Like how, and I love the five points, but like, you know, talk a little bit more about that. How do you, and maybe you personally, like how do you decide and sift through all the noise? We call them the maps. Like we feel like, you know, we've been handed these maps and they're just not right. They may have been right for somebody else, but Nooner's map is not my map and my map is not your map.
00:39:06
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
How do you personally navigate that, find freedom, live in fulfillment, go for you know, but not feel under the constraints of everybody else.
00:39:17
Patrick Lonergan
This is so good. I love this question. I think a massive problem we have in we'll call it society is inertia. And you talked about it. My folks lived a certain way. I've been on a path. And so I'm just going to stay on this path. And I'm really unaware. And inertia, fancy term for a body in motion stays in motion. And it's like,
00:39:40
Patrick Lonergan
and less acted on. And so it's like, oh, I've got to break myself out of this. And we were geeking out a little bit before we started recording about my podcast setup.
00:39:44
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:39:50
Patrick Lonergan
My first episode probably took me two or three hours to figure out the technology before I hit the record button. But I was just not willing to. I was going to figure this out regardless. Right. And we're going to break out of the inertia of not having a podcast to starting one. And so So I think that's a key piece. And for me, I think it starts with what do I really want out of life? Like stepping up above and really being intentional on where do I want to go? What things are important to me?
00:40:23
Patrick Lonergan
We like this acronym REACH. So the R's for relationships. These are the most valuable things in life. And we're going to talk about the things that are within our reach and things that outside of our reach. So R's for relationships, E's for experiences, A's for advancement and growth. And think about this on lots of levels. I need to grow personally.
00:40:44
Patrick Lonergan
My business needs to grow. I need to bring my children up and help them mature and grow. The C is for contribution. Jesus tells us it's better to give than receive. And then is our health. And there's three components to that. Our physical health can't give me cancer for any amount of money.
00:40:59
Patrick Lonergan
Our emotional health, if I'm depressed and can't get out of bed, doesn't matter how much cash I have. And my spiritual health, if I'm morally bankrupt, you know, living on the hedonic treadmill, like that's no good either. So,
00:41:11
Patrick Lonergan
I think about things outside of our reach, going to pursue those things, the bigger, faster, shinier, the thing the world tells me to go do.
00:41:19
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:41:20
Patrick Lonergan
It's all empty. You see the billionaire with a 330-foot yacht. His friend gets a 340-foot yacht, so he goes and buys a 350-foot yacht. It isn't going to make you happy, I promise. Either is the fifth wife. It's not going to work. I think there's a level of like, how do we rise up? How do we get very intentional on what we want in life?
00:41:39
Patrick Lonergan
And then what are we willing to do to go get it, right? And then there's something to like, and this is so hard. And I feel like I work on it on a regular basis. I think we need to operate from the assumption that our thinking can be wrong. The way we're pursuing life can be wrong. And stepping back and going, oh, okay, if I look at the way I'm doing things and I don't like my outcomes, maybe I should adopt some different thinking.
00:42:05
Patrick Lonergan
And that's really hard to reprogram. I think I go to therapy on a regular basis and not because I'm necessarily broken. I definitely have things to work on. But I think about the most successful people in life have coaches in their lives that can look at it and go, hey, what you're doing isn't giving you a good outcome.
00:42:25
Patrick Lonergan
LeBron James, the best golfers in the world, Taylor Swift, I'm sure they all have coaches at the top level, right? And you can look at those and go, oh, why do they have coaches? Because they want to continue to get better, right? They didn't make it and go, I don't need anybody to speak into my life. So I think about that on my mental health.
00:42:41
Patrick Lonergan
I've got... Steven's a business coach. He's so many coaches in my life. I think about my faith walk. I've got people that help me and see me there. Fitness, nutrition, all the things that I feel like matter. I've got somebody that can look at it and give me these new ideas and say, hey, have you thought about it this way? It's like,
00:43:01
Patrick Lonergan
I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, successful business owner. We went to Alaska and we're unplugged and walking through the wilderness and camping together. One of our mutual coaches challenged him with a sabbatical. At first, I was mad about it. I was like, no, I don't need a sabbatical. No, not doing it. Then the more he's thought about it, the more he's been excited about that idea of like, cool, yes. I like the challenge of taking a month off from my business. you know being able to see you know the work we're doing on building systems and processes so i can i can have a self-managing business so i i think that's a long-winded way of just saying i think we need to have fresh perspective on uh how we're living and and again lean into some wise counsel people that have been there that can coach us and give us guidance to move us in a new direction
00:43:51
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
What were your biggest takeaways from the time in Alaska, tromping around unplugged?
00:43:57
Patrick Lonergan
how i'll say insignificant uh i i felt uh you see this vast creation uh you see the beauty you see how well it all fits it just seems to confirm you know creator when i'm when i'm out there and it's like this is not this is not an accident and it just gives me me time to
00:44:13
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:44:21
Patrick Lonergan
it's really easy for Pat to get excited about all the things that Pat has going on in his life and how important they all seem. And I would say this last year has just been really interesting.
00:44:32
Patrick Lonergan
And this isn't, I don't think this is unhealthy, but my time here on earth is whether I'm alive for 10 minutes or 110 years, it is a vapor in relationship to eternity.
00:44:42
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:44:43
Patrick Lonergan
And so I've just been thinking, it sort of helps me reset on look, whatever uncomfortable things I have going on in my life, if it's for the Lord, it's okay. It's all going to go really fast. And I'm 45 years old, put me at the halfway point in my life, right? And I see how fast this first 45 is gone. It just keeps going faster. And I'm like, okay, before we know it, I'm going to be hanging out with Jesus and that's going to be exciting. And so let's live a life of worship, to live is Christ, to die is gain.
00:45:13
Patrick Lonergan
Let's live for Christ, right? Let's figure out how to do that. in every possible way. Just bring glory to Lord, worship in all the little things. And I think a lot of that comes from feeling somewhat insignificant out in Alaska, you know, because I'm like, man, if the weather turns or I get hurt, like this could be the end of my life, right? Which, you know, as a believer, I'm excited about the life I've got left here on earth. But, you know, at the end of the day, if they ended out in the beautiful landscape that the Lord gave us, I wouldn't be too hung up on that. So.
00:45:48
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
That's good. Just to make sure we don't blow past that, you know, you and your friend, charging after big things, you know, some of the advice you're given and the experiences you're having that are producing fruit are not more, but less sabbatical step away for a month, you know, spend it, spend time in Alaska away, unplugged, like
00:46:02
Patrick Lonergan
Yep.
00:46:09
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I think we've got to, you know, you talked about the drive-through breakthrough. think that we also live under this mindset that more is always better. Like more instruction, more books, more, more, more, more. And sometimes it's less. It's take a step back, gain perspective.
00:46:25
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Holy cow, life just changes when you see it different.
00:46:29
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. And I think one thing as business owners and believers in general, that we look through the 10 commandments, the one we want to chuck out is, take a Sabbath, take a rest day.
00:46:41
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Sabbath.
00:46:43
Patrick Lonergan
Like, no, we grind as entrepreneurs.
00:46:43
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:45
Patrick Lonergan
What do you mean? How am I supposed to be more productive in six days than seven?
00:46:46
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:46:49
Patrick Lonergan
Right. And it's like, no, like the rest, Sabbath was not made for God. It was made for man. Right. And, and so, uh, I think that's a super powerful thing.
00:47:00
Patrick Lonergan
We need to, We need to rest. We need to reflect. I remember, Stephen, this conversation comes up in strategic coach regularly. And it's just like, the Lord is not subtle with me.
00:47:13
Patrick Lonergan
And he starts stacking all these, he just keeps nailing me with this conversation over and over again. But I'm grinding. I go to strategic coach.
00:47:22
Patrick Lonergan
Then I read a book by John Mark Comer called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. I read it and I was mad about it.
00:47:26
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:47:28
Patrick Lonergan
It was like my buddy in the sabbatical. I had to put it down for like a week and pick it back up and reread it. I'm like, I know there's truth in here, but I am not ready or willing to
00:47:35
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Hmm.
00:47:40
Patrick Lonergan
submit myself to this. And this is where I think our walk goes as believers, right? Like you look at me and not taking a Sabbath is not, the world doesn't look at it as like me committing adultery, right? Like they don't put them on the same category, you know? But it's the little things that as a believer, I'm like, oh man, I am really challenged.
00:48:01
Patrick Lonergan
I'm hearing you, Lord. Stephen's telling me to take 100 free days, 150 free days a year.
00:48:03
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:48:07
Patrick Lonergan
John Mark Comer's telling me to rest, truly rest and take this $1,000 computer we all have in our pockets and shut the stupid thing off and spend time with your family.
00:48:27
Patrick Lonergan
One final thing, there's a book called Rest that's really good. It looks at all of the great thinkers.
00:48:30
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
It is.
00:48:32
Patrick Lonergan
He goes, look, these people work about two hours a day, and then they spend the rest of the day walking. Their subconscious is working on the problems that they're dealing with. If you're constantly tuned in, turned on, you can't your spirit can't commune with the Lord. You can't work on these issues. You can't come up with solutions because you're, you're too busy. So yeah, I think there's, there's so much value in rest that we, we just, we like to ignore.
00:49:00
Steven J. Neuner
Subtle way of saying that I pissed you off first time I met you, huh?
00:49:06
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
That's what I heard, you know? He said it lot better than you did, but that's what I heard.
00:49:08
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:49:08
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:49:09
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:10
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Hmm.
00:49:11
Patrick Lonergan
I was just generally mad at the Lord in general. Like, come on.
00:49:14
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:49:15
Patrick Lonergan
Quit piling on me right now. But yes.
00:49:18
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Quit piling rest on me, Lord.
00:49:18
Steven J. Neuner
Well, there's, I know, right?
00:49:20
Patrick Lonergan
I know, yeah.
00:49:21
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I got things to do.
00:49:22
Steven J. Neuner
Well, and there's,
00:49:22
Patrick Lonergan
I'm too busy for rest.
00:49:25
Steven J. Neuner
Inherently getting to do what I get to do, Pat, and I know you know this, it's like, cause you've seen in the room is that people really resist that like hard.
00:49:32
Patrick Lonergan
Oh, yeah.
00:49:32
Steven J. Neuner
And it's like one of the hardest things.
00:49:33
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Amen.
00:49:34
Steven J. Neuner
And it's like, wait a minute, I joined strategic. Aren't you supposed to help me make more money and grow my business? How is taking off going to do that? And much like the tithe you talked about earlier and like the testing of the tithe, I think rest has a similar type of principle to it.
00:49:40
Patrick Lonergan
Yep.
00:49:45
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm.
00:49:48
Steven J. Neuner
It's like when I finally started taking free days and I didn't start where the number I take now, it was just trying to reclaim my weekends. I mean, expands everything.
00:50:01
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Thank you.
00:50:01
Steven J. Neuner
I forget what the word for it is, but yeah, it's just counterintuitive.
00:50:04
Patrick Lonergan
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to give you two more examples of this.
00:50:07
Steven J. Neuner
Paradox. Yeah.
00:50:09
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah, it's a paradox. Absolutely. And I remember about the same time, we had a guest speaker at our church that I know, and he was talking about mission trips.
00:50:20
Patrick Lonergan
Like, hey, we've got to, you know, like, and he brought up, I believe he brought up an entrepreneur in his example. And I'm like, I do not have time for that. If I'm taking time off of work, I'm just going to go on a vacation.
00:50:32
Patrick Lonergan
I'm not taking a mission trip. And the Lord just like zapped me on that one like, oh, oh, interesting. Like you don't think that if you, you haven't learned yet that my economy is different than the world's economy, right? Like if you are faithful in little things, like I will bless you in things that you don't understand. And so this last year we took a trip to Salvador with our entire family, you know, took 10 days off and just, it was incredible and so fruitful on so many levels. And I'm like, all right, Lord. And then, then I had another situation not long after that, we're sitting in men's group and somebody said, Hey, you know what? I love that out of this group, if I need something, I can call somebody on this group out of this group and they'll, they'll be there.
00:51:21
Patrick Lonergan
I was like, don't call me, you know, like, If I'm in the middle of my day, I'll get back to you later. I do not want to be interrupted. And Lord was like, oh, interesting.
00:51:29
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:51:29
Patrick Lonergan
You know, like, that's an interesting perspective. You know, it was a rich young ruler moment for a minute for me there. Like, hey, give up your calendar. And I was like, no, you know, I went away sad. And, you know, where he told the rich young ruler, yeah, sell all your possessions and come follow me.
00:51:44
Patrick Lonergan
And he was like, no, I can't do that. And so I was like, oh boy, I need to really examine my time and how I'm worshiping at that altar and really start to let things go.
00:51:45
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:51:55
Patrick Lonergan
So yeah, this is great.
00:51:57
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
It's awesome.
00:51:59
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:52:00
Steven J. Neuner
So what's under construction right now for you?
00:52:04
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah.
00:52:07
Patrick Lonergan
Let's see. I think one of the things that I'm working on and have some real tension about is my daughter's a really good high jumper. I'm her high jump coach, but all I really am good at is getting kids pointed in the right direction. And I know enough technical stuff to like, you have a little bit of success.
00:52:28
Patrick Lonergan
But my daughter does some training from a former Olympian. She's going to be a division one. She's a senior in high school this year. She's going to be a division one high jumper, which is pretty cool. But we're getting ready for the season. We're traveling around a lot. And the thing that I'm I'm trying to be mindful of Am are we worshiping at an altar here with high jump? You know, like last week I was in Oklahoma, uh, for high jump this weekend, I'm going to, Minnesota. Uh, we've got some time off and then we go back to back to Oklahoma. Then we fly out New York, to the Nike indoor nationals. We have a state indoor meet the day before and coordinating the travel and making sure we can get there. I'm just like,
00:53:14
Patrick Lonergan
I'm just trying to be mindful of like, is this, is this something I'm, I'm worshiping at and what is it costing me? You know, I love that I get to spend some time with my daughter. We were building relationship. I'm making deposits there. I'm, my wife and I were in very healthy spot. I've got two other daughters, you know, my other daughter is a really good wrestler. Uh, Iowa, we have girls wrestling and, uh, she's, she's excelling there. And so last night we were at wrestling meets. And so it's like, I just want to make sure that I'm,
00:53:40
Patrick Lonergan
I'm leaning into things for the right reasons and not the wrong reasons. And then also just thinking about some of the challenges that doing all that, that come with business and we're growing a business where there's, there's a difference between growth and scaling. We're really trying to lean into the scaling side of things. And again, creates new challenges and opportunities. And it's like, how do how do I get that done in a reasonable timeframe?
00:54:04
Patrick Lonergan
Spend time with people I care about. So those are all of the things like bouncing around in my head from a, It just seems to be this revolving theme around time and abiding and just listening to the Lord. And because I don't think I don't think travel for sporting events is sin or not sin. I think it probably depends on what the Lord is speaking to you and where your heart is on these things and how you decide to respond to it. So, yeah, those are those are things I'm just I'm wrestling with right now.
00:54:33
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Pat, that's really sweet.
00:54:34
Steven J. Neuner
Thank
00:54:34
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I love the way you're looking at it. I think most people as a parent think This is the window. have to give everything for my kid to capitalize in it or else we're going to look back with regrets the rest of our life.
00:54:50
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
It all depends on me. And you're trying to raise up your girls in a way of saying, let's go for it. Like, heck yeah, dude.
00:54:57
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:58
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I mean, she's how fun that she has these great opportunities in front of her. Whether wrestling or high jump or business, it doesn't matter. It's like, man, praise God she's getting to use her gifts and hopefully it creates a platform and at the same time,
00:55:15
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
what does it look like to not let that become the idol? that's just awesome. I mean, I love that. I hope that all the dads listening will just take that in of like, man, what does it look like to go for it?
00:55:29
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
And at the same time, hold it loosely. And those things are so hard to wrestle with.
00:55:31
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:33
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
And so thanks for sharing that. You've mentioned your business. You've mentioned wealth management and... You real estate before. How do people find you now?
00:55:42
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Somebody wants to get in touch with you, has questions. How do they track you down?
00:55:46
Patrick Lonergan
Yeah. Yeah. A couple spots. I think podcast is a great place to get to know us. Vitalstrategies.com. You can go check out our podcast. We've got some free resources there. And then our, I'll say our consulting advisory website is vitalwealth.com. And so, yeah, it's, we love working with entrepreneurs that are excited about growing and living that optimized life. And that optimized life in my book is that reach concept. If you just want to stack up another zero, we're probably not a great advisor for you.
00:56:19
Patrick Lonergan
We'll help you stack up the zeros, but to what end, right? And so we love to see impact and just living full life.
00:56:23
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Awesome.
00:56:27
Patrick Lonergan
And ultimately, we think the foundation of that is just knowing Lord, seeing where he calls you. So
00:56:34
Steven J. Neuner
Patrick, man, thank you so much for coming here with us today and just being so generous. Thanks for being on the trail with me, coach here everywhere, man. And I just want to give a special shout out, Todd.
00:56:47
Steven J. Neuner
I want to point out that I gave a lot of body blows so you can hit those uppercuts at the end here with these great questions. So my apologies to you, my friend. So anyway, I get excited.
00:56:58
Steven J. Neuner
I love my boy, Patrick. learning. I told you my coach too.
00:57:00
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
I love it.
00:57:02
Steven J. Neuner
So anyway.
00:57:02
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Dude.
00:57:03
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you, Patrick.
00:57:04
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
It's like wringing it dry. You're wringing one side and I found another area I wanted to get some wisdom out of. I saw it. Dude.
00:57:12
Steven J. Neuner
Well, I love you both, Patrick. I love you, man.
00:57:14
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:57:14
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you so much.
00:57:15
Patrick Lonergan
Yes. Thanks so much for having me. This was a fantastic conversation.
00:57:17
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:57:18
Patrick Lonergan
And I just appreciate you guys doing this because I think getting unstuck is such an important thing.
00:57:24
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Amen.
00:57:24
Patrick Lonergan
And if we don't get unstuck, how can we live? And so this is wonderful.
00:57:27
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Yeah.
00:57:29
Patrick Lonergan
I appreciate these conversations. They're valuable. They need to be brought to the world.
00:57:33
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
You bet. Well, Pat, thanks for doing what you do.
00:57:34
Steven J. Neuner
Thanks, Bruce. Thanks.
00:57:35
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
Keep doing it, man. Keep creating space for folks to talk about how they can optimize and also thinking through a holistic lens. May your tribe increase.
00:57:45
Patrick Lonergan
Thank you.
00:57:46
Todd Pinkston & Steven Neuner
You bet. Thank you, guys.