273: You Have More Faith Than You Think

With Kevin out this week, Nole takes the mic for a raw, honest solo session recorded straight from his backyard storage shed studio. After a brief two-week hiatus to run the latest Fire Up Program, Nole is back to unpack a concept that keeps recurring in his mind during recent conversations with family, friends, and the guys around the fire station kitchen table.

We live in an information age overflowing with hot takes, political debates, and shifting "facts." But how much of what we strongly believe is actually based on our own firsthand, lived experience, and how much are we taking purely on faith? Using a harmless hypothetical scenario, Nole breaks down how we decide which voices to trust, the vital role of seeking divine discernment, and how to apply the "Sphere of Influence" framework to protect your time, energy, and family.

If you've ever struggled with when to speak up, when to let a debate go, or how to tell your kids, "I don't know, let's figure it out together," this solo episode offers a grounded perspective on navigating a noisy world.

Big thank you to My Epic and Facedown Records for the use of their song "Hail" in our podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2RZThURTU&ab_channel=FacedownRecords

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Transcript

Nole (00:18.338)
Welcome back to the Fire You Carry Podcast. Today you get me, Nole Solo, again. Miss you, Kevin.

Nole (00:30.754)
It's been tough. It's been tough to record. We obviously missed a couple weeks there. We didn't mention it last week with last week's episode, but obviously you guys know we missed two weeks. That was because of the program, and it was also because of lack of planning on my part. So I take full responsibility for that. But I am here to record a brief solo episode for you so that you have something this week. And in racking my brain, thinking about what I could talk about by myself alone in my recording studio.

Which is a storage shed.

Nole (01:03.638)
as you might remember. For those of you listening to the audio version only, I just lifted up my backdrop, which is an American flag, of course, and and showed off some of the cleaning supplies that the American flag is obscuring. So if you were on the YouTube video version of this, which approximately eight people watch, you'd be able to see that exciting moment.

At any rate, I've been in some conversations recently with various people, friends, family members, guys at work, acquaintances, and something keeps recurring in my brain. I keep having the same thought and

I think it most accurately distills down to my realization that in life I take a lot of things in in faith. And I feel like basically because of my upbringing or I don't know, just my understanding of the world, I would have previously, not that long ago, told you that faith revolved around your

belief in God or your belief in whatever religion it is that you follow, that would be what we would call faith. But what I've realized in these conversations is that I take a great many things in faith, and most of them have nothing to do with my belief in God. So just to unpack what that means and why it's been important to me recently. I'm I'm going to talk about some things from the outside, from a safe place.

We're gonna go into a a safe space right now. So I'm gonna be talking about some stuff that I don't want to get into on the podcast, some things that are hot topics of discussion right now in the political global American patriotic world, all those things that you would see if you turn on the news or if you watch podcasts, YouTube, TikTok. There's a lot of stuff going on, and there's a lot of things being said and opinions being had.

Nole (03:16.342)
And a lot of it I disagree with. And so for the sake of this discussion, in order to not get into the weeds of did X happen or is Y going on, I'm going to take the position that I'm talking about people who believe that the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war didn't actually happen. Now I don't actually know anybody that believes that. I've never heard that.

But that's an easy one for me to use because that would be something that someone would say. And then I would have some real world experience to talk about it and to say, well, actually, I was there. I have other friends that were there, that type of thing. So I'm going to use that to kind of be my straw man as we work through this again, because I don't want to invol engage in a discussion on any of the hot topics that are out there right now. And you're thinking about them right now. And some of you are going, come on, no, we want to know what you think about.

X or Y or Z. And I will tell you you can call me on the phone. If you don't know how to call me on the phone, you can send us an email and maybe I'll respond to you. Maybe we'll talk about it, but probably not. We'll talk about something else. At any rate, what do I mean when I say we take a lot of things on faith? I was in a conversation yesterday and I was listening, there was a group of guys, this is at work around the table, and I'm listening to one guy command the room, and he is laying down

A set of facts. That's the way he's presenting it. Is like this happened, these things are happening. This happened historically. This is what that means. And he's laying it, he's laying it out. He's clearly, he has command of this issue, and he has command of the room. And I'm listening, and I don't agree with most of what he's saying. I think that most of what he's saying is just flat out wrong. But I can't prove it.

And what I've realized, this this thing that I'm saying is that we take a lot of things on faith. What I have realized is that with issues like this, so say, hey, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war didn't happen, and I'm say I'm listening to this guy tell these guys that he's given all the reasons why it didn't happen.

Nole (05:31.138)
He's basing that off of who he listened to. And that was my first question to him after he was done. I said, Hey, I would love to know where you got all that information. Where did this come from? And his first answer was, Well, mostly podcasts and some like videos on YouTube. And I said, Okay, yeah, I figured that's where we all get our information. Nothing wrong with that. But who? What are the give me some names so that I kind of know where we're at.

based on, you know, my perception, 'cause it's gonna be my perception of those people, which may or may not be accurate. So he starts to give me some names. I ask him some questions and we add some names to the list and and then I basically said, Okay.

I can't stand here and tell you definitively that you're wrong. I don't agree with most of what you just said, and I do think that you're wrong. And the interesting thing about that, and about the fact that I feel that way, is that my perspective, it comes from my own personal life experience and who I am, just like yours does. But all the information is coming from somebody else. And I cannot go and independently research.

most if any of this stuff and actually prove or really decide if any of it's real. Depending on how conspiratorial you're willing to get, you could go down the road of, well, all the video and all the the film and the pictures of the Iraq and Afghanistan war, those are all fake. It's all AI. Like that's ridiculous, obviously, but I'm using that as a straw man. And then even if I'm standing in that room, assuming that this guy is espousing that opinion,

But even if I'm standing in that room and saying, well, actually, I was there. The crazy thing about that is if he decides to then choose to believe that and to shift his viewpoint, he's still doing the same thing that he's been doing on these podcasts. He's choosing to believe another person who's telling him something. So what does this mean? I do not think this means that we just go through life assuming that nothing is true because we can't verify most things. I think that that is.

Nole (07:38.496)
very dangerous and leads to I think all kinds of awful and stressful places because if you believe that nothing is true and that everything is fake it like that's just a very scary way to go through the world. And I don't think that's the way God designed it. I think he gave us the ability to discern truth and to know truth and to and to see through things. And I have certainly been in places where people are saying something and you kind of just immediately go, Huh

No, I don't think that's right. It doesn't, it doesn't sound right. It doesn't make sense. I believe that God gives us those moments and that there are things that we can absolutely know. Well, we may not be able to actually absolutely prove it. And the limits of our access to knowledge and information is it it's very vast right now with the internet and AI and everything. But we do have to doubt a lot of that stuff and just know that.

Like, well, I don't know where that's coming from. I suppose if you were an intrepid world traveler, a lot of this stuff you could go travel and talk to actual people and you could figure some of this stuff out for sure. But as a normal human person with a job and a family, if I was on the side of the camp that was like, hey, the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war never happened, and I don't believe the people that said they were there, I can't travel over there and figure that out. And a lot of the the global things that are happening right now that are hot topics of debate are so either they're

They involve a lot of stuff that happened in the past that is just obscured by the past. And we have to take someone's word for it. So what do we do with that? And for me, I'm in the middle of trying to figure this out because I find myself in more and more conversations where people are saying things and espousing opinions, whether they're opinions or beliefs or conspiracy theories, whatever you want to call them, that I don't agree with, but that I may not have a firm ground to stand on to say, like in this in this

Example, no, I was in Iraq. I was in Afghanistan. I don't have a firm ground to stand on on most of this current stuff that's being talked about. I don't have personal experience, but I do have my my beliefs, what I think based on my experience with the world, based on the people that I have listened to, that I'm listening to, that I choose to believe. And these people on the other side, they have theirs exact same thing. They have their experience, they have their view of the world, and they have their per people that they're listening to. So why I think that's important for me where I'm at is that

Nole (10:02.87)
It's been helpful to be honest when I don't know and to say, well, this is what I believe about that and here's why. But I'm holding that with an open hand and saying, I don't really independently know this. I believe this based on all these things and these people that I've listened to and these things that I've read, much like you do. And I want you to know that I think it's important that we talk about it, and I would love to talk about it with you, but

I want you to know that while I believe this, I am taking it in faith. And so do that do with that what you will. I think that level of honesty is helpful and it can drop guards. And it's been interesting, and I've had some really great conversations lately with with some friends where we don't we d we don't agree.

on things, but we have a really good conversation. It gives me an opportunity to vet my position against the opposition, right? It gives me an opportunity to talk through it with somebody who's got points on the other side, which either strengthens my opinion on what I believe or it weakens it, right? Sometimes you get a piece of information and you realize, that's actually a really good point. That might be the point where then I do go research that a little bit and look into it, depending on what it is, but more on the reality of what I'm doing with that later because

Spoiler alert, I'm not doing that.

We did an episode recently talking about being quiet and not speaking up, and that that leads to the perception that you agree. And so there is an aspect of this where I am still kind of in that world of processing through that of when do I speak up? When is it important? And knowing when, because it isn't all the time. And when it comes to something like

Nole (12:05.964)
Well, there's no way I'm gonna give you a real world example right now 'cause I said I wasn't gonna and I was about to.

This is probably gonna be a crap episode. I'm gonna move forward. I'm gonna shift gears here.

I've also been thinking about this whole thing, especially the silence, in the context of the this idea of your sphere of influence. And I don't remember who described this to me, but it was at work. It was a captain I worked with recently. Cool dude. I actually do remember now, but I'm not going to state his name on the podcast. But

The idea of the spheres of influence is I have these two circles, and I have this circle of things that I care about, things that I'm concerned about, and then I have this circle of things that I can actually affect. And this guy's point was that we need to live as much as possible in the circle of things that we can affect, and that there's a small sliver, it's like a Venn diagram, right? Where they overlap a little bit in the middle, ideally. So there's a small sliver in there where

There's things I care about. There's a lot of things. I care about a lot of things that are going on in the world. And I want to be aware of that stuff as much as possible without losing my mind. But there's a tiny sliver of that that actually is involved in the things that I can affect. And so finding that line and knowing that when I'm listening to somebody talk about something that's way outside of my sphere of influence, that I don't really know whether or not the facts they're telling me are true.

Nole (13:43.054)
If I can look at that and go, that's so far outside of my sphere of influence. I cannot do anything about that. And then I add a I add a third part to that in how does this line up with my with my worldview, which for me, I want to live as a man who puts his faith first, who puts God first. And so if it's not meeting the criteria of being involved in that and the things that I can actually control and have an impact on, but it is something I care about, then maybe I don't engage.

Maybe it's something that it's not important enough for me to engage with. Maybe I still state my opinion. I go, I really don't think that's accurate. But maybe I don't go on down the road of where I get on the internet and try to do research and see if I can figure out, okay, well, he had this point which was interesting. Is that true? Can I figure that out?

Nole (14:30.616)
So as I've been trying to think through these these issues and kind of figure out where do I speak up, what do I do with this? Because I don't want to get into a place where I'm spending tremendous amounts of time trying to formulate opinions based on accurate facts on all of this stuff that's going on. There's so much. And honestly, I'm not being exposed to a lot of it.

Because I'm totally off social media. I have an Instagram account. I have a Facebook account. I haven't been on either of those in years. So I'm not seeing people's feeds. I'm not on TikTok. I do watch YouTube videos, but most of the time those YouTube videos have something to do with either Battlefield Six, the video game that I like to play, gun stuff, or things that kind of are in the world of just men bettering themselves. So stuff like this podcast. So

men who are in that space and the the easy names or the you know the jocko willings of the world, that that type of content. So I'm not really seeing

These unknown innocuous, which I'm sure at this point this podcast is so annoying to you, because you know what I'm talking about and I'm not saying it. But I'm not getting those things from from social media. I'm hearing a little bit of it on the news when it's on the television at work in the morning. But most of it I'm getting through my friends and my family as as they're talking about those things. So a lot of these things to me feel like they're coming out of left field where really it's been something that's been kind of building in the space of the internet, social media, especially.

And I've just been unaware of it because I'm not on there. But I don't want to get myself to a place where I'm expending a ton of energy in those directions for things that don't fit into my my sphere of influence, that don't fit into places where I can do something about it. I do still think that it's important as a man to be aware of what's going on in the world and to be educated. And honestly, there's an aspect of that as my kids have gotten older that sometimes they come to me and ask me about stuff. And a lot of times lately my answer is

Nole (16:33.09)
I don't know anything about that, but I'll do a little research for you and we'll talk about it. And that's been good. And that works, right? I don't really most of these things you don't need an answer like right now. I need to know right now. It's like, we could talk about it. We could figure it out. We could some time. So I'm trying to find that balance in that sweet spot because I my time, like your time, is limited and it's incredibly valuable. And I waste it all too often doing things that are.

Unimportant, lazy distractions. And I'm trying to do less of that. I'm trying to be engaged in the things that really matter, which is my relationship with God, my family, and things like this podcast and the fire up program. That's where I want to be pouring my energies into. I don't necessarily want to be pouring my energies into finding out how to debunk or figure out my position on the latest thing that people are talking about and getting upset about. So

That's that. I'm not going to push this any further, but I think that for me at least, it's interesting to reflect on the fact that so much of what I believe, I have taken on faith. I have listened to somebody else say, or I have read somebody else talk about, and I have chosen whether or not I believe what that person is saying. Obviously, there's a ton that goes into that. You have to know who you're listening to, and you have to have a feel for that person. There are definitely people.

Who I've listened to or watched videos of, and I've immediately felt like, I this person is shady. I don't believe this person. They appear to be a liar. And I think there's a big important part of all of this where if you're paying enough attention and if you're listening correctly and not just immediately believing everything that you hear because it was on the internet, was on a YouTube video, whatever, you have a lot of perception, especially if you ask God for that. That's one of the things that we can ask God for. We can ask him for wisdom, for discernment.

And he promises that he'll grant us those things. So that's actually something that I'm also doing. I'm also asking God to like show me, help me as I navigate this strange world where I've never been confronted with anybody that says that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars didn't happen, but I have been confronted with other things that on their face to me, at least initially, sound equally r ridiculous or implausible, might be a better word.

Nole (18:57.528)
I would love to hear from you guys. What are you doing? Are you being confronted with things like this in your circles of influence? Is this something that you've thought about? Are you just completely unplugged and not worrying about it? Are you too involved? Are you finding that middle balance? Do you have any tools that you could hand off to me? Do you have any fire that you're carrying in this area that you could pass on to Kevin and I? If you do, the YouTube place, YouTube place.

You can tell I'm really internet savvy. YouTube is a great place for that. You can go in the comments and comment. Nobody ever does that. But you could do it and you could tell me how you're dealing with this issue, if this resonated with you at all.

I really appreciate you guys listening. Again, I'm sorry that we missed the last two weeks prior to that last episode, which actually I just want to say that last episode was super fun. I am stalling for time right now as I try to find the ec the music so that I can play it.

There it is.

Nole (20:13.666)
This has been the Fire You Carry podcast.

Nole (20:19.838)
Our next fireup program is not happening until October. So you have plenty of time to plan. So if you want to come out, get on the internets, go to fireup program.org, check that out, sign up right now, and then you have an entire summer to figure out how you're going to make that work with your work schedule and your family schedule and everything. Just go sign up now. There's a discount if you sign up early. It's 50 bucks cheaper than if you signed up the month before.

Just go do it and then figure it out throughout the summer. That's my encouragement to you. Go do that. We will be doing the 9-11 Memorial Stairclimb again this year. We don't have a date for it yet, but we will let you know. And for those of you who are looking forward to going out with John Ingle and hold the line slash the fire up program, we don't have a date for you yet, but we are working on it. And as soon as we have it, you will hear about it here. I would appreciate it if you would go to YouTube. If you're listening to this in the audio only, go to YouTube.

Get a sneak peek at my rad background, which I spent a lot of money and time on. That's sarcasm. But while you're over there, subscribe to the channel, give us a like, type some sentences in the comment block there. We want to grow this thing, and the only way that we can grow it is if you help us. And you have been so great thus far. The fact that you're here and listening is still incredibly humbling to Kevin and I. It's an amazing honor.

to be able to get on here and ramble like this and have you guys listen and when you reach out and talk to us about it, even if it's somewhat negative feedback, we love that. We absolutely love it. It's super encouraging. So

Thanks again for listening, and we will see you next week.