Every Man’s Battle Podcast

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Every Man’s Battle Podcast brought to you by New Life Ministries. In this podcast, you’ll hear honest conversations and encouragement for living a life of sexual integrity. In every episode, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist JJ West and Licensed Professional Counselor Doug Barnes break the silence around sexual integrity struggles that millions of men face but rarely discuss openly. Each episode offers practical strategies and genuine hope to dissolve the shame and isolation that keeps men trapped in destructive cycles. Let’s get to today’s episode.

JJ West: Hey everybody, welcome back to another Season 3 episode of the Every Man’s Battle Podcast. We are so glad that you’re listening. Thanks for tuning in. Doug, it’s great to see you. Happy podcast day.

Doug Barnes: Happy podcast day again. Yes, always a great day when it’s podcast day.

JJ West: Always a great day when it’s podcast day. We really do, whether you recognize this or not, we really do love doing these. It’s a great joy for us. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes, frantic work that happens before we actually get to the recording part. But once we get to this part, it’s really enjoyable for us and we hope that it’s not just enjoyable, but educational and helpful in your recovery.

Thanks for listening. Today, we are going to talk about check-in calls. What should be included in a check-in call? What shouldn’t be included in a check-in call? What are some of the specifics that a check-in call should look like? I think that a lot of guys, they’ll go to Every Man’s Battle. They’ll be a part of Sustained Victory. They know, because we tell them over and over, that they should be doing check-in calls.

But they may feel lost in how to do a check-in call. What should it look like? It may start to feel intimidating, and so then they shy away from the check-in call. They don’t do the check-in call because they either don’t know what it looks like or they’ve tried to do it and it morphed into something it never should have been. Then they’re like, "Well, this isn’t helping, so I’m not going to do it anymore." We want to give some good guidelines on what should be included and what shouldn’t be included, what it should look like, so that you have more successful check-in calls so that you then do more check-in calls.

Doug Barnes: Yes, absolutely. We’ll say this a lot: if you’re not doing regular check-in calls, there’s very little to no chance that you’re going to do a crisis call when you need to because you don’t have the behavior pattern established. You get to the crisis moment and it’s like, "Well, I haven’t talked to Bob in three weeks or six months or whatever. I’m not going to call him. I don’t want to bother him. It’s late." All of the objections will start to flow. But if you already have a regularly established "I call Bob every Tuesday at 10:00 and Thursday at 4:00," if that’s already established, you are much more likely that on Saturday when I’m in crisis, I’m going to pick up the phone and call.

We need to be careful about keeping it to one person. Accountability, I’m all about. But then we need to be careful about just keeping it to one person. What if Bob’s not available? I’m lost. So instead of just Bob, I’ve got Bob, Steve, Ron, John, and Joe. I’ve got all of those guys and I need to practice. I think that’s really important. It’s not just one guy because that’s a great relationship, but when he’s on vacation and out of the country and out of cell phone range and I’m in a crisis, what do I do?

JJ West: That’s really important. It might be Bob on Tuesdays at 10:00 and Thursdays at 4:00, and then it’s Charlie on Wednesdays at 3:00, and it’s Joe on Fridays at 5:00. I’ve got multiple people because otherwise, I end up with, "Oh, he’s not available to me, so then I just have to fight this alone." No, that’s not what God intended for you.

Because we’re tackling this subject of what check-in calls look like, today’s episode is going to look a little different. Most of the time, Doug, you and I pontificate. We wax eloquently on these different topics and maybe it’s more theoretical or information. But today, it’s going to be really practical. It’s going to be really nuts and bolts, very tangible. This is what it looks like and this is what it doesn’t look like.

Some of you maybe lean more toward the theoretical. We need both. We need to understand the whys and look at that, but we also need to understand the practical, tangible, what does this look like day in and day out. That being said, today we’re going to be very practical. We’re going to spend the majority of the time doing the nuts and bolts, giving those guiding principles. That’s really where I want to start. What are some of the guiding principles around a check-in call? What should be included in a check-in call? Then we’ll give you some examples. We’ll do some roleplay. We’ll give you some practical examples of what a check-in call shouldn’t look like and what a check-in call should look like. Hopefully, that’ll not only be fun but it’ll be informative.

First item on the practicality list: Check-in calls should only be about five minutes. Now, that might be surprising to some of you because your check-in calls have been much longer than that. Check-in calls are not for catching up. They’re not for talking about your favorite sports team and how they’re doing so well or doing so poorly. It’s not about talking about your favorite hobby. It’s not a gripe session. You can do all of those another time on a different call. Enjoy having conversations with your buddies.

But a check-in call is different. It should only take about five minutes. The reason why we want you to stick to that five-minute rule is if you let it go much beyond that, what starts to happen is guys will recognize, "Oh, Bob’s calling. I know when I get on the phone with Bob, it’s going to be a half hour. I don’t have a half hour right now." So I let it go to voicemail. I don’t answer. Or I’m supposed to make the call. It’s my turn to call you, but I know it’s going to take too long and so then, "Oh man, so sorry. I forgot. I got so busy." But the truth is it was because we’re letting our check-in calls take way too long. So we want to stick to that five-minute rule.

We’re not going to be time police. If it’s five minutes and thirty seconds, okay, around five minutes is the goal. But if we’re wildly outside of that, like if we’re in the thirty-minute range, we’ve gone too far and we need to recalibrate back to what needs to be included in the check-in call.

Doug Barnes: There’s one other scenario there that I hear a lot where it’s my turn to make a call. I get on the phone and think, "I don’t want to bother him. I don’t want to take too much of his time. He’s got a family, he’s eating dinner, he’s on vacation, he’s at church, he’s in a meeting, he’s at work. I don’t want to bother him." Wait a minute. We’re losing the focus. If it’s five minutes and we hold it to five minutes, we’re going to talk about the purpose. What is the purpose of the check-in call? If I’ll stick to that, it’s not hard then to keep it in the five-minute range.

JJ West: If I have an established day and time that I’m calling, then I’m not worried about, "Oh, I’m interrupting his dinner time with family, favorite hobby," because we’ve already agreed that we’re going to do a check-in call every Tuesday at X time.

Doug Barnes: So we clear our schedule, we make time for that five- or ten-minute window right there, and we follow through with the purpose of our accountability with each other. There are lots of different ways to look at this. The first component when I’m talking about check-in calls is a feelings check-in. How are you feeling? What’s going on with you right now?

We have to step back and say what were some of the drivers that took me to my acting-out behavior, misusing my sexuality beyond God’s will and desire. Part of that was, by definition, if I’m going to act out, it usually makes me feel good. If I want to feel good, then by definition, I’m not feeling good. There’s a negative emotion that I’m struggling with that I want to change. We’re not conscious of that, but for our purposes, what are you feeling right now?

That needs to be one of the first questions after "Hi, Bob" or John or Charlie or whoever. It’s, "Okay, so what are you feeling?" "I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m feeling boxed in, I’m feeling whatever." That’s the first thing because that’s a huge driver to our acting-out behavior. We automatically know if there’s a negative emotion there, maybe we need to stop and maybe process just that just to say, "What’s going on underneath that? What are you feeling internally that could be driving that negative emotion?" Because it could be environmental, it could be internal, it could be something that’s happening outside of the house, outside of work, whatever.

JJ West: To that point, Doug, and this is going to be true for all of the things that we list, I have to do some work prior to the check-in call. I can’t give what I don’t have. I have to know what I’m feeling. I have to have an answer to these questions when I do the check-in call, so I’ve got to do a little bit of work before I get on the phone.

Doug Barnes: Some prep work. We’re frontloading that so that whatever I’m asking, I need to have already gone through that inside of me because as soon as we’re done, he’s going to turn around and ask me the same question. I need to be ready for that instead of going, "Well, you know what? I’ve never thought about that. How am I feeling? I have no idea," like it’s a big surprise. The better we get—and I don’t want to make this evaluative as good or bad—we’re talking about accountability and trying to keep it within a timeframe that we can work in this. That’s why it’s called "check-in." It’s not called "let’s have a thirty-minute conversation call."

JJ West: It’s not therapy or advice.

Doug Barnes: This is me checking in with my brother for this moment in time on this day, and then tomorrow we’ll do it all over again and the day after that and the day after that because we’re in community. It builds community; it builds trust.

Next thing, we need to talk about: have any primary boundaries or secondary boundaries been violated, crossed, or broken? If we’re talking primary boundaries, maybe we need to have a conversation again maybe outside of this time, maybe not, depending on the timeframe. So any boundaries that were broken or crossed.

If there are some secondary boundaries, as we go through our recovery and we’re getting to know ourselves, maybe I’ve added a new secondary boundary that I might not have known about before. I’ve been tempted in a different way or triggered in a different way that I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to add this to my secondary boundary list so that I can make sure that I stay on the healthy side of that line.

JJ West: Sometimes adding this new secondary boundary is not that it’s a new temptation, but I’ve only just become aware, "Oh my gosh, yeah, that always happens prior to me being tempted to cross a primary boundary." So I want to add this new secondary boundary back here. It’s been around for a while, but I wasn’t paying attention and suddenly I’m aware. Whether it’s a new trigger or it’s only something I’ve recently become aware of, have I added a new secondary boundary?

Doug Barnes: Awareness is the key to change. How well do I know myself? Giving myself a chance to know myself. So that’s what we’re talking about here. Moving on: have I had any significant triggers, whether internal or external? Go back to Season 1 and look at triggers as well as boundaries. We did three episodes on secondary boundaries just because there are so many categories and it can be very confusing sometimes when we’re out in the real world with all of the different stimuli that come at us.

One thing that comes to my mind is have you experienced any type of new "aha" moments, or have you gotten anything since our last call that worked for you or is working for you in your recovery that you’ve added? Maybe you listened to a podcast or you read some book or you were in a webinar or a seminar where you’re going, "Wow, that’s really good for me." I would want you to share that with me if I was calling you because I might put that into my own recovery. I might say, "You know what? That’s me too. Oh, okay, wow." And I write it down and then I start putting it into my everyday recovery junk.

Then last but not least, do you see anything impending? Do you see anything coming in the short term that might be a threat to your integrity? Maybe it’s a board meeting or maybe it’s a trip that you have to take because of work and it’s going to take you to a tropical island. I don’t know. Some people do that. I don’t get that privilege, but I’ve heard of that, like employee incentive trips where a bunch of people from the same company go to some island and it’s a vacation for them. They won an award or whatever. Is there anything on the horizon that could be a threat to your integrity?

And of course, last but not least, have you just lied to me about anything that you’ve just shared? Because we want to live in 100% rigorous honesty. Have you outright lied to me or have you left anything out, have you omitted anything that needed to be included? "I didn’t lie to you; I just didn’t tell you the truth." We need to be aware of what I omit.

JJ West: Great list. Just to refresher, guys: feelings check, primary or secondary boundary violation, any new secondary boundaries that have been added, anything that you have found to be helpful in your recovery, any significant triggers and how you responded, then finally, anything on the horizon that might be a threat to your integrity, and then all of that with that final question, "Hey, did you lie or did you omit anything in your check-in?" And that’s it.

You should be able to cover that in about five minutes. Both of you should be able to do your check-in in about five minutes. If you stay on those topics, if you do those things, you’ll get through the check-in. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a follow-up conversation later, or if both of you agree, "Hey, it happens to be a free evening, let’s continue the conversation," great. But when we’re doing our check-in, we’re going to stick to that five-minute rule so that we build in the consistency. We’re going to talk a little bit later about why that’s important. Who do we call if we’re going to do a check-in? Who’s supposed to be on the other end of the phone when I do a check-in call?

Doug Barnes: That is a great question. For those of you who’ve been through the Every Man’s Battle intensive, I lead a lot of those aftercare groups; it’s called Sustained Victory. I get this question every group. My first thought is that the first callout needs to be somebody in group. Can I call Jim from church because he’s the head usher and he and I have this great relationship? Yes, you can. However, my encouragement is call one of the guys in group.

Why? Because this is our new herd. This is our new community, and it fosters trust. We’re in the twelve-foot deep dive, deep end of the pool where all the sharks and piranhas are, and this is walking life together. That’s why we do this. We walk life together.

JJ West: I would add to that they also already know my story, whereas the usher from church may not already know my story. And two, we have a shared language. We’ve been to EMB together; we’re in Sustained Victory together. I don’t have to explain every phrase. I don’t have to tell you what a primary or secondary boundary is. You already know. What’s "acting in"? When you go to the intensive, you understand that at a deeper level.

Guest (Male): Five years ago, I had been in porn addiction and I’d had a sexual relationship out of marriage. Every day, men struggle with sexual integrity: impure thoughts, strip clubs, affairs, pornography. For over 20 years, New Life Ministries has been helping men regain their integrity through their one-of-a-kind Every Man’s Battle Intensive, and it’s coming to a city near you. To find out more, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE or go to newlife.com. 1-800-N-E-W-L-I-F-E.

JJ West: So, I think this may be a good place where we show guys what a check-in call looks like. But let’s start with an unsuccessful check-in. Let’s show the guys what it shouldn’t look like first, and then we’ll wrap up with what it should look like. Sound good?

Doug Barnes: Sounds great. Do you want to call me?

JJ West: I’ll call you. Just imagine I'm picking up my phone and I'm dialing Doug's number and he’s going to put his to his ear. Here’s where we go. Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

Doug Barnes: Hello?

JJ West: Hey, Doug, it’s JJ.

Doug Barnes: JJ, hey man, what’s up?

JJ West: Oh, you know, things are okay. How about you?

Doug Barnes: You know what? Things are really good. Hey, have y’all had some rain down your way? I heard that there’s this big storm coming your way.

JJ West: Oh, yeah, you know, I mean it’s Florida, so it’s always raining in the summertime. Not a big deal. By the time it gets to me, even if it was a bad storm on the beach, by the time it gets to me, it won’t be an issue. So, what’s new? Right?

Doug Barnes: Yeah, it’s just baking hot here in Texas. In the summertime, it’s always 120 degrees. There’s always my lawn is dying. Even though we had some homework in our group, you know, it’s like still I’ve got to go cut the grass still no matter what. I wish you’d sent some rain our way. It’s just hot.

JJ West: Yeah, I hear you.

Doug Barnes: Hey man, did you see that game last night? Did you see that?

JJ West: No, I didn’t see it. What happened?

Doug Barnes: Well, they blew it in the ninth inning just like they always do. It’s the same old stuff. They can’t win a game to save their life. They’re not going to win a pennant for the next 20 years. Why do I even follow them? Right?

JJ West: It gets to the point where it’s like it’s just better for my mental health to turn it off. They could pay me a quarter of what they’re paying him and I could be just as bad as he is.

Doug Barnes: Right, yeah. And don’t forget what our government is trying to step in and take half of our money anyway.

JJ West: Oh, right, yeah. Oh, don’t even get me started, man. I’m so frustrated right now. It feels like every hour my wife is asking me if I’ve taken care of the taxes and sent the information into the accountant and when are we going to get on top of this and do a better job and get more organized. Speaking of wives, my wife is on the other line trying to call. I’m sure she’s calling to ask me once again about the taxes and whether I’ve talked to the accountant. But I probably should take this. So, same time on Thursday?

Doug Barnes: Yeah, let’s do it. Same time. All right, good to talk to you. Have a good day.

JJ West: See you too. Bye.

All right, so what was wrong with that check-in call? Everything. Besides everything, we never got to the check-in. We never once talked about primary or secondary boundaries, triggers, feelings check, none of that happened. It basically devolved into a gripe session. Not helpful. For those of you who are listening, you couldn’t see I was staring at my laptop throughout the whole call. I was touching the screen, I was completely distracted. I wasn’t paying attention to what Doug was saying to me. I was tracking a little bit, but most of the time I was looking at something else. That’s not a check-in call. That’s not even a good phone call, much less a check-in call.

Doug Barnes: But you’d be surprised about how normal those calls are amongst accountability folks. It’s not bad, it’s not wrong, it’s just not checking in with our hearts and our metrics for recovery because accountability is me giving an account. It’s not if you ask me the right questions in the right order on the right day, then I’ll confess. No, I’m giving an account. Neither one of us gave an account in that unsuccessful call. We just griped and complained and talked about sports and the weather, but they certainly weren’t moving us further along in our recovery.

JJ West: So let’s give them a good example. This one’s going to be the good example, and we’re going to try and stick to the five-minute rule, get it done, and then move on. All right? Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

Doug Barnes: Hey, JJ. Wow, I was looking forward to our time together.

JJ West: Yeah, man, I can’t wait to do our check-in. Are you ready to go?

Doug Barnes: I’m ready, yes. I’ve got my time right here. Let’s go.

JJ West: Perfect. All right. I didn’t have any primary or secondary boundary violations since our last call. I did add a new secondary boundary, though. I’m not going to stay in bed more than two minutes after the alarm goes off. I added it because I had a situation a couple days ago where I was lying in bed for about 10 minutes after the alarm and I was tempted to start fantasizing. So new secondary boundary: alarm goes off, I’m out of bed within two minutes. I’m not aware of anything coming up that might pose a threat to my integrity at this time, so I think I’m good on that front. As far as a feelings check, I’m feeling pretty confident and I’m also feeling excited because we have a vacation coming up next week and it’s just going to be great to get away for a couple days.

Doug Barnes: Sweet. You deserve it. You worked really, really hard. So, that’s awesome. That’s really cool. So, any triggers, anything trigger-wise, internal or external?

JJ West: Other than that situation with the secondary boundary where I was tempted to fantasize, other than that, no, I didn’t have any significant triggers since we last talked.

Doug Barnes: Okay, perfect. Anything you need from me going forward?

JJ West: No, just your continued support. Knowing that you’re there is exactly what I need, Doug. Thanks for being there.

Doug Barnes: Sweet. All right. Really good. All right, same for me. No primary boundaries. I did cross a secondary boundary. Let me share a little bit about that. For my work, I need to go to this certain part of town where I acted out a long time ago. It became a secondary boundary because I needed to put some parameters around roaming around for work. I can’t just roam aimlessly around. And so I have a client site I need to be at, and so before I went there, I discovered it prior to going.

So I frontloaded that with my wife. I said, "Hey, I’ve got to go to this client site. It’s in this area of town. I know what I’ve done in that part of town and I know that that hurt you and this could be very triggering for you. But I want to assure you that I’m going to be calling one of my guys in group and I’m going to have him on the phone with me from the moment I enter that part of town to go to my meeting. And then after I go to my meeting, I’m going to call him on the way out and then I’m going to call you right as I’m getting back into civilization again." I want to take care of your heart and know that I am not going to violate our marriage. I’m committed to you, my recovery, and my integrity, and so I’m going to exercise all of these things. And I did.

It was really cool up to the point of calling her on the way back. And of course, she got triggered and it was okay. I figured that she would. But we had a real sweet time talking through that when we got back home. We sat down, got on the couch, I got proximal and we made eye contact and I shared a little bit about what she was feeling. It was a little tense, but we got through it. I came to the conclusion that I shared with my boss, I cannot go back to that client site. You’re going to have to send someone else to that client site from here on out because I don’t want to violate my wife’s heart and I don’t want to violate her trust of me because I have done some things that have lost that trust. So that was a hard conversation. That was a really hard conversation. But I didn’t get triggered. There were no triggers, but it was a boundary that we had set up that I had to cross in order to keep my job. But my integrity with her is more than my job at this point.

JJ West: Man, I think you handled that really well. Well done.

Doug Barnes: Thanks. It was scary. As soon as I realized where I was going, I was just like, "Oh my gosh, you’re asking me to go into a war zone." Of course, they had no idea. But still, I needed to share that with my wife. Joe from our group, as soon as I got close, I was on the phone with him and I’m saying, "Okay, I’m going in. I’m going to be there for approximately 35 minutes and if I’m a minute late after that, I’m going to be calling you to get me out of here." Just walk me on the phone, just drive with me, be my conscience, be my friend on the phone. And sure enough, as soon as I got out, I got on the phone and he was on the phone with me through the next probably 10 or 20 minutes. Then I got back to civilization, immediately called my wife, and began processing it. It turned out okay, but man, it was scary.

JJ West: Okay, so it was scary then. And what’s the feeling now?

Doug Barnes: The feeling now is relief. The feeling going into it was fear, apprehensiveness. There was some stress, overwhelmed. I acknowledged that to Joe. I don’t know that I acknowledged that with my wife until the phone call back when I was calling her on the way home and then we talked about it more. Then I wanted to let her know, "Hey, this was hard, but it wasn’t overwhelming me like it did years ago."

JJ West: Hey, you ready for the Pita question?

Doug Barnes: Bring it on.

JJ West: Was there anything in your check-in where you lied or anything that you omitted, any pertinent information that you omitted?

Doug Barnes: No, everything that I told you happened and I did not lie about any of those things. Thank you for asking me because I need that. We’re all in this together.

JJ West: That is so true. Man, thanks for your vulnerability today. It was really great to check in with you.

Doug Barnes: I appreciate it and yours as well. I look forward to these. Sometimes they’re hard, but I look forward to these because it keeps my recovery out in front of me and that’s how I want to live. So thank you.

JJ West: Amen. All right, talk to you on Thursday.

Doug Barnes: Okay, all right, take care. Have a good night. See ya. Click.

JJ West: All right, so guys, that was six, seven minutes. A little bit longer, but there was a little bit more information that Doug needed to share about this secondary boundary that he had to cross. So sometimes it might go a little bit more, but most of the time it’s going to be in that five-minute range. If it hadn’t been a week where he had to cross a secondary boundary, that would have even been a shorter conversation.

Now, what you might also do: for instance, when I talked about adding the secondary boundary of not staying in bed, Doug might ask, "Hey, JJ, I’d love to hear more about this new secondary boundary that you’ve added, but I want to respect our timeframe for our check-in. When would be a good time for us to talk later where you could expound on that because I want to hear more?" And maybe it’s right after the call, maybe both of you have that time available then, but you do it outside of the check-in call.

So it can be very quick and it might have some residual conversations that might need to happen. But we don’t want to shy away from making the calls themselves. We want to do whatever we can, we want to build in as many practices as we can to make this a consistent practice that I do over and over because the more I practice, the better I get at it and then the more likely I’m going to continue to do it and stay on the path. Because at some point in time in the future, I will be in crisis. At some point. May not be next week or next month, maybe not even next year, but at some point I am. And if I’ve already in the habit of making those calls, I am more likely to reach out because I know I can count on who’s on the other end of the phone. I know that they’ll pick up and I know that they’re there for me and I know that they’re going to ask me some good questions.

Doug Barnes: Even sometimes I’ll suggest having a group text stream where I’ll text 911, and that means everybody’s fair game. Is anybody available right now? Because I need to talk right now. I need to do a crisis call right now. Exactly. And that’s why it’s so helpful, like you said, to have more than one person, to have my whole Sustained Victory group on that text stream because not everybody is going to be available. You and I, we might be in a session with a client. I can’t interrupt my session to go, "Oh, sorry, there’s a guy who needs me to answer his phone call," but somebody else has that availability, "Yeah, let’s talk right now." And so I’ve got a herd, not just one person.

JJ West: It’s so often that we hear that when we’re calling a brother to check in, that’s the perfect time when they’re saying, "Oh my gosh, I’m so glad to hear your voice because I was being triggered. I was about to make a bad decision and then you called and it rescued me." Over and over, I’ve heard that so many times.

Well, you were reading my mind because next episode we are going to talk about helping a brother who is struggling. When you do a check-in call with him or he sends the 911 and he’s struggling, he’s in crisis, what do you do if you’re on the other end of that call? How do you handle that? Because it’s very different than a check-in call. So we need to give you, the audience, some practical tools for how do I help this brother when he’s in crisis. I’m not a therapist; I don’t know what to say. I feel lost. It’s like, "Well, stop doing that," like that’s not helpful. So we want to give you guys some really helpful tools for walking with your brother when he’s in crisis to help him move back into safety and move back into health.

Look forward to that too. Continued thanks for listening to the podcast, continued thanks for sharing the podcast. And if you haven’t yet, if you’ve not shared the podcast with someone, I would encourage you to do that this week. Maybe it’s the pastor of your church or your small group leader or the care group pastor at your church, or maybe it’s another brother that you know has hinted that he may have some challenges. Or maybe he hasn’t hinted, but you’ve seen that he has some challenges. Would you consider sharing the podcast with someone else to help us get the word out? Because listen, guys, we see it every day. We see the result and we know that there are hundreds of thousands of guys out there. And by guys, I don’t just mean males, but there’s hundreds of guys out there who are hurting and who need to hear the truth that sets them free but they are feeling isolated, alone, and hopeless. So let’s get the word out.

Once again, little reminder: if you are a listener to the podcast and you have not been to the intensive, you can enter the code EMBPOD, EMB pod, and you’ll save $100 off your registration fee. We do that because we believe in what happens at the workshop. We want you to experience that and we don’t want cost to be the issue. Doug, thanks again.

Doug Barnes: This was good. I appreciate it, JJ.

JJ West: So good to be on with you. We’ll see you guys next week. Until then, let’s continue to walk in integrity.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening. This podcast is one of many ways we can encourage and help you. If you’re looking for more help, visit us at newlife.com or call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. To receive bonus content exclusive to EMB Podcast email subscribers, send an email to embpodcast@newlife.com with the words "bonus content" in the subject line. If you have a comment about this podcast, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line at embpodcast@newlife.com. And please remember to review, like, and share the podcast as it helps others find us. See you next week.