The Honest Path

The Honest Path is all about equipping stuck young men, and the people who love them. Hosted by Jim and Jon, a father and son writing team. God loves you, the world needs you, and we're on your team!

The Honest Path is a general podcast hosted by Jim and Jon, with 26 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Jim and Jon hosts The Honest Path, a general show with 26 episodes published.

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  Episode #31

  on Loving People as they Are

  Sep 16, 202653 min

  This is the second of a 10-week series where we will be breaking down each chapter of our new book, Relationship Genius: The Ten Laws of Human Connection. We hope you will enjoy this preview of the material and, if you get the book, will read along with us! Check it out at thehonestpath.org ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 5:53 Quarter 1: Your Brain is a Story Machine 15:54 Quarter 2: Courageous Curiosity and Love 31:35 Halftime 35:17 Quarter 3: Becoming the Safest Person in the Room 43:55 Quarter 4: The Freedom That Comes From Embracing Reality ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Podcast Guide: Big Idea: Most relationship conflicts aren't caused by bad people, but by bad stories. We naturally fill in missing information with assumptions, then react as if our assumptions are facts. Mature men learn to replace imagination with curiosity, assumptions with conversations, and control with trust. Quarter One: Your Brain is a Story Machine - Your brain is a storyteller. - The problem is that your emotions respond to that story as if it were reality. - Confirmation Bias: the human tendency to search for, favor, and remember information that matches your existing beliefs while ignoring or rejecting evidence that does not. - Emotion is real. Your interpretation may not be. Action Steps - Catch yourself finishing someone else's sentence in your head and STOP - Ask one clarifying question before forming an opinion. - Practice saying, "I may not know the whole story." Quarter Two: Courageous Curiosity and Love -The Courage to Ask Instead of Assume - One of the strongest things a man can say is: "Help me understand." - Weak men pretend they know. Strong men become students. - Questions are one of the greatest gifts you can give another person. - Every great friendship is built on thousands of conversations where someone chose curiosity instead of certainty. Action Steps - Replace one accusation this week with one question. - Practice listening without planning your response. - Ask one person, "Tell me more," and don't interrupt. Quarter Three: Becoming the Safest Person in the Room - Think about the people you trust most. Why do you trust them? - Love Reality, Not Fantasy - Safe people don't rush to conclusions. - The question isn't whether people will disappoint you. The question is what you'll do next. - Grace isn't pretending people never fail. Action Steps - When someone shares something difficult, resist the urge to fix it immediately. - Practice saying, "Thank you for trusting me with that." - Become known as someone who protects confidence rather than spreads stories. Quarter Four: The Freedom That Comes From Embracing Reality - God never asked you to control people. He asked you to love them. - Love works best in reality. - The healthiest relationships aren't built between perfect people. They're built between honest people. Action Steps - Have one courageous conversation you've been avoiding. - Ask before assuming in every important relationship this week. - End each day by asking: "Where did I assume today—and where did I stay curious?"

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  Episode #30

  on the #1 Rule of Relationships

  Sep 16, 202652 min

  This is the first of a 10-week serious where we will be breaking down each chapter of our upcoming book, Relationship Genius: The Ten Laws of Human Connection. We hope you will enjoy this preview of the material and, if you get the book when it releases this Friday, will read along with us! thehonestpath.org ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 11:19 Quarter 1: Identity Confusion and Where it Comes From 18:56 Quarter 2: Why Did That Bother Me So Much? 26:44 Halftime 29:40 Quarter 3: Control is a FEAR Move 41:35 Quarter 4: Don’t be the guy who doesn’t need anybody ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Podcast Guide: FIRST QUARTER: Identity Confusion - Where from? Who Has the Power to Tell You Who You Are? • Identity, Approval, and the Search for Worth • Men are constantly receiving scores: • The First Commandment isn't God being insecure and demanding first place. It's God protecting us from building our identity on things that constantly change. • You can deeply value someone's opinion without giving them the authority to determine your value. SECOND QUARTER: Why Did That Bother Me So Much? Emotional Dependency and Overreaction • Here's one of the best relationship questions a man can ask: “Is my reaction the right size for what just happened?” • Your emotions may be telling you that something deeper is happening: I needed that person to make me feel secure. • Maturity isn't becoming emotionless. Maturity is learning to become curious about your emotions before obeying them. • Instead of immediately asking, “What did she do wrong?” learn to ask, “What happened inside me?” • Your strongest reactions can become windows into your deepest dependencies. THIRD QUARTER: Control Is Fear Wearing a Power Suit Why We Grip the People We're Afraid to Lose • Most controlling people don't wake up thinking, I'd like to control everybody today. Control usually begins with fear. • Trying to become the Global Operations Director—the G.O.D.—is exhausting. • You can control some behavior, but you cannot control love. Real love requires freedom. • A secure man can say: I want you. I value you. I will fight for our relationship. But I will not control you in order to keep you. • Love says, “I choose you.” Control says, “You don't get to choose.” FOURTH QUARTER: Don't Become the Guy Who Doesn't Need Anybody Security Without Isolation • There's a dangerous overcorrection available to men: You hear all this and think: Fine. I won't need anybody. • Some men become overly attached. Others protect themselves by becoming emotionally unavailable. Both responses are unhealthy. • Depend ultimately upon God. • The goal isn't: “I don't need you.” It's: “I don't need you to be God.” • Secure men don't need people less. They need people differently. Closing Challenge This week, identify one relationship where you're putting too much weight on another person. Don't pull away from them. Don't love them less. Instead, ask: What am I asking this person to give me that I should first be receiving from God? Identity? Security? Worth? Purpose? Constant reassurance? The assurance that you're lovable? Take that need to God. Then go back and love that person—not as your source, but as a gift. That's the First Commandment of Relationship Genius: Put God first, so that no person ever has to carry the weight of being your everything.

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  Episode #29

  on the Power of Rituals

  Sep 16, 202659 min

  *Correction: Jon refers to Lake Washington as Lake Mercer in this episode. Probably because of Mercer Island. Whoops! ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 06:05 Quarter 1: Rituals vs Habits 15:55 Quarter 2: Rituals embody meaning 25:03 Halftime 31:10 Quarter 3: Rituals are key to your identity 40:22 Quarter 4: Where do I start? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quarter 1: Rituals vs Habits - Habits have to do with the material world. They are obsessed with outcomes - In the machine of the world, you put good things in and you pull good things out - While a habit is a means to some other end, a ritual is a means to its own end - Rituals are concerned with meaning, with symbols, with memorials - They have value in the material world, but their purpose transcends it. - Efficiency is a terrible measure for everything. - The Bible is filled with intentionally “inefficient” practices. Action Items - Identify one ritual you already have. Ask yourself, Why does this matter to me? What does it represent? - Stop optimizing one meaningful thing. Take a walk, pray, share a meal, sit by a fire—without tracking, posting, measuring, or multitasking. - Turn one routine into a ritual. Pick something you already do and intentionally attach meaning to it. Quarter 2: Rituals embody meaning - Christianity is profoundly physical. - They bring meaning and values down from your mind, into your body - They place you deeper into the present moment - Kneeling communicates something different than slouching - Ritual slows time down. - Ritual lets the dead sit at the table. - Ritual connects you to people who aren't born yet. Action Items - Use your body in prayer this week. Kneel, stand, open your hands, bow your head—make your physical posture match your prayer. - Recover something from your past. Ask a parent or grandparent about a family prayer, meal, story, song, tradition, or practice worth preserving. - Mark one moment instead of rushing through it. A meal, sunset, birthday, Sunday, accomplishment, or goodbye: stop and acknowledge, This matters. Quarter 3: Rituals are key to your identity - Rites of passage and community rituals - They anchor you so you don’t have to scavenge your own identity in the rubble of a materialist world. Identity used to be received more than invented. - They make you a more whole, well rounded, interesting person in relationships - Ritual creates “we.” - Ritual also teaches humility. Action Items: - Finish this sentence: “I am a man who belongs to ______.” Write down the people, faith, family, community and story that legitimately claim you. - Create a rite of passage. If you're a dad, grandfather, mentor or men's leader, identify one transition worth intentionally marking. - Join something that repeats. Not another event. Find a group that meets regularly enough to eventually say, This is what we do. Quarter 4: Where do I start? - Recover before you invent. - Historic prayers for meals - Morning and evening prayers - Crossing yourself, or taking other reverent postures - Attach rituals to transitions. - Rites of passage for your family or community - Create rituals around places. - You must stay engaged and reverent in the ritual, or else it will become empty form Action Items - Choose one daily ritual: morning prayer, bedtime prayer, blessing your children, gratitude at dinner, or another 2–5 minute practice. - Choose one relational ritual: weekly breakfast, monthly gathering, - Sunday dinner, annual trip—something that puts people on the calendar before life crowds them out. - Choose one “big moment” to mark intentionally: a son's 16th or 18th birthday, graduation, marriage anniversary, retirement, baptism, new job, death or another transition. Don't merely let important moments happen. Mark them.

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  Episode #28

  on Family Baggage

  Sep 16, 20261h 2m

  ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:07:15 Quarter 1: Everyone Has Family Baggage 00:24:30 Quarter 2: Does Genes + Home Environment = Fate? (no!) 00:38:28 Halftime 00:42:21 Quarter 3: Being Your Own Man 00:50:50 Quarter 4: Forging Your Own Your Legacy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PODCAST GUIDE: Quarter 1: Everyone Has Family Baggage - The closer humans can be in relationship, the greater the potential for good AND evil. Family is some of the closest humans can be - Jim’s Family Baggage - Jon’s Family Baggage - Good parents still mess up - Some people experienced true evil in the home - No one reaches adulthood totally pure Action Items: - Name who you need to forgive, who you need to encourage, and who you need to withdraw from your life. - List the ways you added to family baggage yourself. Forgive yourself and ask others to forgive you, if appropriate. Quarter 2: Does Genes + Home Environment = Fate? (Grace) - Many modern atheists don’t believe in free will because of that exact equation - Before you have any sense of yourself, these have already been determined for you. - For the most part, you can look at a person's past and current actions and predict exactly who they will be, and what they will do, in the future - Grace saves us from this deterministic hell Action Item: - Describe to yourself how your life would be if you’d never received grace. If you haven’t received grace, imagine what it could do to your life now. Quarter 3: Being Your Own Man - You are not your father. You are not your family. You are You. - You have the liberty, physically and spiritually, to rise above your origins - Growing Up is found in forgiveness, in taking up responsibility for your own future regardless of how you were raised. - The family of believers: You have access to millions of brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers more spiritually united to you than the ones you were born to. Action Item: - Describe the kind of man you always wanted to be, and the life you always wanted. How different is that from who you are now? Do you have the freedom to change it? Quarter 4: Your Legacy - It will be hard, but you get to decide how you will treat your wife and kids. What kind of environment you will provide for them - You can create new culture that can outlive you (Jim’s definition of culture) - The shift from viewing yourself as bound to your family pain, to being responsible for others, is where Growing Up is. - When you accept that even good parents mess up, you can accept that you will mess up too. Striving for an ideal doesn’t make you a hypocrite. It makes you a Good Person. Action Item: - Make two lists: First, list the properties of the household you grew up in, good and bad. Second, list the properties of the household you would want to raise a child in. Forgive the first and pray over the second.

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• 

  Episode #27

  on the Anxious Men of the Bible

  Sep 16, 20261h 12m

  ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:07:49 Quarter 1: The Culture We're Actually Living In 00:22:29 Quarter 2: Anxiety Is Human, Not a Failure Grade for Men 00:33:34 Halftime 00:38:54 Quarter 3: Heaven is Other People 00:54:43 Quarter 4: What the Bible Actually Offers (Not a Slogan — a Person) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PODCAST GUIDE: 1ST QUARTER — The Culture We're Actually Living In Recent surveys put nearly half of Gen Z reporting near-constant stress or anxiety The cornerstone issue here is a culture of isolation. Anxiety is just one bitter fruit from that tree. Even when you have people, our culture of detachment keeps them from being present. Being present yourself, and others being present with you, is the key to Peace. The culture hands men two bad scripts: "man up" (feelings are weakness) or "you have a disorder" (feelings are only clinical data). Weirdly, anxiety has never been talked about more — and handled less. A culture of pain avoidance, which says any and all pain should be feared. Action item: This week, replace "I'm anxious" with the actual specific loop running in your head. Write down the real sentence — not the vague feeling — before your next conversation with a mentor or brother. 2ND QUARTER — Anxiety Is Human, Not a Failure Grade for Men Jesus himself sweat like drops of blood before the cross (Luke 22:44 ) Elijah, ready to die under a juniper tree (1 Kings 19:1–8) David: "when I am afraid, I will trust" (Psalm 56:3) The psalmist doesn't wait for his feelings to change on their own — he interrupts them: "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" (Psalm 42:5,11) Action item: Name one physical need you've been neglecting — sleep, food, movement, actual rest — while trying to pray your way out of it. 3RD QUARTER — Hell Heaven is Other People Unity, to God and others, is the balm you’ve been seeking Another (an-other), a person other than you, to be present in your life, and especially in your suffering and hurt. Being present yourself, and others being present with you, is the key to Peace. Another person, who knows you and won’t lie to you, to tell you “You can do this.” Other people you can rely on in tangible ways. If your anxiety is “What will happen to me if…”, having more people that fit into that equation. The body of believers, whose unity is not based on a hobby, sports team, or even nationality, but on the spiritual truth that, in the reality higher than this one, you are already One. Action item: As far as it depends on you, seek True and Present Unity with brothers this week. Lay the groundwork. If you've been on the fence about seeing a doctor or counselor, make the call this week. 4TH QUARTER - What the Bible Actually Offers (Not a Slogan — a Person) Philippians 4:6–7 — prayer with thanksgiving isn't instead of using wisdom and means; it's don't let anxiety have the last word. Matthew 6:34 — worry is a loan against a day you haven't lived yet. It doesn't prepare you for what's coming; it just weakens you for what's already here. Isaiah 41:10 — God's answer to fear is "I am with you," not a pep talk about trying harder not to be afraid. Proverbs 12:25 — an anxious heart gets heavy; a good word lightens it. Don't underestimate what one honest, timely phone call can do. Galatians 6:2 / 1 Samuel 30:6 — David strengthened himself in the Lord, but surrounded by six hundred men who'd just lost everything alongside him. John 14:27 — Jesus doesn't leave you a technique, he leaves you himself. Peace tied to his presence, not to your circumstances lining up. The turn for this segment: contrast "good vibes only" culture-speak against a God who says "I am with you" — one is a mood, the other is a Person. Action item: Call one man this week and say the actual sentence you've been avoiding saying out loud.

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