[00:00:01] Speaker A: Every, all of none of life is harmonious to the degree we want it to be, because, right, there's friction. There's friction in all kinds of relational, personal, professional.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Hey, there. It's Ramsay here. That was Seth Winterhalter. Seth is an artist and musician at heart and a coach and consultant by trade. He uses his perspective from his life experiences as an orchestral conductor, church pastor and ministry leader to draw analogies between music and interpersonal and professional relationships. Seth's consulting firm for mission driven organizations is found
[email protected]. and his coaching resources for individuals can be
[email protected]. dot we spoke about personal and professional journeys, the value of intentional self assessment, and what it's like to work through difficult times.
I got a ton out of this discussion with Seth, and I hope that you do, too. Let's begin.
[00:01:06] Speaker C: Hi, Seth. How are you doing today?
[00:01:08] Speaker A: I am good. Always a good day when you're breathing and you can see the sun.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Right on. Well, thank you so much for, you know, taking the time to speak with me today.
I'm really glad that a mutual friend of ours suggested that I reach out to you because I could see that you've had a meaningful journey in your personal, relational, and vocational life, and now you focused your energy and efforts on working with others through their journeys. And selfishly, that's really good for me because I'm in kind of the thick of that journey myself now.
But let me introduce you a bit for the audience. So, Seth Winterhalter, you were the conductor of the Capitol Philharmonic Orchestra in chorus in Olympia, Washington, and also lead pastor for Mars Hill Church and Harbor Church, also in Olympia. And today you lead the consulting firm halting Winter. So how about we start there? What is halting Winter? In addition to being a really clever twist on your last name, what does, what does halting winter do for clients? And who are those clients?
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Yes. You know, it is after being harassed for my entire childhood for my last name, it is fitting now redeem it. Yeah, right. Turn it around. And that's really what we do. We are helping mission driven organizations, predominantly right now. We work, we focused our attention on procuring work with government agencies, municipalities, what I think are the most challenging mission driven organizations. But they have severe impact, incredible impact, because that's where we live. Every one of us lives in a town, in a city, and we need the resources that they provide. If they stop providing those resources, we would care less about Amazon, we would care less about so many of the, the things we think are so important in our life that provide for us tangible goods, and we would freak out because our water, our sewer, our parks, our streets, everything that we actually probably take for granted would fall apart. So we're going after those mission driven organizations. We work along, we work with them to figure out how do we get their organizations to produce extraordinary results. And we do that through three things. Strategic planning, leadership development, and culture creation. People should love coming to work. They should find worth value in it, they should be praised for it, they should be paid for it. And that creates then a culture that actually accomplishes extraordinary results. So that's what we do. Halting winter. We halt the winter we take. There's a season, right? We have seasons in life. Summer, winter, fall, spring. You need all the seasons to actually be healthy and to enjoy harvest. So winter has an important part, but too many of us are stuck in winter. Personally, professionally, relationally, we sit in that winter wine because we bundle up, we get all comfortable and we sit in that comfort instead of doing the hard work of breaking out of the cave, actually hunting for food, planting crops, doing the toil so that we can actually have a better harvest than we've ever had before. So that's what we're doing with mission driven organizations and with people.
[00:04:39] Speaker C: So it's the, it's the opposite of Game of Thrones.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Winter is coming.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: That's right. I should have ran into the office during that and said, winter's been halted. Right? I just missed to capitalize.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Oh, man. So why did you, why did you decide to found a consulting firm like this? What makes you especially good at it, do you think?
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I think to be a good coach and consultant, a, you have to be a learner. And I just love learning. I'm passionate about my, you know, I love to read. My library probably exceeds 5000 books. And again, that's not to brag. We all have our thing. I just love absorbing knowledge and chewing on it and my, what is the content? I actually did something this last year. I worked with a, you probably heard Simon Sinek. It starts with why his famous book, a company uses that and uses his structure to really go, why?
What is your, why? What are you good at? And so acquaintance of mine is a part of this. And so they looked at my life and they wanted to use me as a test case. And they said, Seth, after all these studies, after all this work together, they said, you have a gift for taking the complex and making it simple. That seems to be your gift is taking really complex issues, especially thoughts, strategic planning, and making that simple to understand and to actually take action on to accomplish. And so I just helped resonate. What's kind of why I've done all these things is, yeah, I love to learn. I love then to take those lessons and those insights and look at something, look at a puzzle, a problem, and figure out how do we simplify the problem and how do we have a simplified solution so we can actually take action. Most people don't accomplish things in their life, losing weight, getting a spouse, better career, whatever that is, because they don't simplify the action, so they never take actions. There's too many actions and it overwhelms them. So I love learning, I love working, I love strategizing and then actually implementing so that we can actually see results.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: And let's talk a bit about your music before we get too far.
Have you kind of always been a musician and performer? What, what is, what does music really mean to you? And, you know, to what extent are you kind of doing it for yourself versus doing it for the audience or for other people?
[00:07:10] Speaker A: It's an interesting question. My earliest memory of music is me at age like three and a half, four. My mom had this tape recorder. Maybe it was my dad's. I can't remember. Is it one of those tape recorders that had the record? It was the cassette. You know, you put the cassette in, it's small and I don't know, I think they bought it because my dad was notating stuff or my mom was notating stuff as a secretary, it would record. And so we had a home stereo and my mom had a. What's her name? Is it Patsy Klein? Was that the singer? We had a Patsy Klein cassette and, oh man, I'm just, now that I'm thinking about, I can hear the music in my head, play it on the home stereo and I would record myself singing. And again, I've always had a high tenor singing with the women's section in choirs voice. And so here I am singing Patsy Klein and recording another memory. And then I just, because of a church and we were in usually kind of smaller churches when I grew up, I had a natural proclivity to learn instruments and to kind of figure it out in very basic ways. And so, oh, we need a drummer, we need singers, we need a piano player. And I just kind of figured it out. My parents, even though my parents weren't very musical, my dad, not at all. My mom as a singer, you know, in the church choir kind of thing, but they would just buy for us instruments I remember downstairs we had a piano, we had guitars, we had a drum set. We just had random things. So we always were tinkering. I took lessons on and off, and I hated them because my natural ability was beyond the rudimentary lessons. And I should have forced myself to actually learn the rudimentary, but I was too bored. And so I taught myself better by ear until I got to college and tried to do it professionally. And then it was like, hey, you actually have to know this stuff.
So back to the question, like, you know, what does it mean to me, music? I think some of us are just wired artistically to think artistically, to feel artistically. And I think, actually, if there's something, why my consulting and coaching is very personable or people centered. I do keynotes, I do workshops. I'm not one of those who, like, I love statistics and metrics, but they better lead to an opportunity to be around people and to instigate change, right? I can't. I'm not the person who sits behind the doors and let's learn and strategize, and then I'll put out a document for people. Like, I need the energy of creativity, of real life, right? You can plan is only as good as to when you get your first punch and bullet by your ear. The battle, like, and that's where I want to be. That's what I'm wired for, is the energy. I just love the energy of people and of activity. And so I thrive off of that environment. So there's probably why, musically, I love jazz. I love improv. I love, like, I'd rather jam than, like, people are like, oh, play something on the guitar. And I'm like, I have no idea what to play. I don't sit around on my guitar and, like, play pop tunes and famous tunes. Like, I'd rather just jam and kind of be in the moment. And so, yeah, music to me now is just something I don't do enough. I need to be doing more of it just because it's such a great outlet for me, for that peace and tranquility and creativity. But, yeah, really now it's more for me. I think in past, being a professional conductor, musician, it was probably both. It was me and the audience. And I do love to get people to feel the energy, right? I mean, that's why I love performing.
I love what a concert, a live concert experience does for people. There's just nothing like it. Like that medium and that space. But it also is what took me out of music is, you know, when you've played with some really excellent musicians. When you play with more amateurs, it's really hard to have that experience. And so, like, church music began to be more of a headache to me, and that didn't, I didn't like that. I didn't like wanting to be, wanting to focus on the, the quality of the music and a church environment. I don't think that's what we're there for. Right. It doesn't mean bad, but it doesn't also mean we need to be the New York philharmonic, you know, every Sunday morning.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: Well, I think I'm getting from you sort of the interactions between and, among the musicians and, you know, the music itself.
I see that as an analogy of sorts with, you know, personal interactions within, you know, your work context and your coaching.
Do you use kind of music and composition and symphonies kind of as an analogy in your, in your coaching and in your consulting and how so?
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, very much. And I think that's kind of what makes me a little unique. It's kind of, my unique angle is, is coming at culture and leadership from, from the pulpit and from the, the podium is what I say, you know, you're going to get from me both the preacher and the, and the conductor and from the conducting, there's just. Yeah, you know, I have, one of my keynotes is the three tools of the conductor and taking that, like, you know, the conductor has a score, the conductor has the podium, and the conductor has a baton, and how do we relate those to, you know, leadership in every facet? And so there are so many lessons, and it kind of keeps people like, you know, conductors are. There's just so few conductors in the world. It's a very unique, you know, there's a few orchestras in the world, so it's a very unique profession. And so anything that's kind of unique and artistic people are like, oh, it's a mystery. Right. What is this magical power? What's this person doing up there waving their arms around? Which is also because a conductor is in charge of this musical experience and they're the only one on the stage not making a sound. And so what does that say? There's some amazing insights about leadership right there. And. And so, anyway, yeah, it's either. Yeah, so I use quite a bit of the analogies of conducting, of musicianship. You know, a very popular thing right now in, in my space in consulting is the DEI. Right. Diversity.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Equity and inclusion. Yeah.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Right. And so what I've said is there's no greater picture of those three things than the professional symphony orchestra like you. But it's. It's true equity, because false equity is everything is equal, and we're all just going to get the same. But the reality is you have multiple sections in an orchestra, you have multiple musicians, and if everything is equal, the sound would be horrible. It would not be enticing, it would not be engaging.
Lines wouldn't soar, harmonies wouldn't hold. And so equity is, even though I'm a trombone and I could blow you all out of the water, I'm going to play in a way that supports the woodwinds, that supports that melodic line from the violin. Right?
We are together, equitable in our understanding that we want to succeed. We want this sound, this piece of music to soar. And so, yeah, there's some great think ties in tie ins from the orchestral world as well as the pastoral world. Right. You know, pastoral is pastoring is also one of those things that people kind of look at funky, like, oh, man, this guy's. He just prays all day. Like, he probably just, you know, sermon and God just delivers it on tablets still in 2024, and he just delivers it. No one understands the toil. I mean, command and imagine. Think about that.
How many professional speakers that are paid tens of thousands of dollars to show up and give a keynote have, like, one or two keynotes, and they've crafted that and crafted that to deliver that. Well, a pastor has to write a keynote every week and continue to entertain and to educate and to entice and to compel an audience over and over and over. I mean, some of your best speakers in the world are pastors, but. But people don't. Oh, no, he's a pastor. He just prays and God takes care of it. We don't know. And it's the same. We all kind of have that. You know how much you work, everyone knows how much you work and put in a grind, and we can't, we shouldn't expect that of others, but we should have an appreciation. I just love. That's why I love doing things like this. I love getting to know people and what they do and their unique.
The uniqueness of it, because we need each other, right? We're all creating this tapestry in this. In this world. And so what you're doing today and what people are listening to this podcast, you think that's why I love also working with cities is because I work with a lot of people who do mundane work over and over and over. And it's pretty unappreciated and the reality is it's important work, and you can find purpose and worth in that. And we need that. We need them. We need garbage people picking up our garbage. How do. How do we find worth and value in that? How do we appreciate that?
[00:16:14] Speaker C: Yeah, because every, every role is essential. It's like you were talking about with, you know, in the symphony. There's not all the instruments are loud and prominent, but they're necessary. They all work together and creating that harmony.
Were there times in your life or in your professional life where you felt like things were out of harmony, where they were not really well put together? Is that, you know, part of kind of how you got to this place? Like, is there a story behind, you know, transitioning from one thing to the next?
[00:16:59] Speaker A: It's a good question. You know, every.
All of none of life is. Is harmonious to the degree we want it to be. Because, right. There's. There's friction and there's friction in all kinds of relational, personal, professional.
Those are kind of the three categories, I think, are the three primary categories of life. And each of those break down your personal life as a physical, mental and emotional aspect. Your. Your relational life. You. You have, you know, if you have a spouse, that your relationship is so unique. Kids, parenting, that relationship is so unique. Nothing else is like it. Your friends and acquaintances and how you let people in. So for me, yeah, I've had multiple seasons and multiple experiences.
Professional, relational, personal.
Where I've had disharmony and had to work through to figure out, how do I turn this song harmonious. Right? And every good, the beauty is, every great piece of symphonic work has that. If it was just perfect harmony the whole time, you get bored of it, your ear would just shut off. Because it's not enticing. It has no friction. It has no tension. But a good piece of music has tension in it. It has chords that are like, well, what's happening there? This is not as right, this forward movement that wants resolution. Which is why, if I. If I played right now, a one chord, a five chord, a four chord, if I left on that four chord, your mind would go insane. Because you want that four chord to go to the one chord, to have resolution. And so the song ends. And so even if you don't know music, it'd be like, right before the end and everyone, what are you doing to me? Right? You're just killing me, smalls. So that's where your life. Don't be afraid of tension. Don't be afraid of disharmony. Because it. Because it should lead to harmony. Right now, we have to press into that. And that's where, for me, yeah. I mean, I think about professionally, the churches I've been a part of, each one of those endings, the last three had tension, had friction, and I had to choose, you know, how do I want to give into that? Do I just want to tap out? Do I want to, or do I want to push in? Do I want to try to bring resolution relationally? Gosh, I mean, yeah, all kinds of tension. And for me, this last couple years, part of being a pastor, I think many pastors struggle with boundaries. I think many people, most people struggle with boundaries. Pastors specifically, because you have this spiritual call. You have the reality of people and all their problems looking to you as a source of hope and answers and emotional support and, gosh, who wants to? And you're also, you have this tension against spiritually of, like, leading people towards eternal life. And so, man, how do you sleep? And how do you, how do you turn off your phone and say, no, I only take calls nine to five. Like, who does that? You know? And so, but the problem is, as your church grows, the more responsibility you feel, and so all. And so you carry these. I'll just give the story. There's tensions. I want to be a good steward. So we also didn't probably hire as many people as we want because we want, because we wanted to make sure that, man, if we invested into a staff member, that was a really good move for the people's dollars that were invested in that church. And so we were slow to hire, but we were also quicken growth. And so we have a church of 500 people with one pastor. How do you do that? Right? And so all of a sudden, then you bring on another, and you're still behind. So you made a big investment, but you're still two staff members for. How do you, how does this work? So I prop. So I kind of, I look back now and go, man, I needed to learn some lessons that I didn't have. That's the other thing, too, is we need people. We need people who will call us on stuff, who want to grow, too, and who will look into our lives and out of love and care and concern, call out the things that we need to grow in and press into. And I wish I had that. I wish I had more. I wish I had pursued more people, not just professional growth, how to preach better, how to counsel better, how to, but, like, look into my personal life and tell me, man, where are the, where do you see the bad habits that aren't just sleeping in and watching Netflix. The bad habits of not having boundaries, of not taking time for personal self.
In 2017, I was 100 pounds overweight, radically unhealthy. In fact, so unhealthy that I spent the next six months in 2018 going to different doctors thinking I was going to die. And it wasn't until, like, I started taking action to say, Seth, you need to carve time in your life for you, for you to go to the gym, for you to eat healthy. You can say no to meetings. You can say, you've got to restructure and start learning how to say no to others and yes to yourself. That's not selfish. That is serving you so that you can actually serve others. And so, anyway, long answer here, but, man, talk about harmony and balance and friction.
That's part of life. And when you have friction, don't run for the hills of comfort. Run forward and ask yourself, why am I facing this? And what can I learn from this, and how can I become better? That's what I would encourage you.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Is there a, is there a difference between harmony and balance? Like, I hear a lot of people, you know, a lot of times we talk about, like, a work life balance and, you know, that sort of thing. Is there, is there something precarious about balance as opposed to harmony? Because I hear you talking a lot about harmony.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Now we're going, this is the issue of words, right?
Words are just words. But you can use balance, and that's fine. And yet I'm going to use balance to paint a picture for you with harmony. That I think addresses the concern I have with the idea of balance. Balance to me, and why I kind of get right when I hear it is because to me, this balance is like, it's a simplicity of work life balance. It's always two things. This, this, balance, this, this. And that's what I think balance is. It's the, it's the tightrope, high rope person, right, on a thin cable across two New York skyscrapers with that big Q tip balancing thing. And so he's one thing on the other side and one thing on the other, and he's trying to balance balance. To me, at least, in what I think, what we're trying to accomplish is we're trying to find the perfect medium with two things. And the issue is your life is more than two things. It's not just black and white. There's all kinds of, like, for instance, work life balance. Well, guess what? There's, there's another category besides personal and professional. It's called relational. And you have some relation at work and you have some relation at home and you have some, some overlap. Because guess what? Your home isn't just like, hey, you just need to come home. You just need to come home. Just be. Why aren't you at home? Well, I'm at work. Well, guess what? If you just come home and quit your job, your spouse and your kids are gonna go, dad, why don't you go to work? And so you can feed us, right? Oh, so it's not black and white. It's, it's, it's all connected. And, and so it's, it's, and it's not just work life. It's not just, you know, I need to take care of my personal, okay, well, you have to be able to diet well, to eat well. You have to pay for that. You know, whole foods just ain't giving out good groceries. And so, like, I gotta work. I've got it. And so anyway, it's, when I think of harmony, I think of a piece of music, symphonic music, how many sections, how many instrumentalists, how many lines, how many notes on how many lines are happening to actually make an incredible piece of music. Which is why I think if you go to a, I'm trying to think of Taylor Swift. I guess she's the popular. If you go to a Taylor Swift concert, it's amazing. But is it really musically amazing?
It's got so many lights and theatrics now and again, those are all parts. So it's not just music and performance, it's lights and video. And so even that is multifaceted. But musically, again, I can appreciate pop music, but when you sit down in front of the Seattle Symphony, La Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and you watch 80 musicians make music and you hear all these lines and instruments and different timbres and sounds, diminuendoing to the most smallest. You're like, how in the world are 80 musicians playing that quietly to this grandiose filling the hall sound? You just, you come away with that and go, that was music. And then if you listen the way home, you're like, and that's pop, right? I appreciate both that. Classical music, that's harmony. Life is a symphony. And we're trying to make our life Taylor Swift. Why? Because we want simplicity and comfort. We just want to be.
We think we want that because it sounds easy. But the problem is it's not meaningful, it's not purposeful, and it's actually not very enjoyable. And so I think that symphony is more, that harmony is more, is better than the pursuit of balance.
[00:26:21] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it reminds me of, I mean, this podcast is called what's worthwhile?
You know, the, the central question is, is based on, you know, there's so much going on in the world today that there's so many messages, there's so many things happening, and there's so much that is competing for our attention.
And, you know, I'm asking that question of myself, and I think people in general should ask themselves that question, what is worthwhile? What's worthy of their attention? What should they be focused on? What should they put their energy into?
And it's tough to even figure out what's real and what's true anymore because there are so many conflicting messages out there. But I'll ask you the question directly.
What's worthwhile for you in your life and in the world today? You're talking about symphonies and complexity and, you know, all of the things, how they fit together. And, you know, we do want to simplify. I think we, we often, as people have a desire to simplify and that often it's healthy to simplify, but it's a question of simplifying the right things versus, you know, the wrong things in some ways. But, but how do you, how do you look at that? How do you answer that question for yourself?
[00:27:45] Speaker A: I think what I've learned in the last two years is I spent a lot of my life trying to pursue and help others find happiness and enjoyability.
So much of my life had this very heavy religious like. Again, when you grow up in a religious environment, especially a charismatic environment, and you're in your, you're kind of, you're naturally gifted, especially towards the arts, there's a lot of pressure put on, I think, children in the church to be, to be in ministry, right, to whether that's preaching or music or to use your gifts for the Lord. And for me, part of my story is, you know, I had a dad who was involved in life, but somewhat absent, especially his love was absent, at least in the way I desired as a child. And so I spent much of my childhood trying to get his attention, trying to hear I love you. And I didn't answer that question in a healthy way for myself. Instead, I looked to others, even in adulthood, to try to answer that. So I put expectations and I took assumptions that drove me in ways towards ministry and towards not having boundaries in my life. Right. And so I think I came to a point, especially during the pandemic where I just asked myself, like, what am I doing? Something's unhealthy here, right? And so to find out what's worthwhile, sometimes we have to, we have to do some really deep assessment. Even though my life wasn't bad by any means, it just was, it was really, honestly unhealthy. I was unhealthy. I told you about myself, I was unhealthy physically, which then I, what's actually, now that I have some mental clarity, I think because I was eating in a way that was healthy, my physical. It's just amazing how your mind can get into some really bad habits when your body's unhealthy too, right? And so anyway, I think trying to figure out what is really worthwhile. And again, that's been the journey of these last two years, to figure out what is worthwhile personally, relationally, professionally. And my answer to that isn't like, I have this great tapestry now. I've totally figured it out. In fact, the reality is right now I'm still in somewhat professionally at least I know what I'm dedicated to professionally, the business and the profession. And that's hard, right? If you're listening to this and you're an entrepreneur, you have chosen the worst thing. In fact, I would encourage you, if you don't think, if you're not ready to suffer, get out now. Go get you a nine to five job. Because the reality is you're probably going to have to get a nine to five job anyway to support what you're doing. It is hard. It is hard to do something, especially the more you care about it. And the more you care about impacting others for the good, the harder it is because there's so many people these days who will fleece you and market to you and then never give you the results that you want. And that's just the sad reality of the world. World. And again, not bitter. It's just a reality. So what's worthwhile? What's worthwhile is asking yourself, hey, that's, and that's why I don't like balance. Because guess what? You have multiple aspects of life. I have a professional aspect, but that's not the totality of my life. I can find joy in my personal self, in my relational self, even while I'm trying to build my professional self. But again, solo entrepreneur, if you're putting all your weight into this thing you're doing professionally, to the sacrifice and detriment of your relational and your personal, what's going to happen when that thing fails? Your whole life is going to be, then you're going to be mad and bitter about everything. So be careful that you don't. That's why I like the analogy of a rubber band. If you want to ask yourself what's worthwhile, it's not just this or that. It's not just black and white. It's a rubber band can be pulled in various directions. And I believe you have three core aspects of life. I've said it multiple times already, your personal, your relational, and your professional. But each one of those has breakdowns. Your personal has a physical, a mental and emotional. Your relational has a spouse type relationship, the one, the best friend, the partnership. It has children. If it has children, it has friends, acquaintances, and those break down. Your professional life has your actually what you get paid for. It's what, how you serve, it's what you do to replenish and rest and play as different aspects. And so I can't just say what's worthwhile in one category and throw my hands up and hope the rest figures out. I have to be continually assessing and saying, if I'm going to push into work, when am I going to push into relationships? When am I going to push into self? When am I going to release the tension from that one area? Because if I just go all out in here, I'm gonna break. I'm gonna snap. And so you. And so what's worthwhile to me is the continued assessment, is the continued kind of recentering and refocusing and then walking forward and experiencing life with intention. I think when you're intentional about life, then it's working towards something that should be worthwhile. But worthwhile is not in the, the grandiose vision of it. There is no, there is no real enjoyability in a vision, only when we walk towards it.
[00:33:14] Speaker C: So if it's, if it's, if it's being really intentional and doing those kinds of assessments, how do people do that? Is that something that you, you know, work with people to do through your coaching and through your consulting? Like, what, what was, what does that look like in some practical terms?
[00:33:40] Speaker A: What I did a year ago is do this myself. And I wasn't trying to do it intentionally. I was just like, what's going on? I had some insights from some people who were going, have you, where are things? Because I was so work focused. They were like, you seem kind of unhealthy, and it's going to be easy for you to keep unhealthy because of the reality of our life. So start assessing other areas. And as I did this, this is kind of what happened and what I created in storyline symphony. Storyline Symphony is now you can go storylinesymphony.com and check it out. It's a digital course that walks you through that. Here's the three areas of life. Here are the three subcategories of life. How do you assess. And so it walks you through a video. You know, it's me helping you think through talk through those aspects of life. So by the end of the course, course, you not only have assessed your present realities, you've assessed your past, because that's the other thing. Sometimes we're so into the present and what we want that we forget. Like, you have a past that's actually informed how you got to the present. And probably there's a lot of real gold nuggets in your past to help you go, I don't want to experience that again. Or, man, that's right. Remember when I did that and it was awesome? Why have I never done that again? Like, why haven't I thought that way? Why haven't I acted that way? Why haven't I? And so we assess your present, your past, and then we start to write a future. And at the very end, we write a. The idea is, I say a ten, a five and a one. But it doesn't matter about the length. What matters is you have something, a picture that you're going to walk towards that gets you excited in your feelings, right? That's what a vision is. A vision is just, it should be all about what you feel. Heaven is a vision. No one knows what heaven's going to be like. No one can sit down. And if we, if we took 100 people and said, paint a picture of heaven, that picture would be totally different 100 times over. It's just what it makes you feel. It makes you feel peaceful, it makes you feel hopeful. And so a vision's to give you incredible feelings. A mission, then, is the actual steps to that vision. And a mission should actually have tangible steps in it that are leading to concrete realities, right? If I want to, if my vision is to get married, the vision is the feelings of partnership, the feelings of laughing and dates and intimacy. But to actually get married, I've got to actually go on dates and I've got to actually ask tough questions, and I got to actually propose and pick out a ring, right? There's actually tangible steps. But you can't just live off of that mission. Cause that mission should be the full picture of what it's going to take. To get to the vision. So you have to then break it down to the one year. What can I do over the next? Maybe three months, six months to take actual, to take just at max, three real steps to start getting there. I need to go on dates.
I need to put up my profile if I'm going to do it online or I need to tell my friends, hey, I'm interested, and this is what I'm interested in. So maybe I need to sit down and say, who am I actually interested in? So I don't go on a lot of dumb dates with people that have no connection, that I'd never actually date in the real world. So you got to do some work. And I think that's what's missing is people think, oh, I'm just going to get married, and I'm just going to have happy thoughts. And that's why they never do it, because they never do the actual work of assessment and then of planning in an actual, real way to vision, mission and then objectives to actually get you to what you want. And it just, the problem is we want it now. Right. And so, and so if you want to find out what's worthwhile in your life, I would encourage you. The digital course of storyline Symphony will wake you up to some real, I think it'll wake you up to some realities that will both encourage you and probably make you go, e, I probably should work on that. And, and if you do, we're gonna experience a more worthwhile life, because, you know, worthwhile isn't just cookies and, you know, ice cream. It's also doing the hard work to assess the things that are broken and disjointed so they can be healed and made structurally sound so you can continue to build on top of it.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So, storylinesymphony.com, how do people get started with that? What does that really look like from, from a functional standpoint? What is that? What are the program offerings? How would people sort of get involved with that if they were interested?
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a digital course. That's the, the easiest way you take by yourself. If you reach out to me, I do. I have in the past, played with the idea of masterminds with it, so because I do think that when you do something together with people, you'll be far more successful than doing it by yourself. And so I love the idea of taking eight to ten people through the course, but with, like, weekly Zoom calls to be able to get in and talk about, about what are you thinking about? So you're learning you're hearing other ideas. Oh, I've never thought about that. That's, you know, just learning together and then holding each other accountable for action. I love people, and I'm so desperately. I just care so violently about people getting better, not staying where they're at. It's just. It's. It's damaging to them, and it's damaging to the world. Right. If we want the world to be a better place, then you've got to invest more, your self development. You have to become a better version than you are today and stop letting everyone else become better so that then you can experience being served better. Instead, you become better. Right.
[00:39:04] Speaker C: Yes. It is a. It is a work in progress. We are all works in progress.
And, you know, before we start wrapping up, is there anything else that you wanted to cover or to share or anything like that?
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. I don't know if there's anything burning again, I'll just. I'll summarize this and say, like, if you're listening to this, your life right now, no matter how good it is, could be better. And that better might not be for you. That better might be for the people around you. And if your life is really hard right now, I empathize with you because I spent the last two years going through literal hell. My last two years have been the two I thought I went through. Right? If anyone knows Mars Hill church at the end of that, like, that was. That was a. There was a lot of pain there. There's a lot of pain. The two years after that, I thought I knew pain, and I didn't know pain until I went through the last two years.
And so if you're in a place right now and you're in your hurting, a, it's not the end for you. It's not. This is not the new reality for you.
B, find people in your life. When you go through really dark seasons, you don't want to reach out because you feel like, a, you're a burden or you don't want to get other people dirty and grimy or you think, you know, does anyone care? We kind of wait for people to reach out to us and check in on us. And I just want to say, find the, you know, who they are. You know, the people that you can trust and that. And don't think you're a burden to them. Reach out to them or reach out to me. Reach out to someone. Right. This is why I like coaching, too, is that there are people that want to walk with you. There are people who have skill and ability to actually, you know, help you in this. So don't think it's the end. Don't think you're alone because you're not. And don't think you're a burden. Like, get over yourself and start to walk forward, because like we said at the very beginning, life has disharmony. But disharmony is not the end of the song unless you choose to make it the end of the song. So make it an actual song that's compelling. And all you have to do for that sometimes is get over yourself and ask for help.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: Well, that is wonderful, that concept and that idea that people are out there for you. People do actually care and that we are not a burden, but there's little voices in our spirit and in our mind telling us that we are, and those are not the voices you should be listening to.
Well, Seth, thank you so much.
This has been great.
Clearly, you have taken some difficult points and times in your life, and you have walked through them yourself and you're translating those into ways to, you know, walk through those with other people. And that is just, you know, not only is it, is it a testament to your own fortitude, but it's also turning it around and helping others. And I just so respect and appreciate and honor that. So thank you for all the great work that you are doing and are attempting to do, and thanks for taking the time to hang out with me and us for a little bit on this podcast.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Well, thank you, Ramsey, for letting me share a little bit of my story and what I'm up to on your platform, on what you're doing, which is powerful. Right? You are. You're spreading the ability to inspire and to encourage, and I love, I love what you're doing. I love that, that tagline, right? We're trying to find out what's worthwhile, and that is a valid question, and it's not a question you answer one time for the rest of your life. You have to continue to ask it. And so I love that you allow us once a week or however often you're putting out podcasts. Right. To be able to ask ourself. That's right. And to hear other stories and to go, hmm. I've never asked that part of the question. What's worthwhile on that professionally, vocationally, you know, whatever. So. So thank you for what you're doing and thanks for, yeah. Letting me have a little time with you to share. And I hope it's encouraged people to continue to ask the question that you're asking what's worthwhile and how do we live a more meaningful, worthwhile life?
[00:43:48] Speaker C: Absolutely right on. Thank you for asking. What's worthwhile? Visit what's worthwhile.net to learn more about.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Me, Ramsey Zimmerman, and please provide your.
[00:43:58] Speaker C: Name and email to become a supporter.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: I'm asking for prayer, advice, feedback and connections.
[00:44:03] Speaker C: The what's Worthwhile podcast is on Spotify, Apple, iheart, and Amazon.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: You can also
[email protected].
[00:44:10] Speaker C: Dot thanks.
