Nashville Airport Sets New Record for Most Passengers in a month; Nashville Zoo hosts one of the largest festivals in the country; and we’ll talk with Michael Johnson, who can explain how marriage can be more fun than a nudist colony.
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00:00 Hello everybody. This is the Nashville daily podcast and I'm Stuart Deming. I'm Erin Pennington. Nashville airport sets a new record for most passengers in a month. The Nashville zoo hosts the largest lantern festival in the country. And we'll talk with a guy who can explain how marriage can be more fun than a nudist colony. All this more on the national daily podcast.
00:29 We said that we're going to be talking to a guy that can explain how marriage is more fun than a nudist colony. I've known Michael Johnson for over six years and he owns a nonprofit here in the city of Nashville called future marriage university. What's a future marriage university all about Michael?
00:45 Well, we want to help people prepare for relational success in advance, which means before they fall in love, preferably before they start dating. So we're trying to change the whole paradigm from, Hey, let's wait till people think they've found the person that their dreams and then we'll try to miraculously fix all their broken baggage. So there'll be happily married. We want to get to them young and help them make wise decisions. And dating, leading to wise decisions in courtship, leading to wise decisions in marriage.
01:16 So how do you define relational success?
01:19 Well ultimately the goal of a healthy, a healthy relationship, like the kind of relationship you want to share with a lover, a spouse, really the kind of relationship you share with a mother or father or brother or sister is where you are known and they, you are known personally and you know them on an intimate level. It's, it's relational intimacy. That's also a,
01:41 That's so cool. We're, we're really looking forward to getting into it. If once we start, have you, have you heard our traffic segment before?
01:50 Oh yeah. I hear that there's, there's cars
01:53 Out there so I'm going to put you on the spot. Okay. Is there a comparison that you could do between Nashville traffic and relationships or marriage? Whoa, that's a good one. Wow. Well, national traffic would probably be said, man, you did put me on the spot. I'll, that'd be something like a marriage that happens two weeks after they meet and just like, let's just get it all together. And then it doesn't really happen. That's a good description. So it means that's bad and that fill traffic is bad. It's what ends up going actually morally wrong. Yes. But not a wreck. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of wrecks that happened in this city, so it's, it makes sense. So some events happening we forgot to talk about this last Friday, but the Tennessee state fair started on Friday. Stewart's country, the country accent is so that started on the sixth and it's going throughout this entire week on the 15th to learn more.
02:51 It's Tennessee state fair.org. That's exciting. Yeah. I, I'm kinda, I really want to go and get like a photo of a Ferris wheel and just, even though I saw the Ferris wheel yesterday and I was driving through Wedgewood, Houston, I saw this Ferris wheel and I'm like, Oh, Ferris wheel. And Amanda was sitting next to me. She was like, do you want to go on it? And I'm like, I would love to go on the Ferris wheel. And Amanda's like, I don't want to go on a Ferris wheel. So I guess I'm just going to get photos of it and still get photos of her from the top of the Ferris wheel. What's happening at the Ryman auditorium, Erin? So we have Dwight Yoakam Sunday and Monday at 7:30 PM at the Ryman auditorium. It's ramen.com/events or those. Have you ever been to the Ryman, Michael? I have.
03:30 It's amazing experiences and it's a very unique experience. Nowhere else. Yes, exactly. So grabbed some tickets for the Ryman. You have a couple opportunities to do this. This fall and winter if you have not been yet. We also have the Americano music festival that is September 10th through the 15th. So I starting tomorrow, Tuesday, September 10th through the 15th American Fest. The.Org is the website and they literally take up venues all throughout the city of Nashville. And a lot of people actually come in from around the world for American, the Fest. I do know that, like I actually like a large population from Europe comes into town for this. I don't know. I don't understand it. You know that from her Uber days. Yeah. From, I remember that from my Uber days on Sunday. You like this one, Michael Italians verse Colts, 12:00 PM a Sunday at Nissan stadium to buy tickets.
04:21 It's Titans online.com also happening tomorrow. Tuesday you have the Jonas brothers performing at Bridgestone arena at 7:30 PM all right, I'm going to get my tickets. Just kidding. The Ferrari already sold out. Aaron, let's be, I'd rather get tickets to this next event. This is Disney on ice. Disney on ice 12th through the 15th nice meets. Joe does. Absolutely. So that's at Bridgestone arena.com. I was going to give you guys the hours for Disney on ice, but they're having like 15 different shows so you could look up that information for yourself@bridgestonearena.com all right, so we want to get into some, I would say this is really interesting news and really good news for the city of Nashville. This is found over@visitmusiccity.com. The article is another record, July, 2019 top passenger month and BNA history. If you've thought you might've heard something like this before. I think BNA headset, a single day passenger record of over 31,000.
05:31 Pretty recent was, I think it was like end of June, beginning of July. So this is a new record for BNA and gosh. Oh, new monthly record of, gosh. Wow. What do you think the record is? We'll you said 31,000 before one 31,000 was a one day record will be in a people departing, I believe it was one of those. Yeah. So a month of people coming in and out of BNA. Gosh, I have no idea. Milt. I guess million at least you're close by. 1.13, six. We're getting there. It's actually 1,678,865 passengers went through BNA. So is that, is that including departure and like Mike, if all these people are leaving, that's probably not good. [inaudible] We're adding here. It says passenger. So I would guess that includes people coming in and out of the DNA. So then also so if you go to this article, this is on visit music city.com.
06:39 Go down a little bit. It talks about how BNA generated some 7.1 billion, some, some 7.1 billion in total economic impact in middle Tennessee economy in 2018 alone. BNA is really interesting right now with all the construction that's happening there. I guarantee you most, yeah, I guarantee you most people listening to this podcast, I've flown out of BNA at some point when I and I mean construction is going like crazy. When I returned from Santa Fe, they were doing construction on baggage claim. The ceiling was entirely open and that entire area was being but under construction, the baggage claim when I was there. So they're moving into, you know, they've been doing a lot of uses. Yeah. Okay. You can go follow one of their, like this world famous Instagram account. It's a BNA carpet and it's literally an Instagram account that has like 15,000 followers and it's all about BNA carpet.
07:35 But guess what? I heard they're actually going to be ripping up all of the BNA carpet. Look, they rule in a Florida, it's bad for business. Like, yeah. Well like what is that clothing line going to do whenever an entire clothing line developed out of the BNA or socks, shirts, pants, everything they're going to, it's a really sad day for them. I hope they keep that pattern whenever they re-install the carpet. We will love to get like the president of the airport on the show and they have a incredible website. It's called BNA vision.com. And you can see everything that they're doing over at BNA. So what else is happening at the zoo this year, Aaron? So a lot of puns with the zoos event, right? You have the zoo Fari you have the zoo. It was some overnight stay. I can't remember what it was, but this is zoo lumination.
08:25 It says, come see, come see the zoo in a whole new light and joy. The country's largest Chinese lantern festival. I would not have guessed that the country's largest Chinese lantern festival. What happened here in Nashville? Yeah. Or we don't even have a Chinatown here in Nashville. No over 500 custom made silk lanterns. We'll be spread across 60 acres creating elaborate displays with some of your favorite zoo animals and a holiday theme. And even a 200 foot long dragon. They have a pretty cool video on their website. Is that a live dragon? Is it is alive dragon? They knew ain't no new animal. Yeah, they found it in Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. But he's Chinese. Yeah. So this is actually zooming nation is starting November 15th through December 30th at five to 9:00 PM and they're closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas day. And then it's also happening January 2nd to February 2nd five to 9:00 PM.
09:28 So they're having that for a long time. It's an extensive amount of time. It's a cold amount of time to, yeah. So there's actually a lot of different like Christmas activities happening here in Nashville and we were, we're going to talk about that later on in a couple episodes closer to Christmas. So Michael, you've been in Nashville for how long? Since 2001. Okay. So you've been here for a long time. 10 years. Yeah. You've seen, do you consider yourself a native? Well or, or I don't consider myself, but I mean we're definitely not a native, but longtime residents. Some residents home. When do you use, do you other people coming in as non-natives is probably the better question probably. Yeah. So you've been here long enough to judge other people. This is what we just, awesome. So you've, you've lived in Franklin the entire time, right?
10:14 In your downtown Nashville. So what has been your favorite thing about the changes happening in Franklin Franklin in the last 18 years? Wow. You know, ultimately, and I really do, I like what they've done with the downtown except for the parking. Yeah. The parking is becoming a mess. So limited and expensive, which is probably why it's expensive. But it is exciting that when we first came there, I mean downtown was totally dead. I mean, especially really anytime after 5:00 PM nothing. And now of course with the restaurants and the theater and I mean it's, it's almost always hopping. Six, seven, eight, nine o'clock. And I know your like big city people are like, Oh nah, we, we are still a small town boys and girls. So yeah, you, you're able to stay up til nine there and that's, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. So once that, one thing we love to cover every day on the podcast is say you had a visitor coming in from out of town, what would you want them to experience here in the city of Nashville?
11:13 We totally want to show off her downtown. We totally do. I mean it's just a, and again, I know it's not Julie and I, I sit out in front of melodies, which is my, I consider it, well they think it's a bakery to me, it's my satellite office and they realize that I take up a whole little table with my cup of coffee. But sometimes I'll get phone calls behind the counter and their hand in the phone [inaudible] but sometimes if it's a beautiful day, I'll sit out in the front patio and it's just hilarious to hear all the tourists that are, Oh look, 35 so, Oh Whoa, look at this. This crazy looks at what it looks like. It has sandwich it, you know, there's some, I'm in buckets as love music. Exactly. So I know that it's not just Julie and I and our little imaginary world.
11:57 I mean, people are flying here to hang out in this little town. But I mean it's beautiful. We talked about it last week. We put a YouTube video all about all about friends, but we've done this several times. And because you are a YouTube Franklin has been just in magazines and it's advertised everywhere around the world right now. And it's, you know, named as one of the best small towns in America. Yeah. So, but it is, it is incredible to see like, okay, if somebody puts in the magazine, somebody is going to agree with that enough just by the image and the text to fly out and check it out for themselves. And we talked about this, I think it was last week. We say that from a tourism perspective, the just Franklin and RO alone made $500 million from the state Tennessee pile. That's my real estate taxes.
12:48 So that's a, that's a lot. Aaron, where did you eat recently? That was local. So we were in Plaza mariachi not too long ago and so I got to experience a new restaurant inside of Plaza mariachi. I had some tacos, I can't remember the name of the restaurant. There are several in there. So it's a big food court. Plaza mariachi is amazing. We're actually coming out with a video of Plaza mariachi on Friday and guess what? They have one of the largest celebrations on Sunday, September 15th, and that is the Mexican independence day. They're shutting down the entire parking lot. They're having festivals, live music. It's going to be an amazing experience. Yeah, it would be, you know, kind of what they said. They specifically use the word festival because that identifies a lot with how the celebration occurs in, in, in Mexico.
13:40 So that's, that's going to be awesome. But Plaza mariachi was good. We also had a Mexican popsicles. Your first Mexican Popsicle. What was your thoughts? It was fantastic. It tasted just like I got a cappuccino Popsicle and it was just like a perfect blend of coffee and ice cream on a stick. What can I say? It was great. So I guess where I ate at recently, if anybody wants to know, Oh, hold on. Tweet us if anybody already knows the answer to this question because I don't even think we have to say. I want to see, because we've been getting people tweeting at us. Literally the world. It's crazy. Tina Scotland already. So everybody joined the movement starts weightiness at X or underscore Nash. Let us know. We'll, we will send you a free tee shirt if you tell us where Stuart eight locally, only in America right now.
14:31 He's international shipping is expensive. When you come back to Nashville, we'll give you that free teachers. So should I say it? I think, I think we should have people tweet it. Okay. And then what did I eat particular we, okay. Michael Johnson gets a tee shirt and a hat. Yeah. if you against, against both of those, you will win the tee shirt in the hat. Michael Johnson. Where did you eat at recently? Well, again, I have one just to Mary's horn. Not just cause they let me drink coffee there, but I did have there you have a new menu item. The Southwest strap that was, excuse me, Southwest. It's like a Philly cheese steak, except it's like a Southwest flair. It has [inaudible] sauce, so I may be going there right after this because that sounds amazing. It's a regular tortilla or is it like a spinach tortilla?
15:20 It's just a regular tortilla. It's not spinach, but I mean it's got, it's got the Philly cheese steak cheese. The [inaudible] peppers is the big question. Oh, well they serve it with Swiss. I didn't get it with Swiss, so I got it with some white and white American or something like that. Anyway, it's, that's not because I'm racist, it's just because I don't like Swiss cheese. Okay. That cheese undergoing through a name change here pretty soon. That just didn't come out right at all. But it's the sauce that was heads is a Chipolte my sauce that was eminent. Kind of spicy too. LAN. It's not sweat spicy. It's not HUD chicken spicy, but it's definitely like it's enough to make you a little bit made me smile. MEMA happy. That's good. That's a good kind of sauce, man. That sounds delicious. So this episode of the Nashville dailies brought to you by screen threads, screen threads.
16:06 They Nashville curious shop located in the historic marathon village. Use code Nashville daily to get 10% off your next online order. Their website is screened threads.com or we're going person and mentioned this ad Nashville daily. To get 10% off of your in-person order. Do you have to whisper? You have to whisper. Whisper daily. That's very sexy. Yeah. have you ever been to screened threats? I have not. So I don't get outside of Franklin very often. It's do you do you like to buy candles for other people as gifts? People who like to receive candles. So yes, they buy them. If you ever go to screen threads, that's what I would recommend to get, get some candles as gifts. Those are going to be as immediate as Christmas gets last year. And there's the all natural national soy and made in handmade in Nashville can bring the best out of every candle I've ever had.
16:56 And then there are large candles burned for 60 hours. It's a, yeah, it's a really nice candle. It is. I know we don't normally go on about screen threads, but it's good. Yeah, it's an amazing store. And that's located in marathon village. Michael Johnson, you are in music for a very long time here in the city of Nashville. So where did you come from before you moved here in 2001 well, I actually was working in a Christian music label in Portland, Oregon for three years and after three years they decided they didn't want me or my department. So they totally did the whole department. Oh wow. That's, that came three months after buying our first home, by the way. And we were pregnant with our third kid. So that was a highlight of my adult life. But fortunately got a job at a Christian music label down in Franklin, Tennessee as central records. Did you throw a dart on the map to hit hit Franklin? Oh, well that's just, I mean, I knew
17:50 I've, I've always felt called to the entertainment world, radio, TV, film. I know you've mentioned ramen, a nonprofit that isn't necessarily entertainment now, but we do entertainment. We met you, will you make video clubs? But that said, we realized, man, if we, if we stay in a city like Portland, that means when I get laid off we've got to move again. So we kind of, we didn't do a dart, we said LA, New York or Nashville. That way when we get laid off, which by the way is very common in the music industry. We can go down the street instead of having to move. So yeah, that's why we, and we really didn't actually want to live in New York or LA. Right. So we hope to be able to get in Nashville and got a great job. It sounds like you were happy with that decision.
18:33 Yes. Yes. In fact, the record label job I had here was so much better. It was so much better. I left it after two years on my own to start my own record promotions business. We, the from our our interviewee yesterday, Andy whiskies, she's a, she came from, she's been in Portland as well. She's been in Denver, but you know, she said Nashville was just like, the thing that stands out about Nashville is the friendly atmosphere. Did you experience that for yourself? Oh definitely. Yeah, absolutely. We have PO Oregon is is a great place and all but not, not anything. Not the welcoming sort of vibe that you haven't gone tenancy new. Yeah. Do not at all. Not at all. So you're, you moved here for a record label and then you started your own record labels. So not people motions company.
19:21 So what's the difference between those? Well, you know, at the record label, I mean you have to promote whatever, you know, here's the artists pick a single tell radio to play it. Excuse me. That's great. You had to play it. No. Are all these August ones that were signed for that particular label? Correct. And so, I mean as it turns out, I was at a central records at his heyday when they couldn't have done any better and they had, I don't know if your listers, if y'all, if you listening now who have jars of clay or or third day or Caitlin's call, but I mean everything they had coming out at the time was rocking. But the reality was, you know, some things weren't a good fit for radio but it's like it didn't matter. Well I thought I could do the in a record promotions business, I could take just those few songs that I really believed in and just promote those, which actually if you're familiar with the music industry is not really the way things work.
20:11 Most record promoters are known to just take whatever whenever they can. But I wanted to start a company that was just more of a boutique promotions company that would take no more than five or fewer artists. And that's what I did. And that worked really well cause I obviously charged a lot more money for those five cause they're my little five babies right when I got on the phone with the radio station in Dallas or Portland or wherever and I'm like, Hey, these are my five songs. They knew st just cause I got money. Just say this. Like I said no to all these other songs to say yes, yes these wow. And that worked great until Christmas music started to take over like it has with, you know, radio stations. We won't mention the Nashville by name like Caleb and, and the fish and way FM did it.
21:03 Did it increase with Christian artists? Did they just notice, Hey we can make money off of off of these, these songs. And so everybody's now producing a Christmas album? Yeah, well no, it was really the record. It was really the radio stations that started saying we're going 24 seven Christmas music starting on November 12th Nope. December 1st Nope, November after. Yeah, I mean yeah, it was like crazy man. And again, I, I just kinda like black Friday every year. I through all the national stations of the above. But it's true of all the know, there's so many of them. And so suddenly you couldn't promote regular singles all year round. You pretty much once October hit, you had to perform radio was done. So that is that why artists moved towards producing more Christmas stuff it on the radio and actually get airplay through November, December. And again, they're not playing Christmas music in October or January.
21:57 But unless you're me, cause I'm listening to Christmas music at that time, but we'll see. I'm, you're the problem then the problem cause radio stations like, Hey dude, we're just doing what the LR wants. And I'm like, Oh, okay. I understand. Okay bye. So, but yeah, you can't work this five singles for just six months out of the year that and pay all the bills. That doesn't work. So w who are some artists that you've worked with a well independently? I don't know if you know Nicholean Dante, but she was, she did well man, you caught me off. I know why I'm not, I'm having this blank now. But I worked with goatee records. I worked with INO off the afters was a big group. They got their first CHR number one of all time. That was cool. That was also the first CHR, number one for INO.
22:50 I, I'm S by the tree. A lot of the, I mean honestly, so keep in mind I have not been doing this for six years, so all the artists have switched over since then. Mercy me is probably the biggest artists I work with. Yeah. So me. How many like number one hit songs did you have to charge a lot? Cause it's hard just to get it. Song charting is like, and that wasn't true when I first started back in the 90s. Are you glad you got out before Spotify? You know what was interesting about that is I knew that if I was going to stay in and promotions, I knew that that was the direction I needed to head. Instead of seeing Spotify as being something bad, I got to get on the platelets. Yes. Yeah. I knew I'd have to figure out how do you get stuff on Spotify?
23:34 How do you get stuff on Pandora? How do you get stuff? But again, that goes back to the nonprofit that we have now. Right. That wasn't my passion. I knew that as soon as record promotions for me is done. I want to be trying to help people. I want to be helping a different kinds of single, no, no, not a record single. Yeah. I want to know. Don't want to, but seriously, I was like, I, and this came from being working in the Christian music industry too, cause there were so many brilliant, talented, neat Christian people that were no more ready for marriage than they were ready to become president. Did that, did that just strike a chord with you that you couldn't let go? Yeah, I just, my heart went out to them because when I'm looking at the non-thinking, you know what? I would be exactly like you at age 30 whatever they were.
24:25 If I hadn't gotten married still, I would be, you know, there's just a whole different mindset that if you're going to get in, make a marriage work, then it calls you up to a level. I'm not saying that married people are moving toward than single people. That'd be ridiculous to say. What I am saying is the married Michael Johnson at age 48 is so much more mature than the single Michael Johnson. The age 48 could have ever imagined being. And so again, these people, but you know, the music industry doesn't encourage marriage. In fact, the music industry kills marriage going on the road. Even if you're not an artist. Even if you're promoting singles like I was and yeah, yeah. You're, you're having to go out with the artist and radio tours and stuff like that and, and being able to have, you know, connection to your family.
25:13 Not to mention that you all date, like the label I worked with was like, Hey, we were like family. I'm like, no, you're like the company I work at, you know, I know you listing your company more than likely if it's a mid or smaller level company is like that too. Like, Oh, where are your family? No, it's the place where you work. I hope you get along with them. I hope you learn how to work well together with them. But no families are created by marriage and child rearing and sorry. Yeah. Most people aren't doing that with their coworkers. Well it's actually, they might be not in the order of marriage and childbearing. So give us a little time frame. When did you feel like you needed to potentially start this nonprofit and like when did you start developing content? Because if you what to first off, what's your website where people can find you? Great question. It's F M university. That's aF as in future, M as in marriage, FM, university.net.net.net. Does anybody ever get you confused for university in Florida with the F and a and the, not that I know of, but yes, there I do know that there's, there is crossover there. That might be why a fmu.co FM university.com is so expensive. Yeah, because they want one of us to buy it.
26:41 The Florida school nor I have said, and we'll just, I'll just go with net. Thank you. Yes, exactly. We have a taught life, so we completely understand that now. [inaudible] Dot com we can't get, yeah, so let's get, let's, let's talk about timeframe. So when did you start developing content for future marriage university? Well, that started 2003 I'm gonna when I left the record company, I worked with [inaudible]. You started that when you started your own promotion shortly thereafter, shortly thereafter, and again, and actually the part of the vision was what I saw with these people that again were there, there no more. I didn't have anything that didn't, they didn't have except what my mom did for may Christmas, my junior year in college, which is she gave me a marriage book, which I thought was Cirque du Soleil, cause I wasn't even in a serious relationship. But I read that marriage book Christmas and my junior year in college.
27:38 And now I realize in retrospect, my mom gave me this amazing gift, a book that gave a very, very realistic picture of marriage at a time when I didn't have a relationship to defend. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. That and I didn't have love chemicals flooding my brain and heaven and clear thinking. And so I actually read that book and received everything the authors hope to convey to the reader in that book. Wow. And so then I started dating Julie. Seriously. Then we got married and after 10 years of what we felt like, I mean again, marriage is hard, but what we felt like was pretty frigging awesome marriage after 10 years. And then I felt like God wanted me to go back and reread that book to figure out how to trick other people in the doing over. My mom tricked me into doing.
28:23 Did you want to specifically target the music industry in those people that you were seeing on a day to day basis? Where do we, what we literally did in 2003 is we invited all the single people we knew to a marriage class in our home and yes, most of those people were in the music industry. Yeah, and we wound up with a living room full of single women, which back with me and my roommates in college would have been like, how can we fill our living room with single women, but I'm here with my wife. I have three kids. I wasn't the goal. I wasn't looking to Colita women's Bible study, but well not being awesome. It wound up being fantastic. We did a guy's group after that, another couple of girls groups, another guy's group, and then we, we realize we need to go, we need to get this earlier.
29:10 We, these, these people were, again, they had already made so many bad decisions, the same bad decisions that I would have made if I had still been single that long. You didn't have that framework. Yes. Yeah. I didn't, you know, that whole, I'm telling you, just that one book that my mom gave me, I just see as like a turning point and in setting me up for a marriage that I didn't deserve. And so that said, we started targeting a Christian colleges and universities. We've spoken at local Lipscomb and Belmont. One of my favorite talks was, as you mentioned earlier, how marriage can be more fun than a nudist colony. I had that title circling around my head for a long, long time. And then I finally, the guide Shem Malesky who was the Dean of spiritual life or what, I don't remember what he was, but he was a guy who said, had me come in and he booked that talk. He's like, yeah, I want you to give that like a month out. I'm realizing I had the title, and I know this, I know the, the kind of idea, you know, the nudist colony is, is going to be a metaphor for that Swingin's single lifestyle where you get on the little pedal cards drinking,
30:20 Oh, you're a pedal Tanner and you know, dental thing
30:24 And, and, and, and that was so the whole, the nudist colony was a metaphor for that. You know how marriage can actually be more fun than that. And I knew a story from my wife and Maya's life that I wanted to share at the end. I had not really figured out how I was gonna defend the premise.
30:42 Yes, it's going to be more fun and a news color. But, so my mom gave me permit and my mom did I say my mom. Oh, that was weird. That is what she, to rewind that one. My mom who was dead at the time, Whoa God. Even weirder. I know some of my wife gave me permission to
31:02 Myself in to a hotel and I spent the weekend and I just rode out that talk. And it was, it was amazing. So somebody in Nashville needs to book that talk for for their college ministry student ministry.
31:18 Oh, absolutely. The title alone, the poster alone would be great for that top. Well, we can show the posts or on the podcast right now. Yeah. I can't even show it on video now when the beat wasn't be prudent. Not prudent. So how did that talk go? It was, it was fabulous. I mean it went really well and again, I've done it several times since then. So not nudist colonies, but to talk. I did. I did incidentally get attacked by a bunch of new this, some of them at a [inaudible] John, your article, middle Tennessee, right? Yeah. Well they, yeah, I don't know how, but I guess they're doing a cert and he'll Google search or whatever it was something you wouldn't buy them there. Yeah, it's a Google alert, right, where you get alerted and when some show. Yeah.
31:59 And so I think it was that. And they're like, you know, the naturalist's lifestyles and beautiful lifestyle and, and they, they couldn't get why I would like use their beautiful community as a metaphor for the people in the pedal Tavern. I'm like, you don't, I mean really. Okay, well I'm sorry, but it went over really well. Wish could have been there.
32:20 Yeah. Like maybe you should just, we should have a conversation about this, but in fact I did. And that was that. Yeah. Cause I said that, that talks several times.
32:29 Belmont, that was up at the school up in Michigan and they started attacking their Facebook page too. Yeah. That, that might be why I've never been back.
32:36 Yeah. Actually now thinking about it. So with your nonprofit
32:40 You have a few things. So you have a blogs online, you have video content on YouTube, you do speaking engagements at colleges and different churches. Yeah. So let's talk more just about those individual things. Like why are you writing about, in your blogs, what's your YouTube channel about? And some of those talks at colleges. Yeah. Written a blog as date night advice. And we cover the gamut of sex, dating relationships. Again, it's all free as we're talking about sex. Yes, yes, absolutely. And in fact and the churches are been, and you for that, no, actually though they re a lot of a realize man we gotta we got to talk about this. I mean it's a mass and the killer is, and the really sad thing is, is that so many churches, w number one, the person who sets the topic generally wins the debate.
33:25 That's the reality. And so who set the topic to sex? To church? No, the culture. Culture. Yeah. And so then the church is left with the baggage of coming in after the world has said, sex X, X, X, X. And here's what it looks like. Let us literally show you. It looks like the people who are trying to, you know, badly defend themselves and, and just kind of get caught up in exactly what, but the reality is, and it goes back to what you said at the start of this broadcast, when you're like, well, something about what, what's what, what's successful relationships look like? And I was like relational intimacy where you can know and be known by the important people in your life. That's it. And in sacks in most instances, becomes an intimacy imposter for people. They can meet someone at a bar in Nashville, hook up later that night.
34:16 And in that moment you feel close because actually your body, your body and your clothes pretty much can't get much closer. And yet your souls are so far apart and that's why you feel so empty afterwards. That's why. And so the church, okay, yeah, let's talk about sex. Okay. Yeah. And it's made for marriage and okay. It's actually not meant to be an intimacy imposter, but actually it's made to represent and facilitate the oneness of marriage. Yup. But now let's talk about what that oneness really is about, which is actually not about sex at all. It's not about sex organs, it's about souls connecting on a soul level. It's about knowing and being known by the important people in your life. You know? And it reminds me, I don't know if anybody Rose still remembers Michael Phelps, but I think he's still much, pretty much the record holder for golden.
35:14 I'm a new kid. There's a kid who's coming up, he's coming up but breaking a few records, but he hasn't gotten more gold gun. Oh yeah. No. Going to like, nobody's going to get more basketball records and send them uncle George and Michael Jordan. Yes. So he, it was really interesting not after the Rio Olympics, but what was the Olympics before that? I think it was London. Shanghai. Anyway, maybe the Olympics for Rio. He just had a nervous breakdown and we read about it in this, in this article, and the whole thing was his relationship with his dad. Huh? It was broken. It wasn't relationally intimate. It wasn't healthy, healthy. And he had, here's this guy, top of the world. No one's going to be six as successful in their field as Michael Phelps. You listening right now, I hate to burst special bubble. You will never be as successful as Michael Phelps that was in his field, in your field.
36:06 It won't happen. And yet, what did it do for him? He was empty. He was broken. We want to help people understand their need for relational intimacy and thrive in it. And so for people listening, this is not just for people who are probably a part of the church. This is for everybody. Absolutely. I mean, we do it from a biblical framework, but yeah, I mean it's, it's whether you're Christian or not, whether you believe in Jesus or Mohamed, you have to be able to have healthy relationships for people really know you. And when I say no you, I mean, no, you have a porn addiction. No, you, your mom took her own life. No, no. Whatever wounds, whatever they, I mean, do you put no, I'm not saying put it up on a billboard. I'm saying just have a couple of friends or mentors who get you.
36:58 And when you have that, there's just that, Oh my goodness, there's a crowd, Stuart and I have that. I mean, we had that because over the course of six years, we've met almost every other week for those years. And when we meet is another like, Oh, you know, help with the Titans. I mean, yeah, I love the Titans, but I mean, no, we're talking about what's really going on in our lives. And I'll, I'll speak into this. Michael Johnson has been a huge influence with me. I went through his relationships classes. I read your books, I like, I've interacted with you one on one and I'll say going through future marriage university and the content that I've taken is helped me be successful with my marriage, with Amanda. And I really, I took the time to work on myself. I took the time to work on you, did my emotional scars with my father.
37:51 I took the times that work on my, my porn addiction. I did have, yeah. And I took that time and I, I had a relationship with you, Michael Johnson, who owns a nonprofit all about relationships. And I took that time to work on myself and now I have relational success with my wife. Yeah, yeah. And, and also, you know, you're not done yet. Right. This is a constant process. That's not what our culture makes it seem like. It makes it seem like you get in done it all, you got married, everything's, you check that off and it's like, no, now the real work begins boys and girls. And that's okay. You know, I, I got into internet porn back in 99 2000 and, and I, and I had to work through that and then I had to realize once that's conquered, you'll really the issues behind that that were the problem.
38:43 And then once I dealt with all those and I'm like, Oh, you know, I keep yelling at my kids, where's that coming? Maybe I have an anger issue. Oh, wonder what's causing that? Maybe it's because I think I am so awesome that I deserve to have children that say, yes sir. No sir. How much would you like sir? Immediately? So maybe the anger isn't the problem. It's the raging pride, you know, so, but do you see, I mean, I'm being intimate with you right now over this podcast. I hope. Am I saying too much too soon. But that's what we need. And those relationships, people that will walk us through that and just like, I've tried to, you know, be that with you. Other men have been that with me. Yep. I'm sure that there are unique been that with me, by the way, Stewart, I'm into this, this is not a one way street here.
39:32 Yeah, I'm sure they're pretty common things that you could say, like if you were to give general advice to a large group of people, like, Hey, here's a small takeaway that you could do right now if you're not in a relationship. And of course, you know, I would encourage you guys to go check out Michael's content, but you know, what's one thing right now that somebody could just, a step that they could take to increase their chance of having that relational success? Absolutely. Well first off I would say if you're a guy, you know, taking one or two of your guy friendships that have really just been talking about sports and TV and taking that relationship to the next level where you actually share something like significant. Yeah. Talk about like an emotional wound you have from a child in your childhood? Do you mean any, you start lying.
40:19 You don't have to, you don't have to go from football to, did I ever tell you my mom took her own life? No. No. Okay. Just start bridging that gap. Even as I say that, I know you listening, you might be like tense, like a little little anxiety, but I mean once you do that and you find out, Oh, this other person has issues too and stuff and do that insane gender relationships where you can know and be known in a non-sexual non romantic way. Oh my goodness. Does that set you up so much better to be successful in sharing intimately in a romantic relationship? I can share that again from experience in college, I went to Baylor university, sorry, it wasn't Lipscomb or Belmont or Tribeca, but Tribeca has never had me speak by the way, but [inaudible] Rebecca if you're listening. But when I went to Baylor, man, I wanted a girl friend.
41:13 That's how I was what I wanted. But what I want, I'm getting upfront was a couple accountability partners and that wasn't really exactly what I was going for. But Oh my goodness, I loved those friendships. One of those guys still really tight West and those friendships I now see in night, I wound up being with the same guys my sophomore, junior, senior year in college. So yeah, three guys and grown in relationship with those guys. I was like, Oh, you know me, you get me, you get what a bad roommate I am and you still, you know, you still be my friend and that's awesome. So then when the girl didn't like me back, which of course was every single time until Julie, which is why I married her, but no seriously. Then when the girl then like her back, my whole world didn't collapse.
42:02 Yeah, because depending on her, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So you listing if you will know you don't have, maybe you can't have that friendship with your dad or your mom because there you know, cause of so many atheists, you know, find a mentor, find a friend and just slowly take that relationship to the next level. Maybe you need to do what Stuart dead and you got more intentional and actually can we say this on the, that he got therapy, isn't that for broken, messed up. People know it's for smart people that want to work through their issue, improve their life. So it may take that. I want, I want to speak in this for a second. We have a thing that we do every month called explore, meet and the intention behind why we host this isn't just to improve your photography skills. It's the build relationships, it's to collaborate with people, it's to challenge your paradigm on how you view the world.
43:00 And that's the reason ultimately why we host these monthly meetups called explore meats is so that you can have relationship with people and it takes it beyond. What we saw was, Hey it worked. We're commenting with people in the Instagram community, we're saying, Hey, we love your picture or love your work. But it most of the time it never got beyond being able to see that person face to face. Yeah. And so those meetups have been amazing to be able to do that, to say, Hey, I'll love your shot. Like I can't wait to go and hang out again and I can't wait till it's waiting for you. I can't wait to just see how you see the world. And that's ultimately the reason we have these explore means is to build relationships. I love that. Yeah. So with this nonprofit, how long have you been running it?
43:51 How long has this been going on and you know, if, what are you planning on doing in the future with it? Well, again, we 2003 is when the first class happened, but we didn't incorporate until four years ago when really pretty much track record promotions versus went under. And I was like, well, I either need to find another real job or I'm going to try to do this fulltime nonprofit thing. And so that was about four years. We've been full time nonprofit. Our, our hope is that eventually, you know, we can obviously, you know, we've been called to work online and build content there. That's where we've been focusing our efforts. We aren't on the road as much now, but I'm hoping get out there again and when we do, we now have all these online resources that can continue the conversation. Whereas before, when I would go to this Lipscomb university and do whatever talk I did there and then I leave and it's over.
44:49 That's the end. That's the end of the conversation. There's no, there's no, not as much follow up as, and not as much action that can be taken as far as how they can interact with your nonprofit. Yeah, absolutely. What's a, what's one word of advice that you would give somebody that is in the process of starting a nonprofit or desires to start a nonprofit? Definitely. First be honest with yourself. Is this really a call or do you just just want this, I want to do this. I assure you, I this is a call, I had to do this, I had to do this. Particularly when you're asking if it's really a call, you're most ministry or nonprofit things are already being done, you know, the Wells are being dug and you know, marriage counseling is happening and whatever they got. So I would encourage you first to see is there a ministry already doing what you're thinking about doing and, and couldn't you come alongside and serve through there and, and contribute there.
45:57 And maybe then you're like, well, you know, I think this can be done differently. Or I think, and then maybe, yeah, you get called to do your own thing. But that's similar to what happened to me in with record promotions. I worked at one label in rec and promotions for three years and other for two after five years of doing that, a label, I'm like, I have a lot. I have a real clear picture of how this can be done better. Yup. That is what I'd recommend for somebody who's thinking, Hey, this, this is a problem. It needs to be addressed. Who's already addressing it, what can you learn from them and then move forward? I think I have one more question about the nonprofit. What's the most difficult thing about running a nonprofit in Tennessee? Well, the fact that there is a nonprofit on every single street corner, there are so many nonprofit.
46:49 I don't know, I am not outside Franklin or Nashville, so I don't know what it's like other otherwise, but I mean here I'll say as a way more than some other cities saying, so when you're going to set your, your fundraiser for the year, you know, ahead of time and I'll be contributing or I'll be con competing with the Nashville rescue mission and shower up and you know, insert, you know, the rough year. Yeah. It's like, Oh, some, something. I would say it's really hard to fundraise. There's lots of generous people here, but there's a lot of fantastic places to give, but not nearly as fantastic as future marriage.
47:31 Why'd y'all laugh? Let me try that again, but not nearly as fantastic as future marriage university. Oh, great. Hmm. There we go. It's, it just took two times. You're going to, you're going to cut that other one, right? Yeah, totally. Thank you. Yeah. Michael, where can people find, find you on social media, on your YouTube website and Instagram website again as F M university.net. That'sf as in future, Amazon marriage, university.net, not.com. And then all the social media is at F M university. So that's Instagram at FM university, facebook.com/fm university. Awesome. That you got all of those handles. Yes. Yeah. So YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are all same. F M university. Great. Ah, so I'm Stuart Deming with a explore dot. Nash. This is the Nashville daily podcast. Make sure to go follow us on Instagram. Uwe just released a brand new,ufood video for top restaurants in 2019 yes.
48:30 And a that's over on our YouTube channel. Where can we find our YouTube channel? So you can find us at X, D L R. Dot. Nash just about everywhere except for our website. We are a.life website, just like Michael's [inaudible] dot. Net website and a sub or Twitter to our Twitter is X PLR underscore, underscore, Nash Nash. Don't forget to tweet at us and you know, see if you can guess where Stuart ate recently. We will give you a tee shirt and if you can guess what I ate, you'll get a hat as well. Might help to go through some archives only in America. Yeah, and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast rate at five stars and a Michael, thank you again for coming on. This is what a pleasure. Yes. Thank you so much. And make sure to go follow him@fmuniversity.com website, not fel.net. We will see you guys tomorrow.