Feeling Burned Out? Discover God's Secret to Soul Rest with Bret Kolman

What if the breakthrough you need isn't found by working harder—but by resting with God? In this episode, Bret Kolman, a healthcare CPA and former hospital CEO, shares how practicing Sabbath, taking mini sabbaticals, and embracing intentional solitude transformed his life, leadership, and relationship with God. Together, we explore practical rhythms for soul rest, Christian leadership, hearing God's voice through prayer and journaling, the role of worship, wisdom in fasting, and why we're called to work from rest instead of resting from work. If you're feeling weary, burned out, or longing for greater peace, this conversation will encourage you to slow down, listen for God's voice, and rediscover the rest your soul was created for.

Bret's contact info:

Website - www.sabbaticaltaker.com

Bret's book:

Wisdom That Leads to Soul Rest

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

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Meet Brett And Why Rest Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to the Hope Unlocked podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome Brett Coleman to the show. I'm very excited to have him here today. We had a chance to talk a little bit before we got started and definitely have some common connections, which is always fun when I feel like God just kind of sets up the stage to bring people on who are going to have really amazing, amazing stories. So, Brett, before we get into that, could you share a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Thanks, Kristen. I am so excited to be on the show. I knew it was gonna be just a God moment. It was meant to be when I saw your background and listened to some of your podcasts. So thanks for stepping out in obedience and having this podcast. So yeah, I'm I'm Brett Coleman. You know, I I grew up wanting to be in corporate America and I'm a business person, but I'm a Christian and I wanted to integrate those things as much as I could. And I tried to end my career. I worked really hard to climb the corporate ladder and get lots of degrees, and I did. And then in about 2017, 16, I was working really hard, and I found I stumbled upon something that I call a mini sabbatical, a mini retreat. And I started going on these little 60-hour retreats with friends where we would do solitude, we would do fasting, we would do praying and worship and other things like that. And they only took, you know, one day of work, but I found it was an incredible reset for my creativity and for my energy. And it was giving me something that I couldn't get in a vacation. And so after 25 of those, I've done, I think 31 now. So after 20, yeah, I've done them for 10 years. I'll do three a year. And so after 25 of those, I came back and I'm like, man, somebody needs to write a book about how these work and the benefits of them and stuff like that. And I went on the back porch and I started dictating. And in about three or four hours, I came up with like 20 of the 23 chapters in the book. And some of it though wasn't just about sabbaticals, it ended up being about life lessons and about business lessons. Okay. And it was just things. I call it the old farmer's almanac for the mind, body, and soul. It's kind of just little nuggets. They're not, it's not a long book. It's on, it's on. I actually did an audible version, and I'm it's four hours and 15 minutes. So it was kind of like the book that I knew I would read.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Sure. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Uh yeah, I did I did that. I also had stepped out and in 2024, actually, after doing 23 of those mini sabbaticals, I had the kind of the leading and the courage to take a full one-year sabbatical. And I felt like I prayed about it for a year before I did it. And I felt like the Lord said it's there for the taking, meaning it wasn't wrong to not do it, and it wasn't wrong to do it. And it was just an invitation.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I love that. Wow. A year. I'm sure people are thinking, how do I do that?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I know. And I don't, I don't want people to feel that way because I did many sabbaticals for 10 years before. And I think, you know, I think I talk about there being six kinds of sabbaticals, and I think a lot of people miss out on the the other ones that are available to anyone because people are like, well, that's easy for you to say you must have a lot of money or something that you did that, or you know, it's only for certain people that can do that for a year. And so that's okay.

Work From Rest Daily Weekly Sabbath

SPEAKER_01 4:30

But there are other sabbaticals because I think a sabbatical is just an intentional pause. If you look at the Jewish day of sabbatical, it actually began at sunset. So the day of rest began with rest. And if you look at the creation story, man was created on the sixth day before he went into the field to work on the eighth day. There was a day of rest. So I think the entire pattern is to work from rest, not to rest. So it's not the old lover boy song working for the weekend, it's working from the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Say that, say that last line again.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

It's not the lover boy song. You remember the old uh lover boy song, everybody's working for the weekend?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Well, that's the idea that most people have is like, man, if I just go hard, I'm so exhausted, I'll get to the weekend and I can recover. And so they work towards the weekend. If you do it differently, if you think about sabbatical or sabbath being the beginning point, you actually work from rest, not to rest. And so that was my whole thinking. And there's, like I said, six kinds of sabbaticals, I believe. So there's a daily sabbatical that a lot of people aren't really doing a good job on, and that's the one that probably is a good place to start. So everyone can take a daily sabbatical that might be very short for some people at your, you know, like there's seasons in life. There's times when you have little kids and you have two jobs, and things are really crazy. And so your mini sabbatical and the daily might be super short, but it's a time where you do nothing and you spend time in prayer, spend time in journaling, worship, and that can be your little mini sabbatical. Daily involves good rest and involves a sleep routine and it involves those things. And then I think the second thing that people kind of pass by or don't take advantage of is finding a way to create a weekly routine, the weekly Sabbath to where they have a day a week of that's set aside. You know, the Old Testament, which we obviously don't live in the Old Testament, but the Old Testament was really had a crazy standard of like, if you worked on the Sabbath, it was actually punishable by death. And so you have all these Ten Commandments where it's like, don't murder, but in the New Testament, it becomes don't hate, because the principle was the heart, not the action. And if you look at don't commit adultery, it was the Old Testament standard. The New Testament standard was don't lust because it was dealing with the issue of the heart. So how did the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments become part of the New Testament? And how did it become a higher standard? Because every one of those is a higher, harder standard in a sense. And it's Jesus lives in our heart, and so we can commune with him every day. We don't, it's not a weekly routine, it's a all the time routine, and so that's the higher standard of Sabbath.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yes. Well, I want to go, can I can I go back a little bit if you don't mind? Because I want to I want to actually have you talk a little bit more about this. But one thing that I heard you say, and you thought somebody should write a book about this. But you immediately took action to do the very thing that you thought somebody should should do, right? And was that had you ever thought about writing a book before? Had you ever considered writing a book before? Kind of take us a little bit into that process of what that looked like.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

I don't know. Uh have you written a book before? Actually, you have, okay. One of the things you know, and as you begin to think about or study or even consider writing a book, is just how many books are out there and how much it feels like a drop of rain in the ocean.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

And and you that's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

You realize very quickly that this is not a money-making venture, that this is something you do because you want to sort of leave a legacy of information behind. And so, had I ever thought about it, yeah. Had I ever started on it, no. But I'd thought about it for all kinds of different, you know, ideas, like, oh, that'd be an interesting book. Oh, that'd be an interesting book, oh, that'd be a good story to tell.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

But there was something about the sabbaticals that I knew I was uniquely in a position to write that book because I didn't know, I don't think there's very many people who have ever taken 25 many sabbaticals, small retreats for 10 years, over the course of 10 years, and been in a position as a CEO with 1500 employees and multiple direct reports and physicians and stuff like that. I thought I'm uniquely positioned, and these sabbaticals gave me resiliency, they gave me creativity, they gave me wisdom, they gave me discernment, they gave me rest, and they gave me all these things and and all these nuggets of wisdom, a lot of them came out of those sabbaticals. And so I felt like I had to, I felt like I was it was a book that I was meant to write because I was in a unique position to write it.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

First 60-Hour Retreat In The Woods

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So can I can you tell us about maybe that first sabbatical? Like what how how did that come about? What was your thought about it? Did you I know a lot of times people think, you know, even myself, probably eight, nine years ago, I was like, God was like, we need to teach you how to rest. And yeah, at that point in my life, I thought rest was inefficient. So did you have that thought process in the beginning? And then what did it look like for like what was your first experience? Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Oh, well, a hundred percent. I mean, I think everyone who's really a type A driven person is used to caffeine, adrenaline, cortisol, all the things that keep you, you know, competition, the things that keep you slightly stressed out and on edge so that you can perform a little bit better. And the problem is if you keep those chemicals going all the time, those are the things that create high blood pressure and headaches. And honestly, some of the other hidden costs are depression and some of the things like that. And so we mean me and a buddy had heard a teaching about Exodus 34, which says three times a year you will meet with me. And so we just decided to do it. I mean, we're just like, hey, let's, you know, that sounds like a good idea. This let's give it a try. So me and Buddy set up, we we booked some cabins in the woods, and they were out, they were brand new, they'd never had anyone stay in them before. It was like a two and a half hour drive from where we lived, and it was very isolated. It was it was really cool. Yeah, and we pull up, and there's two guys there that have just built these cabins, and there's us two guys, and I don't know what they thought we were gonna do out in the woods for three days. They were really freaked out, and they're like, you know, make sure you don't you clean your dishes and like we're not using dishes, we're fasting. And they're like, Okay, well, are you having any parties? Are you having anyone over? And it's like, no, we're not we're not doing any parties having anyone over. So they were pretty freaked out and didn't really, you know, like understand why these guys are in the woods, and so we we started, we ate our final meal Saturday night together and had kind of a celebration together. Went to church on Sunday, drive, drive out there, and Sunday night we we said, let's do a little campfire. And so we sat around the campfire, and this sort of became the pattern of all of our sabbaticals. It wasn't anything that anyone had told us this is how it should go, this is just how we did it. So we started our little campfire and we started talking about, you know, like what's things we'd like to do and what's our vision and what's our dreams and what things are we struggling with, and what's our hopes and stuff like that. Today, uh when we do campfire talk with new people, we kind of equate it to the two blind men who are crying out on the road, and they said, you know, someone told them what's going on. They heard this big commotion. It's like Jesus is walking by, and they're like, Jesus, and they start screaming his name, screaming his name. He walks over to them and he says, What do you want? It wasn't one of those things where it's like he walked over to him, touched him, healed him, kept going. Yeah, he made them state what they wanted, and I think that's really important. That if you want something, you're gonna have to really, and it helps your faith too when you're super specific, write it down, be really, really talk about what you want, speak it out loud. And so that night we kind of just stumbled into that. We didn't that wasn't like in any playbook, but that's what we did, and it was an incredibly powerful time. Went back to our cabins. I personally hate the dark, I'm scared of the dark. I will go into the dark, but I know I'm the guy that's sleep, I'm looking under my bed, I'm looking in the closet.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

We go and and and we sleep. And of course, when you're so adrenalized and in such, you know, I think in a sense, everyone has a high pressure job. I never think anyone anyone's job is less pressure than anyone else's. I always say if like someone spills something on the floor and you're in the EVS department, it's stressful. So every job is stressful. But when you take this intentional pause and you actually are doing nothing, because that's what really Sabbath is, it's not it's this is different than slowing down. This is nothing. And I think there's a big difference between slowing down and nothing. And so when you take this intentional pause, when you're in true solitude, you start hearing differently because you get in a true rhythm of peace, and you can, and this is what you're when you that way when you see fake peace or counterfeit peace, or when people are trying to sell you something and you don't feel peace, you actually know exactly what peace is. And so we spent the day just journaling, worshiping, praying, and then of course, you're so tired because you're so adrenalized that you sleep like 12 hours that first sabbatical and that first day. And it's just a recovery period. And then when you get that kind of sleep, you start getting creative and you start getting ideas. And then I would journal questions, you know. Jeremiah 33, 3 says, The Lord says, Ask me, and I will tell you remarkable things you do not know. So he wants us to be curious, he wants to ask us, and he wants to tell us. But he can't do that if you're not in a place of peace and a place where you can listen. And so that's something you can do at any of your sabbaticals. You don't have to do a mini sabbatical, a retreat sabbatical. You can do it daily. So we we did that all day long, and that night we got together and sort of the new the second night question is where did you hear God, experience God, feel God? And it gives you we having another person. Now I've done the sabbaticals alone, I've done them with my wife, and I've done them with up to 30 people. The campfire talk is just with eight like eight people at most, usually. But I've done these with not hardly anybody, and a lot of and a lot of people, and I've done it alone. I found the best benefit is to do it with other people because it does kind of make fasting easier. It kind of just gives you someone to bounce your ideas off of because you know you need wisdom. And in the council of many, there is wisdom. And so we did that, we got together that night. We didn't talk though during the day. So it was a like a silence. Yeah. So there was it's kind of like a no talking.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Now, were you staying in the same cabin?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

No, there were two cabins. Oh, you were staying in two cabins in the woods.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I think I missed that part. Yeah. So you did have your time to like separate and then come back together. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, I think that's important. I mean, you could, you know, if you can't make that work, then you know, and you want to do something like this. I don't think, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't be legalistic about it. I'd put it that way.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

But um, with the 30 people, I'm just curious how did how did that work out?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

We have 30 separate rooms. It's it's basically uh the equivalent of a hotel in the in the woods, and it's got almost four, I think it's 400 acres, it's got like a 20 acre lake, and uh it's got like a chapel, it has like a big conference room where everyone can get together, it has a cafeteria, and so yeah, now is this your property? I wish. Maybe someday.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, I'm like prophesying this. That's cool. Okay, so that makes sense. Okay, keep going. This is really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, so then you know, the you think the sub the sabbatical then on Tuesday morning, so you're you're going through the night, and during the night, you you may wake up, you may read,

Journaling Questions And Hearing God

SPEAKER_01 18:29

you may read your Bible, you don't know what will happen that night. You may have a dream, you may have you know ideas that come to your mind. I try to journal questions. Even if I don't feel like I got a certain answer, I write down what I kind of my instinct is. I there's there was a study, and I can't, I've never I gotta find it again someday. But there's been a study about how two people you could hold a coin that was like I forget how much different, like one gram or two gram difference. It not that it's it should not be able to be able to tell which one is heavier, and just ask people like which one's heavy, and they're like, I think they're the same way. And it's like, well, if you had to choose one that was heavier, which one would you take? And people have are remarkably accurate on that because people, and that's the thing that you have to realize when you ask God a question and you write down the answer, even though you may not feel it's a hundred percent right, yeah. People God gives us Job talks about who gives instinct to the mind and intuition to the heart. Job chapter 36. And it's a powerful verse that reminds us that God is the one that provides that.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah. So prior, like, can I ask you prior to kind of going into this, did you have like a connection with the Lord like that, where you were journaling, where you were hearing, or was this kind of a new experience to be able to get because I always say like it's really hard to hear him when there's so much going on around you, obviously. So was this kind of a new experience for you to really hear more from him?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Definitely, yes. It's an experience to hear more. I would I'd always been, I mean, I grew up in a in a Christian family and and I'd you know, I married well and I'd been in church for many years and read my Bible many times. And so I was not I wasn't at zero, but I think there's something that happens. I'd never had that kind of solitude. And so I'd never no, I don't think any I don't think anyone without intentionality, without intentionality, and that's the key. It's like it's you three if you're gonna do a retreat or you're gonna have time alone with God daily, five minutes, weekly on Sunday, maybe it's maybe it's just an hour to start. Maybe that's all you have time for. Maybe in this season that's where you're at. That's okay. There is no condemnation. So wherever you're at, you start. So the intentionality is the important thing. And so when I I'd never intentionally tried to pause.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Wow. And how can I ask how old you were at that point?

SPEAKER_01 21:23

So I'm 59 now, and I think that was about 12 years ago now. So I would have been 47. So I'd went a long way in life.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And in my career, like how was your health at that point?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

I was really in great health. I mean, I've done I've done two marathons, I've done you know, I ran track a little bit in college, I've done two marathons, I've done two bike rides across to Iowa, I've done triathlons.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

I mean, I was great.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, I I'm zero compared to that. I feel like I'm I've I've let myself go comparatively speaking, but I'm still pretty healthy.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Okay. So at that point, like even though you were in a like stressful environment, you weren't like you weren't experiencing the reasons, you know, the potential results of having that adrenalized life.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Not at that point, but I think that you know, those things are a slow, they're like erosion. They happen over a long, long they they happen over decades. And I think it's like tithing or giving to the Lord. I I don't want to use that word because it, you know, I think it's a little could be legalistic. And so I I'm more just like giving to the Lord. Yeah. I don't know how my life would be different if I didn't give, but I know that giving, I've had a very blessed life, and so I I don't know how healthy or unhealthy I might be had I not started this 12 years ago, but I believe God's ways work and God what God's ways are proven over time. And that's what makes you know when people are like, I could use this drug one time and it wouldn't hurt me. They're probably right, it wouldn't. It's just what decades of that drug and the addiction and the destruction. So, you know, those things are slow. They're a slow, they're a slow melting of an ice cube of your life. And so you have to find, you have to push back with intentionality against the slow creeping things that can destroy your life.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you're using the word intentional. It's it's there's there's this time probably, I don't know, probably six, seven years ago, that I I just I see I often see words within words, and it and I saw like pay attention to the tension. And even in the word intentional, you know, there's tension, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

There's a tension in being intentional, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Because especially when, you know, you're talking about we're we're in a world that's very fast-paced, and you were a CEO of we'll have to I want you to talk more about that, but you know, being in that position, were there other people that were doing this at that point?

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Well, no one from my workplace ever went that I can think of. It was always it happened to be that it was a the group that kind of that we started doing this with was mostly entrepreneurs and business owners. And so most of them were people that were in that role, not an employee role. And that's part of I think what you know I'm trying to roll out as a idea is that it's not just for business leaders, it's for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

You say that one again.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

It's you know, I think sabbaticals and the mini retreats and you know, the mini sabbaticals, it's not just for people that are in high pressure jobs or quote high pressure, because I like I said, I think every being a mom's high pressure. I don't like you know, right? So just because it your pressure is not based on your paycheck. Everyone has stress, everyone has things going on in their life, and I think it's for everyone. Sabbaticals are meant for everyone, sabbaticals are there for everyone, it's there for the taking. You can find a way, you can find the ability to do it if you plan ahead. And it might have a small cost to it. You might have to your sabbatical might be in a tent and you might have to rent a campground for $25 a night, and you might have to take four hours of vacation because you can't get back to work in time, and so you might want to spend $20 on firewood, so there might be a hundred dollars in cost. So, but the Bible also says, you know, and I this this is old testament, but I do think there's a little application. I always believe the old testament had principles that pass through the new testament. God said, Don't no one should appear before me empty hand empty-handed. And so I think it's okay to have a cost to meeting with God. It's okay to have a cost to meeting with God because God's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yes, that's so good. So you guys, you you finish up your first retreat sabbatical together.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yeah, so Tuesday we broke our fast. Yeah, and that was the end of our first one.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

And this was a five-day, correct?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Three. So we so Saturday we ate dinner, Sunday we went to church, but we started our fast Saturday night after we ate. Sunday went to church and started and went to the campsite, had our first uh campfire night, Sunday night, campfire night Monday night, broke our fast Saturday or Tuesday morning at at 7 a.m. So it's 60 hours.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Wow. So that last day, I I'm just imagining you guys looking at each other going, you know, kind of like what what just happened? Like what what did you both think after this first experience?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Well, I mean it you just think I can't believe how amazing this is, how needed this was, how much I got out of this. I don't know. It's it's like taking a it's like taking a good shower. You you may not realize how much you're gonna appreciate the shower until you get in it. It was amazing. And it felt just like we were going back energized and full of full of life, and like we're planning on our doing our next one and our next one and our next one.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

So you guys were like, okay, we there's more, we need to do this. And and at that point, were you thinking we need to tell everybody about this?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Well, we did. We went back and we told everyone, and everyone said that sounds great, and they didn't go. So for like um, we went on like seven together and no one else went.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

And then we So for the those first seven, it was just the two of you.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Okay, so I just want to stop here for a second. So that was like two years worth of yeah, going to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Although we we missed some in our first in our first two years, there was some pretty big family stuff that came up for one of us, and so we had to miss one, but that's one of the things I think that's important. I I never want something to be legalistic or like guilty, you know, like so it happens, but yeah, yeah. So that but yeah, we did seven of them before anyone came.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Okay, so you had this intention. We're gonna we're gonna use that word.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

You walk away saying, Oh, we need we need everybody needs to do this. Were you inviting people? You were inviting a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

We did invite them, we invited them, and what finally I think what you have to have, and this is probably number one, I probably wouldn't have kept doing it had I didn't have a friend, and I don't know if he wouldn't have kept doing it if he didn't have a friend. Well, the problem is with things, is I don't know if you've ever met with someone, they're like, This is so great, I'm gonna do it again, and I it it could be a million things, and then they never show up again, right? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people,

Getting Others To Actually Commit

SPEAKER_01 29:04

there's a lot of people, yeah, yeah, and yeah, and it's it's in our our minds are tricky at the time. We're excited and we say we're gonna do it, and then life happens, and if we don't plan it and we don't schedule it, then it doesn't happen. And so what happened was he scheduled and planned and booked like seven rooms. So what happens is you need a planner, you need someone who's who's the take action person to sort of put the money on the line, put the time on the line, put the schedule on the line, so that people who who, you know, there's a lot of people that like, you know, a object in motion will stay in motion, that old law, and but that starting energy is is the key. And the picking a date, picking a location, scheduling the the place, giving them their money up front, that's the energy to start that some I hate to say it, but probably 90% of us don't have.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

And so what you're saying is having somebody who would say, Okay, this is this is the date, this is where we're staying, like having it all planned out and actually like having that person pay for the seven rooms ahead of time.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yeah. Yeah. So he did, and and so that created the activation energy for others, it lowered the activation energy for others, that old chemistry term, to where they then were started participating. And then once once they started participating, they're like, wow, this is awesome. So then it grew to like 20, 30, and you know, we've had as many as 38 people. And so I've done, I did one with my my dad passed away, and so I did one alone with my wife in on the land that family land, and we got a camper and went out there, and so you know, I didn't do it with a group that time. I did it with my wife because I thought it was the first year after my dad had passed, and I thought it was the kind of an important one to do with her. But that was a unique one because when we were on that one, I'm walking the land that I've been on many, many times before, and we found this marker that was set there in like 19, I think it was 67 or 66 or something. And it was the where they had set on top of this hill, and they'd laid out the entire area for the railroads and for platting and for architecture and all that stuff. And so I Googled it and I did a bunch of research on it, and that night I wrote down, I think God is saying we're on the right map, we're on the right plan, we're on the right road that He has, that He's laid out for us. And the next morning we went driving around and we came to where Zebulin Bush had crossed through Kansas, and there was a big marker with a big map. And it was like, again, it was just a confirmation that you're on the path I have plotted for you. And so everything had there's so many great stories from sabbaticals, and so you don't have to, I don't I don't want anybody to feel like there is like my my sister has told me that you know the people she's talked to about the book are really worried about doing the fasting because you know they're just worried about doing that, and so if that's not something that you can do, then yeah, you know, do what you can do, you know, do what you can do. That's all you know, that's all God ever expects anyway.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Exactly. And fasting can look different for everybody too, like fasting from food. You know, I've thought like, gosh, if I lead it at retreat and another retreat again, it'd be really great to have people fast from food because it just takes one less thing off the list of I know this is kind of to me, I was kind of a joke, but funny, but not funny. But like to have one less thing for people to worry about, to you know, have the right foods and all this. But fasting, you can right? Could you what would you say to somebody about you know fasting?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

You know, number one, and it it you got to check with your medical doctor. So if you can't do it,

Fasting With Wisdom And Grace

SPEAKER_01 33:40

you can not do it. So certain medications or like if you're diabetic or something like that, but the vast majority of people can fast. The Bible says, not if you fast, but when you fast. So there's kind of a knowledge that you fast. If you look at Jehoshaphat when the three kings raised up against him, he asked the people to fast. So there's a good history for fasting. And there's a lot of science behind fasting. And now there's not the science that there is for drug studies because there's not the money in fasting that there is for drug studies. But fasting doesn't actually take your energy level down, it actually takes your energy level up and it it makes your mind so much more creative and so much better focused in your time with the Lord. And there's so much, I hate to say it, there's so much junk in our food and in our environment today that it's if you can eliminate that, I would highly, highly encourage it. But if you can't, I would encourage you to fast something else that's very important to you during that time and maybe do something a little bit different with your meals that's somewhat sacrificial and you know, don't live in guilt. But I would, I would challenge you, if you're able, uh, to slowly build up to it. The night before, make sure you eat lots of fats, stay away from carbs and eat a lot of fats. And honestly, the week before you fast, if you're worried about it, just sort of start building up and preparing. Stop with the junk food. I do it so often that it's not really that hard for me. I've never really, I mean, there's sometimes like you get hungry, but I take a pinch of salt if I get a headache. And that usually is the salt and water, will usually take away most of your headaches. And most time, if it's just hunger, the feeling will go away in about two hours. Now, my wife and I, when we did my wife and I, when we did our sabbatical, the second day, she's like, I'm really, really, really hungry. I'm like, honey, that'll go away in two hours. It's just natural, you know? And and two hours later, she's like, Brett, I'm I'm thinking about going get something to eat. I'm so hungry. I'm like, honey, give it another hour. About an hour later, she's like, My stomach's gonna eat itself. I'm sorry, I have to go in and eat it. So her and I went to get something to eat, and we broke our fast on Monday night instead of Tuesday morning, and we did 48-hour fast instead of 60 hours, and yeah, you know, there's and that was her was that like one of her first times going that long? I think it might have been. She's not much of a fasting girl.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

She does days, but she doesn't do I think it's would you say like even for people maybe if you could speak to that a little bit, but you know, let's just say you have your 38 group that came in and you you're all fasting. Was were you finding that you know some were having more of a challenge than others?

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Well, since it's kind of a don't vow of solitude, I didn't hear it at the time. I've never really we didn't you weren't polling people at the but one of the guys. One of the guys was really funny because the first time he ever went, his wife packed him a little snack pack. And so he confessed to having a snack pack in the campfire talk, and we all gave him a hard time. We still give him a hard time about it. We think it's one of the funniest, funniest things. But you know, there's I don't I just I try to be grace. I mean, that's one of the big chapters I write about in my book is you know, give the grace you want. And you know, it's the it's the grace of God that caught that draws us to God, it's not the judgment, it's it's the grace and love of God.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

So oh, I love it. So you've had you've had, you know, several several uh spabicles that you've gone on. What would you say was your most impactful one that you've experienced if you would be open to sharing about that?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

I I think it was that one with my wife because being I had done many of them, I don't know what I want to say it was like number 21 or 22. Maybe I mean I'd I haven't done so many, I lose track exactly, but it was in the 20s, it was close to 20 at least. And it was at that time that I talked to my wife about taking a year off of work. And we had a farm and we were standing on my staying on my mom and dad's farm, but we also own a farm like a couple miles away from that. And it was the seventh year that we owned that land, and

Farm Sabbath Lesson Rest Is Blessed

SPEAKER_01 38:27

that next year I said, I said, I think next year, because this was in 22, yeah. I think that sabbatical was 2022, June of 2020. No, it would have been even like sorry, I can't come up with the exact date, but I said, I think I'm gonna let the farm, I'm not gonna plant anything on the seventh year of the farm. And my wife's like, you know, that's kind of old testament, that's not really where we have to live. And I like, I know, I agree with you. I'm just thinking about like letting the land lie fallow. And, you know, I don't know what benefits will come from it or what, you know, I know it's gonna cost us a little money, but I think we could do it. And, you know, she's like, okay, we'll talk to the farmer about it. So talk to the farmer, and the farmer said, Well, you can't really not plant anything, that's actually not a thing. And I'm like, why is it not a thing? He goes, because there's seeds that will become weeds, and those weeds will give more seeds, and those seeds you can't get rid of for 70 years, up to 70 years with some plants. Even if you treat it, you like treat it and you get rid of 90, 90, 90, and 70 years, you still have some fraction of the seeds left that can take over, and these weeds can come again. So he's like, I'll I'll plant grass. I'm like, that's perfect. So he he planted some kind of grass. And for his for his efforts, he took one harvest of the grass. And for my efforts, we just let it lay. And so I didn't get anything off of that that land that year. We just planted the grass and he used some of the some of the grass for cows. And so that next year, when we came back and planted wheat, that wheat went crazy. And I do mean crazy. We had a harvest that was double the county average. When he pulled up a chunk of wheat, there was two earthworms that were working the chunk he'd pulled up, not one, but two. It was waist high, which he's like, I don't haven't seen waste high wheat in a long time. And the sea, the wheat was what you would call seed wheat, and so any wheat will be you could plant it again, like that that kernel of wheat, you could plant it, and it would become wheat the next year. And most farmers or some farmers will use that. But if you want a really big harvest, you'll buy seed wheat, which is a special kernel that's going to give you a better harvest. And it costs twice as much as the wheat that you're selling. So you go to the to the you go to the to sell your wheat and it's worth five dollars, you buy the seed wheat and it costs ten dollars. So, for example, so my wheat was twice as much and it was worth twice as much. And then here's the thing the Bible talks about blessings being first, second, third, and thousand generations. If you think about that, we kernel that now has been especially blessed because it was a year of Sabbath, and then the first year of harvest after that, that kernel is now gonna be a blessed harvest for multiple generations.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Yeah, so it was really cool. So I just think the whole thing about the maps, talking about taking a year off of work, talking about letting our plant our harvest, our ground rest. I mean, she was a little bit of a distraction compared to my guy friends, but it was great. Women can be like I can't say it was total solitude.

unknown 42:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Wow. You know, it it it really like if you guys are hearing the theme here, is that rest is blessed.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

That's exactly right. And it's it's not punishment. Yes. And that's the everything and if you think about it, everything that God teaches is counterintuitive. And you know, that's the that is the thing, is the world's ways don't work. God's ways work. And so I tried to take godly principles that I learned through Sabbath, through my job, and create something that was kind of like a zero-entry swimming pool. It doesn't my book doesn't say anything about a specific religion. Um, it doesn't say anything about a specific church. And I try and make it something that people could give to a friend or they could have on their desk at work, and no one would be offended. And it's a book that teaches, talks about some of these things.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Yeah. So tell us the name of your book.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Wisdom that leads to soul rest.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Wisdom that leads to soul rest. And where can you find your book?

SPEAKER_01 43:17

It's on Amazon. I have a website too, sabbatical taker.com. So the sabbatical taker.com is my LLC. The idea being is that we're all sabbatical takers. If we do it right, we're all sabbatical takers. And it's not something that is reserved for rich people or for professors or pastors. Everyone can be a sabbatical taker. Take your daily sabbatical, take your weekly sabbatical, and we're all guaranteed in Hebrews a forever sabbatical. So take your sabbatical.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Yes. Would you share with us a little bit of your journey? We were talking a little bit before we got got started. You you took a pretty big leap of faith, and and you were CEO, and could tell us a little bit about that journey.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah. Well, I mean, I we went, I've been in healthcare my pretty much my entire career. I was I'm a CPA. I did do a couple of years of public accounting. I still keep my CPA license. Started out in finance and became a CEO of a of a for profit hospital, three different for profit hospitals for 21 years, various size, 25 beds, 185 beds, and 285 beds. So small, medium, large, I call them. And you know, I had a blessed career and I had a great

Leaving A CEO Role For A Year

SPEAKER_01 44:34

time doing it. And I felt like it was both the job. In a ministry, and I was happy to do it. And I felt like God kind of gave me a permission, invitation. I, you know, I'm like, Lord, can I take this one year off? And Lord said it's there for the taking, which I don't claim that God has said very much to me. And I honestly don't like that that and one, maybe one other thing is the only thing that I would like. I wrote it down like I really believe this is the word from Lord. And I believe it's a word from the Lord because it's just like Him to say something like that, because it's there for the taking means that you are not sinning and you're not doing anything wrong if you don't take a year of sabbatical. And it's there for the taking means if you take a year off, I don't know, and I still don't know exactly how it's all going to work out. I don't you don't have to know how it's gonna work out. I'll take care of you because the Bible says give us this day our daily bread. But the truth is, and we've most of us have said that prayer, nobody wants daily bread. Nobody wants it. They want, they want like a hundred years of bread stored up. Nobody wants daily bread. And so it's there for the taking, was just like something he would say. And I knew that if I quit, it's kind of a weird look on a CEO's resume to not work for a year. People are like, what happened? Yeah, and I knew that I knew that I I was in a position where I could do it. I wouldn't definitely wouldn't be getting ahead. I'd actually be falling backwards because I'd have to give up a lot of not just my income, but I would lose all my stock that I'd accumulated that hadn't invested to me because I was not old enough to retire. And so I knew there would be a high cost to it, but I just want to be a person of faith. I want to be like those 300 that Gideon had that like the crazy 300 that's like, hey man, I gotta do something. This is like if God said he'll it's there for the taking, that means if I take it, he's gonna make it okay. And so I'm like, um it's a little crazy, but yeah, God kind of sometimes has done a few crazy things.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Just a few. So when when was this that you did this?

SPEAKER_01 47:02

So January 24 is when was my last day of working in corporate America.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Okay. And how like what was that day like for you?

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Oh, geez. I think it was kind of like the day that the Israelites went out of Egypt. You know, I just felt like it was, you know, and and I don't mean that in a negative way towards my employer and whoever your employer is, isn't is but the lender is slave to the borrower. And if you look at the way that the Israelites felt an anguish towards slavery, that that bitter roots that they ate with their Passover meal, that's the same, that bitterness is the same word that's the anguish of slavery. And he was removing, rolling back that bitterness, that anguish. And there's an there can be an anguish at a certain time in your life or in your career or in your whatever, that the Lord is saying, I'm gonna roll that back. And I felt like it was a day that like things were gonna change. I didn't know how they were gonna change. I felt like there might be, I might go back to to my old job, my old career, my old whatever. And I didn't know how that would, I didn't really know what the future was gonna be. I was I was Abraham. I was it's like, go to a land I will show you. It's like, where's that? It's like I'll show you. I'm not telling you. You'll see it when you can just go.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

So I was kind of like walking out. I was I was Abraham going into a land that the Lord will show me, and I felt like the Israelites leaving a country that they would never return to. And it was kind of it was it was bitter sweet, and it was I was thankful for everything that it had provided me and my family for many years, and I was grateful for that and the people that I'd worked with and the impact that I'd had. But I believe that, you know, God said it's there for the taking. So I believe there was another, God had another plan.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Yeah, that's so good. Can I ask, did you have like a lot of supporters or did you have people going like what do you think? I mean, did you have all of the things?

SPEAKER_01 49:26

No, well, since I'm 57, you know, I think people didn't it it looks a lot like a retirement to a lot of people. I really admire the people that would do this at 40. I'm at 30 or 30.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

I was 44. 50.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Yeah. So there, yeah. I mean, that's a that's a bigger leap of faith, quite honestly, right?

SPEAKER_04 49:44

So you know, for me, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

I'm sure there were people that were like, you know, what's going on? But I had my group of 30 plus people that I'd went on sabbaticals with. I'd asked people as they were in my my fight campfire talk for the last year. So I'd had three of those when I started talking about it. That's like, hey, pray with me, I'm really thinking about doing this. Pray with me, I'm thinking about doing this. So when I did it, it wasn't you don't you don't want to make an emotional decision and you don't want to you don't want to make an unwise decision, you know, that's a big financial decision. So you want to get wise counsel, but you want to make sure you're being led of the Lord and not let of your flesh and not doing something out of a reaction that's something that maybe it's happened in the recent past that doesn't recognize or represent the long-term past. And so I think that you want to in the in the council, many of there's wisdom, and you want to get a lot of counsel for a decision like that. So I would not I would not you know encourage people to rush out, but I I would encourage everyone to start with their daily sabbatical, then make sure you implement your weekly sabbatical, and then maybe start doing some retreats. And then after you've done some of that and gotten some wise counsel, maybe ask God will ask you to do something bigger. So, you know, I think God builds our faith up little by little. And you know, Gideon didn't just jump in. He first he wanted like burn this offering up. Okay, the offering's burned up. Then it's like, okay, do this fleece. Okay, I did that fleece. Could you do it again, but just a little different? Yeah, I can do that. So, you know, he kind of asked for some signs, and even then when he's on the mountain with 300 people, he's like, God's like, go down into the camp and listen to what they're saying, yeah, you know, and he went down there and it's like, wow, man, God's in this. So eventually you hear something, and then you're like, Wow, God's in this, in the mouth of two or three witnesses.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

Yeah, so that's good, good, wow. So, since since then, are you are you still leading retreats in your area then? For those who are maybe like, hey, is he still doing this? How do I get involved?

SPEAKER_01 52:05

I want to do some. I haven't done any or like a outside group. We've just continue to do it with our with our kind of our small groups that we've always, yeah, our core group. So I've talked about doing it. It's on my website, it's coming soon. If someone's interested, they could contact me and um I'll put them on the list for when I start doing them. Yeah, because I do think it's of all the things that I would love to do, I'd you know, basically be a camp counselor for life. Every every month I could lead a uh a sabbatical, and there's nothing I would love more is being a camp counselor. Live on live on the campgrounds.

unknown 52:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

So right now I'm I'm super

Life After Corporate And Final Blessing

SPEAKER_01 52:44

busy with breaking news. Yeah, exactly. Right now I'm mostly busy with community work, so I'm chairman of the chamber of commerce where I live, and I'm on a foundation board, I'm on my hospital, I'm on my church board, and I I do a couple podcasts, and I do we have grandbaby out of town, and so you know, we got we have stuff going on, and I I do healthcare consulting. Um, I have friends that call me and ask me, and so I mean, I was in the industry for a long time, so I have a lot of tools and people, yeah. People that yeah, I mean, you know, really if you're a godly person, you do have wisdom. Yeah, so yeah, so I it is something that I that I I have so I have a lot of little things. I'm like in my job, my life feels like a bunch of Lily Putins right now. I'm just a lot of little guys.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Oh, I love it. Are you are you loving it though?

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Oh yeah, I mean, this is just a blessing, and I realize that not everyone can do it. I don't take that for granted. I'm grateful for it, I'm thankful for it. I've I worked hard like two jobs my whole life, and I was always almost always early to work and late to work and nights and weekends. I was on call for the last 10 years of my life every day. And so, you know, I I wouldn't I think I've been fortunate because I know there's a lot of people that couldn't do it, but the first time I thought about doing it was 2017, and I wrote in my journal on sabbatical, what's one thing I would do if I knew that fear's keeping me from doing, if I knew there was no no way I could fail or risk or whatever. And I wrote down take a year off from work. Yes. So it was not literal, it was not something that I like it took me seven years.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Seven years. There's the seven years again.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Yeah, exactly. So it it may literally be something that it's like a seed is planted today. Don't get frustrated if you can't if you don't get a harvest tomorrow or next year.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Yeah, absolutely, right? Yeah, that's so good. Wow. Well, do you have more books coming?

SPEAKER_01 55:04

I don't think so, man. I tell you what, it was I started that book June of 24 and it was published December 25. So it was just published recently, and it was like a lifetime achievement award. My dad was a high school principal, and I figured out that I could, because I was in other enough English classes, I didn't have to take my senior year of English. And so I got out of that. And so I when I write, I turn off grammarly because I get so mad at how many corrections it's suggesting. And when I turned it back on the first time on my book, it had like 750 corrections, and they were mostly comma faults, like, no, you don't need a comma there, yes, you do need a comma there, and so I so writing, I have I think good ideas, unique ideas, and I don't mind sharing the ideas and putting them together, but the actual act of writing is very laborous to me. And so I had to have like, yeah. How did you do your book? Did you have to have a lot of editors help you?

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Well, I I I'm a verbal processor, so a lot of it was you know, verbally putting it out there and then having it on a Word doc. And then I have a friend who actually edited it, and by God's grace, it wasn't too awful.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

Well, what's the name of your book?

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Fit for the Call.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Fit for the Call. All right, I love it. And what was your you do counseling and you're a life coach, right?

SPEAKER_00 56:37

So not a counselor, but life coach.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Life coach, okay. Yeah, yeah. And does it have lessons from that in there?

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Yeah, I I would say there's definitely I'm a like the word you talked about earlier about being very curious. The Lord calls me a woman of wonder. So I love asking questions. So there's definitely like some questions in there that there's space to write, it allows you to think, it allows you to go deeper, allows you to like it's kind of like a mind-body spirit. So there's actually physical movement that I have people do while they're yeah, it's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Well, we're connected, and then people trying to put us in all these little uh like categories, we try to separate our lives, and you can't. You can't physically, mentally, and spiritually, you're connected.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Exactly. Yeah, so we we we both did it. High five. We both did books. So I I would love for you just again, if you could share. I I know you shared earlier your website, but the best way for people to get a hold of you before we wrap up today.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Yeah, the website's sabbatical taker.com. So there's two B two B's and sabbatical. So and yeah, it's a great it's not a perfect website because I had to work on it myself, but it's a good website.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

There's nothing perfect in this world, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

Way to go for building a website. So I will make sure that the website's in the in the show notes. If you guys are listening in and you didn't catch that, head to the show notes. And then um, before we wrap up, I shared with you before we got started. I I really do this for the one. So if you could just get in mind the one who's listening in right now, is there any other words of wisdom that you just want to share over this person? Maybe give it like a minute of words that you'd like to share up to a minute, and then we'll wrap up.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

Well, soul rest is something you can only find in in the Lord. You're you know, the book has got other things about soul rest and parenting in your workplace, in your relationships, but ultimately God provides the soul rest. And if you will look to him, you will ask him, there is a way to stop striving, there is a way to stop being worn out. I call it soul spent. So it's my it's my made-up term. So becoming soul spent, you don't have to live life that way. And part of God's design was not to slow down, but to cease. And that's what a sabbatical, that's what an intentional pause is. So whether it means five minutes a day, one hour a week, or if you've got the capacity to do a 60-hour intentional pause, take a sabbatical retreat, do the fast, it will change your life. And you will be a better version of you, and God will use you in big ways. And I just encourage you and I pray that you be blessed by this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

So good. Thank you, Brett. And I can I add uh to go get your book. We'll we'll add that as some wisdom. Go get Brett's book. I appreciate it. So thank you so much for being here today. I'm gonna close with the Hope Unlocked anchoring verse. It's may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. So by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. And that's Romans 15, 13. So thank you again, Brett. I will be back with another episode next week. Thanks, listeners.