Cut the Rope: Patrick Sells on Courage, Faith, and Starting Over

In this compelling episode of Courageous Crossroads, Jeff sits down with entrepreneur and business leader Patrick Sells for a deeply personal conversation about courage, resilience, faith, success, failure, and what it means to “cut the rope” when God may be calling you toward something more.

Patrick, a 35-year-old entrepreneur and intrapreneur living in Dallas, began his career by launching a digital marketing agency before entering the banking and fintech world, where he helped transform a community bank, pioneered an early Bitcoin-related banking product, earned recognition as Digital Banker of the Year, and later helped build a multibillion-dollar business. Yet Patrick’s most courageous decision came at the height of his professional and financial success, when he chose to walk away after realizing that money, power, and achievement were beginning to consume too much of his heart and identity. What followed was anything but an easy landing: the sudden death of his best friend, tremendous financial pressure, business struggles, addiction, rehab, and a season in which nearly everything he believed about his own resilience was tested.

Now sober and rebuilding, Patrick shares with remarkable vulnerability why courage is not about knowing everything will work out, but about acting on conviction despite fear, uncertainty, and the consequences that may follow. His story is an inspiring reminder that sometimes courage means cutting the rope, trusting God, getting knocked down, and still believing that redemption—and the strength to rise again—are possible.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

Let’s stay in touch:

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• Visit our website www.crossroadsapologetics.org

See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

JEFF JOHNSON: Hey everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast where we ask that question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And my next guest, Patrick Cells, is a friend of mine. Quite a while, but we got to catch up. You’re going to hear a little bit of that. You’re going to hear a whole lot about his backstory. And you’re going to hear a man who’s not necessarily at the end of the race, but in a lot of ways at the beginning or maybe in the middle, I don’t know, how he answers that question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? You’re going to be inspired with Patrick’s authenticity and inspired with how he answers that question. So without further ado, here’s Patrick. Well, thanks Patrick for being with us today. It’s great to see you again.

PATRICK SELLS: Same Jeff, thanks for having me on and then looking forward to our conversation as well as catching up with you.

JEFF JOHNSON: That’s great. Well, for the benefit of our listeners, Patrick is a friend of mine, but he and I don’t run in the same circles. He’s Heather and Yon across the country and I’m in the other direction sometimes. So our past haven’t crossed in what did we say six or seven years?

PATRICK SELLS: Probably at least it may be closer to nine or 10, but it’s been a few years.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah, well, I had such a strong impression when I met you the first time and you were an impressive guy. And so I’m tickled that you came on the program today and we can talk about courage and learn a little bit more about you.

PATRICK SELLS: Thanks Jeff. And it’s been fun that is when you asked me to do this and been listening to some of the episodes you have done and all the great conversations that have been had and it’s an honor to be able to participate today.

JEFF JOHNSON: Oh, that’s great. I’m always curious when I because courage is, you know, and that’s a big topic. And I just think it’s a really everybody’s got that everybody’s got something to say when I ask him the question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done. But what’s your initial reaction to that when you get invited to a podcast like this? Are you like, man, haven’t done nothing by or is it like, no, I’ve got one that really comes to mind right away or what you’re asking.

PATRICK SELLS: You know, Jeff in truth, I ended up calling my mother probably mom’s are good for something all of life, right? And I love my mom and called her because in ways, you know, I think there’s probably more courageous moments than I should be proud of. Some of those kind of self-induced, if you will, in other times, I think just the way God made me. And so, you know, I think whenever we have qualifiers like the most in something, it can kind of freeze you up. And so call it her to talk through, you know, some of those moments to try to figure out, you know, what came to mind of her and. But I guess the answer question, I didn’t have any, you know, I didn’t rub link on for ages moments.

JEFF JOHNSON: You’re like, I got something to talk about.

PATRICK SELLS: I got a couple of things to talk about.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah, well, that’s great. I’d love to hear that. Okay, so let me ask you some very personal and probing questions. How old are you?

PATRICK SELLS: 35.

JEFF JOHNSON: Okay, so you get 35 years of walking planet earth. You certainly run into some courageous endeavors doing that. And can you tell me, tell our audience whatever kind of elevator speech you want to give so that people can put you in context. Who are you? What do you do for a living? What kind of family do you have? Whatever you want to share?

PATRICK SELLS: Sure. And I use this moment also maybe set some of the stage for the dance to the question in the big story, if you will. Okay. So living in Dallas now 35. I’ve been entrepreneur entrepreneur really my whole life growing up. We moved a good bit about every two, three years in all over the country. And then when was when I was 16 moved to cornfield in Indiana, found about 2000 people. And I stayed there for almost a decade, studied political science and somewhere along the way, well in college decided I was going to be an entrepreneur, I guess, and started my first company. It was a digital marketing agency and did that for many years. And as I was doing that, you know, some clients ended up being bigger than others and ended up kind of quasi running certain different companies and investing in them. And I got married right out of college went to a small Christian school Taylor University. I think I mentioned study politics. So mainly because you needed 128 credit hours to graduate. And it was the only degree that was 128 hours so that I could get out.

JEFF JOHNSON: That works.

PATRICK SELLS: Yep. And you know, went to church my whole life and you know, my parents are very strong Christians and really think of my childhood as being pretty ideal in many ways. Got married, you know, again, kind of in my mind thought I was checking all the boxes. I was a virgin when I got married. So was she and then we were married for a little more than two years and we ended up getting divorced. Right after we’d had a daughter Lucy who today is almost 10 years old and the absolute love of my life and she’s actually here with me can you get a good bit of the summer together. But at the side note, Lucy’s grown up in Little Rock and I’ve counted or tracked a little over 4,000 hours of commuting to Little Rock every other week to see her as I’ve gone around the country. But you know, when that happened, it really shattered a lot of what I thought kind of, you know, how the world was supposed to work. And not only, you know, was I all of a sudden divorced with my daughter, living somewhere else. I’ve gone from kind of being pretty financially successful for my age at 25 to basically in debt as a result of all of that and didn’t quite know what to do. I wanted to try to probably do the opposite of everything I had done up to that point. And one of my clients was a community bank in New York called Quantic and I got into notice the owner and founder Steve Schnaul very well and he, Monday we were having martinis in the Hamptons and he said, you know, I think you could run a bank. So, you know, in some ways it was a big moment of courage to kind of leave the world that I was kind of a big, I made myself somewhat of a big fish in a small pond to go work for someone else for the first time in a highly regulated industry that I knew absolutely nothing about. And on the spot said yes. And so moved to New York City and joined this little bank at the time I liked a joke. I wasn’t a banker and didn’t know the idea of due diligence, but I didn’t know was the bank was also one step away from a cease and desist. But here I am, you know, kid from the cornfields living in New York City, working at this tiny 500 million assets community bank. And part of the idea that Steve and I had bonded over was he too wasn’t really a banker. He had bought it during the recession 2008 recession and had hadn’t really been actively involved in it himself, but you know, Fintech and tech was getting hot and crypto and we thought we could take this little bank and turn it into a digital bank. And that was really the kind of the impetus for you know me to join. And so did that and you know wasn’t really sure how to even think of myself or who am I in this context that it feel like an entrepreneur anymore wasn’t sure I wanted to be, you know, a Christian or not anymore. I wanted to get lost. Yeah. And I said, great thing about New York is you can do just that or just by anything you want you want there. Yeah. And along the way, I was there for about two and a half years and Stephen ended up becoming my best friend in life and had we five or six to X the, you know, profitability of the bank and, you know, I was the number two guy and, you know, really loved life. I was honored to be recognized as digital banker of the year. And you know, somehow found myself in a very comfortable kind of spot, even though it wasn’t Indianapolis anymore in this whole new world. And it was around that time I really felt like God speak to me again and maybe as clearly as I thought I’d ever heard him speak around kind of how there was a bigger point in purpose to my life. And, you know, who I am and, you know, not just the entrepreneur or a business person. And that he was calling me to something grand. And that was about two years into the journey. And when Stephen, I had started one of the ideas we had was what if you could have a debit card that gave you Bitcoin rewards, you know, at the time, Bitcoin was this new thing and didn’t really trust going to place like coin base didn’t realize that, you know, that wasn’t, you know, quote unquote legal in the world of banking, of course. And, but during those two and a half years, somehow found a way to solve the legal and regulatory world of bringing Bitcoin and blockchain to banking. And we were the first bank to launch a Bitcoin related product. And, you know, from there, our partner, which was a large asset management firm on Wall Street, kind of plucked me up and said, you know, come do this and we felt like for the Yankees. And so, so did that and we built a seven billion dollar business within 12 months. And so I kind of thought there’s kind of brings me into a bit of the story I want to tell, but you maybe as a backdrop, you know, I’m a dad love being a dad, love being an entrepreneur and I’ve chased a series of uncorrelated problems with no experience in each and every one of them I’ve written it.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah, and I’d love that backstory, Patrick, that’s that’s fantastic and it puts you in great context. The other hallmark I’m seeing there is there’s success. You know, you’ve got a comments tale of success. You talked about the one where you went from affluence and very successful to a situation of debt, but it appears as though it turns around and it rises again. But then your history.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah, you know, grew up I wouldn’t say I knew I was poor and I don’t know that would say that is true, but that’s definitely didn’t have any money and I think. A series of life where you know be successful made some money and then ultimately every time I walked away from, you know, the comfort of where I was whether that was making a million dollars a year to try to do something I never done and making five million dollars a year and then walking away again from that to go try to do it again and at times. And then you know, I’m being upside down and then you know somehow getting up and out of it and so definitely that would be true of the inner the arc of my life has been taking big bleeps and sometimes getting knocked back and finding a way to get back on top of it.

JEFF JOHNSON: Oh, I love it. I don’t want you to answer the question yet. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done, but I want you to tell me because what I see pictured here is somebody who has. You’re not troubled with fear it doesn’t seem to me. Is that accurate? Like you run into the storm you’re okay with that.

PATRICK SELLS: I would say so for whatever reason my brain just kind of processes it very differently much much prior to my mother’s sugar in but I do just process it differently and you know, I’m not related to this actually I the other day I was looking through some old photos on my phone to find some one of my daughter and I found a cover of a magazine shoot I guess I had done almost a decade ago and Indianapolis and on it there’s this quote that I don’t even recall making but I know is probably very true. For me is every failure will lead to growth and that’s a positive. Defining in says Patrick when I fail I only care that I grow and can overcome it and so somehow. I think I was just wired to say okay failure doesn’t it’s not it’s not an in game it just means I got a chance to try again smarter the next time and stand back up.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah or based on that quoted almost sounds like it’s part of the process so you’re like I’m going to have this.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah you know and I don’t know how much this really you know consciously or subconsciously played itself out but one of the you know things of my childhood I do really remember. Latching on to was the belief that God will redeem all things in this life for the next and I don’t know if I maybe took that theologically too far with it’s okay to fail because there will be redemption. But I just kind of have always been able to let go of the fear failure.

JEFF JOHNSON: Well this is this is right smack dab in the middle of the lane that we’re talking about today addressing this topic of courage so just go right on ahead for me Patrick if you would and define courage what’s what’s Patrick sells say courage is.

PATRICK SELLS: You know. Two different ways of guess I would answer that question. One it’s almost the ability to take what can feel like you know audible emotions that aren’t grounded necessarily in reality but feel very real and be able to make a decision anyways. And that maybe as much about kind of like the process of it but I think encourage a lot of times and small ways or big ways is the willingness to overcome one’s own emotions and I think the maybe more practical way it’s. I’m going to I’m willing to do something agnostic to the outcomes and personal ramifications right and whether that’s standing up for something you believe in or you know not doing something because of conviction you have ultimately then you’re willing to pay whatever consequence there is on the other side of that decision.

JEFF JOHNSON: That’s a great definition. That’s a wonderful definition. I’m thinking of the movie free solo I can’t think of the guy’s name David Honol or I don’t know if that’s his first name forgive me but he’s the mountain climber that does these massive free solos and they they took him in and gave him a cat scan or an MRI and that part of the brain that registers fear just as he didn’t have it. So that could be that could be kind of like you to where you’re just your physiology might be a little bit different and it results in bravery but I want to ask you based on your definition of courage. Do you see that in other people are there other people that inspire you with that can you can you pick it out in a crowd go that’s what that guy’s exhibiting courage or that woman’s exhibiting courage.

PATRICK SELLS: Yes and no I don’t know I think it’s so easy to mask behaviors to mask the real truths in all of us. I don’t know that I’d want to walk into a room or try to guess who’s being courageous or not. Probably would answer no but would say have some decent probabilistic guess as to what’s going on but not enough to where I want to make a bet on it. But you know you shared that about the free solo climber and I do remember my early 20s going and doing a pretty intensive kind of brain scan study and one of the things that stood out was the place where I guess a lot of electrical activity happens for in and around you know the feeling of anxiety. I’m closer to brain dead than not and so maybe that’s maybe that’s part of it or at least that’s my memory of how that went you know it’s been a decade since I did that but that probably is something to the neuro wiring if you will.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah well and and also you know it’s interesting I was on a prayer call earlier this morning and our topic was first John chapter four verse 18 that talks about perfect love casts out all fear it’s a binary in the Bible so love and fear can’t coexist. You talked about your faith and growing up in a faithful household and then that got challenged you know after your marriage failed where do you stand now with faith and is that part of what keeps you from anxiety because God tells us over and over again don’t be anxious it’s hard for us not to but he tells us to and if you’re there already they could just be faith.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah you know I think over my 35 years there’s been a lot of maybe emotional oscillations or volatility with kind of faith but through all of my life I have never lost a very solid mental conviction around my faith if you will even in the dark years of running in New York. You know I still held on to the belief that God will redeem all things the father does give good gifts love does cast out fear and in some ways kind of find life simpler to just take things as truth and not question them until and the last they you know proved to be different or proved to be false. So in ways I do think my faith definitely has helped in that regard I do think there’s probably some of it that is my neurological wiring that has kind of pushed it to an extreme if you will so probably both.

JEFF JOHNSON: Probably both both and yeah yeah um do you feel like we live in a courageous world

PATRICK SELLS: no

JEFF JOHNSON: do you know

PATRICK SELLS: no and I might be the I might be the. First poster child I’d raise my own hand and be self-effacing but you know that I don’t I mean maybe I should not be try to be so cute about that I think it goes on and off I think there are times you know when when I try to shelter myself and that doesn’t feel as courageous but then there’s other times when I’m you know I I look the thing square in the eye and I take a goal and I make a step and I’d like to think over time doing that becomes more wrote as. As opposed to to the other but yeah I don’t think we live in a very courageous world

JEFF JOHNSON: but you described that for me.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah I don’t want you know at the risk of pontificating what one things I’ve thought a lot about over the years is the the concept of resilience and I think as humans we are incredibly deeply fundamentally inherently resilient. And whether that’s the loss of someone or how you know growing up in extreme poverty war cancer abuse you just think of all the things and the human if you will is just resilient and I think as we you know grow older even from an early age we also in parallel tend to fragileize ourselves and others ever more so no longer really want to be a part of that. We’re really want to test that resiliency right like especially in the country like America or in affluent circles or religious circles it’s like in some ways I see the tendency to fragileize you know extremely so and no longer really want to lean on exercise rely on our believe in that resiliency and yeah I mean when resiliency is tested it does hurt. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing or a wrong thing and I think you know probably one’s conviction in my own ability to be resilient is probably highly correlated to the degree in which they will exercise courage in their life.

JEFF JOHNSON: That’s now I want you to pontificate because there’s a lot of good stuff in their Patrick but I get what you’re saying so you’re you’re equating life to being to touch in a hot stuff and over time you don’t want to do it you know you learn not to do it that’s the fragilizing that talking about and my comment was I’d like to think courage builds more courage builds more courage over time so maybe the maybe the analogy of all that. Hot stove is probably a bad idea but I take your point

PATRICK SELLS: yeah and since you said to pontificate you know at face react at face value I don’t know that I would agree that courage but gets courage. About that. I think there are virtues if you will like generosity where I do tend I’ve always thought more as a muscle if I give I tend to be more willing to give and give and give. For whatever reason again kind of face value courage to me falls in this bucket of something I it’s more temporary in nature will I exercise it or not and there’s a lot of probably inputs that go into each and every one of those moments when we’re presented with am I going to be courageous or not. That have to get factor in a lot of them are probably irrational or grounded in emotions whereas I think resilience the belief in one self of I will be okay I can be okay. The gets courage if you will like it’s more I think of it more of a derivative of a real focus on the belief in resiliency I don’t know. I also don’t know that look at having too much conviction around one’s own resiliency necessarily is a great way of living life because you’re probably going to break yourself a lot and live a very different life but again I don’t know if that’s bad or not.

JEFF JOHNSON: If you did the resiliency see this is good Patrick now we’re getting into the deep end if you if you had resiliency and you recognize that as a good quality but then all of a sudden it started to interface with pride then I think that turns into a bad thing but if you can keep that resiliency with the humility yeah and keep moving forward then I think you can have a courageous result maybe yeah but okay this is great. This is great you had something else to say

PATRICK SELLS: no I mean I can I’m sure that I think about that little. I’m biologist we had later today I’m right I meant to say this was trying to articulate that. But I think it was fun conversation and I do think there’s something between one owns understanding of that they’re inherent resilience that probably matters a lot.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah yeah do you have you considered yourself a courageous person.

PATRICK SELLS: I would say consider myself a resilient person until I almost until I almost broke myself but in some ways then I guess yes again could probably have how is today I’ve been in mental model thinking of the interplay of the two because I say I believe that I’ve been a resilient person. And that’s something I’ve intentionally thought about it has led me to be courageous more often than not.

JEFF JOHNSON: You just know you just know whatever this world throws at you and you’re not asking for it but you just have a confidence that whatever this world throws at you. You’re you’re going to withstand it you’re going to come back it’s not going to keep you down you’ve got that understanding about yourself.

PATRICK SELLS: Ever since I was a kid the sense of hey the sun is still going to rise tomorrow. I will I can’t find a way to smile again. It’s like that’s just a choice and it’s it and it’s a recognition of reality. I mean people grow live in all kinds of far worse scenarios in day to day life and yet they can still be okay it’s still do great things. So it’s it’s possible and even to the to you know pushing it farther to stay should I try to break something in my own life to make sure that I’m just like I type break a muscle to grow it. Any of the book anti fragile that talks about some of this as well. But I do think that’s probably important.

JEFF JOHNSON: Walsh GE was famous for taking his 10% of his customers that were weren’t performing as well as the right you know the lowest 10% and just would chop them off. That’s to your point of you know forcing an issue where you had to be resilient.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah. The belief we are the average of the five people we spend the most time around and if at some point in my life I find myself spending time a lot of time with someone who I deeply love but I’m not sure I want to be like them in my willing to in that relationship.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. Wow. It’s a great conversation Patrick. So let’s come down to the question then because I really want to know and I’m sure listeners want to know too Patrick sells what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah so picking up on that kind of backdrop and one of my probably all time favorite movie scenes is in you know batman the dark night when he’s he’s down in that cave in that kind of prison where there’s no guards and there’s no gates right and there’s just that kind of. And he tries to climb out and jumps and can never quite make that last you know handhold to get out and keeps breaking his body trying to and then he has to you know realizes he has to cut the rope to safety net. His only then will he care will he be able to jump enough and at the same time I wonder like to what degree if I don’t cut it will I just keep living this insanity of breaking myself and I would rather either die or get out right type conviction. And so I kind of had that moment in my life I’d say where I had to cut the rope I was in New York and I mentioned you kind of at the pinnacle of success success and every which way and at the same time begin to feel myself changing and I was afraid that I was going to become too hardened internally and to you know. Money and power in the way of kind of extreme intellect and really lose the personal side of me the part of me that loves people and family and life and just I don’t know I’d say without you know saying details I can’t. I had somehow I made it and I had securely made it and in a way where I was the guy and I quit and I think I told you when I’ve been at the bank and I felt God kind of called me or speak to me when all that journey happened I really felt like it was living out. This great thing you know that had I had held on to and having to come face to face with wait a minute I don’t either I mess this up or I misunderstood or I don’t know because this doesn’t feel like it’s right that this you know and how could and I tell you I was afraid beyond confused but angry bitter and I don’t know. And I walked away from an incredible amount of money and safety and people I love to go as well as good things about it because I wanted to say hey there’s my life it’s not just about the success other things are going to matter and I really want to bring the full Patrick to life. And so I cut that rope with the belief that okay hey you know I’ve got kind of a plan I can make it through I didn’t quite know what I was going to do and about two months later my best friend and life Steve who I’d done that bank with was supposed to buy the stock I had in the bank from me we agreed this a while back and I had you know. Barred some money on a short term note to buy a house I had to get out of New York and. Steve’s killed in the car accident. And so now I’ve kind of cut the rope to say I’m on a try to reinvent myself again but I have kind of my safety I have a kind of a plan. And then all of a sudden he’s gone and I own a house with only a liquid assets and I have a multi million dollar note do in no income. And started another business and you know it got off to a great start there was a lot of pressure frankly you know financially to try to figure it out. But I flew around the country with hearts on a hat and bus and playing and I told banks across the country that I love them and I had this I mean it felt like I was able to bring the part of me that wasn’t just the intellect but the log for people and. It seemed like there for a minute you know I was going to be able to pull it off fast enough. That was also going to solve all these you know kind of problems that were brewing in the background. But I crashed out before I got there. And so I guess the moment of courage was to say hey this despite who started off on what felt like God’s calling to do this really big thing that turned out when I got closer to it maybe wasn’t that at all and was going I. The risk of losing myself to okay I’m on a take a leap and do something different and despite then you know some things happening. Thought it was going to pull it off and I didn’t and I guess my belief in resiliency. It was really tested and can talk more about you know kind of what happened and the lessons that learned but I guess I’ll pause there in terms of the moment of leaving.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wow. Did you go back to New York were you fleeing something in New York or were you running to something because you said it wasn’t you wanted to you wanted to become the fullness of what God made you to be. But you were talking about New York as if it was kind of it’s all that but it wasn’t what you were looking for.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah look I mean I think when I went to New York I was running from anything I knew but then while they’re kind of found it seemed like you know and even better fitting success and impact and calling and then I think. I you know being in that world of interacting with billionaires every day and making that kind of money and you know playing the quote unquote business game at that level. I begin to sense that it was going to become my idol and it was going to consume me and I was not going to be able to get back to the back I got to like God made me both with the unique IQ. And I wasn’t going to be able to get back to the EQ love piece it was just going to be you know 100 hours a week and go do this and go do this and go make that and do right and no longer caring about like. So I love my neighbor my I love my family what kind of person am I I’m just highly highly successful tool that makes a lot of money. And so I guess I was running from those things becoming too close to my heart if you will

JEFF JOHNSON: yeah yeah that makes perfect sense. So the most courageous thing you’ve done is to take a chance it didn’t work out but you’re yet resilient.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah I did most greatest thing was to walk away from like I said the kind of pinnacle of success and being financially in every way secure. I got I can’t say certain things. But you know to I don’t know what I’m going to do but I feel like there’s something that God wants this wasn’t it and there’s something deeper to it and so just to to walk away from all of that you know. As a kid in the corn sill and kind of just the way it all went was a big big big big moment inside I guess I’d frame up the courageous thing was kind of. It’s like one day I got to the Yankees you know despite not being really meant to play professional baseball and all of a sudden I’m we’re about to go to the World Cup and it’s like I don’t think this is what God has for me and I’m just going to walk away.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wow wow that takes an awful lot of resilience so you’ve you’ve clearly landed on your feet now.

PATRICK SELLS: I’d say I’m start so yeah to kind of bring this together I think the the reason my belief in resiliency in that moment was hey I’m I can cut the rope I can make this jump I’m on a walk away from all of this and go figure it out because I believe in myself and I know it will be okay. And I thought I had a plan to make sure I was going to be okay. 60 days after that kind of exercise encourage or belief in resiliency when my friend was killed everything begin to fall apart. At the same time it seemed like with the kind of just tremendous early success I’ve had with this latest business that was taking place it seemed like that I’d made the right call. You know and but I wasn’t able to outrun I guess the the pressures and stress and unforeseen things of what you know kind of financially was happening behind the scenes and started abusing medicine and drugs and and crashed out. I mean I took myself to rehab I lost you know I went from a really I mean I was financially being made to financially very stressful to financially devastated moment and I’d say you know within a year of leaving I was pretty devastated. And depressed for the first time in life and really struggled to not want to give up on myself. And so you know I don’t know I’ve ever tried to articulate all this out loud and kind of a story format but I guess that moment what felt like the moment of courage of walking away from everything was a really big moment but in ways the bigger moment was going to come. A year later when you know it’s like I cut the rope I thought I had the hand my hand you know in the wall to get out and then the wall crumbled and I just felt yeah and. I think then it was okay that was all this these things I believed in in myself true to I still believe those what happened that I make the right decision and leaving what happened to that you know kind of. So like God moment in my life after everything the first time out to this of all gone so wrong. Had you know I was really lost in the month

JEFF JOHNSON: catching you Patrick I love the story so much. Oh I love this story we’re catching you with the analogy of the dark night. Cutting the rope and making the leap but we’re not talking about you climbing out of the pit yet we’re talking about you bumping your head again but now you’re up dusting yourself back off and you’re ready to get back up and go after it again and that really is. Curried yeah that is yes as you as you discuss and it’s beautiful and all of us can relate to that.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah exactly it’s not a story where hey look here here I made this decision and look at what played out right like.

JEFF JOHNSON: Right like.

PATRICK SELLS: A couple years past at all and like i’m back on my feet I did cut the rope and then it’s like everything that could have gone wrong wrong I fell and probably broke every bone in my body. And somehow the little light inside of me didn’t give up. And I’m here today and you know and a much better spot happy and engage I think i’m still there’s still a lot of questions in my mind about like what the heck was all that and. You know it’s quieter now than it used to be and there’s also a lot of good things that have happened. And that couldn’t have happened but yeah I mean i’m probably like a lot of people it’s like okay it took a big leap. Kind of see you know it’s crap hit the fan. And I got to figure out what was that

JEFF JOHNSON: but we’re just jumping in we’re just jumping into a segment of the story though and it’s like that you know so you. You you don’t know i don’t know but the thing that is so powerful is that you cut the rope i mean i’m sitting here right now being inspired. Wondering about the rope that i’m tethered to try to make the leap and I think don’t you think everybody can relate to that Patrick

PATRICK SELLS: yeah for sure and I guess you know it’s one thing and this is where I’d say I probably was though I didn’t. I didn’t understand until this happened a couple years ago like I saw that clip and I understood it and inspired me. But I guess I thought well if I ever cut the rope should I ever cut the rope i’ll make it to. And then I didn’t. Yeah yeah I didn’t and yeah exactly but i will and I will make it and. I did bring me to really question myself and some of those things around resiliency but then it all did play itself out and is playing itself out god is redeeming all things and some of it. Look at my fault some of it was just terrible luck some of it I don’t understand and I may not see that redemption in my lifetime but i’m okay with that I can let that go. And I think that’s what it is you know that is what it’s about is like I am willing to take those hard consequences that could come and it doesn’t always play itself out the way we hoped or wanted. And that’s okay.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wow I well I don’t want to be self-effacing and here i’m going to do it I don’t know if I’m that good of an interviewer because I want to say how what an inspiring interview this is and I want to slobber on you too much but you know the Bible says what is it profit of man if he gains a whole world but loses his soul. And do we want to talk to the do we want to talk to the resilient person do we want to talk to the courageous person at the end of the story. Or do we want to talk to him at the climax you know when everything comes together or do we want to talk to him when he’s when he’s getting started when he’s been knocked down and there it is you know the look at his eye and he’s dust himself off and he’s saying i’m not out of the fight yet here I go because I trust the Lord I know what he said to me. I know I made the right decision you know I was not being my the person that God put me here to be I think this is this is super inspirational.

PATRICK SELLS: I think we’ve got to talk about that more you know you asked if I thought the world was courageous I don’t tend to think it is and I think one of the small things we can do is be more open about the moments we’re in because I think it’s how you get through them more often than not but yeah look I mean. I told you story you know I hear here I wasn’t a sense. You know virgin for I get married in my mind is like maybe do these things then it’s kind of work it didn’t work and you said that you know what was what’s the point gain the whole world and lose your soul I mean that was exactly what was on my heart when I chose to quit. And then everything broke.

JEFF JOHNSON: So now I would imagine you’re having some interesting conversations with God Patrick if you can give him the time of day lately but Lord what’s what’s going on.

PATRICK SELLS: It is a reckless abandonment or a reckless belief that God does redeem all things and we do have free will and he isn’t control and I think there’s a lot of like I remember this sermon John John Piper way back in the day that you know what it would be a theologian is the rest of the two things that are both true and in contradiction to each other and to be okay sitting in that. There’s a lot of life that I wish I could understand I don’t know that I get it all I’m also okay with that and I do think that the way probably closer my conviction and God and belief in him is only stronger through all of my life like I said I think there’s emotion there’s more what I would say emotional volatility and it all but I look I don’t think I’m still standing here simply because I’m not. Because I Patrick sells the human thought he was resilient enough. There has to be a belief in something greater than that and in God and so there’s still a great thing to be done and I’m just allowing for the ride with all my sins mistakes blessings gifts and curses right yeah. Yes I guess I’m probably more hopeful and optimistic about life than ever before because I don’t I’ve seen a lot of lows.

JEFF JOHNSON: Look you got whenever I’m given a talk I always say we got two choices either God’s everything or he’s nothing that’s it you don’t have anywhere in between to land because he doesn’t give us that option is CS Lewis so I have to put that either God’s everything or he’s nothing and if he’s everything that means that his word is true every bit of every jot and tiddle and he says in Ephesians 2 10 that we’re God’s masterpiece we’re his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the things that he put us here to do that’s a very very very good thing we mix it up because I now I’m preaching Patrick forgive me but you’re inspiring me I told you but we mix it up I think because we think it’s the Lamborghini and it’s the three houses and it’s the family that looks like this. And it’s the and that’s not what it is we are God’s masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do the things that he put us here to do and those things are so eternally important but they’re God’s things to do maybe I’m supposed to hug somebody today maybe I’m supposed to do a good deed maybe I’m supposed to make a billion dollars you know what I mean but it’s it’s for each of us and and you’re standing right at the precipice of that saying God this doesn’t make sense I’ve been courageous I listened and I’m trusting you we’ll see and it’s powerful.

PATRICK SELLS: There’s so many different narratives or things in life that are happening all at once right and like I think it’s we we just sell it short if we try to just like pick one narrative or arc of what’s going on because it’s it’s more you know multi-verse than not in some ways I don’t love that phrase. But like for example I think one of the things God had to teach me or get me to pay attention to was I needed to be sober and I’m now sober. You know and so you trying to think okay well hey I take these moments of correct you know courage and these things work these things don’t work and if you just focus on what broke maybe you don’t pay attention to all the other things that were going on right and so I don’t think it was just for that purpose but that has been one that I’m not going to do. But that has been one that up shots of is like okay.

JEFF JOHNSON: Fantastic.

PATRICK SELLS: There’s something I can learn from.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah, praise God. That’s definitely a takeaway as we would say. Okay let me ask you this about cutting the rope and I just got a few more questions for you Patrick and then I’ll let you go this has been a wonderful interview. Regarding cutting the rope and the courage that it takes to cut the rope CS Lewis says that most people have no idea what they’re capable of doing and most people never do it unless they absolutely have to do you agree with that.

PATRICK SELLS: 100% that in ways that is what I’m trying to get at with this notion of resiliency of like we give ourselves glass ceilings and every which way we don’t think we’re strong I got 100%. Um. Is that you bold enough to test that.

JEFF JOHNSON: Right to because I think as a society if people really did press in to Ephesians 210 in their life and do the thing that God put them here to do. I think this place would shine like a diamond. Yeah, I think it would just be fantastic but because we’re maybe full of too much fear and embracing that instead.

PATRICK SELLS: Yeah, totally way too much in life is too short. None of us know what’s coming around the corner and God did put us here for a reason and kind of who cares how much it hurts me because it was never about me anyways.

JEFF JOHNSON: It wasn’t no, no, no. Okay, what do you say to the guy who’s. Need to cut the rope. What do you say to Patrick cells who’s in not in New York who’s in LA the same time you’re in New York and he’s killing it. And he’s just printing money but it’s not his soul is dying or you can’t take a breath. What do you tell that guy?

PATRICK SELLS: It’s so easy to get caught up in the very temporary moment we live in and right like these things matter. I need to get this done these relationships is money. But if you have that if you have that sense of nagging that voice in your head saying, do you should you cut the rope like that is your moment. I think to hear God and it may much like my story in a way of like I cut that rope thinking it was about a business thing and I think there was all kinds of things in my life personally that God needed to teach me. And it really wasn’t like but you got to honor it and look who knows what’s on the other side of it. It could be devastating maybe I don’t think it’s that you misheard God. I think it’s that maybe God was doing something in your life or someone else’s life that you just didn’t understand or care to see. But almost like you got to be kind of reckless in the hey. If I hear it, I got to respond and let go and trust and I think the temptation to want to have a plan before you cut the rope. You’re not cutting the rope. I think the temptation to wait till this moment in time means you’re not really cutting the rope.

JEFF JOHNSON: I think that you know, pride gets in the way of it. And I think if you’re going to do it, you got to cut it. You really got to cut it. That’s right. You got to cut it and got to be okay with getting knocked down, getting knocked back because don’t you want to know what God was going to do. You operating some interesting circles Patrick, are you mentoring people right now?

PATRICK SELLS: No. Yes and no, I’ve got a younger brother by a decade that I’ve been helping out over the last several months with the company he had started. And more actively trying to help him and his brother and his some of his employees. But I wouldn’t say you know all that actively mentoring. I think it really wasn’t Jeff until the beginning of this year where I felt like okay. I had my head screwed back on enough and I was far enough from it all. I really be in a good spot. But so no. And probably you hear me him in your home because it Christ something. I have a fight need to be doing.

JEFF JOHNSON: Well, if it’s a little crumb in the road that helps and adds to other crumbs. Let me be let me be happy to put one out there. But I and God’s timing is always perfect for that kind of stuff. But you got a year of fountain of a lot of good stuff Patrick. I’m not a good stuff to share. So. Wow. Patrick sells. It’s great reuniting with you. And you are a man of great resilience and authenticity. And intellect and success and all of that wonderful stuff. And somebody knows who knows what it’s like to get knocked down and pick himself back up again in a man of great courage. Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Patrick.

PATRICK SELLS: We’re having this conversation with people like myself and others and helping you know kind of bring courage. All more to the forefront of our minds so that we can all live more courageous lives.

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