Welcome to Exorcise, where parents and partners come to lift their curses and exorcise their demons. Hosted by Nathan & Erin Essex (Voodad & Waifu), this power couple applies their expertise in systems design and management to analyze and troubleshoot problems with partnerships and processes.
Summary
We just got back from an Easter road trip. Surrounded by three generations of family, watching fussy babies, older kids teaching younger kids, sword fights and motor bikes, I was reminded of what I live for. We went to church, but got a rock concert. The format was immaculate: get pumped up, prologue, pump you up again, main event, and hit em with the close. While I was seriously impressed, when you can spot every beat of a sales funnel during a worship service, something has been lost.
Episode Breakdown
0:00 - 5:00: Road trip return
5:00 - 15:00: Easter weekend with the Godfather
15:00 - 24:00: AWFULs and the 82-year-old Cuban jazz musician
24:00 - 35:00: Rock concert churches
35:00 - 50:00: Selling Jesus
50:00 - 54:00: The broccoli problem
54:00 - 60:00: The 100: Why survive if we become unworthy of lfie?
60:00 - End: The multigenerational family
Key Takeaways
Building community ex nihilo is a skill. If you’re transient or rootless then you don’t default into community. You must create it. The loneliness epidemic is the symptom, but the root is the inability to build belonging.
Commercialized churches are a textbook sales funnel. Music to create a peak emotional state → calendar and community announcements → another music peak → main event → hard close. Recognizing the format doesn’t make the mission wrong, but it does clarify what the product is and who it’s designed for.
“We welcome everyone” and “you must say these exact words to belong” are contradictory. Genuine community doesn’t gatekeep with rent seeking tactics. The best communities are often simply made available for discovery.
People buy what they want, not what they need. The vitamins/painkillers/cures framework explains why genuinely beneficial things are the hardest to sell. You can season the broccoli all you want, but a palate wrecked by sugar won’t notice the difference.
Structure is how you survive; romance is what you live for. Ownership, Romance, and Administration are foundational to any interpersonal relationship. Eliminate romance and you’re a robot executing an objective function. Eliminate structure and you’re grinding gears with good intentions.
If you don’t build your community intentionally, you end up living accidentally. Do you have children, adults, and elders in your life? Are you maintaining friendships or building community? Are you over-indexed on one role?
References
The Elliott Group (Andy Elliott) -- car sales training empire
Grant Cardone -- real estate sales mogul
Myron Golden -- Bible study + business educator (the “Purple Suit Guy”)
Agrippa’s Trilemma -- any attempt to justify a belief ends in infinite regress, circular reasoning, or dogmatism
The 100 -- CW post-apocalyptic series (2014–2020)
The Blacklist (2013–2023) -- Raymond Reddington is a model of unconditional non-judgmental empathetic whitness
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie) -- the Neverland audience: kids don’t want to grow up, adults don’t want to die.
Sweet Tree Cards -- Erin’s boutique card line; our little broccoli gal fighting the good fight
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