The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of John Crist

“Have you ever had someone ask you to pray for something so stupid you think, ‘I’m not praying for that’?” asks John Crist, famous clean/Christian comedian. “They pray before NASCAR races. Did you know that? What’s the prayer? ‘Jesus, we have engineered these cars to go 250 miles per hour. We will race them for six hours, three inches from each other. We just pray that you would help us not to die.’ …God’s like, ‘Just don’t race!’”

John has excellent timing, vibrant expression, and subtle changes to his voice that make it all the funnier in person. He’s on top of his game, selling out shows across the country, being featured on large, mainstream platforms such as ESPN, Good Morning America, and more. But it was not always this way – and as business leaders, there are a few lessons we can take from the tumultuous history of John Crist’s career.

In 2019, when Crist had finally established himself as an A-list comedian, with nearly 200,000 tickets sold for his global tour (making Pollstar’s top 100 tours list), a book deal, and comedy specials on the way, an extensive exposé by Charisma News broke that momentum, hard. Crist issued an apology, suspended his tour dates, and disappeared from public view for almost a year. Why? Because of numerous allegations of sexual harassment, manipulation, and the sending of explicit images. Crist responded quickly, saying that while not all of the accusations against him were true, many of them were, and he called his behavior “destructive,” “sinful,” and a violation of his Christian beliefs. He then said that he had been receiving regular professional treatment for his sexual sins and his addictions and that he was committed to getting healthy and free, so he would be stepping away for a while.

And then he did. He was gone from the limelight. Zero posts on social media. No interviews. No op-eds.

Eight months later, he came back from his very public cancellation with an apology video explaining what he had been up to. The short answer is rehab, taking a break, and taking ownership. He reiterated his remorse, blamed no one but himself, and thanked people for their kindness amidst his hypocrisy and sin…

No one is seriously disputing that advances in large language models and the AI theory have incredible potential for wealth creation, productivity, and innovation. That said, according to some, the rush to market AI products has engineers appeasing investors rather than users, leading to burnout, bugs, and fraud. For instance, Google has been scrambling to catch up to Open AI ever since Chat GPT was released, and despite the hype, what has resulted has been mired by brazenly faked demos, a strangely woke bias into its operating procedure, and negative reviews that insist the claims of its capability were rather overblown…

Optimism seemed to define premarket action Monday, as Dow Jones and Nasdaq gained nearly half a point, and Warren Buffet says his own stock should outperform the S&P 500. Nevertheless, some are now saying the Fed cannot avoid a hard landing for the economy, as the Fed has been unable to completely rid us of persistent inflation. The Bitcoin halving took place last month, but revenues, at least for now, are up significantly for Bitcoin miners, largely because of the release of the Rune protocol, which allows developers to mint new coins on the BTC chain like Ethereum does…

If you’ve ever wondered what the most expensive stock in the US is, look no further than legendary investor Warren Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway. Their class A stock trades for over $600,000 per share, but believe it or not, this is not a wildly inflated number – the P/E ratio is just 9. Despite Warren Buffet’s love of dividend-paying stocks, Hathaway does not pay a dividend to its investors. Nevertheless, Buffet has consistently grown the company at around 20% year…

Your weekly chance to test your Bible knowledge! The answer to today’s question may surprise you:

Q: Where is the “Hall of Fame of Faith” in the Bible?

Answer at the bottom

TIPS & TRICKS

Not Sure How to Do Morning Prayer and Meditation? Here are 3 Formulas to Help You

As businesspeople, most of us have heard about how important mindfulness is and how a high-capacity worker needs to start the day with prayer or meditation. As Christians, we know the importance of these things as well. But as everyday, busy, distracted people… it can be a struggle.

If you aren’t sure how to go about prayer and meditation to start your day, try these three time-tested ideas:

A.C.T.S. Prayer

The A.C.T.S. method is simple, easy to remember, and a great option for someone who is trying to get regular about prayer each day. It is intended as a guide, but you shouldn’t feel restricted by it if you feel the need to go deeper into one area of prayer on any given day, or to pray about something else entirely.

Here’s how it works…

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