Ash Metry

AI & E-commerce Entrepreneur | Built & Exited Multiple Startups | Faith-Driven Founder | Speaker & Mentor to Difference Makers | Take Risks. Leave a Legacy

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

My Jordan's Edge group was touring Clemson's football training facility in South Carolina, 150,000 square feet, $55 million, a private walkthrough of how they develop athletes and students. I was thirsty and had left my water somewhere, so I asked if I could grab a bottle from one of the NFL interview conference rooms. My buddy Joe looked at me and said, absolutely not. We are givers, not takers!

My first thought was, geez, chill. It's a fifty-cent water bottle in a fifty-five-million-dollar building, in a room where eight-figure offers get made to teenagers. But Joe was right, and it took me a minute to see it. The amount had nothing to do with the question. Who you are does not scale up and down with the size of the number in front of you.

Most people's standard of living ratchets on its own. Income goes up, spending follows, and nobody ever schedules a meeting to approve it. Left alone, the money starts making the calls. I'm fortunate to know a few entrepreneurs who live on a set salary and let their giving rise and fall with the profits instead. They decided how they wanted to live before the money showed up, so the money never got a vote.

Earning money takes hard work. Spending it takes wisdom. Saving it takes discipline. Giving it takes faith. That last one is why I keep coming back to this: your standard of living should never outrun your standard of giving.

Be a giver with your money, your time, your attention, whatever's in your hands. That's what makes someone a difference maker, not the size of the building they're standing in.

And no, I never did get that water bottle.

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

I do life with a group of men. We call ourselves "Jordan's Edge". At Jordan’s Edge, we stand on the cusp of a great promise - just like the people in the Bible who faced the edge of the Promised Land, a place flowing with hope and abundance.

We are a brotherhood of men. Pastors, non and for profit founders, entrepreneurs, businessmen, doctors, and veterans - doing life together. We meet regularly to speak truth and love into each other’s lives, to encourage, support, and pray. And the one rule we hold above the rest is that what's said in the circle stays in the circle.

That rule is the whole thing. A man will tell you the truth about his marriage or his fear or the thing he's ashamed of only when he knows it won't leave the room. The sanctity of the circle is what makes the honesty possible. Break it once and the brotherhood is gone.

I used to think leadership for a man was about being the loudest voice, the one with the plan, the one who decides. Sitting in that circle for years has worn that idea down. The men I actually lean on aren't the loud ones. They're the ones I can hand something heavy to and know they won't drop it and won't repeat it.

That's what I want to be at home too. Someone my wife and my daughters can put their full weight on and not fall. Not by taking charge of every decision, but by being the same person in private that I am in public. Being trustworthy gets built in the small, unseen faithfulness, the kept confidence, the promise you actually keep when keeping it costs you something.

Be someone a family can trust. The rest follows from that.

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Am I battle-tested?

I ask myself that more than I'd like to admit. Untested conviction is just opinion that hasn't met resistance yet.

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

5 years later...and it’s never more true. https://t.co/3q5ESZNj25

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

#truth https://t.co/do9zPoIHpA

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

https://t.co/jh2mKAWH49

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Remembering an awesome loving dad who was always available.

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Anyone driving from Tulsa to Houston (or knows someone)? I need something picked up from Paris, Tx. Willing to pay. Thnx!

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Awesome https://t.co/ZT5XHKb9bq

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

traveling to Houston, Texas from Krakow Airport https://t.co/MmWEisw8V4

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Third day of the walk. What an incredible time with an incredible mission.

https://t.co/o99c81CUmd

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

We’re almost there and there is still time to support this incredible ministry. https://t.co/vlyciP5IqB

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

https://t.co/QxUeXowXev

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

A must listen to message from Tyler Riley! So so good! https://t.co/psM62QKcsQ

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Walk For Europe - Support Joy Griffin https://t.co/Akh3AdSZw6

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Let's Go!! https://t.co/caLyVknhwC

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Anybody else starting tomorrow? https://t.co/7K86C7IKvq

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

An excellent read! https://t.co/Ujn2zUun95

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

https://t.co/2upH6lHwgx. Faithbridge https://t.co/w1fCgvjBwu

[Ash Metry @ashmetry]

Pint-sized takeaways from Europe's fastest growing SaaS startups. https://t.co/67sSEcLBrr