Jonathan Isaac | How Should Pro Athletes Use Their Platform?

- [Intro] We believe and have always believed in this coun­try that man was cre­at­ed in the image of God, that he was giv­en tal­ents and respon­si­bil­i­ty and was instruct­ed to use them to make this world a bet­ter place in which to live. And you see, this is the real­ly great thing of America.

- It’s time to dis­cov­er what binds us togeth­er, and find­ing it has the pow­er to trans­form our world. That’s what I believe. How about you? Well, hel­lo, every­body, and wel­come to ​“Believe!.” I’m Doug DeVos, and we’re thrilled to have you here with us today. Today, we’re gonna be explor­ing how peo­ple, and in par­tic­u­lar, pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes express who they are per­son­al­ly. How they talk about their per­son­al views and how the plat­form that they have is a very inter­est­ing place from which to speak. And we’ve got a won­der­ful friend and guest, Jonathan Isaac is with us. Jonathan, so pleased to have you here to join us. Thank you for com­ing. Absolute­ly. Well, John, and the first thing I have to do is, is I have to thank Doc for encour­ag­ing you to write the book. And then I have to thank you for writ­ing the book because I real­ly enjoyed read­ing it. And what we wan­na explore today is more about who you are. And you did a great job by telling your sto­ry in the book. Did you have fun writ­ing it?

- I had… I don’t know if fun is the right word because it def­i­nite­ly was chal­leng­ing and it, I would say, it brought out a side of me that I did­n’t know was there, maybe a more cre­ative side. But peo­ple won’t know the Doc ref­er­ence, so they’ll have to read the book for sure to real­ly get it, and we’ll talk about it I’m sure, but Doc was the one who inspired me to write the book and told me to do it. But, I would say, it’s a mix of fun, it was chal­leng­ing, it was touch­ing. It was every­thing. And so every­thing kind of went into the book com­ing to life.

- That’s great. So the book is ​“Why I Stand” by Jonathan Isaac. And that was a good tease for us. We’re gonna put Doc out there, so they have to read the book so they know what we’re talk­ing about, right?

- Absolute­ly.

- Well, Jonathan, the inspi­ra­tion for doing this pod­cast real­ly came from my dad’s book that he wrote in the 1970s, and it was called ​“Believe,” and there’s copy of it right right up there. And in it, he expressed his belief sys­tem. And as a busi­ness leader, he spent a lot of time talk­ing about what he believed, and what we want­ed to explore with this pod­cast was meet­ing won­der­ful peo­ple who will chal­lenge all of our lis­ten­ers to think about what they believe. And they’ll think a lit­tle bit about how they feel about things. And so we posed the ques­tion as we did ear­li­er, but you, in your life expe­ri­ence, the things that peo­ple may know about you is real­ly kin­da the end of the sto­ry. What I loved about the book, is you told the whole sto­ry. Start­ing in New York, as a kid, mov­ing to Flori­da, find­ing your way through tough school sit­u­a­tions, find­ing your way to good coach­ing in the bas­ket­ball are­na, talk a lit­tle bit about some of the ear­li­er years where our lis­ten­ers can get an idea who is Jonathan Isaac.

- Yeah. I like that ques­tion, and one of the things that I real­ly love about the book is, most peo­ple know me for these dif­fer­ent stance. Take it, the bub­ble, take it, the vac­cine, all these dif­fer­ent things, but the sto­ry is what real­ly brings it to life, and all of these moments of indi­vid­ual stands, they only hap­pen because of the jour­ney that I’ve been through. And so in order for a book to real­ly talk about why did I stand, I have to take you back to the begin­ning because all of that mat­ters. And so I grew up in Bronx, New York, as you know, ​’cause you read the book. I grew up in Bronx, New York with four broth­ers and one sis­ter, my mom and my dad. My dad was a hard­work­ing, like, just spir­it filled guy, always had us in church, made us mem­o­rize whole Psalms and just always church, church, church, church, church. My mom worked all the time to make sure that we were tak­en care of. But then my par­ents split up when I was 10 years old. And so I moved from Bronx, New York to Naples, Flori­da. And in the Bronx, every­thing was nor­mal. We did­n’t think that any­thing was off, we did­n’t think that we were poor, we did­n’t think that any­thing was wrong because every­one around us was the same way. Every­one looked the same, every­one act­ed the same. I got along with friends by horse play­ing and mess­ing around, and that’s how you made friends. And so I moved to Naples, Flori­da, and I’m in this com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent cul­ture, I’m around a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent set of peo­ple, I don’t have my father, my mom is work­ing even more now than she did in New York to pro­vide for us. And so I’m kind of left to myself to fig­ure out how to walk through these cir­cum­stances. And I try my best, detailed in the book, to make friends and get accli­mat­ed to the new cul­ture, but I real­ly strug­gled. And dur­ing those ear­ly months and years of being in Naples, Flori­da, I real­ly began to get a sense of self con­scious­ness where I was like, I see myself in a dif­fer­ent way and peo­ple see me in a dif­fer­ent way than I saw myself. And I devel­oped anx­i­ety and I devel­oped fear around being reject­ed and peo­ple not lik­ing me. And detailed in the book, my nick­name ear­ly on to get­ting to Naples was Ethiopia because I was so skin­ny and obvi­ous­ly dark skinned. And so it was just a lot of strug­gles, and it was hard for me to find out who I was, find my iden­ti­ty or have any real ground­ing in any­thing spe­cial about myself. I did­n’t see any val­ue in me until I found bas­ket­ball. So I find bas­ket­ball. It was some­thing that I played when I was younger in New York, but not some­thing that I did on a team or any­thing like that. And so I got on a team when I got to Naples. And as I began to become a bet­ter bas­ket­ball play­er, now the friends start­ed to come, the girls start­ed to like me because I was becom­ing this bas­ket­ball phe­nom, and that’s when I start­ed to define all of my iden­ti­ty, all of my worth and all of my val­ue based on what I could do on the bas­ket­ball court, but that same anx­i­ety and fear still lin­gered in the back­ground because I did­n’t wan­na lose any­thing that I had gained through the game. And so that kind of push­es us towards get­ting to Flori­da State, and ulti­mate­ly the league.

- Wow, thank you for that. That’s great for all of our lis­ten­ers to have that. And there’s a thing in there I wan­na ask you to expand a lit­tle bit more on. This idea that you had of doubt and that anx­i­ety that led there. But before we explore that, help us under­stand what it’s like when you’re a phe­nom­e­non like you, when all of a sud­den you have a lev­el of vis­i­bil­i­ty that very few of us can ever even come close to imag­in­ing, and you’ve got­ta deal with that while you have this doubt thing. Help us under­stand a lit­tle bit of that jour­ney from a good bas­ket­ball play­er in high school, through the acad­e­my, get into Flori­da State, and then to the league, and how that hap­pens. Just the lev­el of vis­i­bil­i­ty, the fol­low­ers that you have on social or things like that nature.

- Well, it was just tough because, one, you have mov­ing from Bronx to Naples, Flori­da, every­thing is just new, and so I don’t know any­thing about col­lege bas­ket­ball, I don’t know any­thing about the recruit­ing sys­tem. I’m just kind of thrown into this thing. So I devel­oped a bit in the back­ground of play­ing on AAU teams, and then now they’re say­ing, you’re gonna go to a top col­lege. And I’m like, what? I don’t know what that is. But again, like to your point about strug­gling in the back­ground with, I don’t know if I belong, I don’t know if I’m capa­ble of real­ly doing this thing, I don’t wan­na lose the peo­ple who have come along­side me because of bas­ket­ball. It is almost like, I had an under­stand­ing in myself that the only rea­son why peo­ple are here, the only rea­son why peo­ple like me, the only rea­son why peo­ple wan­na know any­thing about me is because of the bas­ket­ball play­er that I am, not because of who I am. And so I knew that for myself, and so I was like, I have to be great. If I’m not great, if I mess up, if I miss a shot, then every­thing that I’ve worked so hard for is gonna be gone. And you can obvi­ous­ly see what bat­tle that would be, because every­body miss­es shots, every­body has bad games, but when you don’t have a ground­ing in who you are, and you think that your entire iden­ti­ty is wrapped up in the play­er that you are, it becomes a mind game and strug­gling, you know, ups and downs and all that. And so I kind of go through this road of high school, col­lege, strug­gling with these ups and downs. And it’s also detailed in the book, when I was at Flori­da State, they put me on anx­i­ety med­ica­tion because I had a few episodes of hav­ing anx­i­ety attacks for the first time in my life. I did­n’t even know what they were. But at the same time, being this top prospect ath­lete. And so I’m the high­est recruit­ed play­er to go to Flori­da State, every­body’s singing my prais­es, you’re gonna be the guy that leads us to the cham­pi­onship, to the tour­na­ment, and I’m just like, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. And so strug­gling behind the scenes, I have my one year at Flori­da State, and next thing you know, again, I’m ascend­ing to the next lev­el of going to the NBA, hav­ing all of that atten­tion, hav­ing every­one say­ing, this is gonna be the guy that turns, that helps turn the mag­ic around, and still strug­gling with that anx­i­ety and fear behind the scenes of not being enough.

- You know, I think that’s so impor­tant, and I’m so grate­ful, again, why you wrote the book and why you’re shar­ing it, because we all have those moments of doubt, we all have those moments of fear, and that fear of rejec­tion. But you’ve had to nav­i­gate it at a lev­el of pres­sure that the rest of us can’t imag­ine, because of the vis­i­bil­i­ty and the expec­ta­tions that get piled on you from the out­side in. And as you nav­i­gat­ed that, you talk about one of your first coach from Flori­da State, Coach Gates, that seemed to… I’ve nev­er met him, but seemed, by the way you tell the sto­ry, he cared about you. Is that accu­rate? Talk about that rela­tion­ship a lit­tle bit.

- Absolute­ly. And this was… It was like the onset of turn­ing the tide a bit, because this was the first time that… And going into the rela­tion­ship, I had my walls up the way I did with every­body because no one could real­ly love me or like me for who I was, it was just the game. And so when I get intro­duced to this coach, he’s the coach of Flori­da State, I’m like, I’m ner­vous, of course, ​’cause I have to work out in front of him, but then he just takes to me, and he starts talk­ing about, he sees me being top five in my class. And I’m like, you have no idea, there’s no way that’s gonna be pos­si­ble. But it was­n’t just the bas­ket­ball stuff. He invest­ed in me, and he did that, and how he went about try­ing to recon­nect me with my dad. And so behind my back, he sends a let­ter to my dad intro­duc­ing him­self as my coach. And he asked me about who I want­ed to be in the green room with me when I get draft­ed. Again, some­thing I’m like, what are you talk­ing about I’m gonna get draft­ed? But he just believed in me when I did­n’t believe in myself, and he made it not about bas­ket­ball. He made it about, I wan­na know who this young kid, Jonathan Isaac is. I see great­ness in him, I see poten­tial in him, and I want to help that to come out. And so me and him are still great friends to this day. I’m the god­fa­ther to one of his sons. And so, we have a great relationship.

- Again, that sto­ry, I think that was real­ly impor­tant and was a first step of maybe, did he help defray some of that pres­sure then, and then he kind of pulls things away. And then the one thing you men­tioned, he recon­nect­ed you with your dad and he helped you dream a lit­tle bit about, who do you want with you at that table in the green room? Is that a good part of help­ing you deal with that pressure?

- Yeah, I think you phrased it per­fect­ly. He was that ini­tial, like, sound­ing board that I had lost when I did­n’t have my dad in my life any­more. And so it was­n’t that I was going through all of this alone. It was like, once I was ready to open up to Coach Gates, I could. I had some­body there that cared about me and was­n’t just gonna say, well, you just need to play bet­ter, and you just need­ed this, and you just need­ed that. It was like, okay, I I’m val­i­dat­ing your feel­ings, I under­stand what you’re going through, and he start­ed to encour­age me that I could do this. And so he was just great. He was inte­gral to me being where I am today, but def­i­nite­ly that first sound­ing board for me to be able to start to voice my feel­ings and anx­i­eties and all of that.

- Right, right. And that’s such an impor­tant part of your jour­ney. There’s anoth­er piece of your jour­ney, and maybe I won’t, I may not say it right, but I’m gonna ask you to make sure you artic­u­late it well. As you go to Flori­da State, you talked about your dad and going to church and that rock in that foun­da­tion, and kind of doing the Flori­da State years, you talk about how maybe you drift­ed a lit­tle bit.

- Yeah.

- And that you tell a sto­ry of going to a church there and the pas­tor had a prob­lem, and that set you back a lit­tle bit. And then that next time, when you went to a chapel ser­vice when you were in the NBA and how you start­ed your faith jour­ney. Tell us a lit­tle bit more about that tran­si­tion for you.

- Yeah, so grow­ing up, I always had an under­stand­ing of like, we rev­er­ence God. You try your best to do the right thing. My dad was big on integri­ty and char­ac­ter and doing things hon­est­ly in the right way, and there’s that sto­ry about me get­ting pun­ished for not doing things the right way. But, yeah, I had those seeds instilled in me from a young age, but at the same time, the world is some­thing to con­tend with as well. I want­ed to expe­ri­ence every­thing that the world had to offer. And so when I had this image in my head of me becom­ing this bas­ket­ball play­er and peo­ple singing my prais­es, it’s like, I wan­na expe­ri­ence what that life is like, what the col­lege life is like, what the NBA life is like. And so I did just that. I went out and I expe­ri­enced it. And I had that moment at Flori­da State where, because I was­n’t mature in my faith at all, again, I just saw Christ and a rela­tion­ship with God as some­thing that was tra­di­tion­al, just an under­stand­ing to have, but not some­thing where you actu­al­ly are walk­ing through life with Christ. And so when I expe­ri­enced that moment at Flori­da State where the pas­tor had that issue and every­thing came out, I was like, man, I’m done. It was my excuse to kind of just con­tin­ue to go in the direc­tion that I was going in. But then I get to the Mag­ic, and I go to the chapel ser­vice, and the chap­lain quotes, Luke 6:46. And he says, ​“Why do you call me, ​‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” And I’m like, man, that’s me. In times that are tough, I have a cou­ple bad games, I’ll pray because I still remem­ber those things, I’ll lis­ten to some gospel music until I get back to where I need to be, and then I’ll get rid of all that stuff. And so for some rea­son, the verse real­ly res­onat­ed with me. And I start­ed to say, you know what, if some­body was to ask me if I was a Chris­t­ian, I would say I was, but I was­n’t, I did­n’t care at all, what Christ had to say about my life or liv­ing or any­thing like that. And so that was the start of me say­ing, you know what, I wan­na fig­ure this thing out. I’m gonna find out if this Chris­tian­i­ty thing is real. And if it’s not, then I can just drop the whole Chris­t­ian label alto­geth­er. But if it is, I’m gonna go in. And so I start­ed to do all the Chris­t­ian apolo­get­ics and watch­ing videos and Frank Turek and John Lennox and Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig, all these dif­fer­ent guys. I start pour­ing over it and learn­ing about these dif­fer­ent argu­ments, the Kalam cos­mo­log­i­cal argu­ment, the moral argu­ment, all these dif­fer­ent stuff, and it kind of got me to the door of like, you know what, I can see how God could be actu­al­ly real, not a sto­ry, not a tra­di­tion, but actu­al­ly real. And then once I meet Doc, that’s like me falling over the cliff of faith. And so… We can get to that sto­ry a lit­tle bit as well.

- Yeah. You know, when you talk about that verse, that’s you, but that’s me, and that’s… I’m sure every­one who’s lis­ten­ing, we’d all look at our­selves and go, if we do have faith, wher­ev­er peo­ple are in their faith jour­ney, and they start to raise those ques­tions as if, well, if this is what I say I believe, is this real­ly what I’m doing? And I think the way you artic­u­lat­ed it and the way you use that as an exam­ple for not only rais­ing the ques­tion, but the work you did to answer the ques­tion. You talk about it kind of in pass­ing that, you know, I read this and I did that. That’s a lot of work.

- It was. It was. I was stay­ing up late watch­ing YouTube. I actu­al­ly, I even signed up for a class. So there’s an online Bible col­lege Chris­t­ian apolo­get­ics col­lege called Bio­la Uni­ver­si­ty, and I lit­er­al­ly paid the mon­ey, signed up for the class, and was lis­ten­ing to these lec­tures on Chris­t­ian apolo­get­ics. So I real­ly was in. I was like, you know what… And the whole time, I’m ask­ing like, God, reveal your­self to me. Because, again, I had seen things, I had expe­ri­enced things in being a youth group when I was younger, and I’m like, I know that peo­ple say he’s real, but I wan­na know for myself. And so I did go on my lit­tle Chris­t­ian apolo­get­ics journey.

- Well, that’s a huge­ly impor­tant aspect. And, again, when you share things, you make me think about it. And I know when you share here in your book, you make your read­ers think about it. And here on this audi­ence or on this pod­cast, you help our audi­ence to think about, what do we believe? That’s the whole idea of this pod­cast, was to help peo­ple take a step, maybe take a step back like that ques­tion, brushed you back a lit­tle bit to make you think, what do I believe? But then I hope do some work to estab­lish that like you’ve done.

- Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

- Yeah. So that’s… Again, we’ll con­tin­ue on the jour­ney. You intro­duced us to Doc, and this chance meet­ing, which prob­a­bly was­n’t by chance, but this chance meet­ing that God had in store for you and how he, in addi­tion to Coach Gates, how he devel­oped a rela­tion­ship with you that was so help­ful, because he too cared about you and your rela­tion­ship with Christ.

- Yes, and so… And there were many more peo­ple along the way before that. Ron was huge in believ­ing in me and invest­ing in me, all these dif­fer­ent peo­ple who invest­ed in me along with Coach Gates.

- Yes, yes.

- But Doc was the first per­son to real­ly bring it home in terms of push­ing me towards a rela­tion­ship with Christ and help­ing me to under­stand what the love of Christ was real­ly like. And the sto­ry with Doc, I’m not gonna give it all because it is long, and I want you to read the book. So the back­sto­ry, I’m in Orlan­do, I’m liv­ing my life, I’m doing my thing. I already had this encounter in chapel ser­vice, and so behind the scenes, I’m read­ing, but I’m still doing my thing, I’m still liv­ing my life. And I get injured with the Mag­ic. I hurt my ankle. And so I’m on the side­lines, and I’m on the ele­va­tor one day and this guy stops me, and he says, I can tell you how to be great. And I’m like, what? Okay, tell me. You have to know Jesus. And I’m like, man, I’m a Chris­t­ian, I know Jesus, but I was­n’t liv­ing that way. And from that point on, my life just gets flipped upside down and there’s this sto­ry of just God con­nect­ing the dots and order­ing foot­steps and these ran­dom coin­ci­dences of meet­ing him all over the place, and I’m like, but what it caused me to do was take a step back and say, who is this god? Like, this guy wants me. Like, he wants to be in rela­tion­ship with me. And there I have that moment where I kneel down on the side of my bed for the first time at the apart­ment that I had been in Orlan­do, and I’m say­ing to myself, God, you care about me. You care about me. And for me that was pro­found because of the way that I grew up. It was learn­ing about the love of Christ was like me being able to breathe for the first time. Where it was like, he loves me not for what I can do on the bas­ket­ball court, not if I make a shot, if I miss a shot, he loves me for me, and he wants to be in rela­tion­ship with me, for me. And so I was like, man. And Doc was some­body who was able to sim­u­late that to me in the nat­ur­al by walk­ing beside me and being there for games when I was cry­ing my eyes out and so upset with myself and angry and going through this realm of anx­i­ety and all that stuff, but he was able to ground me in a peace and a joy about being in rela­tion­ship with Christ and to where I was able to grow into the man that I am today.

- Yeah, yeah. And he also did some­thing for you. He gave you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share it by ask­ing you to preach. That was a pret­ty inter­est­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty pret­ty ear­ly on as a young man and pret­ty rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly in your journey.

- Yeah, and so that’s… It’s so pro­found to me, because again, it flies in the face of every­thing that I had expe­ri­enced before. Where it was like, I could tell that it was God ordained, ​’cause it’s like, here you have this kid who has strug­gled with anx­i­ety to a degree that I could­n’t even real­ly put in the book because you it would just be too raw. But, yeah, strug­gled with all these things behind the scenes, and now he’s devel­op­ing this rela­tion­ship with Christ, and God throws him out there and says, it’s time to preach before a church that you’ve been going to for a cou­ple months. Again, under­stand­ing the sta­tus that I have as an NBA play­er, I’m rich. Like, I’m gonna go and talk to these con­gre­gants about what it is to have rela­tion­ship with Christ and all these dif­fer­ent things. I’m ter­ri­fied, and then on top of it, he says, you should also pray about invit­ing your team­mates. And that’s when I’m like, you have lost your mind. But I did it. I did it. And it was the first moment of me look­ing fear in the face and say­ing, I’m not gonna let you win. And I was trust­ing God in that moment to say, I can beat this fear, I can over­come this hur­dle because God is with me, and that was the first time of Jonathan who was so used to tak­ing a step back and being in the back­ground actu­al­ly tak­ing a step for­ward, and it trans­lat­ed in every oth­er place in my life. On the court, with friends, with fam, with all these dif­fer­ent things. And all of those moments behind the scenes of build­ing courage had led up to the moment of being able to stand in the bub­ble because I had those lit­tle moments behind the scenes.

- Right, right. And those build you up and they give you these oppor­tu­ni­ties and give you a chance to grow clos­er to God and to say, okay, maybe I can’t do this, but, God, you can do it with me. So you step for­ward in faith and do it. You men­tioned your team­mates. Talk about that a lit­tle bit. Talk about the rela­tion­ship as you become more and more of who you are, and you’re in an envi­ron­ment now, and try­ing to think through how to express that. Like, we asked the main ques­tion, how do you use your plat­form… And it’s not just as a bas­ket­ball play­er. It would be a busi­ness leader or a school teacher, or what­ev­er any of our lis­ten­ers do, we all have things we do in life, and how do we stay who we are even in those envi­ron­ments? So talk about how that rela­tion­ship with your team­mates was after you invit­ed them, and as you became stronger and stronger in your faith.

- I would say, what I did­n’t do was go to them and say, you’re a bunch of sin­ners and you need Jesus,

- Good call. Good call there.

- Good call, absolute­ly. But it was tough for me because, one thing for me as an indi­vid­ual, I was again, so used to want­i­ng to fit in, want­i­ng every­body to like me, not want­i­ng to make any­body, not want­i­ng to step on any eggshells. I want­ed to always fit in and be peace­ful. And so now I have this rev­o­lu­tion in my life where I’m like, you know what, I want God to be first in my life. I wan­na care about what God thinks, and at the end of the day, let that be the most impor­tant thing to me. And so you have these peo­ple who I went out to the club with, they saw me drink, they saw me do all these things, and now I’m mak­ing a com­plete 180 and I’m say­ing to them, well, do you want to come to church and hear me preach? And they’re like, what? What in the world? Hear you preach? No. But then it was just about nav­i­gat­ing those spaces of like, how do I, as this per­son who’s grow­ing up in this faith, show my faith and live out my faith. And the thing that I tried my best to do is just that is live it out. I don’t have to be a preach­er in the lock­er room, I don’t have to be some­body beat­ing any­body over their head with a Bible, I just live my life to the best of my abil­i­ty by the grace of Christ to glo­ri­fy him. And so that’s what I start­ed to do. I did it on my social media, I did it on the plat­forms that I have. And what actu­al­ly start­ed to hap­pen is they grew in respect for me because they saw that it was gen­uine and that it was real. They saw that I was­n’t try­ing to demean them or talk down to them, that I felt that I was the same that they were, I just come into a rela­tion­ship with Christ. And I obvi­ous­ly want that for them, but I was­n’t try­ing to push it on any­body. And so I just tried my best to walk it out. And I did see that there was a new­found respect that they had for me, that I was will­ing to will­ing to go down that road and will­ing to real­ly believe it, and even lead­ing up to the bub­ble as well.

- Yeah, and you, again, you go through things quick­ly, but I think they’re so pro­found when you say, the first thing I did­n’t say was make a judg­ment call, express judg­ment on some­body else. You had changed, but you were express­ing love. You still loved your team­mates. In fact, one of your team­mates invit­ed you to that first chapel ser­vice, and team­mates sup­port­ed you, and like you said, they respect­ed you when they saw what you were doing. So you devel­oped a rela­tion­ship with them that remained strong when they saw how strong you were in it. Is that right?

- Yeah, for sure. And it con­tin­ued to grow into where it is today, but it was­n’t some­thing that was easy. I had to go through my ini­tial haz­ing phase of them see­ing like, oh, who is this Baby Jesus and preach­ing and all these dif­fer­ent things? And I had to go through that, and I had to, you know, it was pres­sure, it was tough, it was hard, and to a degree to be, to step apart from my team­mates, not going to the places that they’re going, not engag­ing in the con­ver­sa­tions that they’re engag­ing in. And so, it was dif­fi­cult. It’s def­i­nite­ly was­n’t some­thing that was easy to do.

- And that’s some­thing that all of us have. We all find our­selves in groups of peo­ple, and we wan­na fit in, we wan­na be cool, we wan­na… We want to have every­body like us, and so it’s easy to take a step back from our faith. And you serve as a great exam­ple for, if you just stay with it, peo­ple will respect you, it may make the rela­tion­ship a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent, but you can still have a relationship.

- Absolute­ly. And I’ve had sev­er­al con­ver­sa­tions with not just team­mates, but peo­ple around the league. One of the things that I did­n’t put in the book is, one of my team­mates, one of the ones that were the main per­son who was call­ing me Baby Jesus and dif­fer­ent things ear­ly on was one that came to me and said, you know what, I real­ly need to change my life. And I was able to help walk him through that. And so even when I was receiv­ing it, I was­n’t tak­ing it as, these guys are so mean, these guys are so ter­ri­ble, all these dif­fer­ent things, because I under­stood where they were com­ing from, and see­ing what I saw. And I also under­stood where I was and how it was love that drew me to Christ, and it was his love that ulti­mate­ly helped me to say yes. And so I want­ed to show that same love.

- Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s shift a lit­tle bit and talk about bas­ket­ball. Let’s go back. So, you’re this incred­i­ble phe­nom­e­non, you stand out at Flori­da State, num­ber six draft pick, you’re in the NBA now, but you’re still putting pres­sure on your­self every game. And you have an injury here and you are start­ing to devel­op and improve, but you’re still hav­ing these kind of ups and downs on the court. Walk us through how tough it is and how dis­ci­plined and how hard you have to work through those set­backs. Help us under­stand a lit­tle bit of what that’s like, whether it’s an ankle injury or what­ev­er it may be.

- Yeah, it is very dif­fi­cult. I think the word is just that it’s dif­fi­cult, espe­cial­ly as a young guy to come into the league and then have to take steps back because of injuries and not being as includ­ed with your team­mates as you would hope to be. But the thing that I saw for myself is that the more that I was able to grow off the court, mean­ing like grow spir­i­tu­al­ly, the more that I grew on the court. And so when I would come back to play year after year, I got bet­ter. And it was­n’t just because I was becom­ing a bet­ter bas­ket­ball play­er, but I was becom­ing more con­fi­dent, I was becom­ing more coura­geous, I was becom­ing more bold, I was trust­ing God more in the gift that he’s giv­en me to play bas­ket­ball, where I just saw myself in a dif­fer­ent light, and it’s some­thing that’s con­tin­ued to grow and con­tin­ue to change. But it just… The NBA is dif­fi­cult on its own, and then hav­ing to walk through anx­i­ety and fear and all those dif­fer­ent things makes it that much hard­er, but I’m just so grate­ful that I had the peo­ple in my life that I have. Doc, my wife now, my church fam­i­ly, my fam­i­ly, who were able to walk me through the ups and downs of those ear­ly years and still see great­ness in me even when I did­n’t see them myself.

- Yeah, yeah. Recent­ly in Grand Rapids, we had an event, and Venus Williams was there and shared some of her sto­ry. And I had a chance, to a dif­fer­ent Amway event, to talk to her sis­ter, Ser­e­na, and the lev­el of com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion and hard work to stay on your game. And we may think, or many in the audi­ence may think, well, I just start­ed in the NBA, yeah. Well, no, it goes back way before that. There’s a lot of hours in the gym, there’s a lot of hours for them in the ten­nis court, and it seems like their theme was sim­i­lar to yours of con­fi­dence, but doubt, suc­cess, and then a set­back, and that’s life, isn’t it? Isn’t that for all of us?

- Just while you were say­ing that, my rebut­tal imme­di­ate­ly was gonna be, it’s the same thing for all of us. And so there is no per­fect sto­ry or cook­ie cut­ter, and that’s what I do love about the book, because I could have eas­i­ly come out and said, I’m just this coura­geous bull guy who said, I’m gonna stand up for what I believe in and to heck with any­body else, but that would­n’t be real. It would­n’t be a real sto­ry. There are peo­ple who I need­ed in my life to be able to be who I am today, and there are things that I had to go through for me to devel­op in the way that I did. And so there were ups, there were downs, there were great suc­cess­es and set­backs and fail­ures on my own part, but that makes a real sto­ry, it makes things that peo­ple can iden­ti­fy with.

- Right, right. That’s… ​‘Cause you’re… You’re Jonathan, you’re not just a bas­ket­ball play­er. And for all of us, what­ev­er we’re doing, we’re who God made us to be in the first place, and that’s where we start. Let’s con­tin­ue on with bas­ket­ball and real­ly, kind of your, the first knee injury. I remem­ber watch­ing the game and just sit­ting there go, oh, no. To watch that game when you were injured first, and then your rehab, and then get­ting back, but that’s inside the bub­ble. Talk us through that peri­od of time with that injury, that time with COVID, and then kind of find­ing your way into the bub­ble and to say­ing, hey, I can get back on the court.

- Yeah, so it was just… It was just an acci­dent. I stepped on a guy’s foot and my knee kind of tweaked a bit, but, yeah, it just sucked. It was the turn of the new year, I’m in my third sea­son, I’m hav­ing my best sea­son so far, I’m up in every sin­gle cat­e­go­ry that I could pos­si­bly be up in on the court. And we’re play­ing well. We’re hav­ing a decent year so far, look­ing at mak­ing the play­offs again and every­thing like that. And so, it just sucked. It sucked. I got hurt, I went down, but COVID kind of set things back to where there was this large gap in between the play­offs, and so there was that lit­tle bit of hope in back of my head like, you know what, if I real­ly grind right now, I could be ready to come back. And so that’s just what we did. We put this plan togeth­er. At the end of the day, it was my call if I want­ed to go or not. We attacked this thing, we work real­ly hard and they say, what do you wan­na do? And I say, I wan­na play. And so we make it into the bub­ble. And the crazi­ness is already every­where with COVID and all of the pre­cau­tions and test­ing and all of those dif­fer­ent things that are going on, the talk of a vac­cine com­ing, and then we get to the bubble.

- Yeah, you get to the bub­ble, but bub­ble’s hard, isn’t it? I mean, just being in that envi­ron­ment with every­thing, that was… I remem­ber hear­ing from you and oth­ers that that was a tough peri­od of time just being in there.

- It was, it was. And just like you said, just being there, were kind of locked away. We could­n’t leave. The NBA tried their best to kind of have things on cam­pus to where we could enjoy our­selves as well. But at the end of the day, you were just going back to a kind of reg­u­lar hotel room day after day after day. And I know for a lot of guys that it became frus­trat­ing and monot­o­nous, and yeah.

- Yeah, that was a tough time. But on the oth­er side, for those of us who were able to watch it, at least gave us hope for the future that life was gonna return to nor­mal. But in the bub­ble, there were some oth­er things hap­pen­ing in our coun­try, and that’s… Take a lit­tle time to walk us through the title of the book, ​“Why I Stand.”

- Yeah.

- And because it’s, as we’ve been talk­ing, it was­n’t just this act, it was every­thing about who you are that brought us here, but help us see how that came togeth­er in your mind. You artic­u­late it well here, but for our audi­ence, please help us under­stand that.

- Yeah, absolute­ly. And so, it’s around the time that the bub­ble is com­ing to place. George Floyd… The trag­ic George Floyd inci­dent that was obvi­ous­ly wrong, obvi­ous­ly ter­ri­ble hap­pens. And my first thought to myself is, what is gonna be the right way to respond in this moment, not as Jonathan Isaac, but as a Chris­t­ian? What would be the right way to respond in this moment in a way that would bring real change? And so the world erupts, every­one is upset and angry, and right­ful­ly so, they saw what had hap­pened, and then you just, you obvi­ous­ly get into the politi­ciza­tion of it all, and the crazi­ness of it all, and about sides, and who’s right and who’s wrong, and then we get to the bub­ble. And we we’re in the bub­ble, and there’s talk about the play­ers kneel­ing for the nation­al anthem and wear­ing a Black Lives Mat­ter t‑shirt. And the day before our game, that was gonna be played the next day, the day before that, the team and the orga­ni­za­tion pulls us all togeth­er and says, we sup­port you guys in what you wan­na do, talk amongst your­selves and fig­ure it out. And so they all leave the room and it’s just a team, and every­body’s say­ing the same thing. We don’t have a choice. A team had already kneeled the day before, and it was like, we can’t be the only team not to kneel. This is a no-brain­er, there’s no con­ver­sa­tion to be had here, we have to kneel, part­ly because of the pres­sure of the moment, and then just want­i­ng to advo­cate for what was going on. And so one of my team­mates turns to me and says, well, Jonathan, what are you gonna do? And I always think it’s fun­ny every time I think about it, ​’cause I’m like, why did he ask me? But prob­a­bly because he knew me. And I said to them, I said, fel­las, I’m not gonna kneel and I’m not gonna wear that t‑shirt, and the room just erupts. Oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? It’s gonna be crazy. But for me, I could­n’t… Look­ing at what was going on, I knew that the world need­ed heal­ing, not more divi­sion, not more anger, not more resent­ment, not more bit­ter­ness. It need­ed heal­ing, and to me, what I’ve expe­ri­enced in my life, racism and all of the many things that plague the hearts of men are heart issues, and those things are not gonna change by a move­ment, they’re not gonna change by an orga­ni­za­tion, a polit­i­cal par­ty, a pres­i­dent, they’re gonna change by the gospel, help­ing us to see each oth­er in the way that we should see each oth­er, and to see God in the way that we should see God. And so I knew that love was gonna be the thing that was gonna be the answer, because the love goes across aisle, love loves in spite of wrong­do­ing and in spite of sin. But again, once you have a moment like that, every­body just retreats to their sides and every­body’s trib­al and says, this is what we want. And so I said to myself, I can’t think of a bet­ter anti­dote for this moment oth­er than the gospel. And so with as much pres­sure that there was to kind of con­form to what every­body was doing, I said, I see your solu­tion, I hear your heart­felt desire for equal­i­ty and all these dif­fer­ent things, and your solu­tion is we’re gonna kneel for the nation­al anthem and wear this t‑shirt, and I’m say­ing, that’s not my solu­tion. I agree with you that Black Lives Mat­ter, absolute­ly, but I don’t agree with this orga­ni­za­tion, I don’t agree with the things that are going on, I wan­na share my own mes­sage. And my own mes­sage is that we all fall short of God’s glo­ry, we’re all in need of his grace, and if any­one are throw­ing… If one of us are throw­ing stones, we’re throw­ing stones from a glass house, and it’s gonna be lov­ing your neigh­bor in spite of his sin, in spite of his short­com­ings. It does­n’t mean that peo­ple don’t, they don’t face the con­se­quences of their actions, but you treat some­body the way that you would wan­na be treat­ed. And so if I was caught with the many things that I’ve done as wrong, I would want mer­cy, and I would want grace, and that’s exact­ly the way that God han­dles me. So I wan­na han­dle every­body in that same respect. And one of the things that real­ly got my atten­tion and want­i­ng to do it this way was, right before we went into the bub­ble, my pas­tor, Dr. Hep­burn, who had become my pas­tor, was preach­ing a mes­sage on, because the riots were going on at that time, the mes­sage was on when Jesus was about to be tak­en away by the Roman guard, and how Peter jumps to defend him and says, cuts off the guy’s ear and Jesus stops him. He says, you know, if you live by the sword, you’ll die by the sword. And what that kind of made alive to me was, if we are not will­ing to reach our hand across the aisle, and Jesus does reach his hand and heals the guy’s ear, the guy who’s gonna get him cap­tured and cru­ci­fied, we’re only going to per­pet­u­ate the fight that has been going on for­ev­er. Peo­ple are gonna con­tin­ue to sin, peo­ple are gonna con­tin­ue to fight, white, Black, all the dif­fer­ence, but it’s gonna be the peo­ple who are will­ing to say, you know what, I know that was wrong, but I love you, and I’m gonna choose to treat you the way that I would wan­na be treat­ed, and then we’ll see real change. And so I said, you know what, that’s the mes­sage that I wan­na spread. And the night before I was on the phone with Doc, and I was like, yo, you don’t under­stand how big this is gonna be. I’m gonna be a coon, I’m gonna be an Uncle Tom, peo­ple are gonna make this all about the flag, all the dif­fer­ent things that could have went about it. I had­n’t signed my con­tract yet, so I was up for a con­tract exten­sion that sum­mer. Peo­ple were get­ting can­celed left and right for dif­fer­ent things, and I was like, I don’t know if that’s gonna hap­pen to me, but he said to me, you can­not stand for God and God not stand for you. And I said, okay, I’m gonna do it. And the next day I decid­ed to stand and the world erupt­ed because of it. But I believed in what I was stand­ing for, and I knew that it was­n’t about me, I knew that it was­n’t about mak­ing me famous or pop­u­lar, I want­ed to, you know, the Bible says, that if Jesus be lift­ed up, he would draw all men to him­self, and that was like, man, I just wan­na lift up what Christ means to me, what Christ has done for the world, died for our sins and every­thing like that, and just pro­mote what a rela­tion­ship with him is like.

- Beau­ti­ful­ly said and so impor­tant. And the way you phrased it, what’s my response. I wrote that down. What’s the right way to respond from my per­spec­tive? And it’s okay for, when things hap­pen, hav­ing grace for dif­fer­ent respons­es, from dif­fer­ent peo­ple, for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, a lot of grace. I get it. But you gave a lot of peo­ple who were think­ing like you some courage to respond sim­i­lar­ly. Oth­er peo­ple respond­ed in oth­er ways, and that’s okay too.

- Not to cut you off, I just love…

- Cut me off. You’re bet­ter than me.

- I love that you said that because, you know, I have a con­ver­sa­tion with my team­mates the next day. And so I get called into this team-only meet­ing and guys were going at me. They were upset about me hijack­ing the move­ment or mak­ing it about me, but one of the things that I said to them was like, you guys believe in what you were kneel­ing for, but I believe in what I’m stand­ing for too, and I respect­ed your guys’ deci­sions to kneel. When we were in that meet­ing and every­body said, this is what we have to do, I did­n’t say you guys are ter­ri­ble. How could you pos­si­bly wan­na… Then I said, I respect it. You guys are grown men, you guys are mak­ing a deci­sion that you see fit for the times, I only asked for that same respect in return. And exact­ly to your point, there were so many peo­ple who were com­fort­able with shout­ing this one solu­tion, and then you have these oth­er peo­ple who may have thought like me, who were just like, ah, I don’t know if I wan­na say my solu­tion because I know that it’s gonna be shot down. And there was a hope in my heart that if I was able to come out and say what I need­ed to say, that it would encour­age and inspire the peo­ple who do believe like me, to say, you know what, I’m gonna share my solu­tion too, and I’m gonna respect oth­er peo­ple’s solu­tion. I told those guys, look, I’m not protest­ing your protest. It was­n’t about you guys, it was about you guys are mak­ing this move­ment or this protest because of what you guys believe, and I’m doing the same thing because of what I believe. And so to see peo­ple’s respons­es to the book about how I encour­age they are, and inspire they are to stand, I’m like, yes to stand.

- And that’s the key because respect­ing each oth­er and encour­ag­ing for, if that’s what you believe, okay, that’s what you believe. Again, the whole idea behind this show. And I spend time in Philadel­phia at the Nation­al Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter. I’m involved there. And cer­tain­ly peo­ple, as we talk about our coun­try and con­sti­tu­tion­al issues, have dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal views, very strong­ly held views, but we all find a way to respect each oth­er. And if some­body takes a stand, they don’t tell me mine is wrong. And if I take a stand, I don’t tell some­body else theirs is wrong. We can talk about it. And you demon­strat­ed, at such a time of divi­sion, this bridge, if you will, this abil­i­ty to have the con­ver­sa­tion where some­body say, hey, I feel val­i­dat­ed ​’cause I kind of feel like that, and oth­ers would feel like your team­mates in oth­er ways, and that’s okay, isn’t it?

- Yeah, absolute­ly. It’s okay to believe what you believe, at the end of the day. And I mean, because so many peo­ple are okay with believ­ing what they believe, and so to have the courage to stand up for what you believe in, I believe that it’s Amer­i­can. I think it’s part of what this coun­try was built on. But, yeah, you know, peo­ple are gonna dis­agree, and it’s okay to dis­agree, but because of just how crazy this world has become and because every­thing has become this moral argu­ment that, oh, if you did not kneel and you did not put on that t‑shirt, you’re imme­di­ate­ly racist, you’re imme­di­ate­ly for the oth­er side, even if you’re black. And that was one of the things that kind of struck me as, okay, some­thing isn’t right here to where this is the only way that they see, the only pos­si­ble way that they see to sup­port Black Lives is to pro­fess your alle­giance to this Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment, in an orga­ni­za­tion where I’ve seen my life in many oth­er lives count­ed for because of the gospel and because of the sav­ing grace of Jesus Christ. And so… So, yeah, so I just did­n’t agree. And I was com­fort­able enough because of these things that I have gone through in the past where I had to stand up and live out this rela­tion­ship with Christ. I’m like, I’m com­fort­able with say­ing what I feel, and, again, doing it in a way that I wan­na win the oth­er side. And peo­ple say, you know, part of it is like, but Jesus loved every­body. And it’s like, absolute­ly. We should absolute­ly love every­body, but at the same time, Jesus def­i­nite­ly still said, the king­dom of God is near repent. And so it’s like the bal­ance between lov­ing every­body, mean­ing like, do we agree with every­thing that every­body else is doing? No. I per­son­al­ly dis­agree with that. I per­son­al­ly dis­agreed with the way that peo­ple were going about that move­ment, but at the same time, I respect­ed their deci­sion to do so. And in that, was able to share what I feel as well.

- Beau­ti­ful­ly said, and very impor­tant for all of us as we think of the things we believe to respect oth­ers when they have their beliefs as well. And not that you ever shirk down or that you don’t try to con­vince them, or have the con­ver­sa­tion, or reach out and love to share what you’re think­ing and to learn what they’re think­ing. A lot of times, I thought I was right. And guess what? I’m not right that much. When I talk to peo­ple and I lis­ten, I go, ah, that’s a pret­ty good argu­ment. Okay. I may or may not accept it, but at least I learned some­thing. I’ve learned some­thing about some­thing that I did­n’t know about, and so I find out I’m wrong a lot. And it’s not my wife that’s telling me that all the time, it’s a few oth­er peo­ple too.

- That was awe­some. I’m about the same. My wife keeps me hon­est. My wife, I’m wrong quite a bit, but…

- Jonathan, just a cou­ple oth­er things here. You’ve been so gra­cious with your time. You kind of end the book with your stance, again, on mak­ing a deci­sion about your belief on the whole COVID thing, with vac­ci­na­tions and not, and again, an incred­i­bly con­tro­ver­sial thing. And, again, with­out try­ing to dig in too deep, again, just anoth­er exam­ple, but anoth­er exam­ple where tak­ing your stand, and many oth­ers have tak­en dif­fer­ent posi­tions on this thing as well, you do it in a way that respects oth­ers, but that gar­ners respect for your posi­tion as well. Even though peo­ple tried to por­tray you dif­fer­ent­ly, you still stood up strong in that dis­cus­sion as well.

- Yes, sir. And peo­ple are gonna do that regard­less of what­ev­er you do. You could lay it out as plain­ly as you want to, but peo­ple are gonna take it and run with it in the way that they see fit. But, again, the same sit­u­a­tion with the vac­cine where it was like, I don’t feel that this thing is right for me. And in this moment, I wan­na stand up for the peo­ple who are los­ing their jobs, the peo­ple who are hav­ing their reli­gious and med­ical exemp­tions denied over COVID. And so, yeah, I just decid­ed to do that as well, then I had the plat­form to be able to do it because I’m in the NBA, because there was that press con­fer­ence that kind of went viral. But, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, exact­ly. And my… This kind of maybe brings me to some clos­ing thoughts. So you have a record now of stand­ing for what you believe and doing it in a way that’s respect­ing oth­ers. Tell us about the future for Jonathan Isaac. How do you see your future? You are build­ing on this, and you’re recent­ly mar­ried. Lit­tle less than a year now, if I recall, that you’re mar­ried, you’re cre­at­ing a new life for you and your wife, and so hap­py for you. So tell us, what does Jonathan Isaac think about the future? ​‘Cause your book stops, but you don’t.

- Right, right. The way that I feel is that, as the world con­tin­ues to get dark­er, which it will, stand­ing up for what you believe in is only going to become more nec­es­sary, but also only hard­er to do. And so what I’m hop­ing is that, by the book and by hav­ing these con­ver­sa­tions, is that we can cul­ti­vate this inspi­ra­tion and enthu­si­asm for peo­ple to say, you know what, I’m going to stand up for what I believe in no mat­ter what, and I’m gonna do it in love and respect for every­body else’s posi­tion, but, like you said, to gar­ner respect for my posi­tion as well. And so I just want to con­tin­ue to do that. There’s been talks about the book being turned into a movie, and so I’m excit­ed about that. It looks like it’s gonna hap­pen. And so, I may add actor to the list. I don’t know.

- There you go.

- But, yeah, it’s like the more that I have leaned into God hav­ing a pur­pose for my life, the big­ger that it’s got­ten in my eyes, and it’s, to some degree, over­whelm­ing about where I could see him tak­ing me or this thing going, but I just try my best to kind of just walk through it humbly and fig­ure it out as I go along. But, again, I have such great peo­ple in my life that are men­tor­ing me and guid­ing me. Dr. Hep­burn is still right by my side, my wife, my fam­i­ly, and my church fam­i­ly as well. And so, yeah, so I’m gonna just keep it going. I wan­na be an advo­cate for peo­ple who have strug­gled with anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and fear, and let them know that you can defeat those things through a rela­tion­ship with Christ and real­ly encoun­ter­ing what uncon­di­tion­al love is real­ly like. Yeah.

- Well, that’s won­der­ful, and you have con­tin­ued to demon­strate that with your activ­i­ties in the com­mu­ni­ty. And, you know, so many ways, you… By your exam­ple, you’re an inspi­ra­tion, but you also an exam­ple that, if I can put the words in your mouth, to say, hey, if I can do it, you can do it too.

- Oh my gosh.

- Are you telling us that?

- And that’s why I say peo­ple have to read the sto­ries because so many peo­ple, and I always stop them, so many peo­ple look at me today and say, oh my gosh, you’re so artic­u­late, and you’re so this, and you’re so that, and I’m like, lady, you have no idea about… You know, which is where I come from and what I’ve expe­ri­enced. And I don’t say it in a rude way, but I just, I want them to see that the only rea­son that I’m here, the only rea­son that I’m doing any­thing that I’m doing is because I’ve not only found a rela­tion­ship with Christ, but that I’ve giv­en myself to it and I’ve tried my best to do it not per­fect­ly at all. I’ve tried my best to give myself to my rela­tion­ship with Christ. And I’ve grown. I’ve grown as a man. And, you know, what I want peo­ple to walk away from the book is say­ing, how the heck could this guy who strug­gle with all these dif­fer­ent things be the only one to stand in this moment? It has to be because not only his rela­tion­ship with Christ is real, but because Jesus is real, and ulti­mate­ly point them to hav­ing a rela­tion­ship with Christ. And so, yeah. So, you know, noth­ing with­out the grace of God, and the only rea­son why I’m here is because he is no per­sons. And if he could do this for me, then he could absolute­ly do it for any­body. And to also just con­tin­ue to push on the truth that you can­not stand for God and God not stand for you. The only rea­son the book is here, the only rea­son that it could be a pos­si­ble movie is because I did­n’t stand for myself, I did­n’t stand for my own log­ic and my own rea­son­ing, I stood because I believe that Jesus Christ is the answer.

- Well, that pret­ty well sums it up, my friend. And that’s beau­ti­ful­ly said, beau­ti­ful­ly stat­ed, and beau­ti­ful­ly lived in so many ways. So thank you, Jonathan. Thank you so much for tak­ing the time to encour­age us, and to not only inspire us, but encour­age us to, and I like how you said it. It’s not just your rela­tion­ship with Christ, it’s Christ him­self that you’re point­ing to. And so, Jonathan, thank you so much for tak­ing your time to be with us.

- Thank you so much for hav­ing me, Doug. I’ve enjoyed this thoroughly.

- All right, fan­tas­tic. And to all of our lis­ten­ers, I trust you’ve enjoyed this thor­ough­ly as well. Jonathan is a won­der­ful per­son as you can hear. And if you get a chance to get the book, I’d high­ly encour­age it. You’ll read and learn even more. So thank you for join­ing us about how peo­ple can use their plat­forms. And remem­ber that we all have plat­forms to express what we believe and do it in a way that express­es not only what we believe, but the respect and love we have for oth­ers. So thanks for join­ing us on ​“Believe!” and we’ll look for­ward to see­ing you all next time.