Hey,

Have you ever heard of Carl Lentz?

Up until not too long ago, he was the lead pastor at Hillsong Church in New York City…

And his tagline was, “Pastor to the Famous and the Nameless.”

That was actually a pretty apt tagline…

Because in addition to preaching to thousands of folks in person, and countless others online…

Folks like Justin Bieber, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Jay Z, Bono, Selena Gomez, Nick Jonas, and others all previously looked to Lentz as their spiritual leader.

A few months back though, all of that changed…😳

With the bombshell allegations that he’d had an extramarital affair during COVID-19.

The fallout has been pretty swift…

Bieber unfollowed him…👎

He was fired from his position at Hillsong Church…

And, frankly, the media has been having a field day…

With reports and articles about Carl’s “fall from grace” popping up regularly in NBC News, The New York Times, The NY Post, Vanity Fair, Variety, People, TMZ and more.

Personally, I sat next to Carl Lentz during a four-hour-long dinner in LA a little over a year ago…

And honestly, he was a pretty nice guy.

The context on that is that he was a member of the 100MM Mastermind that Joel Marion and Dan Fleyshman created…

So I spent a whole weekend around the guy…

And watched him give a talk on stage.

Like I just mentioned, he seemed cool enough…

Though at least one high-level marketer and friend of mine sniffed out something amiss right away…

And told me that he thought that the Pastor was full of shit.

That same friend texted me last night pointing out all the stuff going on about Carl Lentz…

I texted back that he was “spot on”…

And then, that was about it.

Except not really, because here I am writing this blog post.

Well, the reason I’m writing…

Is because as I’ve been thinking about the downfall of ol’ Carl Lentz that morning…

The one word that keeps popping into my mind is “empathy.”

It sucks the dude cheated on his wife (he’s got two kids as well)…

And there are reports that he was sexting with another women as well…

Along with some stories of him being kind of arrogant and full of himself at times.

There’s even a salacious story of him acting like a “womanizing manwhore” at Jennifer Lopez’s private Super Bowl party last year…

So again, not a good look.

And yet, be all that as it may…

When I think about it…

What good comes from me taking pride, or glee, in another man’s downfall?

What good does that do any of us?

I really believe that when we take pleasure in the downfalls of those on a pedestal…

It’s because it makes us feel better about ourselves, and our own shortcomings.

“Well see, he wasn’t that great after all. He was actually full of crap. He was a hypocrite. He was a douchebag.”

It’s like yeah, all of those things are actually true…

But why do we need to see others fail to feel better about ourselves, right?

This is something I’ve thought about for a while…

And so I really try to practice empathy in these types of situations…

I feel bad for Carly Lentz and I feel bad for his family.

The guy is just a human, like the rest of us…

I’m sure he’s got his angels and his demons…

And at some point, the demons started to win out…

Leading him astray.

Or hell, maybe he was always an a-hole…

I don’t know…

But more likely, he’s a sum of his entire life…

A product of good experiences and negative experiences…

Of healthy relationships and toxic relationships…

Of altruistic thoughts, and lustful moments.

Like I said, he’s a human…

So rather than taking satisfaction in another man’s life falling apart…

I’m just gonna pray for the guy…

And hope that he becomes a better man from this experience and that he comes out stronger and better both personally…

And in his relationships…

As a result of everything that is happening to him.

– SPG

P.S. If you want the copywriting application here, it’s pretty obvious: empathy also makes you a better writer. The more you can understand others, and view different perspectives, the more you can connect with folks. So if you don’t care about bettering yourself, it’s still worthwhile to practice empathy for the simple sake of improving your writing. And hey, who knows, maybe with practice you’ll actually become more empathetic too.

P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.