AFR Men’s Summit Speaker Series — Speaker #7 of 8 Summit: The Power of Asking for Help — Creating the American Family Renaissance Date: September 14, 2026 · Online, join from anywhere Meet the full lineup: americanfamilyrenaissance.org/summit/speakers Reserve your seat for this No Cost Event: AmericanFamilyRenaissance.org/summit/#register
Let me ask you something, and I want you to actually answer it before you keep reading.
When was the last time you sat down with God, not prayed on the move, not thrown up a request in traffic, and not read a devotional on your phone while the coffee brewed, but actually sat down in a chair with time on the clock and waited to hear from Him?
For most men I coach, the honest answer is that they can’t remember. And these are believing men. Church men. Men who would tell you without hesitation that God is real, that He’s good, and that He cares about their lives.
They believe He’s available. They just live like He’s busy.
So, they carry the business decision alone. The marriage strain alone. The fear about their son alone. They pray about it the way you’d text a colleague who probably won’t get back to you, and then they go handle it themselves, because that’s what men do.
There’s a second chair sitting empty in almost every man’s life. Bob Beaudine has spent years explaining what’s in it. On September 14, he’s bringing that message to our men.
Who Bob Beaudine Is
Here’s what makes Bob Beaudine’s message land the way it does: he didn’t arrive at faith because nothing else worked. This is a man operating at the absolute top of one of the most competitive industries on earth.
- President and CEO of Eastman & Beaudine, which, under his leadership over four decades, became one of the nation’s leading executive search firms in sports and entertainment.
- He pioneered executive search in professional sports when he was chosen to lead the search for the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
- Sports Illustrated called him “the most influential man in sports you’ve never heard of” and also named him the top front-office matchmaker in the business. The Wall Street Journal named his firm the top recruiting firm in college sports.
- He has helped shape the senior leadership of NBA, MLB, NFL, and NHL franchises and league offices, university athletic departments nationwide, plus the PGA Tour, USTA, U.S. Olympics, NASCAR, and UFC.
- National bestselling author of The Power of WHO! and 2 Chairs, a USA Today and Publishers Weekly national bestseller.
- He has spoken for Nike, ExxonMobil, AIG, Madison Square Garden, the Los Angeles Lakers, NBC, and FOX, keynoted for Major League Soccer and the NCAA, headlined the Texas Conference for Women at the invitation of the First Lady of Texas, and spoken to tens of thousands of college students at more than forty universities.
- National media including the Today Show, Fox Business, Fox & Friends, The Dave Ramsey Show, and CNBC’s Power Lunch.
- Board service with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the Positive Coaching Alliance, and formerly the Texas Rangers during their back-to-back American League Championship run.
Now here’s the credential I’d put above all of it, and I don’t say that lightly.
Bob and his wife Cheryl have been married more than forty years. Three daughters. Five grandchildren.
Read that alongside the list above it. Over the same four decades he was building one of the most respected firms in the country, he was building a marriage and a family that has lasted—the two growing side by side, neither one funded by the other. That’s the message of this entire summit standing up in one man’s life. What Bob practices in that second chair every morning shows up in the boardroom and at his dinner table. When he tells you about a God who is always available, he isn’t describing a theory. He’s describing what he’s built his life on.
Learn more at bobbeaudine.com.
What Bob Is Speaking On
Bob’s summit session is the one that takes this entire day vertical:
The God who is always available, and why most men never pull up a chair.
Look at where this falls in the lineup, because the placement is deliberate.
Scott showed you how to connect. Chris exposed the lie. Tom set the foundation. Jim broke the silence. Vince gave you the brotherhood. Bob Tiede showed you that asking is how the strongest leaders lead.
Six sessions, all pointed horizontally, at other men.
Bob Beaudine turns the whole thing upward. Because a man can have the connections, the humility, the framework, the brotherhood, and the courage to ask other men for help and still be missing the only help that never runs out, never gets busy, and never gets tired of him.
His book 2 Chairs is built on a simple premise with enormous weight: when trouble comes, and it will, you sit down and put out a second chair. Then you work through three questions. Does God actually know what you’re facing? Is any part of it beyond His ability to handle? Does He have a good plan for you?
If a man answers those three honestly, everything downstream changes. Not the circumstances necessarily. The man.
The Problem He’s Solving
Here’s the trap, and it’s specifically a capable man’s trap.
The more competent you are, the less you reach for God. Not because you stopped believing, but because you stopped needing to, in any practical daily sense. You’ve got the skills, the network, the track record. You can usually figure it out. So, prayer slowly migrates from your operating system to your emergency kit.
Then one of these shows up:
- A diagnosis you can’t out-work.
- A kid making choices you can’t out-argue.
- A marriage where being right stopped helping years ago.
- A business failure, a betrayal, or a loss that no amount of competence touches.
And you discover that the relationship you needed to already have in place is one you’ve been putting off building for fifteen years. You’re trying to learn to hear God’s voice in the middle of the storm, which is the hardest possible time to start.
Bob’s answer is not more religious activity. It’s a chair. It’s the discipline of showing up daily, before the day starts, and giving God the first conversation instead of the last resort. It’s the difference between a man who knows about God and a man who actually talks with Him.
And a man who has that? He walks into the hard thing already anchored. That’s what Bob is bringing.
Why I Asked Him — and How We’re Working Together
I want to be careful here, because this is the point where a lot of men’s events go soft and say something forgettable about faith. So let me be straight with you.
Everything I teach with American Family Renaissance and True Man Life Coaching sits on a single foundation: Know God. Know Yourself. Live Fully.
Notice the order. Knowing yourself comes second. Living fully comes third. Neither one works without the first, because a man cannot know who he is until he knows Whose he is. Identity is not something you generate. It’s something you receive. That’s the entire premise of the work I do, and it’s why AFR leads with God in God, Family, Country.
Bob Beaudine’s message is that first step, made practical. He’s not asking men to feel more spiritual. He’s giving them a chair, a time, and three questions.
Here’s the other reason his session matters so much on this particular day. The whole summit is called The Power of Asking for Help. Seven speakers spend the day making the case that a man was never meant to carry his life alone. But if we stop at asking other men, we’ve only told you half of it—and honestly, the smaller half. Men will fail you. Mentors move away, friends get busy, and even the best brotherhood has limits.
The second chair never empties. That’s the part that holds when everything else gives.
There’s a connection in this lineup worth mentioning, too. Tom Ziglar—our Speaker #3—endorsed 2 Chairs, and his endorsement made the point I keep coming back to: one chair by itself is not enough. Zig’s son, vouching for this message, was on the same stage. That’s the fifth or sixth time in building this summit that I’ve watched these men’s paths cross before I ever made an introduction. I’ve stopped being surprised.
And there’s one more. Scott Schilling connected me to Bob Beaudine, and I am so glad he did.
Think about what that means. Scott, our opening speaker, is on this stage because I asked him for help. Scott then introduced me to Chris Widener. And Scott introduced me to Bob Beaudine. One man’s yes produced three of the eight sessions you’ll experience on September 14. If you ever wanted evidence that asking for help compounds, there it is on the schedule.
Bob was incredible to speak with. Gracious, generous with his time, and carrying a message he clearly believes down to the floor. And 2 Chairs: The Secret That Changes Everything is a book I’d put in the hands of every man I coach because it doesn’t ask you to feel differently, it asks you to sit down. There’s an enormous amount to be learned in those pages, and the best part is how usable it is. You can start tomorrow.
I’m also looking forward to Bob’s upcoming book, and I look forward to helping him spread the word about it. The idea that a simple morning routine of two chairs can lead a man into deeper intimacy with God is exactly the kind of practical, foundational truth American Family Renaissance exists to put in front of men. That’s not a one-time speaking slot. That’s a partnership I intend to keep building.
Bob pulls up the chair. I’ll close the day asking every man in that room to finally sit down in it — with God first, and then with other men.
Why You Should Be in the Room
If you believe God is available but you live like He’s unavailable, this session is for you.
If your prayer life is mostly emergencies, this session is for you.
If you’re carrying something right now that no person on earth can actually fix, this session is the one you came for, whether you know it yet or not.
If you’re succeeding at everything except the part of your life that will matter in thirty years, listen to the man who spent forty years at the top of professional sports and still came home to the same wife. He knows something.
Here’s what Bob’s session gives you:
- A practical daily discipline, not a vague call to be more spiritual—a chair, a time, and a place to start tomorrow morning.
- Three questions that reframe any trouble you’re facing — small or catastrophic — from a national bestseller that has walked hundreds of thousands of readers through exactly that.
- The one relationship that makes every other one in this summit work. Brotherhood is essential. It is not sufficient. Bob explains the difference.
The Details
The Power of Asking for Help — Creating the American Family Renaissance Eight world-class speakers. One transformational day. Built for men who are done drifting and ready to lead.
September 14, 2026 · Online · Join from anywhere
Bob Beaudine speaks seventh, following Scott Schilling, Chris Widener, Tom Ziglar, Jim Britt, Vince Miller, and Bob Tiede—and I’ll close it out.
Reserve your seat now → Meet all eight speakers →
Seats are limited. The chair has been empty long enough.
Build the Man. Strengthen the Family. Restore the Nation.
About the Author
Mike Van Pelt (MVP) is the Founder of American Family Renaissance and True Man Life Coaching — a movement dedicated to restoring the foundation of God, Family, and Country by rebuilding the heart of the man. He is the author of True Man True Ways: A Roadmap of Discovery to the Masculine Heart, host of the True Man Podcast with 250+ episodes, and creator of the Master Class The 9 Marks of a Restored Man. Through coaching, speaking, and brotherhood, Mike helps Christian men break isolation, reclaim their God-given identity, and lead their families with faith, character, and conviction.
Know God. Know Yourself. Live Fully.