The Hidden Life

— by Henry Kaestner

At first glance (or in this case, listen), this sermon delivered by Ryan Jones at Reality San Francisco doesn’t have much to do with entrepreneurship.  This isn’t one to listen to if you want to crack the code on how to hire or fire folks, or even how to set a culture. But if you listen to it I think that you’ll come way feeling that it was written for you, the entrepreneur, and that you’re better for having listened to it.  I bet you forward this to at least one person.

Ryan starts off with something we all struggle with as business owners, our positioning and identity.  How we package ourselves to the rest of the world. He gently but deliberately chastises us (or maybe he was just talking to me?) about looking at view counts and likes.  I found this particularly challenging in this the week of Faith Driven Entrepreneur’s launch when I have hit the refresh button on our analytics package to see updated visitor counts at rates that I can’t bring myself to admit in front of you, an audience that I’d like to believe thinks I’m above that :).

Ryan tackles 3 issues head on that every business owner wrestles with: identity, motives and generosity and he lays them bare with an honest and vulnerable confession that I think we can all see ourselves in.

I think that Ryan really finds his form with about 15 minutes to go, so don’t skip out early on this one.  It’s not just about how we handle our identity in public, it’s about something much deeper and he unpacks that very, very well at the end.

Great quote:  “I got exactly what I was looking for”.....see if you can find it and let’s think as a group, what indeed are we looking for.  We’re on a path to get it. Let’s be sure it’s the right thing. Ryan helped me to understand what that right thing was in a way no one else has before.  I hope it’ll impact you the same way.

Editor's Note: for those of you who like to listen to your sermons on a commute or during a workout here's a link for just the audio off of iTunes (it's also available on Android at the Reality SF Podcast)

Thanks to Unsplash and Valou_C for the cover photo