— by Kristy Edwards

Have you ever felt called to do something, and you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was God telling you to do it? 

I have. I deeply believe that my business, Neatly Balanced, is my calling. It may sound a little cliche or even indulgent – but I know for sure it is what I am supposed to be doing right now. 

I started Neatly Balanced to provide total home organization to clients. What is total home organization, you ask? It means getting rid of items clients no longer need and donating to various organizations that help those less fortunate. I also provide donation receipts so clients can see where their things go while also receiving a tax write-off. 

But how did I know that Neatly Balanced was my calling? Let me tell that story.

Every Calling Has a Story

It seems to me that every calling has a spark, a flashbulb moment where everything changes. It can be as simple as spending a summer afternoon playing with a DIY radio kit or grinding coffee beans with your mom. Or it can be something transformative, like coming up with a financial tool after God miraculously saves your family from debt.

But in almost every case, you know you’ve been called if there’s a story behind your “why.”

This idea for Neatly Balanced came to my mind years before it came to fruition, after a mission trip to Honduras in 2011. 

I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, to parents who gave me a simple and, in many ways, idealistic childhood. I was raised in a stable, two-parent family unit, and four years after I was born, a sister joined our family. We grew up not realizing we didn’t have a lot, because all we could dream of, we had. Dad worked at the Sheriff’s Department as a policeman, and my mom was a teacher before we were born but was a stay-at-home mom for the majority of our childhood. We were in church every time the doors were open and then some. I had a strict upbringing in every sense. I was always in church without question, and couldn’t date until I was sixteen, but because I was a product of the 80s, social media, and phones weren’t even a thought because they hadn’t been created yet. 

Fast forward to 2010, when my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. The disease quickly spread to his liver, and four months after he was diagnosed, he died. To say that has impacted every facet of my life since is the biggest understatement of my life. I miss him every day. 

One year after my father passed away, we took a mission trip to build a chapel in a very remote village in Honduras. The chapel was named in my dad’s memory. While we were there, I witnessed the happiest people I’ve ever met, people who had absolutely nothing but the shirts on their backs. Most did not have shoes, and they gave us their food so we could eat.

On the last day, a lady in a bakery discovered I was an American, and when I explained I was a nanny and asked to hold her baby, she tried to GIVE her baby girl to me. 

Then and there, Neatly Balanced was born.  

I was astounded that Americans have SO much, but we always want more. More, bigger, better. The people we met in Honduras didn’t have many material possessions, and yet they had the biggest smiles on their faces. Seeing their experiences inspired me to bring joy to my little corner of the world by showing clients how to not just survive but THRIVE on less. 

Calling is Personal

I have a past that includes sexual assault, unwed pregnancy, and a miscarriage. I’ve spent many years trying to figure out how all that looked for me – as a girl who grew up in a strict Christian home. These experiences ultimately brought me closer to God after the mission trip when the woman tried to give me her baby. It brought all my past full circle, and I felt like God was speaking to me through this woman in Honduras in terms of how I lost a baby and she was trying to give me hers. 

I knew God was telling me something, I just wasn’t entirely sure what it was, then.

You see, for almost twenty years, my sexual assault, pregnancy, and miscarriage were my deepest secret that no one knew about. I was ashamed and felt like I had disappointed everyone who thought I was a perfect “good girl.” After lots of therapy, journaling, and personal work, I founded Neatly Balanced and realized we ALL have junk that needs sorting and cleaning out. 

Many internal issues come from undealt with junk. That’s where my business comes in. By cleaning out the clutter in clients’ attics and storage spaces, I’m able to help clients pinpoint other issues in their life that need to be sorted through as well to find more inner peace. God is still working in my life, but it’s so fulfilling to be able to let my personal story fuel my business.

Calling is Public

I travel nationwide sharing my story with teens, high school, college students, young adults, and moms. In this process, I’ve learned that God loves us exactly where we are, BUT He loves us too much to leave us there. I use my story as a launching pad to share with others how one or two bad choices do not have to dictate the path your life takes. 

I think that when we’re called to something, we feel an innate desire to share it. In a way, our callings are our testimonies. And as we read in the gospels, we’re supposed to let our lights shine in places of darkness. It is incredible to be able to share my testimony of walking through brokenness and finding healing in my identity in Christ, as part of the reason why I’ve started my business. Total home organization is part of the narrative of who God has created me to be. 

What Are You Called to Do?

One of the stories that encouraged me when I started my business is about the little boy on the seashore, which goes like this: A young boy was walking along the edge of the ocean, picking up stranded starfishing and throwing them back in the water. And old man came across the boy and grumbled, “You’re never going to save them all.” The boy picked up a starfish, threw it in the ocean, and said, “I saved that one.” 

Every single day a client will donate something and say something like, “I don’t know who could possibly need this,” and an hour later, I’ll get a text from one of the organizations I work with asking for the exact item. When I drop off donations, someone at the organization will almost always say, “We needed more of these so badly!” 

Knowing that I’ve made a difference in even just one client’s life feels SO good. I know I can’t change or fix every person’s problems, but if I can help them experience the joy of generosity, I feel that I am truly changing the world little by little. And perhaps this is the heart of finding calling – using our gifts and talents to bless others, one day at a time. 

At Faith Driven Entrepreneur, we’re passionate about helping people like you find their callings. Keep diving in and read our article “What Does it Mean to be Called?”

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Entrepreneurs are all too familiar with disappointment. 

We battle negativity on a daily basis. We face criticism and fight comparison. And yet, you probably desire to inspire your employees, your stakeholders, and clients with the vision you have for your endeavor. How can you stay positive and enthusiastic in the midst of loss and rejection? 

Today’s guest, Jon Gordon is known as the ‘king of positivity,’ and he’s joining us today to talk about the impact that positive leadership, positive teams can have on your business. 

Jon Gordon is a husband, father, and author. His best-selling books and talks

have inspired millions of readers and audiences around the world. He is the author of The timeless classic The Energy Bus, The Carpenter, Training Camp, The Power of Positive Leadership, The Power of a Positive Team, and his latest The One Truth. 

When he’s not running through airports or speaking to businesses, hospitals or schools, you can find him playing pickleball and taking long walks which are when he gets most of his ideas. He joins us to share about the power of optimism in a way that will inspire you to take action and start applying these concepts. 

If you like this episode, be sure to leave a review, click the follow button, and share the show with others.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: So, William, when you woke up this morning, what level of positivity if there was a positivity ladder, where were you on the ladder?

William Norvell: Oh, I’m going to be pretty high today, which may be shocking, but here’s why. My wife and I have violated the children. Don’t sleep in your bed policy. And so my five year old and my three year old just they sleep on us every night. And so we we may be terrible parents. I don’t know. Maybe Jon is going to tell me about that here in a minute. But the coolest thing ever is my little three year old little girl. Every morning when she wakes up, she crawls over, my wife comes right up to my ear and goes, I love you. And then whispers in my ear. So I woke up pretty good today. I was pretty positive.

Rusty Rueff: That’s pretty good. I did not wake up as positive as you woke up this morning. There was kind of a long night and got up and I had a run that I was going to do this morning. A lot on my mind wanted to be prepared for this. And, you know, so I would say my positivity ladder was about halfway up, about halfway up. But whether yours was high. Mine was halfway up. Our guest today is going to tell us how to go all the way up to the top of the ladder and how to be positive even in times when, you know, as entrepreneurs, we’ve got rejection, we’ve got questions, we’ve got all of those things. But Jon Gordon is here with us. If you’re on this podcast and you have not heard of Jon’s name, then you’re living under a rock someplace because he’s a bestselling author. He’s our fantastic speaker and we are so honored and privileged to have you with us, Jon. So welcome into the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast.

Jon Gordon: Great to be with you guys. It’s exciting to talk to you.

Rusty Rueff: It’s just great to have you with us. So William and myself and Henry is going to be joining us as well on the podcast. You know, what we would like to do is just jump in, have you speak directly to our audience who are thinking, you know, how can I be positive in this crazy, current, unpredictable market that I’m in? And with so many things swirling around us. So just jump in and give us your best wisdom to get the conversation going.

Jon Gordon: Well, as a Christian, we are meant to be positive and we’re supposed to be positive. We are supposed to be the people of faith. And that’s where real positivity comes from. It comes from our faith. It comes in our belief, it comes in our trust in God that no matter what circumstance we’re in, that he is greater than our circumstance, that our faith is greater, and that the circumstance doesn’t define us, that inside of us, God gives us the power to overcome our circumstance. And so you’re going to face challenges. You will face adversity. You will face negativity, but you can rise above it with optimism and belief. And this is not like fake positivity. It’s not about seeing the world through rose colored glasses. It’s like knowing that you have the power to overcome the thorns. It’s not about ignoring reality. It’s about maintaining optimism, belief and faith in order to create a better reality. And, you know, as a person who is a man of faith and a Christian entrepreneur myself, I’m often actually surprised at how many Christians are actually not optimistic and positive when our faith calls us to be that way. I call that being a Christian atheist because you actually act like there’s no God when really you should trust in God in your circumstances and in your challenges. I remember opening up a restaurant, a second mortgage, my home, $20,000 in credit cards, and I was not a Christian at this point. And I was so fearful. I was terrified. I put everything on the line. And I remember that’s where my faith was born. That’s where I started to pray every single day and literally just pray to pray and cried out to God. I called them like Jerry Maguire’s moment, God, show me the money. God, somehow, someway. Show me the money. And it’s really where I saw God’s faithfulness, where I remember saying, God provide for me and my family and I will do your work. It’s incredible how God showed up in so many different ways. And, you know, when the pandemic hit, that’s where my faith also grew the most, because I saw, again, his faithfulness once again, where I just turned to him and relied on him. I remember everything being shut down. I remember everything closing. I’m a writer and speaker. We do consulting and training and everything was closing. All our business was being shut down. No one was making money. And I used to let employees and I was looking at the ppp money of taking it from the government. And I applied for it and I’ll never forget applying. And then literally I heard God say it wasn’t like an audible voice, but it was like, rely on me, rely on me. And I went on my way. If I said, We can’t take money from the government, God is saying rely on him. And so she understood. She was fully supportive and we did not take money and we relied on him. And it was the best year of my life financially as an author and speaker, believe it or not, that year during COVID. Again, seeing his faithfulness now, you might be saying, well, if you’re listening to this, that’s just you, Jon. You’re fortunate. You’re lucky. Now, I’ve gone through a lot of tough times. I’ve gone through many moments of almost being bankrupt. I used to be very negative and naturally negative. And I grew up in Long Island, New York, in a Jewish, Italian family. A lot of food, a lot of guilt, a lot of wine, a lot of whining. So I naturally struggle with it. My dad, a New York City police officer, undercover narcotics, that’s who I grew up with. He saw the world is out to get you. You would get up in the morning Good morning dad, he’d say, What’s so good about it? And when I started speaking, my dad said, I can’t believe people pay you to speak. We pay you to shut up. When you were a kid, that was my dad. It was like Archie Bunker meets, you know, Al Bundy. And so growing up in that environment, in that family, I really struggled with negativity and pessimism and so forth. And it was really at 31 years old, losing my job during the dot.com crash and being fearful and anxious and worried and stressed out all the time and then taking it out of my wife in terms of just being negative to her, blaming her for why our life was not great and why I was not realizing my dreams. That literally was a defining moment where she said, If you don’t change, we’re over. And so I said, How could I turn this around? I wanted to change. And that began my journey. I decided to open up the restaurant. That’s when I second mortgage. The home started to think, I want to write and speak. I’m going to do this. So I had to search for ways to be more positive.

Rusty Rueff: And you’re in your early thirties at that time.

Jon Gordon: 31 – 31, so the greatest challenge of my life led to the greatest assignment of my life and taught me faith along the way. So I just want people to know when I share that, that my faith is born out of real life circumstances. And it actually comes from the real God who gives me the faith to believe.

Rusty Rueff: Thank you for sharing that, by the way. I mean, without understanding where someone’s come from to where they are. It’s hard for us sometimes to feel that genuineness and authenticity. So thank you so much for doing that. And where did this feeling of, you know, positivity could be the thing that I could really grasp on to and help others. When did that show up?

Jon Gordon: That happened when I was 31, when my wife threatened to leave me. And so I was researching ways that could be more positive. This was during the emerging field of positive psychology, because I wanted to be more positive. And so now I’m researching all these ideas and how I can be more positive. And I started to take a walk of gratitude every day. And the research shows you can’t be stressed and thankful at the same time. So the more you’re feeling grateful and the more you’re feeling blessed, you will not feel stressed. And so doing that every day, day in and day out of gratitude, which eventually turned into prayer. And so then I started to pray. And doing that really helped me a lot. But what I realized in my journey was initially I was trying to be more positive based on my own self, my own positivity, which was noble and again, try to do it. It worked. I started to have some success, but it never got rid of the pit that I had in my stomach and never got rid of the angst that I truly felt. It ultimately did not go away, no matter how much I tried. Only when I gave my life to Jesus. At 35 years old, 2007 was I baptized only when I did that? Did the real change the inner work within me start to happen. And it’s funny, we were supposed to do this podcast a while ago and then we’ve had some blips along the way. But my new book, The One Truth, just came out, and I don’t think there’s an accident that we’re doing this now, because the one truth explains that the more you’re one with God, the more you feel power and joy and peace and love and purpose, the more you feel separate from God, You feel disconnected, worried, anxious, chronically stressed. And the root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide. And so when you feel anxious, you feel separate and divided with the negative thoughts. Do they separate and divide you? What is fear do separates and divide you. It makes you weak and Corinthians 6:17 says he was joined to the Lord as one spirit with him. As you become more one with God, one Spirit with God. His nature becomes your nature. His love becomes your love. His spirit starts to move through you and live through you. And that’s what happened to me. So. So what I realized was my positivity wasn’t enough on my own. I needed a greater source of positivity, the ultimate source. And once they started to tune into that tune, which is an acronym in the book, when I started to tune into God, that’s when my life started to really change. And I discovered this. But initially was, I know I need to be more positive. So I start practicing these ideas and they did help. And I do believe they help people along the way. And I’m very fortunate I get to share that with a lot of people and get to do this work. And I believe people do benefit from that. Years later, I now know why we’re tuning their brain to a higher level. Were tuning them into more of the positive, the more we actually do the work on a daily basis. We could talk more about that when you guys are ready to.

Henry Kaestner: Jon I do. I do want to talk about that, but there’s been something that’s been sick in my mind since you said it, because I think that it’s true. And a corollary to you talking about Christian atheism is to what I often think of with Christian business owners. I say, and this is surely not scientific, but I say that I’ve often said 80%, but let’s just say the majority of Christian owned businesses are not as good as their secular counterparts. And I’ve been fascinated by that over the course of the last 20 years. And we see it in some of this anecdotal. You see fish on the side of a van of a painter. There’s people that rely on their faith as a crutch a little bit, but sometimes, or maybe most of the time, Christians aren’t as ambitious about serving their customers and succeeding and delighting their customer in their employees and just really getting after it. I don’t know why that is. And yet I find that 20, 30, 40% maybe of Christian business owners do have something that is much better than the secular counterpart, and you see them outperforming. Part of the thesis behind starting Sovereign’s capital is a belief that a faith driven entrepreneur that is reliant on God has an advantage. But why is it that you see so many Christians that aren’t positive? Because I see them too, right? And some number of people this podcast right now are saying, I am a Christian, I listen to faith driven entrepreneur. But you know what? I look at this and I just see that, you know, the world is just going to hell in a handbasket. Literally, figuratively. Pardon my French. I just. I have this dour view on everything. And why is it do you think they’re Christians tend, despite having all the hope in the world, why is it, do you think the Christians might be overindexed for being curmudgeons and saying things for the opposite of rose colored glasses, to be vigilant for that and just, you know, to suss it out in our own lives?

Jon Gordon: Yeah, we’re hitting hard and we’re hitting the truth, though. And people do need the truth and they need to hear this, which is important. I thought of this a lot as I wrote The One Truth, because in the end what I’m saying is Jesus is the solution to the separation. And through Jesus, He restores you and brings you back to oneness with God. And in that oneness there is power, there is wisdom. That is how the renewing of our mind happens. And Henry, those who are renewing their minds, those who are spending time with the Father, with God, I believe, do have an advantage. I believe that’s my advantage because I pray all the time. I surrender. I trust I receive. And as I’m doing that, the wisdom comes from him, the power comes from him, the ideas come from him, the ambition comes from him. But it’s a healthy ambition. It’s not an ambition of the flesh. Romans 8:5-6, says a mind governed by the flesh leads to death. A mind governed by the spirit leads to life and peace. So it goes to the heart of the soul is the integrator between the flesh and the spirit. So here’s the deal. As a Christian, you might have accepted Jesus and received him as your Savior. So your spirit is saved, but your soul still needs healing. The soul is still encumbered by the past dysfunction, the pain and the patterns of the flesh of the past. And you haven’t fully healed or renewed your mind and your soul. And so the soul must bathe in the spirit to be renewed, to be healed. It’s sort of like taking a cucumber and put it into pickle juice. And if you do that one time, submerge it once and pull it out. That’s baptism one time. Okay, You’ve been saved. But has the pickle been transformed? No, to be transformed, it must be pickled. It must bathe in the pickle juice for a long period of time. And I think as Christians, we’re not spending time with the spirit. We’re not spending time in the Word of God and with God himself, His presence, his spirit moving through us and renewing us. So our soul is still being encumbered and living from the flesh. Fear, anxiety, worry, stress. We’re being driven by the flesh, not the spirit. Just like non-Christians. It’s why couples, couples who pray together 99% stay together. Couples who just go to church, 50% stay together. No different than unchurch. What’s the difference? The prayer and the spirit is the difference. And so they’re not living with power. And so I wrote this one truth because I recognize people want to live with power. Now, here’s the other thing. You have non-Christians that have more faith in Christians because they believe they believe in their product. They believe they’re going to be successful. They believe they’re going after it. They’re driven by the flesh in an earthly way. And that’s driving them to succeed, to make money eventually, if they don’t invest in the root and they focus on the fruit, the tree will die. So it will catch up to them and they will not have sustained success. But they also just believe in they have a lot of optimism as they’re building their product. Like Steve Jobs had a lot of belief. He wasn’t a Christian, but he had a lot of belief and vision of what he was building. As Christians, we should have the vision, we should have the belief, and then we should have the healthy ambition to do amazing work. Martin Luther said that the Christian Shoemaker honors God not by putting crosses on shoes, but by making great shoes. And so as you make great shoes and you’re driven by great craftsmanship, you’re honoring God because God loves great craftsmanship. There’s also and I’ll say one more thing, Christians also, a lot of times they don’t do great work or they don’t go after because they don’t feel worthy. So they actually think there’s a sense of I have to be humble. And so there’s a false humility there that says I have to be humble. So I can’t have big ambitions, I can’t have big goals. I can’t go after it. No. Yes, you can. If they’re God sized goals, Yes, you can. If you’re surrounding and trusting God and he gives you a vision and a plan and a purpose, if he tells you what you’re meant to do and you go after it, I truly believe I’m the best in the world at what I do in terms of leadership and building teams, because I’ve worked with the Rams, the Dodgers, the Miami Heat, I’ve worked with all these different teams, all these companies, all these leaders. I don’t think anyone’s worked with more sports teams, businesses, schools than I have, but that doesn’t make me arrogant. I know that I have this confidence because I’m here to do God’s work and he’s given me everything to do what I do. But I’m also humble knowing it all comes from him. And I know that I’m learning and growing every day and I don’t know everything and I can learn from everyone I meet. I’m confident what I do, but I’m also humble. Knowing that there’s a God and it’s not me. And so I think that’s the key. What’s driving you flesh or spirit? And more Christians need to take time to spend in the spirit.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. So it’s helpful. And I’ve never heard the pickle analogy. I may do that. It’s scent that you just allow the Holy Spirit to bathe in you, pickle. It’s hard to say. Pickle bite pickles leads to positivity, but there’s something is to victory that you really immerse yourself in how much God loves you. That and only then can you expect to be positive. Okay, I want you.

Jon Gordon: Will you receiving his spirit like prayer? P R A Y E R is an acronym I share in the book. Praise God. Repent. A, ask him for what you want. Ask him for your daily bread. Ask him for guidance. Ask him for wisdom. Y yield surrender? Y is yielded surrender? That’s the key, right? That we’re surrendering. We’re letting go of our ego, our pride, and we’re allowing God to move and work through us. So surrender. And then there’s E, which is expect when we pray and we ask, we expect God to deliver on his promises. We also expect miracles. I expect miracles all the time. And somehow, some way I keep seeing miracles. So we expect it and then we receive. And I think too often Christians, we don’t receive God’s wisdom, blessing or spirit. Now, this is not old material things. This is the blessing and the wisdom that God wants to give you to be a blessing to others, to bless through you. But God clearly wants to bless his people. And Jesus is one miracle after another is an example of that. And as you receive his blessings, which a lot of Christians don’t do a good job of, because again, they don’t feel worthy. No, I’m worthy to receive your blessings only Lord, to do your work, to make a difference and make an impact. It’s such a fine line because we can easily get caught up in the money receiving the material things, the success and all of that. But it’s always a hard posture turning back to God and surrendering to him. So the more you spend time in prayer, PRAYER while you do that each day from a really a surrender place and a hard place, it’s incredible how God will just start to move through you in a powerful way.

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. Okay, so I want to shift gears a little bit, but before I do that, I want to acknowledge, of course, a number of our faith driven entrepreneurs that are listening to you talk and saying he can’t be that good because he doesn’t work with my favorite sports team thinking about the Orioles, the Giants, the Ravens, you didn’t mention any of them. And when you do, we’re going to have you back on for the next book. But actually, you’ve written a lot of awesome books and a lot of them are up on the wall behind you. Some of us are going to watch this on video and see some of the clips. But as Rusty said at the outset, Jon has really kind of a definitive voice on this. And I love the way that you reading scripture into it. And so it makes me want to ask you one last question before I hand it off to my partner, William, which is, as you go through Scripture and you study leadership examples, which are the ones that jump out to you as saying, these are the men that embody is, so you can’t answer Jesus. Right here are the people that really embody this aspect of positivity and the work that I do that really kind of motivate me when I’m writing this book and I kind of look back to scripture, I see examples of this that are inspiration. The writing I do in the examples I look at and maybe some that aren’t that. And then you can’t on the negative side, you can’t say anything like the Bad Kings of Judah or anything like that. It would be too easy to. But as you go through and you see all these leaders in the Bible, are there some that just jump out at you as like having gotten it and some they like, gosh, you know, you can just really see the problems. This guy not able to overcome something that I end up writing about.

Jon Gordon: You know, the hard part is they can’t use Jesus. When I write a book, Positive Leadership or this book, I’m always filtering it through the lens of Jesus, because is this how he led? Think about Jesus in the wilderness, was tempted and was lied to, and he responded Every time with it is written. It is written, It is written. And actually, that’s my favorite technique that I share with people. Speak truth to the lies. Any time a lie comes that a negative thought, I call it talk to yourself, don’t listen to yourself. And I actually learned this from Dr. James Gill’s, who’s a Christian in Tampa. He owned the Iron Man and he basically was the guy who did six Double Iron Man’s double only person in history to do six, and he was 59 the last time he did it. And he was asked how he did it and he said, I’m going to talk to myself instead of listen to myself. And so that’s just a practical example. And what does that mean? Take every thought, get that. It means don’t be informed by the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind, as Paul talked about. So that’s essential. But if I think of two people, Caleb and Joshua always come to mind in terms of the promise, Yeah, I just love the story because, you know, 10 go out there and come back with a negative report and two come back and say, God with you, we can take it, we can win it. And the other people were focusing on the negative, and the pessimism is the ultimate example of that. And think about. That their descendants wandered around the desert for years, for years and years, were not allowed to enter the promised Land until they all died off because of their lack of belief. Only two were allowed to enter the promised land, and they were the ones who were optimistic. They were the positive ones. So I just think they’re the ultimate example. But I think.

Henry Kaestner: They’re also the minority, though, and I think you’re really on to something there. We were talking about before, so many entrepreneurs don’t outperform their secular counterparts, but those that really grasp it become the Caleb and Joshua and conquered nations. You also see that one, a point that you made earlier that I think is worth mentioning is the point on gratitude. Ten lepers are healed by Jesus, but out of ten, I mean, they just healed from leprosy. Only one bothers to come back and say thank you. Right. And so as a faith driven entrepreneurs, you listen in, you have to understand that the pattern of the world as you talk about it is to lead us to not thanking Jesus or to look at the giants that the other ten looked at and saying, You can’t do it. So you have to go and just like, listen, if I’m just human, I’m not going to be able to do it. And I can go through the positivity. But I have to find that thing that was common among the minority, and I think that’s what you’re getting at.

Jon Gordon: And I also think, by the way, it’s normal to have ebbs and flows. It’s natural, be negative. So I don’t judge anybody who is negative because I was quite negative. I really think it’s the journey to go from negative to positive. I think God allows us to face negativity, to give us a test. The story of the Disciples. I’m watching the Chosen right now, and I just love the Chosen as I’m watching it. You really see it play out like you get these negative guys, these incompetent followers, and they’re all negative. They’re competing with each other. And slowly but surely, Jesus over time is molding and shaping them to be in his likeness, to be who they’re meant to be. And he does the same for us. And I do think I know we’re all on a journey and we all struggle along the way, and we’re all going to at times choose the negative path. But we always have an opportunity to choose the positive road and the positive path, and that’s choosing the one with Jesus along the way and with faith and with Him. All things are possible. So God gives us test and I’m convinced more and more He gives us painful experiences, He gives us things that happen in our life that we wish didn’t happen to us. He gives us tests. Which will you choose? Will you believe the lie of the enemy during those tests, or will you choose him? Go back to the garden. I read about the garden in the One truth. The garden is the ultimate story of believing the lie and allowing the separation to take hold. Well, guess what? Every day we continue to believe the lie that outside forces have power over us. That by taking this substance or this cheap substitute will make us feel good. But it only provides relief, not restoration. So we believe the lie and we think we’re going to become more, but we actually become less. And yet God is always calling us to more so than we, the lying, become less or know the truth and become more. And that’s our choice every day. And God gives us that choice.

William Norvell: There’s amazing kind of segment to me better because I may or may not have my get used a different shirt on right now as I’m going through the Chosen always as well. My favorite scene of all time is when he calls Matthew at the end of season one and you know, he calls him out of the tax collector booth if you haven’t seen the show. And Peter, of course, being Peter like he’s been, you know, the first person to recognize Jesus, Lord, he’s come on board and he’s done everything Jesus like, whoa, not him. Like, what are you doing? He literally says, You’ve done some crazy things, but this is different. And Jesus firmly says, Get used to different. And I just love that moment because I think it speaks to everything you’ve been talking about, too. Like, if we’re expecting the same, that’s what we’ll get. But the life of Jesus is get used to different. It will look different, it will feel different. Things will come alive to you in new ways. You will see blessing and you may ask for blessings you think you want, and God gives you different blessings that you need. Right? So all of that, I want to shift a little bit the energy bus, of course, one of your famous books before the show came on. I’m a huge fan. I don’t have a Jon Gordon shirt on yet, but I’ll get one eventually. I see that one time. I want it. I want it. But entrepreneurs are intimately familiar with, right? So many things negativity, rejection, roadblocks, right? How would you encourage them to maintain that energy in the face of customers saying no fund raising, saying no, your wife telling you you made a bad choice and you shouldn’t have started a company? All of these things, how does that energy stay?

Jon Gordon: Three things. One, you got to feed yourself every day in order to feed others. If you don’t have it, you can’t share it. So you really have to take the time to feed the positive on a daily basis. For me, it’s that gratitude, walk and prayer walk and I do that, and that is feeding myself ready to take on the challenges. The mind is like a garden. You get a weed, the negative, feed the positive, do it from one day. It doesn’t do a lot, but weed the negative feed the positive for a week, for a month, for a year. That garden of your mind. Starts to look pretty amazing and magnificent and you start to produce amazing fruit in your life the more you feed that every day. So doing gratitude practice a positively practice feeding yourself every day is essential. Then there’s purpose. And purpose is essential because we don’t get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it. So what is your why? When you know your why, you’ll know the way and you’re not going to let obstacles get in the way. So the why is essential. Your purpose needs to be greater than your challenges because there can be days you get up, you don’t feel very positive. There going to be days that everything is coming at you. And maybe you’re thinking I should give up on my business. But no. My purpose in doing this business, I have this vision. I have this mission and the vision and mission propel you forward. And that’s essential. So for me, it’s always teaching leaders to get clear on their vision and their mission and their purpose. That’s what the power of positive leadership is all about. The book I wrote. That’s what the Energy bus is all about. I always tell entrepreneurs, I’m going to read three books. Definitely it’s power, Positive leadership for me, Energy, Bus and the Carpenter, which is all about loving, serving and caring and building greatness. Those three books are essential for leaders, and it’s why I wrote them, because I know how much leaders struggle because I was that leader. And I work with all these leaders who struggle and have built amazing success as a result of that. Evan SPIEGEL, who was and is the CEO and founder of Snapchat, he was struggling. His team was struggling years ago. 2017 He read The Power of Positive Leadership after it just came out, invited me to come speak to his leadership team, Napa Valley, me and his like ten leaders, and I taught them the importance of positive leadership. And some people rolled their eyes like, this is a bunch of crap, you know, and didn’t believe it. Other guys were like, No, we need this. Some people left. Other people came on and they focused on it. They completely turn around the company with this positive leadership. So that’s essential vision and mission. Where are we going and why are we going there? What are we building? What are we creating? And that will drive you every single that you talked about the Choosen, let’s face it, the disciples had a mission. They had a vision. Jesus ignited them with that. They know they were following Jesus. He was their ultimate vision of what he They follow me because along the way they didn’t have a lot of certainty at times, but they were following him. And then afterwards, after he died, after was crucified, it was a clear vision, a mission of what they had to do because they had the great commandment and the great Commission. They had what they were born to do and brought together to do. So I just love that because you’re seeing it come to life. As you read the words in the Scripture, you’re now seeing this depiction of it. My favorite scene, by the way, was when he looks at Matthew and stares at him and they make eye contact. I teared up because Matthew knows in that moment I got goosebumps. Right now he knows he’s being called. He’s being chosen in that moment and he’s looking at him and he can’t avoid it. It’s like the most powerful scene for me is just their eye contact in that moment. And I felt a similar thing for me. I grew up Jewish. My mom was Jewish, my biological father was Jewish, my wife Irish Catholic, but never went to church. We were new agers and seekers, but my wife remembers meditating and seeing a picture of Jesus. Literally, Jesus would come to her visual of Jesus, came to her in her meditations. I was meditating and I started seeing a glowing cross in my meditations. And so, like, we felt called, like we were called to that. So Vision mission is essential is what keeps me going, like every day. This is my fourth podcast. Today is my fourth hour long podcast. It’s a long time to talk for 4 hours. Honestly, I’m tired, but it’s knowing we can have an impact on some entrepreneurs listening and we can impact their life. That is what is keeping me going and sharing this one truth message I’m not getting tired of. So purpose and vision is next. And then the last one long answer is love loving your passengers. As I wrote in the energy bus, Loving people Jesus calls us to love, there really actually is a key strategy for business because the minute you focus on love, what happens? Fear dissipates and fear paralyzes us. Fear holds us back. Fear keeps us from being our best. But love casts out fear. So the minute you focus on love, what happens is you no longer worry about the outcome, the numbers. You’re not worried about what people think, you’re not worried about the expectation. You’re not letting fear drive you, which is draining. Fear is draining may give you a temporary boost of energy initially, but then it’s draining. Love is sustaining, and then many focus on love that actually will drive you forward. And if you love it, you won’t fear it. And I always think about Pavarotti, a very practical thing, Pavarotti said. Everybody wants the audience to love them. But I love the audience, and I think that’s the key to life. You love your customers, you love your team, you love competition, because competition makes us better. You love the challenges along the way because it helps you grow stronger. The minute you focus on love, you’ll be so much more powerful. And then I explain so much more why and the one truth about how love creates the oneness. Whereas fear creates separateness.

William Norvell: Hmm. Amen. I’m glad you bring that energy. I would have never known it was your fourth podcast here. You’re literally living your own advice.

Henry Kaestner: This is your favorite. Let’s just distinguish.

William Norvell: Well, we weren’t going to ask him to rank them, you know? But. But, you know, we know where we fall.

Henry Kaestner: Thank you for that Pavorotti comment. I think that’s incredibly important. We spent a lot of time with the guys from Chick-Fil-A and people talking about delighting their customer. Where does that come from? And unpack that to really have that mindset of loving your customer, loving your employees, knowing that our natural sense and where we are left without being conscious of is wanting to be loved. Right. And so if we can bring that into consciousness and then kind of reverse it and lean into it, interestingly, to the extent that we lean into loving our customers to the extent that our customer love us. Right. But you focus on the customer loving you first and all of a sudden and all that, poof.

Jon Gordon: It’s like my marriage. You know, I turn around my marriage when I said, the more I love my wife, the more I love my life. Not happy wife, happy life. The more I love her, the more I’m going to love my life. It’s about what I could do for her, how I can love her and serve her. And when I did that and by the way, I’m the guy who was left years ago because I was so miserable and negative when I did that. That changed our marriage because it was about loving and serving her and not expecting anything in return. I’m not doing this, so I get something in return. Or more intimacy, which is what we want often in our marriages. I was doing it to love her. Now we have the best marriage because I focused on that and she was always loving and giving. But the more I gave to her and served her, I saw come back tenfold. Same thing with my kids. Same thing with my customers. People always say, What’s your secret of success? I loved, served, and cared over time. Never looked for anything. Never tried to get anything. And even working with all these different coaches like I do, you know, they trust me because I’ve been there for them in their most difficult times as coaches and leaders, while other people are jumping off the bandwagon. I’m helping fix the flat tire because I’m there for them. And guess what? They trust you when they have the next success, whatever else to try to jump back on the You were there, you know, when they were at their lowest point and then you help them get to their highest point. They then thank you for being there at the highest point. So to me, that’s what it’s all about. That’s the key to life. That’s the only way to be if you truly want sustained success. By the way, I love Chick fil A In and Out Burger is one of my clients. And in and out burger, you know, they write scripture on their cups. Very strong values, very strong principles. They’ve ingrained power of positive leadership in their company. I love them. I love work with them again. There’s a difference. They are so focused on quality. They’re so focused on relationships. They’re so focused on everything they do. Their culture is so strong. You’re not allowed to make a hamburger unless you’ve worked there for a year. You really have to apprentice to make a hamburger. That’s how much quality they are. Chick-Fil-A. I’ve yet to speak the Chick fil A. I don’t know why. Like we are perfect synergistic people. I should be working with them, but I have yet to work with them for some reason. Haven’t done so. But I love what they stand for.

Rusty Rueff: Maybe somebody is listening. Jon Jay put himself out.

Jon Gordon: There that all things are possible.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, so much of I think part of our faith journey is being able to see the fruits of the work that we’ve done. And, you know, Henry, you mentioned, you know, sports teams. I saw that you work with a Clemson football team. And is there not a more positive coach in America than Davos winning? I mean, he is the most positive coach and.

Jon Gordon: He’s the best. He is the he is the best. And he is such an incredible faithful leader. Embodies everything we’re talking about. And I just love him. I’ve learned a lot from him over the years, 12 years now. We’ve worked together. We talk a lot. I just went up to visit him and played basketball with him. He’s not just positive. He’s a fierce competitor and I actually I’ve been studying this lately. There’s something about competitiveness, fierceness that actually God uses for good because I’ve been meeting a lot of pastors who actually were former athletes who are very competitive, but now they’re using it what, to become fishers of men. They’re competitive in a different way. So it’s almost like God turns around your fiercest competitiveness, but uses it for good, gives you a platform, gives you an opportunity to impact and so forth. Dabo is off the charts. Incredible. All right. Here’s how positive Dabo is. He said, If we win, if we make it to the college football playoffs, we’re going to have a pizza party in Death Valley. This was the first time they made the college football playoffs, so they make it. So now he has to have a pizza party. 80,000 people show up for this pizza party. And so he was able to somehow gather all the pizza makers from around the state and they all got together and they provided pizza. And I told them, Hey, Dabo, Jesus said even greater things that I shall you do. You know, he did it with a few loaves and some fish, but you fed 80,000 with pizza. You created a miracle. I love it.

William Norvell: Amazing what Alabama grads can. You know, I mean, it’s just shocking sometimes what University of Alabama graduates can pull off.

Henry Kaestner: Well played. Well, playing well.

William Norvell: Is going to bear that out there.

Rusty Rueff: So we’re going to let William bring this to a close. But I got one more question for you. When in your life, as you were on this journey, did you go from, Wow. I’m doing this work internally, right, to make myself more positive, to feeling called, to then take that out and start to write and start to speak and start to coach. Tell us about when that happened.

Jon Gordon: I’m having trouble staying positive right now after William just talked about Alabama, so I’m just not working on that right now. Hold on. Let me gather myself for a second. You know, like every time I watch Alabama, I have to remember Jesus said, love everybody, love your enemies. So I have to I have to love them, too. Amen. Actually, you know, spend time with dad. But you can actually appreciate and respect Alabama a lot and the love. Everybody needs a worthy opponent and they make each other better. I was interviewing Nick Saban one time and I wanted to ask Nick, Hey, Nick, what was it like losing twice to Dabo Swinney in the national championship? But I didn’t ask that question because he would probably would have hung up on me and not continued the conversation. But yeah, love the competitiveness in the sport. But for me, when did it turn around like that for me? It was right away, actually, when I realized how miserable and negative I was. I asked God what I was born to do and why I was here. And that’s when writing and speaking came to me. And I realized I was miserable because I was so focused on myself and I was trying to achieve success rather than making a difference. Because when I was in my twenties, I actually started a nonprofit organization in Atlanta called the PHENIX Organization, and we raised money and volunteered for youth focused charities. And I remember doing that, really just loving that and being alive when I was doing that. And I realized I had gotten away from that. I was so focused on success and not making a difference. And so that right away I was like, okay, I want my life to be about making a difference in others. I’m going to focus on serving others and making a difference. And the more I do that right, no matter what happens, I may not be rich, but I’ll be happy and I’ll focus on that. And that began the journey of doing that. It’s amazing. Like the more I focus on that, that’s when success came. That’s why to this day I wrote a book called The Seed, and I always say, don’t focus on success. Focus on making a difference in serving others. And success will find you whatever form that success is supposed to be. And Dr. David Jeremiah, who’s become a friend and someone I, I just love, he said Success is the fulfillment of God’s plan for your life. And I just love that that term and that definition of success is the fulfillment of God’s plan for your life. So to me, that became my definition of success as fulfilling his plan, whatever that was. So that was really immediate. Now it’s grown a lot more and it’s I’ve matured in it and I am more convicted with it. But I knew right away like that’s what I had to do to not just be happy but also to live my purpose.

William Norvell: That’s great, Jon. We’re going to move to closing in as much so, but I got to ask one more question. So entrepreneurship is an inherently risky business, right? So lots of them. We don’t really like the word failure on this podcast, but they seem to exist for some reason. Market timing wasn’t right. The business didn’t take off, you know, And of course we all know we can learn things through that. And some of the best entrepreneurs are their third or fourth company. Right. But I’m curious, we probably have some people right, that it’s not going to end how they thought it would right and how they thought God called them. And for whatever reason, the business is not going to be a wild success from a profit margin perspective, Right. What’s an encouragement to those people that are seeing that or thinking they may be there or questioning whether they have, you know, a business, but, you know, they feel called to and they’re on that journey. Right. What would you say to those people as they are listening to this and saying, gosh, like it feels like it’s just not going to work out?

Jon Gordon: Yeah, I went door to door to 7000 houses running for city council and I thought my destiny and my goal was to be in politics because I was a government economics major in turn in D.C. And so I had this chance now to hopefully be a city councilman and then eventually may be mayor of Atlanta and walking door to door. I was going to win the election and they came after me that last week. So hard, so negative, I learned with politics was all about and very naive. At the time. I was only 26, but I lost the election. And sometimes you have to lose a goal to find your destiny. And then I also started a positive cookie business, and that failed miserably because I realized it costs a dollar, tend to make the cookie and only $0.30 would be profit. So you got to spend a dollar ten to make $0.30. That’s not a sustainable model. And once I realized that, I actually had to just cut it all and take the loss, which is about $120,000. And I remember losing that thinking, Wow, I just lost all that money. But then saying, you know what? What am I meant to do? Even more now I realized I had the capacity to do something else. I had the capability, I have the energy. I thought I was just going to write and speak. What else could I? And that actually led to us building a training company and consulting. And now we’ve trained up hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of positive leaders around the world, thousands now actually from around the world with training leaders to be better leaders. I’ve now stepped into my calling even more doing this, but it wouldn’t have happened without doing the cookie. I’ve had restaurants that have failed in my twenties, opened up a restaurant in Atlanta, opened up a few others. A few succeeded. A few failed. So I have failed many times. And I know. But we’re not failing. We’re becoming. We’re growing. And maybe you’ll fail at this, but it’s meant to lead you to something else you’re meant to do. And here’s the key. Do you want to be great at it? Is it part of your mission and purpose? And if it is, you keep going. Is there another way to express and live your mission in calling? Because so often God will use multiple ways to actually live the purpose and call. It may not be your major purpose. It’s just a vehicle to live your purpose. So what else can I do that might allow me to do that? If it’s only this, then you stay with it. If there’s another way, you consider another option along the way, and God will use you for that. And again, you know, we’re going to have seasons of droughts, but it’s our character during the drought that people will remember when we have an incredible harvest. And I always say believe that a harvest is coming in the future. Maybe not with this business, but something else, and you’ll prosper in that other thing. For me, I failed and then I realized what I’m meant to do. And now I solely focus on that and mistakes along the way. But every mistake you grow, every mistake you get better and you’re not going to be perfect, but you are becoming and growing who God made you to be. And so if you’re an entrepreneur going through a challenge, just examine where you are. Examine Do I really want to continue to build this? Is this pointing me to something else, or is it just a test to grow stronger in it? And God will often reveal to you over time, maybe not right away, but the more you pray, the more you surrender, the more you trust, the more you ask for guidance and signs along the way. He’ll show you along the way. He’s shown me every time what I’m supposed to do and let go of. And he’s never been wrong. I’ve been wrong, but he’s never been wrong.

William Norvell: Love it. Love it. Okay. So we do, unfortunately, have to come to a close, which I know there’s a large exhaustive sigh from our audience like, No, no, non stop. But that’s why you wrote a book and you wrote lots of books and you do lots of podcasts. So we will obviously link in the show notes to the One Truth, your new book and some of the others. And of course, people can find you in a lot of places. I loved your podcast when I was editor Marlette. I will recommend that was so good. I think you were on for 90 minutes and we could link that in the show notes. There was such a good.

Jon Gordon: One where I was on his.

William Norvell: Yeah, where you were on his podcast.

Jon Gordon: Yeah, that was the Holy Spirit was moving between us in a big way.

William Norvell: It was amazing. Please go listen to it. Obviously share this with other people too, but share that too. So our final question is that we love to close with is we love to take it back to God’s word, in fact, of Scripture. And we always love to say, hey, we would love if you would share with our audience some place that God’s Word is coming alive to you in a new way. It could be a verse you read this morning. It could be something you meditated on your whole life. But we would love if you would share that with our audience.

Jon Gordon: I love Matthew 6:33 Seek the Kingdom first, and that is something that’s coming alive for me in a whole new way. I’m understanding it more and more. I end the one truth with it and I really want to encourage you to read it. It’s going to help entrepreneurs in a huge way. It’s going to help men in a huge way. I wrote it to lead people to the truth. And as you seek the truth, you find it and you realize Jesus is the answer. And then for those who are maybe who are Christians and they already believe Jesus is the answer, they also haven’t found healing. So my goal is it will help people who have a hole in their soul. H o l e and they will become whole. W.H.O.L.E God is calling us to wholeness and holiness, but the Kingdom is really what Jesus preached and talked about the most, the Kingdom of God. So for me, I’m really unashamed and a greater way. Like Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is inside of you. So guess what? If the Kingdom of God is inside each person, when you’re impacting people’s lives, you’re impacting the kingdom. And so the soul inside of us, that is the kingdom. And so appearance is temporary, but essence is eternal. And is that eternal essence of who we are and what we are. That’s the kingdom. And when you have a relationship with the king, he gives you the keys to the kingdom. So through Jesus, you’re allowed to experience this kingdom. We’re also given authority and we’re an heir to the throne to create this kingdom right here, to bring heaven to earth. And so more and more, the work we’re meant to do is meant to truly make earth like heaven, bring heaven to earth. And we do that every day from the spirit and the soul inside of us. And we live from the inside out. We create from this love that we have within. This reality that we’re experiencing, that is the kingdom here on Earth. We do it from within us, the kingdom within. And so I’m recognizing that more and more. I shared that recently at a Christian conference. People came up to me, They said they were blown away. Never heard anything like it. God is giving me more and more understanding in that way to be able to share that, to hopefully get people to take action. Christians get saved. The Kingdom men in Kingdom women, they are here to make earth like heaven a completely different mindset and that is going to have it. Now I’m here to bring heaven to earth, and that’s what we’re all called to do. So how are we making the Earth better? How are we making people better along the way? You guys are obviously doing that with this podcast, which is really awesome.

Henry Kaestner: Jon, I’m grateful for you is incredible encouragement. I should have expected no less, and yet it exceeded expectations. I’m grateful for the way you woven Scripture and the way you talk to the challenges that we all need to overcome as Christ followers and lean into gratitude and just loving on people and being proactive about it. Thank you for your work, your faithfulness, for making this your fourth of the day. For our listeners out there, thank you for tuning in. If this made any impact in your life. Please is William encourage you to do share it with somebody else. Also consider going on the website and joining our foundation group where we explore the marks of a faith driven entrepreneur. More than 12,500 have gone through it. There’s no cost, no catch, and Jon’s is grateful for you. Get out there and get some of Jon’s books. Go see him and hear him speak. Jon May the Lord bless you, your work, your family and your ministry.

Jon Gordon: Thanks, guys. I appreciate you. God bless you guys.

Recent Episodes

— by Christos A. Makridis

When the Father gave Adam dominion and instructed him to name all the animals, that wasn’t just a command for Adam’s time – it is an adventurous mandate for us today too. God created us in His image, so whenever we advance human flourishing through our work and ideas, that is an expression of His creative power in us. 

Today, we are tempted to think of technology as a computer or algorithm, but the reality is that technology has been around since the origin of man – simply in different forms. Adam used his creativity to create a system for naming and classifying the animals. 

What does this mean for faith driven entrepreneurs looking to develop their own biblical perspective on AI? 

Artificial intelligence (AI) – whether we like the name or not – brings us a step closer to walking in the mandate that the Lord has endowed us with to speak things into existence. For example, Romans 4:17 mentions “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” In other words, we serve a God who can create something out of nothing. The Lord commands us to use the same creative and prophetic capabilities (“Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!” – Ezekiel 37:4).

Before continuing, let’s pause on defining AI. There is a lot of debate about its definition and how it differs from automation. My aim isn’t to get into the weeds of what AI is and isn’t.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to say that AI is the application of optimization algorithms in a setting where there is stochasticity – that is, uncertainty. In fully deterministic environments (i.e., no uncertainty), we have automation: if X, then Y. But in stochastic environments, we can build AI models and systems to dynamically navigate uncertainty. By navigating uncertainty, we can foster human flourishing.

Today, there are two ways that AI can function in a society, business, or any other application: narrow and general AI

Narrow AI

Narrow AI refers to AI models that are developed and tested to solve a specific need. For instance, my work in the area of financial technology involves building AI models to predict credit risk and forecast macroeconomic activity. But those same models would perform extremely poorly in completely different contexts, such as healthcare or inventory management, without new data and separate tuning.

General AI

Large language models – also known as foundational models, which have led to the term “generative AI” – are different in that they are developed and tested to handle much more complicated and general-purpose environments. That is why you can even have a conversation with generative AI and ask it a whole host of questions. 

Let’s Consider AI as a “Prophetic” Instrument

These capabilities make generative AI a prophetic instrument. We learn in Genesis 1:3 that the Kingdom of God is voice-activated, in a way. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. If we have been filled with Holy Spirit, then we have are able to speak truth and accomplish God’s will through speaking in God’s name. We see this happen in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. 

And technology – “the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area” – simply serves as an extension of our toolkit in advancing the work of the Father: to bring life. The difference with generative AI is the scale of its capabilities. We can speak a command into ChatGPT and see results come to life right before our eyes.

The Drawbacks of AI

And yet, just as generative AI can advance human flourishing, it can also be used to stifle it. We have seen, for instance, the rise of malicious uses of AI among cybercriminals – people using generative AI to identify vulnerabilities and exploit them. But the potential malicious uses of AI are not unique; any technology can be abused. For example, we’ve seen how social media, especially Instagram and TikTok, has been used by predators to solicit minors into human trafficking. Similarly, we’ve seen how vehicles can be used as weapons in crowds.

Practical Applications for AI from a Biblical Perspective

So, how do we use generative AI to advance human flourishing?

1. Treat technology as a complement, not a substitute

   The minute we fully outsource our inherent responsibilities, we get disconnected from the process of co-creating with the Father. There are some activities that are inherently sacred and require our personal investment of time and energy. It would be ludicrous to think of outsourcing parenting to a chatbot, so it is equally egregious to outsource, for instance, writing a sermon to generative AI. We must use discernment to identify the areas where our participation in the activity is essential and others where technology can amplify our impact.

2. Remember that technology is not a solution to our problems

   Let us not forget that technology has always existed in different capacities. That we’ve always had problems highlights that the root issue is not technological, but rather human. The solution to our individual and collective problems is Jesus – the Word made flesh.

3. Put technology to work and get outside your comfort zone

   One of the temptations we face is to be content with a plateau. But Jesus calls us higher each day – and that means getting outside our comfort zone and walking in intellectual curiosity. There are a wide array of generative AI tools that are worth experimenting with, so reflect on the areas of your life that might benefit from working smarter, not just harder.

We are in the process of a tectonic transformation in the way we work and live – let’s rise to the challenge of using generative AI to speak and create life, rather than standing on the sidelines.

_ _ _

Faith Driven Entrepreneur is thankful that Christos has chosed to share his biblical perspective on AI with our audience. We hope this perspective sparks conversation as you and your colleagues discuss the role of AI in the faith driven workplace. 

Christos A. Makridis is the CEO/founder of Dainamic, a financial technology startup that uses AI to help small and mid sized banks make better decisions and forecast economic activity. He also holds appointments at several academic institutions and has authored over 80 peer-reviewed research papers and 200 stories in the media. Christos earned doctorates in economics and management science & engineering from Stanford University.

Excited to learn more about how faith driven entrepreneurs can use technology to advance God’s kingdom? Check out our podcast featuring Chris Yeo. Chris is the CEO of Digital Mission Ventures and is reshaping the Singapore tech scene.

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— by Pierce Brantley

“Can we pray before we go inside?” asked my colleague. 

I was pleasantly surprised. I was new to the team, and we were about to enter a high-stakes client meeting. I agreed to their request, and they began to pray. My colleague prayed with deep conviction. They covered everything—asking for favor in the meeting, understanding from our client, and for God to be glorified through our work. When they finished, I was on cloud nine. I felt so honored to be in a place where prayer was the cultural norm. But no sooner had I opened my eyes than they asked me another question. 

“Would you mind if we prayed for our atheist colleague too? They will be in the meeting, and I want this time to witness to them as well.” 

How could I say no? This was incredible. They doubled down and prayed that they, too, would see that God moves in business, would open up to the power of Jesus, and see that Christians could be good at enterprise too. Now I was really excited. This was real faith in action.

After the prayer, we left the car and walked toward the client’s building. But once again, my colleague stopped me. “Pierce, you know what…this is God’s business, right? I think we need to do something different. I know the client is upset about their ad performance, but I think we need to take the opportunity to witness to them. After all, God can save the account if He wants to.” I nodded and marveled at their extreme faith. 

Once inside, we entered the client’s largest boardroom. The room was filled with the company’s C-level executives. After everyone settled, my colleague announced that instead of the agreed agenda, they had a special presentation. Immediately they launched into a 45-minute talk about their personal testimony, stories of healing, and how they had seen God move over the years. 

When they finished talking, the room went silent. After a long minute, a stakeholder slowly raised their hand. 

“Thank you for that inspirational talk,” they said. “I have just one question. What are you going to do about our failing ad performance? We have no way to track whether our ad spend is effective, and by all accounts, our campaign is failing.”

The atheist on our team crumbled in embarrassment.

We had no answer. We weren’t prepared for this conversation. Worse still, it demonstrated an immediate gap in our stewardship of the client’s resources. The client knew this and fired us shortly after. 

Stewardship is a Spectrum

Our experience was painful. But it stirred a new desire in me to discover the true definition of a Kingdom business. If prayer and testimony alone didn’t move the needle, I wondered, then what would? Through my work on the Eternal Entrepreneur and consulting with Christian business owners, I have learned that Kingdom businesses are on a continuum. Because they are on a continuum, some faith driven businesses have more impact than others. 

My research has also led me to see that there are, in fact, three stages of a Kingdom business. Each stage has a little more impact than its predecessor. Through this insight, I have also discovered that many well-meaning Christian business owners will get stuck at various stages and don’t even realize it. Since they don’t see the stall, they unknowingly miss out on greater opportunities for Kingdom impact and business-led ministry. Let’s look at each stage to learn more about their impact, constraints, and how you can become a stage-three entrepreneur.

Stage One: The Values-Centered Business

Stage one is defined by values. Christian businesses that define themselves by their values are everywhere. When you look at their mission statement or company roster, you will see words like integrity, honesty, and the golden rule as the key differentiating factors of the business. Having worked with many businesses in this stage, I have seen a startling theme emerge. Businesses that only value values don’t bring value to the marketplace. 

Now, am I saying that values aren’t important? Absolutely not. We need biblical values in business. But values alone do not create a valuable offering; they just reveal the business owner’s heart for godliness. 

Moreover, so-called worldly businesses typically have the same values as the Christian ones. In fact, consumers are beginning to show a preference for missionaly-led businesses, regardless of their religious backing, and see it as a form of personal integrity to choose a company based on what it values. So in this way, a values-centered business is simply table stakes. Biblical values are a requirement but not a differentiator. 

Of course, you could argue that your definition of honesty may not mean the same thing as another business’s definition of honesty. Still, this type of distinction is largely moot to the consumer. Values are a foundation, not a fulcrum. I have found that Christian businesses that differentiate on values alone will see their competition grow beyond them; because they offer more than values. But businesses that have good values can move on to stage two.

Stage Two: The Excellence-Minded Business

Stage two is all about excellence. Christian businesses that focus on excellence are great at execution. They know what their customers want, and they deliver what the market is asking for. They also tend to attract great talent and may have high ratings on platforms like Google and Yelp. But excellence-minded businesses often wonder why they never see the success of those businesses that have pioneered before them. Herein lies the issue with the excellence-minded business. 

The excellence-minded business will deliver what the market wants, but they offer nothing new. They simply deliver at a high standard when they could define the standard i.e. creating new markets and new products. Entrepreneurs who run excellent businesses will often belabor the point that they may not be Tesla or Apple, but they are good stewards. Here too, there is room to grow.

Stewardship is an invitation to take what you have and, with a little risk, grow beyond what you’ve been given. The good news is that there is little risk when the Spirit leads. This brings us to stage three.

Stage Three: The Spirit-Led Business

The third stage of a kingdom business involves the Spirit. In Genesis, we see that the Spirit of God hovered over the “surface of the deep.” Everything was formless and void. Soon after, something was created from nothing, and a world filled with good work was made. But that’s not end. The Spirit is still hovering over unformed markets and the void of human need. But now, we get to partner with God in the creative process. This is what a stage-three Kingdom business does. Leaders who want to provide real value to the marketplace prayerfully ask God what the real problems in the marketplace are (or will be) and then seek Him for inspiration on how to solve those problems. 

The biblical Joseph story provides us with a great example. Through a dream, God revealed to Joseph that a famine was coming to Egypt and that hard times were ahead. But he didn’t tell Joseph what to do with that information. 

Joseph could have simply continued to lead by example, relished in the honor of getting secret revelation, and continued to do his job well. But he used his experience as an administrator to create a system that both stored and distributed food throughout a difficult economic period. God didn’t tell him to do this part.

Joseph could have just assumed the famine was a judgment. But instead, he saw it as an opportunity to help those who would be hurting. The result was that Egypt both survived the famine and made a profit, too, when they sold grain to other nations. 

Joseph knew that revelation comes with a wrench—meaning if God reveals something to the leader, the leader must do something with that insight. 

Revelation must be absorbed by the heart and applied by the hand. Christian businesses that lead with innovation know what God is up to and use that knowledge to bring consumers a solution that directly connects with the pain they feel and the needs they have. 

Assess Your Business

After working with many Kingdom Businesses, I have discovered that most businesses exist on a spectrum. For many faith driven businesses, there are areas where they do, in fact, innovate. But there is not always a lot of thought to how those innovations are backed by biblical values. In the same vein, some parts of their business may be very values-centered but offer little tangible value to the employee or consumer. We see the same thing with excellence: an excellence business does not an innovative business make. 

The goal for us, as Christian entrepreneurs, is to prayerfully assess each part of our business and see if they are pro-actively pursuing a roadmap that moves every person, department, and offering toward a stage-three perspective. Consider taking some time with the leaders on your team to prayerfully assess your business and consider what stage you are at, and what you can do to continue to grow as a spirit-led entrepreneur. If you do, you will begin to see that the spirit of God is still hovering over all sorts of unformed potential in the marketplace. 

Want to learn more about building a God-honoring business? Check out “3 Stages of Business Growth” and our Bible reading plan: “6 Stages of a Startup.”

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How much do you know about where you come from? 

There’s lots of talk about legacies and family stories we leave behind, but what about those that we’ve inherited? Today on the show, we mix together a conversation about family histories, practical leadership skills, and the early days of Silicon Valley with Deb Liu.

Deb is the CEO of Ancestry.com, and she’s spent the last two decades as an executive in major tech companies like Facebook, Paypal, and eBay. She’s also the founder of Women in Product,  a non-profit dedicated to bringing more women leaders into technology. 

In this conversation, she shares how our contexts and our histories can shape us as leaders.

Deb’s newsletter: https://debliu.substack.com/

If you like this episode, please review, share, and subscribe to the show for weekly content from leaders around the world.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey there. And welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. So how much do you know about where you come from? I mean, there’s a lot of talk about legacies and family stories that we leave behind. But what about those that we’ve inherited? Today on the show, we mix together a conversation about family histories, practical leadership skills and the early days of Silicon Valley with Deb Liu. Deb is the CEO of Ancestry.com, a company that we all know. And she spent the last two decades as an executive in major tech companies like Facebook, PayPal and eBay. She’s also the founder of Women in Product, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing more women leaders into technology. In this conversation, she shares how our contexts and our histories can shape us as leaders. Let’s dive in.

Rusty Rueff: So, William, do you know where you’re from?

William Norvell: I believe so. But it feels like it changes sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I know where I was born. I know where I grew up. I know where I’ve lived for the last 13 years. And those are all different places.

Rusty Rueff: Have you ever had this thing happen to you where out of the blue someone comes out of the woodwork and says, I think I’m related to you?

William Norvell: Oh, yeah. Happens all the time. Happened with one of our podcast guests. I don’t think I’ve told the story.

Rusty Rueff: No, tell the story.

William Norvell: One of our podcast guys, Chris Chancey from Amplio recruiting way back. I think it’s like episode 30 or something, but he randomly reached out through one of these networks and said, Hey, I think we’re second cousins. And so jokingly, I see him at praxis all the time. He’s like, What’s up cousin how are you doing, man? And we haven’t traced it back. We don’t know where it came from, but we are officially related.

Rusty Rueff: So this has happened to me too, as well. Out of the blue comes someone who is a long lost cousin, you know, says, Hey, I found out that I think we’re related. And you say, Well, how how did you find that? And they will say, you know, they either did their DNA testing or they found us on ancestry.com, which, you know, prior to ancestry.com. What do we have? Like these family trees that like the nerdiest of nerdiest person in your family was watching over and taking care of?

William Norvell: My granddad had one of those.

Rusty Rueff: Did he, did he? That’s coo,.

William Norvell: Oh, yeah. We got we got like, pages. He loved it.

Rusty Rueff: That’s awesome. Well, we are so fortunate today to have someone who knows more about genealogy and ancestry and ancestry.com than any of us are going to know. And that’s our guest today, Deb Liu, Deb, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

Deb Liu: Absolutely. It’s wonderful to be here.

Rusty Rueff: So we could spend a bunch of time geeking out on ancestry.com, which we are going to do a little bit of it because it’s kind of hard to have the CEO of Ancestry.com on the podcast and not talk about that. But we are very interested in your own history, your own ancestry, and actually bring us all the way up to where you are today with us. So we’re going to give the floor to you and take us all the way back and bring us all the way forward.

Deb Liu: Yeah, well, my family is from a small village, two small villages in southern China. We’re Cantonese. So in the province of Guangzhou, where I had actually visited when I was four, a place with no running water or toilets at the time. And it was a very interesting experience, something which I will always remember is my first memory actually, as being four in a place where, you know, so different from the America that I grew up in. My grandparents had lived in those villages for many, many generations. And that as Chinese culture is there’s a book with the ancestry of your entire family written down for that village. And so we have the family tree. Beyond that, my parents and my grandparents actually were Vietnam for many years. They were Chinese immigrants to Vietnam. And then my parents came to America to study, to go to college, and that’s how we ended up here. They met here and I grew up in New York, and then we spent the rest of our time in the state of South Carolina. I spent most of my life in a small town, the state of South Carolina. And so it’s a unremarkable in many ways, family history. But there’s just so much richness in the story of, you know, I always imagined that my great grandparents could never have imagined the life that we live now.

Rusty Rueff: And then somewhere along the way, you decided you would step out of South Carolina and you would go other places. Take us through where you went to school. And then I know you showed up in Silicon Valley around 2000. You know, I got there a couple of years before you, but not too much earlier in 1998. But was it felt like the beginning of something and all of a sudden you’re there. So tell us how you got there and what you were doing.

Deb Liu: Yeah, You know, growing up in South Carolina, it was less than 1% Asian. In fact, I would go places where I was the only person who looked like me in many, many places. And, you know, my goal was to get a scholarship to college and leave and never turn back. And so I actually loved the town I grew up in in many ways. But it was also a really difficult place to grow up being so different. And so eventually I went to Duke, I got an engineering degree from Duke and then went […..], spent a couple of years in Atlanta, and then I ended up at Stanford for business school, and this is how I ended up in Silicon Valley. You know, Stanford was the hub and the heart of where you saw everything happening. And so I still live in the town of Stanford today in Palo Alto. And we stayed and we stayed for the last 20 years and have had an incredible career in Silicon Valley.

Rusty Rueff: You know, almost. Stanford has its own genealogy, right? You could trace it back through and, you know, to which professor and who was in what class and you know, who started what startup and that and did that.

William Norvell: That’s how I got here, too. Same story 13 years ago. It’s still in Menlo Park, too.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah.

Deb Liu: So it’s a hard place to leave, I have to say.

William Norvell: That’s what my wife, who grew up here, told me on our first date, and she assured me that moving back to Alabama was not an option if we want a dessert.

Rusty Rueff: Well, remember when the bubble burst? Right. And it was. They used to say B to C was back to consumer goods and B to B was back to banking. And, you know, everybody took off and went back. But anybody you know that you talked to that were there at that time, you know, would love to get back. You know, it’s just a place you like to get back to. So you ended up in a couple of technology start ups that at the time were not as big as they are today, but you were there in some early days. Tell us about that.

Deb Liu: You know, it was funny. A lot of people say, well, you know, resume reads that you’ve been a big company. And I said, well, when I joined PayPal, there were 300 people in Mountain View. And so, yes, it’s a big company now, obviously, and a global brand. But at the time, I was, I think, the first dozen PM product managers at the company. And, you know, just seeing the rise of the company where it was eventually, I took a couple of years at eBay where I led by our experience. And then I joined a startup called Facebook, which had, I think, 900 employees. It was there just before 2000. And today, I mean, when I left, it was probably 60,000 people. And I had joined a small group, which is the executive team that led the company. And so, you know, it was just such a amazing journey in those 11 years at Facebook, I built a lot of really cool things as well, including for those of you who have ever used it. Facebook Marketplace, I guess that’s what most people know me for billion people buying and selling and community commerce, which is something I’m really proud of.

Rusty Rueff: Do you worry that someday you’re going to tell somebody that you worked at Facebook and they’re going to say, well, what’s that? And you’re going to say, Well, it used to be called that. It’s called […..] it just maybe go away and probably never.

Deb Liu: But we’ll be at odds over a billion people on it. So I think they’ll still recognize the app. But the company itself is not all that. Yes.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. Are you following the launch of Threads yesterday?

Deb Liu: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all my friends are there and so I joined and I started participating. It’s really exciting to see the next chapter or where that could go.

Rusty Rueff: That’s amazing. I mean, I think when I went to bed last night, it was 5 million new users and woke up this morning was ten. So that’s possibly another phenomena coming out of Silicon Valley. So I’m going to switch gears because I want to talk a little bit about ancestry.com. And so I find family history to be pretty fascinating. And it’s probably just because, you know, when you think back the traits and the skills and the talents you have, you know, if you if you’re humble about it, you realize, you know, you just didn’t show up and get those on your own. They were passed down over time. And so I always think that’s very interesting, especially when I find out people who in my family, a lot of people were very creative. They had musical talent. And I find myself, you know, fascinated by both of those things. But when you think about ancestry, you know, how do you look at your users and say, you know, knowing their background helps inform them or shape them as people today? Is that part of the equation that you’re out there selling?

Deb Liu: Well, I think part of it is if you really understood the journey of our parents or grandparents or great grandparents, […….], think about how that sheds light on the challenges that we have today. You know, I really look back at the history of my parents and the choices they made and my in-laws. And, you know, at one point in their lives, they actually decided that they were going to leave a country they knew and go to a country where they knew no one. They’re going to apply to college and just show up. My parents had no idea what the United States looked like. They showed up with a suitcase and a few hundred dollars and they built a new life and they realized that they couldn’t go home unless they made enough money to actually fly back. And they stayed for years, not even knowing if they could ever go back. And so, you know, the kind of resilience that takes the kind of grit it takes to to leave everything, you know, to go to a place where you’re a foreigner and to live an American dream that, you know, seems so distant, you know, in so many ways. My parents are so grateful for everything this country has meant to them. And, you know, recently my kids interviewed my mother in law, my mother, as part of this essay that the kids were writing and, you know, their journey and understanding that really helps contextualize what challenges they face today. Because imagine, you know, they complain about, you know, it’s too hot or they don’t have access to the car. And instead you think about what it’s like to actually leave behind everyone you’ve ever known, to go to a place where you don’t know when you can go back. And at least there were planes and there are phone calls. Imagine you leave Ireland, you know, you leave Africa, you leave, and you never know if you’re going to be able to come back home. That’s what it was like for so many people. And as you just cover those journeys, that’s what people come to Ancestry to do is really understand this journey.

Rusty Rueff: So give us some of the stats because, you know, William and I were talking at the beginning, every family had that one person who, you know, dug deep on their genealogy. But now it seems like, you know, lots of people want to dig deep. How many people use ancestry.com and how much time do people spend once they jump in there?

Deb Liu: Well, we have over 3 million subscribers today. And we you know, we have a number of active users who is just come just want to continue that journey of self discovery. And we talk about that, right? Our mission is to empower those journey of self-discovery and build resilience for families. And that’s what is really exciting about what we do every day. And people do spend a lot of time, but it’s one of those things where, you know, it’s people say that go down the ancestry rabbit hole, you start the journey, you you discover something and you continue this. You know, you’re finding stories. There was the other day I was actually working on my brother in law’s family tree, and I found somebody who was his great aunt. And the story of her life was really fascinating. Her father had drowned her. Her stepfather was actually the one related to my brother in law. And she eventually became a nun and she spent her life in service. And I just read so much about her, and I know that many people remember her. But I looked at all these family tree. The people like, collected stories about her and it was just so fascinating. Somebody I’ll never meet, she recently passed away and so I was able to see the tributes to her as well. And so, you know, I’m not even related to her, but in so many ways, like her story was one that really touched me. And I think that those stories can easily disappear if they’re not people preserving and remembering them.

Rusty Rueff: I think that’s right. I’m gonna let William jump in here in a second, but I wanted to ask you something. And actually, this was something that Henry Kaestner had on his mind, and unfortunately, he can’t be with us today. He was referencing that very short verse in 1 Timothy one four, where Paul says, Don’t waste time on endless genealogies. Right. But obviously, I mean, genealogies are such a big part of the Bible, right? You know, the Old Testament, obviously. And then even as the New Testament opens up, Right. We have the genealogy of Jesus and his background. Have you looked at that? And just any time on that verse and does that verse cause any sense of tension or your thought process as the CEO of Ancestry.com?

Deb Liu: Well, I think about it, and I read the books in the Bible cover to cover when I was a teen. And I just remember the endless chapters of geology, of names that you couldn’t recognize, and you know how important that was that day. And, you know, I think all the thing is, you don’t just look backwards, right? Looking backwards, don’t just dwell on the past, but also take that forward in who you are. And so I really think that, you know, looking at your past helps you contextualize where you are today, but it also helps you understand where you should go and where you should take your family.

William Norvell: I love that. I love that. And actually, I want to lean into that a little bit because I feel like when I think about ancestry.com, it’s it helps you. You know, we talk a lot about identity here on the podcast, like what is your identity and especially as an entrepreneur? Because if you don’t know that. The winds of the business, the winds of the investors under your employees of what’s happening can just take you everywhere. And I remember when I did my first ancestry test, the biggest shock for me. So my my mom’s family’s from Sicily or papa was. And so I pull for Italy in the World Cup and all these things and they were cobblers in Sicily. I know the whole story a little bit. But I did my ancestry DNA tests. It turns out I’m like 3% Sicilian, which really, like in some awkward way, shook me. You know, it’s like and probably what the math would have worked out. But it’s like you asked my wife. It threw me for a loop for a few days. I was like, I am so closely identified with the Italian culture and I’m still part of it, but not nearly as part of it as I thought I was, you know? So I’m curious. I’m guessing you might have like a unique view on identity and how we carry that right, and how a Christian entrepreneur may carry that. And I’d love to invite you to share a little bit about how do you see and carry your identity and maybe how would you encourage others to think through that?

Deb Liu: Well, I think that one thing about identity is it’s how we define ourselves. Right. And and we should have our identity first in Christ and first and foremost. And I think sometimes we forget that. But the second is your identity is not just what shows up in the pie chart of your DNA. It’s so much the stories of, you know, the journeys that your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents had, the choices that they made, the things that they did in their lives. And so, so much of that is not just birth, marriage, death, the date, the name, because I think sometimes people think genealogy is just, you know, it’s a name, it’s a date. It just looks like a family tree with some facts on it. But it’s actually what brought people there, what made people arrive at the places they arrived, you know, what drove them. And so as we talk about the human race, like over the centuries, so many things have driven people war, famine, you know, necessity, new need. And each day you’re seeing that evolve. And so when we talk about identity, it’s all of this. It’s the reasons you are how you ended up where you are today. So much more than just date and the name.

William Norvell: Yeah, for sure. And and on that thread, you made a comment a minute ago, you said, you know, it’s about how our past informs our future. I want to give you a chance to go a little deeper there, too. You know, especially when I think about entrepreneurs. They’re not all like this, but there’s usually a catalyst, right? It’s usually a family member that, you know, either wanted to or had to be an entrepreneur. For me, it was moving out here, you know, it’s in the water a little bit and you meet enough people. But without moving out here, I, I doubt I would have ended up starting a company and just I’d be very happy running a real estate firm, you know, like, I don’t know why I would have done it other than like. But now I look back, it’s like, oh, like that interaction and this, like, all impacted who I became. How do you think through your past and then who that can propel you to be once you understand it in a deeper level?

Deb Liu: You know, we get to be the victim or beneficiary of our own history, right? In the histories of everything that led us today. You know, looking in one way, you could say, well, I don’t have that in my DNA. Right? I hear people say that all the time. That’s not a trait that I have, for example. But at the same time, you know, human resilience means that, you know, for many generations, those people were entrepreneurs. They had to survive on their own or in the community. And so I think for entrepreneurs today, it’s like, how do you take that, that sense of resilience, the sense of journey that brought you here, and how do you carry that forward or how do you use that kind of scrappiness and desire to succeed that brought, you know, everyone who came to America came from someplace and the reasons they came in, you know, if you could understand that journey, that could help you as you look at resilience and getting through some tough time.

William Norvell: Yeah, it’s amazing. Just of my own life. And you know what I mean? God does this, right? He shows us a verse or a scripture or a story, and but for me, I’ll never forget when I found out my, like, great great grandfather, like, started that cobbler shop. And I was like, Oh, wait, I do have it in me somewhere, you know? And it was like a big catalyst, even though it meant nothing, but it kind of meant a lot, you know? And it’s hard to sort through that sometimes. But it’s amazing what thinking about the people that have come before us can catalyze in you that you didn’t know was there, that you didn’t know was part of you because you just never seen it before. So on that, I want to switch a little bit of different topic. You know, you’ve been running this company for a couple of years now. Right? And of course, we talked about the companies you were at before and you even co-founded a company called [….] as well. When she may tell us about a little bit. But I’m curious. And these various stops at now world renowned organizations, what are 2 to 3 leadership lessons that you feel like have really served you well as you moved into the CEO role and maybe some you would pass along to our audience?

Deb Liu: Well, the one that you know, especially as a leader, you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re a leader. You’re a leader of the other team, you are leader in your industry. And so you need to figure out, you know, how do you lead. And one of the things that I value and leadership lessons I learned from some of the greatest leaders I’ve followed is great leaders will make decision, they ensure great decisions are made. And there’s a huge difference between telling people what to do and actually bringing them along and having them come to the right conclusion. And so often we have this idea that leaders, the person who stands in front of those, okay, turn right here and we’re going left and we’re doing that. But instead, what if this was organic? What if we could actually get to the right decision together? And so I think that’s one important lesson that I’ve had, which is it’s not about dictating. It’s about guiding. The second, I would say is always be learning. You know, one of the things that’s so important about, especially the entrepreneurial journey, is when you build something you’ve never had the answer. Nothing looks like the first version of itself. And that’s, you know, you make a lot of mistakes. And those mistakes and those scars actually are what makes you stronger. You know, it’s like trees, you know, young saplings and trees that weather difficult storms early on are the ones you grow and sustain the longest. And so, you know, the question, if you have a learning mindset, are you actually iterating and learning every single day or are you saying, well, this is how we do things and this is always how we put anything? And I think an entrepreneur needs that kind of entrepreneurial mindset and learning mindset every day. And then finally, you are the company you keep. Who are the people who surround you? Who are the people who influence you? Who are the people who are driving you? Somebody once said, As a founder of a startup, they said the most important job you actually have is recruiting, because who you choose to be on your team will shape the future of your company more than almost anything else. You can have a great machine and a great vision, but a few people who are difficult to work with or mean to people. Or is it the behaviors that when you drive away, people are just countercultural to that and vice versa? And you know, if you are very consensus driven culture, but it’s really hard to make decisions, you know, it’s really hard to change that. And so you’re imprinting, you know, who you are, as we say, DNA early on into your company by who you’re choosing. And so I think those are the three lessons really on leadership, on learning, and then on who you choose to be on your team.

William Norvell: That’s a great one. That’s amazing. I’m taking notes for my co-founder. I want to go one layer deeper as well into this. You wrote a book called Take Back Your Power, and in that book you set out ten Rules for Women at Work and a very important conversation that we’ve done a series on here as well with Paul and Liz Bohannan. You know, I imagine you faced a lot of challenges throughout your career, maybe even especially in the early days, but I’ll let you speak to that now. You founded Women and Product, a nonprofit that brings more women into tech. I just want to give you an open canvas a little bit. You know, where are we in that conversation, encouragement you would have for people to lean into that conversation or think about it differently? And how have things changed over the years of the 20 years you’ve been here?

Deb Liu: You know, it’s interesting. When I was at business school, you know, everyone that in those deep thinking was completely equal, right? We were the highest percent of women in the Stanford Business School class. It was 40% my year, I think it was normally around 25 to 30. And we just were sure that, you know, we were entering a world where things had changed already. And then we did our 20th reunion and we look back and we just saw all the lessons we did learn and we were in school. It wasn’t the hard skills. A lot of the soft skills. There was the fact that for every hundred men promoted to management, 86 women aren’t, you know, nobody goes to the other 14 women, as they well is because you’re a woman. It’s just how the system has been set up. And again, it’s not conscious. A lot of is unconscious bias. You know, people will tell you what it’s like when you have kids. I read an article about what people will tell you about motherhood, and it went really viral because, you know, it’s the difficulty you have when you’re juggling three young children. My dad was in hospice, I was working and my husband was working, and it was really hard. And during those years, not only, you know, during those six years and I was having children, you know, not only did I not get promoted, I took a demotion to go to Facebook. And those are choices. Right. And, you know, I felt very frustrated and almost dropped out of tech twice during those period because I just felt so frustrated with my career. And so I think we should just be more open about that. And we are making tremendous progress. But, you know, I think that every single day, though, people are feeling that friction. And so how do we make it a little easier and understand the impact that has? And as entrepreneurs, we do you know, all of you are writing the book as you’re going along. And every time you say, hey, am I missing something? Is there an unconscious bias here? You know, how do we address that? I think every single day you can actually bend towards, you know, how do we make a more inclusive and fair workplace?

Rusty Rueff: So I’m suspecting that not all of our listeners probably have had the same challenges that you’ve had. Right. But they’ve all all of us at some point or another, have run up and do something that feels insurmountable, right? It’s something that’s so difficult that we can’t get ourselves through it and we obviously can’t get ourselves through it alone. But yet so many times we try, right? We just try to push it on our own. Have you had people that you’ve surrounded yourself with that have. Been there for you to help you push through. And then also, this would probably be a great time for you to talk a little bit about, you know, how your faith has helped you push through.

Deb Liu: Yeah, well, you know, I actually have a chapter on the four kinds of allies you need to succeed in your career. In one of the first two are your mentors and sponsors. Your mentors are the people who give you advice or people you trust who can help you choose path the right path. And I had incredible mentors, but the people who really accelerate my career, were my sponsors? Honestly, the people who, you know, in my career said, you know, I believe in you so much. I’m putting skin in the game. And for a lot of entrepreneurs, it could be your first funder, the person who gives you the first small business loan, the person who invest the first cheque. You know, it’s the people who gave you credit when maybe you didn’t deserve it. And so, you know, I think those sponsors have been so incredibly important in my career. And they’re the people who made the step function like I’m on the into it board. And I tell the story of how Sheryl Sandberg introduced me to Brad Smith, who was then the CEO of Into It, and I was just director of the company, one of hundreds. And she said, no, maybe Brad Smith will have a board seat open one day and you can join his board. I thought that was crazy because I was nobody in the energy team or maybe ten people at the time. Three years later, she reintroduces me to Brad and she said, by the way, he has a board seat open. And at this point my career had grown so much. I had my managers, managers job, I had a team of hundreds. And she said, I think was the right time. And I went and interviewed and I joined that board and I tell everybody story. And, you know, I did not deserve her sponsorship or her opening that door. But I can only do my very best to prove that I was worthy of her regard. But then the other two groups, I think, are really important beyond mentors and sponsors is one is your team who are the people you’re laboring with, the people you surround yourself with that we talked about earlier. And that’s really important because you probably spend more time with your team than maybe you do with your waking hours with your kids. And that’s so important. So, you know, is this a group of people where you’re helping each other or growing each other, or are you uplifting each other? And then finally, the final group is your circle. And I’ve had incredible Bible studies who’ve carried us through really difficult circumstances. We have supported each other through miscarriages, the death of parents. And that is so important. We’ve been in a stable Bible study for the last two decades, and each of those people have been such an important part of our lives. And we still have reunions with our old Bible study. We still have an active Bible study today. And so, you know, I think that your church group can be that external force that continues to remind you what real life is like outside of work as well.

William Norvell: That’s good, I love those categories and I want to go deeper into one of them real quick. So sponsors, I think I understand coworkers. It’s funny, my wife asked me the other day who my best friends were, and I said, you know, increasingly, I said, by default, I think Vineet has to be one at this point. I love them. So it probably is anyway. But as my co-founder, say, by default, he’s definitely one. I talk to them like 5 hours a day and then the church community would be so valuable. And we proliferate that hopefully through our groups and other things where people don’t find it. I want to go into mentorship. I feel like people say that word a lot and it sounds like you’ve been the recipient of some great mentorship. What does that mean to you? You know, is it finding someone? Do you have to ask someone, Is it monthly meetings? Is a yearly meetings? What does that person do? Like, I feel like in my life, I feel like I have people, but I’m like, is that a mentor necessarily? And do I need to formalize that with a few people I love? Just hear a little bit about that from your life.

Deb Liu: Well, my friend actually has a term for it. She calls it her personal board of directors, and she actually wrote an article for my newsletter about it, if you want to look it up. But you know, your personal board of directors are people you ask for advice when you need objective, somebody who’s distant enough that they can give you objective advice. When I was considering leaving Facebook and taking this role, I called a few people, you know, I called Scott Cooke. He’s the founder of Into It. And I said what he should do. And he helped me think through the process. In fact, during COVID, we did an outdoor […..] meeting and we spent hours talking through the pros and cons, you know, what are the opportunities, what are the challenges? His mentorship was so valuable to me because he is distant enough from your vision and yet he just had such great perspective to coach so many people and do a mentor somebody in your life who you can go for objective advice, who you know and you can trust that their advice for your own good. But, you know, at the same time, they don’t necessarily have skin in the game. So you’re a sponsor, somebody who actually put your dollars or their reputation, Like these are people who have so much objectivity because they support you, but they also do it with a complete knowledge of who you are. And so, you know, sometimes these mentoring relationships, maybe it’s somebody you go to once a year because you have an issue. You know, there are a few people I mentor who just call me every few months if they run into something. And and it’s just that type of relationship and offers or, you know, long term relationships where it’s someone you really trust. And so there was a handful of people. Well, I just ran. The decision by an HMO gave me different facets of advice, and it really helped me make decision.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. I think that, you know, to understand how to utilize a mentor means that you also have to understand how to be vulnerable about yourself. Right. Because if you’re going to surround yourself with these people that you’re expecting that they’re going to give you unbiased advice only based on one thing, which is because they love you and they want you to understand the truth, you have to be open enough to be very vulnerable with them to tell them what your fears are, You know what your failures are, to tell them your aspirations, and with the fear that they might say, Oh, that’s crazy, you’ll never get there. Have there been moments in your career journey where you had to open up with those vulnerabilities to get to that next breakthrough?

Deb Liu: You know, what’s interesting is we want to protect ourselves and so we don’t open ourselves up. And part of it is I grew up in, as I said, in a place where people look like me and I spend a lot of time building walls and building protection gate and keeping people out. And I realized that that actually is counterproductive to everything I was trying to accomplish because things happen because of connection, because relationship, you know, networking sounds like a terrible thing. But actually if people crave connection, they crave getting to know who you are. Who is the real Rusty, what is the thing that is driving you? And if they don’t understand that, how can they help you? If they don’t understand your priorities, your values, what you’ve been hurt by your experiences? How can they give you advice that’s going to be valuable in your life? And so often we we have this strong external shell, but then people give you advice based on the shell, not based on who you are inside. And so I think the power of vulnerability is that it opens you up to hurt. Absolutely. But also opens you up to connection. It opens you up to opportunity to really, you know, give people the opportunity to help you.

Rusty Rueff: So I’m going to take us down another path here, which is around faith and work. And a lot of people that I talk to outside of Silicon Valley will just say, hey, you know, it must be impossible to keep your faith in an area like Silicon Valley. Yet, you know, the three of us, you know, we share 415 and 6500 as our area code. And I see all kinds of people living out their faith in Silicon Valley, right. Courageously doing it. But it’s not always easy. But it’s possible, as you said, in a very high profile job, right. As a CEO of a company that people recognize and there are others like Pat Gelsinger sits in one of those roles as well, right at Intel. How have you managed your faith and the role that you’re in and how do you bring those together and how do you use it to really share that authentic you?

Deb Liu: You know, I live by the words that came my friend Julie Leena. She said her mom used to say this, and I wrote this down when she told me story from Mom. Trust me, you know that we are witnessing every single day and only sometimes through words. And that’s the wisdom I heard from her mom And I had never met this woman, but she lived a life of faith. And I love that because it’s not about what you say. It’s what you do. It’s how people look at you and what you’re doing. They want more of what you have. Or do they not? And if we are, you know, if we are hurtful to other people, if we are, you know, not loving and caring and loving our neighbors, then why do people want to know us? And so when I talk about witnessing, it’s not about your words it is about your action. Do you care about other people? Do you live the life that is glorifying to God or not? And you get to make that choice every single day.

Rusty Rueff: And in what areas of your work and leadership would you say that your faith is informing your actions more than others?

Deb Liu: We think it should inform every part of your life or it’s not something you’d be right If you live as if the Bible talks about [……] do live it as if he is alive. And you are making choices every single day to do more or less because of that. And if it’s not fully embodied in everything that you choose to do, do you really believe it? Know, we don’t spend our time going, okay, you know, do we believe in gravity? It’s just part of our life, right? And we live every second, every step. We feel it. And yet we don’t consciously go, okay, you know, do I believe in gravity here or here? You know? And so I think that’s the thinking for people of faith. Either it’s a part of you or not, and either it’s part of the choices you make and the decisions you make or it’s not. And I think that should be infused in every part of your life.

Rusty Rueff: Okay. Last question for me, and I’m going to turn it over to William to close. You’ve got this very cool newsletter called Perspectives where you say you want to be a personal coach to your readers. And I got a chance to look through a few of them, in fact, read today’s, which was really fascinating because here we are talking to the CEO of somebody who looks into the past for others with ancestry.com, but yet you talk about the future and who your future self should be. And I want to give you a chance to talk a little bit about that, because I think you closed that newsletter with. If you could tell your future self that what the decisions you’re making today, what will you end up doing in the future? You know, how would that inform you? Probably not saying it as well as you’re going to say it, but I thought that was a great thing because you’re saying you take your past, but you take your present. And the decisions we make today are the decisions we’re going to be living with years from now that we might look back and go, Hey, past self, why did you commit to that? You know, you should have passed on that. Give us that perspective of how you take the past into the present and then also look at the future.

Deb Liu: You know, part of knowing your own history and your family is understanding the past. But what if you could send a message to your future self, to your future generation, what that looks like? And part of writing this is really you know, we had this tendency to kick the can down the road. You know, I start out the post by saying, we treat our partner, this partner of ours, terribly. We like delegating, we procrastinate things, and then this person has to clean up after us because that that person that that person is literally us. And we are hurting ourselves by not really understanding how the choices we’re making today affect our future. But what if you could send a message from your present day person to your past self and said, Well, what should you have done differently? What should you not sign up for? What should you have not overcommitted to? What should you have invested in that you have more time for your family or for your work or for the things that you care about. You know, and I think that if we’re able to I think humans are really bad at thinking about time and yourself a long time in stream with time, because for us it feels like it’s infinite in some ways and it feels like it’s never ending. And yet, you know, when you spend time in family history, you understand that there is a finite date and there is only so much time. And so making those choices and being deliberate, being attention is really critical.

William Norvell: Hmm. That’s great. I didn’t get a chance to read it before the show, but I’m curious that you may have answered this already, and the number one issue may be go sign up for perspectives, for people to learn more. But in case people are just going to listen here, which we hope no one does. What are 2 to 3 things you’re thinking through right now that your future self should know and be aware of? You know, are there a couple of things that you’re reprioritizing or thinking through?

Deb Liu: Well, you know, one of the things I found myself doing was I would overcommit my future self, right? You know, someone would call me to do a podcast or ask if I could speak at events or if I could write something. And I would say, sure, because I’m committing someone else my future self to doing it. So one of the rules I have, which is I have a couple rules. One is the 24 hour. If I can’t get it done within 24 hours, I should probably say no to it because my presence doesn’t have to hold myself accountable to it. I definitely shouldn’t do it. But then there’s some things like travel where, you know, it’s further down the road. And so I hold myself as a one in one rule out rule one once. So you’ve got to do one in, one out. Right. And do we just keep piling it on? But, you know, every time you say yes to something, you’re actually implicitly saying no to something else, whether it’s, you know, your kid flier concert or, you know, an event that you really want to go to for your friend. Like you’re saying, no, you’re just don’t know what that thing is until it’s closer. And so one of the things is really leaving the white space in your life with things that are unexpected or that you want to prioritize because you just can’t keep living in it. And so, you know, the whole post is really about how can you be kinder to your future self so you would not treat your partner this way. So why would you treat yourself this way.

William Norvell: I’m going to think about it, I’m going to think about it? You know, I’ve got three small kids, too. I’m curious what they want for my future self. Most of the time I think it’s more of me, but maybe it’s a little less. I don’t know, you know, but we’ll think through. I think it’s a great question to pose. Deb is obviously not here selling anything, but I’m sure people would enjoy the perspectives, newsletters and sign up and think through things like this. I wish I had a personal career coach. I think I may have just gotten one via email, which I’m pretty excited about. So as we come to a close, what we always do when we close is try to turn it back and invite God’s Word into the conversation. And so we love to ask our guest, if you don’t mind, to share something that God showing you that may be new or in a different light can be something you read this morning, can be something you’ve thought about your whole life, could be a story, could be a verse. But we just love to invite God’s Word and be in the show here.

Deb Liu: Yeah, so James 2:26 is something my husband and I were just talking about the other day, which is I guess the most common way to say it is faith without work is that the quote is actually far as a body without a spirit is dead. So faith without work, it’s also dead. And I think that’s so important because, you know, God invites us to be salt and light to actually have to make a difference. So not just saying we have faith, but salt actually makes things flavorful, light actually illuminates. And so without the action, did that thing exist? And so that is something which we talk about a lot in our [….], which is not just, you know, saying we believe something, but how do you live that out every single day?

Rusty Rueff: It’s great. Deb, thank you for being a person who brings your faith to work and brings your faith through you into your work. And we really appreciate you spending your time with us today. And we know you’re busy. There’s a lot of genealogies out there to be figured out, so we’ll let you get back to that. But we just, you know, look for great things from you. We’ll look at the Perspectives newsletter. You’ve got a book out there that we all should take a look at. And so just blessings over you and your family. And thanks so much for being with us.

William Norvell: I know our listeners did yourselves are very excited that whatever you said no to to come to this. We’re very grateful. So thank you very much.

Rusty Rueff: Awesome.

Deb Liu: Thanks for the invitation. It’s wonderful to talk.

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— by Luke Harl

What 1 Timothy 6:9-10 Has to Say to Entrepreneurs

It’s ironic that “The Midas Touch” is one of the highest compliments in modern business culture. 

Originating in Greek mythology, the “Midas Touch” belongs to King Midas, who, through a genie-like god, is granted one wish. Midas wished that everything he touched would turn into gold, giving him unlimited wealth.  Likewise, in today’s modern culture, the Midas Touch references a businessperson who tends to turn everything they touch into gold – i.e., a success. 

But King Midas’s story doesn’t end there. As the king goes about turning twigs and roses into gold, he returns to his palace for a meal. There, his thrill turns to dread as his golden touch prevents him from eating or drinking. The pinnacle of the story occurs when the king touches his own daughter and realizes he wished for something that would become his own demise. Fortunately for Midas, his new talent is reversible. 

Hence the irony of the compliment. Modern business culture views the golden touch to be a desirable skill. But that viewpoint omits the part of the story where that very skill would lead to Midas’s starvation, apart from the golden touch being reversed. It would be much more fitting if the Midas Touch were a warning: wealth and success can be a blessing, but the love of it can be deadly.  

1 Timothy 6:9-10 says, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”

It’s important to point out that Paul doesn’t say “money is a root of all kinds of evil” but rather “the love of money” is. There is a key distinction between the two. 

GOOD USE OF MONEY 

Money is a blessing and can be used for many good things. It can be used to provide for yourself and your family, for the enjoyment of travel or entertainment, and for generous giving to those in need or ministry/charitable endeavors. Money can be used as capital for a business to start or grow, by adding new products or services (and, by extension, value to consumers). It can provide employment and job satisfaction to the community and a return to shareholders. 

In fact, the generous and business use of money provides a great opportunity to expand the spread of the gospel.

BAD USE OF MONEY

The contrary can also be true. Money can be used poorly. There are obvious indulgences that would bring shame to ourselves and God. But the less obvious, and possibly just as dangerous, is how money can allow us to feel – self-sufficient. Money can give us a false sense of control over our lives. As we accumulate wealth, we not only can take care of our needs but also many of our wants. In and of itself, that is a good thing. But in this, there is a tendency to forget who the provider really is. 

There is a tendency to believe that “my” work earned this or that “my” business produced this. 

Because of this, it becomes easy to believe that we succeed on our own, that we provide for ourselves, that we do not need anyone, or treacherously, God. He warns us of this concept in Deuteronomy 8:17-19: “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.” 

THE PURSUIT OF SOMETHING GREATER

So, if money can be used for good or evil, how then do we discern our own use? What is our application? 

Consider this: money is a tool, a means to an end. 

It also provides a microscopic view into our hearts. Reflecting on our capital allocation reveals our true heart’s desire. Is it for God, or is it for self? 

The rest of 1 Timothy 6:11-12, provides guidance. “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” In short, our capital, work, and wealth should be a tool in pursuit or a reflection of these, ultimately to the glory of God. 

A few weeks ago, the FDE podcast honored the late Dr. Tim Keller, quoting him at a Sovereign Capital LP meeting: “Rejoice not that your name is written in the “Midas List,” rejoice instead that your name is written in the Book of the Lamb. Let your identity be as a beloved son of the Most High God that died for you so that you might be reconciled to him with the joy and gratitude that comes from that gift. Return to the altar with your meaningful form of worship.”

In the wake of modern culture worshipping the “Midas Touch” and the “Midas List”, faith driven entrepreneurs and investors should take it as a warning, remembering that our identity is rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives us an eternal joy that he gives graciously. It is not in material wealth or worldly success that leaves us feeling empty and vulnerable when trials come. 

Therefore, seek the kingdom of God first, and if success and wealth come from entrepreneurship, it is for His glory, not ours. 

About Author & Artist

Luke Harl is the Vice President of Asset Management and an Advisor for Fairfield National Bank, a community bank located in southern Illinois. Luke is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor specializing in financial and succession planning for business owners. Opinions are his own and not necessarily reflective of Fairfield National Bank or Midwestern Securities Trading Company, LLC. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeharl/

David Harl is the Associate Pastor at the First Baptist Church in Fairfield, Illinois. David is a graduate of Southeastern Seminary (M.Div) and Boyce College. He is an artist that uses his skillset to depict creation and Biblical applications. 

The Rich and Weary King Midas. According to the Roman poet Ovid, King Midas was rewarded by Bacchus, the god of wine, for showing kindness to the drunken Silenus, who fostered Bacchus as an infant. Bacchus allowed Midas to ask for any gift that he desired, and he asked for the power to turn anything he touched into gold. With his wish granted, Midas quickly accrued a world of wealth by touching everything in his path. When he came to rest in his palace, he was disturbed to find that his supper turned into metal at his touch, leaving him dissatisfied and disappointed. Midas returned to Bacchus, who told him to wash away his golden touch in a nearby river.

What do we do with money? That’s a great question. Share your questions in an upcoming entrepreneur group in your city. Browse our group directory to filter by location, format, and industry. We look forward to connecting.

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