We’ve never had someone on the show be compared to a Tom Cruise character before until today. 

Molly Fletcher is a leadership coach and former sports agent who CNN once called “the female Jerry Maguire” for her work representing hall of famers and champions. 

These days she focuses on empowering leaders to unlock their full potential, and she joins us to talk about overcoming barriers, developing drive, and centering our identity on something bigger than our output. 

Don’t forget to rate and follow the show on your favorite podcast streaming service.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I was thinking about it. I don’t think we’ve ever had someone on the show be compared to a Tom Cruise character before. Now, sometimes Henry likes us to call him Maverick. But that’s a different story. Well, today everything changes because we’re excited to chat with Molly Fletcher, a leadership coach and former sports agent who CNN once called the female Jerry Maguire for her work representing Hall of Famers and champions. These days, she focuses on empowering leaders to unlock their full potential. And she joins us to talk about overcoming barriers, developing drive and centering our identity on something bigger than our output. Let’s listen in.

Rusty Rueff: Hey, William. It’s good to be back with you.

William Norvell: It is. It’s a beautiful day. It’s a beautiful day. How are you today?

Rusty Rueff: I’m doing great. I’m doing great. I’m missing our third amigo here.

William Norvell: I know, I know. We’re going to run the two today.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, we can do that. He’s out traveling. I think he’s in Asia this week. I was mentioning to our producer, Joey, before the show started that he’s starting to be like Billy Graham. I mean, he’s everywhere. He’s everywhere. You wake up and you go, Where’s Henry? Crazy.

William Norvell: He is. Yeah. He’s been gone for like a month. Yeah. Africa, Asia. So Faith driven entrepreneurs if you happen to be. I know we have podcasts dedicated to the spaces, but if you’re still listening here, watch out. There’s events everywhere. There’s amazing things happening, and hit up our website and check them out.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. You know, I was also thinking this morning, is there a day that goes by that we don’t have some reference to sports?

William Norvell: Not in the world I live in. I’m sure people live in that world I certainly haven’t lived in in a long time.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I think it’s become such a dominant part of the zeitgeisty, at least here in the United States, but even in other parts of the world. Right. It’s, you know, whether it’s cricket or it’s football. And so, you know, it’s always interesting to talk to somebody who comes from the sports world and has experience there because it is so prevalent in our culture. And our guest today, you might say she’s going to have us at hello.

William Norvell: Because I see what you did there.

Rusty Rueff: You see what I did there? Because they call her the Jerry Maguire of sports and you know, the female Jerry Maguire. And it’s exciting to have Molly Fletcher on the show. Molly, welcome in.

Molly Fletcher: Thanks, Rusty. It’s great to see you. And William, It’s great to be with you guys. Thanks for having me.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, you know, we are very fortunate that we get to speak with so many Faith driven entrepreneurs and Faith driven entrepreneurs are always looking to get. It seems like any entrepreneur is the best kind of deal. Something they’re very familiar with as an entrepreneur and, you know, and you’re familiar with as a sports agent, right? You’re always looking for the best deal. And before we jump into all of your great experiences and your background, it caught my eye that this must be just in you, because I’m going to let you share a little story about maybe the first best deal you got when you came right out of college and you live for rent free.

Molly Fletcher: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I can share that story. I’ll give you the shortened version. But basically I graduated from Michigan State where I played tennis and I wanted to get into the sports space, so I saved as much money as I could over the summer, living at home at my mom and dad’s house and drove down to Atlanta to try to find a job in sports. And I had found out that tennis was a huge deal in Atlanta and that it was so much so that people taught tennis at apartment complexes and they were given a little bit off the rent when they did that. And I learned about an apartment complex that was going to lose their tennis pro. And the manager didn’t know it yet, though. So I sort of went over there and tried to add value. You know, I over a period of a couple of days, you know, got this pizza place across the street to hook us up with free pizza. I dropped off these tennis tips that we could put in the newsletter for the residents. I called my buddy at Wilson to send me gear. I mean, I was just trying to show her, Look, I’ll be your partner, I’ll support you. And what matters most to her, which really wasn’t probably finding a tennis pro, by the way, right? Like it was keeping her occupancy up at her property. So fast forward. I went in one day after dropping off goodies over a couple of days and she said, You’re not going to believe this. I said, What’s up? She said, Well, the pro’s leaving, which I had known, and he had finally told her. And I said, Well, this is awesome. And she said, Yeah, right. So long story short, she said, Look, I mean, the rent’s 850. What we did with the pro was gave him 500 bucks off the rent. He wrote us a check for the difference of 350 at the beginning of the month. He taught tennis every Tuesday night to anybody that lives here that wants to come. And, you know, I had continued to drip little goodies into her world with the pizza and the Wilson and all that. So I, I had held one back of the pizza and I told her about that and I said, you know, this whole like eight 550 write a check for the difference at the beginning of the month thing. And she goes, Yeah. I said, what if we just, you know, what if we just waved it like straight up, It’s cleaner, Don’t you think it’s easier, you know? And she goes, Oh my God. Like what? Long story short, she goes back and talks to her, calls her boss, comes back out and says, You’re good to go. So, yeah, it was unbelievable because the truth is it pulled off probably what is oftentimes our largest expense, right? Our home, our apartment, whatever. And, you know, when you get into the sports business, you don’t make any money out of the gates in general. You know, my first job was answering the phones at the Super Bowl host committee when I got down to Atlanta. And I think I made 600 bucks a month and I went back to the guy and I said, You mean a week with this 600, right? Not a month. You said, No, no, no. You’re lucky to have this gig, right? 600 a month. So anyway, that was. Quite helpful, to put it mildly.

Rusty Rueff: All right. So that’s a great story because, you know, so many of us kind of go into those kind of situations as you did, and we just take at face value. Oh, it is what it is. It is. You know, if I could afford it, I can’t afford it. And then you just you take it or you move on. But there is something about some people and I can’t say that I’m one of them, but I admire it. Who sees the deal that there’s something there’s another way to get to. Yes. And obviously you just showed us an example of that. Is that innate in you or were you raised in an environment where you saw that kind of happening? And I guess it leads to, you know, did the entrepreneurial spirit grab you early?

Molly Fletcher: You know was I raise that way? I do. And I always give my mom and dad credit and they always say, you know, you did this all the time as an age, and we’re not the reason that you knew how to negotiate. But the truth is, I learned so much. You know, my mom would go to the grocery store and she’d bring a stack of coupons and half of them would be expired and she’d get up to the checkout counter with the lady or the guy checking us out, and she’d work him like there was no other to get him to take the expired coupons. And I would watch her right build a rapport with them, you know, kind of connect with them and and build a little bit of a relationship and sort of work him to take these coupons on. And, you know, with a story of another three days old, five days old. I was just back in the back. You got 20 of themI mean, good to get them off the shelf. And I’d watch her or we’d go to a play and I’d be 14 and 13. You got in for less because you were younger and I’d watch her just grind the ticket lady right to get me. And at the underage youth price. So I saw it a lot. And what I saw was someone who did it with kindness, with authenticity. But she wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted. You know, we’d go she’d go buy a dress and it’d have a little stain on it. And I’d watch her kind of go, I mean, about 20% off on the stage, you know, she’d get home and get the stain right out and she’d get the dress for 20% off. So I watched it a lot. But then I would say, Rusty, when I got into the sports business, I had the opportunity to in many ways negotiate every day for the athletes that we had, you know, their endorsement deals, their appearances. And I always say that, you know, negotiation and the confidence around it comes from practice, from doing it. And I would encourage people, the more you do it in a safe environment, right, like with a dress that you want off or trying to get your kid in for an entourage, the more you just practice in a safe setting, the more comfortable you get when you start having to go for more and negotiate and ask for what you want in bigger settings, I think that confidence comes through the wraps.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, so I think that’s really helpful because I think we all in the entrepreneurial world, you know, when you’re running a business and trying to keep it all together with your funding and what you have and what you don’t, you definitely need to have somebody on the team that looks for the best deal. You know? At the same time, though, I once had a CFO that worked for me that refused to pay invoices until we got the third notice. And one day I said to him and I said, So when we ask people to pay our bills. Do we feel good when they wait for the third notice? He goes, No, no, no, no. I want it as soon as do. And I said, Okay. So there’s a balance in here, right, in doing the best that you can do, but also doing the right thing in negotiations, in deals. Where’s the line? Because it’s a fine line, right? You talk about you push hard and, you know, 14 years old, 13 years old, you know, there’s a line there. How do you find that line? What is it? And then how do you balance it?

Molly Fletcher: Well, I mean, I think the line is honesty, right? I mean, we have to stay in a place where we’re being honest because I believe relationships are key to negotiation. And if we’re going to negotiate with people and do it again and again and again, potentially, we have to be honest in the way in which we approach it. And so I would say when you’re going below that line, that is obviously not right. You’re operating outside of the integrity that we all you know, I believe it is a requirement, no question. So and it doesn’t mean that, you know, for me as an agent, I negotiated with general managers, manufacturer reps, but I had to I had to go back and negotiate them again with another guy, with another athlete, with another player. So for me, it was always incredibly important to be honest. And I believe that relationships, when we build great relationships with the people that we negotiate with, you can do more deals quicker and you can build that connection. You know, how do you know how it’s too far? I mean, I think you’ve got to pay a lot of attention to what matters to the people on the other side. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make when they negotiate is they spend so much energy focused on what they want and not nearly the amount of energy on the problem that you’re solving for them and what they need. Whenever I was getting ready to negotiate a deal with a team, I always wanted to get in their world. Where are they at, you know, with their salary cap or, you know, who’s on the free agent market. That might be interesting to them. Where’s their overall payroll? What are their trade plays? What are their minor league system look like? I wanted to get in there so that I so they had a better understanding of what their options were. I think sometimes one of the biggest mistakes we make is we don’t spend enough time in their world understanding what matters most to them, and that all drives that connection. It builds the relationship, which is an imperative inside of these kinds of conversations, which is what negotiation is, by the way. Right? Like, I think people overthink it. It’s a conversation built on a relationship in a perfect world where one party is solving another problem for another. And if we can dial it down to that, I think it helps us stay centered. And candidly, at some level, less intimidated by the process?

William Norvell: Oh, that’s so good. And so I’m taking notes. So as an entrepreneur, right, So we don’t measure that well. So I’ve started a company about 18 months ago, and I’m curious to ask this because I’m sure you had different points of your life when you had more and less leverage. Right. I’m thinking for entrepreneurs listening, how do you balance integrity and honesty when you know, I mean, you’ve got the product almost built or, you know, the projections are heading in that direction, but you know, you still need to raise the money or you still need to close that deal. I feel like often, you know, I hear two sides of that. Sometimes you’re like, hey, you know, you got to fake it till you make it or you got to lead with honesty and integrity, Right? And that’s I think the answer is there’s a balance in there. But I’m curious how you you know, I don’t know the proper question, but you know, how you balance that and how you think about negotiating deals when maybe the information’s not perfect. Right. And how do you get where, you know, at some point entrepreneurs do need things done. We need sales, we need fundraising, but we want to do it the right way.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I always get to ask the question about the third year financial projections, right? You’re supposed to put the third year out there and you know, you have no clue what the.

William Norvell: No clue.

Rusty Rueff: third clue Is going to look like. And it’s like, well, is this high integrity to put numbers that I don’t know that I think it’s going to be good or should I not do that? Yeah, I mean, it’s tough stuff.

Molly Fletcher: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, if you can pull back and dial in on what is your process to achieve those three, your numbers, for example, and you believe that that process is real and you believe that you’ve got the skill set and the tools and the people around you and the resource, etc. to execute against that. And you can look in the mirror and walk through how you’re going to deliver against that in three years and you believe it, then go for it, right? I mean, those are the kind of people that I think people want to invest in is that people who believe that they can. Drive at some level. Outstanding business results. But I think you’ve got to be able to look in the mirror. You’ve got to be able to feel confident in communicating. The process by which you’re, in fact, going to execute against that in three years. Right. And feel comfortable in your ability to do that and that the following things are going to happen as I better positioned myself to do that. But if we can’t do that, then I think that’s a gap. We need to be able to explain it, justify it. You know, when we’re putting a stake in the ground on where we’re going to be and how we’re going to get there. But those are projections, and everybody knows that there’s a lot of things that change inside of that process. We all do. We know that. Right. But, you know, I believe that, you know, you tell the truth. You tell it yourself. You tell it quickly. And if you’re doing that consistently inside of that journey over their three years period to you’re building the rapport and the connection and the trust along the way, because they know that you’re not afraid to speak up when things are working, but also when things aren’t working to ask for help. To ask for support. To recognize that you have gaps. I mean, I think one of the most important things and I get this on my podcast all the time with gas that the thing I consistently hear, whether it’s a coach or an entrepreneur or a leader or a CEO or an author or an actor is curiosity. Right. They’re all insatiably curious and aren’t afraid to ask the tough questions so that they can continue to learn and grow. And I think if we do that as leaders and entrepreneurs, particularly in relationships where we’re all driving for the same ideal outcome, that builds trust along the way, when maybe the third year number, you don’t quite hit it or you pivot a little bit right or left right. You stayed in good communication and strengthen that relationship along the way, which is obviously imperative.

Rusty Rueff: Right. You’ve talked about relationship here. The question before you answer yet, building rapport and having relationships and building trust and staying in contact and communication. So tell us what it was like to be a female agent in a male dominated world when you’re trying to build these relationships and rapport and, you know, in an industry that I’m guessing might not have been as accepting of female agents as they were male agents. I’m just guessing.

Molly Fletcher: Heck of a gas man. You nailed that. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, I get that question a lot. And, you know, here’s the reality, right? There was no other woman when I started that was an agent. I mean, there was nobody else representing big league baseball players, PGA Tour players at the time. And I would go to I started recruiting baseball players generally right out of Georgia Tech. I’m here in Atlanta and I would I would go down to Georgia Tech. They had an unbelievable baseball program and still do. And so I would lean on that fence and I built a relationship with the head coach down there. But I would look down that fence and there was guys in khakis and golf shirts. Right. All of them, you know, with chewing tobacco on one side of their lip and bubblegum in the other. Right. And you know, I was often mistaken as a girlfriend or, you know, somebody’s secretary. I mean, they were what is she doing here or behind that, you know, played at big league ballparks during batting practice with the baseball player at the time that we had our prospects. You know, I was mistaken as a girlfriend or, you know, and it happened all the time. I’d be on the range at PGA Tour events. But what I found was just the power and authenticity and being who we are. I didn’t ever try to be like those guys, you know, in the khakis and the golf. I didn’t try to show up in khakis and golf shirt. I had to be who I really was. And, you know, I think there’s a powerful thing in that. Right. And I always encourage women when I talk to women to to stay the course of who you are. That’s all people really want us to be anyway. That’s how we connect with others, is when we show up as ourselves. So it was hard, it was challenging, but it was, you know, at the end of the day, too, it was an opportunity to reframe those moments as a gift, as an opportunity. And for me to in those moments, I had a choice. I could have said, Man, what am I doing here? This is insane. Nobody looks like me. I mean, people were mistaken in me for girlfriends and, you know, nobody’s giving me the time of day. Players don’t look at me. They look at my male are like, What am I doing? Or What a gift. This is cool. I’m a little bit different. And maybe that difference is in fact going to allow me to support and serve these athletes in a way that’s different from others. This can be pretty, pretty awesome. And so I think we all find ourselves in moments in life, right, where we have a choice of what we listen to and what we turn the volume down on. And, you know, I I’m grateful because I believe mindset and self-talk and all those things are incredibly important to helping us show up as the. Best version of ourselves. So that was a tough window of time, no question. But but we’ve got to believe that we can add value and we’ve got to shift our self-talk, shift our story to one that serves us and takes us where we want to go.

Rusty Rueff: Is it better now? There are more female agents.

Molly Fletcher: There are more, thank goodness. And, you know, I do everything I can to support other women that want to get into that space. There are definitely more, which is cool, but they’re still not. I mean, I bet it’s well under 5% for sure. And there’s women that do endorsement deals and secure appearances and are marketing agents. I’m sort of talking about the agents that are, you know, negotiating player contracts, you know, sort of that role. So I bet it’s under five or 10% of the overall pool for sure.

William Norvell: So I want to go a little deeper into that. So obviously, you’ve worked with well, we haven’t asked yet, so maybe you mentioned some of the players and personalities you’ve worked with before, if that’s appropriate. But I’m curious, you know, our entrepreneurs and you know, I’m struggling with this too. You know, the pull to be more than you are is real. Sometimes you you feel like you might get penalized for being authentic and real and telling people exactly what’s going on. And especially in the age of social media and everybody’s doing great. And everybody just raised this next round of funding. And this happened to me a few times. I was jealous of a few things. I call it a few people to understand the backstory of some of these LinkedIn posts. And I called one the other day and I said, So that must have been like an amazing exit for you. Like, Oh no, actually the investors lost all their money, so it was a terrible outcome. But, you know, we sold the companies. That’s the story I’m telling and I’ve seen that a lot. And it’s not from a horrible place like, well, if I tell the story, we fail. Like, how is that going to look on me and and where do I end up? And and so as entrepreneurs, some of them are approaching sports star fame like that. Our world has shifted a little bit. I mean, there are people out there. I’m curious how the people you were close to, how did they stay real and authentic in a place where I’m swimming, being strong and saying you’re always 100% and saying, Oh, no, of course that injuries heal. I’m the best I’ve ever been, even though I’m 33 years old, I’m as fast as I was at 23. How does that work?

Molly Fletcher: Well, wow. I mean, there’s a lot to unpack there. I mean, I think.

William Norvell: Sure.

Molly Fletcher: You know, it’s interesting. It makes me consider what’s the difference between transparency and authenticity. Right. And, you know, I think the ones that were able to navigate well had a circle of people around them that they listened to. And that circle of people wanted nothing from them but for them to be the best version of themselves. Now, that’s really hard for these guys to find is the truth. And it’s sad. I mean, sometimes their own family, their own spouse has an agenda. But I think for them to stay centered and squared away, they’ve got to have people that tell them the truth and they’ve got to have people that tell them the truth and that they listen to and that they pivot based on that feedback. You know, people that help them understand that what you embark on every day, you have an unbelievably unique platform and help them understand the power in that, the gift in that. But I also think it’s incredibly important that you prepare them for life without that jersey on their back, because it’s going to end. It’s going to end. And if they’re not ready when it ends for who they are away from the sport, who they are without the jersey on their back, they’ve got to understand who they are at the center without all of it and prepare for that. And that was really important to me. I mean, and it’s sad because I don’t think it happens enough because when an athlete’s done competing, an agent doesn’t make money on them potentially anymore unless they step into the broadcast booth or something else. So often times agent don’t spend a lot of time preparing guys or gals for when it’s over and being intentional about positioning for them for that life after sports and helping ensure that they know that there are human being, right? Not just a baseball player that throws 98 miles an hour and to protect that and position them for that. And, you know, to me, that’s an incredibly important part of of the role that we play in their lives, because even the best of the best out there, they never really believe that it’s going to end. I mean, they know practically, right? Like, dude, I’m not going to be throwing 98 at 50 years old, but they really just aren’t ready to go there because it’s all they’ve known. Most of them, it’s all they’ve ever known. It’s all they’ve ever done. So the identity away from it is a really important part of positioning them for life after sport.

William Norvell: Hmm. Now it’s I hear so much I mean, so much on the entrepreneurial journey as well, right? I mean, it’s the same thing. I mean, companies can last theoretically longer, but they typically don’t. Right. I mean, if you got a 20 year career running a company that I mean, that’s a three standard deviation outcome, right? Most people aren’t the CEO of their organization for that long. So in a similar way, you’re called in to something that will likely end. I mean, that the odds are, of course, most you know, 50% of companies don’t make it when you start it. And then the ones that last two decades are so rare. So I just heard so much good feedback there for entrepreneurs to you. I mean, if you don’t have someone in your life that can be honest with you that just cares more about who you are than what you do.

Molly Fletcher: Right, it Is dangerous. And, you know, I’m super grateful to be in an organization called YPO and, you know, YPO has forums and that is so powerful because there’s a group of people and I can’t encourage entrepreneurs enough to do this, have to have a group of people who have no agenda but to help you be the best version of yourself, the best leader. And they’re not afraid to give you tough feedback. People that are, you know, your own personal at some level board of directors, right, that you can lean into. It’s imperative, you know, because it’s lonely sometimes running a company, building a company, scaling a company, and hopefully great leaders build a team around them of people that will give them tough feedback, that will host up their boss, if you will, and share things that maybe they need to hear. But we need those people in our lives so that we can then do the business justice. Do the people that we lead justice and take it where we think we need to go. But getting authentic, real feedback is hard in this world, but it’s incredibly important for growth.

Rusty Rueff: I often tell entrepreneurs they need a three conversation person and they’ll say, What’s a three conversation person? I said, This is a person that you know, has no agenda. They only love you, nothing vested in you whatsoever, that you get to have three conversations with them. The first conversation is when you call them and you say, I’m done and so burnt out, I don’t know how things are going. I don’t know what to do that that person says, No, you’re not. You’re good. It’s you’re just having a bad day. Get back on the horse. You’re going to be good, right? And then that lasts for a while. And then you’ll get the second conversation of, you know, here I am again. It’s awful. I just I’m out of my realm. I shouldn’t be doing this. No, no, no, no. You’re okay. Go do this. Go do that. You’ll be fine. Everything’s good. Then they’re back on the horse. And then the third time, when they come back and say, I’m done, I can’t. It’s over. You say, Yep. You know, you’re right. Come over here. Let me give you a big hug. You’ve given everything that you’ve got. Mm. Don’t look over your shoulder and ever think about an if or a but because I know and I can tell anybody else as your three conversation person that you gave it your all. Mm hmm. It’s easy to find one or have the first two conversations, Right? That’s easy. But the one that’ll give you the tough love to say, Yeah, you’re at the end of your trail. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s really hard.

Molly Fletcher: Yeah.

Rusty Rueff: Hey, look, we know what you’re trying to do is pretty much impossible. Nearly one half of every business started closes its door five years in. You’ve got to raise capital. You’ve got to build a product. You’ve got to acquire customers. You’ve got to find employees. You’ve got to pay them. Well, You’ve got to keep them around. And then you’ve got to sustain whatever success you happen to achieve. It’s no wonder business owners experience more marital and family strife than any other group, or that they are nearly three times more likely to struggle with depression. Do you really think you’re the exception? We know that entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but we also learned that it doesn’t have to be. That’s why we’re so passionate about community at Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Our foundation groups allow you to lock arms with 10 to 15 like minded entrepreneurs who are searching for life, giving relationships just like you. There’s no cost and there’s no catch. They meet for just eight weeks online or in person all over the world. After that, you can keep meeting with your group monthly. You don’t have to fight this impossible battle alone. There are millions of others struggling with the same things you are, and they need you as much as you need them. Visit Faith Driven Entrepreneur dot org slash groups to find out more and register for a group that works for you. Now let’s get back to the show.

Rusty Rueff: So, you know, if you’re fortunate enough to be in a position where you have an agent that negotiates for you and advocates for you and, you know, tells you the truth, it’s all those good things. But for those of us who don’t. You know, what can we learn from having an agent that we could put to use even if we don’t get one?

Molly Fletcher: Relevant to running a business, relevant to negotiation, relevant to anything.

Rusty Rueff: Relevant to my career. Right. You know, I mean, it would be so awesome to have somebody who says, you know, Rusty, it’s time to make this next move. Right. You know,

William Norvell: provide options.

Rusty Rueff: Exactly Yeah, that’s right. I mean, you know, the only time we ever got that was coming out of college, right? You know, and that was all luck, by the way, when you chose that first job.

William Norvell: Best to my knowledge, no one’s calling people on my behalf, asking if there’s good opportunities around.

Rusty Rueff: Exactly. To be awesome career company. You know, there are must be lessons that those who have an agent is transferable. What are those lessons.

Molly Fletcher: I think a couple of things come up for me. It’s a great question. I’ve never had this one actually before. But, you know, a good agent’s objective, right? Like a good agent’s objective in the sense that. An athlete might have a sense of belief around what they can and can’t do in the future. And a good agent’s going to level, set them a little bit if they need it around what really is possible, what the comps are out there, the reality around what is possible. So I think. Objectivity is powerful in a good agent. You know, I think the other thing that is a big part of an agent’s role is anticipation. Right. A great agent anticipates things that are coming down the pipe with an athlete that the athlete maybe hasn’t thought about themselves. I had a player once who I thought he was going to get traded because he’d been struggling for quite a while at the plate, and I knew that the team had a higher tolerance for him than most. But I just didn’t think that, you know, it’s a business. And so I thought, man, he’s going to get traded. So I was out ahead of it a little bit. So when he did call me on his way home from the park in tears, absolutely couldn’t believe that he had gotten traded. I was ready for that. So anticipation and I was able to help reposition his mindset quickly around the gifts in it, the opportunity in it. Anticipations, huge. One of the other things an agent does is they’re asking on your behalf for something. And that is a tough thing to replicate for yourself in some circumstances. And so I think where that thoughtfulness comes in when you’re advocating for yourself is how to be just strong enough, how to be confident enough, how to be humble enough, kind enough, compassionate enough, Right. But you’ve got to be confident and you’ve got to be prepared. You’ve got to be all those things. But. An agent can have a little bit of a different kind of conversation with someone on your behalf than you can have for yourself. And so that is a thing that can’t particularly be exactly replicated when you’re advocating for yourself. Right. I mean, it’s like if I was trying to manage and book my own speaking engagements and trying to price those for myself and talk about why it’s worth it. And I mean, it just it’s not the same. So those are the things that come up for me. But I would say objectivity, anticipation. And the truth is 90% of what I did as an agent wasn’t negotiate their contracts. It was supporting them day in and day out on all the things that happen in athlete’s life, whether it was personally on the field, it was being a bit of a sounding board. So that’s why I go back to the importance of great leaders, great entrepreneurs, having people that you can lean on and build and create authentic communication with. And we’re going to tell you the truth.

William Norvell: Hmm. That’s amazing. Such good stuff. Also something I don’t have to struggle with. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be traded and imagine what it’s like to wake up. Somebody is like, Yeah, you’re in San Francisco. Got a move to New York playing somewhere else. Pick up your family. I mean, I know there’s a big number attached to it, typically, but goodness, that’s got to be a mind.

Molly Fletcher: I know it’s funny that you bring that up because I said that to somebody was I mean, can you imagine? You know, you’re an executive at AT&T, right? You walk into the office and they look at you and they’ve got all your stuff packed up and they say, you know what, You’re going over to Sprint and you start tomorrow and you start tomorrow and you better be ready and buy in and be all in and be like, Really? Can you even imagine? So yeah, it’s tough. I mean, it’s tough when that happens to these guys for sure, particularly when they have a real affinity and love for whatever club they’re on or team on. It’s obviously a little bit easier if they’re prepared for it or if they’re not happy in the clubhouse. They don’t love the manager, they don’t think they’re hitting coach or they don’t love the the GM or the fans or the city or whatever. But that’s not always the case.

William Norvell: Molly, I want to give you a bit of open canvas here from one of my later questions. How did your faith play into this world, into this job, into loving and caring for athletes but negotiate on their behalf? I want to give you a little bit open form to say, you know, how did that drive you? Or whether it’s you personally or impact the role in which you had in the lives and in the various organizations?

Molly Fletcher: Well, I think it was a red thread, if you will, through everything. I mean, it was a red thread through the kind of athletes I wanted a sign who I even wanted to work with, the coaches, the broadcasters. It was a red thread that helped me filter who I wanted to go after and recruit hard and try to sign because these guys and gals, they call you and you talk to them almost every day, all the time, day, night, midnight, two am, early in the morning, weekends, all of it. So I wanted to ensure that I was. Working with people who I felt like our faith and or our beliefs were aligned, that they weren’t ever going to put me in a position to ask for something that I felt like didn’t align with who I was or my core faith, my core values, if you will. I mean, did I sign everybody that was. A strong Christian. No, but I certainly feel like. I drew those kind of athletes in. You know, a lot of the athletes that I worked with are and were. John Smoltz, Jeff [….], you know, even some guys that, you know, played for two or three years people may not know about, like Mike [….], my coaches, Tom Izzo, strong in his faith, Doc Rivers, you know, Ernie Johnson, Junior. Wow. Talk about it on a real human being. Wow.

William Norvell: Yeah. We’ve had Ernie on the show was amazing.

Molly Fletcher: Amazing. So I think that I, I attracted at some level probably those kind of athletes and coaches and broadcasters. But those were also the ones that I wanted to wake up every day and serve and support and lift up. So it it played a huge role to answer your question, and it played a role in the kind of athletes I went after, the kind of athletes I wanted to support and serve, and the kind of I think it played a role in the way that I negotiated. It played a role and. The kinds of deals that I would want to bring forward to my athletes, the ones that I felt like aligned with who they are and their brand. And it became a filter by which sometimes I would help them understand the risk in associating with a particular brand that didn’t align with who I thought they wanted to position themselves as. So it was a huge part of everything and still as.

William Norvell: Amen and on that thread. How did you. You know, we talked a little bit about I think we’ve positioned some of this about, you know, the people you’re representing, but I assume you were quite well known as you find out if you Google your name and you also became quite famous on this journey and you would walk into rooms and I’m sure people knew exactly who you were. You wielded an immense amount of power and seems like still do. I’m curious to ask, how do you think about rooting your sense of identity and something deeper in something more?

Molly Fletcher: Mm hmm. Well, I think of myself as a steward for my faith and Jesus, right? I was given a gift that I feel like I’m now have an opportunity and a platform to channel that. It’s such a liberating thing to have your your why at the center of everything that you go do, Every decision you make, things you say yes to, no to. It’s so powerful. So for me, you know, from a consistency perspective, I have a really good friend of mine who is incredibly strong in her faith and somebody who I always aspire to try to learn from in that regard. And I was with her and I said, like, when do you pray? Like, how do you do that? I mean, give me inside of that a little bit. Like, how do you what’s your routine around it at some level? And she you know, she starts the day with some scripture and a bit of a quiet time. But then she said, and I loved it. She said, You know, Molly, it’s just all day long, every day, all the time, all day. I am constantly seeing things, moments, and I’m just constantly talking to God. And I was like, Wow. And it was a little bit of an epiphany, really, for me, to be honest, because. You know, you hear a lot about wake up, have your quiet time, read a little scripture and then go on with your day. And I do believe that life is about the process and that we get better through intention and daily reminders. I mean, one of the number one reasons people don’t achieve their goals is just a lack of visibility of them keeping it front and center. And so that was really powerful for me because it reminded me, right, to make it a part of everything that you do before a call, before a meeting, before a conversation, before I walk on stage to give a keynote, before I walk into a meeting, before I embark on a difficult conversation. Anything. If you root yourself there in your faith, it changes the way you show up. And I believe it keeps you centered to show up in a way that is emulating that of a strong faith of a strong Christian in that moment. So. It keeps you rooted. And I think no question about it, it keeps you centered. Obviously, we know this. But, you know, the other thing I think that’s helped me a lot as my husband is unbelievable we’ve been married for 22 years and he is my rock. You know, our three daughters. And you’ve got to have you know, as you progress in life, you’ve got to have a lot of people around you, I think, who love you, not because of what you do, but because of who you are. And, you know, I talk to my mom and dad. They’re 86 and 81 every day, sometimes twice a day. I talk to my brothers several times a day. And that is a huge part of my life. And my day is And I think all of that keeps you rooted in what matters most.

Rusty Rueff: We’re jump to Lightning Round in a second, but I love this idea of what your friend expressed to you, you know, sort of being in constant conversation with God. Right. It always brings me back to Nehemiah. Right. Nehemiah long fasts, long big prayers, but also had that little moment right before he goes and talks to the king. You know, just just hey, guide me here. And I think it’s just hard for all of us because the world is just full of so many distractions. But if we can find our own way to que ourselves, to remind ourselves that, you know, we’ve got to go back and be in conversation, in a real conversation and in we should want to be right. You know, Jesus, our best friend. We want to talk to him all the time. That sounds a little cliche ish because it’s really hard to do. But we really should want that. Okay. So we’re going to jump to Lightning Round. This is where William and I are going to ask you some really quick questions, really fast answers. And I’m going to jump in with what’s the one word that you love to use with entrepreneurs?

Molly Fletcher: Oh, my God. I’ve got to be quick. Discipline.

Rusty Rueff: Great. What’s the one word that you have to use that you wish you didn’t have to use with entrepreneurs?

Molly Fletcher: Resilience.

Rusty Rueff: What’s your favorite charitable organization?

Molly Fletcher: Boys and Girls Club of America. I’ve been on the board for a long time and I love them. I mean, I just love what they stand for, what they do for kids.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, they’re awesome. And I’ll turn it over to William. But before I do, what’s the craziest thing an athlete ever asked for you to negotiate for them?

William Norvell: That’s good.

Molly Fletcher: Probably. I mean, you know, it was a rookie in the big leagues, and he wanted me to build in. He had no leverage at all. He was a first year guy in the bigs and he wanted me to try to lock in suites for him on the road. And I was like, Bro, go hit some bombs. Get on base, get it done. And then maybe. But you know, you hadn’t done anything yet in the big leagues, man. There’s no suite coming on the road for you. But I you know, it’s a little bit, too, what we talked about earlier. I didn’t have guys that asked me for crazy stuff because [….] you know what I mean, I didn’t get a lot of that, thank goodness.

William Norvell: Now, what what’s your favorite sport?

Molly Fletcher: Well, tennis I played tennis at Michigan State. So I would say I mean, tennis has always it changed my life. I mean, they got me a free apartment. I was a D1 athlete because of it. It it taught me so much. So I am forever grateful for the sport of tennis.

William Norvell: Could Steffi Graf beat Serena Williams.

Molly Fletcher: Could Steffi Graf beat Serena Williams right now?

William Norvell: [….] Both in their primes.

Molly Fletcher: Oh, I know. I think, Serena, would have beat her.

William Norvell: Okay, Now, just had to ask.

Molly Fletcher: She is the GOAT.

William Norvell: That was I thought just. I’m always curious. Your curiosity. Right. Here we are. Favorite sports team in the state of Alabama.

Molly Fletcher: That is so loaded.

William Norvell: No, it’s not. It’s very simple question.

Molly Fletcher: Auburn and let me tell you why. I have three daughters at Auburn, and I say.

William Norvell: Oh it gets worse.

Molly Fletcher: [….] over there, I need to live in Alabama is the truth.

William Norvell: Oh three daughters Auburn.

Molly Fletcher: I got to cheer for Auburn right now, man. Now I’m a Saban. I love them. He’s unbelievable. But you guys need to hand the baton over, man. You’ve had your good days.

William Norvell: Yeah, well, let’s. Good. We don’t usually ask for prayer requests, but I now know yours. So I can just. I’ll just take that down myself, if that’s all right. But. Okay. In all honesty, one of our favorite things we love to finish the lightning Round with is we love to come back to God’s Word at the end of every one of our shows and would love to invite you if you would honor us with sharing some piece of God’s scripture that you carry with you. It could be something you read this morning. It could be something you’ve meditated on your whole life, could be something that’s coming alive to you in new ways in this season you find yourself.

Molly Fletcher: Yeah, You know, I read a daily devotional and I wish I could remember what it was four or five days ago. And I don’t know the scripture off the top of my head, but what I love that it talked about is. Basically take the time to be quiet. And here me. Take the time to be quiet and hear me. And that’s what matters. That’s what it’s about. And it was such a good reminder. And it’s funny, isn’t it, when I open this book and I should note Jesus calling, right? I’m sure a lot of your listeners, but is it funny? Isn’t it amazing? And it’s not an accident how sometimes we open it up and we read it and it’s exactly what we needed to hear that day. And I remember on that day when I read that I had one thing coming at me after another, and it was such a good reminder, right? Stop, pause and hear me. That is what comes up for me right now. But I loved that scripture, that piece.

William Norvell: Amen.

Rusty Rueff: It’s awesome. That’s awesome. Molly, What fun this has been. I mean, I can’t imagine it being more fun. You showed up for us. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. But we don’t want to leave without our audience getting a chance to understand how to follow your work. So tell us how to come find you.

Molly Fletcher: Yeah. Molly Fletcher.com is a great place in my podcast Game Changers with Molly Fletcher, as you know, like yourself on. And we’ve been so blessed to have some incredible athletes and coaches, broadcasters, entrepreneurs, CEOs, all that. So game changers with Molly Fletcher as well is a great place to start with us too. It’s just my podcast.

Rusty Rueff: That’s awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much, William. Great to be with you all. We’ll have Henry back here next time. We just really appreciate everything that happened today.

Molly Fletcher: Thank you.

Give Because You Get To, Not Because You Have To

Culture has taught entrepreneurs bad habits about money—that it can buy joy. And giving is nothing more than an obligation for being considered a good person. 

In our haphazard pursuit of having more, we’ve lost touch with what it means to live a generous life. 

We need a change of heart. 

With our actions we proclaim that the stuff we have and the success we experience is not as important as our relationship with God. 

Joyfully Generous Entrepreneur is a 5-part series featuring NY Times bestselling authors Francis Chan and Andy Crouch, with Jessica Kim, Casey Crawford, and other real-life stories from entrepreneurs in Romania, Great Britain, South Africa, and the United States.

Discover the Gift of Giving. Embrace the Joy of Generosity

We want to be clear. This isn’t a series intended to make you give more. Our goal is to simply introduce the topic of generosity for entrepreneurs specifically. 

It’s easy to fall into the mindset of running “my business, my team, my venture.” But the truth is: it’s all His. And if it all belongs to God anyways, then we can be the cheerful givers scripture invites us to be. And our generosity can be reflective of the relationship we have with God and with one another. 

The sooner we begin to pursue a godly perspective of generosity, the more impact we can have in our lifetime.

Session 1

Servant of Only One Master

Session 2

Give Joyfully Out of the Gift Given to You

Session 3

God Owns It All 

Session 4

With Whom and Where

Session 5

The Joy of Community

The Joy of Community

Join a Faith Driven Entrepreneur Group! Lock arms with 10-15 founders who are on the same journey as you. Meet in person or online. It’s all free. No cost, no catch, just connection. 

— by John Hawkins

Sofia felt that she could not take it anymore. Her husband Miguel came home again at midnight, having been at his start-up’s office space since 6:30 this morning. He was absolutely exhausted and was supposed to fly out in 7 hours on a fundraising trip. The kids rarely saw him when he had any energy and focus to give to them. Their marriage was in the dumpster. Miguel’s involvement in their church’s small group and worship services was hit and miss—and even when he was there—he wasn’t fully there. 

Sofia didn’t know how to describe what had happened to Miguel and what he was doing to himself. Her friend Sadie told her that it sounded like he was worshipping his work. But Sofia knew what worship was. And whatever Miguel was doing, it sure didn’t look like worship to her. Was her husband worshiping work?

What Does Psalm 150 Have to Say to Workoholics?

Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
    praise him according to his excellent greatness!

Praise him with trumpet sound;
    praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
    Praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
    Praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 150

Psalm 150 gives a vibrant picture of Christian worship. Christian worship focuses on God, who He is, what He has done, and how He should be praised. It declares His worth-ship in all things.

We say, of some, that they worship their work. But, if we take passages like Psalm 150 as a guide for what worship is, I would say that I’ve never seen anyone worship their work. Not like Psalm 150 describes worship.

Am I A Workaholic? Check for Idols in your Life

I’ve seen some people spend endless hours at work out of fear and insecurity, trying to manipulate work to give them something they think they deeply need or want. Sometimes it’s for ego, sometimes for money, sometimes to substantiate themselves before certain others, and sometimes it is out of avoidance of responsibilities that they’re failing at in other parts of their lives. But, whatever they’re doing and whatever is driving it, it is anything but Psalm 150 worship.

The motivations may differ between workaholics, but all of their actions look like the worship of an idol. Idols are manmade creations viewed as capricious gods that we think we can manipulate to give us what we want or need. Idol worship will always result in frustration, diminishment of self, and erosion of faith in God. It damages our relationship with God and others and provokes God’s anger. Whereas the worship of God resets our perspective on ourselves, our contexts and others, the worship of idols slowly consumes us and dims our perspective on everything. The worship of God magnifies God. Worshipping idols magnifies our wants, needs, and fears.

Does Working Hard Make Me A Workaholic?

All jobs have their “crunch times,” those times when you have to push hard for a season. And as Christians, we prepare for these times to ensure that we protect our worship of God and Christian fellowship while also remaining faithful in our commitments to communities, spouses, and kids. So no, working hard or working long hours doesn’t mean you are a workaholic.

We can surprisingly flourish in crunch times if we keep our priorities straight. Conversely, if we don’t keep priorities in order, the tendrils of the idolatry of work can slowly enmesh us. Our souls shrivel, and our perspectives fade as we shift from worshipping the Creator to worshipping the created. This spiritual “blindness” is a serious red flag when it comes to answering the question, “Am I a workaholic?”

We’ve learned that life and leadership eventually unravel you. And no one holds your hand and keeps that from happening. Church Reformer John Calvin described the human heart as a perpetual idol factory. And like life and leadership, idols unravel us as well. This will happen. Left to ourselves, we will do this. As we lose our daily cleansing and refocus that comes from worshipping God, we will build idols, and we will unravel.

Use Psalm 51 as a Blueprint for Returning from Workaholism

Psalm 51 is a prayer of a recovering idolater. Though in other seasons, a godly and valiant man, David came into a period of worshipping the idol of comfort and pleasure. During this season, he took a good man’s wife, had sex with her that led to pregnancy, and had the husband killed in a foolish and awful attempt to cover up his sin. As a result, he lost clarity on who he was, who others around him were, and the nature of his context. Moreover, he lost the clarity that comes from worshipping God with a pure heart.

In Psalm 51, David comes to God to confess his sin and ask for restoration. In verses 14 and 15 he says:

Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
    you who are God my Savior,
    and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Open my lips, Lord,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.

This prayer is the hope for all of us idolaters. We believe that God will forgive us, restore our worship of Him, and tear down our worship of anything else. This is what Miguel needs. He needs to seek and find forgiveness. He needs to be restored through the worship of God. Miguel, like us, is no better or worse than David. We need to be forgiven, and through the worship of God, we need to be restored. We don’t need an idol, we need a Savior. And that from which we need to be saved is ourselves.

Perhaps you identify with Miguel. If so, consider joining a Faith Driven Foundation Group. The entrepreneur’s instinct is to “power through” and isolate themselves in the process. But personal growth happens best in community. Click the button to learn more about our supportive entrepreneur groups.

Related articles

Seeing captives set free and walking the last mile of restoration through sustainable employment. That is what motivates Taylor Blom, as the Co-Founder and CRO at Next Door Photos. As a rapidly growing real estate photography company, Next Door Photos partners with impact-driven entrepreneurs to create businesses that serve realtors locally, while redeeming global supply chains. Taylor shares about running a business that’s built to bring freedom to people’s lives.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Seeing captives set free and walking the last mile of restoration through sustainable employment. That’s what motivates our guest today, Taylor Blom as the co-founder and CRO at Next Door Photos as a rapidly growing real estate photography company. Next door photos partners with impact driven entrepreneurs to create businesses that serve realtors locally while redeeming global supply chains by partnering with organizations in the Philippines, Kenya and Nepal. Next door Photos has been able to provide stable, high tech careers to hundreds and hundreds of survivors of human trafficking and extreme poverty. In addition to their commitment to local and global impact, next door photos upholds high standards of excellence by photographing listings the next day and editing photos with a 12 hour turnaround. Join us as Taylor Blom shares about running a business that’s built to bring freedom to people’s lives. Let’s listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I’m here with Rusty and William. Brothers. Good morning.

Rusty Rueff: Good morning.

William Norvell: Always a good morning.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed. Indeed. We are just recently back from this international extravaganza of taping and presenting the Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference. And I have to tell you that while I have had a heart for overseas entrepreneurs and overseas markets for a long time, I think it’s really been hiding a bunch of things that have gone on in my life. I think that they’re all led by God. But I’ve enjoyed reading an author named Peter Zion talking about the geopolitical environment and his recent book, The End is Just the Beginning, talking about the end of globalization and the unwinding of Bretton Woods and been really wrestling with What does that mean for us as Westerners. On one hand, as the United States becomes more and more focused on the Western Hemisphere, it’s probably good. A lot of cases can be made that’s in the US’s best interest to just kind of focus on where we are rather than opening up our markets as we’ve done in the past and arguments on both sides of that. But as Christ followers, what does that mean? What does it mean for us? What does it mean when seven and a half billion people actually don’t live here? You know, we may be looking great over the next ten, 20, 30 years here in the States, but I guess there are seven and a half million people who don’t live here. 2 billion of them have professed the name of Christ. So it depends on your theology. If you’re called to work with people already are part of the body of Christ, or if you’re called to work with people who don’t yet know Jesus. There are a lot of people that don’t live here. And so as Christians, we’re going to have these opportunities to even maybe go against the grain a bit about how we reach out.

Rusty Rueff: And we wrestle with that term neighbor. What is neighbor? Right Neighbor? Is it next door or is it next country or on the other side of the world? It’s a good thing for us to wrestle with, I think.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And as I’ve said before in a prior podcast, one of the big things that has been so encouraging to us is that with these Faith Driven Entrepreneur groups we have, we had 5000 entrepreneurs listening to the podcast who went through the eight week Foundation series in just a first year. There’s one church in Lagos, Nigeria, that in the upcoming cohort has 25 groups. So there’s some amazing things going on around the world and I love all faith driven entrepreneurs, and yet I do have a special place in my heart for those entrepreneurs that are called to the nations that understand that there’s an opportunity to bring opportunity to developing economies, to be able to do an asset based community development, to be able to provide an opportunity for meaningful work, because God called us, well God created us in his images, God who works 6 days out of seven days in gospel. John says his work continues to this day. So maybe one of the best gift we can give somebody is we seek to love our neighbor is a job. And we’ve got a guy on the podcast today that has really lived that out. And Taylor, I’m just grateful for you to spend your time for the calling of God’s what God is doing in your heart and for being with us today. Thank you.

Taylor Blom: Thanks so much for having me. I’m super excited to chat with you guys today.

Henry Kaestner: So before we go much further, I got to tell you, we’re recording this with the video, but typically we don’t show the video a lot. On occasion we do. But you had the best video backdrop, I think, that we’ve ever seen. And I’ll walk us through a little bit about what is written on the wall behind you.

Taylor Blom: That’s high praise because I know you’ve done a few of these now, but back then we did have a physical office. I’ve got three banners behind me that hung there and it really is our manifesto of next door photos. And so it says, We love God, we love people, we love business, we are committed to the spirit and advancing God’s kingdom. And we think entrepreneurs can change the world for the better.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed they can. So you’ve gone right into the spirit of our ministry and what we do here. And sometimes I’d like just getting right into the topic in this case. I want to hear how you got to where you are right now. You’re in a spot right now, creat a lots of opportunities for people in emerging frontier markets. How did you get started with that? I mean, what’s the entrepreneurial journey that led you to where you are now doing that, all that and more and doing it at scale? What’s your story? Who are you? Where do you come from?

Taylor Blom: We’ll figure all that out together. Well, you know, some entrepreneurs have a very calculated kind of entry point right into their business journey. And in the creation of it, I kind of stumbled into it blindfold and backwards, if you will. I was working as a marketing director for a vacation rental management company where I was photographing vacation homes here on the West Michigan Lakeshore and, you know, didn’t really know what I was doing, wasn’t really classically trained as a photographer, but saw the correlation between, hey, the better the photos, the better the online package, the more this house fills up all summer. And so, you know, one thing led to another. My wife and I were involved in a church ministry, and we’re getting ready to sell our first house and move back to the lakeshore. And long story short, worked with a realtor friend of mine and, you know, he said, Hey, we’d like to work with you to get our listing published. And he said, Hey, great, that sounds awesome. I said, Hey, I take photos for work, You know, I’d love to. Take the photos and send it to you. This is over ten years ago now, right? So the market was kind of flip flopped and there was a lot of sitting inventory and listings were not moving fast. And long story short, I took the photos. He put them online. He had a couple walked through the house that night. Nothing was selling and they put an above asking price offer on their way out the door for our home. And my realtor buddy was like, Well, you know, what does that mean? I’ve never had that happen, at least not in the last few years. And so I started working with him kind of on, you know, nights and weekends and just really exploring real estate, you know, media photography and knew it existed in big cities and the coasts. And it was just like kind of just sniffing out the opportunity, like what’s happened. And then out of nowhere, you know, started getting calls from other realtors in the community saying, hey, I heard you’re the new go to real estate photographer who, in fact, did you hear that from? So I got to the point where it just ballooned out of nothing. And my lovely wife sat me down and she was like, hey, we miss you, me and your newborn son. You’re so busy, you know, shooting real estate and the doing your day job. Is this something that God has for you next? And I thought, no way. Right. So I made the pros and cons list. The cons was super long, the pros list was super short. And then I just heard God speak to me and he said, Hey, you know, Taylor, what do you have in your hands? Just like he asked, Moses said, the burning bush, you know, way back in the day. And I was like a camera. And God is like, Well, if you use this in partnership with me, we can build something together. And that was the start of it. That was initially called front door photos back in the day, ten plus years ago, and then later renamed next door photos seven years ago.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us about what next door photo, how do we use it, and then how do you use the business model to employ other people overseas?

Taylor Blom: Yeah. So next door photos is a real estate media company that partners with kingdom driven, impact driven entrepreneurs in their communities to service their local real estate market. And the agents who, you know, need the really good photos and video and everything else to make their listings look great online on Zillow and other outlets. And and so in that we’ve launched over 50 local owners in 70 different markets across the U.S. and Canada. But what we spent a lot of time doing is building our global supply chain, if you will, and with a specific mission and emphasis on creating jobs for men and women rescued from human trafficking and those at risk.

Henry Kaestner: So fascinating. So you have effectively kind of a local affiliate or even or franchise model empowering local entrepreneurs in states and Canada. And in each case, the back end of this is being supplied by folks in Philippines, Kenya, Nepal, etc..

Taylor Blom: Correct? Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Henry Kaestner: At the end. So just so you know, in our listeners will be very familiar with this, we will talk to you about some passages from Scripture that have influenced you recently. But I know enough about your story to know that Isaiah 61 is formative for you and talking about setting the captive free. Can you talk about how that influences the work that you do at next door?

Taylor Blom: No, absolutely. So from the beginning, you know, seven years ago, it’s actually our seven year anniversary as a business today to the very day.

Henry Kaestner: Happy anniversary

Taylor Blom: Which is quite exciting. So we’ll get out the cake and balloons and confetti can it’s later. But yeah, so, you know, for us from the very beginning, we said, hey, we want this business to exist to advance God’s kingdom. And we said, you know, we don’t know what’s going to look like. We don’t know how that’s going to happen. But we know, like if that’s what our hearts are and if that’s what we’re aligned towards in following the Spirit to pursue that, God is going to put those opportunities in place for us to be able to see that happen. So from the very beginning, you know, this idea of freedom, it wasn’t just, Oh, that would be great if it was like, no, like that’s the bedrock, right? That’s the foundation. That’s the motivation. That’s what we’re here to create together. And so it became a part of our purpose statement. It became a part of our vision statement, and it became one of our core values that we celebrate when we see it in action is to empower freedom. And it looks and it looks different right across the organization for our realtor clients, you know, our clients, we want to help them to be free, to list more, to get their listing published faster so they can get on to the next one. You know, for a local owner, partners in all the cities in North America that we operate like, we want to create financial freedom, right? We want there to be freedom created through successful business ownership. And that’s the opportunity that we’ve created. And then, of course, you know, seeing the captives set free on a global scale is just so near and dear to Jesus’s heart. Right. You know, in Isaiah 61, one of his few kind of church sermons, if you will, was when he said that, you know, hey, like this is what’s happening in your midst. When he was in Nazareth and even when he was quoting Isaiah, Isaiah 61, like that’s his heart, right? That’s his mission. And so if we can partner with that to see that happen and to see that happen in very real places where you know so much. Who gets rescued from freedom. They have a 60, 70% chance of falling back into trafficking if they do not have gainful employment, sustainable employment within a year. And those are the statistics. So the freedom is important. But the ongoing freedom, you know, the real restoration process happens. You know, we think through a sustainable job in being able to not only see that freedom walked out in that individual’s lives, but in the lives of their family and then their lives and their community. It’s just man, it’s just something so special to be a part of.

Rusty Rueff: I’m curious to take us through the supply chain on that end. Like, how is it that you find folks that have been released out of captivity, out of trafficking? How do they apply? How does all that work? The logistics?

Taylor Blom: Yes. We’re strong believers in partnership and local ownership, you know, both for our local owner operators in North America, but then also our global editing partners as well. And so we’ve gone into a partnership relationship with key owners that have local leadership teams because we really believe that, you know, that drives just really incredible opportunity, but it also keeps everything aligned just for our business continuity and to run globally. You know, it’s challenging. There’s a lot of logistics and time zones and and a lot of things to overcome. And so having that local ownership allows us to partner with the right people who have the same heart, who have the same shared vision as we do to see God’s kingdom advance through business, that then we can rely on their local leadership and business ownership ability to be able to grow and scale and kind of build that infrastructure, you know, that we need. I mean, we started January of 2017 with just a dozen editors just in Cebu, and now today we’ve probably have over 400 in the Philippines, in Nepal and in Kenya. And to be able to scale, we just have had to partner with the right people. And God’s brought incredible people forward that we’ve been able to partner with to see that scale sustained.

Rusty Rueff: We love stories. So can you give us a story of maybe one of the franchise owners, maybe a story about them and how this has been real to them? And then also someone who’s now working, you know, who’s come out of trafficking or captivity. And actually, I’ve been to Cebu, I have to say that. But.

Taylor Blom: Oh, you have?

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I’ve been to Cebu. That’s like if you could have named any other place in the Philippines and I’d go to maybe other Manila. But it’s funny you say that and the, you know, the poverty and the things that are there in Cebu I’ve seen personally. But yeah. So give us the stories.

Taylor Blom: Yes. So we have a current partner of ours who came pretty early on. You know, he was maybe partner number five or six back when we were still kind of crossing our fingers and holding our breath every time we launched a new it to see if it would work again. And it did, thankfully. But he came from kind of a mid executive level role at a steel company where he was just in a grind. You know, he would show up who wasn’t fulfilled in the work he did, wasn’t aligned with the mission, which is kind of a very small cog in a very large machine. Right. And didn’t have a fulfilled life, didn’t have, you know, something to look forward to going to work on Monday morning. And it was just was just kind of stuck in this rot. And had some some things going on in his life that, you know, he would say and he does talk about it. He was just in a really challenging spot in a lot of different ways. And so he came to hear about the local owner opportunity through our expansion team. And basically we got to sit him down and have a conversation say, okay, you know, here is a couple of choices. One, keep doing what you’re doing. You know, maybe get promoted a couple of times and, you know, you have this kind of trajectory ahead of you that you don’t like. Now, you know, it’s likely not going to get any better or take a little bit of a gamble. Back then, again, it was fairly early on to partner with us and have the opportunity to not only make an impact in your local community, you know, especially in real estate, but also have an opportunity to make an impact globally and do those things simultaneously. Right? And so that was kind of the message of you don’t have to choose, you don’t have to go into the mission field or be a pastor, you know, to make a significant kingdom impact and make nothing right, then you don’t have to, you know, launch a business that’s really successful and feel like you’re not making an impact. Like you can have the two together. You know, they both can be your reality. And he surprisingly said, Yes, I’ll do it. And so he jumped in and it was operating on the east side of Michigan for us and has since been one of our key trailblazers where he’s, you know, growing his geographical footprint. He has just a beautiful and fulfilled life where he is inspired by the work he gets to. He went to visit the editing team in the Philippines a couple of years ago and talking to him, coming back from that where he got to connect. You know what? He’s doing the business that he’s creating and the value that it’s growing as it grows with the corresponding growing impact globally and getting to see that in action and connect all the dots, kind of that full circle feeling was hugely impactful for him and is one of the reasons where he’s continued to be motivated to grow even larger because he knows that as he does, that the impact in North America grows simultaneously as the impact globally grows.

Rusty Rueff: That’s very cool.

Rusty Rueff: Entrepreneurs. We’re problem solvers, right? So why do so many of us ignore the biggest problems we face? Most of us feel isolated and we feel alone. Our mental health suffers. Our relationships suffer. We get bogged down by the pressures of running a business. But say, hey, it’s just part of the job. It doesn’t have to be that way. You see, we’re not meant to be siloed. God designed us to do good work alongside others, and you can experience that kind of community with other like minded entrepreneurs through our Foundation Group series. This eight week course helps connect you with people who understand your struggles because they’ve been through them too. There’s no cause and no catch. You can meet online or in person. Find out more at Faith Driven Entrepreneur dot org backslash groups. Now back to the show.

Rusty Rueff: So I’m sure we’ve got people listening here. I mean, I want to do this. I mean, this would be a really great thing. I have no idea where to start. It seems like it’s really hard, you know? Is it really worth it? I mean, give them the pitch.

Taylor Blom: Well, it’s, you know.

Taylor Blom: Crazy enough, you would think that we partner with creative professionals, right? You would think that we partner with, you know, wedding photographers and other people who know their way around the camera. And surprisingly, you know, some of our best local owners don’t have any media, you know, creative experience at all. You know, what we do is it’s fairly scripted, right? You know, it has to all be, you know, very much aligned across the board, no matter if we’re taking photos in California or Florida. You know, all of the inputs, all the raw photos have to be captured with the same process. And we’ve broken it down into a fairly, you know, detailed but really straightforward process where 90% of the magic that you see in a really good looking real estate photo where you’re scrolling through Zillow and you’re like, Ooh, that’s the one. 90% of that comes in the editing process, right? When you do Lightroom and Photoshop and all these advanced editing techniques to bring out the best of the photo. And so some of our best partners have no experience at all, but they want to be in business, you know, with partnership, to grow something, right, to have equity ownership that they can grow and invest into, that they can build simultaneously. You know, they know that what they’re doing is having a huge impact and creating opportunities for people coming out of horrific situations around the world and the ability to do that in partnership where we have guideposts, where we have coaching, where we have, you know, a proven kind of operation and fulfillment system, all of that is really kind of the sweet spot for someone who’s like, Yeah, I might like to try something on my own, you know, own something, but they might not have an idea or be willing to go the solopreneur route.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. I love the fact that you’re teaching others how to fish. Right. I mean, that’s what you’re really doing, and that’s inspiring. One more question for me, and I’ll turn it over to William. But, you know, as Christ followers, I think we wrestle with and we talk about I use that word wrestle at the beginning of the podcast with who is our neighbor? You know, we got 8 billion people in the world. You know, we sit here 330 some odd million inside the United States. You look at believers all around the world, you know, and we have to think about who is our neighbor. How do we love on them? How do we serve them? You know, what is our responsibility to them? Obviously, you’ve thought beyond our shores, but go a little bit deeper into your philosophy of how we all should think about our neighbors around the world.

Taylor Blom: Yeah, it’s a great question. You know, I think Jesus words in the great Commission where he says, you know, go and make disciples of all nations. Right. I mean, it is very much a global initiative. You know, it’s really, really important for us to make an impact in the local communities in which we serve. It’s super important, right, where as an individual location grows in scales, they’re likely, you know, have a team of 12 to 15 independent contractors we call media pros, you know, who are doing the capturing of the media. They’ve got hundreds of realtor agents, relationships that they’ve built and they’re investing into. And they honestly, they get to go into thousands of homes every single year. You know, you talk about opportunities to be salt and light, you know, right in your backyard. Getting invited into someone’s home is an incredible opportunity to do that. You know, we’ve heard stories of our media pros, you know, leaving notes of encouragement or, you know, one that I heard where there was an open Bible in someone’s house and, you know, media pro flips through the Bible, goes to their favorite verse, writes a note, you know, to the seller. They’re not there. They don’t know who that person is, just of encouragement. And then later come to find out that the actual agent calls, the owner says, Hey, you have no idea how much impact that that Media Pro had on that seller, who’s going through a really tough personal experience that is resulting in them needing to move like that was huge, right? And so it’s like you have those points of contact and those opportunities to be light in darkness, but then you can also do it on a global scale. There’s such significant need around the world. I mean, especially when you talk about the issue of human trafficking and the fact that 40 plus million people are enslaved today, and the fact that if they don’t learn the skills and it’s no one comes alongside of them and has an opportunity for them employment wise, there’s a very high chance that they’re going to fall back into trafficking. And so being able to not have to choose, you know, between the two. Right. I think it’s an end. Right. And I think the way that we’ve set up the organization allows us to say it’s an art, it’s a local impact and it’s a global impact. And I think that lines up with Scripture and Jesus to start when he said, you know, go everywhere.

William Norvell: Hmm. Amen. And on that, you know, partnering with Jesus heart, you know, you know, move to one of my favorite topics and maybe the least understood topics, partnering with the Holy Spirit. I actually led a breakout at the FDE conference last year on this with a couple of founders, and I feel like it’s something that. Everyone wants, but maybe don’t know how to access or trust. And maybe that is a paradox or an enigma. I don’t know. We’re about to ask you, but I’m curious how it’s manifesting itself in your life. Right? So how do you feel? You listen to the Holy Spirit. How do you feel like he informs decisions that you make throughout the organization, and how does that partnership go for you and your job?

Taylor Blom: Yeah. Oh man, I love that question. So, you know, we talked about Isaiah 61 being a foundational verse for us. You know, another is second Corinthians 3:17 where it talks about, you know, where the spirit of the Lord is. There is freedom. And so for us, a litmus test is, hey, if we’re partnering with the spirit in the work that we’re doing, like freedom is going to be a byproduct of the work we’re doing, like we’re going be able to see freedom take place. And so it is a little bit difficult, right? There is no like, Oh man, here, let me give you the step by step equation that’s going to bring more freedom into your business. And and therefore, you know, you’re partnering with the spirit. You know, I think it’s I think it’s just being open and willing to learn, right, to grow, to submit big decisions and big questions. Being able to wrestle with that, you know, together as our leadership team. And we get together quarterly in person. And a big part of what we do together is say, all right, God, like speak to us, give us insight, you know, give a strategy, help us to navigate and pivot where we need to. And I think it’s best done in community, honestly. Right? I think it’s best done in like relationship and the ability to then have, you know, this kind of humble approach to be like, all right, I just want God to speak and God, give me ears to hear you and God give me eyes to see where you’re leading and where you’re moving. And I think if you pray that prayer enough, he’s going to give you those opportunities. You know, you might not always see him. I definitely missed a ton of them, but that’s going to be, you know, an ongoing opportunity. Okay. What does that mean for right now? Then you can also kind of get stuck over spiritualizing things, sometimes and sometimes like, man, you hit a roadblock and you just got to work through it. Right. And so it’s not this get out of jail free card or it’s not this like, oh, because I’m asking the Holy Spirit to partner with me and what I’m doing then, man, all of these rough edges are always going to be smooth. Like, that’s actually not true in the Bible. The Bible says that actually won’t happen.

William Norvell: No, no, They work out well for the followers of Christ most of the time, right?

Rusty Rueff: Oh, yeah, right.

William Norvell: And it’s smooth sailing. Easy road.

Taylor Blom: Guaranteed.

William Norvell: The path is wide. The path is wide and easy

Taylor Blom: right? Yeah.

Taylor Blom: Yeah, right. And it’s just, you know, it’s clunky sometimes, right? Like, sometimes you do make a wrong decision, sometimes you do mess up. But I think it, again, is always being willing to learn, you know, always staying humble, being able to do it in community and really have an open and safe space, you know, to talk about, hey, what might God be doing here? It’s a helpful practice, been a helpful practice for us.

William Norvell: And back to stories. I’m curious if you wouldn’t mind sharing, because I think that can manifest itself in so many different ways, right?

Taylor Blom: Absolutely.

William Norvell: There’s there’s opening your your Bible up randomly and then God shares a scripture verse. There’s reading a verse in your daily devotion that comes alive in a new way that you never thought about it to your business, to God, speaking to you in prayer, right? Or speaking to someone else or having someone prophesy over you. Right. I’m curious if you would share maybe a couple of moments or decision. Do you feel the Holy Spirit led? And you know, to what you just said doesn’t mean they were successful, doesn’t mean they change the business necessarily. Right. But just curious where you feel like you really were felt called from something outside of yourself to move a direction and maybe how that felt.

Taylor Blom: Yeah, absolutely. So one that kind of sticks out immediately is in 2016, we identified pretty early on that the editing component of our business was going to be the bottleneck, right? It was going to be where things got stuck. If an hour of shooting onsite is about 3 to 4 hours of editing, then we knew we had to figure out a global solution to that problem. And so my business partner, Paul, the other co-founder of Next Door Photos, he actually went to the Philippines in 2016 to check out and kind of vet out a couple of real estate media editing partners. And there weren’t many at the time. You know, there’s one specifically he went there to go see. It was a couple months before my youngest son was born, so I did not go, you know, So he went. And at the same time, while he was there, one of his friends, he does some leadership in the Vineyard Church in Asia said, hey, you know, why don’t you come to one of my churches on Sunday? It’s in Cebu and I can introduce you to some people and you can kind of be connected like I’m here at the same time you are. This is awesome. So he’s like, Great. So on sunday he goes and, you know, the church is literally built on the side of kind of a really difficult slum area built on the side of a cemetery. And apparently when the church was planted, the missionaries said, Hey, take us to the most difficult place here in Cebu. And that’s where they took him and that’s where they planted the church in. So there was maybe 25, 30 people there. Well, during kind of the meet and greet, my business partner, Paul, he meets this guy named Sam. And right away, the Holy Spirit just speaks to him and says, Hey, you know, I just want you to spend more time with this guy and hear his story. And in hearing Sam’s story, he found out that Sam was in big banking and his wife was a medical doctor. They were in Ireland, got called into the Philippines to start a for profit BPO that was basically staffed by men and women rescued from trafficking. And so he heard about that and totally redirected his entire agenda while he was there and said, Hey, we want to be a part of what you’re doing. So at the time, they didn’t do any photo media editing at all. They just did back office work, database management, QuickBooks invoice processing, etc.. And so in January of 2017, they had 12 people on their team and we said, Hey, you know, we’d love to grow and scale with you and see the impact you’re having completely just magnified, right? Would you be interested in teaching your team how to edit your photos, videos, floorplans, etc.? And they said yes, and that was over five years ago, five and a half years ago now. And now that team is almost 300, Right? Many of them rescued or, you know, at risk of exploitation in some form or another. And the relationship grew out of a not so chance encounter in a really small church that Paul would have never been to if he didn’t get an invite on a Sunday morning on the other side of the world. And now it’s, you know, a significant, you know, employment hub for people who have been rescued. And those are things you can’t just like explain. Right. The coincidence of that happening is just so, so, so slim. And, you know, before we left, we prayed them out. Right, God, like make the connections go before us. We know you do and help us listen and follow your spirit. And that was a pretty tremendous kind of outworking of that divine intervention.

William Norvell: Amen, it’s such a fun counter to the hustle culture. When God gets the glory for these things that, you know, we can never draw up, right? You can never draw that up on a whiteboard. And that doesn’t mean that’s an excuse not to work hard and all those things. But I feel like anything that’s over indexed. And so it’s it’s fun to see how God works when we’re not and how he’s watching over us in such special and unique ways.

Henry Kaestner: Taylor we’re going to do lightning around a little bit, and those questions presumably be easy. And answer is a bit short, but I’ve got a big one here, and I don’t know that you going to be able to answer perfectly, but I’m interested in any thoughts you might have about counsel you might give about an entrepreneur that’s listening to this podcast and is compelled with a heart for the nations who seize the opportunities that can be given in a place like Cebu City and others and says, I just I want to get involved. Just maybe some encouragements you might give, maybe something practical, maybe even a just like, Gosh, if I knew this and you’re like, how difficult was to get that, I do not know payroll taxes done in Cebu City? I mean, just maybe even something practical that might be just something that you’ve learned along the way. I really do hope that a good number of listeners to this will look at and say, Gosh, there is a way in this world, in this kind of post globalization world, for me to continue to lean in to having opportunities to employ people. I’m not 100% sure how to do it. Again, you’re seven years in. What would you say to those people?

Taylor Blom: Yeah. You know.

Taylor Blom: I’d say technology, of course, you know, makes it easier than ever to connect. And, you know, the opportunity that exists today to connect with other, you know, faith aligned believers in business across the world is already happening. You know, you look at like the latest FDE conference that just aired. I mean, what an amazing global expression right of what God’s doing around the world, not just highlighting, you know, this place or that place, but really holistically and the opportunity then to get involved in, you know, an FDE study group that, you know, maybe you find one that takes place around the world and you’re able to connect with people that way. You know, one of the editing partners that we found that allowed us to launch into Nairobi, Kenya, we found through a business has mission network, right? A global alignment, a global group of people who just have a shared heart to see, you know, again, the kingdom advance globally through business. Another organization that we’re affiliated with is the Freedom Business Alliance. Right? So its business is specifically looking to provide opportunities for people who are rescued in, you know, at risk situations globally. And so I would say, you know, it’s easier than ever to get connected, you know, on a larger scale. And it doesn’t take a lot. Right. You could do it. You don’t have to get off your couch or get out of your chair. You’re able to find these groups of people and then ask questions and learn and network and go to events, be a part of some of these things happening and meant God has done so much in next door photos through Divine connections. Then, you know, then I could ever explain in, you know, a day talking to you guys. Right. And those things happen when you put yourself out there and when you reach out and when you ask questions. And so I’d say anyone who’s got something stirring inside of it, like just take action, you know, like, take that next step, sign up for that virtual conference, be a part of an FDE group that takes place around the world, right? There’s opportunities that exist today where you don’t have to get on a plane to go track them down.

Rusty Rueff: That’s great. Great plug for our small groups, too, because I think that is a real place to plug in, get supported, you know, feel like you’ve got a community that can help you think through these things. So we appreciate that. All right. Lightning round time. Lightning round time. Okay, so I’m taking the first two, then we’ll hand them off. All right. So not only are you the CEO, you’re the chief celebration officer, and it’s your seven year anniversary today, which, you know, maybe you should be celebrating versus ah, this is celebration. Okay.

Taylor Blom: Oh, this is definitely a celebration. Yeah.

Rusty Rueff: All right. Favorite celebration of all time inside of the seven year history of the company.

Taylor Blom: Oh, my gosh, man, everyone who works with me is like, what? What is he going to choose? You know, one comes to mind. It’s when my wife and I got to go to the Philippines. We’re in Cebu in 2019, and it was my first time there. Right? So just a completely transformational in my life, being able to walk in a high rise in downtown Cebu City and walk through, you know, this office that had a bunch of, you know, dual monitor computer stations and seeing photos of Grand Rapids, Michigan, you know, Denver and Orlando being edited around the world, you know, it’s just like totally mind blowing, right? Like, I think I cried that whole day. Anyway, that’s not the story. While we were there, my wife and I had the opportunity to take out Sam, our partner there, and some of the leadership team out to sing karaoke at one of the local karaoke joints. And we had our own room and, you know, we were singing and none of us were very good at all, but we were just like singing at the top of our lungs to like eighties love songs, you know, just getting into it and just those memories alone. I mean, I laughed so hard to tears started, you know, coming down my eyes and my cheeks and my sides hurt and just the ability to be in person. But to do something wild like that together was definitely one of the top celebrations in any anniversary.

Rusty Rueff: Awesome, awesome. So karaoke, we’ll keep that at the top of our FDE birthday list when that happens. All right. So we know that you’re a triathlete. All right. So that’s a cool thing. What’s the most painful swim, run or bike?

Taylor Blom: Oh, man, It’s for me, it was the swim. Because when you run and you bike, you don’t. You don’t, you know, run the risk of drowning.

Henry Kaestner: Ah that you take my line. I [….] That line 100%.

Taylor Blom: really.

Henry Kaestner: Drowned on a bike.

William Norvell: Run all day. The worst.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, the run after the bike is just torture. It’s a different type of thing. Running after a bike. It just is awful. But again, you can’t drown during it.

Taylor Blom: Yeah, it’s true. For the record, I only did a sprint triathlon because I was pure pressured into it by two of my brothers who are way more physically fit than I am. It smoked me in the race. It’s one thing I’ve will probably only do once, but at least, you know, get the Instagram photo or whatever to to prove it.

Henry Kaestner: So and that’s all that matters. Okay, Over to me for lightning around. Okay. This is a quick reminder. Every one of these answers has to be 20 seconds or less.

Taylor Blom: Got it.

Rusty Rueff: Favorite eighties love song.

Taylor Blom: Oh my Goodness. Careless Whisper by George Michael.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. Okay. A man can’t do it for self. The day officer going out there.

Taylor Blom: That was a.

Henry Kaestner: Standout ballet for me. But that’s a good one. Yeah. Okay, next one. Few people know where Holland, Michigan is. I do an incredible spot in the world, and few people will know that it’s equidistant between three major NFL teams the Detroit Lions, the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. Which is your favorite?

Taylor Blom: I’m going to have to say Lion’s not a big football fan. Lion

Henry Kaestner: Some some number of Lions fans right now going to look at your hesitancy and and wonder if indeed Lions is your team.

Taylor Blom: I’m going to get you regroup.

William Norvell: They’re going to be happy to have somebody on their team.

Taylor Blom: I got to get judged by all three groups, maybe two.

Henry Kaestner: Marvin Gaye once tried out for the Lions on his great song. What’s his great song? Rusty, help me out here. What’s going on.

Rusty Rueff: What’s going on?

Henry Kaestner: At the beginning the crowd? Noise that occurred in the party is the Detroit Lions used to party with the Detroit Lions, and that those are the guys talking about, you know, the whole party sound at the beginning of what’s going on. One of the most formative songs in the 1960s seventies. There you go.

Rusty Rueff: And I think the Detroit Lions at the end of every season still sing that song.

Henry Kaestner: Do they?

Taylor Blom: Oh, they are bad.

Henry Kaestner: Well at That Hurts. Those are actually very well played. Okay. One thing that most people don’t know about Western Michigan, why you should live there.

Taylor Blom: The the summers are amazing. I mean, you have the gorgeous Lake Michigan, which looks and feels like an ocean, except there’s no sharks. So, I mean, tough to beat.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. No. Yeah. So back to drowning and being hit by sharks. Okay. That’s very helpful.

William Norvell: Well, there’s a trend, right? Clear trend. One piece of advice for entrepreneurs. They’re out on the road. He had one thing to pass along from your journey.

Taylor Blom: Don’t do it alone. Get plugged in. Get connected with. Get with people who will support you. Encourage you. Pray for you. There’s highs and there’s lows to the extremes. And just don’t. Don’t do it alone. You don’t have to.

William Norvell: It’s been such a gift. Where we love to end our shows typically is just asking you to bring alive God’s word for our audience and for us. And we love to just invite you into that. If there’s something that you’ve been meditating on or maybe God showed you today or made you think of right now and ask the question, or maybe something even meditated on your whole life, it’s just something you might feel led to pass along to us and our audience.

Taylor Blom: Yeah. Just this week, God speaking to me about Genesis 17, and it’s this sense that he communicates over and over where he talks about himself as a generational God. Right. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in this big picture generational type theme. And so I was just thinking about it, praying about it this week, you know, how much better serve would we be in our day to day and our immediate ups and downs to have a generational God type view in approach? And how much more can he meet us in today if he literally is going to, you know, be here for us our entire lives and not just us, but for our kids and our children’s children and just the way that God moves generation. How can we partner in that? How can we have a bigger generational type approach to a huge, complex global problem like human trafficking? You know, how can we do that and have eyes to see it differently so that we can start putting in, you know, solutions and new businesses can arise out of that function generationally. So, yeah, just thinking about that a lot this week.

William Norvell: Grateful for having you with us. Thanks for telling your story. Thanks for all the work you’re doing in the world. And we pray we can be an encouragement to you and in any way we can.

Taylor Blom: Thanks so much. So great to be with you guys.

What motivates you as an entrepreneur? When was the last time you even asked yourself that question?

It’s easy to get caught up in all the building, growing, advancing, and disrupting that you forgot why you’re leading in the first place.
This talk from Patrick Lencioni will help you reconnect with your why so you can avoid the pitfalls that stifle your organization. He originally presented the content at the 2022 Faith Driven Entrepreneur Conference, and we’re excited to share it with you here.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Glad to have you back again this week. What motivates you as an entrepreneur? When was the last time you even asked yourself that question? It’s easy to get caught up in all of the building and the growing, the advancing and disrupting, but you forget why you’re leading in the first place. This talk from Patrick Lencioni will help you reconnect with your why so you can avoid the pitfalls that stifled your organization. He originally presented the content at the 2022 Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference and we’re excited to share it again with you here. If you liked this episode, you can also check out the two free video series we have with Patrick and special host Paula Faris. Find out more at www.FaithDrivenEntrepreneur.org/the-motive. All right, let’s get into it.

Patrick Lencioni: Hi, I’m Pat Lencioni, and I’m excited to talk to you today about the principles in my book, The Motive. Now, the motive is the last book I wrote, actually, and it came out at a great time right before COVID shut down. And so it didn’t have quite the the introduction that, like the other books I’ve written, have had. But in fact, the motive should have been the first book I ever wrote, because after a career of working with people and helping them understand teams and leadership and how to build an organization and how to have it meetings, everything else, what I realized was there was something missing. And I realized this one day when I was at a conference and I was working with CEOs in a room and answering their questions, and some of them were having a hard time receiving my advice. And I couldn’t figure out why because usually people were pretty receptive to it. And so I realized in talking to them that actually there was something missing and that was their motive. Their reason for being a leader in the first place was not aligned with what it should be if we want to be great leaders. And that’s especially true if we’re leading for Christ, if we’re faith driven leaders. And so what I realized is before I could introduce anybody to my principles about teamwork and leadership and vulnerability and organizational health, I needed to know that they were doing it for the right reasons. And in fact, there are two reasons two motives why a person wants to become a leader. And I think about this every time I go to a graduation ceremony and somebody says, go out and be a leader, make a difference, our motive has to be pure. And the two motives are, one, I’m doing it because I’m reward centered. And when you tell an 18 year old or a 22 year old to go be a leader and make a difference, many of them are saying that would be really cool because being a leader must be great because it comes with a lot of attention and some money and some control over my life and influence on others. And that is a very understandable and natural and dangerous reason to be a leader. And we’re all susceptible to this because we’ve all fallen into this. The other motive for being a leader is that you want to serve its responsibilities centered. This is a burden. And when somebody makes you a leader, you get promoted to a position of management or you start a company. It is first and foremost a burden because you are now responsible for stewarding that role for the good of these people, your employees, your customers, partners, everybody else. So the right motive for being a leader is responsibility. It’s kind of heavy and it’s really important now, with God’s help and pure intentions, that can be a wonderful thing. But if you’re doing it for your own personal economics, I don’t just mean financial economics, but what it does for you, you’re going to get really frustrated because I’ll tell you what, leadership is never economically sound. You are going to give far more than you receive, which makes sense if you’re a follower of Jesus, because that’s why we’re here, is to love others. Now we all receive things. But if we think that the economics are going to play in our favor, that’s not going to make sense. And that’s why it’s so important that the world has faith driven entrepreneurs who are willing to give far more than they receive, knowing that their rewards are eternal, and even that there are rewards here now, in this day and age, in this modern time, in the in the church and in the world, being motivated the right way is so important because to be a faith driven leader, you are going to suffer. It is it is not a theoretical statement to say that we suffer if we’re followers of Jesus. And if people know that we’re followers of Jesus, there’s a lot who might abandon us and we have to love them through that, even as they turn away from us. And even as we get hurt by that, we can know that our motive is to love on them and to love on the people that stay with us and to love on the customers that belong with us. And even on the ones that leave us. We can we can do that if our motives are pure. Okay. I want to talk a little bit more about the motive. We talked about the the the idea that we have to be motivated by serving others. And as Christ centered leaders, we know that that’s what he showed us. But here’s a few good ways to think about this, because what I’ve noticed in all the things I teach about leadership and about running an organization, practical day to day things, there’s five things that reward centered leaders, self-centered leaders, including myself, when I’ve been there, often abdicate. Now, it depends on who you are and what you like to do. One of the things about being reward centered is that we tend to think I get to go to work every day and do what I feel like doing. I used to think that was really the reward I wanted, that I could go to my office and do what I felt like. Of course, if you’re a responsibility center leaders, you do what’s necessary and what’s required. And so here’s five different things. And I’ve had leaders. I love it when they call or they write to me and they say, Oh my gosh, Pat, I was over five. I don’t do any of these things. And I realize now it’s because I’m reward centered and I’m so glad the humility of them to admit that and say I’m going to change because this can be changed. So here’s the five things you might want to ask yourself and I’ll tell you the ones that I struggle with. The first one is a lot of leaders who are reward centered, not responsibility centered. They abdicate responsibility for having difficult conversations with others. There’s this issue and they can see that it’s a problem. And I have to go confront them and have a difficult conversation now. As a follower of Jesus, we know what iron sharpening iron means. You know, we have to be willing to enter the danger and love somebody enough, even if it’s uncomfortable. But if you’re reward centered, you’re going to go, I don’t want to do that. And I’ve seen leaders abdicate responsibility for that. I remember once I worked with a leader, a very famous guy that you’ve probably heard of, and one of his direct reports was telling everybody around him that he was going to become the next president and chief operating officer of the company. And this guy was not at all well-liked by his peers. Well, somebody went to the CEO and said, are you going to make that guy, the president and CEO and the CEO said, no, I’m not going to do that. He was are you going to tell him to stop telling everybody that? And he goes, no, I don’t have time and energy for that. And so many leaders don’t have the time and energy. You know, it’s just calling the guy up and saying, hey, buddy, you’re not going to be the next president. You should stop telling everybody That is kind of pissing me off. And something bad might happen to you if you don’t stop. Right. Have a great day. We don’t have that conversation, even though it’s an act of love to say, I want to correct you in that. So if we’re reward centered, we go, That’s uncomfortable. I really don’t like doing that. It’s not fun. He could be upset. I’ll just let it go because it doesn’t bother me that much. But that’s not living our responsibility as leaders. So the first one is having difficult conversations with people. And I promise that was a true story and I’ve had it happen, that kind of thing, so many times in working with leaders. The next one is related to that, but it’s different, and that’s what we have to manage our direct reports. I will tell you, I don’t like this one. Managing your direct reports just means I know what they’re working on. I’m helping them set goals. I’m available to them to coach them when they need help, and I’m following through with them. Well, I used to justify not doing this. I’m just not a very detail oriented person. And I would say, well, I hire adults and they’re good at what their jobs are and I don’t need to be on top of them and know what’s going on. And a lot of leaders will say, I don’t like to micromanage. That’s not micromanaging. It’s managing. And it’s an act of love. And so I used to be kind of lazy about that and think that’s okay. And one day I realized, Oh, that’s just because I don’t feel like doing it. So managing your direct reports and I find that this gets harder. The hire people go up in an organization, no line level manager fails to do that. But many leaders, when they get hired, they just think, I don’t have to do that anymore and I’m kind of glad I don’t. So that’s one of the things that people abdicate sometimes if they’re giving in to reward center leadership. Another one is building a team, doing doing team building sessions. Now, I love doing this. This is what I do for a living. So even as a reward centered leader, I would do that because it was fun. But I know some CEOs who hate that kind of stuff, so they go, I’m just not going to do it or I’m going to farm it out to somebody else. Well, the truth is, if you’re a leader, nobody else can be responsible for building your team, just like having those hard conversations and managing your direct reports. So we have to say, whether I like this or not, I’m going to do it because it’s necessary. So building your team and doing the the interpersonal work necessary to do that is critical. Two more. One is many leaders I know don’t like to repeat themselves. Repeating yourself as a leader is one of the most critical things we have to do. You know, like that old saying, like the woman who says, Honey, why don’t you ever tell me you love me? And the husband says, Well, I told you when we got married, I’ll let you know if it changes. Many leaders are like, I don’t like to repeat myself. I find it to be redundant. It’s a waste of time. People might think I’m stupid or that I think they’re stupid. The best leaders in the world are constantly, constantly repeating themselves, even if it’s not fun, even if people make fun of them. As a parent, I know this because my kids constantly make fun of me. Dad, if you tell me to, you know, not do that one more time, I’m like, good for them for remembering. But at work we often think, I don’t want to have to do that. Great leaders repeat themselves. And the last one is that to be a great leader means this is not sexy or interesting that we have to run great meetings. Oh, so many leaders I know go. Oh, if it weren’t for meetings, I really love my job. But the truth of the matter is the meeting is the playing field, the stage, the classroom, the the operating room of business, of leadership, of organizations. A teacher would never say, I hate teaching in the classroom, or a surgeon would ever say, I hate the operating room. A football player would never say, I hate the playing field. An actor would never say I hate the stage. But when a leader says I hate meetings, it really is saying I don’t like what I do because that’s where we lead. That’s where we make difficult decisions. That’s where we confront people and and make decisions for our customers. And so if you’re reward centered and you don’t like running meetings, you will often abdicate it or try to avoid them as much as possible, and you won’t be doing a good job. Okay, So your responsibility centered leader, regardless of your personal preferences, you’ve got to have difficult conversation. You’ve got to manage your direct reports. You’ve got to repeat yourself constantly. You’ve got to build your team and you’ve got to have good meetings. Those are just the five super common areas that people tend to abdicate when they fall into reward centered leadership. Now, I hope what you can do is look at those and whether you’re over five or four, four, five or five, four, five. You can constantly say to myself, I need to do this because it’s it’s necessary, regardless of whether I particularly enjoy it, because being a leader can be a very enjoyable experience. But if that’s our first reason to be a leader, then our motive is wrong in the first place. You know, people talk about servant leadership, and I used to love that you would be a servant leader. And it comes back to Jesus, you know, And I love that there’s books written about that. One day I realized, though, I kind of don’t like that anymore, because when we say that person is a good servant leader, what we’re doing is we’re kind of saying that there’s another type. You see, I think if you’re not a servant leader, you’re not a leader at all. If you’re not a servant leader, then you’re doing it for yourself and you’re calculating what you feel like doing. I think I’m looking forward to the day when somebody says leadership and we all know what they mean is servant leadership. So let’s all go back, go out and be that way. And when we see in ourselves or others that they’re not, help them realize that there’s only one kind of leadership and that’s to be a servant. So my message to you today is check your motive. Know that it can change at times. I’ve been at times in my career when I became very self-motivated, very much reward centered, and things are off. So let’s all check our motives, try to purify them, be responsibility centered, not reward centered, and give it all to Jesus. God bless you.

How does a pediatric physician become an entrepreneur?

It’s not a common path, but it’s the journey God has given Dr. Mark Piehl. While he continues to work in hospital ICUs, Dr. Piehl also founded 410 Medical after losing a patient. 

Dr. Piehl was sparked by the tragedy and set out to use the skills and resources God had given him to serve patients by offering timely and effective care. Now, 410 Medical aims to save the lives of critically ill patients by developing innovative tools that assist healthcare providers by improving resuscitation.

He joins the show to talk about his unique entrepreneurial journey and to share how God can use our experiences–both good and bad–to create something incredible that serves others. 

If you enjoy this episode, leave us a rating or share the episode with your friends, and be sure to follow the show for new episodes every week.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Not all entrepreneurs innovate for children on the brink of life and death, but Dr. Mark Piehl co-founded 410 Medical in 2013. After one such child bled to death in his arms from severe injuries sustained in a car accident 410 medical aims to save the lives of critically ill patients by developing innovative tools that assist health care providers in improving resuscitation. The organization was founded out of the biblical motivation to use the skills and the resources given to the organizational team by God to serve others by ensuring that clinicians have timely and effective care. Dr. Piehl is a board certified pediatrician and pediatric intensivist who loves taking care of critically ill children. Teaching pediatric emergency medicine to others and dreaming up better ways to take care of sick children. He is also a medical director with Wake Med Mobile Critical Care. Wake Med is a nonprofit hospital and level one trauma center serving central and eastern North Carolina. Dr. Piehl joins us today to share more about the biblical directive for us to use whatever gift we’ve received to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. It’s a fun conversation. Let’s listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Episode number 857. I don’t know. It’s not probably it’s probably not 857.

Rusty Rueff: Maybe 858 850. Yeah, you’re right. You’re right.

Henry Kaestner: So I actually think about this Rusty and the last one that we had, we were talking about, I don’t know, maybe we’re on to 220 or 230 and I continue just to marvel at the fact that that’s nothing for you. It’s absolutely nothing for you. You have been faithfully writing your blog, your daily devotion to help people in the marketplace for thousands of days. Where do you at now?

Rusty Rueff: I think today’s 3186 or 168. One of the two. One of the two.

Henry Kaestner: That’s unbelievable. And tell everybody again where they can find it, please.

Rusty Rueff: It’s called purpose working, purposedworking.com. And, you know, we’d love to have anybody who wants to subscribe. It’ll show up daily Monday through Friday, early in the morning for you. It’s obviously free. And it’s just my little way of, you know, when God speaks to me through his word. And I can relate that to what’s going on in the workplace. Try to bring two things together. Or sometimes I actually read things that are happening in the workplace. And I look at that and said, wait a minute, there’s a Bible application for that, and then try to bring those two things together. So it’s fun.

Henry Kaestner: It’s fun. So 220 or 230 of however many podcasts we’ve had is Child’s Play. But I tell you, I’ve loved doing this with you. We missed William today, who’s out. We’re going to get him back here for the next one. But today is a special episode, the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, because as our special guests are very, very, very special guest said before you went live that this guy, Mark Piehl, is my favorite podcast guest that I thought we’d had on, but we never have. And Mark, what do you mean by that?

Dr Mark Piehl: I mean, in front of large audiences, you have said you’ve got to hear the podcast I did with Mark. It was one of my favorite episodes, and yet we had never done it. So in your mind it was a great episode.

Rusty Rueff: Mark, he’s just being prophetic. That’s what he was. He’s been prophetic. He knows the day is going to be the day.

Dr Mark Piehl: You can see that having been said in front of a large group. And of course.

Rusty Rueff: Of course I can. Of course I can. Yeah.

Henry Kaestner: And the reason why is because we’ve share our faith stories together before in a number of different places. It clearly not the podcast but early Sovereign’s Capital shareholder meetings and just Mark for the audience probably doesn’t know is one of my very, very best friends in the world. Great Christian brother, just a great encouragement to me in my walk with Jesus since I met him back in 1997 and I have the pictures to prove it. Mark is a very faithful man of God and Faith Driven Entrepreneur. He’s a doctor. He’s a great husband. To Megan, father of three, and has a great entrepreneurial story. And we’re going to talk a lot about that. We don’t spend as much time as we should talking to entrepreneurs in the medical field, and we got a great one today. So Mark, thank you for being on the episode. Thank you for being a long suffering friend, but thank you for being willing to share your story with the audience that is FDE.

Dr Mark Piehl: Thanks for inviting me. It’s a total privilege to be here.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, and as it turns out, of course, is that we have thousands and thousands, many, many more listeners now than we would have had if we’d done this before. Right. I mean, we’re in, I don’t know, 165 countries now or something like that, Right?

Dr Mark Piehl: You had me on before, Henry. You might have had even more than that.

Henry Kaestner: Oh wow, I have not thought about that. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s right. Okay. Okay. Touché. All right, Mark, when you’re not just being Henry Kaestner’s friend and encouragement, what do you do? Because I know you’ve got a ton on your plate. Let’s start off with what you do right now. You’re balancing a bunch of different balls. What are they?

Dr Mark Piehl: So in addition to being husband and father, as you mentioned, I’m a pediatric intensive care physician at a place called Wake Med in Raleigh, North Carolina. So that means I take care of sick kids, trauma patients, children and young adults with life threatening injuries in the hospital, on the E.R., in ICU, I help lead a team of folks who go out and transport those folks back in a critical care ambulance. And then I do a lot of teaching to groups of docs and nurses and paramedics around how to best care for critically ill kids. So that’s my day job.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. And it’s a pretty significant day job. I talk a little bit about that more in here in a second. Along the way, as you’ve seen thousands and thousands of sick kids, you have seen some things that are broken in the health care. You seen people die unnecessarily and you went out and decided to do something about it.

Dr Mark Piehl: Right.

Henry Kaestner: Tell us about that.

Dr Mark Piehl: Obviously, we live in a broken world and we see a lot of that in health care. And within health care itself, there’s things we could do better. And so I noted that there was a type of patient that I felt like we inadequately cared for, and those were the sickest patients who were dying or bleeding to death and dying of things like sepsis. And I never thought I would be an inventor or entrepreneur, but did have an admiration for friends like Henry Kaestner, who had just had an idea and went out and made it a reality and made something out of it. I thought man, that would be so cool if I could be in that space. But surely doctors can’t do that and kept witnessing patients that I felt were inadequately resuscitated, meaning we didn’t provide the care to them in the minutes that mattered between life and death, as we should have. And so over a number of years and through partnership with a number of friends and brothers, thought up an invention that would help us provide that care more quickly. And we’d get into the details of that later. Henry, if you want. But that was, let’s say, ten or more years ago. That journey began just thinking, wow, there’s got to be a better way to care for the sickest of our patients and sure wonder if I could be involved in creating that way. And so that’s the journey I’ve been on. In addition to being a clinician, is trying to be an entrepreneur in that space.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to hit on that. And yes, I do want to talk about the device and we’re not going to spend a ton of time going down memory lane. People will tune out and we’ll keep talking about the times we ran off an island together. We talk about time where you tried to kill me on a run. We’re talking about a whole bunch of things. But one of my favorite stories is when you came to visit us in the very, very early days at bandWith, and I remember walking out in the parking lot, I remember where we were on Western Parkway, this is almost 20 years ago and said, I can’t believe it. What you do is so cool. And I remember at the time thinking and saying to you, Wait a second, you’re saving people’s lives every day. We save people money on their telecom bill, but it’s something which just astounded me. It’s been amazing to see how God has probably well before 20 years before that conversation had given you this sense, because maybe he’s given it to everybody about wanting to innovate and create because you’re created his image and you’re able to take that and apply it back to your field. So you’re able to take this entrepreneurial ambition that you kind of get in glimpses at, because he had different friends that were out there that you thought were entrepreneurs and then end up going ahead and solving something to be able to develop a device that saving thousands of people’s lives. I want you to. So first off, what is that device? How does it work? And then tell us a bit about the entrepreneurial journey.

Dr Mark Piehl: So the problem we were trying to solve was the patient who is in shock, which means you do not have enough blood supply to getting around to your vital organs brain, heart, kidneys, lungs. And that can occur because you are shot or run over or otherwise have hemorrhage from some injury or illness, or you have a bloodstream infection when bacteria have gotten loose in the blood. This happens after COVID, interestingly, sometimes where the heart is not able to circulate the blood and oxygen adequately and things begin to die. And often the first line treatment is, in the case of trauma, is getting blood into that patient or in the case of sepsis, getting fluid into that patient quickly enough to to restore the blood supply to the organs. That’s called reversing shock or treating shock. And there are lots of ways to do that, but none are precise or easy or efficient, and most can’t be used well in places like ambulances and helicopters and on the battlefield. I mean, this, interestingly, particularly affects children where we have a lot more trouble. Precisely. And quickly resuscitating with the proper amount of fluid in blood. And so all life flow is a little manual device that lets a nurse, paramedic, battlefield medic, doc, anesthesiologist identify the problem and say, I’m going to get some blood into this patient immediately. In fact, this happened. Henry I just got a text before we started today in Florida. There was a young woman hit on the side of the road on her moped and was profoundly, badly injured. And the paramedics arrived, identified that she needed blood and were able to give it to her quickly on the street and in the ambulance in a way that never before has been possible. That’s what life flow enables us to get enough of that product that they need blood fluid plasma into them quickly and intuitively, basically anywhere that you would provide medical care. So that’s the problem life flow is trying to solve and is solving.

Rusty Rueff: Is it an injection?

Dr Mark Piehl: It is. So basically what we want to do is get imagine a half a liter of blood. A unit of blood is about 300 500 milliliters or about half a liter. And we’re trying to get that blood into that woman through a small I.V. in her arm, or as crazy as it sounds, through a needle in the arm or leg into the bone or someone super sick and in shock, you often can’t find a vein. And so you have to drill a needle into the bone of the leg or the arm. As gross/gruesome as that sounds, it’s what we do on a regular basis in patients who are critically ill, and we then need infused blood or fluids through that portal of entry and life flow enhances the ability to do that well. So it’s basically an injection of blood or fluid into the body when patients need it the most.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that’s good. Because the name of the company is 410 Medical, and that’s some calculation of amount of fluid you’re trying to get into.

Dr Mark Piehl: Absolutely. So the company is 410 medical. And I’ll tell you a couple of the origins of that name. The first was back when I was training. Our goal in a child with sepsis was to get about 40 milliliters per kilo into the patient in 10 minutes, which almost never happened. That’s 40 milliliters per kilo of body weight in 10 minutes or for ten milliliter per kilo doses in 10 minutes, basically an unattainable goal. And I wanted to make that attainable because I felt like we were providing inadequate care, life flow enabled that in the child readily. And at the time when another good friend of mine and Henry’s name Luke Roush we were thinking up the name for the company, I happened to be reading first Peter and came across first Peter 4:10, which paraphrased as. Each one should use the gifts you have been given to serve others. And if anyone serves, you should do it with the strength God provides so that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus. So that day I literally is reading my Bible. 410. Four, ten. That’s the name of the company called up Luke, and we agreed on. So it had to do with a calculation of the volume of fluid in the speed with which we want to give it, which the device could achieve, and that of scripture, which is actually a map for how we live our lives as Christians. So by God’s grace, those two things came together and that’s what the name of the company came.

Rusty Rueff: That’s very cool. That’s very cool. And the company’s mission statement, I’m just going to read it for everybody because I think it’s so simple, practical, straightforward to take care of sick kids, teach others how to do it, and think about new ways to do it better. I mean, it can’t really get any clearer than that.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah, and that’s actually Rusty my personal mission statement. You may find that on our website. Just to clarify, it’s not our official company mission statement, but as I’ve kind of thought through, what do I do? What is my life to be about? It’s those three things. And so it’s kind of distilled it down into those three and try to measure the things I’m doing in my work life against those three principles.

Rusty Rueff: Okay, so let’s take it apart for a second, because obviously it means a lot to you. So to take care of sick kids, you became a doctor.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yep.

Rusty Rueff: When did you get to the point where you said, Now it’s about teaching others how to do it?

Dr Mark Piehl: It’s such a good question. And by the way, I interestingly, I always thought I’d be a primary care doctor in a rural area of the US or somewhere overseas and kept getting drawn to the sickest patients in the ICU in the ER. And that’s what ultimately led me down the path of becoming an intensive care doctor, but maybe always had a hunger to improve what we were doing. I always saw there’s the stuff that we just kind of do because that’s what we are taught and that’s what’s in the textbooks and that’s what it’s always been done. Surely there’s a better way. And so I think it was probably a ten year journey of thinking. I wish I could just make this process better and that process better, never really tying together that I might create an innovation out of it, but it was a long evolution. Rusty Over probably ten years of practice.

Rusty Rueff: Well, in Bremner, I applaud you because, I mean, when you say, yeah, it’s one thing to come up with new ideas. Yeah, it’s another thing to take care, but to want to teach others that service.

Dr Mark Piehl: Good point. Yeah. And I found myself one having a hunger to teach other people to care for the very sick patients that I was drawn to. So how do I replicate that? How do I scale that so that other people can do it? As I’m learning lessons, I want to pass them on. And I also found through that teaching that I became a better clinician in that I was teaching others. And it made me have to become smarter to teach groups of residents and other docs and nurses and paramedics. I have a special obligation to understand what it is that I’m practicing and teaching and having to get on a stage and teach or teach a small group of practitioners or one doc in the middle of the night in the ICU with me, another resident with me. It’s a task that is a privilege and it’s made me become a better physician because I’m teaching. So I think it’s just that’s also been a slow evolution from practitioner to teach and from practitioner to innovator.

Rusty Rueff: I always use the adage and I forget who told me obviously was probably a teacher that he or she who teaches learns twice, right? Every time we teach somebody else, we learn twice. And I think it’s a really powerful thing. But I’m guessing because I don’t know the medtech space as well. You also have had to influence a lot of people, including policymakers. I mean, did you need FDA approval? Do you have to go through all of that?

Dr Mark Piehl: Yes. So I was naive at the beginning thinking, ah, here’s a better way. Everyone will loved us not understanding that there were many, many, many hurdles to overcome between concept and marketable idea on the path to commercially successful and clinically successful company. And I’m not saying we’re there yet. So FDA number one, and convincing the FDA that our product is worthy of approval is a long, expensive, difficult process. So yes, absolutely. They’re probably more the medical kind of establishment. So academic physicians and hospitals influencing policy within them and within ambulance agencies to say, hey, we have guidelines out there for the care of these sick patients that we rarely meet. And why is that? Is it possible that a new tool or new technique could help you better meet the standards that we say we should be meeting and better provide for your patients? And so I’m still on that journey of trying to convince the world that what we have produced and what we create is actually truly is life changing. And some of that is through anecdote and intuitiveness. Someone sees the device and says, I get it, that works. That makes a lot of sense, and some of it is through data. So we are engaged in. Multiple clinical studies demonstrating the value of what we have created so that policymakers, academics, physicians, hospitals will say, hmm, I think they’re right. That doesn’t prove outcomes, that doesn’t prove mortality, that doesn’t prove patient care. This is something we should implement, even though it costs more many times than our current standard of care. So there’s a lot of influencing Rusty that goes on for sure.

Rusty Rueff: Entrepreneurs. We’re problem solvers, right? So why do so many of us ignore the biggest problems we face? Most of us? Well, we feel isolated and we feel alone. Our mental health suffers. Our relationships suffer. We get bogged down by the pressures of running a business. But say, hey, it’s just part of the job. Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. You see, we’re not meant to be siloed. God designed us to do good work alongside others. And you can experience that kind of community with other like minded entrepreneurs on the same mission as you. Through our Foundation Group series. This eight week course helps connect you with people who understand your struggles because they’ve been through them too. There’s no cost and no catch. You can meet online or in person and then continue gathering with our monthly entrepreneur groups. Don’t let this problem go unsolved. Find out more at Faith Driven Entrepreneur dot org backslash groups. Now back to the show.

Henry Kaestner: Mark, I’m interested in having really seen your journey and going through it about what you’re feeling that God is teaching you about Himself through this journey. What do you now know about God that maybe you didn’t know ten or 11 years ago?

Dr Mark Piehl: One There’s joy in creating. He’s the ultimate entrepreneur, right? God is the ultimate innovator, and there’s a special joy in us when we are able to create and to help push back the darkness in a broken world. And so I have found joy in doing that, and I think that’s a God given gift. So use the gifts you’ve been given. So honoring the resources, the talents that I’ve been given and handing them back to him and saying, here’s what I made of that one talent. There’s joy in that. Number two, I’ve had to trust him more through this journey, probably more than any other endeavor in life yet because it’s been so difficult, risky, and remains an uphill climb to get us to that commercial success point. It has caused me to continue to put my trust in God as having given me this path, led me on this path and give me the skill and the ability to do it. I don’t know where it’s going to end up, but I’ve had to trust him more than probably I ever have. Henry As you know, Meghan and I prayed about whether we should go down this path in the first place, and we both felt led, for me to do it. But there have been many, many, many points along the way where I’ve said, this is too hard. I can’t do it. But God didn’t promise us ease. Paul did not have an easy journey of spreading the gospel throughout difficult lands either, and yet he felt that God had called him to do and he did it in the midst of multiple barriers and hardships. And so I’ve had to realize that that’s part of the Christian life, is finding joy in all circumstances, even when they’re hard and even when there are barriers that we encounter. So yeah, it’s helped me to trust him and probably understand God’s grace more and humility more than I have in any time of my life.

Henry Kaestner: That’s fascinating to hear from a guy that through the grace of God, has seen people saved on our emergency room, operating tables and seen people die. And yet it’s this entrepreneurial process that has stretched you the most, or am I putting words in your mouth?

Dr Mark Piehl: Absolutely. No, no, it is. I mean, I love, love, love the care of critically ill kids. I love it. I look forward to it being able to help in those situations. And there are a lot of hard things about it. But the entrepreneurial journey starting and helping lead and grow a medical device company in many ways has been a much more difficult mountain to climb and remains still for sure. And getting them to do them together, Henry and Rusty is also a joy that they feed each other as I have to get out in the world Rusty and try to convince policymakers and hospitals and physicians there is a better way. Then I’m back in ICU in the middle of the night and think, am i right. Oh yeah, in this situation, this is where we need our device. This is where we need to improve resuscitation. I think God led me on this path. I think I am right, it gives me then, the energy to go back up the next day and convince the next person. Yeah, let me tell you what happened. Let me tell you what happened last night and how we improve the care of that patient. So both dovetail nicely.

Rusty Rueff: It’s got to come with a lot of patients, too, right?

Dr Mark Piehl: Absolutely.

Rusty Rueff: I mean, in this area, you’re running a marathon, right? Because I mean, I have yet to run into a person who says, you know, let me just tell you, you know, doctors and hospital systems, wow, boy, they’re fast moving. They are so efficient, you know? I mean, so, yeah.

Dr Mark Piehl: It’s a test of patience for sure. A test and one of the important virtues.

Henry Kaestner: So, Mark, you’re one of most thoughtful people I know about the integration of faith in the work and what you do it in your name with 410, it occupies much of what you and I get a great chance to talk about on runs or and join an occasional adult beverage together. Tell us a bit about what that complete spiritual integration looks like, and you fall short too and I fall short and we try to help each other do better. But yet you also have this incredible opportunity being in the care of very sick kids and with families in crisis. And yet you have brought your faith to the hospital in a winsome way. Not perfectly, but in a winsome way. Talk to us a little bit about that, because many of us listening to this are parents and have kids. And that’s our worst fear, having a, as you call it, a really sick kid. And what if kids come in the emergency room? They’re really, really sick. What does that look like? And as you ministered to these families.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah. So first I’m inadequate, completely inadequate in that. And do pray about it every day how I will glorify God in my work and one way we all can and is just doing whatever we have been given to do, whatever task we’re being given to do with excellence. And again, not in our own strength, but with the strength you provide so that God’s glorified. It’s just a great framework for thinking, okay, you do this well, care for people will care for people patiently and humbly. And then it just happens that in my line of work there are opportunities where people are at their most vulnerable and I can pray with and share truth with them, share the gospel with them. Do I do that in every situation? No. Maybe not in every situation, even where I probably should or could. But there are distinct opportunities in the care of critically ill patients and their families. When I have the opportunity to share truth or just try to be as excellent as I can. And I feel like. back to Rusty question teaching, writing, speaking and innovating have in turn helped me be better at the very patient care that I love in the first place. So I think it’s first Henry doing what you do and what God has called you to doing it well, trusting Him for the skill and the strength to do it well and praying that he would, by his grace, allow you to reflect his glory back to the people that you’re interacting with or caring for.

Henry Kaestner: You’ve seen at times, haven’t you, where the faith of a family in crisis has been an encouragement to you and your faith?

Dr Mark Piehl: Absolutely, Yes. Absolutely. The way folks handle death and dying and critical illness who are believers is often remarkable and humbling and amazing for me to watch that folks can go through the actual death or the potential death of a child and nevertheless, trust God with that situation has been a fascinating and privilege to be able to witness. So, yes, I have. And I’m not saying it’s unique to Christians, but there are, I would say is predominant so that folks who I either know are believers or discover in the journey certainly have been able to witness amazing peace in the midst of chaos, as the doctors in there in the room with with their child and with the family. So that’s a good question. Henry.

Rusty Rueff: So, Mark, we have a lot of listeners who come from different disciplines and backgrounds and then became entrepreneurs. And obviously you came from a very intensive learning background being a doctor, right? You don’t just get to be a doctor. And then, you know, you became a pediatric intensive physician. What do you wish you would have been taught even within that vertical of discipline or wish you would have learned along the way that would have gotten you maybe even readier earlier to become an entrepreneur?

Dr Mark Piehl: Hmm. That’s such a good question. Well, one, I wish that the environment was conducive to it. Historically, there’s not been an environment in which commercial entrepreneurship thrives within academic medicine. It was something that I was flying blind on for a long time. So even having the ecosystem within which that is possible would be something I wish for and Rusty, a lot of hospitals now are creating their own innovation centers, including my own here at [WakeMed] as a result of some of the work I’ve done and other docs. We’ve created that space within which there are advisors, there’s funding or other mechanisms to help a naive clinician with an idea negotiate the multiple minefields that are on the path between concept and reality. So I wish that that had existed. I don’t think it did. I didn’t know anything about intellectual property or FDA or fundraising or any of the many, many challenges that you encounter on the way to creating a medical device. Should that be part of our curriculum in medical school or residency? Maybe. So that would have been nice, I think, interestingly. Does the church have a role in promoting entrepreneurship? And I think you guys would have a special expertise to speak to this question. But I think yes. And interestingly, through the church that Henry and I were a part of for many years together, I engaged in a study, a Bible study on caring for the least of these, caring for the poor. And that, in a way, led to another path of entrepreneurship and the creation of a clinic for the uninsured and homeless. And I think maybe that was my first. It was like Tim Keller interpretation of Scripture helping me interpret Scripture and how I should use my gifts and skills and led down the path to that original innovation. And I think.

Rusty Rueff: Is that The Samaritan Health Center?

Dr Mark Piehl: Samaritan Health Center. Yeah. And then probably that was the spark that led to this smoldering ember in me back at the hospital and like, wait a minute, is there something else I can do here? And that need, in fact, that one patient who died in my hands, who bled to death on my hands, I left the hospital that evening thinking, there’s got to be a better way to fix this problem. Who knows what the exact sequence was? But I think a group of us at church studying together. How do we use our gifts in the world? How do we best glorify God with our each unique individual gift we have been given probably helped lead me down that path. And so to the extent you guys as Faith Driven Entrepreneur as an organization can help people see catch a vision for leaving it all on the field, finding your gift and going out there and using them for God’s glory, I think that’s maybe what if I had gotten a hold of that earlier, Maybe I would have been further down the path Rusty. But it happened in God’s timing, and thankfully it happened at all.

Rusty Rueff: Why don’t you tell us more about the Samaritan Health Center? Because I think this is really cool.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah. And Henry, I can’t remember what stage you and I met in relation to that, but we had our church in Durham, North Carolina, a little bit for the local outreach committee, and we just sat and studied scripture together and thought, how do we as a church, as a group of believers, make a difference for the kingdom? How do we glorify God in our world, where there are needs and where we have special gifts? That was as simple yet. And one thing that kept coming up over and over was there’s not a lot of good health care for folks who can’t afford it. And we happened to develop a relationship with a homeless shelter. And one of the leaders there one day in the midst of this said, hey, I heard you are a doc, I heard you are a pediatrician. Can you come see some of our patients, all of our kids over here once in a while? And that just kind of again, was a spark to say, I could do that. I could show up on Mondays and see some of their sick kids. But why don’t we just start a whole program for that that would invite others in who have similar needs? And so that led to a group of folks at our church praying for and planning and raising the funding for actually creating an actual functioning clinic, which has now become a larger health center, serving immigrants and the homeless and the uninsured all together. So that was a long evolution of social entrepreneurship that I’m thankful for. I’m not as involved Rusty right now. I pivoted to the business for a while, but I still love that organization and help fund it and feel like God kind of taught me a lot through it.

Henry Kaestner: I want to pivot over to Lightning Round. I want to talk about just a bunch of different things about just discipleship and how you’ve come to know God. You’ve been really intentional about it. And while some number of our audience is going to want to know what your favorite pizza places, your favorite ice cream places in North Carolina, we do like doing those questions when we go to different places.

I can answer that.

Okay. Yeah, go.

Dr Mark Piehl: Well, I just got I just got to praise Pizzeria Toro in downtown Durham. It’s it has to be the best pizza that exists. I mean. Henry, what do you think?

Henry Kaestner: So Pizzeria Toro is phenomenal. We just were on with we had one last podcast was with a really neat couple in Charlotte, North Carolina, and it made me think about brixx because brixx pizza is also.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah, yeah, it’s fun.

Henry Kaestner: Brixx is great, but Pizzeria Toro is better than pizzeria toro like burn down like three times. It just kept on bouncing back. Apologies to the guys at the brixx pizza. But Pizzeria Toro is better.

Dr Mark Piehl: That’s analogous to that to the entrepreneurial journey. There are devastating challenges and, you [….]

Henry Kaestner: Way to bring it back.

Dr Mark Piehl: To them.

Henry Kaestner: Yes. Way to bring it back, absolutely. All right. So you and I spent some time going through Romans together and something I appreciate you went even deeper than I did. We both listened to the JD Greear sermon series on Romans. You turned me on to that. And then you were doing that at the same time that you’re going through John Piper’s sermon series on that. Just looking through all of his notes. Tell us about what are you doing right now? What are you doing right now to get deeper into God and his word and just help us?

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah. Not enough. Number one, I’m reading through the Bible and back to reading the Bible in the year I did go through Romans, Henry, as you mentioned. And that was if you did.

Henry Kaestner: What do you do? Are you doing an app? I’m doing a Nicky Gumbel.

Dr Mark Piehl: ESV, ESV every day in the world on my phone.

Henry Kaestner: Mark introduced me to ESV and helped me understand where the NIV was inadequate. I’m still in NIV, but I’m doing the Nicky Gumbel Bible in one year app I’m loving it. So what are you doing? The ESV?

Dr Mark Piehl: however you do It, it’s worthwhile. God teaches you something every day to His word, whatever you’re reading. And so what I miss is diving deep into each passage. What I love is seeing the whole breadth and depth of the Bible. And my wife has been a great actually mentor in that way. She’s a student of the Bible. She teaches she helps lead a big women’s Bible study. And just seeing her faithfulness and being in the word every single morning has helped me realize the value of that. So that’s number one. Almost every morning begins with reading scripture and praying for the day and for my family and for my friends and for you. Henry. And then not every day. I can’t promise you. I pray to you every day, but I do pay for you for the business. And then when a group of men in our church, we have a Bible study there as well, and then a small group of couples that I’ve been engaged in and now for probably over five years or so, a number of ways that we’re trying to be faithful as believers, studying the word together.

Henry Kaestner: One thing that the three of us share is a joy of running. It’s a darn shame, Mark, that this is not a video podcast because all of our listeners could see how incredibly fit you look. But talk to us about the role of exercise in your life.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah, I mean, I do feel that one exercise could be an idol, so I try not to overdo it, but I love exercise and I feel like it’s just one of the ways that I clear my mind and keep my body strong for the next task is to devote at least 30 minutes to an hour when I’m mountain bike a little longer and exercise every day. And it’s a time that I actually do my best thinking, unless I’m running with you, I do my best talking, my best listening.

Henry Kaestner: What do you mean by exercise can be an idol? I’m thinking that is it just the fascination of being able to beat me on some sort of like ten mile run in eastern North Carolina, which I’m only now just recovered from and had to have open heart surgery to fix?

Dr Mark Piehl: Exactly. No, I think if I had all the time in the world, I’d probably be running an Ironman. I’d love to ascend to the next David Mark in level of fitness, but I, I don’t have that luxury. But yeah, so it’s important and.

Henry Kaestner: That is not a slight on people who are listening to this, who are doing triathlons.

Dr Mark Piehl: It is not. I’m just saying I would be prone to making that my sole.

Henry Kaestner: So would I. So would I.

Dr Mark Piehl: So, yes. And I respect and love and I’m jealous of people who do ironman, by the way. But yeah, it’s important, Henry. And you ask me often if I’m training for something and I say no, I’m just training for life. And I feel like God has given me good health and I want to keep that health going as long as possible. Though at 55, which I am now, you notice the strength, the endurance falling off. So I’m trying to prevent that, although it’s inevitable. Outwardly we are wasting away, as Paul says, it’s happening. So I guess that’s the other place you could become an idol is if you’re trying to reverse the effects of aging too much. But I do love exercise. Thanks for asking.

Rusty Rueff: All right. So I have one. And then we’re going to come to close because we only have a limited amount of time. I wish we could talk forever. I think we could among the three of us. So at one time you said that your goal was to have 14 Twitter followers.

Dr Mark Piehl: That’s an old goal. I don’t know how many I have.

Rusty Rueff: You don’t know how many have now?

Dr Mark Piehl: I don’t, do you?

Rusty Rueff: I do You had 291, but now you have 292.

Dr Mark Piehl: Wow. Thank you. So I had to confess, I’m not on Twitter very much, and I could use you guys counsel, but I.

Henry Kaestner: You were my first friend on Twitter. You introduced me to Twitter.

Dr Mark Piehl: I did?

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, you did.

Dr Mark Piehl: And you probably have, like, 6 million followers. And I have 200.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, I’m sure. Don’t. I don’t. I don’t post on Twitter.

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah. I have generally been staying off social media most of the time. I find it drags me down into not always a healthy place. So I think some folks can manage it better than I. But yes, at the time Rusty, I was hoping for more than 14. Thankfully I got there. Thank you for joining me as a follower and I’ll try to send out a tweet or two here in your honor.

Rusty Rueff: I think it’s a good caution. Actually. I’ve over the years, I was one of the early Twitter guys just, you know, jump on and. It can suck you right in, you know, And the next thing you know, and actually, Henry and I had a conversation I don’t know how many years ago, Henry, about the use of Twitter and politics and all of those kinds of things with good wise counsel from my brother. But I think any of these things that, you know, you think you’re doing good because you’re staying up to date, you’re staying knowledgeable and you’re staying. However, this also can become a place of a little bit of self-promotion and a little bit of self inflation. And then, you know, emotions that can get going. And so I think we should all, you know, guard against that. It’s wise counsel.

Dr Mark Piehl: And for you guys and no, I’m often in controversial spaces in medicine. And so when there’s a perceived conflict, meaning I have a company and I’m also advocating for a certain direction that medical care could go, there’s opportunity to get into arguments in public spaces that I found are not really helpful. People have strong opinions and they express them more readily on social media, Twitter and elsewhere. So I’ve learned to try to have those conversations in different environments, speaking to groups in one on one, conversations through writing and research, and not try to make my point as much through social media. There’s definitely a place for it. Oh, yes, there’s a place for it. But I found for my personality and for the business I’m in, it’s not as effective and maybe not as helpful.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I think that’s why we can’t be encouraging. We can be inspirational and people need that. People actually need that, you know?

Dr Mark Piehl: Yeah. And there are many encouraging posts and my company posts all the time. I love it, but I just personally have stayed out a little bit.

Rusty Rueff: So if William was here, he would, he would close us with asking the question that we ask all of our guests. And and you’ve already alluded to the fact that, you know, you’re spending a lot of time in God’s word. Is there is there anything that God has just sort of said to you, like in the last couple of days in his word, that is sticking with you?

Dr Mark Piehl: Yes. So being in a word every day, I just at a moment of that was kind of down there since difficult stuff in our business. And I came across first Corinthians 15, I happened to be in my daily reading. And at the end Paul says it’s first Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, the steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. And He’s basically saying, I face tons of challenges. I’ve I’ve faced almost unbearable challenges as the Apostle Paul, and you will, too. But by God’s grace, you are able to be steadfast, trusting him, immovable, not getting pushed back by those challenges, continuing to abound in the work of the Lord. Do lots of good God honoring work with the gifts He’s given you. And that was just an encouragement to me. And I think that’s what he’s teaching me, is and even in the midst a challenge, there’s joy in it. And learning to be content in every situation, whether we are thriving and succeeding or whether we are facing challenges. So I guess that’d be the best answer to what I’m learning right now. And I have a lot more learning to do. But you can pray for me that I would continue to learn and continue to trust in our business to continue to thrive and save more lives.

Henry Kaestner: Heavenly Father, we lift up Mark right now, along with all of our audience of Faith driven entrepreneurs around the world, and ask that you’ll continue to teach them that they will trust you, to have faith. Dear Lord, please forgive us for our inadequacies in the time we don’t trust you. But, dear Lord, give us your blessing. May we be faithful and obedient. May we be protected. Dear Lord, may we experience your joy as we go about doing the work under your power, for your glory as your kingdom comes about on earth, as it is in heaven. In Jesus name. Amen.

Dr Mark Piehl: Amen.