Center Fielder | Minnesota Twins

Torii Kedar Hunter is an American former professional baseball center fielder and right fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and Detroit Tigers from 1997 through 2015. Hunter was a five-time All-Star, won nine consecutive Gold Glove Awards as a center fielder, and was a two-time Silver Slugger Award winner

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PODCASTS FOR THE FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

Million Dollar Baby has been designing elegant and sophisticated nursery furniture for more than 25 years. Founder Daniel Fong shares about the early days of his enterprise. He talks about what it’s been like to watch his kids grow up in the business, get involved, and continue to be instrumental in leading the organization into the next phase of development.

— by Dan Owolabi

“I have no one. I do this by myself.”

A few years ago, I traveled across the world to ask one person one question. I had taken the long drive, and even longer plane ride, to sit in Abonzo Coffee. Abonzo was a sprawling, chic coffee shop with an incredible view of the foggy Doi Chiang mountains outside of Chiang Rai, Thailand. I was there to meet Pat, a young, ambitious, faith-driven entrepreneur. I had heard about him a few months before and was eager to hear his story. Born just a few miles from where we were sitting, Pat’s story was nothing less than impressive. He showed me the impoverished village where he grew up. He shared how he found his way to college then to seminary to be a pastor, only to quit to start a business brewing and exporting coffee.

He laughed about the negative reaction of his seminary professors when he quit and about his initial lack of business experience. But despite objections from mentors and initial challenges, Pat persisted in his belief that entrepreneurship could be an incredible way to expand God’s Kingdom in his community. The way he treated his customers, employees, and suppliers mattered. Providing employment and introducing people to Jesus through natural, healthy relationships mattered.

Since then, Pat had invested nearly a decade of his life to build Abonzo coffee shop and a thriving business around it. When he started, he never would have guessed that God would lead him to export coffee all over the world, do millions of dollars in business, become the #1 tourist destination in his region, or employ more people than anyone else in his community. He was thrilled at how God had worked through him.

After he shared his story, I thanked him. Then I raised the question I had traveled across the world to ask. I said, “Pat, you have invested so much into your community… But who invests in you? Who sharpens you?”

He looked at me for a long moment, then his eyes lowered in sadness. “I have no one. I do this by myself.”

In my work with Branches Worldwide, I have met incredible faith-driven entrepreneurs all over the globe. Each of them has a story of a strong call from God, overcoming odds, and building a business that is a significant blessing in his/her community. But when I ask, “Who sharpens you? Where are your peers and mentors? Who invests in you?” I repeatedly hear the same answer: “No one. I do this by myself.”

We Are Better Together

It’s self-evident that leaders can accomplish more together. Like hot campfire coals, we burn hotter when we stay close to each other. But why do so many of us end up leading alone? Jesus is our ultimate example of leadership, and he strategically steered away from the temptation to lead alone. In fact, he spent extra time cultivating close relationships with Peter, James, and John in order to bring them into his inner circle. And as he approached his most difficult day on earth, Jesus pulled these three disciples closer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus did not attempt to lead in isolation. Matthew 26 documents Jesus saying, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Jesus essentially said, “Stay close to me. I don’t want to do this alone.” He understood the dangers of isolation, and He leaned on his inner circle during critical, vulnerable moments in His ministry.

I have come to see isolation as a powerful temptation that cripples even the best leaders. But isolation is inherently different from loneliness. You and I may have loving family and friends that help us feel socially connected. But the absence of peers who understand our unique challenges in leadership or mentors who can empathize, leaves us vulnerable to fatal leadership mistakes. When you and I are isolated, we make poorer decisions, experience more stress, and develop an increasingly inaccurate view of the world.

Even in light of the apparent pitfalls, isolation remains a significant temptation. This is primarily because isolation allows leaders to maintain an illusion of control. We can easily avoid uncomfortable conversations when employees rarely give unvarnished feedback on our leadership or when our boards are disengaged in our day-to-day performance. So, when we make decisions, set goals, and create systems apart from a community of high-capacity peers, we can easily avoid accountability, sidestep taking responsibility for poor choices, and stop challenging ourselves to be better. In isolation, we can control the narrative. We don’t have to be honest about facts, and we can evaluate ourselves based on our intentions, rather than our actual impact on others.

But most leaders don’t intend to avoid the companionship of other leaders. In fact, they may desire honest feedback from others. They may long for the freedom to speak without a filter, to share new, unprocessed thoughts, and to unload the burdens of leadership on one or two trusted peers. However, the fear of vulnerability, overcrowded schedules, or the inability to identify other high-capacity peers nearby leads them to drift into isolation. And the deeper they drift, the more ineffective they become.

Great Problems and Good Friends

God rarely calls leaders to accomplish His work in isolation.

The most significant challenges of any generation have always demanded the collective wisdom of committed, courageous, and creative followers of Jesus. We are better together.

In addition, God created leaders to posit solutions and solve problems. By design, the best of us yearns for significant challenges to tackle. My Thai friend, Pat, was troubled by the poverty plaguing his community. In response, he quit seminary and decided to start a faith-driven business—an ingenious solution that has given him a platform to communicate his faith and an economic engine to alleviate poverty. Pat believes what many believe… that at the foundation of our faith is the idea that Christ is working through us to redeem the world.

Our faith animates our work, compelling us to ask God to apply our best efforts to the world’s worst issues.

We long to immerse ourselves in the most perplexing challenges of our day—the greatest problems of our generation—because we know the work itself will serve so many and bring out our best in the process.

But I believe God has reserved the most significant blessings for individuals that tackle great problems with good friends. The camaraderie, intensity, and satisfaction that come from these relationships can be found nowhere else. The creative energy and uniquely potent solutions benefit everyone involved in an endeavor. Proverbs 27:17 reminds us that, “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Great leaders grow when they have sharpened each other for the work God has called them to. When iron sharpens iron, sparks fly, and the world is richly blessed.

Branches Worldwide is advancing a solution rooted in God’s design for how great leaders grow. We believe the faith-driven leaders of this next generation will solve bigger problems, do better work, and bring more honor to Christ… only when they are supported and sharpened in relationships with other high caliber, faith-driven leaders. That’s why we inaugurated an initiative to build a community of 30 individuals from 30 countries and invest in them for 30 years.

The 30 Leaders

Our 30.30.30 initiative started with the desire to serve the leaders who were serving their neighbors. We looked for people dedicated to solving pressing economic and spiritual challenges in their communities. We were careful to identify and invite men and women who loved Jesus and were already engaged in extraordinary work in the Kingdom.

Early in the process, we decided to focus on experienced leaders within the business community. Entrepreneurs have immense potential to impact a community. As natural change agents with hundreds of connections, these leaders are often closest to the heartbeat of the community. They know what’s working, what’s broken, and how to fix it.

Finally, we focused on Millennials. We looked for young leaders between the ages of 25-40, not only because we wanted natural affinity between leaders, but we also wanted men and women with three decades of leadership potential ahead of them.

When Iron Sharpens Iron, Sparks Fly

Leaders are sharpened by each other. But as it is with traditional metalworking, skill, intentionality, and patience are required to bring the best results. As sharpening is much more than two knives rapidly, haphazardly clanging together, genuine leadership development is more than short-term, unfocused training.

Often leadership training is a short-term endeavor, dedicated to adding new competencies to an individual. A leader could be trained in more effective ways to develop employees, for example, or on new methods for delegating more effectively. When we launched Branches Worldwide, we believed that faith-driven leaders would be best sharpened and developed by long-term relationships that contained three strategic elements: Support, Information, and Challenge. These three elements not only compel leaders to develop new competencies, but they also change a leader’s mindset and mental model. As Branches identifies and invests in leaders around the world, we are building a community rooted in Christ, focused on providing support, information, and challenge. Let’s explore each element, one by one.

Challenge:

When we invite leaders to join Branches Worldwide, we ask them to identify significant challenges they want to solve within three years. We ask each leader to pray about ambitious three-year goals that are God honoring, community serving, and personally challenging.

These goals are critical to our relationship with the leader, because pursuit of those goals inevitably places them in situations where they cannot make decisions with their current patterns of thinking. Once they face new and significant challenges, their minds are open to better and improved ways to lead. The challenge initiates the need for the remaining two elements.

Information:

Access to information about how to navigate new leadership challenges is critical to the development of the leader. Sometimes people are motivated to tackle a challenge, but they simply need more information. They need the exact words to say, steps to take, or book to read. Branches leaders have access to resources that can give them that information.

When an entrepreneur joins Branches, they join a community of faith-driven leaders from 30 countries around the world. These varied perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds provide the primary source of information. They are also exposed to books, videos, and workshops which invite them to alter their existing mindsets and apply new methods to existing challenges. Finally, they are invited to share their knowledge and experience with other Branches leaders in order to codify their own areas of expertise.

Support:

When leaders feel appreciated and valued beyond their ability to produce results, a fertile ground for creative ingenuity is fostered. For this reason, Branches Worldwide makes a unique promise to each leader. We will walk with them for 30 years. Practically speaking, that means Branches is committed to supporting them for the duration of their career. As long as they are committed to building a faith-driven business to bless their communities, we are committed to them. Each leader is paired with a mentor who is dedicated to his/her success.

The sense of support this gives to entrepreneurs is immeasurable. They are free to try to tackle challenges, to fail, to learn, and to try again. The network of high-capacity peers, mentors, and consultants around the world serves the function described in Proverbs 11:14: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” These leaders regularly tap into a community that is there to support them with suggestions, prayer, and perspective. The result of this kind of support are leaders who readily integrate new practices and develop a larger, more advanced worldview.

Ultimately, Branches Worldwide is dedicated to seeing communities transformed by the influence of faith-driven entrepreneurs. We believe relationships rooted in Christ and focused on providing challenge, support, and information are essential to sharpening high-capacity leaders. We anticipate that our long-term, goal-oriented, relationship-driven approach will help Branches leaders develop the wisdom to choose the right strategies as well as the correct skills to implement them.

What’s Next:

When we started Branches Worldwide, we had three primary challenges: finding leaders, facilitating community, and funding our work. Since that first plane trip to visit Pat in Thailand, we have solved many of those early problems. As Covid-19 gave the world the gift of Zoom, our leaders have been able to develop the initial roots of relationships through virtual prayer meetings. We have learned how to find the right leaders and invite them to join our community. And we’re thrilled by the robust community of donors and business partnerships who help fund our work. But we know our work is not done.

Leaders need the loving perspective and face-to-face sharpening that close accountability provides.

As we look forward to the day when travel is easier and Covid-19 is behind us, we are planning opportunities for mentors and leaders to meet in person. We know 30 years is a long time, and we’re building our community of leaders to be sharp and ready for the challenges God asks us to tackle together.

Since that day with Pat in Chiang Rai, I have prayed for a day when our 30 Branches leaders are asked, “Who sharpens you?”

And the answer will be, “I have Branches Worldwide. I do not do this by myself.”

——

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.

Related articles

Star NFL Linebacker Jaylon Smith is a force on the football field. But there’s far more to him than just sporting prowess. Jaylon’s entrepreneurial spirit drove him to start the Minority Entrepreneurship Institute–which has awarded $1.2 million to 13 minority-owned companies since inception–and his own eyewear company – CEV Collection.

— by Tom McGehee

There is a popular idea in today’s world that organizations, specifically nonprofits and ministries, need to shift from being an institution to becoming a movement. It sounds great. It conjures up images of greater impact, rapid growth, and increased ownership and innovation. This idea is fostered by increasingly connected virtual interaction options and is supported by various networks that are arising.

However, as great as this sounds, very few organizations have been able to actually make this change. We believe this is because they fail to recognize the totality in this type of shift—that this is not about adding a new product or service or about re-organizing or re-branding. This shift requires a fundamental change in the essence of an organization. It is about whole scale cultural change—change that is both internal, how the organization behaves, and external, how the organization is perceived and the value it creates.

As the new Co-Executive Directors of the Halftime Institute, Jim Stollberg and I are in the process of making this type of change to a well-known, successful, twenty-five-year-old global ministry. The purpose for this change is that at its essence, Halftime is a movement.

Halftime began when Bob Buford wrote his book by the same name. The book alone has sold more than one million copies worldwide, has been translated into several languages, and—being commonly passed along among friends and colleagues—has impacted countless individuals all over the world, many of whom never participated in a Halftime program or ever crossed paths with us. Bob Buford even said one time to one of our global partners, “I started out to writing a book about my own personal experience hoping it could help others. But then, like ‘good Americans’ we wanted to make an organization out of it.” Alas, over the years, this is just what we did.

Our desire is to build upon the organizational strengths we possess in order to re-create an even greater global movement. In this paper, I want to highlight four key concepts that are helping us make this change a reality.

4 Key Concepts for Movement Shift

1. Work inside out, not outside in.

When organizations seek to improve, they often start at the edges. They develop new products or services, expand capabilities by replicating existing models, shut down underperforming offerings, etc. In a shift as profound as the one we are discussing, you must start at the center. You must be willing to question not just how you do things but what you do and why you do it.

In his book, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Jim Collins references a concept he calls “The Hedgehog.” The hedgehog is the essence of who you are and what you do. For social sector organizations like Halftime, the hedgehog is at the intersection of three circles: What you are deeply passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and what best drives your resource (or economic) engine.

At Halftime, we are passionate about helping high-capacity leaders find and live out their Ephesians 2:10 calling. We are world-class at helping people live lives that are both successful and significant. We do that by providing programs, coaching, and making connections to come alongside men and women on their journeys through the abundant lives God has called them to live.

However, over the years, we gradually shifted focus on what drives our resource engine to the point that we primarily focused on our signature program—The Fellows Program—as if it were our hedgehog. Growth became about increasing the number of people in the program or replicating the program in various locales around the globe, particularly in the U.S. The more we focused on our programs, the more pragmatic we became. We even changed our name to Halftime Institute and took on a more academic tone. We became known as The University for Your Second Half, a world-class program you attended, paid tuition for, and graduated from at the completion of a process.

Eventually, we thought of ourselves as a “bounded-set” rather than a “centered-set” organization. A bounded-set organization defines itself by its boundaries. A bounded-set organization says, “We operate a certain way with a certain set of people; therefore, other people and other ways of interacting are outside our boundaries.” When a company grows with this type of model, it typically employs a franchise method. It holds ruthlessly to the specific model developed and guards operations and quality to ensure new operations behave exactly like all other operations. Over the years, Halftime attempted to develop a franchise model for growth. But this goes against the key understanding that Halftime is a platform, not a program. Bob Buford was fond of saying that, “Our fruit grows on other people’s trees.” This is movement thinking at its best, and we needed to embrace it not just for our clients but also for ourselves.

In contrast, centered-set thinking focuses on a very clear understanding of who you are at your core (your hedgehog). Holding tightly to this allows unlimited options for operations if you don’t stray from your core identity. When Jim and I assumed leadership of Halftime, we started day one with this mantra: Question everything. That included answering the question: What is the core of Halftime?

2. Question everything.

Questioning everything does not mean you have to change everything. But it does mean that you are willing to investigate things in a manner that allows you to widen your perception beyond your assumptions and to accept ideas and observations from others who have different perspectives. When you allow yourself to look beyond results to evaluate not only how you do what you do (process) but also who does what you do (structure) and, finally, why you do what you do (culture), this can result in big changes. By going through this process at Halftime, we identified necessary shifts, changes, and subtle tweaks in all three areas of process, structure, and culture. Over time, we believe these actions will make all the difference—case in point, our hedgehog.

Halftime is most widely thought of as a program designed to help a person when he or she is facing the end of the “first half” (generally, career) and moving into the “second half.” After all, the subtitle of Bob’s book was “Moving from Success to Significance”—as if this were a one-time or one-step thing.

We recognize that God calls us to different things at different times. We know that, over time, our core (passions, strengths, and experiences), our capacity (time, resources, and spiritual overflow), and our context (what we do and how we do it) all change. God’s call on our lives is dynamic, not static. Over the years, Halftime has supported individuals through these changes. But, to embrace movement thinking, we need to make this value obvious to whom we serve and how we serve them.

When we would ask people, both inside and outside of the Halftime network, what our core was, the answer we most often received was, “to help high-capacity leaders find their Ephesians 2:10 calling.” When we asked how we did that, the answer always included at least two parts:

• Through programs and coaching.

• Through connecting those we serve with others to help them along the way.

As we considered this, it became clear that the real value Halftime provided was not just helping a person find his/her calling (today there are many programs that try to do that); rather, we are experts in helping a specific set of individuals both find and live out their callings.

The specific set of individuals we are called to serve is that of a “high-capacity leader.” As with everything, this definition faced rigorous questioning to determine what we really mean by that identifier. To some, Halftime is seen as a ministry focused only on wealthy individuals—specifically, individuals who have also reached a point in their lives where they can “stop working and start serving.”

In truth, more than 65% of those who participate in our programs remain in the workplace. As they gain clarity on their individual callings, many see opportunities to re-purpose their current platforms as the place for greatest impact. However, it is true that the majority of people we serve are very successful professionals. They are typically professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, senior military officers, or in the “c-suite” of corporations. They acknowledge that God has blessed them with time, talent, and treasure but sense a “smoldering discontent”—that nagging, there’s got to be something more feeling—that drives their desire to do more to honor God with what He has given them.

Reminding ourselves of who we are called to serve, let us consider one of our greatest values—one that we all appreciated, but never officially recognized—which is our global community of like-minded, highly-capable Christian leaders and influencers that supports any person who joins us through a program, so that they don’t have to go it alone. Further, this community lasts far beyond the conclusion of a program. We have great content, models, and processes to help individuals get clear on their callings. But, even more, we have a network that is ready and willing to help them get free from their constraints and get going into a life of significant success. Leaders around the globe stand ready and willing to prayerfully support them in exploring their passions, testing ways to live out their callings, and walking alongside them on a journey of significance for many years to come.

Now, this may seem like merely semantics, but it, in fact, was some very heavy lifting. The result is a larger vision (a movement-oriented vision) that is expressed in how we now define our core:

To help high-capacity leaders find and live out their Ephesians 2:10 callings.

With that clarity, we could move to concept three.

3. Form follows function.

 This concept is certainly not new to anyone dealing with organization change. Many would say it’s “where the rubber meets the road.” That’s why, too often, organizations will jump to this before they are ready. This is the tangible stuff—boxes on organizational charts, changes in process flows and policies… the tactics. And it’s easy to see the change and to measure results in this phase, so it’s natural to want to gravitate here. But, unless you put in the time and effort to address the first two concepts thoroughly, you will make changes through the lens of your past organizational constructs, rather than with a movement-oriented perspective. You will be putting “new wine in old wine skins.” (Luke 5:36-39)

We are currently implementing many of these changes, utilizing a concept that we recommend to every individual we serve: low-cost probes. It is the idea of making a short-term commitment to an effort to try it and see if it is truly what God is leading you to do before you jump all the way in. As we address changes at Halftime, we are using the same approach. Let me highlight three examples:

1. A process change. This refers to what we offer to our clients and how we source our clients. As we now see our programs not as the goal but as the “on-ramp” to the journey with community, we are implementing multiple programs to reach a broader scope of our target client. Now, in addition to our signature Fellows Program in Dallas, we have added a program that we call Round Tables. These are local or virtual programs that cover much of the same content as the Fellows Program but in a different context. The Fellows Program delivers an exclusive, high-touch experience to a Cohort of individuals from around the world who come together several times a year across the U.S. Now, by offering a Round Table, we can work with individuals and with other organizations to bring value not only to our clients but also to our partners as well—meeting them where they are. By training individuals to become facilitators or coaches within their own circles of influence, or equipping organizations with customized resources, we can bring Halftime into a new culture or context.

2. A structure change. There is a difference between selling someone a program and inviting them to join you on a journey. Movements invite people into a community on a specific mission; institutions sell people their products or services. We know that Halftime, like any movement, grows more through person-to-person interaction than through fancy marketing campaigns. When an alum refers a person to one of our programs, the conversion rate is +70%. So, why do we continue mass email campaigns? Instead, let’s turn the “funnel” on its side. Rather than blasting broad marketing messages to build a big funnel with the idea that it will eventually trickle down to a handful of individuals who are really our clients and are ready to embark on this journey with us, let’s create more conversations with those we have already impacted. These conversations will do two things: create referrals and—even more importantly—allow us to continue to serve our network with excellence.

To do this, we created a new part of the organization focused completely on serving our global network. Today, Halftime has partners in the United States (Dallas, Charlotte, and Nashville), Europe, Africa, China, Singapore, Australia, and Canada. At one time, we called these expressions of Halftime “hubs” or “offices.” We have changed the language to that of partners—each unique yet aligned. Each is successful, but there is great opportunity for more collaboration. The creation of this entity will allow us to work together better to innovate, support, and leverage our global capabilities.

Additionally, this new initiative will focus on providing four core areas of value to our global network:

A connected community. To do so, we are building a database that will allow members to find, contact, and connect with Halftimers all over the world.

• Collaboration that can be channeled into local cohorts, affinity groups, and learning communities. This will create opportunities for collaboration among members to learn from one another, work together, and create even more impact.

• Continued equipping. We are developing new programs, workshops, and training to help people through their entire This includes helping them navigate relational topics like alignment with their spouses, integrating their families into their mission, and/or developing a legacy. We can support their continual spiritual development with such things as access to resources around spiritual disciplines and guided or solo silent retreats. We open new avenues for ministry by providing exposure to new and different ministries, non-profits, and supporting organizations.

• On-going coaching as we expand access to our global coaching network to help individuals with their personal growth.

3. A cultural change. It’s been said that “culture eats strategy for lunch.” Culture is a tricky thing to navigate, as it can be built—but it can’t be forced. One area that is of vital importance in culture change is language. At Halftime, we have moved away from corporate titles. Jim and I are Co-Executive Directors, not Co-CEOs. We refer to each other as “team members” and “partners,” instead of roles and titles. Another area we are addressing is in our brand name. (Remember? You must be able to question everything.) Currently, you can find us on the web at halftimeinstitute.org. You’ll notice that “Institute” is still in our name. Along with that term goes language of program admissions, tuition, and graduation. These descriptors served us for a time, but they certainly are not indicative of movement-type language.

Making these types of change are sure to be difficult for everyone. Team members are unclear of their new roles, clients may be confused about our offerings, and even with a clear, new vision, how to get there will entail trial and error. This brings us to our last concept.

4. Embrace liminality.

Liminality is defined as the space between no longer and not yet.

It is a place of complete uncertainty, at worst, and, at best, partial clarity. It is also a place of immense creativity and opportunity. The word comes from the idea of someone going through a rite of passage—leaving something behind and moving toward something new. You are not fully grounded in either, yet you still have elements of both.

In shifting from an institution to a movement, the space of liminality can be expansive. It may last several months—even years. For example, within the eight-person Halftime team in Dallas, we have removed the organizational constructs so that, for now, everyone reports directly to Jim and me. We want to be a team driven by intention, instead of silos of tasks and targets. The Halftime team consists of a remarkable group, and each gives one hundred percent to serving our clients. Part of the shift to a movement mindset means internalizing the same “best practices” we encourage with our clients—we want each of our team members to find and live out their own callings within our organization. We are giving them the space to explore, reflect, and perform while we reorganize. It’s not simple or clear, but if everyone embraces the liminality we are in, it can be energizing.

This is one of the biggest challenges in an organization actually becoming a movement: Fighting against the desire to put the change in the rearview and get back to results. As a CEO once told me, “I’m not happy with the results I’m getting but at least I know the results I’m getting and that’s good enough for me.”

At Halftime, we’ve had great results for over 25 years. But now, we are setting out to intentionally address our own “smoldering discontent.” We look to a future with even greater impact with those that we have the privilege of coming alongside to help in their journeys to serve God with everything that He has given them.

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.

Related articles

Donald Miller‘s books—such as “Blue Like Jazz,” “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,” and “Scary Close”—have spent more than a year on the New York Times Bestsellers list. Don has since gone from writing bestselling books to tapping into the power of story for businesses and individuals. Every year he helps more than 3,000 business leaders clarify their brand message. Listen in as he challenges entrepreneurs to lean into their own story, creatively develop and execute the story of their team, and understand the story of their customers so they can serve them with passion.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey, everyone, it’s the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast you found us once again. Thanks for doing so. Donald Miller is the CEO of Story Brand, and every year helps thousands of business leaders clarify their brand message combined. Donald Books have spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list. Today, he is going to challenge entrepreneurs to lean into their own story, creatively, develop and execute the story of their team and understand the story of their customers so they can serve them with passion. Let’s listen in.

William Norvell: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We are so overjoyed today. We get to talk about a man who needs no introduction, but he’s going to get one anyway. You’ve already heard about who he is a little bit in the intro, but not a Miller who has influenced so many people through his writings for so long. I mean, gosh, I mean, 20, 25 years. How long have you been writing? I mean, it’s just amazing. About 25 years. That’s amazing. And we were just talking. Don and I have a mutual friend, David Price, who we will, for certain, make sure is listening. We met about five years ago. It was monumental in my life and a very small footnote in Don’s. But he claims to remember me slightly, which means a lot to me. You know, that goes a long way on the heart, and we are just so excited to have you for our audience. We’re so excited to help people hear about story, brand and business. It’s simple. I’m pretty sure a lot of people have before, but for those that haven’t, you’re in for a special treat. So, Don, welcome to the show.

Donald Miller: Yeah, it’s good to be with you.

William Norvell: And as we do just get started, as our audience knows, one of the things we love to do is just start at the beginning a little bit. Who are you? What brought you to where you are today and why do you continue to do what God’s called you to do?

Donald Miller: Well, in my heart? I’m a guy who just loves to write. I mean, that’s been my thing for a long time. And I started, of course, writing memoirs and in order to write good memoirs, I had to study story because I was very interested in keeping the reader interested in my books and turning the page. And so I discovered story is the best way to get somebody’s attention, and stories are very, very formulaic. I mean, you know, this happens, then this happens, then this happens on page thirty three. This happens on Page 42. This happens. So I learned all those formulas for writing stories, and we wrote a screenplay and released a movie and those kinds of things. Definitely amateur stuff. There are real moviemakers and better writers than me, but you know, I enjoyed studying that stuff by the time I wrote my seventh memoir. I didn’t have anything else to say. The publisher keeps coming back and saying, Hey, you know, these are sound pretty good. Can we get another memoir? And I just at one point just said nothing else has happened. I have nothing else to give you. I went camping and I can’t write a book about that. And so I was asked by a company called Accenture to create a project management framework that would unite a team and help them accomplish a mission. Using everything I knew about story and I did that, and it was the first time I’d ever taken a story based message into business. It did well with Accenture. Then I wrote a book saying, Look, you know, this also works when you’re thinking about your marketing or how you talk about your company, how you tell the story of your company, how you invite customers into a story. And I ended up writing a book about that, and I genuinely thought the book was going to sell moderately well, but I was just curious about it. I just wanted to write the book anyway, and it sold about 600000 copies and that launched my company called Story Brand, and we helped companies create very, very clear marketing messages. And so since then, my career has taken a pivot. I never, ever saw it coming. But I absolutely love it because, you know, I got to write seven memoirs, and I think every human being has this desire to be heard and have their story heard and to be known and to be listened to and be affirmed. And now I feel like I kind of got the Thanksgiving meal of that. And if I go the rest of my life and nobody ever hears any more of my story, I think I’m OK with that. I think other people sort of deserve to be heard. And so my career has taken this pivot where all these incredible entrepreneurs are trying to get the story of their story, their product, the story, their product story, their brand story, their team, the story of the customers and the transformation that they’re having using their product. And now I get to go in and sort of consult with those companies and help them figure out how to tell those stories. So for me, you know, at the root of it all, is this love for words, this love for story and the fact that I got to tell my own and now help others, I think, is an incredibly fulfilling journey.

William Norvell: That’s amazing. And you’ve got to do that in so many different ways. Of course, from blue like jazz to where you are today, could you go down a layer deeper and tell us, what is it about the power of story that’s so impactful? And in your experience, why are people so connected to that form of learning?

Donald Miller: Your story is powerful because it asks. Questions that we want answers to. That’s why you pay attention to a story when you’re sitting down to watch a movie somewhere early on in the movie, the storyteller, the director, the writer of the story, the actors who come together to tell the story, they’re going to positive question. And that question is going to be so interesting to you that you’re going to spend 90 minutes to two hours trying to find the answer to that question. The last two nights in a row, Betsy and my wife have sat down, you know, gone through Netflix, trying to find something to watch, and we found Sherlock Holmes, the Robert Downey Jr. version. We watched the first one two nights ago. Watch the second one last night. You know, the very beginning of those movies. It’s a whodunit. It’s a murder mystery. You’re wondering who the killer is, and you pay attention for two hours to find out one who the killer is and to. How do you do it? And that was the same story. Question for the first movie was the same as the second in the sequel. So, you know you got a positive story question, and that’s what keeps us interested in the story. The fascinating thing is, if you ask the question well enough, you will actually compel a human brain to pay attention for a long period of time, which is nearly impossible to do. About 30 percent of the time the human brain is daydreaming. We’re actually wandering off in our minds or meandering through the daisies. And when the brain daydreams, what’s actually happening is the brain is saying, there’s nothing in my environment right now that I can find that is going to help me stay alive or move ahead or get something that I want. So we’re going to turn the brain off. The brain burns about 800 calories a day processing information. And if it’s not processing information, that’s going to help it survive. It will just tune out. So almost nothing you can do about it. What’s fascinating about stories is it overrides that mechanism, and it’s the only thing known to man that overrides that mechanism. It will pay attention and burn very, very valuable calories, processing information that has nothing to do with its survival. So the reason I bring that up is because if you have a brand or if you’re a leader, if you’re a political leader and you’re running for office, we work with a lot of those. If you own a company and you’re trying to sell a product, you’ve got to get people’s attention and you are in a race and in the competition with your competitors to get that attention. So then you have to ask a question in this campaign that we’re running to sell this product or grow this company or get this person elected. What’s the story question? And if you can’t figure out very quickly what the story question is, neither can your customer and they’re going to start daydreaming. So for instance, for my company, I run a company called Story Brand and we say, Look, if you clarify your message, customers will engage. Well, you need customers to engage in order to stay in business. And so the question that you would ask yourself is, I wonder if I clarified my message, would my company grow? I wonder how I can clarify my message. I wonder what my message would be. There are enough story questions in there that compel an audience to pay attention to what we are doing. And that’s what we teach other people to do. For instance, recently I was working with a company called Calix, and Calix is a broadband service company. The owner of Calix sold his other company for $7 billion. So it’s a well-funded company, and they’re growing very, very quickly. And occasionally we get on. We do these strategy sessions where I just look at the documents that they’re releasing to the public, their websites, their sales letters, their proposals, and I just give them my thought about how they’re doing. I looked at a proposal that they were going to send out. This proposal was for a particular piece of hardware that they could sell to broadband companies. It was going to be multi-millions in the deal. And I said, Look, you know, this is a great proposal. It’s spelled out very clearly what you offer. But when I look at a proposal or a sales letter website or anything, I usually look for three colors red, yellow and green sentences that I want to highlight, read or sentences in which you’re talking about the customer’s problem. Sentences that you highlighted yellow are sentences in which you talk about your solution. The sentences that you highlight in green are sentences in which you are describing what the customer’s life will look like if they use your product. Every document that goes out should have red, yellow and green and in that order. And when I look at your document, all I see is yellow. There’s no red. You’re not talking about the customer’s problem. There’s no green. You’re not talking about what their life will look like. If they use your product, you’re just talking about your product. That’s not a story. If you want to invite customers into a story, I need to see red, yellow and green. So that’s a little sort of tip on how you should look at the communication that you’re sending out as a company. We see these mistakes all over the place. You know what, we study political campaigns a little bit. I don’t particularly associate with the Republican or Democratic Party. I think both of them quite honestly, are wasting a lot of taxpayer money just fighting with each other rather than actually being creative and bringing solutions to the table. And so I personally don’t love any of them, but I do watch the parties and watch the campaigns and sort of critique in my mind. And you know, you look at somebody like Jeb Bush and his campaign match or when he lost to Donald Trump in the tribe areas in the primaries was was. Jeb can fix it. OK, well, if Jeb can fix it, we’re being invited to watch a story about Jeb. We’re not being invited to participate. Jeb is the one who’s going to get the glory and he’s going to fix it. So if I invited you to a movie about a guy who was going to fix it, the first question you would ask is What’s it? And that means nobody’s going to go see that movie because they can’t figure out what the movie’s about. You know, Hillary Clinton, her campaign mantra when she lost to Donald Trump was, I’m with her. Well, I’m with her going where I’m with her trying to accomplish what? How is this going to help me survive? You know, it just wasn’t very interesting. So the words that we choose to describe what we’re doing are as important as what we’re doing. The words that we use to describe what product we sell are actually just as important as the product. Because if you get the product right, but the words wrong, the words are the bridge to the product. If you use the wrong words, there is no bridge that people can actually engage your product. That’s the importance of inviting people into a story. And the idea is your company, your leadership, whatever it is that you’re trying to advance in the world. You want to invite the customer, the voter, the stakeholder, into a story in which one of their problems is going to be solved. And so I’ll just give you a little formula to do that because I think that’s why you’re all listening. The formula to do that is start with the problem. When somebody asks what you do, don’t say, Well, here’s what to do. Say Well, you know how a lot of people struggle with, you know, how people get frustrated when you know how much it hurts to see people x start with a problem because the problem is actually the hook. Then once you start with the problem, now you can talk about your product. My product solves that problem. And then step three is so that people can live this way. People have this problem. So I created this product so that people could live this way. That’s a story. A hero has a problem, overcomes a challenge to make that problem go away and lives happily ever after. So if you use that formula in your sales letters and your keynote speeches, in your elevator pitches, on your websites and your lead generators on and on in your proposals, if you use that formula, you will find that people pay attention to you rather than ignore you. It really is the key to explosive growth.

William Norvell: Oh, that’s amazing, and thank you for walking through a bit of the story brand framework. I want to. We’re going to jump into that and say, I want to jump back, though, and give you the opportunity to tell us about your startup story. How did story brand? I mean, I heard how you made the transition from writing, but tell us about the company growth and how you grew the company and just your entrepreneurial journey a little bit.

Donald Miller: Yeah, there’s many aspects to my entrepreneurial journey. I mean, in a way, a writer who succeeds has to become a business person. They really have to manage a tiny staff, have to manage a schedule, they have to manage all those kind of things. So I’ve been doing that for a long time. You know, we have 30 employees now, and that’s a very different dynamic. It’s not a big company by any stretch, but I’m managing something much larger. You know, really, though, my entrepreneurial journey is just about consistently following curiosity. I was curious about story, and so I studied story. I was curious about how story could affect project management. And then I was curious about how story could affect marketing. And of course, that took off. And we just kept chasing curiosity. What are we curious about? And we would create curriculum and content based on our curiosity and the results that the products that we created would give to people. So, you know, that’s basically my entrepreneurial journey. I just kept chasing curiosity. I mean, I was pretty good at always figuring out what was sustainable, you know, how to make cash come into the company. And so I also chased that path to but for me, you know, nothing beats curiosity. And I was always curious about these things.

William Norvell: Well, that’s great. OK, so jumping back past the framework, which you kind of walk through a little bit with us, I’m curious for entrepreneurs listening because I’m guessing you could have a lot of fun with 100 pitch decks that we will not send you. But I’m sure, well, maybe, maybe we will. Who knows? You know, we’ll test it out later. Why is it? Why do brands make this mistake so often? Why do they put themselves in the shoes of the hero? Why do they only talk about their product? Why is that the normal way to think and why can’t they figure it out, right? Like, what are people missing and what are our entrepreneurs missing when they stop to think about selling this product? That, of course, they put so much time, energy and effort into, and they’re missing the story of how to sell it? What’s that disconnect?

Donald Miller: Well, I think the disconnect is natural. It comes from insecurity. You know, when we’re really insecure and we don’t believe that we have the authority to be in the room or be on stage. We talk about ourselves and we try to sell everybody on the fact that we are good enough to be here, valuable enough to be here. Those kinds of things. And, you know, people just smell it as weakness. When people are hurting or wounded, they talk about themselves when they’re strong and competent. They talk about others. And so what we look for in leadership and we look for and brands that are supposed to help us solve a problem. So we look for strength. A brand is just like a person. It has a personality. And when you think about the people that you like the most, the people that you like the most and click with the most actually aren’t the most successful people. You know, they’re actually the people who do a great job listening to the people who do a great job mirroring your emotions, restating what you just said in such a way that maybe you feel like they understood you and they heard you. That’s part one. And then part two is people who actually take whatever it is that you share with them and give you back some wisdom or some advice that you find helpful. Those are the people that we like the most, and those are the brands that we like the most. We really like two things when it comes to choosing leaders, choosing brands, choosing authority figures, choosing to give our trust to somebody who’s competent. We like two things. We like empathy. We like that people can understand our pain. Feel our pain. The best definition I’ve ever heard for empathy is shared pain. And literally, it’s when you share the pain that somebody else is feeling. And then part two after empathy is competency. It’s not good enough for a brand or a leader just to share our pain or understand our pain. They also need to be competent to help us out of it. They need to be able to say, Look, I’ve helped a thousand people deal with this and got most of them out, and I think I can get you out to. I don’t think you’re going to have to deal with this anymore. So it’s that one two punch of empathy. Fee and authority. That’s really what we’re looking for in a brand. What we tend to do a lot of is leave out all of the empathy. We don’t even think about the customer’s pain. We’re all so insecure about whether or not we belong here that whether or not we’re sure people should buy from us. We just go on and on about how great we are. And that’s a giant turnoff to most people.

William Norvell: Oh, that’s great. I can feel that in so many things that,

Donald Miller: yeah, we all do it, I wish I teach this stuff, but like every fifth time I pitch it, I find myself through the exact opposites. But there’s there’s grace.

William Norvell: That’s good. That’s good. They say, you know, the best things you learn is as you’re teaching them, right? So you’re going to be an expert in about 20 years that 20 percent is going to be down to about two minutes before you die.

Donald Miller: You’re going to get your head around this.

William Norvell: You’re going to nail it. You’re going to nail it. And the kingdom and the heaven will, you know, God will welcome you in and say, you can now teach this in heaven.

Donald Miller: There you go. Right.

William Norvell: So that’s fascinating on how that changes the pitch right of the product and how we shift that. How have you experience with the companies you work with? How does that change the company from the inside out? How does that change the people when people can get their story right as an organization? How does that change what happens inside?

Donald Miller: You know, it actually happened to us, even though we teach this stuff, you know, we have a great framework, but a company really works a lot like a person, you know, when it’s a fledgling new company. It works like a fledgling new person in the sense that all a baby really thinks about its survival. They think about food, they think about a little bit about play, they think about love and nurturing. You know, it really isn’t until like probably the 12th year of being a human being that that initial first thought enters the brain of. I wonder if I should get somebody else something for Christmas. Yeah, it’s like it takes. It literally takes that long. And I think companies are similar, and I think we should give ourselves a lot of grace in those first few years because you’re really just trying to make cash, you know, bringing cash to make payroll, you’re trying to keep cash flow going. You’re trying to sell things you don’t quite know. And then when we have sort of bad economic stability, a beautiful thing begins to happen in the life of the company. And that is most of the times you become as interested in building a community as you do in building a company. You become as interested in your team feeling nurtured and cared about so that they can nurture and care about customers. You begin to care about customers connecting with each other and connecting with your brand and a lot of that luxurious because you don’t have to think about the bottom line anymore that the company’s actually doing well. But interestingly, right when that transition begins to take place is usually the time when the company starts to see explosive growth, which tells us something tells us. So I wish we could have done this five years earlier, but sometimes that’s not possible. But you know, that’s the big difference that we see when we teach the story brand framework, because not only are we teaching a framework that’s going to bring in a lot more revenue. We’re also teaching a framework that says, think about what your customers are dealing with, think about their problems. Get your mind off yourself for a second to right this sales letter from the perspective of the person that you’re talking to. And really, there’s no other way to put it, except when you do that, you begin to open up your heart and you begin to practice more empathy. And that always changes us.

William Norvell: Hmm. Amen and Amen, amen a little bit around here is the esoteric Bible question guy. So every now and then I slip one in, so I’ve got to talk about I’ve got to get your perspective on Jesus using so many stories. Maybe just riff on that for a couple of minutes. Why? How did it work? How did it motivate people as you read through the scripture and you see you’ve spent so much of your life studying story, how why did Jesus use that method and how was it effective?

Donald Miller: Well, I think Jesus used story for the same reason so many of us who communicate use stories. And it’s because words actually fail. You cannot tell the truth with words because the truth is much bigger than words, and words are a really amazing tool to sort of point toward truth. But you’re not going to explain it. So when Jesus says, you know, the Kingdom of God is like a, you know, a mustard seed, I would hope that the Kingdom of God is not a master is quick because we’re not going to fit right? They’re very small. But here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying Look, your little bitty brain is never going to fully comprehend the bigness of what is actually true. You know, like G.K. Chesterton said, if you can get the truth of theology into your brain, your theology isn’t very big and your God is actually very, very small. So it’s pretty arrogant of us to think that we actually fully understand, you know, the universe that is Christian theology. All we can do is sort of point toward it with stories that’s really all we can do. You know, I’m in an interesting place right now in my life. Within about a week, my wife and I are going to have our first child. We’re expecting a daughter. And it’s been fun at forty nine years old. All of my mentors are now 20 years younger than me. They’re all like Don, hold the baby out. You know, these guys, it’s really a fun. It’s a fun season of life. And but you know, they’ll tell me things like a whole other compartment opens up in your heart. You’re going to experience a kind of love that you didn’t know existed. Nobody, nobody can actually explain it. Nobody now. Does that mean it doesn’t exist? No. I’m going to feel that in a week and then feel a lot of other things like no sleep and those kinds of things that they tell me about, you know, so all we can do is really tell stories and grunt with these weak words toward a truth. And one of the things that I think helps us understand one of the reasons I actually pray to Jesus is a man of faith is because he use storage. One of the reasons that Christian leaders who have all the answers are not interesting to me is because they’re quite naive. I’m sorry, you don’t actually have all the answers. There’s an enormous amount of mystery involved in this, not because there isn’t a truth out there, but because our brains are simply not able to comprehend it. One of the great metaphors that I’ve heard is, you know, right now my baby daughter, her name is Emeline. She’s inside of this womb and her brain understands probably warmth. It probably understands some nutrients when those come in through the umbilical cord vaguely hear some voices that may seem friendly. Has no comprehension of the unbelievably magical world she’s about to enter into a world that includes ladybugs crawling on leaves, a world that includes a little dog named June Carter that she’s going to meet and grow up with has no comprehension of any of that. And I think about the Kingdom of God and maybe the passing from this life is that. And so for us not to be excited and anticipate the bigness and mystery of what is to come and instead believe wrongly that we have it fully under wraps and we can answer every question I think is something that Jesus never tempted us with. He told Stories. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. So I think that’s one of the reasons that I trust him. So much is he just told stories and said, You know, it’s kind of like this fully knowing our brains were absolutely not capable of understanding.

William Norvell: Hmm. Congratulations on everything. What an amazing story. Yeah, gosh, I will not. Our audience is tired of hearing about Liam and Louise, but I have a I have a three year old and a one year old and oh my god.

Donald Miller: I’m more than a lot. So you don’t hear s you look, you look rejuvenated about the world.

William Norvell: So don’t believe all this. You know, your life is going to change forever. It’s so awful. You never sleep again. No, it’s the greatest joy in the history of the world. I am so ecstatic for you, and I’m so, so excited to hear you’ve already named her as well. My wife and I have done that with all of our children before, and there’s something special we feel when we get to talk to them before we get to meet them, you know? Oh my gosh. We’re going to have you on to talk about that afterwards. There you go. That’s a guarantee. I want to hear the story of you holding her and welcoming her into this world. Yeah. So we do have to transition a little bit as we come to the next segment of our time here. I want to hear about business made simple. So we’ve talked about story brand as the organization and a lot of times, you know, people feel things. I mean, I think we’ve all been victim right of reading the book that quote on quote changed our life and then we do nothing with it, right? I read a great quote the other day that said, Be a book doer, not a book reader.

Donald Miller: I also said it

William Norvell: was so good. It was so good. It might have been you on Instagram. It doesn’t sound like it, but I did it. I don’t remember where I saw it, but I saw it somewhere. I was like, Oh, that that hits my soul, right? I I take in a lot of information. I don’t put all of it into action. And I think that’s a little bit of where you know, you’ve gone with business made simple and the coaching network a little bit. Could you tell our audience a little bit about that and how that works alongside story brand?

Donald Miller: Yeah. You know, Story Brand is a company and we grew it as a company and as we grew the company teaching a marketing and messaging framework we had to create in order to grow that company a framework on finances, we had to grow a framework on talent management. We had to grow a framework on management and execution. We had to grow a framework on sales. We had to grow a framework on cash flow. We had a growth framework on keeping overhead down. We had to create a lot of frameworks just to run our company. And because I’m a teacher at heart, I started turning around and teaching these frameworks to other businesses that were wanting to grow as well. And what everybody said to me was, Don, you’re really good at making a very complicated things simple and actionable, and I consider that a compliment. And so I wrote a book called Business Made Simple that just teaches you how to grow a business. And the truth is, I never went to college. I didn’t graduate from college. I hung out at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for about three years, which studied humanities. You know, I didn’t study business, and I always had a sort of insecurity about that until I began to hire people with MBAs and degrees from Ivy League schools and realized, you know, they don’t know anything. I don’t know anything else. You know, the schools are teaching us how to read a white paper on trade with China in case we become chairman of the Fed. They’re not teaching us how to actually run a business. We’ve all had to figure that out, let’s be honest. And so I thought, Man, I really want to put it very simply, you know, how do you create a mission statement and guiding principles? How do you clarify your message? How do you create a marketing sales funnel? You know, how do you run a team? How do you get everybody united around a purpose? How do you check in with people once a week to make sure they’re doing their jobs? How do you write their job description? All the just kind of basic stuff that you need to actually grow a business? And I put it into a book it. Actually, it’s I think it’s 20 dollar book, and it comes with 60 videos that are free that you watch that teach you how to run a business. My goal was to create a better than Ivy League MBA education for twenty dollars. And I hope we’ve done that. A lot of the reviews have said we have, and it’s just everything I know, taking a company from $0 to sixteen and a half million in about five years. With a 64 percent profit margin and no debt, no venture capital, no loans from banks, we’ve been able to do that. And I think one of the reasons we’ve been able to do it is because I just didn’t learn to do it the wrong way and we figured out the right way. And so I wanted to pass that along. So we actually it was so successful that we created a mother company over story brand called Business Made Simple and Story Brand is the messaging and marketing arm of business made simple. And so that book is out there. You know, I also did it in microlearning. It’s a business education in microlearning and short daily reads with short five to 10 minute video that you can watch, and you just sort of figure out how to run a company by osmosis. And then the more you put it into action, the better your company does. I’m super, super proud of it. I grew up in a really poor home. Dad split when I was about two and mom and me and my sister stood in line for government cheese. She was a secretary her whole life, just to the last possible guy you would ever think would run a business and have it be successful. But you know, if I can do it, you can do it. And I just don’t think business should be a minister. I really don’t. I don’t think it’s actually all that hard. It’s not easy, but it’s not all that hard. If we just have some practical knowledge

William Norvell: and all, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. And there’s a book, you’ve got a podcast for those listeners who haven’t found you yet, you have a pretty active Instagram feed you’re reading in your house right now, which looks pretty fantastic, so you can find down a lot of places. I want to ask you what’s one of your favorite stories of one of the people that have gone through the business made simple program.

Donald Miller: Yeah, we hear every day somebody’s going through story, brand or business made simple who has doubled, tripled, quadrupled their revenue. I have a friend named West who was it was pretty risky for him to become one of our we call him story brand certified guides. They make sales funnels for people, but he turned down a job. Then it was a $27000 a year job. He turned it down and he became one of our story and certified guides and within three years was making just shy of seven figures. And you know, that’s a complete life change. Another woman named Amy Lacey runs a company called Cauliflower Foods, and she was $250000 in debt. And the company came to her and said, Look, you know, for twenty five thousand dollars a month. If you go get a loan or get, some investors will handle all your marketing. And she said, No, you know, let me get back to you. I’m going to go to this story brand thing and figure out how to clarify my message. She did that. She did not hire the firm. She just did it herself. And that was five years ago. Now she’s preparing to sell the company for $100 million. You know, you got to love it, and everybody listening to me knows what I’m talking about. It’s just a neat thing when your product works, you know, because let’s face it, we put it out there like, Oh man, I hope this work. It worked for my uncle. I hope it works for everybody else, and it’s pretty neat when it actually does. And so we collect those stories. We get them almost every day and they get funneled into a slack channel. And anytime anybody on staff needs some encouragement, they just go read What’s happening to our customers?

William Norvell: Well, that’s amazing. And fortunately, as we head to a close here, one of the questions we always ask at the end is we would love to ask basically where God’s word is coming alive to you, and we love that as a bridge between our guests and our listeners. And and that could be a passage you’ve meditated on your whole life. That’s still with you. It could be something you read this morning, right? Could be something you’re meditating on this season, but we just love to connect everything through God’s word at the end of our episodes here.

Donald Miller: You know, something that has guided my life for a really long time. I would say if I had a conversion experience, it was right out of high school. Even though I grew up in a church and was involved in the youth group, I had this really amazing encounter with God reading the book of James, and there was just something about the idea that faith without works is dead and worse than no faith at all. And coupled with another idea from the Book of James, you know, go into your prayer closet and pray in secret and don’t be one of the people who sort of publicly do things. Yeah, I understand it’s professional ministers and they need to pray in public in those kinds of things. But that was a big faith experience for me, where it just became a part of that. Acting on my faith rather than just believing it or talking about it was critical. And I’m so grateful to talk to a group of people who are people of faith because what I’ve found is over the years that if I didn’t talk about my faith, but I actually acted on it. And if I prayed about something but prayed in secret that God showed up, it was, I mean, I think the passage literally says, you know, those who pray in public get their reward in full. And what that means is everybody thinks they’re awesome and then that’s it. God doesn’t actually do anything. I mean, that may not be what it means. I don’t know. But I’ve just noticed that as my faith becomes more real and I do things and I act on it rather than talk about it, God works in pretty amazing ways. So to me, that idea, I think, is what’s governed at least the last 15 years of my life, and I feel like I’ve been richly rewarded for it.

William Norvell: That’s amazing. It is amazing when we take God’s word seriously and it works right. Turns out he said it for a reason. Well, what an amazing place to end. We can’t thank you enough for spending time with us and our audience in the last 30 seconds. Are there other places I didn’t name where people could find out more about you and business made simple and story brand? Are there other places where people can go to learn more about the work you’re doing?

Donald Miller: Yeah. All the work that we’re doing on my team is doing is it business made simple dot com and of course we’d love to. We’d love to hear from you. Do anything we can to help.

William Norvell: Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us.

Donald Miller: My pleasure.