Entrepreneurs build things. We create. Innovate.

We follow in God’s footsteps by forming new things.

But, how often do we think about our own formation? How our habits and our work are shaping us into becoming certain kinds of people?

This week on the show, Rusty talks with Jeff Haanen, the founder and former executive director of the Denver Institute of Faith and Work and the author of the recently released book: “Working From the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World.”

As a veteran of the movement, Jeff understands the unique place entrepreneurs fit within it. While most Christians struggle to find meaning and purpose in their work, entrepreneurs face the opposite problem. We often put too much emphasis on what we do and root our whole identity in it.

So what would it look like for us to be formed by something larger than our businesses? How can our identity in Christ empower us to better live out our call to create?

We unpack these questions in more in this episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast.

Get the book: https://www.ivpress.com/working-from-the-inside-out

Learn more about Faith Driven Entrepreneur: https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/

Podcast episode #64: https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/podcast-inventory/2019/7/9/god-of-the-second-shift-jeff-haanen

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: Entrepreneurs are builders. We create. We innovate. We follow in God’s footsteps by forming new things. But how often do we think about our own formation? How our habits and our work are shaping us into certain kinds of people? This week on the show, Rusty talks with Jeff Haanen, the founder and former CEO of the Denver Institute of Faith and Work and the author of the recently released book Working from the Inside Out A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World. As a veteran of the faith and work movement. Jeff understands the unique place entrepreneurs fit within it. While most Christians struggle to find meaning and purpose in their work, entrepreneurs face the opposite problem. We often put too much emphasis on what we do and root our whole identity in it. For him, there was something in the way he thought about work that changed who he became.

Jeff Haanen: I realized that I wasn’t just forming my work. Work was forming me. And so I had to ask the question of who am I become in that context?

Joseph Honescko: So what would it look like for us to be formed by something larger than our businesses? How can our identity and Christ empower us to better live out our call to create? We unpack these questions and more in this episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it.

Rusty Rueff: So it’s rusty. And I’m here by myself today. My two wonderful amigos, both Henry and William are off. And we are very lucky because we have Jeff with us. He was here a long time ago, Episode 64, in fact. So if you want the Prelude today’s podcast, you can go back to episode 64. But today we welcome Jeff back in. And Jeff, thank you for being here. We appreciate your time.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah, thanks for having me, Rusty. Looking forward to it.

Rusty Rueff: So way back when, when we talked, you were at the Denver Institute of Faith and Work. You’d been writing a lot of different things. You wrote one of my favorite articles that showed up in Christianity today called God of the Second Show. But now you’re you’re off doing other things and you’re continuing on in this mission of working in the integration of faith at work. And so talk to us about what you’re doing right now. And and you’ve got a new book that’s out, which I’m really excited about called Working From the Inside Out. But bring us up to date with what you’re doing and then feel very free to give us a little summary of your new book.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, So I stepped down from my role last year, this time as the director at the Denver Institute for Faith and Work. And there’s much more competent leadership in that organization, and they’re doing great. So we could do another podcast about thinking about transitions, because at some point, all of us are going to lay down our leadership. We have to think about what does it look like to be in a season of taking up and laying down? And I was in a season of lying down and God was in that process. So that was last year. This time was my last day at Denver Institute, took a little bit of sabbatical rest, finished this book, which I’ll come back to. And since then I’m actually it’s really hard to describe what I do other than maybe you could say an entrepreneur for hire. So I am building a fun project at my church and training future Anglican ministers. I’m doing some small business operations with my friend Bob Larkin at Treatment Technology, which is a chemical distribution company. I’m also working with a guy named Brett Smith at the Life Center at Miami University on Faith in Entrepreneurship in Higher Education. So we’re doing some work on the higher ed piece of faith and entrepreneurship. So I’m doing a handful of things right now. The short of it is I’m just a building stuff. I love ideas, I love people, and I love entrepreneurship. I love building things. And so I’m doing that in a few different fronts right now. And then to your second part of your question about the book. So the book is called Working from the Inside Out. I finished it actually after I finished Denver Institute, but it’s on some of the things that I’ve learned the process and as the title might suggest, it really is not only about does our work matter? Yes, I think we’ve heard that. Can our work have a positive impact in the world? Absolutely. But the question I really the last five years have been asking more is not only what impact am I having, but who am I becoming? So that was the question that I wanted to address. Working from the inside out is what is transformation look like from the inside out, from our into your life to our exterior life, to our civic life.

Rusty Rueff: This idea of what you’re being or who you’re being while you’re doing is something I think we all, you know, struggle with and we all try to pursue in some form, either through invitation or situation. And we’re invited all the time, you know, to be doing that introspection and examining ourselves and trying to figure it out. That is our being and our doing. Integris And the same and I want to get more into the book because there’s a lot of meat there that people can really dive into and get a lot of wisdom from. So we’re dedicated entrepreneurs. We talk about a lot the unique challenges they face and compared to other Christian workers and how entrepreneurship might have different pressures. And one of the things you talk about in the book is how most churchgoers are looking for meaning in their work. But for the entrepreneurs we serve, the struggle actually can sometimes be that they place too much meaning in their work.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah.

Rusty Rueff: Right. That it becomes the all be it. And I certainly see a lot of times work almost becomes an idol.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah. And maybe I’ll just respond to that will share a little bit of my own story if it’s okay. Rusty.

Rusty Rueff: Sure, Absolutely.

Jeff Haanen: My own entrepreneurial story. So I was working at a Christian school, but I came home evenings for really months, almost up to a year, imagining an organization that would apply the gospel to the world’s industries. And so, I mean, one night I remember coming home from a Christian school that I was working at, and my wife had rearranged our garage. She had put a desk in a computer in a space heater and pegboard up, and she’s got a little note and said, I believe in what you’re doing. You can do this. And that is exactly just the affirmation I needed. And so I launched into my own entrepreneurial venture, wanted to move something forward. So I started the organization and did branding and logos and figured out what’s going to work. We did our first event on faith and technology and one of America’s most secular cities, Boulder, Colorado, and, you know, had several wins and got some donors and events and all these good things. But it was, I would say, about five years into my journey and maybe not even that, maybe it was only like four years into my own journey, I started to notice several things about myself. I started to notice that I would come home tired, like exhausted, sometimes fall asleep an hour or two before my wife did, and not have a chance to connect with her. Sometimes I would just respond with to just very short temper with my kids and I would just have to apologize right away. And also in my work, I realized. I was changing a little bit. I when we had the big wins, we landed the donor. Or for a lot of listeners on this podcast, you land, the investor, the land, the big client, the big customer. I just felt this elation, like I was bigger than life, right? However, when things went wrong or something failed or a product failed or I was slighted. I hate being slighted. It’s just one of those things like somebody didn’t respond to me or ghosted me. I felt sometimes anger or frustration, sometimes even felt despair and sadness. And when I started to pay attention to some of these things within me as I was doing my work, I realized that I wasn’t just for me in my work, and it wasn’t just like I was making impact on the world. Work was forming me. And so I had to ask the question of who am I becoming in that context? And that is when I started the parallel journey of yes, I’m leading. Yes, I’m building, yes I’m growing. But the exterior self, the sort of the LinkedIn virtues. Right. Those were all growing. But I was concerned that I’d become somewhat thin in my interior world. And as I thought, who do I want to become when I’m old, man? I want to be filled with life and wholeness and peace. What does it look like to become that? So to loop back around to your question, Rusty, entrepreneurs have a very intense form of work. A lot of other people in different kinds of industries, they’ll think about their work as much. They don’t care about it, and their identity is not as closely affixed to their works.

Rusty Rueff: That’s right

Jeff Haanen: For entrepreneurs, it’s very, very close. But for other industries, I should say for most other industries, it’s not like that. And so the question there I think, is questions around not only who am I really becoming and growing in self-awareness and what’s sort of happening inside of me? But the question would be, how do I root my identity in something that doesn’t change? And when that’s tested, when everything goes wrong, when you shut down the startup and, you know, only six months in or whatever it might be, and you feel foolish because you thought this was going to be the great idea, it was going to change the world. And now only six months in and all falls apart, then how do you feel then? Where’s Christ? Right? I actually think those are the key moments for the faith driven entrepreneur to experience the life of God within. And so it is Maybe we’ll talk about that a little later, too. It’s in these pain points and the times of suffering that I think God opens the doors for his spirit to move inside of us.

Rusty Rueff: Yes. So you left us with and I wrote these down what you went through like some symptoms that maybe, you know, we’re not working this work thing correctly. You know, when we fall over the finish line day in and day out, so tired that we can’t pay attention to the other things and the other people in our lives that are so important when we start to get a little on the short tempered side, when the fuze is getting really, really short and we know that and we’re going to lash out. Interestingly, and I so agree with you that these high highs, these almost dopamine hits. Right. You know, that happened from you got the email back from the investor that, hey, we want to have the next call with you, you know, or you land the deal or the customer, you know, comes through that you didn’t think it was going to come through. And you get this, you know, you’re so elated that you’re walking off the ground. That may be a good thing, but it might be a bad sign. Actually. Might be a bad sign. And then the this the low lows and the anger that could come. I mean, these are all symptoms that we should be watching for.

Jeff Haanen: And let me also say on that, this is one reason why faith is so incredibly important for entrepreneurs everywhere. So my colleague Brett Smith at Miami University, he put together a paper on entrepreneurial identity. And he said one of the cool things about being a faith motivated entrepreneurs that way, and you’re in those high highs, we can hear God’s voice and he humbles us and says, You know, you’re not.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah.

Jeff Haanen: Heaven and earth wasn’t built around your thing, right? And yet when we’re at the lowest and we feel like we’re dirt and we’re nothing because everything failed, he says, You are my son and you are my daughter.

Rusty Rueff: That’s right.

Jeff Haanen: Now our identity is lifted up. And so if you think about it like a graph, the up and global high graph, the faith aspect actually stabilizes that graph. For those that don’t have that faith journey, they don’t have that same sort of a resource. And there’s some science, there’s some empirical evidence that that’s actually the case. I do think that’s important to recognize.

Rusty Rueff: And that’s really good. So in working from the inside out, you have these five guiding principles that should help all of us as we live out our faith at work. Dive into those for us and spend as much time as you want.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah. So I mean, starting with my story again, this idea of, yes, our work is going to have an impact. Yes, I want it to have an impact not only on the business but on the broader culture and have a social and cultural impact. But for me, I just had to pause and think, what’s the interior world as well? So the five principles, the first two are about the interior life. So the first is seek deep spiritual health. And the second is think theologically. And the idea behind these first two is rather than thinking about the exterior world, God is first working inside us. And this is a chance to open ourselves to awareness to the transforming power of grace, to look at some of our pain. And to really just rest on what God has done for us. And I can get more into that. The second is our habits of thought. And I think we underestimate how very secular our culture is. But we are called to see everything in light of the biblical story. And so when we think we think about everything from venture capital to M&A, everything fitting inside the biblical story is incredibly important. And God invites us to see everything, including our work and our culture endeavors inside the biblical story. So on the interior world, our emotional life, our spiritual life, as well as our intellectual life, I think those is where God does his interior, his first work. Second, the second movement. But the third principle is embrace relationships. You know that first step outwards, even when we’re little babies, as we see a parent, we have a family relationship. And frankly, in the workplace, relationships are everything for an entrepreneur. They’re everything for a healthy business. Relationships are the crux of culture. So God himself is relationship. And I write a little bit in the book about what does it look like for us to do conflict healing restorative relationships, build healthy culture, set good boundaries and limits differentiation, some of these things. The next part of our outerior life is the work itself. Create good work. That’s the fourth principle. And by that, that’s probably a message that your listeners have heard. But God himself worked for six days and rested for one, and we are made in the image of a worker. And so the work that we do, why we do it, I think really matters. And so how we steward our gifts and talents and even our pain matters, right? Building things in light of a world that will be new and light in the resurrection. All of these, I think, are incredibly important. So create good work. And then the last principle is serve others sacrificially. And this is how I talk about engaging culture rather than I don’t use a lot of language of cultural renewal, though I very much appreciative of the thinkers that have led in that area. I think the core perspective as we think about our engagement with society is sacrificial service, and that’s something that whether you are working as a trucker and you’re staying out late and you are going to make sure to get that load done and you’re going to support your family and do the job right, or whether you’re working at a foundation and you’re working on the big poverty problems in a great American city. Either one of those this idea of dying to self so that others might live, I think is really important. And those are sometimes big things and sometimes those are very small things. But the main idea of the book is working from the inside out that God is at first working on the exterior, thinks he’s actually first. I believe working in into Your life. That then translates to our exterior life and then finally does move into our civic life or our communal life.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that’s great. And I’m so glad the, the fourth one that you tackle around creating good work that you actually talk about that openly because you know, whether it happens in Sunday school, I don’t know where it happens, but you know, we’re taught pretty early that, you know, work was the curse. You know, that’s what Adam got, you know, for not being obedient. So he now has to toil the soil. And that’s a curse. In fact, you know, Adam was working before that, right? He had plenty of things to do. I mean, he had a pretty big to do list that God gave him, you know, name all these things. Do all this, right, You know? Yes. And work was a blessing. Work was a gift. And anybody who, you know, walks around saying, you know, I feel like I’m cursed because my work and this I try to remind them, you know, just go downtown, walk around town and tell people that, you know, oh, I wish I didn’t work. And you’ll run into somebody who says, What are you talking about? I’d give anything for a job today.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah, right.

Rusty Rueff: So, yeah.

Jeff Haanen: That is a good word. Telling both sides of the biblical story. Genesis one and two. And then the fall. Right. And work is filled with thorns and thistles. There’s one guy I interviewed years ago for that article you mentioned, Jim Mullins. He’s a pastor in Arizona, and he really challenged me on even that part of what we tell him, the theology of work story. He says that oftentimes in professional communities and entrepreneurial communities, we emphasize Genesis one and the goodness of work and the people who don’t like their work or many working class communities are oftentimes more drawn to Genesis three. A work is painful. Toil is difficult right now. What Jim actually challenged me on is to say that transformation really happens when you reverse the emphasis with those groups. He says that when professionals hear that work is broken and they work towards systemic healing of those, that’s where transformation happens. And for working class communities to say your work is good, that there’s an opportunity to serve others in your community, in your family through your work, that’s the message that they oftentimes are not hearing, though there may be more common on this podcast, but they’re not hearing as much. And so I do think there’s a real opportunity for the faith driven entrepreneur to think about the message that they hear about work for themselves and what they commit to, as well as the type of message about work that’s in their companies.

Rusty Rueff: So one section in the book that particularly stood out was the text and chapters on change. And I’m always fascinated by change because I think, you know, as human beings, we’re resistant to change. But. Yes. And you point out that, you know, lots of people read books, then they get it, but then they go on with their life and life is normal. But they won’t do the hard work for change because change is difficult. And you pose this working theory that I think is worth quoting at length. So let me do so. Formation begins when an individual self identifies a problem, need or point of suffering, and then joins a high commitment community. And there’s a lot there. Take it apart for us. What do you mean with that?

Jeff Haanen: Yeah. So one day I remember getting out of the shower and seeing this gray hair pop out of my side of. I don’t know if that’s happened to you yet, Rusty, but. Oh, yeah, I know that. I’m 41. I was looking and some bags under my skin changed a little bit and I just had a hard week. And the question that I was asking is, how do we really change? Because, you know, we’ve all read books, maybe even listen to podcasts. Do we change? Maybe. But I’ve read so many darn books and I’ve become so adept at not changing or putting something in my brain and then having it fall right out the other side. I’m like the book of James. Right that says I look at that and I immediately forget what I was looking at. So I think change is a hard topic. I think it’s a really hard topic. I think we all want to think about how do we be transformed. But the reality is stuck habits, sin just challenges in our life. They just stick around and it can be really frustrating. And I actually think my view a lot of people either leave the church individually or see others that aren’t changed and they don’t come into the church because people aren’t like Christ. And I think rather than thinking about others that aren’t like Christ, I think, am I like, how do I change? So in the book I sort of I don’t have a full answer for how we change, but I have a working theory of three major parts. And the first part is what you mentioned. So I think change really begins with pain and suffering. And it it’s not like going and finding it. I think actually, if we’re willing to look at it, I think all of us have some of that pain and suffering. But so much of our life is something that we’re uncomfortable, we’re suffering. What do we do? We self-medicate, we do other things. We sort of seek pleasures, right? We go another direction. But rather than sort of looking away from it, looking at your pain and say, God, it is in the difficulty, the pain and the failure or whatever it might be, He is actually here with me right now rather than me try to change it. I sort of present it to him. And then I think the converse of that is not only looking at your pain, but doing so with a high commitment community that’s emotionally and relationally vulnerable. So I’ll take each of those step by step a little bit. So the high commitment community, what I don’t mean is something that you pop in and out of, right? Like one high commitment community that I’m a part of is my marriage. It’s it’s a very high commitment. Right. Right. The most high commitments we make are the most transformative. Talk to somebody in the Marine Corps. Ask them if they were changed by being in the Marine Corps. Right. High commitment communities definitely transform us. But we’re very reticent to make really, really high commitments. Like for years we tried to get well and we still are. Some are brave and do a nine month fellowship at [….] institute called a 50 to 80 Fellowship. But a lot say I don’t want to make that commitment. I have the time, I can do it. But it is the core commitments that we make and the people that we spend our time around that transform us. And then the converse of that is it has to be actually vulnerable. We have to choose to open up. And I think because of things like and my buddy David Bailey at [….] one would say there’s the big four emotional things are going on on the inside of all of us that we’re really reticent to open up about. Grief, fear, anger and shame are the Big four, like all of us have some of those that we’ve done something that we say not only guilty that say I did something bad. Shame is I am bad now, right? I’m afraid of something. I’m anger. Somebody did something to me. I have that core wound right there. I mention that because when you start to get into that and you have a community of people that I’m committed to, they’re not going anywhere. No matter what I tell you, they’re not going anywhere. You can be vulnerable and you choose to look at your pain. I think if I had my druthers, that’s the black soil of where God plants his great plants where things actually grow is in the weakness. His power is made perfect in weakness.

Rusty Rueff: So. Give us some advice, because here in the faith driven entrepreneur community, which, you know, we say come here for the content, stay for the community. And we have our faith driven entrepreneur groups that meet all over the world. But can large scale communities be high commitment communities? Or are we talking about, as you said, your marriage or a small group or the people that you could say anything to them and they can say anything to you without any high stakes of they’re going to lose something or gain something from you, They’re just there for you. Can it be done at scale?

Jeff Haanen: Yeah, I think so. I think so. I would say two tests for this of whether you’re in a high commitment community or not. First test would be what happens when somebody really ticks you off in that group or somebody does something that you don’t like or really offends you. Do you drop them like a bad habit or do you stick with them? Mm hmm. It’s worth thinking about because oftentimes that’s the difference between my real friends and those that are somehow useful to me. And that’s actually the second one, is at some point in your high commitment community, there should be people that can’t get you ahead. And that’s one of the, I think, challenges the Faith at Work movement is that we network where customers and investors and that’s actually fine, right? But some of those that’s one of the beauties, just in my view of having that high commitment community be there in the church or close to the church is there’s people with different sorts of lives and they can’t get you ahead. They’re just your brothers and sisters of faith with a different story. Right. I do think that’s an important one. And it’s a sort of a keep my honest check as well in terms of am I here to get something out of it or am I really here for interior growth, right, to really become whole and human? Right. So I do think, yeah, these groups can be that. Right. But most I don’t think are I think most people and this is thinking mostly about the American context. If you are in Africa and other places, I think that they get friendship better than we do. But there’s a lot of lonely people that are just working and trying to be successful and at the end of the day, feel incredibly alone. And entrepreneurs, I think, generally feel that because they’re working so hard, the sort of sheer time it takes. I mean, one person said it well is one of the key things need to do to build a good friendship is to waste time together. That’s one thing entrepreneurs have a really hard time doing is wasting time. I was hustling and building and moving things forward, right? So find some people that you can waste time together that can’t benefit you. And when they tick you off and they’re say something or they’re rude to you, you just stick with them and you keep building a friendship.

Rusty Rueff: That’s good. That’s just such good advice and why we all just don’t, you know, pick up that advice and just take it and run with it because, you know, you’re not the first one who said it and won’t be the last, but you’re articulating it in a way that says, listen, if you don’t do this, you’re missing out. Right? If you don’t do this, you know, you’re not going to grow through, you know, some of these areas that you laid out with your grief and your fear, your angers and your shame, you know, you’re not going to be able to grow through it on your own. And, you know, that’s one of the beautiful things about our faith, right? It’s not meant to be alone. It was never meant to be alone.

Jeff Haanen: That’s right. And you need physical representations when you’re vulnerable and you feel like nothing is to say, here’s your new identity. This is who you are. We are together. We are one people now in Christ. Out of two, he made one one new man as it is said in Ephesians. And I just we need people to actually say that for us to believe it. Otherwise, we’re on a never ending performance track, which I think myself include a lot of entrepreneurs can get stuck on is I am my success or my value of my thing, and it’s just not true.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. So couple more questions and we’ve got to come to a close. But you know, you use a word disintegration in the book.

Jeff Haanen: Yes.

Rusty Rueff: You want to talk about disintegration because that’s not a word that we use every day in our vocabulary.

Jeff Haanen: Yeah, well, oftentimes we talk about integrating faith in work. And I actually want to explore a little bit of the idea of disintegration. And I think that happens on a cultural level as well as in individual level. But the image I gave him was a glass. If you have a glass on the table and you knock it over and you break it, you could say that the glass has been disintegrated. The parts are disconnected from the purpose of the whole boy. And I think one of the things that we’re all longing for is not only integration, which we hear about that in the faith work, but I’ll just say something maybe like wholeness, is that my interior life, my relationships, my work, my involvement in community come from a single source and a single story, Right? And I think we live very disintegrated lives are sort of our faith life, maybe our church life, our work life, the persona we have when I’m a dad of driving kids to soccer, I just think that is a real journey for us to get more and more comfortable with who we are and our drawbacks and growing in self-awareness and who God thinks we are and actually start to believe it too. So I think we kind start disintegrated because of the fall. And I think moving to wholeness is just a part of the discipleship journey.

Rusty Rueff: So then how can entrepreneurs We can’t make it easy for them, but how can we make it? Easier. Yes. For their employees to begin to think about this, working from the inside out to find this disintegration.

Jeff Haanen: Well, yeah. And let me speak directly to the entrepreneurs that are listening right now. Being an entrepreneur, just making the business work is incredibly hard. And so there’s a lot of folks in the movement saying, you should do this and this and this too. Yeah, you should. However, just making the business work and the business model function is incredibly hard. So thank you for what you’re doing. Just thanks for trying to do something hard to really meet a need that you saw in your community and try to build something sustainable growing around that. So I should just first say that I would say one of the core things, if you’re listening to this podcast and your faith motivated entrepreneurs, take a second look at your employees and sort of who they are as whole people, their interior lives, their emotional lives, their spiritual lives, their intellectual lives. Right. Their physical lives, their work life. Of course, the relationships that are happening in the organization, connecting them to needs in the community. So they’re doing everything from volunteer days to doing, you know, company benevolence funds. There’s a ton of ideas out there. But I actually just think I write about this in the book. There are some essential questions that you can ask around. Am I investing in people’s spiritual, emotional health am I investing in their intellectual health and understanding themselves in a holistic way in terms of the biblical story? Am I investing in healthy culture in this place? Am I investing in their ability to do good work and simple things like training and really coming alongside them so that they can feel good at the end of the day that they’re going to work? And are they connected to their community? And we’re giving them the bandwidth to do good work for their community as well. So that is, I think, a lot for a company to ask. And yet all companies have one commonality, at least, is that they’re filled with people. And I think people have all of those elements that one way or another, if we don’t attend to some of these wholeness or these health issues, it does end up hurting the company. And so that’s kind of the other side. So I would say just take one step toward that inside out journey, both for yourself as well as others, and just create spaces for others to do the same.

Rusty Rueff: Last question we always ask. It’s the William Norvell’s question. If he was here, he gets to ask it. It’s the William Norvell trademarked question. What is God teaching you through His word recently? And you can define recently any way you want to. It could be this morning, it be this season, it could be this year. But what’s God teaching you in his word?

Jeff Haanen: Yeah. Right now for me, it’s John one in him was life in that life was the light of all mankind. And the theme of life has been really prescient. I find that as entrepreneurs, we’re always kind of searching and yearning and building. But I think what we really want is the […]. And I found that more and more is that sometimes when I have some sort of an unhealthy motive, what I’m really after is a sense of fullness and joy and overflowing life that God offers to each of us. So what God’s teaching me is not only to pursue life, but even maybe give one more practical thing. Life can be a decision making framework. There is a Jesuit prayer, not a prayer, but called the principle and the foundation and the end of it, at least a contemporary version that I pray regularly says I want and I choose to choose whatever leads to the deepening of God’s life within me. And I think as we’re making decisions in our family and as I work and what we were going to build and why we’re going to do it, the decision making framework for any of us can be which of these paths leads to the deepening of God’s life within me. And that doesn’t only mean up unto the right. It may be a hard decision, too, but I think that’s the goal, is to live with God forever.

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at faith driven entrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

Entrepreneurs often navigate unique challenges while holding onto their faith values, but what about those who work in unconventional spaces, like tattoo studios?

In this episode, Henry and William are joined by Sara and Rodney Carrera, the duo behind Anomaly Lifestyle Art and Tattoo in Plano, Texas. Sara handles most of the business while Rodney is

They open up about the challenges and victories of their entrepreneurial journey, their hope for the tattoo industry, and the intersection of faith, art, and business. They also discuss the controversy around tattoos in Christian circles.

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: We all know God shows up in unexpected places. The Gospels are full of stories with Jesus hanging with sinners and tax collectors. He says he came to heal the sick, and he offered redemption to people who desperately needed salvation. To this day, he’s still bringing light to dark places. And faith driven entrepreneurs are called to do that same thing. We seek to fix broken industries. We want to solve the world’s greatest problems. And today’s guests, Sara and Rodney Carrera, bring brightness to a place often filled with darkness. Tattoo shops. The husband and wife team are the founders of Anomaly, a tattoo and art studio in Plano, Texas. And for the last seven years, they have faithfully lived up to their name. They’ve become an anomaly in the tattoo industry, offering a hope filled, family friendly alternative to the more rough and rugged culture that is the norm in that space. They join the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast to share the challenges they face as they seek to transform this industry and how their faith has gotten them through the ups and downs of their journey. And don’t worry, we’ll also address the controversy surrounding tattoos and the Christian faith. This is an open, honest and ongoing dialog, and we hope that regardless of which side of the controversy you fall on, you’d be open to leaning into their experience and the wisdom that they offer about being a faith driven entrepreneur. All right. Let’s get into it.

Herny Kaestner: Welcome back to the feature of National, our podcast. I’m here with William this morning. William good morning.

William Norvell: Yeah. Good morning indeed.

Herny Kaestner: This is a special edition. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, I say that pretty often and everyone is the special one. But this is one that, as we were talking before we went live on mic, this is a rock in your show episode a bit. There’s going to be some subject matter that some people look at and say, you know what? Because we’re talking about with two awesome tattoo artists, they’ve got an incredible ministry in doing that. Some number of people are going to say Leviticus 19:28 says we’re not to do tattoos. Okay. Some number of people, though, hopefully the vast majority will see Christ love through this couple. Their story and their ministry. In a way, they’ll be an inspiration, encouragement as they get out there in the mission field, which is the marketplace. So that’s what we’re looking to do today. And without further ado, I just want to introduce just this great couple, Sarah and Rodney Carrera. The duo behind Anomaly Lifestyle. Art. Guys, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us.

Sarah Carrera: Thank you.

Herny Kaestner: Yeah, so let’s get right into it. Tattoos haven’t traditionally been very popular with the Christian church, and maybe you speak to that a little bit. Before we get into the broader and very magnificent picture of what you guys do.

Sarah Carrera: Okay, I feel like I can definitely speak to this. Growing up in the church and having a dad who is very much against them, that quoted Leviticus quite often kind of digging in to it myself and questioning a lot. We can talk about civil law, ceremonial law, moral laws, civil being in society behavior and punishment, ceremonial dealing with willingness to sacrifice moral laws, which is God in his character. That never changes. I think civil law is basically surround the culture of the time. And like, who was it? Why was he saying that? He was saying that to the Israelites, who were a religious group who are also a nation. There was no separation of church and state for Israel at the time. And so they were not to do as the pagan cultures around them were doing. It was very much a civil law that I feel like in our current society doesn’t necessarily pertain to us anymore because God’s people are more than just Israelites. Thank you to Jesus. You know, that’s an open door towards Gentiles as well. And so Christ came, and fulfilled all the ceremonial and moral laws. However, those moral laws to me, represent God’s character, which never changes. So for me, it’s God and His character and his morals that I am always and forever subject to. However, I don’t necessarily consider myself under that civil law of the Israelites. Back in Leviticus I look more to Jesus and kind of the freedoms that He gave us when he came and [….] did on the cross. So I think we both see it more as living under the grace of Christ and just the freedom that we have with you and especially seeing. What having tattoos ourselves, the significance, the stories behind them, how it allows us to minister to a part of our culture that not everybody gets to engage with and step into. I think if Jesus were sitting here right now, he’s at that other dinner party which was at Matthew’s house. That’s the dinner parties we’re going to. So I feel like Jesus would definitely want to come in the [….]. So that’s just kind of the basis if you’re really coming at it from a biblical standpoint.

Herny Kaestner: I think ,so that beautifully said, the freedom we have in Christ. Mm. Just an amazing thing it frees us from. So what does that even mean? The freedom we have in Christ. For me, it’s freeing us from the bondage of sin. The bondage of just the worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the being conformed to the pattern of the world. It’s a freedom. And we hear in the New Testament, of course, about being free to be able to eat the different things that we want to eat. And I think that you have a thoughtful and to be very clear, they’re going to be members of the audience are going to still say, I still don’t think getting tattoos are a good idea. And other people are going to say, hopefully all people say that that was a beautiful exposition of somebody interpreting God’s love for them and the freedom that comes from that. Okay. So you alluded to this a little bit. You said, you know, I’m wrestling with my faith. And, you know, your father said, listen, tattoos are a bad idea and you’ve got this life story and maybe Rodney Why don’t we start actually with you? Tell us your story about where you got to running this business, please.

Rodney Carrera: Okay. So in my youth, I was an artist. I created a lot of artwork. I was very much in a household. That artwork was my outlet. It was a place that I went to very much just to get out of the present situation if you say. So as an early adult, I felt like, you know, I wanted to get tattoos. I was always create an art. I love the idea of telling your story in a way. When I was or early 20s is when I really met a gentleman that told me, You’re an artist, man. I can teach you how to do this stuff. He said, I’m not going to give you a job. I’m going to give you an opportunity to show some of what you do. And I had no idea what I was stepping into in this world. It was dark, I was very much looking for a team to run with. If you say I’m looking for community at that time and I think I’ve learned a lot more bad habits as well going through my early years of tattoo. So I would tend to create a lot because of the chaos in my surroundings. A lot of it felt more in the way. And just being in a place where I just had to stay afloat. You know, I was running a race with a lot of guys that I felt like, you know, I was a small fish. And again, just trying to do as much as I can, keeping doing a lot of stuff that I shouldn’t be doing. And, you know, I was finally in a place where I’d say I hit rock bottom. You know, that’s where I’d found the Lord. And when I finally felt like the race was over is when I finally understood what I was doing, even to myself is a little bit crazy. And then the say within just the last seven years, what he’s been doing in my life. I mean, in the studio, in the place of business where I’m not even doing anything but opening the doors and he’s present. You know, you can feel when people come in and they talk about it, the studio is different. It is an anomaly. It is a place where people can come in and be comfortable and not feel like there’s so much of an ego behind it or it’s not a scary place, now, it’s a different place.

William Norvell: Thank you so much for sharing. It’s amazing where Jesus finds people find us all in different spots. It’s so cool to hear and Sarah If you wouldn’t mind sharing a little bit of your story and then maybe merging that with you. That’s coming up in seven years. When did you decide to become entrepreneurs and how did God take you on that journey and maybe tell a little bit you and then move into the entrepreneurial journey a little bit.

Sarah Carrera: Sure. I think I’ve always been a worker. So was 14. I’ve had a job soon after college, got a crew down here in Dallas that still had like my corporate job and you know like 5 side hustles. I think I’ve always been like an entrepreneur and like trying new things. They fail and who cares? Try another one, you know, 20 and single with no kids, just going for it. Eventually met Rodney kind of cliche. I did meet him in a tattoo shop. I did. He gave me a tattoo. Yes, it happened. Rodney and I building relationships, coming together fast forwarding a few years. We’re married. We have two kids. I’m seeing my husband, who I have the privilege of baptizing, coming to me and being like, I can’t, Sarah, I can’t do this, you know? And it’s like we’re both wanting so desperately to grow with Jesus. So does. Really to give our kids a family and a firm foundation rooted in Christ. And my husband, the tattoo artist. And I’m doing things over here and we weren’t merging our worlds yet. And there are many times like ships passing in the night with our schedule and kids. And I asked him, Is this what you want to do to support our family? Like, is this what you’re telling me? God is gifted you? Is this what you want to do? And he was like, It is. I just don’t know what that looks like because he would come home. 1:00 2:00 in the morning some nights with just a heaviness like it would be emotionally and spiritually wear him out like he would come home and be like Sarah. Sometimes it’s so dark, I can just feel a heaviness on me as soon as I walk in the door. Like I feel like I’m all alone, like battling it out. And so through a lot of prayer and some counseling from some wise people, God put in our lives, we decided we were going to go for it. And if this is what God was going to have to do, we were going to merge our worlds. Me loving business and like being an entrepreneur and bringing imaging and going for it and him and all of his talents. And we were going to create something on our own. Obviously, we have no idea what God’s plan is going to be like. Are we going to survive? Like, are you kidding me at the tattoo shop or right now? Right. Said he’s the only artist going. So we were really fortunate and we were also very unwise. When we opened and started, we thought, Oh, we have this much money that’ll do it. Not even close. God was so gracious through his people in the church and his body of believers that contributed time, materials, prayer. I mean, we had guys and worship leaders coming over for free helping us put up drywall. I mean, it was incredible. And just praying over the place constantly that, you know, begging God and the spirit of God to rest in that place just be seeping out of the pores of the walls, that that place would be sanctified and dedicating it to him and being an anomaly, you know, where in an industry it does have a lot of. There are a lot of cliche and a lot of them are true. Like the whole sex, drugs, rock and roll vibes. It very much is like that. I’m not going to lie. And so Rodney really wanting to step out of that and having two kids and a place where like I felt comfortable walking in with our kids, you know, I remember one shot and particularly he was I was with my daughter, who was three at the time. Are you kidding me? I was so offended by the artwork on the wall, the conversations, the music that was playing, the whole environment. You know, something about when you have your little one with you, you see the world very clearly, you know, immediately for what it is. And we just knew it was something we wanted. And so we started off really slow and it was really hard. There were a lot of times we didn’t know we were going to make it. We didn’t know if we could make it. We didn’t know. God, how are you going to figure this out? Because on paper that makes no sense at all. Like if you are willing be Jehovah Jireh, please provide. And it has been a really tough road, but we have seen God be so faithful to us and with that I have to say too, it is emotional because this is like our life. He has grown us so much in the fire. You know, I feel like it’s in the fire and in the hard places that we just really fell in love with Christ. We fell in love with the ministry. We fell in love with living on others. And I think even though our pocketbooks for broken and empty our hearts would be so full at times because of the stories we get to hear and the love that we would get to share. And so almost seven years later, I see how he has completely carried us. I just see his sovereign hand over it all. And not only was he growing a business all along, he was refining and growing us, which makes kind of every down part of it. Every entrepreneur knows it’s not always like, Yay, this is so great. There are struggle in it, you know? And sometimes you’re wondering, what am I doing? Like, what are we doing? Like, is this for us? Make sense. Is this what he want from us? And I think seeing who we are as a couple and individuals and as business owners today is not who we were seven years ago. And for that, I think we are both just unbelievably grateful for his patience, his grace. And now he just has a plan that’s so much bigger than what we ever realized. So yeah, that basically is the real quick little synopsis. Several years of our lives.

Herny Kaestner: Tell us if you can please, about what that is. You come to understand God’s love for you through the context of your marriage and running a business together. How does that spill over to folks who come in the door? Because I’m making some presumptions here. I’ve actually never been a tattoo shop, but I would imagine that some number of. People are coming in and asking for a tattoo that tells something about their story. Something is meaningful to them. They’re opening up to you about things that are important in their life. What are some of the conversations that you’re invited into and just riff on that a little bit?

Sarah Carrera: I mean, I can say a quick something. I think Rodney’s probably got a lot more stories than I do. But one day, sitting on a couch as I sit next to a young girl who is waiting on her turn to get a tattoo, I just asked, Can I sit here next to you, I did some work and of course she invites me to sit down and she’s adorable and sweet. And you know, we’re talking social media because I have to do it and I don’t want to. So we’re talking all the business things. And then she just kind of starts telling me why she’s getting a tattoo. And her dad had died ten months prior. Her younger sister had committed suicide two months prior. She was coming off of pills trying to become sober and wanted to cover up all the cut marks on her arm where she had attempted multiple suicide attempts. So she just, like drops it on me. And she was so nonchalant about it. Yeah, this is what I’m doing. This is my life. And I’m. I mean, I’m a wreck. I’m completely wrecked. And so, you know, sometimes I think we had to fill the spirit out. Like, I’m bringing her the gospel. Like, right now, in this moment, am I completely turning her off like, God, what do you want me to say? And so quickly you’re like, I’m what? I’m really so, so sorry and heartbroken to hear about your pain. And I think, you know, what you’re going to do today is going to be a really cool way for you to remember this time. And I felt like that a lot. And she’s like, Well, what did you do? And I know here’s my shot, you know? And I’m like, I met Jesus. He wrecked me. he wrecked me, he change my life. He stole my heart. He came in and he took my pain. And I get to share with her, you know, in the five minutes I have her on the couch, what he has done for my life. And I think in a shop, you know, especially for me, sitting there hearing stories, people want to tell you their story. So it’s not so much I’m going to present to you all the Romans pre, you know, like it’s all relational, it’s all relational. They want to hear that you hurt, too. They want to hear that you struggle, too, but that you know the answer. You know who the answer is. And in a culture, in a world that is shifting and changing, I see a hunger in young people’s eyes that are desperate for truth in something that is solid. And so I think in little moments like that, you know, we get to share just kind of what he did for me. And then, of course, I pray after they leave that God, if that was just even a seed if it is this, seed for a moment that you would water that. But that’s like little things I get to go through. But I know Rodney probably have stories more.

Rodney Carrera: I mean, I think you said it. People want to open up and now your therapies, your therapies, you know, people jump in your chair and they want to tell you everything about their tattoo. And sometimes I’m just the ear, Sometimes I just listen. Sometimes I do get to share my story. They do ask me questions. You know, it will lead to that.

William Norvell: It’s awesome. I want to drive a little bit. I feel like you’ve hinted around it a little bit, but I’ve got two thoughts and questions. One, I’m sorry to keep doing these two partners to you, but one, I think you’ve hinted around your different environment a couple of times for music to a place that I just want to give you a little more free rein. Like, yeah. Take our listeners and what does it look like because everyone’s got a vision in their head right now. What a tattoo parlor is. I want you to give them your vision and then before I forget it, I write it down. But I also want to know that you have a very interesting lens. Potentially, every now and then we talk here about, Hey, are there certain clients that my faith wouldn’t allow me to take? Are there certain deals that I might not do? Because I feel like they’re, you know, hurtful to people or things. So in part of the welcoming to I’m thinking you might have a very unique lens or thought process. So are there certain tattoos you won’t perform and how that conversation goes? Because I think some of our entrepreneurs wrestle with some of these things all the time of how to do that. Winsomely Lovingly. So, yeah. So painting a picture environment and then maybe how a difficult conversation goes in that welcoming environment.

Sarah Carrera: So our environment definitely is kind of where I get to have some creative freedom in writing. So seven years ago in Plano, we weren’t really technically allowed to be called a tattoo shop and they weren’t comfortable with that. The city did not know what to do with that. So we were a retail store with a specialty. Use in the back is what we were at the time. So we were like, What are we going to do with all this workspace that was God cleaning way ahead of us, which is really cool. So you walk in and one, we provide a lot of tables and chairs, free Wi-Fi, free coffee and art supplies, which is just kind of different to our type because we’re in we want to be a place where everybody can come and feel welcome. So whether you’re getting a tattoo or not, but if you’re a creative or you’re an artist, you like the arts, you need to sit down somewhere quiet and put your headphones on. This is a safe place, basically, is what we’re saying. So we’ve had friends come in and take conference calls to the shop because it could be at the house and they’d be somewhere else. So that’s just kind of esthetics. We also have merch that we sell and so a lot of it is kind of faith based and I’ll try to kind of low key slide that in there, you know, like awake o sleeper and rise from the dead and I’ve got the skull and there were some four roses. They don’t know it is Ephesians 5:16 But that’s cool. So says a child of God, you know, with the Lion of Judah on the back. So we get to kind of slide it in everywhere and in every aspect. So we do have merch and read from the front. One of the coolest things I think we get to do is Rodney is definitely an artist and has art […..] watercolor, wood cutouts, oil paintings. You know, he’s been involved in City of Plano, World art, drop days and events. So we get to showcase the art and sell it. We also get to sell other local artists artwork, which is really cool because then they get to have wall space and sell their art and share their story. And we’ve met some really cool people that way. So that’s all in the front part of the shop, which is kind of open up to anybody. Anybody can come and hang in there. Anybody can be in there. All the artwork is kid and family friendly, as is the music, as is the conversation. So again, it should be somewhere with you are 19 you want a tattoo, Mom and grandma can feel comfortable coming in with you and feel respected and that there’s a sense of dignity in there in the back of the archways. And behind the counter is where all the tattooing or piercing happens. And we have done something in our studio that isn’t the norm, which is we have an open floor plan. Normally a lot of tattoo studios have like small little booths or they have their own individual rooms with doors that shut for accountability purposes for our artists and for our clientele. We are open floor. So there are stations that there are no walls at all. Now we have like the little trifold walls you can screen or you can kind of put up if somebody is getting the side of their hip tattooed and a little uncomfortable and we need a little more privacy. Yes. But it’s also so that artists can see each other. I can walk the floor and see what’s happening and have a level of accountability there from artist to client, because the truth of the matter is, things happen. Things have happened in that industry from clients and artist. I personally myself have seen a lot of women who are lonely come in and they love and just being in close proximity with a man in general. And unfortunately, have made offers. And as sad and heartbreaking as that is, it’s also why we don’t have walls, why there is accountability there and why, when artists come to work at our shop, some of them are like, What’s up? Like, why don’t I have my own space? And we have had artists not stay because they want privacy, they want that personal space because unfortunately things that they’re engaging in that aren’t and can’t be, that aren’t moral, that aren’t what we stand for. And so we don’t always get artists to stay because they come in and yeah yeah this is a little too Jesus for me. And they don’t want that. But it’s specific design and has intentionality behind it. And for those who are honest and are honoring God and their families and their wives and all those things, it isn’t a problem. And so I think just off top that open floor space and open floor plan in the back where the tattooing happen will immediately turn an artist on or off whether or not they want to be there. It’s never been a problem for our clients. Our clients have never once complained about, Oh, I don’t want everybody. How come everybody can see me get It’s not like that because everybody’s respected. And if there’s certain privacy that’s needed, I mean, we can work that out for you. But it’s never been a client who’s not liked that. It’s only been an artist. And so I feel like God kind of quickly weeds out the ones that probably aren’t going to be okay with kind of how we get down and operate.

Herny Kaestner: I have one last question for you before William goes into the way that we always end our podcast. Has there ever been a time where somebody comes in who’s clearly had some level of trouble and you talk them out of getting a tattoo?

Sarah Carrera: Rodney talks to these young guys [out of face] tattoo all the time

Rodney Carrera: Yeah, I mean. I mean, it’s it’s been a really long time. You know, I can tell you endless stories the youth again these days. Kids under, you know, even 21 years old and they want face tattoo. They want their first tattoo to be on their face. You know, they want things that, you know, I don’t even give kids tattoos on their neck, tops of the hands. I don’t do that. So I tell them that unless you don’t already look like me and this is your job or something, I’m not the guy to do that for you. And lots of them, they respect it. You know, like we had one guy kind of try to talk me into it, and I don’t know if he’d say, talk me into it. And he said, Come on, man, I’m going to be a rapper. And just, you know, good luck. But that’s still not going to be the answer, you know? And, you know, to answer your question, earlier, there was once, actually, there’s two now. But previously there was a tattoo that the lady came in specifically asking for me. I was not there at the time. I need to speak with Rodney, the owner. Okay. He’ll be back tomorrow. I showed up the next day. She showed up already was kind of a weird thing. But then she started to tell me about her tattoo. And, you know, the tattoo is very much.

Sarah Carrera: black magic.

Rodney Carrera: black ravens and a symbol that I didn’t really feel comfortable doing. And

Sarah Carrera: It’s very cultic. Yeah, black magic, like satanic pagan symbols, like very much in opposition to who we are and how and where she specifically came for able to do it, I have no idea.

Rodney Carrera: But yeah, it was very awkward and I told her I was like, Hey, you know, I don’t know that I’m the guy for this, but I’m going to look into what these symbols mean. I’m going to kind of check it out, do my own kind of research about it, because the way she is telling the story and how the layout needed to be and she was describing The Raven to be kind of a soul mate in a way. But after a week or two, I could not get myself to even put pen to paper. You know, nothing. I prayed about it. It was really heavy on me for a good time because I almost felt like, Is this what I was supposed to be doing here? You know, it’s a tattoo. You know, it’s a design. She has a story. It’s for a person. But once I saw that symbol, you know, I just. I couldn’t get behind it.

William Norvell: The still, small whisper of the spirit comes up strong when it needs to. Yeah, sometimes I can understand it. And I feel like all entrepreneurs probably had that with whether it’s a client, a deal, an employee.

Sarah Carrera: Yes yes.

William Norvell: Something that just doesn’t feel right and you can’t put words to it. If being of that with the way we loved it and our program is going back to God’s Word, which we started with. And just love to ask you both if there is a scripture that comes to mind. It could be something you thought of this morning. It could be something you’ve been meditating on your whole life. But we just love to end with God’s Word and coming back to say, Hey, how is he moving in your life today? And could that encourage our listeners?

Sarah Carrera: Okay. I guess that is something I was doing this week because I felt like just yesterday he kind of like kind of, you know, and he just kind of smacks you with some truth real quick. You know, and it’s funny because it’s about, Isaac [….] the blessing on Jacob or Esau. Usually the focus is on those three and the blessing and that and sitting there and reading about Rebecca, and I’m just like, Wow, man, she really wanted Jacob to get that, you know, like, she’s planning scheme and she’s like, Okay, how can we make this happen? You know, you’re going to get it. And I just thought that was crazy because like, God told her when she was pregnant what was going to happen? He told her who was going to get it. He told her how the younger he already laid out for her exactly what was going to happen. And yet here she is 30 years later, still trying to plot and scheme and make sure it happens. And I just felt like the spirit was saying. But how often do you do that? How often are you, Rebecca? Because it was in relation to our business and financing and me trying to how can we do this and this and this? And it’s like he’s told me, I am your provider, I will provide, This is my shop, my business. Why do you keep trying to plot and scheme so often about how to make it more successful? When I had already told you, I have got this. And sometimes I think he just needs me to be still and lie down in green pasture and let him be God instead of always trying to run ahead of him and plan and pull out. I think it needs to go when clearly he is the only reason we are so open and successful and giving it to him every single day. I think it’s hard as an entrepreneur to have that in you. The plan is to make plans and schedule and goal setting and like all the things. But ultimately at the end of it, he is the one in charge. He is the one in control because I can plan and goal set all day long. But he is Jehova Jireh. And so I just reading about Rebecca yesterday I was just like, oh, like, oh, I do plot and plan a lot and sometimes I need to take my hands off and dig deeper into the word and rest in him and I think turn to a posture of praise sometimes more often than I do, a posture of planning. And so I think for me personally, where we’re at in life and with our business, that really kind of hit home with me yesterday.

Rodney Carrera: The one thing that we’ve talked about this morning and last night, going over all of the notes, you know, it really stuck out to me, you know, being able to share my story, being able to say this is how he’s redeem me. You know, it’s easier to isolate. It’s easier to just go to work, do what I do. You know, I get hyper focused on just that the present and I will forget it and I will lose focus on all that he’s brought me out of. And, you know, I talked to the last week or two, you know, just being able to say like, I get tired of kind of telling my story in a way, you know, like I’m a mess and I am a hot mess, you know, he’s still working on that. You should never get tired of telling your story.

William Norvell: Amen.

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at faith driven entrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

Entrepreneurs are often thinking about how to build the best team. But how often do we think about the teams under our own households?

In this episode, we’re joined by Jeremy Pryor, an experienced entrepreneur who has recently co-founded the organization “Family Teams” We get into practical ways we can care for our spouses and our kids. We’ll also unpack what he calls the failed experiment of Western family and hear how he sees scripture calling us to a better way.

https://familyteams.com/

faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/podcastsurvey

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: That whole work life balance thing seems to be extra complicated for those of us who are running our businesses. Some might even say it’s impossible. But what if there really is a better path forward? As entrepreneurs motivated by her faith. We know that were called to lead and love our families even more than we lead and love our businesses. Most of us understand this problem at a cognitive level, right? So why do we still struggle with it? Today’s guest, Jeremy Pryor, suggests that the problem we face is actually more deeply rooted than we might even think. He says that the entire Western family experiment has failed and that the only solution comes from recovering a biblical framework for our households. And he’s a guy who knows the ins and outs of this situation. He’s an entrepreneur, too, who has started multiple companies and put his framework into practice in 2019. He co-founded the organization Family Teams with Jefferson Bethke to help mothers and fathers lead their families well. He joins Henry, Rusty and William on this episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast to talk about how God’s word can become the key to a flourishing, powerful and life giving family. Let’s listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Future of National, our podcast. Before we get into the role and mission in life of Jeremy Pryor and how it encouraged us to lean into family and mission and faith. I do want to have a quick public service announcement. We have gotten together and done almost 300 of these and we want to make sure that we hear back from our audience. Ours is a podcast that we hope is an instrument of reconciling the loneliness that we all feel a lot of times as entreprenuers, and that this might be something that will be used by our audience to share with others, to encourage them through the different stories that make an impact on their life. So in order to do that, we need your help. We need to hear from you about what you think works, what maybe doesn’t work. Everything is fair game. From things that you’d like to hear us do in terms of guests or themes or format, anything. But please do let us know. And you can find this survey at faith driven entrepreneur.org forward slash podcast survey all one word. So we got a friend on today, Jeremy Pryor and Jeremy and I first got to know each other 12 or 13 years ago when he was at […..] changed the way that we think about YouTube videos. But Jeremy, it’s great to see you again. And it sounds really cliche, but you don’t look like you’ve aged at all. You look great. And most importantly, over the last 12 years, God’s taught you a lot of things and you have found yourself at the intersection of faith and family and mission and just the importance of multiple generations getting together on mission and on purpose. What did you see? What needed fixing in your life and in society that caused you in this place?

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, well, I think that one is I kind of grew up very confused about the way that family in the church just seemed like it was constantly falling apart. You know, the Western culture, we can see how much the family is in crisis, but the church seemed almost like a lagging indicator of the family dysfunction as opposed to really completely revolutionary, like leading the way that we’re so in the conversation in the church tended to be, hey, we need to do a better job. You know, man, step up, do your duty, focus on the family. And so that kind of duty based message, which cause a lot of particularly fathers and fathers that are really winning in work to, you know, at work, I got these teams really working on their it’s awesome. I feel like I’m doing what God’s called me to do. And I get home and I’m like, This just feels like something I have to do, right? That’s one way to kind of frame the way that I think a lot of particularly Christian fathers and I think mothers can to feel about the disconnect between work and their family, particularly if they find that work is really fulfilling and fitting their life. And so I grew up in the Seattle area where there was just a lot of very hyper individualism. And from that place, I spent a semester abroad in Israel and in the Middle East. I just saw a very different way of looking at family and particularly the way that they would look at family and business. What you noticed when I kept on running into in the Middle East with both Arab and Jewish fathers was that they saw business as a subset of family as opposed to, hey, I’m an individual. All of us as different family members, we’re all individuals, we’re all kind of going off doing our own thing. And then we come together and we sort of have rest recreation as a family. But then when we do productive work, it’s all outside the family. And wasn’t there not building businesses? It’s not that they’re not engaging in the wider economy. It’s really a mindset shift. They were building a household or they were building something for their family. So I started to wonder, is that just a cultural thing? Right? Is that just something that certain cultures have and something that in the West we just think of life more individually? So the way that that started to kind of coalesce in my own mind was we have a view of family that I think is best described the analogy as the nest, right? So unless there’s a place for you, go to kind of retreat and then you, you know, it resets every generation and all the chickens fly the coop, right? And then it starts over. And so in the west, we tend to have about an 80 year memory, becomes a family Most people can name with a great grandparents are, you know, we’re not super into, you know, our roots structure. Whereas in scripture you see and within like the Jewish families, for example, I was interacting with these fathers, they had a much deeper memory. And when they would go to work, they were building assets for their family and they were thinking about business and their economic activity as a subset of family. Also see the sum, something like Proverbs 31. You certainly see this in example of of Abraham and the Patriarchs. And it was weird for me to see a, a modern culture, you know, and I was interacting with a lot of startups in Israel, in Tel Aviv, and just amazed at what they were building. But they saw this totally different way of thinking, particularly, I would say, different from where I grew up in the West Coast. So that collision, so it caused me to kind of take a big step back and say, what do I believe, number one, about what kind of family to want to build? How do I want to think business in relation to my family? And does the Bible actually give us any insight as to which direction to go?

Henry Kaestner: So it’s fascinating. There are so many different places that we can take this. So one of the things that I think that you say I think is profound, but I really want to push into a bit is the way we do. Family in the West is mostly a failed experiment, and the scriptures are calling us back to a bigger and better design. Tell us a little bit more about why you feel that that individualism is a failed experiment.

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, well.

Jeremy Pryor: We just found out recently that the United States is the number one country in the world with single parent families. So, you know, that blew my mind. [….] Research just released that recently also that about 60% now of people grow up at some point in their childhood outside the household, their biological father. This is historically very strange. Like we have to have a hypothesis for what happened to the family. Like there’s clearly a crisis. There’s something that is destroying the fabric of the family. And so when we’re looking at scripture and trying to figure out, okay, is there something we can get from scripture to help us understand what has happened? And the church, again, there’s a lot of areas in which we’re not as bad as the culture, but it does seem like we’re struggling with very similar challenges. And it does, I think, come from a hyper individualism that we’ve just decided culturally to accept that we don’t primarily live our life […] or in families or through families, but we atomized people into their individual identities and they live most of their life through those individual identities. And that is a historically strange thing to do. You know, in most times in history it has been way too dangerous to live in that way like you needed to live your life in an extended family team in order to just make sure that you could survive. And so what happened, I think in the West. Is that we have what sociologists call the assumption of stability so we could survive like our kids. They don’t have to work with our family. They don’t have to stay close to the family. They can go and explore a completely different individual life apart from the family. And they’re not going to starve to death. You know, they’re probably not going to die from the bandits come over the hill. They’re likely to actually make it. And so what happens is we move in this direction of isolation or individualism. David Brooks recently said that when Americans become wealthy, they purchase loneliness. And we’re noticing that’s happening to us. We can see the statistics. We can see the problems is creating. What I have not heard the church do is to actually diagnose the root of problem. Like what have we all agreed to? What are we capitulating? And it is because this is also again, it’s true people that believe the gospel. And so what was really surprising to me was in certain cultures, you don’t need to tell fathers to focus more on their family. We tend to diagnose the problem, as you know, we just need to get fathers to love their kids more. You know, the problem is so much deeper than that. We don’t even know what family is. And if you go all the way back to Genesis one, it’s one of thing that’s really interesting to me is that Genesis one is really God creating this world, obviously before the fall. And he has a huge project to create, to have his creation, his creatures accomplished. And so he creates human beings, he creates the first family. And he says that family be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and rule over creation. And one of things I think it’s important to do is take a step back and say, we had that problem. We had a massive project that we needed to accomplish that would take hundreds of years, thousands of years to accomplish. What would we do? And I think we would start a business. We would start a government. We would start a nonprofit. God’s answer to that project was to create a family. And so that’s really interesting to me. Obviously, it’s a certain kind of family. If their goal is to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue and rule. This family has to work together to accomplish that mission. It’s not a mission that could be accomplished in one generation. So it’s a multi-generational family. And so the way that I think about the biblical blueprint, a family is a multi-generational team on mission. It’s to take on the responsibility that God’s given us as individuals, but as families. And so then you see that the next part of the story is when it starts to become unveiled, is the people who are interacting with the Lord are these multi-generational families. That’s what you have, you know, in Adam and Eve and Noah and Abraham and all the way through Scripture and David’s family. And so each of these iterations of family, these different family teams, there are given these missions and God is interacting with them over the generations. We don’t believe that anymore in the West. We don’t believe that in the church. What we really think is that the family is a springboard for individual success. And so a good family and I was talking to a leader of a family ministry and I you know, we were talking about this and I said I said, in the West, our definition of family success is sort of springboard for individual success. If your kids launch out and are successful and restart as individuals and we’re like, bam, that is success. And he was like, Exactly. That’s what our whole ministry is built to create. And I had to sort of stop and say, I think that’s the root of the problem. I don’t think that’s what a family is. I think we think that’s what a family is. That idea of the nest that we’re here to provide springboards for the individuals of our family. But it’s clear in scripture God didn’t designed the family to be a springboard for individual success. He designed the family to work together. Every single child that comes into that family is a part of a larger team, and that team is given a mission. And so that move from the mission is a family mission to an individual mission disintegrated us. And so now how do we balance all of the crazy things we have in our lives? Because we don’t have an overarching principle through which we see how we do our lives. We don’t have this community through which we live our lives and try to accomplish things God’s given us. We primarily see those as individual things. And when you do that, that is incredibly destructive to the family. It’s going all the way back to why are we the number one country in the world of single parent families? It’s because of this is because we don’t need the family anymore. We are primarily extracting from the family wherever we can get to be an individual. And the place where I kind of come back and really want to have this conversation primarily is with entrepreneurs, because an entrepreneur has a unique opportunity to make this decision. I think it’s very difficult for people who are working in employment situations that have almost no control of their time. The resources to they can decide to go back and adopt more of a family team mindset. But entrepreneurs have a lot of ability to craft the kind of lifestyle that they want to have for their family. And so I primarily work with Christian entrepreneurs who are attempting to reintegrate their lives together as a family and as they’re thinking about the future, their children, their grandchildren and great grandchildren, as they’re thinking about how to live their life as a family. An entrepreneur can decide to create my children into work. Do we live a holistic life together as a family, or do we continue to live this sort of more individualized, atomized lifestyle?

Rusty Rueff: So that’s fascinating. Jeremy. Look, you know, you scaled companies, you came out of the advertising world, you had a creative agency when you adopted this pretty radical change of philosophy. I would say, you know, from what as you said, we were being either taught in the church or taught in society when you made this shift. What that look like? I mean, show us, you know, so we can learn from you. What were the some of the things that just had to change?

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, it was challenging. And there’s sort of a couple of things that we tried that really helped. The first thing was just this mindset shift that when I was going to work, I wasn’t going as an individual. I’m a father representing our family, building a business for the sake of our multi-generational family. And so I was constantly finding ways to tell that story to our kids that this isn’t Dad’s thing, this isn’t Dad’s project, this is a family thing. And in trying to figure out different ways to make that work. And, you know, one of the things I was committed to do during that whole season is, for example, we have five kids. I took one of my kids to work with me every day. So on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, they were, you know, as a 7 or 8 year old, they’d sit in board meetings. I would talk to them, you know, in between my meetings with people. They would interact with the different employees in our business. And it’s just something that I, I offer to all of our employees at our business. I said to them, look, I know that since the Industrial Revolution, basically, you know, family and work have been disintegrated. And I think that’s been a disaster. So I don’t know how to it’s very difficult in a modern industrial economy to reintegrate those things. And I know that everyone is kind of doing their own thing. So what we offered our employees, for example, was we said, you guys can attempt what we called an experiment, an integration. So I know that one of the problems with the total disintegration between family and work is that we assume that when somebody is on the clock, they are 100% focused on work, right? There’s no integration at all. You’re on the clock and your job is to work. And I agree with that. I think that as we’ve told employees and your time is your time now, your time is it’s work time. Now, one of the questions I asked and one of these I said are places what would happen if you would find a way to integrate, you know, let’s say your kids into work in some way that required a 5% efficiency hit. So now instead of being 100% focused, I’m 95% focused. Is it worth all of that time I got recaptured. So for me, for example, I’m spending, you know, five, six, seven more hours with my kids every week than I otherwise I would not [….] is that one on one time that I’m getting to have with my kids in between meetings and, you know, working with them in that way. That was an experiment that we ran as a family, and it worked so well that we decided to continue to do it for years and continue to expand it to more and more time. There’s lots of ways that we can try to push back against this assumption that our work and our family life should be completely disintegrated. And so that’s one example. The last one, I would say is, you know, we started our first business. We started an e-commerce business right after I left ministry and we got an investor in that business. And we would do board meetings every month. And in my board meetings with him and there were like 2 or 3 hour long board meetings, he would come with his three sons and they were all kind of in their late 20s, early 30s. And of course it was 2 to 3 hour board meetings. I would sit there in this boardroom and this father would often pause the meeting and just turn to his son to kind of explain something, because they owned a whole portfolio of companies and they were investing a lot of different businesses. And so I would sit there sometimes and just like, wait for him, you know, to finish that process of explaining things. And, you know, this went on for years. And I remember one day just sitting there listening to him, you know, talk to his son. And I kind was just did the math. And like, this guy spends more time with his kids in their 30s than most dads I know, spend time with their kids when they’re still in their house. And I was a young guy in my late 20s and I just made a decision right then. And I was at that time I wasn’t doing business for family reasons, but this really tweaked me. I was like, I got five kids. I want that to be an option someday and I’m not going to work like it’s going to work with me. But there’s certain career paths or certain lifestyles. I can choose where that would be a possibility and certain career paths and certain options I could choose about my business ownership, but that would be an impossibility. So let me decide to do that so that that’s possible. And so we started in our late 20s, this process of thinking through in every business and asset development that we were doing from the perspective of what do we want this to look like when I’m in my late 40s, 50s, 60s and now we’re getting into that phase, right? I’m a grandfather now. My kids are older, they’re adults. Most of my kids are adults now. And so virtually everything we do from a work ministry perspective is integrate with our kids.

Rusty Rueff: And that’s really cool, you know? Hey, Henry, didn’t you do something similar? I mean, didn’t you take your boys this summer on some of your FDE.

Henry Kaestner: So I did. I did. I’ve got three boys, so I’m fascinated, of course, about three generals talking about the guy that was born in the lives of three boys and my youngest one, and said he’s always wanted to work with me. And that’s been cool. The middle one and the older one I didn’t think had any interest really in what I was doing at all. But they came to me this summer and said, I’d like to work with you, but it brings up a question and I’ve got and I loved it. It was awesome. Super cool, really rich time because I was able to talk to them about why I did what I did and the mission and what hopefully would advance in God’s kingdom because we were doing this work under God’s power for His glory. What does it all even look like? And that was really fulfilling for me. I do wonder, though, when you have different kids, each of whom in in our case, none of the three boys look like me at all and they’re all completely different. I’m unbelievable. It makes me wonder if you had this kind of this sense of wanting your kids to be part of the family business, which is very attractive to me, to be very clear. But then maybe 1 or 2 of them opt out or feel like they’re on the outside looking in and just understanding that dynamic as it continues. If there is some level of expectation that, Hey, dad really wants me in this business and there’s something this multi-generational business, and yet I feel like I failed because my two brothers are doing it, but I’m not. And just what are the unintended consequences of being explicit about wanting my children to be a part of this mission I’m on, whether it’s in philanthropy or whether it’s investing or just general entrepreneurship. Is one of them or two of them or all three of them end up feeling like they’d disappointed me if that doesn’t happen.

Jeremy Pryor: And that’s why I think the better. Maybe phrasing is you want to be an option. And that’s what I would tell my kids growing up. Like I want it to be an option. If you want to work with me, it’s more on them. I’m like, I have these assets. I’m building them in such a way that I could partner with you, you could partner with me, and if you would like to do that and I told my kids I expected there would be seasons where that’s not going to be the case. You’re in exploring other things. You’re going to be, but I’m going to make that an option for you. And then the other part of it is I would say my value is for integration as opposed to like we have this one family business and this is what I think is different to an entrepreneur and maybe somebody who who owns just one family business. So we’ve we started you know, we have, you know, multiple businesses and a couple of ministries. And, you know, we have assets that we built. And so what we did is we started a legacy business with the resources we had and that legacy business, which is, you know, for us, it’s mostly real estate investing. That is something that all of my kids are interested in, you know, because these are assets that they’re going to inherit. And so what we do is we started working together and it provided in that particular business. So we have much more specialized businesses like a [….], you know, that where I was similar to Henry, where I had one of my kids that was kind of interested in that business. And I think sometimes with a lot of dads, they get fixated on their one business that they do. And it does appeal as a specialization to maybe one of their kids. The other kids like that doesn’t resonate with me. But a legacy business is different. This is why I really as I’m kind of coaching fathers who are entrepreneurs to think about this, to separate a legacy business from whatever scale business they’re using to really generate a lot of their resources. And a legacy business is basically the wholly owned, capital intensive family. And it’s really important that the kids take a role in that. It’s not a full time job. It could be like, for example, in our real estate, my son, you know, he loves doing renovations. My daughter does property management, my wife does the books. You know, I find the deals like there’s been an open doors for much more of a high variety of the different skill sets of our kids. And it’s not overwhelming. And it’s very clear from a future perspective why they might want to invest in learning to steward assets because they’re going to inherit assets. That’s an example of this isn’t necessarily taking over all of their work life, and it’s just there are different open doors. And so our family in other way, what kind of picture is our family is like a hub. We own various things. We have ministry of opportunities that we’re part of. We have businesses that are more specializations. We have, you know, investing that we do. And, you know, these are all open to you and they’re designed for integration. And at that point, it’s an invitation to your children as opposed to demand.

Rusty Rueff: That’s cool. I must shift gears just a little bit here. And I want to talk about busyness and success and how those two things. And I’m guessing Henry started a business. William is in the middle of starting a business. I’ve started a business and we all have been. I’m guessing, William, you’re not sitting around figuring out what to do these days. You’ve got plenty of things to keep you busy, right?

William Norvell: Well, on occasion, yes. I get few task, few task.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. So as entrepreneurs, you know, we’re always busy, and I guess we sort of think we need to be busy in some ways, right? It because we have people relying on us and things to do. So, Jeremy, how could you help us as entrepreneurs, everybody who’s listening, figure out how to get this sort of balanced perspective, you know, a business success and especially in the context of faith.

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, it is. I think how to order your life is a huge challenge. So the way that we do it, we believe that God has basically provided a technology that allows for us to order our lives properly as families. And it’s a technology that’s called the week. Like, I think that it was actually invented by God in the.

Jeremy Pryor: Week as in w e e k.

Jeremy Pryor: is an invention. The God and God specifically says in Exodus 20 when he talks about the fourth commandment, he the Sabbath, he says, In six days you shall labor and one day you shall rest. Because that’s how I did this as a pattern for you. So a seven day rhythm in designing your ideal seven days is the way that we kind of go about balancing and kind of working through busyness. And for us, you know, that starts with keeping a Sabbath. And so in our family, you know, we it’s similar where it, you know, Genesis when it says and evening and morning are Sabbath kicks off on Friday night. And so we host a large multi-generational family dinner every Friday night. And so we have about, you know, 15 to 20 people that come to that meal. And so we we enter into rest together. And so there’s a meal. And so that pattern of we’re going to work really hard for six days and then we’re going to rest for 24 hours. So Friday night, Saturday night, that’s been our rhythm. We’ve been keeping that for the last 15 years as a family. It also allows us to experience our family identities that are very deep level. So a lot of people don’t get this experience maybe at Thanksgiving or and so and it’s so we’re so in a practice that I think oftentimes it can be a tough experience. But we do this every week and this is another thing that we lived in in Israel several times and just were so impacted by these Jewish families and how, again, they they see family differently. And when you have when your peak experience every week is at a table with your family, it does something to the way that you view all of life. And so that’s what we try to craft. That kind of peak moment in our week is when we come together around a table and it’s really timeless. Like nobody’s running off to do anything else. I mean, it starts and then it goes for, you know, 3 or 4 hours and we’re just there with each other, playing games, telling stories, you know, eating. You know, we’ve got four generations now present at our table. My parents are there. April’s my wife’s mother all the way down to my grandson. And so, yeah, it’s just that, I would say allows us to work really hard. So if we’re working six days a week and we’re working in an integrated way, we don’t mind working 12, 14 hour days, you know, some of the days of the week. Again, it’s not 12 or 14 hours away from my family. It’s very integrated. And we all know the Sabbath is coming. We’re we’re going to have just that timeless right to enter into a completely different kind of mode of life with each other.

William Norvell: Jeremy, it sounds like you had a lot of experience talking to entrepreneurs that are trying to make this happen. I’m curious. One of the struggles I have to say for myself is like. I hear everything you’re saying. I mean, it all makes sense to me. But I’ve got investors. I’ve got employees. How do you counsel people, Entrepreneurs? When is rest one? When has rest been earned? When have you, quote unquote, done enough? I feel like in my small entrepreneurial group of people try to encourage people. It’s like we want all of our family. But people trusted us and gave us money. Like there’s always another sale you can make. There’s always something you can do. How do you triangulate that on a day to day basis of, you know, I have worked a good day. I have given this day to the Lord. I’ve worked under him, and it’s okay to turn the phone off for two hours and spend time with family. That is that struggle that I feel like me and a lot of my friends just fight there and we want to steward God’s resources well and the people that have taken a chance on us but also love our families.

William Norvell: Yeah, well, yeah, we just said they’re they’re God’s resources and therefore I think he’s the only one that can answer that properly. When you have so many stakeholders who are putting pressure on you. So I think, yeah, one way to think about this is you guys remember which day that God created Adam and Eve, you know, remembering creation days one through seven when they got created.

Henry Kaestner: Six, right?

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, six. So they were creating day six. And what was day seven?

Henry Kaestner: Rest first. Yeah.

Jeremy Pryor: So their first day before they worked, before they did anything, their first day before they earned anything was rest. And so one of the things that we constantly have to tell our families we’re working or others in the churches, we don’t rest from work. We work from rest. So if you’re constantly trying to earn rest, I think that there’s going to be a nagging suspicion that I don’t know if I did enough this week, right? I don’t know if I please enough people. There’s more. I could have done more. And so I think that’s important to go the other direction with it because I don’t think you can ever shut that down. I think you have to ask, and this is why it says you. This is why he makes the rest a commandment. And I don’t think as a New Testament, you know, or Jesus, I don’t feel like I have to rest or I have to keep a Sabbath. But I do think it’s really helpful to me as I study the scripture, that God, he wanted his people to keep a Sabbath. And so He commanded it so that those voices would be turned off so that you wouldn’t feel you have to earn it. And so because you have to give yourself that space first. And the same thing happened with this is a pattern throughout scripture, right? That when God brought the children of Israel out of slavery, he didn’t like get them to earn something. And then given the law, he first gave them the Torah. And then after he came along on Mount Sinai, you know, that it was afterwards that he brought them into the Promised Land or with the gospel. And Jesus, Jesus first tells us who we are in the gospel. He He saves us first, while are yet sinners. He died for us in that state. And then from that place we come into our work. And so to me, that’s almost the definition of the difference between slavery and sonship. In scripture. You know, a slave has to earn rest and a son is granted it by his identity.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, So many different questions that I want to take off the shelf, but we’re going to need to close soon. But just a couple ones. Just rapid fire, because you’ve really got me going here. Just fourth with the biblical precedent and the model. And then how applies to me with three teenage boys, two of whom are in college and getting set and talking about career, it changed my paradigm here a little bit. I just want to explore a little bit more some operational details. So if you’re working on, say, real estate and the legacy business, you got multifamily and somebody one of your children is really good at like lawn care, like they’re just like great landscape architect and someone another one is better financial models, presumably the open market one has a higher replacement cost than any other. How do you think about salary compensation? Is that divided equally?

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, it’s tough because you have to decide if you’re going to create a micro economy inside of your family in order to even that out or if you’re going to set a market economy right. And I can go back and forth on that. Henry. So my son started a construction company with, you know, he’s in discipleship house with a bunch of guys. And so, you know, they’re right now living in a market economy. And I think at that stage, that age, I think that’s really important, that they live in a market economy. And so they’re being paid where they can generate and I’m a part of the business. Again, it’s not about them necessarily. Joining me, both my daughter and my son, they both started their own businesses and then my wife and I, you know, help them. We consult with them. We work with them. You know, that’s the season they’re in and they deal with the market economy. In those cases, those people living in my house, my daughters who are younger, they live in a micro economy that I create. And so, like we just had a conversation this week actually, where there are some really important things that I want them to be a part of, but I don’t want to compete with other possible rates that they might get in the market economy. And so I’m paying them, you know, more like a premium in order for them to do what makes the most sense for our household. So like one of our Airbnb is like we’re, we’re paying them a little extra than we would necessarily pay somebody to clean the Airbnb because we get to do that together. And there’s a lot of other responsibilities and flexibilities that are needed to be part of this household. And so I think that that’s the kind of world that. I would say when my kids are older and they’re beginning to address the market, then I kind of want them to deal with the market rate challenges they’re going to face out there. So both my two oldest kids are in that market economy, whereas my younger kids are still in the micro economy in our family.

Henry Kaestner: Got it. Okay. So market economy allows for a certain degree of autonomy, which helps me think through the Gen three issue, which is that this is one thing when you’ve just it would seem to be more and more difficult as the generations go down. So there’s enough independence out there, enough example of the Shabbath type of family getting together that that makes an impression on Gen three. They see that lived out. But there’s not flexibility about being able to participate in the broader market economy and somebody potentially working harder than another or potentially earning more. And yet there is this and maybe I’m putting words in your mouth is this kind of like cheering one another on people feeling free to advise and counsel is sought during the Shabbat about a problem that they’re experiencing in one of their market economy jobs. Maybe speaking to that a little bit before William brings this to a close.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, for sure. I think you want your kids to figure out how to work in that marketplace, but not alone. It’s okay to give children the privilege of the full weight of the family’s wisdom, the family’s resources. Right. The most powerful kind of privilege in the world, I think, is fatherhood. Privilege is a great book that Warren [….] wrote about. He said that they called him Dad Deprived boys. Right. And then father privilege like these kids coming from. And that’s something we want for everyone. Like we want everyone to experience that. And so part of that is we need to make sure that we are giving our kids as much as we can to help them while they go out and attempt to work in the economy the way it is. And so those Shabbat conversations. I mean, we’re because of the way our week is structured. I have those business meetings already scheduled in my normal workweek. And so I’m having those business meetings all the time with my kids in their businesses to figure out how to help them, to get them connected to whoever, to help them succeed. And so I would say in the Shabbat, when we kind of come back into that world, then it’s pretty much, you know, the kinds of conversations. There’s really almost no productive work related. We’re doing a lot of storytelling about our family’s past. We’re talking about a lot of vision and, you know, looking into the future. We’re studying the scriptures together at that time. We’re celebrating, you know, with each other. And so there’s a lot of leadership in the direction of like how to enter into that kind of timeless moment. But in order to do that, we do need to have enough time to have those business conversations during our workweek.

Henry Kaestner: Rusty, do you know who Jeremy sounds like?

Rusty Rueff: Who.

Henry Kaestner: He sounds like David Bruckner. He sounds like a messianic Jew.

Rusty Rueff: He does, that is true

Henry Kaestner: He sound like somebody who’s kind of first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles and the Jewish lineage and history of the Old Testament? What does that teach us about God’s word and his promises and family and then building the saving grace of Jesus on top of it, It sounds to me really compelling framework. Rusty has come out with this great book called Faith Code that he’s coauthored with one of his great friends, Terry Brisbane. But another one of the three guys he gets together is guy named David Brickner, who runs a ministry called Jews for Jesus. And I’m hearing echoes of that through what Jeremy is talking about earlier.

William Norvell: That was that’s probably the most beautiful setup for our last question you’ve ever done right there. You walk through the entire Old Testament, through the New Testament, through the grace of Jesus on top. And therefore, where do we end? We end at the Word of God. Jeremy We love to end every single one of our shows by referring back to Scripture and just saying, Where does God have you today? And that could be something He put on your heart this morning, even in this minute can be something you’ve been meditating on your whole life. But just if you could invite us into your journey with Scripture today, we really grateful.

Jeremy Pryor: Yeah. Well, that’s great, guys. Well, there’s one verse that I was reminded of today that I think maybe it would be kind of bring us together. So oftentimes when things are broken, when they’re not working, we as entrepreneurs sometimes can think that the solution is to innovate. And I definitely have that instinct. And I’ve learned so often now because what you guys just said, because there’s thousands of years of scriptural wisdom that oftentimes the problems we’re experiencing the present or because we left something in the past. And so there’s a verse in Jeremiah 6:16 that’s almost become like a family life verse for our family. And it says, This is what the Lord says. Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls. And so sometimes it’s a stand at a crossroads, like sometimes, and you’re heading the wrong direction. Maybe stop right and look at these ancient paths. You know, sometimes the solution to our problem is not an innovation, but something that we have left in the past. And that’s what I discovered. I really think this is true about the way we think about family and ask where the good ideas and ultimately what he’s saying as the result of that is rest. And that’s why we talk about this ancient way of the Sabbath, if you can, business, right And you get family right, you kind of embrace these ancient paths. Then you get rest and for your soul and man, we all need soul rest. And that’s what the Sabbath is all about. We always want to enter into our Sabbath. We’re talking about there’s body rest and soul rest. And they’re not the same thing. You know, body rest is like, I’m so exhausted that I can’t answer the email. Soul rest is it is finished. It’s the hardest work that I ever really had to do is already been accomplished for me. And that does something to my soul. That’s the gospel. That and where do we learn that we have to stop working and just receive the gospel? And so we want to do that on a weekly basis. Just enter in as a family into the rest that’s already been earned for us.

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at faith driven entrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

 Who protects the people who are meant to protect us?

First responders daily risk their lives for the sake of others and the people who put on those uniforms need others who will help keep them safe as they go about their  jobs.

That’s why Josh Richardson started Angel Armor with his brother JC. The two discovered something that many of us just don’t think about. Like any product in the modern world, Protective gear needs to adapt to what customers want.

The industry needs innovation and fresh ideas so that these frontline workers can do their jobs safely.  And that’s what angel armor is all about.  Using their innovative and entrepreneurial mindsets to create products that protect the protectors.

As you’ll hear in this episode, the two brothers grew up in an entrepreneurial home. Their parents started a different kind of protective equipment company: the brand Otterbox, which has become known to smartphone users around the world for their waterproof cases.

Josh joins us today to talk about his rollercoaster journey from growing up in a home that barely made it by to seeing the growth and success of his parents’ company. He’ll talk about how his own success with OtterBox took him down a dark path away from his faith and how the relentless pursuit of Jesus called him back. And he’ll share what all these experiences have taught him about running his business today.

Helpful Links:

https://plusnothing.com/

https://angelarmor.com/

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Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: Who protects the people who are meant to protect us. First responders daily risked their lives for the sake of others. And the people who put on those uniforms need others who will help keep them safe as they go about their jobs. That’s why Josh Richardson started Angel Armor with his brother JC. The two discovered something that many of us just don’t think about. Like any product in the modern world. Protective gear, like vehicle armor or bulletproof vests. Needs to adapt to what customers want. The industry needs innovation and fresh ideas so that these frontline workers can do their job safely. And that’s what Angel Armor is all about. Using their innovative and entrepreneurial mindsets to protect the protectors. As you’ll hear in this episode, the two brothers grew up in an entrepreneurial home. Their parents started a different kind of protective equipment company, the brand Otterbox that has become known to smartphone users around the world for their waterproof cases. Josh joins us today to talk about his rollercoaster journey from growing up in a home that barely made it by to seeing the growth and success of his parents company. He’ll talk about how his own success with Otterbox took him down a dark path away from his faith and how the relentless pursuit of Jesus called him back. And he’ll share what all these experiences have taught him about running his business today. You’re listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it.

Josh Richardson: So growing up in an entrepreneurial family, you know, my dad was a really struggling entrepreneur as I was growing up. And it was really neat because the church was actually bringing our family groceries and diapers just to make it by. So we were in a really unique position there where my dad was the struggling entrepreneur, really trying to make it work. And he was an injection molder, a toolmaker by trade. So we had these huge injection molding machines in our garage, and he was doing all this manufacturing work in our garage at our house. And I grew up always hearing about the struggles of building and running your own business, growing your business, and then it kind of shrinking back and, you know, depending on the fluctuations in the market. So it’s just a way that I was raised. And then in 1996, my dad said, Hey, we’re going to start our own company, building our own little plastic boxes, and we’re going to name it Otterbox. And so that was kind of the kick off into our next kind of phase, if you will, as a family, right where it’s like, hey, we’re going to start and build this business. And it was a family business. I remember my brother and I putting postage stamps on little mailers and sending those off and getting the word out to different mom and pop businesses about our little waterproof case.

Rusty Rueff: So I got to ask you, why did you call it Otter?

Josh Richardson: It’s so funny. So originally in the earlier days, when it was just the waterproof case, everybody knows the big pelican cases right. You can put, like your scuba gear in or your camera gear or your film gear. And so Pelican only had these giant cases. And so we were going to develop a small line of cases for like personal goods. And so it was kind of in that line, Hey, what’s like an animal kind of outdoors, fun plays around. And my mom actually, she’s super creative and amazing, so she’s like, the otter is like super cute, fun and has the most waterproof fur, right? So it’s waterproof, super fun, super cute. So let’s do Otter Otterbox, right? And it actually ended up being such a blessing because then go into the mobile protection space in the consumer goods space. It’s such a unique, like random name that it’s really recognizable. Right? So it was interesting when the PalmPilot first came out, the PalmPilot was like the very first, I guess you could call it a smartphone where you could hold it in your hand and have a little touch screen. And so that was really the first jump that we had in the technology. And so we had this little waterproof box, the government using the Palm Pilot. And they actually approached us because they were storing the PalmPilot in the waterproof case. They said, Hey, is there any way that we could use the Palm Pilot through the case? And so that’s when we began to see as a business. My dad and mom had the vision, Hey, this technology sector, this thing could really have legs. So we began to pivot into technology right shortly after then. And this thing called the BlackBerry came out and we heard about this guy named Steve, and he was going to make this thing called an iPod. Oh, whoa, Let’s do a case for the iPod. And then now he’s going to combine the iPod and a phone to make this thing called an iPhone. Right. And so it was a huge blessing in God’s timing in his favor for us to be perfectly positioned, in this case business with a background in injection molding and tooling for us to really catch this wave of technology. And really the rest is history. And there’s a lot in between there, but I’ll save that for a little bit later. So that’s kind of my background and grew up in the business, right? I mean, I was doing sales for Otterbox as a young kid. I was in the manufacturing floor and so was my brother. I mean, it’s a family business, right? It started in our garage.

Rusty Rueff: So you’re ten years old and dad’s an entrepreneur and he’s got his business. He’s doing that. What lessons were you picking up about how to be your own entrepreneur later in life?

Josh Richardson: One key thing that our family has always put into practice in that my mom and dad always preached about is people make the business right. So it’s all about the people and what type of people are we going to bring on and what type of people we’re going to be representing and running and growing the business. So it’s all about the people how are we treating, our people, what type of individuals are working for the business? And that’s been a key staple for us, right? We want people who are humble and hungry, willing to roll up their sleeves, willing to get after it and really get the work done to be sold out for the mission.

Rusty Rueff: So tell me about your own personal journey to decide that you were going to walk in the way of your own father and your own family, and then at some point you made your own decision to say that that’s going to be my life.

Josh Richardson: Man, it’s pretty crazy. So I’m going to give you a quick tidbit of my testimony. So I was saved in Promise Keepers in 1996. And my uncle, my dad’s brother was actually in leadership in Promise Keepers. So we got invited there. And it was just this incredible experience where I got my first encounter with the Holy Spirit and Jesus, where I’m like, Whoa, I’m all in. Shortly after that, my parents saved all their pennies. We were still really struggling financially, and they decided to put me into a Christian school. This Christian school actually kind of school church type of thing. They ended up really physically abusing me until I threw the baby out with the bath water. I’m like, If these people are about Jesus and these people are about God, like I’m out. Like many entrepreneurs that are listening to this and yourself, like I’m 100% in 100% out kind of guy. Like, that’s just how the Lord wired me. And so I totally rejected the faith. I was like, I’m out. And I started living a super crazy life of sin. So after high school took an offshoot of Otterbox called Cigar Caddy, took that business, took it outside of our founding an investor. We grew that off for three and a half years and sold that business. I had a successful exit there and then went back into otter and built one of our most profitable channels. Still today that still exists build out about a team of 25 people to travel and domestically all throughout the United States. And it was at that time I was still living a crazy life of sin. I actually had the opportunity moved to Hong Kong to start our Asia-Pacific office. And with the opportunity, I’m like, This is a perfect opportunity to run from all of my problems that I have just been building and building in my life through living this crazy life of sin. Right before I went to Hong Kong, I was actually invited to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. and a gentleman there who’s actually one of the founders of the prayer breakfast handed me a little gospel harmony, and it said The life of Jesus on it. And I knew in my spirit, Right, you better keep that. That’s pretty important. Josh, You better hang on to that. So I put it in my back pocket and shortly thereafter moved to Asia. And man I was living a crazy life of sin. And one thing that was kind of an issue for me is I was very successful professionally, but my personal life and my life with Jesus was a disaster, right? So it was just kind of snowballing. Super long story short, throughout that time period of me being in Asia for three and a half years, the Holy Spirit was consistently pursuing me, consistently pursuing me, pinging my heart, telling me, read a page that little gospel harmony, so I read some scripture, and then I go back to living the life of sin, read some scripture, go back to living a life of sin. And throughout this journey that I was having, we were building individual businesses in individual countries in 14 different countries. So I was gaining all this incredible professional experience, starting and building businesses in different cultures. But the fruit wasn’t there because I wasn’t walking with Jesus. Actually, it was rotten fruit because I was living a crazy life in sin. Super Long story short, for another conversation, I had to flee Asia for my life. So I take off from Asia. After three and a half years. I land back in the United States and the Lord was pursuing me the whole time. I said, Lord, this life that I’ve been living right, I’ve been super successful from the worldly perspective, but I’m a disaster like this path of materialism, partying, drinking, just indulging in everything, drugs, right? It’s gotten me almost killed. So I’m done. I gave away everything I had material wise said, Lord, I’m all yours. Spent the next few years really repairing my life. And it was during that time when I was repairing my life and relationships. My brother and I always said, We always want to prove to the world that we can start a business from scratch together, right? We grew up around the dinner table learning about entrepreneurship. We know how to do it. We started individual verticals within otter and it’s been really successful, but we want to do it for ourself. We were always raised to honor and love our law enforcement military. It’s been a pillar of our family, right? And so one of our current CEOs, he actually found a scientist who had this panel right in his office that had some bullet holes in it. And it turns out he developed a manufacturing process that kind of combined aerospace manufacturing and ballistics manufacturing. We found it super interesting.

Joseph Honescko: Hey, everybody, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you probably noticed that this one feels just a little different. We had a more narrative intro. We jumped right into the guest and overall cut the time down quite a bit. You could say we’re in a prototyping phase as we try to make the best podcast possible for you, our audience. And we can only do this if you give us your feedback. So if you can please take 2 minutes and go to faith driven entrepreneur dot org slash podcast survey to answer a few quick questions. We’ll also put the link in the show description. But if you can do that, it will help us make sure that we’re producing something that will continuously add value to your week. All right. Now back to the show.

Rusty Rueff: So yours is got so many elements of the prodigal son story to it, right? You go off and you come back. A different human being who’s broken now wants to be restored. You see this really cool. Let’s call it invention or process and how we could do this. So talk to us about how that worked for you, the transition from family leadership to co-founder.

Josh Richardson: Yeah, for sure. So the co-founder of Angel Armor is my brother, JC Richardson. Many people are like, Whoa, don’t go into business with family. Right. And for me, you know, for me, I wouldn’t want to do it with anybody else. Right. I mean, he’s my best friend. We do everything together. And, you know, I think the importance of really being a good co-founder and knowing a good co-founder is you have to know your strengths, right? And you have to stay in your lane and you have to be willing to take critical feedback and make compromises. So those are really key things. Like I’m very much forward facing. The Lord blessed me with strategic thinking, visionary, like these type of things. My brother is very operationally focused, very good in the numbers, very good in the spreadsheets, very good on the back end of the business, where I really thrive on the front end of the business. So how can we come together on the vision and the strategic initiatives of the business and both compromise so that we can get the best of both worlds? And when one person is not willing to take the other person’s advice or, you know, initiative or whatever it may be, and there’s push back like everything is, you know, it’s kind of like a marriage. I give 100% and you give 100%. And we’re willing to compromise on all of it, right, Because we’re both on the same team. We’re both in it for the win. And we love each other. We care for one another because the the relationship at the top will trickle down to the organization. If you don’t have a healthy cofounder ship, it’s tough, really, really difficult. And I have a lot of entrepreneurial friends who, you know, that’s the case. And I would say going from, you know, more of a leadership position, single leadership position in Asia to co-founder, I really enjoyed it. Right. I mean, it’s really good and it’s biblical. And my dad would always teach us, Josh, seek wisdom, always seek wisdom. None of us will ever arrive. It doesn’t matter if you run a $2 billion company or a $1 million company, it doesn’t matter. It is so critical for us to be seeking wisdom of wise men and women around us, of how to run a business, how to be a great husband or wife, how to be a better follower and disciple of Jesus. So speaking wisdom is everything.

Rusty Rueff: So you’ve been at it for a decade. Give us a sense of scale, how it’s moved, how the company’s grown. First of all, start with, you know, just the journey over the last ten years and where are we today? What’s the scale of the business?

Josh Richardson: Yep. Well, everybody who’s listening to this and yourself, I mean, we know it’s like everybody’s like, Oh, you started your own business. That’s awesome, right? I mean, it’s a slog, right? I mean, it is difficult to start your own business. And everybody always says, My dad says this. You know, it’s like everybody says it’s an overnight success. You know, it’s it’s never that case, right? I mean, it is a fight in the mud. And so for us, it was like the first five years. It was brutal and brutal. How do we take this technology? How do we develop and innovate into an industry that’s an old industry with old money and old big, you know, competitors who were owned by private equity firms and their funds a backing. I mean, it was very difficult. So throughout that first five years, we’re really finding our legs. What really is our target market? Who really is our target customer, Right? We swayed from military and now we really back dialed in on law enforcement. So law enforcement is really our target audience. And what we saw is a lot of people were really super focused on, you know, special forces and military. The huge money’s there, right, with these giant government contracts. And we saw, you know what? We have a heart for the patrolman who’s in a ten year old car driving around, has an old expired vest because ballistics expire. It’s an important part. After five years, the ballistic performance will degrade over time. So the raw material providers who are upstream from us, that’s DuPont de Nima, DSM, Honeywell, you know, those type of big, big players, they actually say, hey, the ballistic material needs to be replaced every five years. So many of these patrol guys are driving around with expired vests. You know, they’re the first line of defense. You know, they pull somebody over for not having, you know, their blinker on and the guy gets out shooting at them. Right. And so for us, we really had a heart for these guys. And it’s like, how can we innovate for these men and women of blue to really provide a super premium, innovative product at a cost effective price. And so that’s really when the business started to take off. And we we really have two arms to the business. The first arm of the business is vehicle armor. So there was a really cumbersome, expensive process of putting armor in a police vehicle. And so we got a pattern and developed a process of actually being able to just remove the weather, stripping by the window, rolling down the window, removing the weather, stripping and slipping the armor in between the door skin so you can up armor your vehicle in five or 15 minutes. It’s awesome.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that’s just a bunch of empty space. That.

Josh Richardson: Exactly. Interesting.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, a piece of paper just lost down in there. Like I’m ever going to get that out.

Josh Richardson: Yeah, exactly. And many of us watch your movies, like, Oh, every police car has armor. Oh, well, actually, very, very small percentage of police vehicles have armor. So we’re really changing that. We’re leading the industry in aftermarket vehicle armor, which is just a great business. Right. It’s really exciting to be helping out the men and women in blue there. Then the other side of the business is really the body armor. So we do soft body armor. It gets super technical. So I’ll just use very high level terms, you know, soft body armor, which you typically see your police officer wearing. It just stops handguns. And then there’s something called a rifle plate which sits over your vitals, and that will stop rifle rounds. Right. And so in the past, really, rifle plates were only worn by SWAT teams or by special teams, if you will, or military. And then police officers would have a vest that sits in the trunk of their vehicle with a rifle plate in it. So if things got hairy, they could go to their trunk and put on a vest. Well, typically in a gunfight, you can’t say, hey, time out, time out to run to the trunk of my car and put on a rifle vest. Right. And so what we did is we were the first ones to really integrate rifle plates into a soft body armor vest so that you could be wearing all day rifle protection. And that’s kind of something that we trademarked and that we run off of and that we’re known for now. And so we always said we want to create products that we would feel comfortable putting our loved ones in. Right. I want to if I had a vest that I could send my son or my dad or my brother or my daughter out in the field on the street wearing this vest like I think, that’s a good product that we’re willing to market. And so we overbuild all of our ballistics, right? We’re not owned by a private equity firm. We’re not managed by a bottom line number. So we overbuild them. Right. So the performance of our ballistics is second to none. It’s unbelievable.

Rusty Rueff: Talk to us about, you know, where that innovation spirit comes from and then how do you operationalize that kind of innovation where every year, you know, we’re coming? But something new.

Josh Richardson: Yeah, well, it’s interesting coming from the consumer industry space, right where it’s like we talked about earlier. Each new year Samsung launched or each new year a new iPhones launched. And so it’s like we are in that super speedy, quick design and innovation like that’s in our blood. Right. And really, if you look at any business, innovation and product release is the lifeblood of a company, right? And so we really took our mentality from the consumer products industry into the law enforcement and military space where it’s like, you know, a lot of new innovative products are not released that often. And so it’s like, how can we be really innovating and really investing in our design time, in our design teams, in our design leadership so that we’re really coming out with quality products. Really where this starts is we design products from the voice of the customer. All of our products are built from feedback directly from police officers across the nation, right? Different regions, different job duties within a police department. So we really take pride in building all of our products off of the voice of the customer. And speed is everything right? We have to be getting these products to people in a timely manner. I mean, we need to be releasing products all throughout the year all the time, both because, you know, local law enforcement are thirsty and hungry and need innovation for protection. And also because like I said before, it’s the lifeblood of the business. We have to be giving the sales team not only new products constantly, but the promise of a really robust product roadmap and pipeline. So we spend a lot of time and investment on our product roadmap and things coming down the pipeline and also R&D going into building out that pipeline.

Rusty Rueff: So you’re doing something that’s very redemptive. I see, right? You’re saving people’s lives, you’re protecting them. Do you see your faith influence in your work?

Josh Richardson: For me, faith in work is one right. Our business is our way of evangelizing, witnessing, right? So it’s one. So the way that we’re treating people, the way that we’re talking every day, the way that we’re making tough decisions, is all through the lens of the life and teachings of Jesus and his principles, the principles in the Bible, right? It’s like, how are we living this out and coaching and building our business? Are we honoring the Lord in that, or how are we living? Are we as leaders or executive team, Are we obeying the word and are we living it out? And, you know, it’s all of us who have businesses who are listening to this. I mean, then a lot of our employees, they’re going through tough stuff, right? I mean, a lot life is not easy. And so really coming alongside employees, it is a ripe, ripe witnessing ground. Right. And the soil is tilled in our times today. The soil is tilled. We must be spreading seed, right. Telling people about Jesus and living it out, coming alongside them and loving them through all of their problems. It’s a really critical part and it is our ministry, it’s our outreach, and that’s why our family, we started the life and teachings of Jesus book it’s a little gospel harmony, and we give those to all of our employees. We encourage them to read them and read scripture, right? We’re shameless about our faith. We’re not a Christian business, but we’re shameless about our faith and telling people, Man, we’re followers of Jesus. We love Jesus and he is a good God, right? And we’re so thankful for his leadership in our life. And that’s why we are where we are.

Rusty Rueff: Okay. So that brings us to our final question, which are. My co-host, William, always gets to ask. It’s the best questions. I’m feeling really good that I get to ask it today since he’s not here. When we close out every show this way. What is God teaching you through His word recently? And you can define recently any way you want today, know this season of your life, whatever. But what’s God teaching you through his work?

Josh Richardson: You know, it’s interesting. I’m in the Bible study that I host. We’re reading Luke and then another Bible study, and we’re we’re in Revelation, right? And then this season of life that I’ve just been in, you know, it’s just transparently to everybody who’s listening. It’s been a tough season for me, you know? And so I’ve got a young family, beautiful wife, three year old girl, and a one year old boy. And it’s just there’s a lot going on and it’s been a tough season and the Lord’s really been speaking to me through his word and through this situation in life that, Josh, you were not in control. And I think many of us as entrepreneurs are control freaks. And I’m guilty as charged, right?

Rusty Rueff: Sure we are.

Josh Richardson: And so, you know, really releasing our businesses to him, Lord, your will be done. And I think that for me, I’ve always said that right. I’ve always said, Lord, your will be done right. But then when things start getting sideways or things start getting tough, it’s a little bit harder to say that. And then eventually you’re brought to your knees and you’re like, Lord, your will, your way is the perfect way, and that’s all I want. And so it’s been a blessing for me to get there and for him to be speaking to me and really teaching me that. And I just encourage everybody, you know, there was a really turning point in angel armor where we decided every morning we’re going to pray in our office. JC and I and our general manager at the time, we’re going to give the business to the Lord, Lord, it’s yours. We give the business to you. We’re praying for each individual employee. May the profits benefit your kingdom and it’s all for you. And that was the day that things really started to turn around. And I’m not sitting here preaching a prosperity gospel that’s going to happen to everybody. I’m just saying there is a freeing piece to owning a business and truly having it with open hands saying, Lord, this is yours and whatever you want to do with it, it’s all yours and all the glory be to you and not to me. So that’s really what I’ve been learning.

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at faith driven entrepreneur talk.

Recent Episodes

In-N-Out Burger is one of the few local burger restaurants that has transcended into a cultural icon. What started as one of the first drive-thru restaurants ever in 1948, has grown into one of the most recognizable brands in the country with nearly 40,000 employees in millions of happy customers.

The restaurant was founded by Esther and Harry Snyder, a husband and wife team with a passion for excellent service and incredible quality. Now over 50 years later, their granddaughter Lynsi serves as the President of the company and carries on that legacy of loving employees, serving customers and boldly giving glory, and honor to God in the process.

Lynsi joins the show to talk about the in and out legacy as told in her new book, The Ins-N-Outs of In-N-Out Burger and to share how her faith has guided her leadership style through tragedy, challenges, and triumphs.

Important Links:

Innoutbook.com

faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/podcastsurvey

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: All right. Your plane lands at LAX. It’s 10:00 at night, and you’re starving. Maybe you’re coming home or you’re visiting the West Coast for business or pleasure. Whatever it is, it really doesn’t matter. You know exactly where to go when you’re in California needing a quick bite that never disappoints you grab your bag and you head to in and out. For a few uninitiated listeners, In-N-Out is probably the only local burger joint that has transcended into a national brand. The first store opened all the way back in 1948, just a few miles east of Los Angeles in Baldwin Park. It started as a husband and wife team, Esther and Harry Snyder, and they were passionate about excellent service and incredible quality. Now, over 50 years later, their granddaughter, Lynsi, serves as the president of the company. Carrying on that legacy of loving employees, serving customers, and boldly giving glory and honor to God in the process. Despite only having locations in a small handful of states, In-N-Out has become a cultural icon with nearly 40,000 employees and millions of happy customers. Lynsi joins the show to talk about the In-N-Out legacy, as told in her new book, The Ins and Outs of In-N-Out Burger. This is the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it.

Lynsi Snyder: Gosh, I don’t know where to start. I just remember when I was little, I. For sure had in and out spread in our fridge and in and out milk. So I guess that wasn’t normal for people. But, you know, I wasn’t in the middle of everything as I got older. Understood. My family actually moved to Northern California, so kind of sheltered from the, you know, granddaughter of the company experience. I was treated pretty normal and was just another kid up there, which was great. In sixth grade, the middle of the year when my uncle passed away and we actually moved to Southern California for the rest of that year. And it was terrible. That’s when I was kind of exposed to being treated differently and being made fun of and, you know, some jealousy and all of that. And so my dad did not like that and decided to he would commute and moved us back up north. So so I had a great childhood on a ranch and, you know, drove four wheelers and caught frogs and snakes and did all those types of things. And and then I moved down here when I was 18, and it was a whirlwind because my dad passed away when I was 17. And so it was like losing my dad, turning 18, graduating, getting married. A lot.

Henry Kaestner: Faith has been a part of the in and out story for a long, long time. Just tell us about that.

Lynsi Snyder: So. It’s interesting because my mom and dad took me to church and raised me to know, you know, I knew the Lord young, my grandma, she didn’t have a huge faith impact on my life, but she impacted me in a lot of different ways. And the things I remember her saying about God, the things she said was just thanking God to have eyes, to see ears, to hear legs, to walk with it. You know, she would go through just being thankful to have those things. And I later realized part of it probably came from she had a her grandmother was basically blind and she had to push her all over the place in a wheelchair. She took care of her from a really young age. So, you know, I think her just appreciation for some of the simple things that we take for granted was very much in her heart. And she expressed that a lot. So you know she was, I believe, raised in the Methodist church. And, you know, I think she always had her faith. It was probably walked a little more silently because my grandpa was not a believer and he actually accepted the Lord on his deathbed. So praise God for that.

Henry Kaestner: Tell us about the different influences then on your own personal faith as you’ve grown as an adult.

Lynsi Snyder: Well, I think I think God just had a plan and made sure, you know, I, I knew I had this feeling when I was really little that when I had my mom and dad and, you know, had all those things a kid needed, like food, nourishment, protection, like love, I had those things. I still felt like something was missing. And, you know, I realized that that was God. And so once I acknowledged him, which was really young, again, I don’t even remember the moment, because my longest memory other than that time where it was like, What’s missing? I think since I was four, I believed and and talked to God and Jesus. So I was just immersed and learning about God, and I just always had that to fall back on because, you know, life took me some different directions and got me off the path at times. But I always I always came back.

Rusty Rueff: So your family’s faith is totally infused inside of the culture of the company. And one of the things that you do that I want you to talk a little bit about is no matter when somebody joins the company, they have to spend time working in the restaurant, right? They have to be out there. What are the benefits of that and what does it yield in the future for executives who kind of grow up in the company or come from the outside and they get that first experience of being on the grill?

Lynsi Snyder: Oh, I’m going to correct you there first. Experience is definitely not on the grill because that’s one of the highest positions in the store. That’s. That’s like running the ship. So, you know, some of the first spots to work in the store when you start would be in the dining room. And, you know, you watch a lot of training videos. So we will have someone from the outside, an executive or someone in a certain role. They’re going to watch training videos. They’re going to watch stuff about our history or culture. They’re going to go to some classes. And yes, they’ll get a uniform and they’ll be put in front of customers, greeting them, wiping down tables, you know, doing some of those things that our new associates would be doing. And they might familiarize them with some other positions and, you know, show them around and have them work some other spots. But, you know, it’s important because, you know, that’s who we are. That’s what we’re all about, is about serving our customers and the standards we have, you know, wrapped around quality and cleanliness and service. And so whether you’re working in the legal department or HR. Or somewhere else, you must know, you know, the store, the operation inside out, like you need to know about it. And you might not have worked all those positions that you need to understand and you need to understand the standards and all of those different areas and and why quality is so important and why we’ve done things a certain way for, you know, 75 years. And so it’s really, you know, training is a huge part of in and out And looking back to our founders, my grandparents and my dad, my uncle, and how they led the way for us and showed us this is what in and out is all about. And we take that seriously and want to continue it.

Rusty Rueff: And then as a as a part of that training, where does the faith element show up? But when do you first introduce that as a new employees coming into the culture.

Lynsi Snyder: Yeah. So the faith piece in the company didn’t actually become evident or actualized until my uncle put scriptures on various packaging of a product in 1988. We’ve traced it back to. There was a lot of debate over that year, and we finally landed on 1988 and he had gotten saved. And and this was really just a few years before he died, honestly. So it was. By the grace of God, you know, it’s just wonderful. He was just a big personality, a joyful guy. And I think that he was just that exuberant. He’s like, I want to share this. And we’re a family company. You know, I’m a Christian. I want to put the faith out there. I’m not going to be ashamed. And so it was so cool that he did that. And, you know, it really it really gave me, I guess, that freedom to just continue it and take it further.

Joseph Honescko: Hey, everybody. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you probably noticed that this one feels just a little different. We had a more narrative intro. We jumped right into the guest and overall cut the time down quite a bit. You could say we’re in a prototyping phase as we try to make the best podcast possible for you, our audience. And we can only do this if you give us your feedback. So if you can please take 2 minutes and go to faith driven entrepreneur dot org slash podcast survey to answer a few quick questions. We’ll also put the link in the show description, but if you can do that, it will help us make sure that we’re producing something that will continuously add value to your week. All right. Now back to the show.

Henry Kaestner: Have you ever thought about expanding to places where maybe there is a culture that would love the excellence of in and out? They’d love the brand that’s being an iconic American West Coast brand. But the thing that you actually look at is the ability to be able to export a culture that is God honoring in a way where you have so much interaction with customers and a chance to talk about why you do what you do.

Lynsi Snyder: Oh, we can’t because we don’t compromise our quality ever. And our stores receive delivery every other day from our warehouses. So we do our own meats, we get the trucks in and we actually have our own guys, you know, take the meat off the bones, do the whole process and put it in our own patty machine and send those out to the stores we have. We take in our produce, we take in everything and we, you know, make sure everything is inspected and tested and perfect and then we send it to our stores. So the freshness factor would not allow us to expand like that.

Wiliam Norvell: I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably face this decision, right? Growth versus quality, this is what we kind of what we’re talking about. What makes you hold firm in that and how do you stay true to it?

Lynsi Snyder: Yeah, I think, you know, for me, I’m a big protector and, you know, that goes both with, you know, protecting my family’s legacy and what they’ve started and what I feel I’ve been entrusted with. You know, there’s a stewardship sense with not just from my family, but from God. And then, you know, just just knowing that it’s not about, you know, always making more money or, you know, oh, this would make us more known or whatever it is, you know, And I think I don’t want to compromise and just wanting to protect and preserve what has been so successful and what’s so special. So it’s been really easy for me, honestly, to say no to a lot of, you know, new ideas or everybody else is doing mobile ordering. You should do mobile ordering, you know, there’ll be more sales or, you know, you should do liquid cheese for the animal fries. It’ll be faster, it’s cheaper. You know, we just say no, because if it’s something that’s going to cut a corner off of quality, then it’s a no. And it’s not just quality of the product, it’s quality of service. So for mobile ordering, you’re going to change the In and out experience you’re not going to have because part of the in and out experience is just being greeted with a smile. The service, you know, just taking care of the customer in that way, not just taking the order here, you know, it’s different. So, you know, of course, there’s a lot of things that are put in front of us, but it just feels, I don’t know, I guess, natural for me to just protect.

Wiliam Norvell: That makes a lot of sense. And I’m curious because, you know, family businesses, of course, of this size and scale, where are places that you feel like your vision and your personality have been able to shine? And and how have you reconciled those with maybe what was and what needs to be?

Lynsi Snyder: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you know, some of the big things would be just the style of leadership, you know, from the era of my grandfather, even to my my uncle and my dad, there was a very, you know, fear and intimidation, get it done task driven, you know, boss associate type relationship there. And I think that that’s something that with the help of a wonderful team and people buying into my vision we’ve turned that ship around and we we strive to lead by the style of servant leadership. And you know, we’ve done tons of workshops on just caring and training versus teaching and I think really investing in our people. And so we invest in them and turn they invest in others. And it just kind of trickles all around. And, you know, we’re so focused on the family atmosphere. And I think I’ve definitely made an impact on the culture when it comes to just the closeness. And even though we’re getting larger and larger, you know, we have our our leaders are brought together multiple times each year. And I’ve created a tradition that’s been happening since 2009 where I host an event at my dad’s ranch, and we have all of the divisional managers and up there it’s called Club 48, and we get together and in the early years we would go grocery shopping together and cook together and, you know, have a campfire and do all these fun things. And of course, the new guys would get it pretty bad. But now it’s grown into something where our travel and events team actually does the shopping and helps us put together a lot of the activities because it’s grown from just a handful of people to now, you know, with everyone, probably around 70 people. And it’s special. It’s like a family reunion slash fraternity slash jackass maybe. And everyone just, you know, from different states, that wouldn’t normally interact or able to just kind of let their hair down and be at ease. And they can talk about work because we always do, but also get into each other’s lives and just relax and have fun. And we do different team building things. But I feel like I’ve really brought people together and having not just the culture of yes, that my uncle really started with, you know, the excellence and training. But I think the culture of love with our leadership, I feel like I’ve been able to kind of infuse that and and, you know, and for me, it comes from God’s love. Like, I feel so forgiven and I feel God’s grace and I feel so much of his love over my life because of, you know, knowing him and failing him and asking for forgiveness and failing him and then coming back and just knowing that his love reaches past anything we can imagine to different people. And so my goal is for people to experience God’s love working that I know. And hopefully that is even experienced in the atmosphere as a customer.

Henry Kaestner: That’s a great line. My goal is that my employees might experience God’s love by working in and out. And how many employees do you have? Again?

Lynsi Snyder: Over 38,000.

Henry Kaestner: That’s quite a it’s quite a congregation.

Rusty Rueff: To that point of, you know, God’s love working through the organization. I know that you have supported and started for in and out a foundation and that foundation, that slave to nothing. And then you personally have a foundation that you’ve created around the a ministry called the Army of Love. Tell us about both of those and why you started them. And then. How is that also showing up as a part of this reinforcing of God’s love being shared through the company?

Lynsi Snyder: Yeah. So my grandmother, my uncle, my mom basically started the In and out Burger Foundation, which is fighting child abuse back in the eighties. And so, you know, as I was leading, I just felt like, wow, you know, a lot of time has gone by and, you know, to whom much is given, much is required. I feel like in and out success just we need to do more. We need to have another cause. And my husband and I had talked about, you know, being involved with fighting substance abuse because it affected both of our lives. I lost my father. He lost his younger brother. And currently he had at the time had another younger brother on heroin, on the streets. And so, you know, we just both felt so passionate about doing something there. And so as we’re going down that road to start that foundation, God just put it on my heart to include human trafficking, you know, fighting that as well. So that’s where slave to nothing came from. That’s the number two, because there’s, you know, the two different causes there. So, you know, that was something that launched another one of our can drives because in April we had the can drive since the eighties where we put the cans out. We put the information about the Children’s Foundation in and out burger Foundation, and we have a 3 to 1 donation match. And so for these donations in and out, it’s going to give back. And, you know, all of our causes in and out puts the money towards it. We’re not taking from any of the donations. So so every penny that is donated goes directly to fight these. And so slave to nothing. It’s the same model we have two can drive for slave to nothing one for Human Trafficking Awareness Month in January Prevention and then also October for substance abuse. So now we have the can drives three different months out of the year and three different focuses, different fights. And so, you know, that’s just, you know, using the platform that God’s given us to try to change lives and make a difference. And, you know, the third part of our Mission purpose statement is actually assisting our communities to become stronger, safer, better place to live. And so it’s also fulfilling the third part of our Mission Purpose statement.

Henry Kaestner: I’m impacted by the fact that you’ve got by leading by example with your faith and saying things like you just said, to whom much is given, much is expected, is great leadership by example to 38,000. I’d tell you that about a third of your customers at least know that in and out is motivated by their faith, largely because the way that you print on your products, I mean, you can’t go there more than once or twice without seeing what’s unique about your faith. And so any thoughts that you have about being bold?

Lynsi Snyder: Yeah, you know, I think it sounds silly, but the Instagram account has been an area where I’ve been really bold with my faith, and that’s probably where I catch the most persecution and is on there as well. So I try to discipline myself to not read comments, but it’s, you know, posting Bible verses and just sharing about different things and even pieces of my story or my life on there and some of the maybe some podcast or some faith interviews even, you know, putting the link on. And so I think I try to be pretty transparent about everything. Now I know there’s certain things I can stand up or be more vocal about, but then. We might not have the same platform ten years from now if I really did that. So I’ve talked to some different pastors and leaders and they just say, hey, you know, pray about the ones to really be a strong voice for. And the others just fight behind the scenes. And so, you know, that’s just something through prayer and talking to my husband and kind of leaning on some other spiritual people that I trust and love and just getting counsel. I do. But as far as being bold in my faith, I think that I mean, you should be uncompromised, you know, just needs to be all out. And again, like, you know, within our training, we teach a lot of biblical principles. We teach a lot of things that come right out of the Bible. And and then we talk about some. We we actually make the connection. And so we don’t hear a lot from the inside being against that. Now, of course, there are some, but it’s not. There are people that are invested in the vision and get behind it because they’re usually good things. They’re good things that they know are going to make them better leaders. So I don’t know. I mean, I think for anyone as a believer in business, no matter what you do, just. Don’t compromise your faith and don’t shy away. I believe the days are while we know our days are numbered, but we’re looking at end times and we need to be a brighter light now more than ever and need to shine and not hide it under a basket.

Henry Kaestner: So I see that on the Instagram account. You do such a great job of sharing your faith, celebrating different milestones at the company, and then celebrating your friends. Your Instagram posts are very selfless. They’re recognizing in appreciating other people. I don’t know whether these are people are just friends or if they’re coworkers, but you do that a lot. Is that a deliberate management thing that you’re doing?

Lynsi Snyder: That’s just what I’m passionate about. I guess. People I love I love people. I know that, you know, God’s obviously first, but the most tangible way of loving him is loving others. And so I think I’m a pretty I’m definitely an outgoing people type person and I’m a big hugger and I just respect and love so many people around me. And, you know, I’ve lost the closest people to me. I mean, my dad and my uncle were so close to me and losing them young just made me appreciate the people around me. So I don’t want to take them for granted and I want them to know that I love them.

Wiliam Norvell: Yeah. Thank you so much for walking through that. And unfortunately we have to come to a close and we’d love to come back to God’s word in the Scripture. And that could be something you’re reading right now, could be something that’s been on your heart your whole life, but just love to see if you wouldn’t mind sharing some piece of God’s word that’s important to you with our audience.

Lynsi Snyder: You know, my goodness, there’s so many pieces. There’s a lot of verses that I can call out that have brought like freedom more freedom in my life. And, you know, just being transparent. And, you know, I think it’s Galatians, it says confessing our trespass to one another so that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous man is availeth much so just, you know, that’s something that I did a lot of. And I feel like that can be an area in even Christian leaders lives where they might just hold on to something and say, well, God has forgiven me, but there’s power and actually speaking these things out, releasing them. Because if there’s anything that holds you from sharing those things in your testimony, that means there’s shame attached to it. There’s fear, there’s shame. And, you know, to be more free, it’s really, again, the truth. The truth will set you free. And, you know, God’s love can cover absolutely everything. And because I’ve been a believer all of my life and I’ve made such huge mistakes and fallen away that I hope that my life can speak to other believers that maybe feel like they’ve lost hope or retired God’s grace, you know, where there’s just not enough for them anymore. So, yeah, I just know that loving him first. You know in Matthew, loving God and loving others, you know, loving our neighbors as ourself, that’s just my life goal. And I think that there’s so many ways we can live that out. And, you know, my kids should be able to share that about me and, you know, people around me. And if people around you don’t know that, then we have to go back to the drawing board.

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at faith driven entrepreneur talk.

Recent Episodes

In this special episode of the podcast, we’re flipping the mic over to our co-host: Rusty Rueff as we interview him and his pastor, Terry Brisbane.

The two have been close friends for years and offer unique insight into what it looks like for entrepreneurs to partner with their churches. They’ve also recently co-authored a book called “The Faith Code: A Future-Proof Framework for a Life of Meaning and Impact.”

They join the show to discuss the framework they’ve developed and to help us see how pastors and entrepreneurs could work more closely together.

Link to the Book: https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Code-Future-Proof-Framework-Meaning/dp/1640656553

Link to Life Apps Teachings:

• https://www.cornerstonesf.org/sunday-message-category/life-apps/

• https://www.cornerstonesf.org/sunday-message-category/life-apps-v2/

• https://subsplash.com/cornerstonetv/media/ms/+f09eb15

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We’ve got a special guest for this episode who’s going to sound familiar? However, listen, before today, we’re flipping the mic over to our co-host, Rusty Rueff, as we interview him and his pastor, Terry Brisbane, about their new book, The Faith Code A future Proof Framework for a Life of Meaning and Impact. They’ll also help us see how pastors and entrepreneurs can work together more closely. Let’s listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Feature Announcement podcast. This is a very special edition. It’s infrequent that we turn the tables a bit and we interview a co-host. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever done that before in 300 or so episodes. And so today we have Rusty with us. Rusty is going to change seats, so to speak, and we’re going to talk to him and his great friend Terry Brisbane about a new book that Rusty has come out with. If you’ve been paying attention to podcasts over the years, you know that Rusty is a part time sermon deliverer from his church in Rhode Island is very, very thoughtful about the way that God has worked in his life and the way that God works in work and has put together a blog that’s got more than 3500 entries now or something like that. So he’s constantly reading, constantly reading God’s Word and trying to understand how that applies to work generally. And then as an entrepreneur specifically in this time, he’s brought Terry and his great friend and pastor into the mix as well, and they’re going to be talking about this book, Faith Code. So, guys, welcome to the program.

Terry Brisbane: Oh. Great to be here

Rusty Rueff: Good to be here on this side. This is nice to be on this side. And there’s no prep on this site. We just show up.

Henry Kaestner: That’s right. You show up. That’s right. That’s right. And I’ve got triple the prep today because not only you’re not here to help me, but William’s not here either. And yet I know your heart well enough, and I get a chance to meet Terry. We were just talking about before we went live six or seven years ago to get a sense of who you are and you learn so much about somebody by meeting their spouse, but also in meeting their friends, and their pastor. And that’s a great privilege that I’ve had because I got a chance to come and hang out with you and David Brickner. Maybe we’ll talk about that relationship here. And second. In fact, they would say, And so what are you going to get today? Today you’re going to learn a little bit more about Rusty, the guy that brings you these stories every week. And then you’re also going to get some frameworks about how to think about living, how to think about work. But most importantly, one of the things we can get to is this is kind of a timeless framework, and that brings us to God, the timeless God who loves us. And so oftentimes we miss this kind of core DNA that’s been implanted in us, and we just can kind of crack the code on that. It’ll bring us into a life of more peace, fulfillment, mission and shalom. So we’re going to talk about all those things. But before we get to that and the substance of the book in the frameworks, etc., how did you guys meet? I wouldn’t say you’re an unlikely friendship and it shouldn’t be that way. Entrepreneur should be great friends with their pastors all over. But you guys model that out. How’d you guys meet?

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I’ll start and Terry can jump in. By the way, I totally agree with you, Henry. I mean, the relationship that I have with Terry as my pastor and my friend is a true gift from God. And I think anybody who doesn’t take advantage of having a relationship with their pastor that transcends just being somebody who, you know, you shake hands on Sundays on the way out the door, or you occasionally get an opportunity to talk to. I think you’re missing out on something that God wants to have for you. So here’s how it happened. So Patti and I had moved to the West Coast for me to come to work for Electronic Arts. And, you know, when we moved out here, we come from Connecticut and Connecticut. We’d really had a difficult time finding a church that felt like us. And maybe it was because where we lived or just New England sensibilities, what I would say we were looking for was what many people would recognize as a seeker friendly church that the Willow Creek Association, you know, was known for like I would go online when I’d go out of town and I would look for Willow Creek Association churches, because I knew when I went into that church that I would find a welcoming spirit, I would find God’s word. But I also knew that it would be a place where the arts and music would be integral to that. And that was really important to me, but also really important to my wife because my wife had grown up Catholic. And the Catholic Church in her mind was just a little bit, you know, I don’t know the right word to use, not engaging maybe.

Henry Kaestner: Some can be that way. Some have been really encouraged recently. Some have been really encouraging, but some can be not.

Rusty Rueff: Yes. And where she grew up in the Bronx and in New York, you know, it wasn’t a place where there were a lot of young people. Okay. I digress. So we’d been out here and we’d started to talk about, you know, we really need to be in a church and we’re living down in Burlingame and we were in the city on a weekend, and it was an afternoon either Saturday or Sunday. I can’t remember. I think it was a Saturday. And we drove past on 17th Street and Valencia. We drive past and I look out the window of the car and I see a long line of people outside a building and they were all hip and cool.

Henry Kaestner: Was that Mitchell’s ice cream?

Rusty Rueff: No, it wasn’t. It was Cornerstone Church. It was Cornerstone Church. Right. And then the next day, there was an article in the paper about this Generation X church. So we said there’s a place we should go visit. Not knowing anything about it other than, you know, this might be the place. So we went. And once we started going, we never stopped. Yeah. And so we’d been there. I don’t know. We call him PT Pastor Terry. You know PT, I don’t know how long we’d been there, but I said, you know, it’s time for us to connect into the church. This time we’ve been coming here and we’ve now started direct our tithes here. It’s time to connect. And so I reached out to PT’s assistant by email and said, We would like to meet the pastor. And, you know, they don’t know who we are, you know, And there’s like, okay, he can meet with you Wednesday night after a Wednesday night service that they were having. And I said, Great, we’ll come into the city for that. That would be fantastic. And I warned Patti, I said, look, here’s the way it’s going to work. We’re going to go up. We’re going to meet with them. We’re going to introduce ourselves. And we’re you get like 15 minutes and that’s it. And don’t expect anything else. Right. He’s busy. He’s got a lot of stuff going on. Don’t expect anything else. Well, lo and behold, we went, we met, and I think we spent like almost an hour and a half. And so that’s my side of the story.

Henry Kaestner: PT. What’s your side of the story?

Terry Brisbane: I mean, it’s hard to walk back in time and remember that moment the way Rusty does. I do know that I was joking with Rusty. If we were the young and hip church then we’re now the oldest, the older church now and not as hip. And yet we still retain many of the the values and loves that were existent when Rusty first connected with us, when the world was a whole lot younger. And I think we struck up a friendship. There was a chemistry there, and there’s a lot to explore in this question that you presented in post. Henry You know, because I’m sure every pastor and I’m sure others who are leaders wonder, how does this work? You know, how do some people get a chance to build a relationship and maybe others don’t? There’s a lot of nuance and there’s a lot of things to explore just in that alone. How does that happen? And should it? In my case, it became a growth point for my life. I liked Rusty. I thought he was a very interesting person and he represented not only a sincere love for the church, which I saw that he was a if I can use this term, it may be a little dated, but he was a churchman. That is, he even though he was a CEO or working in the business marketplace at the time, in a very influential position, he had a deep love for God’s Word and a love for the church. I mean, there were some convictions to him that I appreciated, and I recognize that he himself was an expert or yeah, that’s what I would call it, someone who was well versed and learned in the marketplace. And there were things that I also could learn from him after. So there was an initial chemistry of just, Hey, I like this guy and he’s a serious person. And then that evolved into more exploration. That created a friendship, even though he was able to do something that I also appreciated, he was still honoring the office of my role as a pastor, and I felt that there was a wonderful humility, and yet there was something about his life, his position, what his knowledge base was that I could learn from as well. And I guess what I’m saying is, if you put all those things together, the genuineness of faith, a kind of dispositional ease with one another, and then an ability for me also to learn something, right. It wasn’t just giving, although I would do that. You always, as a pastor, have to weigh out your priorities just like anybody who’s in business does as well. You know. Where do you place your emphasis? I have basic rules that I go by, and that’s a discussion in and of itself. How do you establish where to give your time, priority wise and to whom? And what does that look like from a spiritual standpoint? And what is our responsibility before Christ? In my case, disposition, and we had a nice, complimentary relationship over time, I began to view him as a trustworthy person and someone who deeply loved the church. And he, Rusty, didn’t try to impose his way of thinking about how things should be done. He just he just came to help be part of the community. And in so doing, it just treated the beginning at the embryo that ultimately allowed for what we’ve become now in this expression, which we didn’t envision at the time, you know, years later, couple of decades now, this has evolved or it’s flourished in the direction that we didn’t anticipate. And now we’re both being able to make contributions out of that relationship for the Lord and hopefully for the benefit of others, for the healing of many and for some who we know now are in the marketplace and are searching for a better understanding of life architecture and values and truth and how to be a follower of Jesus in these complicated times with tremendous anxiety. And yeah, a lot of things that can get us off course. So that’s my long answer. Right.

Rusty Rueff: And I want to add one thing that he did that I think really validated the relationship was as a pastor, as he said, you know, he has to make his choices about priority of time and people. And who do you trust and who would you invest your time with? What he did and Terry, I don’t think you and I have ever talked about this. He introduced me to an associate pastor. That’s true, Pastor J.R. And he said, Rusty, I want you to spend time with J.R. and I want J.R. to spend time with you. And I could have looked at that in two different ways. So the first way I could have looked at it is like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I’m a senior executive of a well-known company. I’m trying to get connected into the church. I’ve got a bunch of talents. I’ve got some resources to bring here. You know, kind of like when you join a new board, you know, for a nonprofit or something, you have to make a decision, you know, how are you going to respond to how they’re going to interact with you? And so I could have gone at it in one way and said, well, come on. What’s this guy doing? You know, pushing me off. Instead, I looked at it the other way. I said he was willing to take I trusted a really trusted long term friend, senior leader of his team, and say to them, I want you to spend time with Rusty. I want you to devote time to him. And, Rusty, would you devote your time to J.R. And J.R. and I started meeting together once a week. He would drive down to my neck of the woods in Burlingame, in Millbrae, and we would get together once a week and we would have coffee and we would talk. And the Bible that I hold here in my hand, the one that I call my Holy Mess, which is soul written up and almost falling apart, you know, June 10th, 2003, from J.R.. You know, Rusty, thanks for the blessing. Love, J.R.. And through that relationship, there was a validation of, well, okay, this guy that just shows up out of nowhere, you know, is not a guy that’s just going to take my time and run away. He’s invested now in the church and in a member of my staff. And my staff is coming back and saying, you know, this guy, he’s the real deal. It’s great. And I think sometimes, Henry, what happens is, you know, we see some of these safeguards that I truly, honestly believe in my heart that pastors must have. Otherwise, you know, there’s an enemy out there that could take advantage of them. They must have these safeguards. And we can misinterpret that as they’re being standoffish or, you know, they’re not, you know, so open or engaging or any of those things. I’m so glad I didn’t take that path. What I looked at it was he’s investing in me in a way that I wouldn’t have imagined.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. So I want to get. At some point in time here to the framework that PT mentioned just a bit ago. But before we do that, I want to get a little bit more into your partnership. And it’s a leading question, and I’ll tell you where I’m going with it. I believe that one of the most missed opportunities we have is with entrepreneurs and business owners being in relationship with the pastoral staff at their church and vice versa, and that it’s been a miss, entreprenuers feel, that pastors don’t get them. Pastors don’t feel that entrepreneurs get them. And there is, especially in a church environment, I’ve heard this from others and I felt it myself, where that pastor is just not really interested in getting really involved in what I’m doing six days a week. But he is interested in having me get drawn closer to Jesus in terms of discipleship. And yet there’s this kind of this missing each other because where I learn about God and Jesus is in the workplace, that’s where I am in. I need some practicality. I need something that I can operationalize because I’m an entrepreneur. I want you guys to riff on that a little bit because I do it and I want it to be a little bit because I want to get to the framework in the book. But Rusty, because I’m closest to you, I have a good sense about what you’ve been able to pick up from Pastor Terry. Pastor Terry, I don’t know if I have the same sense from what you’ve learned by being in serious, committed relationship with somebody in the marketplace, what has that shown you in a way that’s made you and maybe I shouldn’t be so presumptuous about this, but. Well, maybe I should, because you’ve been spending 20 years in friendship with the guy. But what has made you a better pastor, a better disciple, a better friend in a better position to be able to minister to people in the marketplace?

Terry Brisbane: Okay. I’m going to answer that question from a different angle of approach. I want to suggest that not all pastors are uniformly the same. I know that’s you’re very well aware of that. Just like every business leader is different, every entrepreneur’s different. There’s probably more similarities, but there are distinct differences. Some are more by nature, I would say, people oriented. Love meeting needs, love, caring and take a very pastoral shepherding approach. Others such as myself, not that I would push those things aside, but my primary gifts tend towards leadership. And I’m a pastor and a CEO as well. So there are things that I’m responsible for that definitely overlap with business and the marketplace. It’s just that my world is a world of primarily being a doctor as well of the soul and a teacher of the way of Jesus. And that’s exactly how we constructed our book, by the way. We tried to stay in our place of predominant expertise, but that overlap is what I’m trying to get at. That’s where I found I could learn a lot. Now I’m in a nonprofit ministry, right? Church. My primary mandate is not to make money. I don’t answer to necessarily the same kind of shareholders or the same kind of a board. I have actually a little bit more autonomy to lead the church, predominantly as far as cornerstones concern its founding pastor in that regard as Cornerstone is in here in the city of San Francisco. But I had a lot that I could learn about principles, about the marketplace, about how to engage people who have I’m going to use this word people who have a degree of power and means no one trained me how to do that. That was not my world. In fact, if anything, I think I was uncomfortable with people who had an abundance of resources or power or perhaps a reputation because I didn’t want to cater to that and be a respecter of persons. And as a result, I think I may not have actually properly known how to engage the way that Rusty helped me. He didn’t even know he was doing it. But as time went on, because of his humility and genuineness but his skill sets, it allowed me to learn things about a kind of way of living that I was not necessarily as knowledgeable about. And I had to learn. I had to learn not to allow. I know this is going to sound super strange to maybe just some of the audience, but sometimes pastors are reluctant to reach out or push too far into a relationship with people maybe in the marketplace who are great leaders or who have an abundance of resource because it’s the exact opposite reason. They don’t want to feel like they’re catering to someone just because. Well, the Book of James talks about it because they are rich. And how do you do this at the same time, realizing that here’s a person who has gifting and capacities and a knowledge base that can not only help me to minister better to people across the board, but also can help me understand, you know, how to be a missionary in a city that’s filled with people who have an entrepreneurial heart. So how do I do that? But what I’m saying is this depending on the type of person we are, some people struggle with, I’m attracted to that person because of what they can give us. And I guess maybe part of me was afraid of that in my own heart. I didn’t want to be owned by anybody. I just wanted to be able to do what Jesus asked me to do, not as a respecter of persons. And so for me personally, that was one of the best things the Lord did through our relationship. It helped me to learn how to engage and how to be okay with that in my heart, because my initial tendency was, I don’t want to do this because, you know, why would I give this person preferential treatment?

Henry Kaestner: I think that I follow that. What have you learned generally about So you’re in a unique spot. Silicon Valley, San Francisco, known for the number of entrepreneurs in the innovation and the creativity that happens in the marketplace. Is there anything that you’ve learned about the needs of a Christ follower by engaging with Rusty or other business people? That helps you say, You know what, I actually need to camp out on this passage more in Ephesians because I have sense that when somebody is dealing with always trying to sell something to somebody or trying to raise capital or battling with channel conflict, I’ll fill in the blanks on these different things. My sense is that folks in the marketplace need to camp out on this more because, you know, there’s idols for all of us, Christ followers, and especially all that live in America. We’re all susceptible to elements of the American dream. But my sense is that people in the marketplace that are where I serve are particularly prone to this level. And I don’t know that I got that before really engaging with Rusty or somebody else.

Terry Brisbane: Yeah. I mean, it gave obviously greater insight to the unique challenges that are faced by entrepreneurs and business leaders in Rusty’s case. He is an executive, a leader working at a high level. Also watched him transition into the challenges of becoming a CEO and all the unique pressures that went along with that. It became apparent to me that they’re just like everybody else today. You know, you might be really skilled in one area of your life, but you might have another area where it’s very deficient. And I’m not suggesting that was Rusty, but it did give me insight to the fact that there are real needs here. There are real pressures that are being faced. We sometimes miss the fact that success not only has a price tag, but sometimes it’s illusionary. It may appear to others that you have everything you’ve achieved, but there are certain pitfalls that go along with that. You can become consumed and out of proportion. You can have a very weak soul. You can have relationships that are disintegrating. You can be filled with anxiety that is almost crippling. The pressure itself of succeeding. And then what do you do next even after you have. That’s a hard thing. Those are hard things. Those are real things. Those are things that if people aren’t careful, they’ll start to try to fill that. I’ll call it that tension, that pain, that stress. How about that? With things that are not helpful and we start to justify doing things that are very damaging to ourselves, easily fall into addictive patterns. We become toxic in our relationships. So I’ve learned a lot about that just by watching the pressure cooker that many of our audience is obviously having to deal with. And, you know, success is an interesting thing because what is success? Is it achieving? Is it getting the funding? Is it building? And what next? And we have an entire chapter. I’m just trying to go back to the book, but in the faith code, we talk about what is true riches and what do we do with what Jesus taught us there about what is really valuable, about how we love, how we work, the way we heal, you know, all these things, right? So, you know, we could go off on that.

Henry Kaestner: I want to go off on that. So much of the book revolves around what it means to live a good life. You know, the success that you see some of these Silicon Valley CEOs achieve. You write by in answering the question, it means constantly revisiting four phases of life. And here we come into it because I love frameworks. So you talk about framework, you talk about design perspective, evaluation. Talk about that a bit.

Terry Brisbane: Yeah. I mean, Rusty you are okay, if I just jump in and do that.

Rusty Rueff: Go ahead

Henry Kaestner: And I’d love for you to tell it for the listeners here. One of the things that’s really unique and I think really helpful about the way the book is set up is it starts off with a theological concept by PT and then Russ. He comes in and talks about some of the application about how he sees that working out in a business life. I think that that one two combo is really helpful. So yeah, let’s absolutely, let’s do that here. Why don’t you start. Rusty why do not you fill in?

Terry Brisbane: Yeah. And I want to also acknowledge that was beautifully phrased, the way that you framed the very book itself. Henry We both will overlap into the others lane periodically. So it’s not completely siloed and nor should it be. I mean, Rusty is wrestling with biblical principles at times, and there are times where I will jump into life management and business principles indirectly, leadership principles, certainly, because you all know we can’t lead anything beyond where we lead ourselves. However, having said that, we go back to the framework, we talk about the framework, we’re talking about basically the foundations, the foundational principles by which we live. We use a quote from Archimedes, the great Greek engineer, mathematician of ancient days. He talks about give me a lever long enough in a place to stand and I can move the earth. Of course, Jesus talked about if you have faith the size of the mustard seed, you can see that mount be moved. I mean, there’s a real similarity there. The idea of a place to stand. That’s what we talk about, frame. We talk about really our foundational principles. Jesus mentioned I will like I’m the one who hears these sayings of mine and these words and does them to a wise man who builds a house that truly lasts as true a business as well, I would imagine, because it has eternal consequence. And that’s part of the reason why we talk about futureproof. But that’s another discussion. The framework, the foundation, the way I describe it, the idea of design, it has to do with the sense of growing, building, cultivating. So think of a a good analogy would be you have a foundation that is solid. You start to build a framework and you can see the frame of what’s the structure, and then you have to fill it in. I like to think of the filling in as the perspectives that we talk about how do we tie things together so that these concepts encouraging everyone to engage on a daily life implementation approach. You know, how we love, how we work, how we relate, how we heal, how we deal with our own self-inflicted wounds, how we forgive all those things. Right? That’s the perspective piece. And then we talk about evaluation. And when I mean evaluation, we’re talking about honest reflection. We’re talking about a commitment to maintain quality and then, of course, a principle that so many business leaders would know and understand the idea of continual adjustment. We have to ask why? Because according to Jesus teachings of Scripture, we’re all prone to drift. And I include pastors and spiritual leaders. I can drift. So we need to constantly remind ourselves of our foundational principles, the structure that we’re building with our life, and then how that’s actually showing up. And then, like I said, we evaluate it. And then if I can anchor with this, we talk about having a steadfast commitment, but also. Cultivating a kind of vital optimism is anchored in the hope of Christ. That Joy. It goes beyond even our circumstances when we’re building on the right things in the right way. We’re being honest and humble. We’re being accountable. We’re bringing others in the conversation. The remarkable aspect of this will be that we will be shocked at the good that we can do for the Kingdom of God in ways seen in ways not seen in ways that will be obvious in the generation of our lifetime. Listen, here’s the part that goes in the future futureproof. It’s like an arrow shot through time. The Lord doesn’t return. First it will have an effect on generations, some of whom people we will never actually meet or see, who will become part of a connected faith story. And we will be part of that story. So it is worthy evaluating. And that’s the last part. That’s the capstone for me. And it requires, like I said, continually looking at our own hearts before the Lord and readjusting, making adjustments. And last one, I’ll add. It has to be seasonal, too, because every season is this unique transition point. And that means we revisit these principles in different seasons and stages of our life. If we can do that, the oddity would be if we didn’t have a life that had blessing in it that extended beyond our own lifetime.

Henry Kaestner: You said something in there. I think that was really, really important because you get at some of the ambiguity around things like how do we define success? What’s the point of it? How do we know if we’re there or are we going after the right thing or not? And in this concept, evaluation is what we’re doing. And if we have the right framework, does it leave us with this sense of vital optimism? So many different frameworks that lead with what the Earth would say, the world would say is success will leave the person who’s achieved it with the sense of a cynicism and just jaded ness. And you see that in collections of successful people that don’t know Jesus. And to some extent I find it creeping into my own life. And but there’s a joy. It was based on the rock. There’s a vital optimism, and we know how the story is going to end. We can look at all the things are going around us in terms of the geopolitical environment, and we can just find that, you know, if we haven’t designed with right framework, we can be left with a sense of depression or just like helplessness. If, however, we design the right way, we can say, Well, we’ve been successful on this because we’re left with this sense of vital optimism. And that’s that I want to spend time reflecting on that. I think that was great. Rusty, why don’t you comment on that, too? Why don’t you also talk about how you see that framework apply in the life of an entrepreneur? Because you know our audience so well.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, sure. So what I love about yeah, let me say it. What I love about what we did is, you know, we took a metaphor of the technology world. You know, frameworks and platforms and applications and tried to turn it into something that, you know, we all could relate to and understand. And you know, what you walk away with, we hope is what Terry just talked about, how we internalize this faith code and how we’re being and our ability to have a wonderful gift from God to go directly to the source code. Right. Which we have in his scripture that we can constantly be testing ourselves against and going back to when we think that the framework is getting shaky or, you know, it’s not exactly where we want it to be. But at the same time, if that’s all we did, we’d be missing out because the other side of the framework is then the doing piece is externalizing the framework, taking it into our work, the things that we do, the relationships that we have, the cultural influence that we might have around us, our health, the way we have fun, we recreate, we enjoy our life. And if you think about it and you let the framework actually drive your life, you will carry everything about your being into your doing and you’re doing Henry will give you, which is what we write about in the faith code, a chapter called The Irresistible Attitude. Right to have an attitude of joy, of hope, of encouraging others, of feeling like life can be something that if we continue to tap into it, it can be abundant and joyful and flourishing, which is what the God of love wanted us to have. Right. I mean.

Henry Kaestner: A life have it to the full. Tell me about frameworks. I want to get into something because you introduce in a book. I think that’s interesting. So an original, maybe not the original, but an original framework that we see in Scripture Ten Commandments, where sometimes we look for a list of do’s and don’ts. But you have this great emphasis on grace and love throughout the book and even suggest that healthy framework as presented in the Ten Commandments is about grace and love and not just a sense of rigid do’s and don’ts. So I want to be careful about overstating what you guys are talking about in terms of frameworks. It’s this attitude towards joy and grace in the sense of this abundance, and with the result being joy and this vital optimism we talked about, but not necessarily this rigorous sense that’s constraining us. Can you unpack that both. Maybe PT you start off with it about how you view the Ten Commandments that might be different than most people who might interpret it as a list of do’s and don’ts?

Terry Brisbane: Well, first off, the Commandments were built like a constitution for a nation that didn’t have an identity, that it was absolutely a gift of grace. There’s no other way around it. It was as if God was giving them something that would allow them to have a framework to build something that even now, if you think about it, it’s still there in some form. It’s what God used to bring forth Messiah. Jesus. The law in its most condensed form. The commandments were actually words of grace. Even though they look like very constrictive rules, they were designed to help bless Israel as a people. And of course, the ultimate fulfillment of that is Christ. So we’re not trying to live in the Old Testament, but at the same time, you see the consistency even when we get to Jesus, it says he was full of grace and truth. It’s not one to the neglect of the other. This is this beautiful tension in the Scripture that is constantly being revealed to us. God deals with us out of the place of boundaries for our own well-being. Every one of those rules that God gave to Israel was designed for their blessing, not for their hurt. God never gives us things that are designed to cheat us. This is the thing. God’s commandments, as we’re told in the Scriptures, are not grivious. At its core, it’s not meant to keep us from some. That’s the lie. If you want to get back to that, that goes all the way back to the beginning. The first recorded human being and that family there that fell into the broken place in our sin and part of world. What was the suggestion that this boundary for you is to your detriment? But the truth of the matter is, God never does things to our detriment. His laws and rules and principles are boundaries designed to safeguard is no different than a guardrail on the side of a highway around a very dangerous cliff that’s designed to save me. People say I don’t want a guardrail. I don’t need that. Yeah, well, you can go your own way. But the Bible tells us our own way is the way of foolishness, and it leads to death. And ultimately, it is the loss of freedom, not the gaining of freedom. The beautiful thing is when we honor the law and walk, submitted to his truth. We gain freedom. We lose it when we go our own way because we so easily fall into bondage. What God is trying to do was spare his Old Testament church from the pain of the culture that would destroy it.

Henry Kaestner: So I love that what you’re getting at here is what’s the motives to why? And I don’t think I’ve ever spent much time thinking about why did we get to ten commands and know what the Ten Commandments are? But why? To guide us. And so you’ve given us a different perspective on that, which I get. It’s awesome. He gave it to us as a gift, as a love in grace.

Rusty Rueff: As a father.

Henry Kaestner: Who loves his children and knew that he loves his children. You have a four year old. You give them some rules because it’s for their own good. It’s not because you’re trying to constrain them, it’s because you want to see them flourish. And without those rules, they’re not going to flourish. So but it brings me to the question of motive and why. Okay. So now you’ve helped us understand a bit about why God, brought us the Ten Commandments. Why did the two of you write this book?

Rusty Rueff: Well, there’s a story behind it, because it originally started with a presentation that I made 20 plus years ago when the iPhone came out and we started to get applications and there’s an app for that. And I, I gave this presentation at Purdue. Are you building your life as a platform or an app? And it resonated. And because we were in conversation, because Terry and I we’re in constant conversation, you know, I shared with him, you know, I mean, this presentation and it did this and people commented on it. It was Terry’s idea. Along the way, he said, well, what if we turn that into a message series? And we did. We had a message series called Life Apps where he taught. And then he had me do a little video segment. It’s really cool videos that I would go out and shoot all around the Bay Area with the audio visual team that were just a like applications. And so we did that and then that went really well at the church was 12 part series. And then we kept talking about it, We kept talking and we kept talking and you know, one day we said, you know, we’ve done all this. Maybe we’ll turn it into a book. And it would have been a lot easier to go back and do another video segment than writing a book. But, you know, it took us eight years, eight years from the time we said we ought to write a book to, you know, getting that book out in September.

Henry Kaestner: Can the videos be found?

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, they’re on Cornerstone SF.

Henry Kaestner: if you really want them. You read the book, you know, like, Gosh, I need more of this. And I just I need more of Rusty. And I want to see what Rusty look like eight years ago, and I almost got the rusty Rusty. We did a we did a session, a podcast episode, maybe like number seven or eight where you said, Hey, I’ve written a framework on something and people continue to come in looking for that, right?

Rusty Rueff: Oh, yeah, that was number 16. It was episode 16 that we did together and I had just thrown out there, Hey, I’ve got this one page roadmap framework where you can distill the entire company and your goals and objectives and align the entire company on one page. And yeah, how many episodes are we now? 500 plus or whatever, you know, and we still get people.

Henry Kaestner: The problem is now when people ask it, you know, if it comes from episode six or episode number of 500, actually, I don’t think we have 500 but FDE and FDI combined, right? We probably do. Okay. So now I want to get back to the framework. So we’ve looked a little bit about why framework you went ahead and had this original series. It went well with people in the marketplace and like, let’s work on this and let’s go ahead and put together a book unless you want to make more comments on that, if I missed it, because otherwise, I mean, getting into acronym CARES, I like acronym, I like frameworks. Rusty you use CARES to talk about and define love.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. One of the things you’ll find in the faith code is I love acronyms because I think acronyms we can remember, right? And it’s just a nice way of capsizing thing. And so, you know, we say that love cares. It’s obvious, right? Love cares. But if you take apart the word cares, what we say is it’s C A R E S. But first of all, love is creative. You know, we’re made in the image of God. And you think about, you know, the times when you really are expressing love at the highest level that you can, you know, with somebody else. Many times that involves creativity, right? That we love to be creative in our love. So love is creative. Secondly, we say that love is abundant. That we are to love abundantly. And that the resources of the world are limited. But our power to come up with new ways to be regenerative, if you will, with love, that’s not limited at all. So love, love should be abundant. Thirdly, we take the word R. We say love takes and encourages responsibility. And I think we all know that, you know, the people that love us the most and the people that we love the most, there’s a sense of responsibility that comes with that relationship. And there’s a sense of responsibility that comes with love. And, you know, we were given the ultimate love of God to forgive our sins. And that was a gift. But with a gift, you don’t just take a gift and throw it out. You take the gift and you take a responsibility with that gift. Fourthly, we say that love empowers. You know, love is not top down. You know it’s not. Do what I say. But really, love is bottoms up. So, you know, what do you think? And that people can bring all their gifts to bear. And then lastly, love stewards. You know, I love to acknowledge the fact that everything we have ultimately belongs to God and should be used for his purposes. And when we have many abundances and a lot of something or even a little of something. You can go back to that word responsibly. You know, we are to steward something that we get. So, you know, love is, you know, in this time of, you know, where we use the word generative, you know, all the time with generative AI, it’s regenerative, it’s a win win, and it’s a cycle that we can play over and over with that word cares. And that’s the concept we put out there. And, you know, if we do that, I think, you know, love can be a cycle for us and we can run it over and over and over and over. And it just gets better and better.

Henry Kaestner: So, so much more that we can talk about on this subject and maybe we can have the opportunity to because we’ve talked a bit about the relationship between an entrepreneur and a pastor, and I’m richer for the experience. So much of what we do, by the way, at faith driven entreprenuer for in partnering with the local church is one of the 12 marks and so many of our faith driven entrepreneur groups. In fact, most of them happen at a local church, which connotes some level of partnership with pastoral staff and how important it is that the entrepreneur is brought into the local church. We’ll talk more about that maybe on another podcast. We’ll also have an opportunity, hopefully to talk more about the faith. Go in the meantime, go on buy the book, buy the book, Get a sense for this future proof of concept and so many of you. And again, it’s so much fun. I told this to Rusty. I go to Uganda, I get off the plane, a woman picks me up and she says, I’m just jet lag and feel like I could use some encouragement. She says, I got to tell you, I love the podcast. You want to know who my favorite podcast co-host is? I’m sure she’s going to say it’s me. I’m sure of it. And of course she didn’t. She said, It’s rusty. So if you want to know more about Rusty in the way that he thinks about things, faith code, we’ve got to check it out. So just in a couple of minutes we’ve got left. I do want to finish out, as we do with our podcast, which is what are you hearing from God through his word? Both of you, PT I want you to go first and then Rusty circles out.

Terry Brisbane: Uh, two things. Probably the first one. In times like these Galatians six, you know, let us not be wearing what we are doing for in due time, we shall reap if we faint, not stay with the good thing. Watch your soul guard. Your heart is what I’m hearing. And that really does lead me into my other one, which just from Colossians two six. And now, even as you accepted Jesus as your Lord, here’s the phrase. Continue to follow him. I love that. Continue. you must continue to follow him. And for me, that again, goes back to something I alluded to earlier when we were having our discussion. Watch out for drift. Watch out for drift. A little folding of the hands. Be careful. Just because we know something doesn’t mean we’re going to do it. We need to practice what we want others to follow, and we want to make sure that we are taking seriously my own soul. So when I talk about how the Lord is also speaking to me, I think I’m hearing and I heard the phrase somewhere, but it’s been sitting with me. The goal is progression, not perfection. I want to keep growing. I want to keep that growing. Yet I want to keep pursuing vital optimism. I want to do what the Lord asks me to do. I want to be wearing, well, doing so. That’s what’s on my heart right now. I want to stick with it, run a good race.

Rusty Rueff: It’s awesome for me at Cornerstone in the summer, read a New Testament reading plan that Terry and the team put out and I follow along and I really got stuck in. Paul’s letters to the churches because I think Paul’s just amazing as he carries, you know, one message to another church and another, and he learns along the way and, you know, they just get richer and richer. And in second Corinthians 13 five, a, a verse grabbed me. It just grabbed me. And I haven’t been able to let go of it. And it is examine yourselves to see if your faith is really genuine, right to see if it’s really genuine. Test yourselves. If you cannot tell, the Jesus Christ is among you. It means that you have failed the test. And it just convicted me. And where I am right now is I am examining and I’m testing to make sure that Jesus Christ is among me and among the things that I’m doing. And. If he’s not, there’s no grading on the curve. It says here it’s pass fail. It’s pass fail. And it’s a new standard for me.

Henry Kaestner: There’s two things we got left. Let me suggest that is almost impossible to do that by ourselves. And that, I think is part of the lesson that I’ve seen in the way that you’ve been in relationship with PT with David, so that you can examine each other. It’s hard to do by yourself. I’m grateful for each of you. I’m grateful for Rusty, for our friendship. I’m grateful for the subject matter of the book and help him understand. So why did God give us a […..]? There’s so many different things I picked up from. Until next time, Rusty and I are signing off. God bless you all.

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