Episode 76 - Are Christians Called to Comfort? With Super Bowl Winner and CEO of of Movement Mortgage, Casey Crawford
Entrepreneurs know what it’s like to be uncomfortable. Yet, there’s something in modern/Western Christianity that expects comfort. We often act as though God has called us to a life of comfort and ease, not one of stress and sacrifice. But as Casey Crawford points out, Jesus didn’t exactly live an easy life! And this is just one way he gave us a great perspective alongside a paradigm shift in this podcast episode.
As you’ll hear, Casey came out of the gate firing, and we hope you can keep up with him for the whole episode. He covers stress and Christianity, the role of money in the life of a believer, and what it was like to start a mortgage company amidst the financial crisis of 2008. And every one of these topics was covered with his passion and enthusiasm, which we think makes this episode a great one.
We loved having Casey on the podcast and are so grateful for the way he rejuvenated us just by discussing what he cares about. And as you listen in, we think that the passion with which he shared his story might energize you as well.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Rusty [00:01:23] Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, this is Rusty, we trust you've had a fantastic week. Today, our guest has a special piece of hardware. That's right. He's got an NFL Super Bowl championship ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We're talking about Casey Crawford. Casey is an entrepreneur that when he left the NFL, he started a company called Movement, Mortgage, Move and Mortgage. It's a billion dollar business that Ink magazine and lots of others have recognized. But they're not only known for their business. They're also known for their community impact and creating a company that lots and lots of people want to work for. One of the things we talk about today is their movement mentoring program. It's an optional one year life on life process that exists to love and value people towards maturity and multiplication in Christ. A lot of people on this podcast have shared their entrepreneurial journeys, and many, if not most of them, have pointed to mentor figures in their lives. Well, today, Casey is going to share just how valuable mentorship is to entrepreneurs and also to anyone. Let's dove in.
Casey [00:02:35] Every example we have, we're looking at women. David, you sit in a cage. I mean, Joseph. You know, Jesus or Polly. These guys are getting thrown in prison. God's calling them to this stuff. Like he's all in any medium, even like a moderate amount, like I'm going to lose my life. And I'm actually just following. Jesus has called me to go. And it's it's create stress to the point I'm almost going to physically die because. He's called. So were they not faithful and go in there? Like, I don't let it stress was the indicator of like being out of step with Christ all the time. But it isn't the sense. I mean, you got to be kind of anchoring and joy and peace and things that are going to folks all the time. I think you're addicted to comfort. We're addicted to comfort and meth. You're going to hear your sermon, that's all. But hey, man, Jesus is supposed to make your life super comfortable and happy and peaceful. I don't know.
Henry [00:03:19] Looks like his life chilling out for not checking out. Then that betrays some sort of bad theology that we have about the rifle order of God and how much he loves us. And that can all be all true. We can have our primary identity as beloved children of God and also be out there slaying dragons. And it is crazy stressful to your point. And I think you're really onto something that I don't think we've really unpacked. Well, I think it's really important. And I think that it could be a potential danger of those who've been listening as podcast and don't understand this subtlety. And it's more than a subsidy. It's just in a bigger reality. We can still have as our identity as being a beloved child of God. That gives us a sense of peace and fulfillment and joy in the work that he's doing in the world and still be stressed in this concept that one just talked about. You stress. I've never heard that name before, but now many use it like 10 times tomorrow and a private I can't given credit for it. But, you know, there are times if you talked to David, there's my best friend and business partner at band-width I talk to, you know, how are things going? It's like I'm out there. I'm slaying dragons, Walt. Slaying dragons doesn't connote this sense of peace and just kumbayah. You're out there slaying dragons and you're getting on something there, Casey, about the biblical examples of that.
Casey [00:04:30] Yeah, I mean, it's contrasted, I think, with what I hear a lot. Priester talked about a different example where an adjacent one I have a really good friend who's losing a father right now. He's going to pass away from cancer next couple days. And she was so quick. She's on park. Tell me. He's like, but, you know, I have joy, I have peace.
[00:04:46] I have all this stuff in this, you know, but it's okay if you're hurt, like it's OK if you're experiencing is really raw emotions of pain and weeping and sorrow. Blake and Christine, we always want to get you joyful. You piece pieces. My hopes are shaken in Christ. I'm going through this really hard time losing my father, my love. I think in the same sense, you know, if I look back through scripturally with Moses and you said, hey, man, you'll go back and sit your people free. You got to know he was terrified to go do that. And he was getting and stepping into a calling that got a place for his life that was taking men with his really stressful, terrifying on accomplishable task apart from Christ. And so much, I think a you know, folks, I talked to Chris Shays. I came here to feel stressful. It feels like it's taking me out of a place of comfort if I'm worried, if I'm losing sleep at night. It's indicative of either guys calling you there because you wouldn't call me. It's something that's hard or something's going to make me fearful or there's something wrong with me spiritually. I'm just an anger enough in my faith. You're looking like, well, I don't know, man. Like Jesus. I guess it was pretty anchored. And you know who he was and who he wasn't going crazy. He seems to spend the whole night before the most arduous task anyone was ever called to, atoning for all the sins of mankind on the cross. He's ventilate and weeping, doesn't sleep, sweats, blood the night before. I just think the men got oftentimes calls us into these places that are really hard and scary. And then he meets us there. And that's the miracle man. Raise the needs us there. And that even in these incredibly difficult circumstances that he's called us to man, we can experience his joy and his peace somehow, supernaturally even in that man.
[00:06:15] But it's oftentimes left out. He's called me into really difficult positions. That's what he's told me to walk into. Not away from.
Henry [00:06:23] Yep, absolutely. I'm really glad you brought that up. We're going to tell you about mentorship. We can talk about your story and to talk about a thousand different things. We had thought that we'd go there. And I'm really glad that we did, because it may be the most important thing that we talk about.
William [00:06:37] You've put us in a mildly stressful situation here. Casey, you know, we had planned and planned shake it now.
Casey [00:06:45] I mean, I was like, want to talk to Henry about this. Me reading this. Hey, this is the most backward piece when I listened to it. And like half that I loved and half of it, I was like, really wrestling with it. I've talked to so many kids and it was sort of the 24 year old kid the other day that was taking over a huge family business. Huge. And he was scared about it. And he felt like God clearly called me to go do this. But I'm terrified, mad. And it was almost a sense of like, is that right? Like, I have like all the stress in my life. Yeah, man, you're probably just for God's called you to be. You have to start relying on him like you never have before. And like everything in your flesh, he's gonna be screaming at you that you can't do this and it's going to have to press you into your spirit to go. I can't. But he can.
[00:07:21] You know I can't. But I know the one who can't. And so much, I think Western Christianity, we shrink and run away from anything that's gonna cause us a lot of stress, too much giving to be a commandment.
[00:07:34] You know? Oh, Lord, please come and go be an overseas missionary. I mean, anything but that. That's my prayer. Like I I was calling to start this business. I didn't like the calling at all. Like I didn't like it at all. Go to a bank that's gonna, you know, grow the kingdom, not your kingdom, God's kingdom, not yours. And I wasn't excited about that at all. It horrified me, terrified me. I didn't know what it means to know how to do it.
[00:07:56] You know, I think if I had my anchor and guide of like, hey, as long as I'm in my comfortable place on this, I have peace, good with God. I never would've stepped into this because it was nothing peaceful about the decision to go step in and create something that hadn't previously.
Rusty [00:08:07] I'm curious, Casey, how did that call come to you?
Casey [00:08:12] So I don't hear from got a whole lot of it. This is one of very few cases in my life where I really felt like God spoke to me and I was direct, directed kind of explicitly. I'd been on a church elder board me, went through a really, really tough time. We're in the middle of a financial crisis 07 and we're running out of money. And we had a really rough elder meeting the night before or we're looking at the budget.
[00:08:32] And man, it just gets tough when you're talking about money and you're talking about people's salaries. And we talked about how we had to cut salaries to be able sustain. It was tough. And I was really young and I didn't handle the conversation extremely well. I was coming with only business guys in the meeting. I'm looking like, hey, there's so much cash we had. If we don't start cutting salaries, man, we're gonna be out by this day. And the folks that were involved, you'll make cutting their salary.
[00:08:54] And, you know, it just was a really difficult, emotionally charged conversation that I didn't appreciate. As a young man without children of college age and that kind of thing. And so the next day, ironically, I had done the good Christian thing. And Mike asked all my friends to pray and fast for me as I decided on whether I was going to start a mortgage company in the middle of the financial crisis. Right. Somehow this seemed like a good idea to me. And I'm like, hey, and, you know, I kind of grown up in the church. I knew that's what you're supposed to do. If you're Christians like you don't make a decision without, you know, I won't be able tell someone a year later. I fasted and prayed and all my buddies did. And, you know, you got that kind of seal of a process approval. So I'm doing that. I'm on the way out to have my day of prayer. And I'm just meditating on the night before. And I'm just thinking about, goodness gracious, man, you know this. I can't believe that these pastors are so tied up in money. I mean, they're so caught up in money. And oh, my gosh, aren't these guys just so sinful? Because, you know, this conversation is all about money and not really about seeing the kingdom expand and whatnot.
[00:09:50] And man, in that moment, God just hit me with a right hook. And so, I mean, you think you're so different. You think you're any different. And I just kind of stopped. You know? What do you mean, Lord, since you are so wrapped up in money, you came to see it. And I saw I do like a really smart thing when God speaks to you. It's hard to argue right now that.
[00:10:12] I'm an entrepreneur like I'm an entrepreneur. Those guys are called in the ministry. I'm honored to pronounce those B about making money.
[00:10:17] I'm by the way, God. I'm always tired. And then some I've done this and I just felt God said, man, you can give me a tip. You can give me the remainder. Really, what you've been praying about, what you've been talking about, your heart is about you and your kingdom.
[00:10:31] And you just kind of done the thing that you was with cultural. Honestly, for me, growing up in the church, was you tired and did that stuff. It was just kind of. You're a good Christian. That's what you do, man. Your hearts around money in your kingdom, not mine. I mean, I just it crushed me. It really crushed me. And I just was just shaking kind of my core to start to realize this man, this love of money that was so intertwined with who I was, this level of power and success and all these things. And I felt I gotta say, I mean that why I want you to actually do this company. But you're having all your friends pray about it. It's not really about growing my kingdom. This is about growing yours. And you need to flip that this business, you need to hold yourself to the same standards you're asking these pastors to hold themselves to, which is, man. How much do you really need to take care of you and your family and let the rest of it be for me and my kingdom?
[00:11:19] And I said, well, that's the stunning thing to me at all. Like that is that isn't me at all. That like a lot is that like these guys?
[00:11:26] But the sign my old networth on personal guarantees and all this of stuff and I'm not here in the marketplace taking risk and I want to see a return.
[00:11:35] And you know, they guy character with a you're going to see a return. You're going to see a return. It's just gonna be a turnover turn. Right. It's can be far more valuable than some kind of financial return that you're thinking about. Me return that I'm thinking about. I've seen people impacted for generations.
[00:11:49] And that's why I'm getting more enthusiastic about the. But then as I think about it again, I get mad all over again. I know this is hard. I don't like this at all. I'm gonna go make money. And so I flipped the radio on to drown out God's voice guy energy all. You could do that if you turn the radio louder. So I did that. I flipped on NPR. I was in pain. Yea ya, I know of all things. Oh my goodness. Hallock on there. I could like guns and roses. Really like rock out gone. No, it's NPR. My turn to soar. And doing a Wells Fargo earning report, I think.
[00:12:22] And like so they come out. Hey, Wells Fargo last quarter made four billion dollars. Wow, man, that's fun. Lord haymaking, as you know. What is that? $4 billion? Instead of going to pay dividends to shareholders on Wall Street? You know, was dividend it out investing to love marginalized people and see my kingdom grow. And it was little like I was getting defeated by this argument. I was losing enthusiasm for my own position. But I really wasn't in God's can't be either of what he was calling me to do. Wow. That would be pretty neat.
[00:12:50] It'd be pretty neat, but I'm still not really in for this. And so really over that whole day, the whole experience. Me like crazy, really mostly of my own sinfulness and my degree to which I was really just wrapped up in power and money. How much heat and warns us about that in scripture and tell this man that this is the number one thing that's going to compete for a heart.
[00:13:08] I've been lost small groups of men's groups and they always to talk to you about making a covenant with your eyes and all these different things you did ask question do you tired or something? Right. Would I'll go? Yeah, sure. We'd have been known as an estimate. How much you make. How much to you give. What's that look like? I mean, I've had guys on Paxman credibly personal details on every element of their life other than their relationship with money.
[00:13:31] And I just start to realize what a stronghold that was in my own life and start get excited about this vision God given me for. Hey, you can step into banking and create a redemptive story here of what it looks like to really be the antithesis of what everyone thinks about right now with financial services in the US. And again, remember, this is 07/08 in the midst of the Great Recession, the financial crisis and five of the seven most hated brands, the world where Wall Street banks. I just felt like I was saying, hey, we're a tell a new story here, a redeeming story of what financial services can look like when they're operating in redemptive way in the middle of communities where we're loving our customers, loving our teammates and loving the marginalized in the community that we're a part of.
[00:14:07] And that was about it. Then all I got. Go to the land. I'm going to show you. So we started walking out on faith. So does a blown out longer version of the story.
Rusty [00:14:16] That's awesome. That's awesome. I think that if any of our listeners and us included Twitter here with you today on the podcast, you go through these moments where you wrestle with God. Right. He's trying to tell us something. And we're like, no, I don't want to hear it. So that's re-affirming. I think all of us to hear that you not only wrestle, but you came through on the other side with what God told you. So being obedient.
Casey [00:14:40] Well, yeah. I mean, I think a huge revelation for me over the last decade is that I heard some of your other guests, as I listen them say this and it just resonates so much to me at that point, I would have still articulate and said that I think God wants something from me. Like I think he wants something from me as I go home and he's calling me to this. He wants something from me. And what I've just come to realize her last decade is that man. While he may have wanted obedience from me, it was because he wanted so much more for me, you know? He knew the stronghold that some of these different things were in my life. And man, he had such a richer, deeper walk with him in store as he yielded from some of that stuff imperfectly. But yeah, whether he was called me into.
Henry [00:15:21] Tell us more when we put this together on that chalkboard, so to speak, we wanted to really get into mentoring and the mentoring program. You have a very, very unique and we're going to spend some time talking about that at the end.
Casey [00:15:32] But also birthmom, a huge place, a cinema in life. Yeah. Thank you.
Henry [00:15:35] Yeah. So we want you to be as volatile and transparent as possible. And we may or may not ever mentioned on this podcast that you're also Super Bowl champion. I'm presuming a lot of people talk to you about your football past and we may or may not get there. But I do want to get absolutely to how this is rolled out as you have this dream and this vision of redeem the financial services industry during a time of just craziness. And five out of seven are the most hated companies in America. How does it play out? Was it actually mean for what you do it movement?
Casey [00:16:04] Yeah, that's a great question. That's when I ask God a lot. What do you mean by this? And I think what started me for them is got kind of point. You guys think about everything you do and make it about my kingdom, not yours, and try to glorify me in all of it. And there is no bifurcation of the secular and the sacred right. I mean, this has become a more popular theme, I think, in Christendom of the last decade where hate for an hour or two on Sunday. But how's that impacting your form the rest of your life? And so really just started to kind of think about, OK, well, if we're going to do a company, man, how do we really love God and love people of Jesus as Hades?
[00:16:36] The two most important commandments love, glory go though. Our hearts and minds strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do these two things do well? How do we try to live that out in every element of the workplace? And that's a super broad, difficult calling and one that we're not even beginning to live into. But it began to inform just little decisions that we make. And so we start to look at things that like churches typically have. Right. Like we also hey, we were part of a church and part of a community.
[00:16:57] Yalom Church have recognized needs for like benevolence. Phonce, like people in this community mean they're gonna fall on hard times. And when they do, we want to love one another really well and come alongside each other and help each other out of the ditch when we fall in those hard times. And so another great brother, Christ, Joel Manby, wrote a book called Love Works. And I grabbed Jiles book. My partner actually read it in an airport. He me and this is what we're doing. This is what you want to expand. And it was really how his company had architected a benevolence fund is what we call it, you know, in the church. But it was just a fund that was funded by employees, matched by the ownership. To say any team member in a time of financial crisis has access to a fund into a care team, is going to love and is going to pray form. It's gonna help them financially get out of a ditch. And so we created it. We thought it was biblical. We thought it was God honoring and had nothing to do with where anyone was. And their faith was just coming alongside of loving them when they're in a tough place. And then we thought, but hey, man, you know, I want to come home as a better father, a better husband, a better friend, you know, and we want our workplaces, the workplace, the number one call it to bullying was parental job Sastre. Actually, my study to look at kids, number one, correlate where their kid was going to be a bully was their parent's job satisfaction. So, man, we got to make the work environment one that actually sends home healthier parents. So they're really equipped to love their kids well. So we've done, you know, love languages and communication skills and leadership and empathy and taught all these social skills inside the company. So I think about how to develop better, healthier human beings. So that's how we think about how loving our teammates and we want our financial success to show we've done, you know. Matt, Dave Ramsey's financial principles and financial wellness and kick it off with big challenges. Shown to reduce consumer debt. All these things that weigh on us. And so I think what we should do is live out in the workplace where we see a lot of churches try to do for an hour or two during the week.
[00:18:38] And I still love pastors that jokes. Mean, you guys get it backwards. Right. You're trying to exert influence over a group of people that you have for one hour a week and you ask them to write you a check at the end of that hour. I get them for 40 and I pay them.
[00:18:51] Who do you think has more influence? Right. So we just think we have this incredible opportunity to so into people's lives and create this Richard BioBricks me that I think the institutional say of the church is really struggling with it holistically impacting people. We do mission trips and vision trips. We just had a vision trip down to Guatemala. Fifty people went together in a couple trips a month.
[00:19:10] Now out of the company in place in the U.S., had a guy from the northeast is gonna do a big thing on social next week about this. Who is he? Would describe themselves pretty far from God. Hadn't been in church really much of his life. But about four years ago, I went down to Guatemala on a vision trip and just saw the need of children and said, you know, I don't know about Jesus all about where I'm in my faith, but I know that, man, these kids need to be loved. And I have some resources that I can do that. So he can wish for other guys emotionally, all of whom were Christians to the Hope Center in these communities that night. For guys through their credit cards down committ ability for Hope says about fifteen thousand bucks a piece. The goal was to put these on our Amex card. Right. He does that. And, you know, now, four years later, over 200 hopes has been built around Guatemala. Six months ago, Mike called me in tears. He goes, man, I finally get it. I finally get it. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus loving these people. And, man, I want to see the entire nation of Guatemala have hopes within 10 kilometers of every person in the nation. And that's going to happen about six months. Yes. And I want to be baptized by the pastor who built the first hope so that I was a part of. And I want to bring the whole company. We'd like four thousand employees.
[00:20:17] I told my they to get the whole company down there. But he did bring 50 of his closest friends inside the company down there to watch him get bad guys in the river behind the first church he ever built before he ever knew Jesus was. And about 10 other people decide to make the greatest, doesn't get baptized with him, one of whom was his wife with kids of other team members.
[00:20:36] And Manders became this cascading vision of what they could do collectively to love marginalized people in other nations. And so I think those are just two little pictures of how we're trying to live out again. I think historically a lot of churches have done this kind of stuff and we shall live it out in the workplace. Man, how do you really love people? Love these communes were a part of glorifying Christ and having people get to know him. In the piece we have left out, which you mentioned, was mentorship and discipleship until about a year ago. And we finally corrected that about a year ago.
Henry [00:21:06] I want to get into it. But before I get to that. Tell us about how you look. So 4000 employees and leading and loving and serving them through soft skills and a fascinating correlation with the whole boiling thing. By the way, I've never thought of that before. Tell us about what it looks like to love your customer.
Casey [00:21:23] So we start with a really wide funnel. We just want people to experience a common grace. Right. We're I think, so much the narrative 07/08 was there were these financial services companies and what they thought about was how they could take advantage of folks. And I had a guy described to me this way, said he knew lot of the CEOs things. A lot of companies. He was like, look what I've seen a lot of them as they look at the United States and our laws as a big chessboard. And they all know the rules of chess and they think about their job as seeing how much of the resources of the United States and the citizens they can call to their side of the table without breaking the law or being locked up.
[00:21:57] And this was a military leader. And he said, conversely, I have invested my entire professional career leading 2 million men and women who, when they signed up for the job, signed their name to lay their life down for that same citizenry. And now I do business with one guy. I advised these guys to find out how much they can take from that citizenry when the rest of my career had been leading men and women who thought about how could they make the ultimate sacrifice for that citizen. And, you know, I think that's a lot of where financial services was and maybe continues to be a little bit. From 0 7 0 8. Well, we want to do is start telling new story to go, hey, we don't want to be about what we can take from systems our customers.
[00:22:34] We want to be helping people realize the dream of homeownership with loans they can afford. And we want to, you know, stretch and try to make that a reality for them. We're a home because we know statistically how good homes are for families. You know, families that own their own home have lower rates of divorce. They have way higher rates of financial success. Right now, the largest various United States claim black and white wealth is in Boston. The average wealth of a Africa-American in Boston is about eight dollars and a white family is over 2000 and is actually statistically drawn right along. Homeownership plots and they've been so many problems and so much racism and violence perpetrated class warfare through homeownership and how that's been distributed throughout the United States. And so we want to really start telling the story of going home. And we will love our customers and we'd find love like this to act in the long term. Best interest of another lot of ways. Think about love. Our operating definition is to act in the long term best interests of another. So we tell people, bring and join our company. You're going to serve our customers and always act in their long term best interests. But if you can't sign up for that, please don't join us. You don't have to be about going to a vision church or anything else, but you have to be about act in the long term best interest of our customers, your teammates and the committee's report. And so we talk about excellence a whole lot, you know, as a habit. We're going to act in the long term best interest of our customers and treat them the way we won't be treated. We're going treat them like family. And when my little sister went to go buy a house, the first thing I did was have a credit decision maker. Look at her whole financial picture and tell her how much she could shop for before she ever started the home shopping process and said, hey, I'm gonna do that for my little sister. For years, Henry referred me a family member. I mean, how about one of our credit system makers? Give them a full view of their financial picture and tell them how much we think they can afford before they ever start shopping. And we made that termination. Two thousand eight.
[00:24:17] Four years later, the CFO would be the regulator that was created to kind of monitor financial services, came out and said, you know, we really think people need to know how much they can afford before they owe. So they came up with this. No. Before, you know, slogan and to begin to mandate that you underwrite folks up front. We were doing it for years earlier just because we thought that was the right thing to do in the right way to treat people at the time. We'll ourselves inefficient. You can't operate that way. You can't do it at scale. And we said you no, we're going to do it because the right thing. And now it's kind of become the industry standard. And then all of our competitors now advertise, hey, we'll give you a full credit decision upfront before you ever start shopping for a house so you have confidence and knowing how much you can afford.
[00:24:52] And I just think, you know, doing well by people, treating them with love, with dignity, and the way you would want be treat is good business and leads to really good business practices that aren't always adopted because efficiency seems to be tilting the lean of a lot of the largest institutions, not excellence. I mean, I think that creates opportunity for us.
William [00:25:10] Yeah, for sure. Thanks for that. Casey William here. I appreciate the long term vision. I think it's the only way it can work. My question is, have you built the company with incentives? Have you built who gets promoted? How do you build that around a long term future when you know most people aren't getting paid on annual bonuses and they have quarterly reviews and things like that? How do you instill that into a culture and actually do it in a practical way as well?
Casey [00:25:38] So you're saying how did people get rewarded? How to get bonus? You know.
William [00:25:41] I can see a potential employees saying some version of, you know, what I get and I in the long term best interest of my customer. But, you know, I'm paid on how many more issues I get out this year. Is that through there? Is it not true or is it paid out good mortgages or how does that work out?
Casey [00:25:58] That's right. So we buy for, Kate, the credit underwriting decision from the sales folks. Right. Which most folks do. I mean, this is so it's good mortgages, rights only mortgages that we deem poor really are in the best long term interest to the customer. And so there's a check and balance there where, hey, just because you think it's a good guy, you're the sales guy. Well, we had that somebody actually reviewed the credit of that individual on kind of cosines that says, yes, we also agree that this is a loan, that it will be accretive to this family's long term best interest. And that's not dissimilar, frankly, from a lot of other folks out there as they think about that. And, you know, we operate in many ways, as many other organizations do, relative to, you know, compensation structure and promotions and who gets what. I mean, if you're leading really well inside of our vision of loving our neighbor as ourself back in the long term, best interest mean, and you're really effective at the work that you're doing, you're going to get promotion. And, you know, I think I love the free market system in that way. If you're bringing value to your customers, your teammates mean that you're going to be rewarded and you're going to disproportionate resources kind of directed to you. So this is not a kind of a Koum by game. And everyone gets along, everyone's, you know, equal across 4000 employees. There are different folks with different levels of priority and institutional focus put on them. And man, the sky's the limit for them, too. I mean, they can kind of create as large a business inside of our business as they're able to based on their calling, their passion and their God given talents.
William [00:27:13] Yeah, that's all that's going to hear. It does it does make sense. And I want to turn to one thing to even build a business for 10, 12 years. Right. And ups, downs less than rights, I would imagine, if we were talking about stress earlier. You know, as you've tried to build this unique culture, which I feel like, you know, everything I've ever read or hear you talk about is clearly there. And that's why people work there. What have been some of the struggles to putting that together and putting this Christ honoring culture together? What have been some of the roadblocks? And then you walk us through I guess other listeners are sitting there going, oh, that sounds great, but I can't get past this or I've got this here or whatever.
Casey [00:27:47] Yeah, it's a little like, look. That sounds great. And this division, I tell myself and my staff I might need this. We remind ourselves this all day. Right? What we're called to what we're looking to live into. It's still out of reach. We haven't gotten there. And there are plenty of things in our day to day that looks the right and left that are pretty mundane that we still see being in need of redemption, that aren't perfect, that we haven't figured out. But while we are committed to is continuing to evolve, we continue to challenge every element of what we do to go, hey, is this really loving our neighbor as ourself? Is this really act in the best interest of another and man that transforms things all around us all the time and leads to really robust conversations to like what does it mean to love? Folks need to let me. Everybody gets free meals, you know, four days a week. There are different things to get a product in that day. I mean, and I think it's different for different organizations, too. You know who you are, how you organize, what all that looks like. But I think the biggest challenge is in getting people from outside their walls to promote from within doing those kinds of things. We started the campaign 10 years ago in golf for employees, about 4000. When you do that, it necessitates that you bring a lot of folks from outside your culture in.
[00:28:52] And at times then we definitely have done that too quickly and done it without a mandate that people be brought into this acting in the long term best interest of another. And the cool thing, though, is, man, when you have a pretty strong culture and you've been clear about who you are, people let you know fast, right? They let you know fast. And call my man Henry Gowen now. I'll know the Santore guy. He didn't. He's not in culture.
[00:29:14] I mean, that gets weaponised like crazy, too. But I think people do recognize who we're trying to be in there quick to call out behavior that they see that's not aligned with who we say we want to be. And that can be a lot to live up to sometimes, too. Right. I mean, guess they'll call me out really quickly on different things that, hey, is that really who we are and who we're trying to be, at least? I think some really healthy tensions that I hope are making us all better in the process.
Rusty [00:29:36] Hey, Casey, you're probably one of the best guests we've had to differentiate the difference between coaching and mentoring. And why did you choose mentoring over coaching? Because you're a professional athlete and you've had all these coaches, but you chose that word and that to be your focus.
Casey [00:29:57] Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly, I was actually choosing between the word that I was going away from was the cycling to mentoring, not choosing really between coaching a mentor. We're actually a pretty big coaching company. Also, a coaching relationship is a pretty different one though. Just one more. When you are any, you are submitting yourself to the authority of the coach. There is no back and forth in a coaching player relationship in the NFL. I don't let you watch hard knocks. You see Gruden something. There's not a lot of discussion about how you're going to run the route. Run ten yards. We left with the Make it right, OK. It's not the kind of. Let me. Why should I do that? Coach is not this kind of give and take. So for us, you know, very regularly, culture's important language is important. And right now, the young culture that we really are passionate about, engaging and influencing has a huge value in mentorship. I get an e-mail once a day from Tim. I hate which you mentor me. Would you mentor me? Which you mentor me? I'm sure you guys see it in your life. To me, it's a wonderful gift. I think it's very wise of that generation to reach out, look for mentors. I've never had someone reach out and say, Hey, would you disciple me? Never. Never. Forty two years now.
[00:30:58] And so we started, Russ.. Hey, what do you mean by mentorship? Mike? Well, I shawn's direction in life. I want to hear about, like, how you've made decisions. Now you're thinking about things that the Israelis are looking at, like what Jesus talked about with the cycling man. There's this incredible opportunity we have here to systematically pour into people that are really hungry, like really, really hungry to learn. And if they want to know from me how I thought about my life and how I've made decisions and how I've grown the mistakes I've made. It's going to look like my faith journey, my relationship with God and that ongoing process. As I said, let's create systemic mentorship program with defined curriculum that we're still working out. We got 40 weeks of it.
[00:31:34] And, you know, we're going back through all the right now and editing it, figuring out, you know, what went well, what didn't change and swap out. But we want to create content that we believe is going to help somebody in their hope and faith in God, their world view, their perspective, how precious they are in God's sight. And you know what it looks like to evolve their faith in him and their trust in Christ. And, man, that's been that's been incredible. We start off a friend of mine does it in his organization.
[00:31:59] And it was Coco modeling actually on it. You've had Frank Harrison on. He's an amazing guy. Runs Coco bottling big. Not yet, but we're do Franks awesome. And he's a friend with Bible for years. And he was gracious to kind of show us their programs. So we kind of took it and mouthed it ourself and we rolled out I think we had three hundred people that participated in the first year, which kind of blew us away. We're thinking about a pilot of like 30 to 50 people got mad when they found that they weren't into it, Wolf. There's mentoring in our company. I would be a part of it. OK. Well, if you're gonna leave, it gets kind of go through this pretty intense. I think it's too intense, actually. I think we like trying to create a Navy SEAL of mentoring programs. It's like, you know, they get through. We're going to be amazing warriors, belike. Oh, my gosh, it's a lot cleaner.
Henry [00:32:39] When I'm open, I'm up on the site to check this out. And I want to invite our listening audience to do the same movement framed that life. You've got a Web site up there for a company in Charlotte, North Carolina, with 4000 employees. And the headline is this Maturing and multiplying in Christ, unapologetic. And it then goes on to talk about Christ than Jesus. Thank God in Christ through Christ. And you're upfront about it. A good number of people think, gosh, if I'm earning and companies got 14 or 50 employees, I can talk about my faith. I you mentioned Jesus. But then, you know, as we grow, we've got to be sensitive to people from other religions that other things like that. This is right there. I mean, it's. How's it work?
Casey [00:33:21] Yes. So there's no compulsion whatsoever to be a part of movement. It is completely voluntary. It's done on your personal time. You know, lunch hours before after work. That can be done offsite, whatever. And so it is really just a forget the resource. And yet we have people from all walks of life as a part of our company. And we love that. We always want to have that and we want to have on ramps for people who are going then.
[00:33:43] I've seen what the company does. I hear you or I hear is that word got out. What does that really mean? I'm really curious to explore who this God is and how he loves us, interacts with us. And for those that are really curious to explore and I want to give him a resource and give him my best understanding of what that is and what that looks like. And that's what this site is man talking about, introducing people to Jesus and then maturing them in their walk with Jesus and then equipping them to do the same. You know, go and do likewise right at the end of this. We have our first group of folks who have walked through this process who are now becoming mentors themselves. And I'm leading a new group. I was just inter-group. I was a mentee. And now I'm leading the group. And your whole team is when I'm leading a group. We're kind of multiplying it. And yeah, I mean, I think it's a huge thing for us. I mean, we don't again, like I said before, just as I think God doesn't ask a lot. You know, he won a lot from us needing from us. But he asks a lot for us. We're kind of same way, man. We don't demand or insist that anybody do mentoring or, you know, really process their faith or challenged with Jesus. But, man, if they want to know if, like Mike Brennan, who is a guy to clean all the churches in Guatemala, when he came back to me one time, he goes. You know, I've been here for a half years and I've always wondered how come you've never really talked more about your faith. Oh, you sound like me. I tried. I don't like I could please myself. I think I never gonna make that mistake again. Riffauta like, man, I really like to know and understand more. I want to give them a resource to be able to do that.
Henry [00:35:07] Has anybody come up to you and said gushing out, Casey, I know that you're Christian. I know that that part of your story. But dude, this is just too much in your face. I'm just I'm uncomfortable.
Casey [00:35:16] So what's really cool is that I've had conversations with folks that said, hey, man, before I knew you when I read the stuff in the company online or something, I was maybe uncomfortable. I don't know if this is gonna be for me. This maybe this is too much in your face can be too much. But Jesus focus or something. And that's not where I am, a Muslim. I'm Jewish. I'm agnostic, whatever. And we have a Christmas party every year and we've kind of shared the gospel. Those parties. And we really invite everybody angel and in out of we. Year after year, we have a lot of folks who come up and say, you know, I don't know where I am and all my theology of Jesus, but this just feels really good. Man, I hear you say that God loves me. He asked me to turn to him and he sent this person Jesus to die and atone for my sins. That man offers that are free gift to us. He just wants us to receive that love, be filled with it and pour back out to others. And they hear that and they like it's at least not like offensive to a man. I think they know or appreciate. We want to love them like share from where ever they are. And they like, I think, the common grace of what we're about. They see us love marginalized kids all over the world. They go, you know, I don't where I'm with Jesus, but I think that's good. This kid didn't have shoes and his starving the. We're investing our profits to go love that kid. I think that's good. And that's where I think you get Mike on. You really should sometime. It's an amazing story. Michael, can I say, man, I just thought that what we did to love marginalized kids was really good. And I didn't know where I was with this whole Jesus thing. But in the process of loving, marginalized kids, I started to understand theology, man, that I was one of those marginalized kids, that I had him, this kid that God love, sent his son to die for. And, you know, I got to receive that free gift of Christ. And so we don't forcing my into a band, but we kind of invite him to be a part of something. And I think a lot of folks are really looking for purpose, looking to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And I guess we're kind of inviting him in to. So no. Ossana, answer your question. I do think you'll like us also. Like we certainly probably have some folks who just choose not to join. Your organization is like, that's not for me, but for those that join the kind of who we are, what we're about. And then I hope they generally experience a loving culture.
Henry [00:37:10] Well said. Well answered.
William [00:37:11] Let me let me ask you one more question. So we always close. We're just kind of where it has got to have you in his word right now. You know, you might just like it could be this morning. It could be the season, a life of maybe something that he's pointing you towards and just let our listeners in your life a little bit.
Casey [00:37:26] Yeah, man, absolutely. So he's kind of kizon nice maybe in the beginning thing of like, I think, man, so much of the last decade when you're growing a business and you know, I came out of sports my whole life that was defined by sports, which is one hundred percent performance based. You're and your value on the team, you're on your plans on your and your tocci, all that kind, I think.
[00:37:43] And my whole life being a follower of Jesus. But so much in my life, I think has been oriented to God as father, like God, his father, guy's father, and so much in my walk with him, it's been like, okay, daddy, you know, are you happy with me? Is it good enough that I do OK, Daddy? Is that what you're looking for?
[00:37:59] And seeing that Heavenly Father approval and man, this last year, a new friend is very low for an awesome book, Sacred Place. I'll let you guys have it. But he started great company Taxon in Houston. And one line he writes in their majors is really deeply impacting me about a year ago from processing and all years. I mean, you have a best friend. His name is Jesus. And that concept man is Jesus as friend is man walking with me daily that are never leave me, that will never forsake me. Yeah, he might lead me through a valley man, but he's going to be there with me and loves me. Man unconditionally has been something that's really the thing that God's been showing me and revealing to me this year, a year. And I'm your heavenly father. And there's a lot of richness to that relationship. Man, also, you have a friend in Jesus. He's a best friend. He's never gonna leave you. Just really rejoicing in that and resting in that and finding peace and hope and comfort in that has been a revelation for me this year.
Henry [00:38:52] It's a great revelation. There's none better, more. Thank you, Casey. Awesome being with you. Always is. I'm really grateful for your time. Grateful for your leadership. Looking forward to doing this more. Thank you, brother.