Episode 73 - Image Management: Growing Through Failure with Nathan Sheets of Nature Nate’s

We’ve got a good one for you today. Nathan Sheets is CEO of Nature Nate’s Honey, and he was also involved with I Am Second, and E3, and you’ll hear a bit of all of those stories. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When we sat down to talk to Nathan, we had no idea how deep he was going to take us. Right away, he opened up about the ups and downs he has gone through with a level of candor that we couldn’t even believe. If you’re looking for what life as an entrepreneur looks like—and we mean, really looks like—Nathan Sheets has a no holds barred take on the entrepreneurial journey.

Image management is a struggle that everyone faces, but it’s one that we rarely address. And for entrepreneurs, this issue is especially acute. Because as an entrepreneur, you have to look like you have it all together, right? You’ve got employees and shareholders relying on you—the leader. That type of pressure creates a situation where it’s all too easy to want to hide behind a manufactured version of ourselves.

And Nathan Sheets told us exactly what that pressure looks like and exactly where it can take you. We’re so grateful that he was willing to open up and be completely honest with us, and we hope his story about the pitfalls of struggling alone—and the need for real, true community—will serve as both a warning sign and an encouragement to you on your journey.

As always, thanks for listening.

Useful Links:

How to Turn Honey into Liquid Gold

Sweet Second Chances - Bonton Honey

Nathan Sheets: Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Award Finalist

Turning a Honey Hobby into a Business

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.

Henry [00:02:24] So it's a really cool and special treat for us to have Nathan Sheets on the program today. And he's got a really cool story in Nathan. You've got a great entrepreneurial story and you've had some success along the way. I think, though, the way that you have processed what God has done in your life is really powerful. And I've heard your story a couple of different times, and it's unique. And surely there's some success along the way. But you're super real. And all of our guests, I suppose, are real. And they've all got some amount of vulnerability and transparency to their story. At least we hope they do. And yet yours is a story that's always just been really an inspiration to me and I think one that all our entrepreneurs you can really identify with. So we've been looking forward this time together, and we're grateful for you being with us. Thank you.

Nathan [00:03:11] Well, I'm excited to be here with guys. So, Hindery Rest, thank you for allowing me to be here with you guys on the show today.

Rusty [00:03:19] Hey, Nathan, you're unique to our show in the sense that the business that you're in and what you've been doing with nature needs really depends upon the ability for our ecosystem to thrive. And we've all read about the danger of the extinction of certain types of bees. How do you think about the responsibility of us as believers and our sort of responsibility to attend for the earth that we've been given?

Nathan [00:03:44] I think my answer is you have environmentalists, which to me is a political movement, but you have conservationists, which I believe that the Lord entrusted to us, as he said in Genesis, that we're stewards over nature and creation. And so, unfortunately, I feel like we have given it up in we should be the ones who have the greatest responsibility to try to steward the resources that the Lord's entrusted to us. And that's our environment and nature and things like that. So I'm one that I am a proponent and advocate of doing everything we can to really help steward well, this great resource that the Lord's entrusted to us.

Rusty [00:04:22] So you've got to take us to the origin story. I mean, give us the life from the beginning and how you ended up where you are today.

Nathan [00:04:28] Yeah, absolutely. So it's really been kind of an odd journey for me over these really the past kind of 20 years. So kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. And even coming out of college, my brother and have started the pen and pencil company. I took a hiatus from school and we developed a suit and the moon pencils. We actually get it with the guy, Fred Davis, who had been intermediaries, who said we want these pens and pencils that we sold at Wal-Mart and Discovery Store in Nature Channel and things like that. And so I went back to college and finish and then moved back up to Dallas, where I got involved in the advertising industry is hard working for another company pretty quickly went off and kind of started my own deal. And so as any advertising agency business, I had to join a church up here in Dallas and gotten in discipleship group of some guys and really started having some guys put their lives in the ME and also about that time. I wanted that meeting my now lovely wife, Patty Sheets and we met at church. And so we wound up getting married. And right after we got married, Patty said that we need a hobby together. And so I was watching TV one night and I think she's thinking partying or antiques. But if 80 Internet commercial came on, that's mid 90s. I was promoting what the Internet was actually for. And they had this lady in ABC and it said, you can buy any. Anything on the Internet?

[00:05:44] So always one tiny one going over and put in beekeeping, Dallas in our computer, Nortel's honey cupcake, Corbat. And so I call this Dillman one buying a beehive farm in to my backyard. So I went to bat. Is that I Garani beekeeping yet put a decent on to this day, but I just absolutely fell in love with it, just the whole process of beekeeping.

[00:06:09] But the guy that I had bought the beehive from started this little honey company, 1972. And so he was at about 20 local grocery stores. He had about 100 beehives, 50 of which were just under open where Patty Lay lives. So start going over and help the kind of workers bees on the weekend. He was about 75 years old, had cancer, and he was having a hard time getting around.

[00:06:27] So get up at 4:00 in the morning, go put the honey on the shelf, warm flags on the office and Patino. So going down at night. Oh, and the honey in his garage for about a year.

[00:06:37] And I remember when we were buying the honey and Patti said, what do we do? I don't know which is helping this guy.

[00:06:44] And so we wound up buying honey company for $10000 on terms that didn't have any money.

[00:06:51] September 11th of 1997, an easy day to remember now, obviously, but also that same year is kind of interesting because in the earlier part of that same year, I wound up going on a mission trip down to Venezuela with ambition, a second for a mission fellowship time. And it just completely changed my life in terms of seeing the world or they need to see people come to faith in Christ in several doing impactful Formby and started volunteering with this mission agency throughout the summer, kind of helping them with marketing and advertising, things like that. So later that year, I was challenged to come on staff with more mission scholarship. So in prayer about it.

[00:07:29] Like that's what the Lord has in store for us. And so we laid off the few people that we had a small advertising agency that we started in again.

[00:07:37] But the honey company that summer and after I bought the only company, I hired another beekeeper to buy it and hired a small distributor to put it on the shelf on the 20 stores that we were in in Dallas for. And so we start raising our support at the end of the year, 1997, and went on small time staff with this mission to see started in about March of 1998, which we did occasionally really some Lux told you, asking that again, always just kind of having the honey company on the side. So that's how we started this crazy journey that the Lord brought us down.

Henry [00:08:10] Did you find the hobby with your wife? Clearly wasn't beekeeping and she's not put on a bee sued with this at the house.

Nathan [00:08:19] Yeah, we love gardening together. And so whether it's picking up our house and doing projects around the house or our gardening, landscaping, things like that, that's always kind of been our thing.

[00:08:31] Barabak We spent the past four days in intensive gardening at our house separately, so we love doing that together.

Henry [00:08:39] Okay, back to honey. That's what we're talking about. I am curious about that. I thought that was really interesting. You know, developing interests with your bride to many of the entrepreneurs are listening to this. Have kids and they've got a business and they've got kids. Right. And then all of a sudden, maybe they sell their business and maybe their kids go off to school. And the concept of being intentional about having a hobby with your wife is probably something about lot of entrepreneurs aren't really thinking about. And the fact that you actually have been intentional about that and that she had that question early on. Just pick my interest. So basically you got there.

Nathan [00:09:11] She had tried to get her, you know, get up at 4:00 a.m. and go to deadlines and things like that. She never would have been up for that.

[00:09:18] Well, she will finish with me. We've spent a lot of time piecing together this front.

Henry [00:09:22] That's cool.

Rusty [00:09:23] Well, you also have been an entrepreneur in the ministry as well. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the ministry that you created called I Am Second?

Nathan [00:09:32] Yeah. You know, I always was really excited about being in ministry because I felt like the Lord gave me the opportunity to use a spiritual gift of evangelism was being said and just my own spiritual development. I went through a course at our church called the Beatles explosion, where you actually go out, do door to door evangelism knocking on doors, which is terrifying. And so in that the Lord gave me the opportunity to share the gospel with one of my advertising clients at the time and was about 65 years old. We were at lunch one day and he said, your religion is real assets, your company. So just ask him, hey, Jim, you go there you go to heaven. We said no. And so proceed to share the gospel of this gentleman. And he wound up accepting Christ. And I was just so impacted by that. And then I committed to be a trader about six months later. But I was terrified about taking my team out and doing door to door evangelism. So after two successful certain days of saying, hey, let's kind of get to know each other and let's role play.

[00:10:31] That's what really kind of spurred me on to wind up going on this mission trip down into Venezuela. So evangelism was what the Lord really used in my lives to help really kind of get me in the game. And so when I was on staff at E3, we actually developed this little talk olander me into Cube, which looks like a little Rubik's Cube instead of pivoting on an axle. It opens up either into a flat rectangle or falls into a square. And so we created this tool that had seven pictures that represented that that were resurrected Christ. And so we launched that. Actually, this next year is the twenty year anniversary of the end cube. And I think we've seen about six or seven million of those go out around the world. And so after we launched that ministry about policy back in 2008. So really about three or four years later and we really focused on launching that one day. We've started an advertising agency for the ministry that was a part of it, rebranded from Gold Missions Fellowship to E3 Partners. And so we had started this little adages inside of E3 to do some work to be able to help develop a creative department for your 3D as us talking to normally one day who is the chairman and owned interstate battery. Just about our little ad agency trying to get some business from them. And then about two weeks later, Norm called me and he was sharing with me on the phone that he was about to turn 70. And he is sending out on his back porch and just having the time with the Lord and just asking Lord Knight. You know, I've got a long 10 years, 20 years left. What do you want me to do? And he just really felt like the Lord asked him this question. And have you ever gone for broke reaching your own Jerusalem? What have I ever really done here in Dallas-Fort Worth? And so he's sharing this with me. He says, you know, maybe we just need to make Jesus as famous as Tony Romo.

[00:12:20] And as soon as he said that and Lord just dropped this billboard idea in my head and I said, all right. As you drive in on the tollway, his billboard and has DaVinci on it. You know, in Dallas for us, he's one of Dallas Mavericks basketball players. You know, Dirk's a man. He's never won a best picture, actually has dirt in it, says I am second and then send his website.

[00:12:41] I am second dot com. And we used our excess money to share the gospel, you know, to be able to help engage people and then we try to help you in the local church. And so Norm said, well, let's get together and talk about that. So I hung the phone up and this guy, Adam Vladek, was sitting across my desk. He was on staff with us, our creative director at E3. So Adam said, dude, that's huge. I said, well, great. We week we figure out what it looks like. So literally, Adam walked outside the office, came back into the white piece paper at a black magic marker and said.

[00:13:12] So we spent the next week kind of meeting that this advertising concept using Lenny Kravitz and where subway advertising and whatever and presented it to Norm. And so long story short, Norman Co-investing came out, said, all right, I'll give you guys three million bucks and committed to create this Web site.

[00:13:29] That really is the stories originally where the idea is to use celebrities. But then it really kind of hauled into using people's stories that became points of interest that would allow people to use those as a way to have a spiritual conversation and kind of tee up the gospel opportunity.

[00:13:48] And so whether it was people's video based on some struggle on life, whether it was having cancer or the death of the spouse or a child or, you know, homosexuality or drug abuse or suicide. And so we had those type of stories or stories of celebrities being asked later. Brian Hood Welch from Korn or Kathy Ireland or the Duck Dynasty people. And we would record their videos.

[00:14:13] And everybody was always in a black T-shirt, jeans, and then we sat in the white chair. And so there's a very distinct kind of setting that we did. And so we launched that on December 2nd, 2008.

[00:14:27] And never in our wildest dreams will we ever have imagined just the impact of that in a very short time. No money that Norm had committed to is for an advertising campaign that we funded in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

[00:14:40] And so when we lost out December 2nd of 0 8, we had about 20 or 25 billboards around Dallas-Fort Worth that we just had. I am second. And then I am second icon.

[00:14:51] We did some TV spots and things like this very quickly. Just doing advertising in Dallas, Fort Worth. And we were watching the Google Analytics over the course of about three months. It spread to Dallas, Fort Worth, to almost every country in the world. Besides, I think North Korea had a few more, but it was remarkable.

[00:15:13] And I don't know the exact statistics, but I know that there have been hundreds of millions of views of videos since that time back in 2008. So it was a very exciting time.

Henry [00:15:25] So you see this explosive growth from somebody is making incredible impact in people's lives. It's been done well. It's picking up and scaling down all sorts of different countries. Tell us about what that was like. And then ultimately you decided at some point, time is time to move on. Walk us through that.

Nathan [00:15:43] Yes. So in October of 2009, I really felt like the Lord was kind of putting on my heart. Hey, you need to leave. I am second and I kind of took this prideful position in my heart like, well, Lord, how could you do a second without me? I mean, I'm second you know, I'm the president. And so I think the lord just kind of left me to my own devices.

[00:16:05] And it's a lot easier to look back on that period of time now, because I have put forth a lot of effort moves, each kind of a postmortem analysis of this, the process that we had gone through that I've gone through.

[00:16:21] But I would just say specifically around me and my departure from I am second about six months after I saw what Lloyd's or merely my second night wouldn't or couldn't. I wound up having an inappropriate relationship with my assistant. And last I am second in a fashion that I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would succumb to.

[00:16:43] And so, you know, my wife always been just incredible through the process of that. And it was a very, very challenging time for our marriage and our relationship, as well as for the ministry. And, you know, we didn't want the media to get hold of that and distort the impact that we were seeing from the Lord.

[00:17:04] So I just resigned to go away as quietly as possible. So in less than June of 2010, really trying to find the Lord in the midst of all of that, again, we had no hope, you know, that we had had for a number of years at that point. And it was still tiny and small. And when I last, quite candidly, did you know that we were really Janani company full time? And so E-3 was kind enough to give us severance and they actually put together a restoration committee and us to be able to walk with this over the course of the next year.

[00:17:36] So we just really kind of took it just a number of months, just really trying to find the lord of what he wanted to do first next year when I needed a job and had to figure out how we went forward.

[00:17:48] And so just the story of how the war concerned that we were to do the honey business was such an affirmation. You know, we were doing about something in 2009. We did about $400000 in sales. And so as we were looking at that, we realized that we needed about another hundred thousand dollars more than sales if we wanted to give any company full time.

[00:18:10] Norm had actually offered for me to come over there, just work with him, and another guy offered for me to come over this work with him so that he and I would sit on the front porch of our house, pray and cry with a Bible.

[00:18:23] And just for a number of months, we were sitting on the front porch trying to really pray and ask where what do you want us to do next? And so Patti symbolises pray and ask the Lord over the next couple weeks if he wants to to. Honey company to provide $100000 or more a year in revenue. And that would allow us to be able to do it full time. So we're like, let's pray about that. So we started praying and a friend of mine called us.

[00:18:49] So we picked up song in '83 and she said, Hey, we're working on this. And last night they said they can provide us for John the Baptist was locusts and honey. And he told me that he was going to provide for you guys. And we're like, OK, wow. Thank you. Because nobody again, nobody knew why we did last. They just thought we were going away to do 2:41. So I hung the phone up and I think really informed. You think it was eighty nine that morning.

[00:19:17] And so the last verse of that song says and I was like the finest of wheat in honey from this rock. And we're like, Wow, Taylor, we're listening. So now a week later, I'm driving down tollway and my wife calls me and says goodbye that Wal-Mart will see it. They'll take your money. And so and told her they'd tried Wal-Mart before and she said, no, but you'll do it. So I went over there. Tucker's women at Wal-Mart who gave me the buyer's name. Oh, no. That bill as well as told me about a local vendor program. Then I came back in a couple weeks. So that's a storm. They could bring me in that store. So I of filling out the form. But I had some questions. And so I just called that buyer, left a voicemail for. And then about a week later, I get a call from this buyer. Wal-Mart says, hey, this is Wal-Mart was actually a Wal-Mart. And I said, yeah, and most 62 money in show.

[00:20:05] She said, what a great description. And I said, you've got to pay this MPL says Trish. So start going at all that vinter application and got all turned in there. About a month later, we get our first purchase order for Wal-Mart and we're praying for a hundred thousand or more for the year. And our very first purchase order was from one hundred seven thousand dollars. Exactly. So everything that we're praying for in a year, plus the number seven to show that distance from the Lord.

[00:20:37] And so that really begun this process starting to focus on one company. As a full time job and career, no need to.

Henry [00:20:46] It's an amazing story, and I'm sure that over the course of a decade there's been a lot of healing and there's been lots of soul searching. We've heard you talk about this episode before in your life and you talk about this concept of image management and what people know and what they don't. And some amount of people know that you'll even I am saying what? They don't know why, but you've really impressed us in the past with just how you've looked at that. Can you riff on that a bit before we get back to the nature? Yeah.

Nathan [00:21:14] Yeah. I think that, you know, again, a lot of time has passed, a lot of counseling, a lot of therapy. And, you know, I think it's important to be able recognize it and just kind of some family of origin and, you know, past life, too. I was sexually abused at age five and 10. My dad was in the Air Force and so grew up on Air Force bases, which also meant we moved about every 18 months. But in that abuse was exposed to pornography very early on, which then became really kind of a lifelong struggle for me.

[00:21:45] And so when I got out of college and moved up to Dallas and really started pursuing the Lord, I just took all that stuff and I was like, I'm done. There is no place in my life. And so why no one? That meeting Patty and Emily got married. And, you know, I say for the first six or seven years, everything was great. And I had no struggles in my life. And then we started having kids. And her focus really became focusing on the kids.

[00:22:09] And I think that just gave some emotional holes in my own heart, really begun to be revealed. And I think that had to do a lot worse than moving around and things like that. You know, as a young kid.

[00:22:21] So I wonder, reverting back, started to look at pornography. But I was at a church that honestly, I just kind of looked at everybody there like Man El-Baz, lives are perfect. Nobody has any sins, struggles. And so I'm now the head of A Viens. Q And so now I'm the next guy and I never really intended to go into ministry, but one, I'm filling in to ministry. But one of the gifts that I have from moving every 18 months with my dad being an Air Force Flo's man, we can get to know anybody very easily and just really love people. The other side of that, which you really came to turn operation at this period time of my life, was I became a master of image management. And, you know, being in ministry and having the same struggle and not being in a church environment or they really encourage a model authenticity and transparency community. I just really was isolated and not transparent, authentic with anybody and continued just with their struggle for a number of years. And, you know, obviously, my wife found out and that became a source of great frustration in our marriage and between she and I. And that's what kind of led up to that ultimate betrayal in 2010 when I was with I am Second. And so it's you know, now, all these years later, I've just come to this place, all this work and all this effort to just realize I can't go back to this place of management. For me, it's very destructive.

[00:23:54] I need to live in authentic community and transparency. Quite candidly, if someone is offended or doesn't like that, then that's not on me. So I just try to live in a way that I won't allow that type of sin to have a more deep roots in my life because I know that just a continued destructive nature of what it has done for us in our marriage.

Rusty [00:24:21] Thank you for sharing that level of candor and authenticity. It's obvious that you're living it out. So thank you for that. The idea of image management is real. I think even for our entrepreneurs where there might be pride, you know, trying to present themselves in a way that's more confident, more together than they really are. And if you think about what digital media does for all of us today, we tell the story on Facebook or Instagram about all the great things in our lives. And then you wonder why someone shocked when somebody posts something about either being depressed or suicidal. How can that be? Just yesterday, they were having such a great time in life. And I think it's a very interesting concept that we should spend more time on at some point about image management.

Henry [00:25:07] That vulnerability on your image, you're on a podcast. Now, to be clear, our podcast doesn't have the reach of the Vanja Cube where I am second by any stretch. And yet you've been really, really candid about some things that most people keep in the closet. How does that translate into your leadership style and Internet? Because we're going to get back to the story in Internets here in a second, but it's had some some credible skell on its side. You've got lots of employees and people loved the Petraeus CEO, C.O.D. Get it all together. And is there an answer, all their questions? Was it look like how was it actually the rubber meets the road in the way that you lead and work with your employees?

Nathan [00:25:45] Yeah, I went into that by just, you know, the continuation of the story because obviously this is something that is perspectives developed over time, you know, because quite candidly, we went from E3 to in honey company in Nature Nature, and it started growing. And, you know, we're kind of on this meteoric rise, which is amazing, because here we were doing this as a result of the very simple decision that I had made.

[00:26:14] And yet the Lord chose to bless the business in spite of me and allow it to grow. And really, I was trying to find a way to be able to make an eternal impact for the kingdom, because even though I wasn't E3, I still had the same desires of same motivations when he used my life to make it count to the kingdom. So I really felt like, you know, the Lord has me here and based on bad decisions I've made. So let's allow the Lord to use the Syrian side of nature needs to show between kind of that core spiritual motivation as well as being involved in CET1, which encourages business CEOs and entrepreneurs to look at their business platform as all this way to make an impact for the kingdom.

[00:26:58] You know, really became over time much more intentional about trying to figure out how we the kingdom by selling honey, yet on the personal side continue to struggle quite candidly. You know, you'd think you'd hit this complete explosion in your life. And yet Patty was still hurt. And so there was a number of years that I just, you know, continued to struggle quite candidly and started drinking more. And I think that was associated with shame. And I still struggle with pornography. And it became bigger. It's been so a summer of 2017. You know, I was just so distraught with where I was, you know, with my life in the business had actually become very challenging at that time. We started losing money first time in seven years. We started doing it full time. And so I was actually on October 30th, 2017.

[00:27:53] I was on my lawnmower and it was late at night. And I had been drinking wine and I was getting my load ready for a party.

[00:28:01] We were having the next day that because we are a party at our house for about 30 years. And so I'm listening worship music growing, blah, blah. And I'm just listen.

[00:28:11] And I just something in my life, I'm like, oh, you've brought me all the way down this road and I am about to self-destruct. And so I just threw my hands up and I raised my hands up in the air, stood up, and then I just cried out. You know, you said, Lord, you got to save me and wasn't.

[00:28:28] So basically, it's just you guys saved me from this direction I'm going in my life. And so a week later, which was my birthday party, and I went I saw a counselor and I just shared with Patty just all the stuff that I continued to do and struggle with in between.

[00:28:43] Like the Lord finally said, OK, this is it.

[00:28:47] This is the time when I was in a really break through. And so really, that's when this process began to really dig in to find out what was driving the bad decisions that I made in my life.

[00:28:59] And so I went to an intensive guys weekend up in Minnesota WAFL and True Ministries in about two months later. And then Patty went up to the wise and then we went up together as a couple.

[00:29:11] We did these Wickens and got involved with some counseling groups. One group called Seven Tillers, which is for sex addiction and guys, the struggle of pornography and its accountability and therapy groups he worked through.

[00:29:24] So, you know, really tenants threw myself into this as well. As, you know, obviously I haven't had a drink, alcohol and well over 20 months. And and just continuing in last year, we started a discipleship.

[00:29:40] There was a bunch of guys and we get together every Friday morning and spend about two hours memorizing scripture and setting and challenging things like that.

[00:29:49] And so, you know, the Lord really can use all of that collectively to bring me to this point and say now that to say, you know, when I went through this in 2017, as part of that, I'm going to do things differently.

[00:30:03] And, you know, that first time, unfortunately, you would think I would have learned. But I went and told my kids, which was probably the hardest thing I've ever done as a dad, to share with your kids, who at the time, you know, I had some was 17. His brother was fifteen. His sister. Was 14. And then they had a younger brother who didn't share that with. But to tell their kids what you've done. And to be totally transparent. And then I told the leaders the key here.

[00:30:33] Nature needs what I done. They really did all that to just make sure that I could do everything they could to hold myself accountable, to change the way I've done in the past, because it hadn't worked for me. And so, you know, when it comes to the image management here, it nature needs. I haven't hidden, you know, what I've done, not who I am, because the things I've done and define who I am, but I've users and I've even shared with my kids. I said I wish I was this dad that, you know, you could look at and hold me up and say, I want to be just like my dad. You know, you just had this stellar life and said, but in order to not allow Satan to have any victory out of this, then let me use the mistakes I have made as the greatest opportunity to share with you how to do things differently.

[00:31:25] And so whether that's, you know, with my kids or even here inside of nature. We just really want to live in this alternate careers community, because the reality is everybody's hurting here now. I'm God, Judge. You've got junk. We all have junk.

[00:31:41] So we can live with each other in a compassionate, loving way and walk with each other through that, encourage each other through that. Then the enemy doesn't have victory in that. You know, it really takes away the power of the enemy because secrecy and isolation is Satan's tool armor. One time I was in Africa and I actually went a lie in tight jeans and it was always his last Sieber who is by himself. When the lions sprung the trap to try to get that zebra. And so the same thing is true. Saying he is isolated. And then he does spring the trap on us.

Henry [00:32:19] It's a great illustration. It makes it really real. It's the loneliness and the isolation that often befalls an entrepreneur. And what we're doing, we can't let ourselves get that way in a practical application is you getting together every Friday morning for a couple hours with some buddies who can encourage you and challenge you and hold you accountable and becomes much more difficult for you to be attacked in that type of environment. One of the things we want to do and very, very grateful for the degree of transparency and vulnerability and the way that you have confronted and dealt with sin over time. It's just a great encouragement to Russia and in our audience. I want to ask you one last question that we like to ask all of our guests, which is how is GUID speaking to you through his word recently, maybe this morning, maybe over the last three or four weeks, maybe the last several months. But is there anything that you're picking up that you think that he is speaking you about? He talked about earlier on about how you just saw honey in all these different verses was amazing. Is there anything like that right now that where he's speaking to you about right now? Through his word.

Nathan [00:33:27] Yes. So I think I shared that we do, too. Does 17 had a downturn in the honey company. We grew too fast and were kind of investing into the future, built a second plant in Georgia. And then we had one of our retail partners, one of the large clubs that we were in, came back and won a price reduction and we didn't have the staff to really understand what the impact of that would be. And so as we made our price reductions and having that extra capacity that we were carrying, everything changed. So we lost a lot of money in 2017. And so through that, we begun to go to the market and look at either selling 8 urinates or bring on a financial partner. And so we've been continuing to work through that process. And so we're kind of nearing the end of that. But obviously, that creates a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety as an entrepreneur, you know, there's just the whole emotional side of getting kind of tied up and wrapped up in your business. And so not wanting to ruin it by heart, you know, it's been a lot of time just kind of reading about it.

[00:34:38] But it is interesting. We're reading into the Bible in a year as part of our Friday morning group Intersted in Chronicles, a while back where David had just done the fundraising campaign for the temple where everybody had made a contribution. And so David was praying kind of this prayer of dedication for the resources that have been raised. But he also had this prayer, dedication for Solomon.

[00:35:03] And so I don't have it right in front of me. But essentially, in part of David's prayer, he prayed that Solomon would not operate in fear. You know, when I read that, I thought, well, that's interesting. And I wondered if he prayed because David struggled with operating in fear in just.

[00:35:21] As I thought about that, just recognizing, you know, that fear is obviously the opposite of faith in and if you can come in and make us fearful and not walk in faith, then we are not walking in the target circles. As you said, the goal is to have somebody be able to do even greater things than I. Because of the one I'm sending. And so, you know, that really just kind of ministry domain that I think whatever was recent, we just finished Esther. And in the book of Esther, you've got haymon, who works things overseas and is posturing and positioning himself inside the kingdom to look great in. Mordechai, who is there and actually Mordechai had discovered a potential assassination attempt on searchings, which he devolves into as he wasn't killed.

[00:36:11] But everyone knows the stories. Haymon decides the escape route Jews. And so he gets searches to give his declaration that his Jews are going to be killed on a certain date. So Heymann was going to ask her, who's the queen? She's nice as well, and gets her to go to church isn't so interesting. She says, well, go talk to the churches, but only after we pray about it for three days. And so she kind of has this call to prayer in haymon in the background, as are about to get Mordechai killed because Mordechai will not pay respect to him.

[00:36:44] And so he actually puts a big pull up next to his house where he plans to get Xerxes to allow him to entail Mordechai on that. And so the night before that, he's going to go and petition the churches to allow him to impale Mordechai Larches can't sleep. So he calls in the historian to read the chronicles of his kingdom. And as he can't sleep. Then as he's saying, read this.

[00:37:10] They tell the story about how Mordechai had discovered this assassination attempt. His church, he said, as he a reward him for that. And now now he has no real word. So the next Aymond comes in. And she's asking him if I wanted to, you know, honor somebody in my team and what should I do? And so Hanemann thinking about voice, but about me. So he lays out this big plan of how he would be honored and Xerxes Kingdom would search. He goes. Okay, great. Go do that.

[00:37:36] Mordechai, you know, it completely boils Heyman's clan, of which ultimately Heming, it's impaled on that burning spear that he intended for Mordechai. And so as I read that, it was just so interesting to me that here is, you know, you had this total manipulator, Pagan, who's sitting there in April 18 and trying to get this set up. And you've got this guy who is trying to honor God and the Jewish people in Peyman. Yet he goes to Astrid and Asters Crisil. We got to pray about this, you know, and it was through that prayer that ultimately God, apart from everybody else, couldn't allow the king to sleep.

[00:38:16] So he has a historian command in God uses that they kind of bring this whole thing to fruition where everything gets turned on its ear. And so for me, in the midst of my challenge here inside that business, my challenge even in my personal life, is just to recognize the absolute sovereignty of God, of how God uses anything to accomplish his will. And so he just wants to slow Galey surrender and submit ourselves to him.

[00:38:47] So now one of my daily prayers is Romans twelve one and two that he has no ACSU, therefore brethren to offer yourself up like a living sacrifices as your spiritual act of worship and not be conformed to the world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind so you can go and test God's good and perfect will.

[00:39:07] So it just allows me to be able to step back and recognize in the midst of the trials and tribulations that the sovereignty of God, the God who created the universe, the same God that created me and you and Jesus. Tutu says that he produces his workmanship in Christ, Jesus or good works he established before him, and we should walk in him.

[00:39:28] And even in the midst of our simple decisions that merciful and loving God is going to take us and allow us to walk through those things, and he's going to pick us up and dust this off like the father in the story of the prodigal son. And he's going to ultimately use us to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. And so for me, all that is just very encouraging.

Henry [00:39:50] Nathan, this has been awesome. It's been a very special time. Thank you for talking about what God speaking to you in scripture and how he's worked over your life. And this has been a really, really important episode for us. Thank you.

[00:40:02] Thank you, guys. I appreciate the time. And, you know, I never would have wanted to say, hey, this is why I want to get to go beyond Henry's podcast. But again, I don't want to have victory even in the poor decisions that I've made my life, the tax breaks and encouragement and challenging to someone out there that might be struggling with some. I have struggled through my life.