Episode 168 - The Boosterthon Bounceback with Chris Carneal
Chris Carneal is the founder and CEO of Booster Enterprises, better known by their brand Boosterthon, where they put on fitness fundraisers at schools all throughout the United States.
Since founding the company 18 years ago, Chris has turned Booster into a behemoth. They've helped schools raise more than $350 million, and they've served more than 7 million students.
But then COVID hit. And a team of 1,000 full-time employees dropped to 140. Chris takes us there and shares the feeling that every entrepreneur has experienced at some time or another—that the weight of the business is on your shoulders. Hear him share how his perspective has changed on who really holds the company and how he’s leading his business forward today…
Visit the Booster website: https://www.choosebooster.com/
Episode Transcript
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Chris Carneal: We were hoping for a in revenue terms, a 50 million dollar fall, that was the projections on March the 12th. By July the 16th, we were praying for a five million dollar fall and we're not talking like I hear our reports, our revenues down 20 percent, we're down 50 percent now. We were down one hundred percent for one hundred and seventy three days and we were running out of money quickly. No matter how efficient you are, when the revenue faucet shuts off, you eventually run out.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I'm here with my fearless co-host, Rusty Rueff, William Norvell, morning.
Rusty Rueff: Hey, Henry, how are you?
William Norvell: Good morning. No better place to be.
Henry Kaestner: There is no better place to be. We've got Chris Carneal in the House today. So many different things to talk about. I will start off, though, with a personal reflection, and it is as follows. I think that we all would think that we have really risen to prominence if we have had a ticker tape parade, if we are fettered, if there is such a word, I think there is the just channel, my internal French, if we are fed as if we were celebrities, if we were important, as if there is something to celebrate, who we are and what we do. And I think the pinnacle of that is a ticker tape parade. I have had one. I bet you guys didn't know that. And I'll tell you the story behind it. Three years ago, I was visiting Atlanta and I was going to meet with our guests today. Chris Carnel and Chris Carneal called me no fewer than three times as I went from the airport to his office to make sure I was still coming and what time I was going to get there. I thought I've never had somebody so eager to meet me ever. This is really awesome. And I found out why he had every one of his employees felt like hundreds. It probably wasn't that. Many give Luke and I a ticker tape parade as we got there to his office. And I've never been that celebrated. Maybe my wedding. Maybe when people threw rice at me. Maybe, maybe not. But it was amazing. And that's the type of guest we had today. He makes everybody feel special that encounters him. He has this spiritual gift of encouragement. He's got great energy and enthusiasm. He's got a great joy of living of his lord and savior. And he's running a really cool business and he's got a really great story. And that story is only getting better over the last couple of years and maybe even more so over the course of last year. And covid. And you're about to hear why. But without further ado, Chris Cornell is a friend and is our podcast guest today. Chris, welcome to the studio.
Chris Carneal: Henry, I'm honored to be here. Thank you for that introduction.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, well, thank you for making it happen. And thank you for making Luke and I feel that special all those years ago. OK, you've listened to the podcast before. You know a little bit about the format. And one of the things that we like to do with every guest is to understand a little about who they are, where they come from. Give us a little bit of background sketch, then we're going to get right into Booster's. Found what you do and we're going to just run from there. OK, who are you? Where do you come from?
Chris Carneal: All right. Well, first of all, I love this podcast. Listen to it. As recently as this morning, driving my daughter to school, I feel like this podcast was made for me. So for all of you to put so much time and attention into it, I listen to a weekly, it fuels me. It gives me even more mission and purpose. Feel like I'm part of a community that's thinking the same ways and struggling with the same things, but all in it for God's glory. So thank you for that. So I am forty one years old. I live in Metro Atlanta, Georgia, Johns Creek. I am the husband to Lindy of nineteen years, father of four amazing kids. Grace is almost sixteen. Ms 13, Christian is ten and Camden is eight. I love my kids are adventurous, they're fun. Someone asked me recently, what's your hobby? And at this stage of life and hopefully for the rest of my life, my kids are my hobby. Our family is our hobby. Currently coaching both my boys, baseball teams, America's pastime. I was actually at the Braves game last night on my wife's request for Mother's Day. So we love baseball. I play college baseball for a few years. I've coached twenty seven of my kids teams. It's just an awesome opportunity to connect with them, spend time with them, encourage them and their friends and their peers and make a difference in the community. Grew up in South Florida. Amazing parents grateful for the upbringing community. I had went to Stanford University in Birmingham. My wife and I actually in eighth grade, met when she moved in town from Kentucky. Our lockers were next to each other, but I had to chase her for a few years, still chasing her. But we fell in love at Stanford our freshman year, decided to get married before we started dating, so then decided we should start dating and
Henry Kaestner: we decided to get married. Before you started
Chris Carneal: dating, we knew we were going to get married. We told our parents and both of them said, Are you guys dating? I must have missed that. We said, no, not yet, but we're just freshmen. We should. And so we started dating that summer, got married after we graduated. I was religion major then went to seminary for three years at Southern Seminary in Louisville, and I've been in Atlanta for sixteen years.
Henry Kaestner: OK, Bruce Morton. Well, Gusterson, what is it? How does it work where the idea come from?
Chris Carneal: All right. So I finished playing baseball at Stanford University, then I went to UAB for a year. Then I went back to Stanford. I realized I love baseball. I do not have what it takes to be a pro, but I want to be around sports. I love it. I enjoy it. My first business was a sports. Tutoring business creatively named all sports tutoring, creating room for other sports, which eventually came, but I started doing one on one baseball lessons for elementary kids, which is crazy because this is what I do right now as a dad. My kids are the ages of the kids I used to give lessons to. So second through fifth graders in Birmingham, Alabama, Crestline Field and Mountain Brook. And I saw very quickly I had the ability to simplify and communicate with students and they got better. Then I realized I have a platform. Let me communicate some character traits to students. Let's talk about attitude and hard work and teamwork and efforts. So I kind of made up this simple basic curriculum content that I would use as a platform to speak, live and encourage these students. And then it felt so good when parents would say, my kid couldn't hit it all. He didn't have confidence. Now he's hitting. And you know what? I don't know what's happening, but he's a better brother or he's a better friend. It's some confidence and just kind of virtuous cycle of that. So one day, one of the students that I was giving a lesson to, Carter Gannon, was his name. He was a fifth grader. He said, hey, coach, before our lesson begins, my school's doing a fundraiser, can you buy magazines? And there was also the second half. The catalog was wrapping paper. And I thought, I'm a college student with no money. I don't want to buy wrapping paper or magazines. But wait a minute. When I was a kid, I did that. And at the same time, I also participated in a fund run that my dad organized at the school that I grew up. So I finished the lesson. I call my dad dad, that fun run we did when I was a kid. Where did that come from? The schools do that like, well, some schools do it. It is an unbelievable amount of effort. He was a volunteer, but he raised a lot of money. Hey, Chris, I got an idea. This is just a prophetic moment from my heavenly father to my earthly father to me. Hey, I'll bet schools would hire you. You're good with kids. You can motivate, you can organize. They trust you other. They'd hire you to host a fun run to put one on. So I said, OK. Then I called my mom, the educator, college professor, walk me through what teachers and principals think about in terms of fundraising. So I just briefly educate myself. And then I went around to schools, people in new schools, principals, friends, kids that I did baseball lessons for their parents. And I said I had an idea to replace the product sale fundraiser with a fun run and everyone was extremely gracious. OK, wait a minute. Yeah, that sounds good. We've had a fun run that's not too new, but you'll do the work great. We'd love that fundraisers are time consuming, but we don't want to be your guinea pig. OK, so once you've done it a few times, come back and tell us. So this is the entrepreneur's first dilemma, right? I've got a big idea. It's so bold. I just need one client to say yes. And I knew as confidently as anything I could pull it off. I could raise a ton of money. It would be magical. So I traveled around. I literally was oh, for my first forty nine meetings. This is a college. No way here over forty nine. And I'm kind of running out of time, about to graduate in six months. One of the schools that I've met with, Shadowman Christian, the athletic director Bill Wylder who I call every year on April 15th and thank him my first client. Never forget them. Why on
Henry Kaestner: April 15th,
Chris Carneal: that was the anniversary of our first ever fun run event. So Coach Walter said, Chris, all right, I need to raise four thousand dollars. You think your program will do it, coach? Guaranteed. Oh, guaranteed. OK, well, since your guarantee and can you guarantee the four thousand I said yes. Done now four thousand to a twenty one year old college student who's saving for a wedding and a honeymoon was a lot of money. It's a lot of money now. There's really a lot of money. Twenty years ago. So I said done, I guarantee it. So I didn't tell my now wife at the time, Linda, but I guaranteed our honeymoon money. And more shocking to me than the school, the school profited nineteen thousand dollars. They were hoping for four. So I mean, I made every mistake. I don't know what I was doing, but I just knew that overall the program would work. People would give pledges. Instead of buying a product, I can host a fun event for students. We'd emphasize fitness. Kids aren't going to sell stuff. They're actually going to participate in something that's good for them and holistic and athletic. And then, boom, it was amazing. I worked great. I mean, I was running this literally out of my college dorm, filled up my college dorm with prizes and posters and everything. I had to sleep on the couch for a month or two because I ran out of room figuring it out every single day as I went, but then graduated in a few months and thought, OK, well, that was awesome. But now what? My wife and I got married, went to grad school seminary in Kentucky, and then as soon as I get to Kentucky, the school calls me and says I let's schedule next year. So then it began. Well, now I live in Kentucky, the schools in Birmingham, then another school called in Florida. And then about three years of me trying to figure out what do I do this do I not? Where do I do it then? Fast forward three years. We were pregnant with our now almost sixteen year old Grace. So when we're pregnant, driving around the country living in people's. We realized we eventually have to figure out, are we going to pursue this full time? Am I going to do the seminary route and the church planning route? Or am I going to do the business route and the commerce growth route? So that was a big decision and a big conversation.
Henry Kaestner: OK, so lots has happened since then. You've got much better than one for 50 hit rate tortas about booster's done today. And I think that William, later on our conversation is going to get into what it's look like, particularly over the last 18 months. But talk about Booster's on from that first deal with Bill Wylder up to the zenith. And then as you rebuild toward that point and beyond. But give us an idea of size and scope, because you've been doing this at lots and lots and lots and lots of schools, right.
Chris Carneal: To work with about five thousand schools next year where currently we've raised schools about four hundred million dollars nationwide, school profit not total raised. That's after every expense, that school profit. Let me jump back in time a second. The big struggle in my mind in those early years as a believer was I had what you talk about a lot, a false dichotomy. I thought I was a religion major. I went to seminary. I wanted to move back to South Florida, start a church. I wanted to change the world with the gifts that I had. So I thought, well, I'm entrepreneurial. I like risk. I like the unknown. I like starting things. I know I'll start a church. That'll be my way to mix entrepreneurship with ministry in a sense, because I put ministry in one box and then I put growth business in another box. And it literally took me a decade to figure out there's only one box. It's all sacred. It's why we do things, not just what we do, but that was a long conversation journey. Lots of amazing people help me kind of connect those dots. Had to see it lived out. See, missional business owners live out their faith every single day. But I was going back and forth for a while. Do I do the church nonprofit route or do I do the business route? But then once we committed to move to Atlanta, let's just try this for a couple of years, that's what it was going to be. Let's just see and then maybe still move to Florida. But after a few years, I was stunned and energized every day, realizing the team members I get to work with, I get to have an impact on them and they have an impact on me far more than I thought I could have if I did the nonprofit route, if that makes sense. So my heart was sparked that I'm becoming a better person. I'm having a missional opportunity in the context of a for profit business, just with the culture in the team members, not to mention the external impact of serving schools and taking work off of teachers plates and helping organize things. So that was just a huge light bulb moment in the moment. Probably lasted five to seven years of this is really is one thing I can use business to do it. So we grew like crazy with, of course, lots of ups and downs. The recession at eight and nine, just all kinds of challenges. So let me give you the size and scope. On Thursday, March the twelfth, two thousand twenty, we had almost a thousand team members. We were on pace to raise schools over one hundred million the following year, about eighty five. Ninety million in that current school year. We're about to finish and have revenue of a little bit less. But in that range, I mean, we were I was about to turn 40 actually in two weeks. So, OK, what are the forties look like? We got this almost hundred million dollar company and a thousand team members and then we're off to the races. And then Friday, March the thirteenth was day one of one hundred and seventy three days of no revenue. So to remind the listeners, we host events for schools. And in twenty twenty after March the 13th, every school and every event in America was paused, canceled on hold or somehow ritualized. So, you know, two weeks to flatten the curve, no big deal. Lose a few million dollars. What's our worst case scenario. Oh man. CFO, what do you think. Well man, we might lose revenue for a month. That would be the worst case scenario. March goes by. I turn 40, maybe by late April, mid April, maybe by the end of April. Well, now we're down six, seven, eight million. And what about now? Well, we basically five different times. Our worst case scenario became our best case scenario. In other words, what's the worst that can happen? We don't have revenue for a month. We don't have revenue for two months for three. And then we're like, I pray it's only a month. I pray it's only three months. I pray so. The spring was extremely rough. Thank goodness. My CFO, our managing team, we had a good balance sheet. We could survive it. That brought us basically to the summer where we thought, surely ninety days summer in America, things will open back up in the fall. We've never done this as a society before. Shut down schools, tell people and the whole country to quarantine. Surely the fall will be fine. So the day after our kickoff for the school year, July 15th, our booster university did kick off that night when I went to bed after this great celebration. Here we go. Here's next school year. I started to get text at midnight from my San Francisco general manager, my New York general manager, even in some southern red states, I don't think schools are going to open on time in the fall. I think the fall is going to look, unfortunately, more like the spring. So that began the last and final, thank goodness we're out of options that are worst case scenario was we have no more clients I'll spring to we're going to have a very, very choppy fall. So we were hoping for a in revenue terms, a 50 million dollar fall. That was the projections on March the 12th. By July the 16th, we were praying for a five million dollar fall and we're not talking like I hear our reports, our revenues down 20 percent, we're down 50 percent now. We were down one hundred percent for one hundred and seventy three days and we were running out of money quickly. No matter how efficient you are, when the revenue faucet shuts off, you eventually run out. So, I mean, literally coming home and praying and crying with the family and all four kids, you know, listen, let's pray for the family. Let's talk about it. And it was so great now in retrospect that the dependance on the Lord trusting him, prayer, faithfulness, community, I mean, I'm looking back now just a little over a year later saying it might have been the best year of my life, certainly the deepest, definitely the most connecting to my heavenly father and to friends and community, my family. But, boy, it was the most challenging professional season that I've ever had to go through and hopefully ever will.
Rusty Rueff: That, as you describe that, Chris, I mean, I actually could feel like a little bit of sweat kind of breaking out all around me, because I can only imagine, you know, that feeling because was totally out of control. I mean, you can't do anything. You know, schools aren't going to open up, you know, no matter how much you want to have a fun run, that's just not going to happen. So talk about total dependance. You know, I think I've actually run a number of your fun runs throughout the years all across the country. I love fun runs. So it's a school and it's a fun run. From now on. It's Christmas. I know it's yours. I know it's yours. I want to take you back actually to where Henry kind of started with his ticker tape parade. And we know it wasn't ticker tape because ticker tape went away. Fifty years ago. There was confetti, some type of confetti,
Chris Carneal: celebration, confetti cannons,
Rusty Rueff: celebration, confetti. You must have something in the culture of the company that would make you want to do that. And we love talking about cultures of companies. So take us through your culture and also take us how you got to that culture.
Chris Carneal: Oh, man. Well, our culture was this is what I love to talk about. This is my sweet spot. This is my passion. I feel like culture eats strategy for breakfast is, Drucker says, but it eats it for breakfast, lunch and dinner cultures. How you change people's lives. I mean, this is what I get up thinking about passion about every day. Can I create the best? Can I cultivate, build, grow the best work environment in America? That's what I want to do so I can get the best talent. They could be unleashed, that they can go home as better husbands and fathers and mothers and and siblings and community members. I want to work to be so fulfilling. It still has its thorns and thistles, of course, and challenges when you had a lot of them this past year. But I want the 40 hour work week for our team to make us better people, and I want to use it as a platform to do that. So culture is what I live and breathe. I've always loved it intuitively and even before any Crouch's culture making book came out that I devoured and got the galley copy and had the privilege to listen to him talk through, I've always just intuitively know that the best environments bring out the best in people. How do we pull out and draw out potential? How do we see a firm something that exists inside somebody that they might not even see themselves? And how do we make it the best it can be for their and their communities thriving and flourishing? So I'm actually wearing my booster wristband that has our six virtues on it right now. The last virtue is celebration. So we don't just view celebration as something fun. And confetti is just a novelty. It's actually one of our values. We call them virtues. Now, two years ago, I kept looking at the values we had on the wall that I came up with 17 years prior. And I thought, you know, they're losing a little bit of their stickiness. They're not quite as distinctive. They're not quite as meaningful as they used to be. So I said if we were to start the company all over again, what would the values be? So researching values, I discovered a word that's ancient and timeless and also timely. And I discovered the word virtue and virtue seems to imply values, but it also seems to be something that can be agreed upon over generations, something that calls out the best in us, something that's not just popular in the moment, but something that's a truth for all time. So I said, you know what? Over the next year, I'm going to think and pray and talk to people about rebranding, recreating our values and turning them into virtues. So that began the process of me just thinking through who do I want to become personally? Who do I want the people that I have had the opportunity and privilege to steward a portion of their lives and work together who I want them to become, who don't want our nation to become. But what are words that are distinctively booster? They're us and it makes sense. So we came up with our six virtues and they're in order on purpose. I actually begin my day when I wake up and drive to my morning Crosthwaite class thinking and praying through these in order personally before I lived them out for. So our six virtues and these are the words that define our culture. Gratitude, wisdom, care, courage, grit and celebration, gratitude, wisdom, care, courage, grit and celebration. If I wake up every morning grateful for what has been given to me, that just changes the posture of my heart in my day. I want to learn and listen. So I try to grow and wisdom. Then I'm motivated to do something and care for others. Every day there's a decision that requires some courage or a challenge that evokes that in me usually lasts a little longer. I'm going to need a little bit of grit, persistence, perseverance. And then at the end of the day, there's always something to celebrate. And then when celebrations, either individually or corporately, are done, well, you feel a sense of gratitude and we call that the virtuous cycle. So those are six adjectives, our virtues that define who we are and who we want to become. So they're aspirational and they're also actionable. We can never fully become those words, but we can head in that direction. And at the same time, I can do something every day practically. That makes me more virtuous.
Rusty Rueff: I love that. I love it. A lot of entrepreneurs, they know they should they should tackle this and they should have values and they should have virtues, but they just don't quite get to it. Right. It's like it doesn't become the priority. Oh, yeah. We're going to get to it, but they just never quite get there. Put out your plea to them on why they should.
Chris Carneal: Wow. Well, the best way to start is now find a time in the next month we can at least give yourselves a half a day alone and then eventually in some maybe in a community. But do you think short term Rusty, you're right, you don't need values and virtues for next quarter. You might not even need to sell the company next week. But if you intend to make a difference, use your company that you've been given as a platform for missionary work. If our work on Earth is to be as if it is in heaven and we view it as a Garden City of sorts to cultivate, then let's use this moment. These people, these talents, these treasures, the team, the clients as a platform to bring out the best in them. So how do we bring out the best of them? Do we feel called as a steward? Do we come up with this or do we feel like God gave it to us for a season to steward? And if we're stewarding lives, either a team members or clients in some small way, we need to be intentional. And that's the word to think about. How are we stewarding them? To what direction? To what aspirational ideas? To what big picture mission are we challenging and pushing and raising each other's sights to hit so good people? I want to be like have big term, long term big picture views. And then every day they're working to get there. So never too late to start.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that's excellent. That's excellent. I hope our audience is listening and taking this to heart.
William Norvell: I would love for you to go back. You talked a little bit about, you know, what happened to the company. Maybe give us a little more details then really want to focus in on you as the leader. How did it affect you personally, psychologically? How did you fight through that? Who came around? You just give us a little sense of how all of that went in your life over the last 18 months.
Chris Carneal: Wow. You're going deep. That's the type of question my wife would ask. Tell me how you feel. It always takes me a few minutes to get my heart around that question. I answer with my head, answering with my you know, I am an optimist. I'm as optimistic as any person you'll ever meet. I even spin things positive when they shouldn't be spun positively. I could just I see the best in things. But as the spring and then summer started to wear on and realizing this thing that I created God and me and a lot of amazing people, there's a very good chance that it does not exist by the time the year is over. And if any founder entrepreneurs hear this, I call Booster, my nineteen year old son. We celebrate Booster's birthday in our family, not just to work and my kids think of Booster's their older brother, because it's personal. I've spent more time with him than anybody. So seeing Booster on his deathbed and I don't want to overly dramatic size up, but something you created a company that really represents people, the flourishing of other people. There's a chance this comes to an end. You know, we're going to run out of money. We're burning one hundred thousand a day. We trim that from one thirty. We eventually then trimmed down to sixty. But at some point you can't trim too much more if you're going to have anything coming out of it. So there was the moment I talked about a little bit earlier. Let me go in a little more emotional depth of it where my wife said and she's the key. Any entrepreneur out there with a great wife, a wife listening, shout out to all the and not just wives, spouses, husbands, spouses of entrepreneurs. You bear a great weight, but you are one of the many reasons we can make it through. So the Lord and Lindy are the two answers to your question on the short end. My wife is an Enneagram nine and she is deep and thoughtful and steady and peaceful and the opposite of what I was in that moment. So she said we got to get out of town. So we went to western North Carolina just to sit in the greenery in the mountains, plains. We go off and we went to climb a mountain white side mountain in Highlands, North Carolina, and my prayer was, God, give me a vision, because I just I cannot see what's next. I'm out of options. My playbook is empty. I can't open up the market and I'm running out of cash and my clients won't respond. And what do I do? I've done everything I I'm giving speeches to the company literally every week. Total transparency, ask any question. I mean, we're like 18 weeks in. We go up to the top of this mountain where we go off and we see this beautiful view. And literally it's the foggiest I've ever seen it. I mean, I'm praying for clarity and I can't see the hand in front of my face. My wife took a picture of me staring at it. We prayed and she just said, you know, how do you feel right now? I'm like, I'm sad, but I'm still in fired up on in the arena. Let's go kick some tail mode. And I just I had to pause for a moment and at the time, four months. And she said, where do you see yourself right now? And I said, I see myself in the middle of this storm and I'm holding this boat with my hands. And it's the booster boat. It's got hundreds of people in it and I'm running out of energy. I can't hold it any longer. It's the middle of a hurricane. So I started crying. I'm drowning. I feel like I'm drowning. There's nothing I can do. Feel I'm going to let my people down, let my clients down. And she said, that's the problem. You're not holding the boat. The truth is, God is holding the boat. You are in the boat. And at that moment, I knew that in my head, but that was it, that was the moment I just broke down and realized that's it. This is it's God's story. He's the captain of the ship. He built the ship. It's bad theology and will be for me to think that's too much responsibility. That's not for me to bear. I am in the boat and he's holding it. And that was just the moment I needed. And my wife is who I needed to just kind of break me. So at that moment, hey, my hands are open. I didn't create it. I hope we come out of this. But if we lose it all, very real possibility. You know, I'll have a story to tell you the way we're going to do the right thing and glorify God. We're going to treat people right. But God's in control. I don't think I would have had that truth hit my heart if I hadn't lived it in that moment. No, I meant we were praying for five million or even five year survival. That was it. We're out of business if we don't have five million revenue hoping for 50. Once upon a time, we ended up with 15. So we call that the miracle, the fall. So, you know, once your expectations are set to zero zero zero, not where they should have been once upon a time, I'm like, wow, this is great. Look, we have cash clients and culture. And I remember nineteen years ago we had none. And the buckets of cash, Klein and culture, that's it. How can we pray for favor in those buckets and how can we work to that end and cultivate favor in those three areas? And the Lord bless us to get to the fall, have a way better follow than we thought. And right now the spring is double what the fall was. And we're looking to have our best school year yet next school year.
William Norvell: Chris, thank you for sharing that visual. I think it's something that probably whether it's a boat or whatever the visual most entrepreneurs have had, they know that feeling of it all being on their shoulders. I'm interested if you had any practical applications. So you come down from that mountain, right? This is a very biblical story. You come down from that mountain, you have a realization, God has shown you that he's carrying it for you. How did that change the way you lead? How did that change the way you managed and some of the decisions you made then but also, I would imagine are still making today?
Chris Carneal: Oh, yeah. You know, I never liked hearing hey, you got some control issues that that's not control. That's leadership. I care a lot. I want excellence. So it's one thing to not care enough and just to delegate too much maybe. But there's no doubt the posture of my heart to match the posture of my hands, which is my hands are open, the Lord gives and takes away. So decisions I used to make or have to make or meetings I had to be part of, at least at our size. Different sizes of organizations, of course, determine this. But I just I trusted my team that went through it with me. Your question earlier. You know, I did not go through it alone. I think there is a myth. It's lonely. At the top is a myth. It does not have to be that way. I never felt alone with my heavenly father, with my spouse, with my top team. There was Steven, my business partner that was by my side the entire time. Total rock complemented. Perfect. I mean, we this is again, God's favor. We didn't lose one member of our senior leadership team or any of our twenty four GMs in the field. And we prioritized if we can get through this and keep our best talent that we spent decades now putting in every city and major market, then we've got a shot. So a shout out to them. My best friends were closer than ever. I mean, you find out who your true friends are who's texting me on a Friday night. Chris, you're I'm a miner praying for you. I mean, Chase showing up with ice cream on a Friday night. Hey, man, we love you back. We just pray for you for five minutes. They knew it. They got it. You know, at the same time, it was just a crazy year in my life. I had perspective. One of my best friends, Reed, who went to college and played college baseball with got diagnosed with leukemia. The week after covid, I mean, literally face time me from the hospital and said, the doctor told me, I have 48 hours to live. It's covered. It just started. My wife can't visit me. This might be it. And I said, how are you? He said, well, my body's dying, but my soul is good. And the song that he was listening to that became our company mantra Greatest Thy Faithfulness, Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. I've concluded every email and call for the past nine months with strength for today and hope for tomorrow. That's what we need as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as fathers and husbands and wives strength. That's why I pray God give me strength for today and give me hope for tomorrow. At the same time, our general manager of Atlanta, the same month at his best friend, has leukemia. Let me finish that story, by the way, by a miracle pill and modern science, this is read played in the NBA. I mean, he still is the best athlete I know and he's going to live a long and healthy life. But it was a rough few days. My general manager of Atlanta, Jonathan Daughter, got diagnosed with cancer a few months prior and actually passed away later that spring. So to have a very close GM lose his daughter and a best friend get diagnosed with cancer, it just put in perspective. My company is struggling, but now look at all these other battles around us, so the empathy, compassion and depth of emotion in my own life, if anything, God used it just to bring out the fact that everyone is going through a struggle. Thank you, Lord, for making me aware of it to a greater degree so I can do something in some way to to help and serve.
William Norvell: Thank you for sharing that story with us. And unfortunately, we're going to have to come to a close here on this episode. But I got a good feeling we're going to bring you back maybe during the school season and get some updates on what's going on out there. What do we love to do at the end? Chris, if you wouldn't mind blessing our audience. We love trying to see how God's word can transcend between our guests and our listeners and wherever they may be, wherever they may be listening, whenever they may be listening. And we just get to hear some amazing stories. And we'd love to ask you, you know, we're in scripture. Does God have you during this season? Could be today, could be on that drive this morning. Could be something you've been meditating on for a while. Just but invite you to share that with us, if you would mind.
Chris Carneal: Yeah, thanks, William. So Reed is one of the guys my Bible study we plan on every Friday morning for about three years. We probably meet three out of every four Fridays for breakfast, either around someone's firepit or at a restaurant. And we said, you know why there's so many books, so many leadership stuff. Let's actually just go through the Bible. Just the Bible. Let's just go New Testament, Matthew, to Revelation. So we're currently in it. We've been in this now for three years, the epistles during the pandemic. I mean, it's just amazing. Just one chapter at a time, one chapter. We got set. We read it every day and then we come together. We just read through it, discuss, pray over it. And we're in Hebrews. And this past Friday, the verse I read many times to provoke or stimulate others on towards work or love and good deeds, love and work, to provoke, to stimulate others on. I say, guys, I feel like we encourage each other towards love and good deeds. But this is a whole different meaning here to provoke, to stimulate, to push, to challenge each other towards love and good deeds. So being neighbors and literally just a couple of days ago we said, hey, we've got to let's just take our friendship to the next level. We've been friends. And then we started a study. But what does it look like for us to challenge each other, to love and good deeds? We have to know each other really well. We need to know what our days look like. Let's not just encourage. That's good. That starts it. But let's let's provoke. Let's push let's stimulate one another on towards love and good deeds.