Episode 304 - Redeeming Your Time with Jordan Raynor
In this episode, Jordan Raynor discusses his book 'Redeeming Your Time' and how entrepreneurs can uniquely struggle to manage their time.
He emphasizes the importance of discerning the essential from the noise and finding peace in Christ before seeking productivity. Jordan also explores the concept of grace-based productivity and how Jesus can serve as a model for time management and shares some of the 32 practices from his book,
Find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Redeeming-Your-Time-Principles-Purposeful/dp/0593193075
If you'd like to hear more about the Faith Driven Entrepreneur community groups, go to faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/groups.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
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.
Joey Honescko What do we do with our time? This is a question at the heart of many faith driven entrepreneurs. We wrestle with the balance of grit and rest. We know our time is precious. Some of us have even figured out how to optimize our time. But many of us still struggle to identify if we're using that time well. So in today's episode, Justin Foreman and I chat with Jordan Ringer, whose book Redeeming Your Time, goes beyond simple management tips and gives entrepreneurs seven biblical principles for being purposeful, present, and wildly productive. I'm Johanna Sko, and you're listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let's get into it. Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm Joey Nasco, alongside today's co-host Justin Foreman and Justin. We were talking before we hit record. I think that this is the first time on any faith driven podcast where we have a three peat episode. Jordan Raynor is in the studio with us for the third time today, and he's joined us in the past. He's talked about his children's book, creator and You, and most recently we talked about his newest book, The Sacredness of Secular Work. So, Justin, I don't know about you, but I'm always enjoying these conversations and I'm looking forward to this one as well.
Justin Forman Indeed it is joey. We, we have the unofficial, quote, board of, faith driven for our podcast for a video shoots. And I think it's time that we have an unofficial stat board, for the podcast that as we cross over the 300th episode, we need to give credit where credit is due to recognize the three time guest, the title record holder for most appearances on a Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Jordan Raynor, welcome to the show again.
Jordan Raynor Come on, brother, this might be a giant mistake. We might not even hear this one. Who knows? But, it's a joy to be with you guys. I always love hanging.
Joey Honescko Yeah, well, what we didn't tell the guests is we've actually recorded six, but we've on the air team, so, you know, they haven't had those other ones.
Jordan Raynor But just now, the face of an entrepreneur, a plus. That's right. To get the unreleased editions.
Joey Honescko Yeah, that's exactly right, man. It's always fun to have you on because you have written so much in this area of faith and work, and you yourself are a faith driven entrepreneur. So you've always have these great practical insights for the movement. And today we're going to hone in. It's a bit of an older book, but it's an important book. And it's wild that we haven't talked about it on the show. It's called Redeeming Your Time, and you wrote this book. It's a wider audience than just entrepreneurs, but with your perspective, being an entrepreneur, you've started multiple businesses, you've managed hundreds of employees. So let's just kind of dive right in. And as we think about your research and your own experience, what are some of the ways that entrepreneurs uniquely struggle to redeem their time?
Jordan Raynor Yeah, man, I'll just speak from personal experience here. I think the biggest challenge for me as an entrepreneur and redeeming my time is discerning the essential from the noise. Because as entrepreneurs, we consume so much darn noise and information and inputs. And we go to LinkedIn and one influencer is telling us we have to do X to grow our business. And then we, you know, open up our email inbox and there's a newsletter with somebody else telling us we gotta do y to grow the business. And it's overwhelming. I'll never forget, Joey, I had an investor ask me for some time when I was running threshold day to day a CEO, and he just asked me, hey man, he's like, we're excited about investing in other founders like you. What's the number one thing in your opinion that we should be looking for? And I didn't hesitate. It wasn't about finance. It wasn't about sales. It was real easy. The ability for that founder and CEO to discern what's essential in a given quarter, in a given month, and a given week in a given day in the business, and focus relentlessly on that thing until it's done. And, Joey, this kind of leads into redeeming your time. One of the seven principles you. I think when we look at the gospel biographies, Jesus was crazy good at dissenting from the kingdom of noise, a spending plenty of time in quiet solitude. And obviously, I think most obviously that was to pray and commune with his Heavenly Father. But I also think Jesus understood that we need silence to think and be creative and just discern the essential from the noise. And so this is just become really, really important to me. And it's one of the seven chapters that's really resonated really deeply with entrepreneurs specifically who have enjoyed this book. Redeeming your time.
Justin Forman Man, that's so good. You know, when you think, I love that lion kingdom of noise.
Jordan Raynor Yeah, I'm stealing this from C.S. Lewis. P.S. don't give me too much credit.
Justin Forman Okay, well, C.S. Lewis sounds like he just, he wrote the tagline for a lot of social media channels. I mean, you could put that label on anything, but what I love what you're talking about here and where you're starting us in this conversation, Jordan, is we gotta understand the reality. We gotta understand the reality of what we're facing, the kingdom, the noise that is going to contradict each other, a tweet apart, a message apart, a LinkedIn post apart. We are going to hear things that are going to be very contradictory, and that we're also have to recognize what is the stage that most entrepreneurs are in. I mean, if you're out here and you're listening to this, one of the things that we talk about is like, we don't start from a place of connecting on the answer. We start from a place of connecting on the shared pain and the shared struggle that we have. And if we start just with this understanding of man, if you can get this right, this is one of the first dominoes of many of that entrepreneurial journey. But recognizing the conflicting opinions, the competing noise and the stages that these entrepreneurs are in that. We're all in. I mean, you know, work is hitting fever pitch, families hitting fever pitch. It's like everything at that kingdom of noise record noise level. And it's a matter of survival, of trying to figure some of these things out. And so, man, it is a place from deep fame when you think about this, when is that place for you that you kind of came to that realization of, my goodness, like, if I sequentially, like start to figure this out. I mean, as you said, it's one of the earlier books, but when is it a part where you realize, I mean, this is the upstream issue to some of the other issues?
Jordan Raynor Yeah, it's a really good question. And I'll answer the question more broadly of when did I figure out the redeeming my time was really the upstream issue. And by the way, I do think we need to draw a distinction between productivity and time redemption, right? I think as fate driven entrepreneurs, we are not just asking the question of how do we be more efficient in our businesses, and how do we be more productive by the world standards? When I'm talking about what I think Paul's talking about Ephesians five when he commands us. Not optional commands us to redeem the time because the Days were evil is about making this life, this breath of a life, this vapor of a life count for eternity to steward our days, to number our days in a way that we are optimizing for the eternal rather than the temporal. Right now, that has really practical implications as to how we build a calendar, whatever we get into that in the Redeemer Time book. But that's really what I'm talking about, man. Where did I really where did this pain really manifest in my life? To answer your question, Justin, I think it was probably when I was running threshold 360 day to day CEO. We were growing really quickly at the time, and my family was also growing pretty quickly. I had two really little daughters at home at the time, and oh, by the way, I had this book called The Create that had come out, and my platform as an author was growing really, really quickly. And so all these things were converging at the same time. And I just realized, man, if I don't figure this out, if I don't figure out how to listen to the voice of God and discern the essential from the noise and truly redeem my time, not just be more productive, but redeem it. I'm just gonna waste this life and elicit my salvation. Secure it regardless of my works. But I don't want to enter the kingdom of heaven without rushing through the gates, throwing these rewards at the feet of Jesus that I've accumulated for his glory. By redeeming the time and doing this work really, really well.
Joey Honescko So I like that you said that because you were talking about, you know, your businesses growing, platforms growing, families growing, and I don't know any entrepreneur that started their business at a good time. Right. Like it's always either with like, young kids or they've got something else going on or they're completely out of money. And now this is where they're stepping in, taking on more debt and more things. Right. And so I think it's important. And I'm going to just double down a little bit on what you're saying, because I think a lot of the noise, a lot of the LinkedIn noise is just to be more productive and to really, you know, buckle down and knuckle up and some of that is necessary. Right? We talk a lot about seasons.
Jordan Raynor Alex Horne was a quote unquote vacations are for losers. Direct quote.
Joey Honescko That was you know, I'll respect. But that was the gentleman I was picturing in my head.
Justin Forman We try to be a little aimless and faceless, but we don't mind it if our guest call people out. That's that's that's right. Yeah. We will set the table and we'll allow users to the calling out.
Joey Honescko Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Of an entrepreneur has no official stance on Alex Rose. Me but, nonetheless, though I do think that that is the that is a lot of the noise is like grind hustle. And again, some of that is just in the nature of the entrepreneur. But there is also this tension. It sounds like where I imagine some of your readers who are not entrepreneurs, some of their struggle is that they're looking to manage their time more, they're looking to be more productive, and they're finding challenges and maybe lax days on this or laziness. But for the entrepreneur, that's never really the issue. So what might be that difference between what we might call just a production driven? I think at one point you call it workspace productivity in the book. And so talk a little bit about that in the way that redemption plays a role in redeeming even our productivity.
Jordan Raynor Yeah, I'm going to answer the question, but take a slightly different bent towards this. You know, the premise of this book. Is that Jesus Christ is the ultimate solution, not a theological, but also really practical level to our time management challenges in two ways. Number one, and you said one explicitly, Joey, he gives us peace before we do anything to get un swamped and solve our time hands for problems, right? I've read every perennial bestselling business book, time management book under the Sun, and all of these books have the same message. Hey, entrepreneur, you're feeling behind. You're feeling swamped. You're feeling overwhelmed. Follow the author system. Do exercises X, Y, and Z. And oh, by the way, you got to do them all. You got to do them right away and you got to do it perfectly. And then I promise you're going to find peace, right? We all know how that movie ends, right? It doesn't end very well. This is workspace productivity. It says if I do X, I will find peace for my soul. I will find satisfaction. I will find the good life. Right? But as Christians, we start with a totally opposite premise where we should and what I call grace based productivity, which says hey, hey, through Jesus Christ, I already have peace, eternal peace with God. I believe that the God of the universe died for me when I was his enemy. And so if I believe that, I can certainly believe that God loves me on my most and my least productive season within my business. And so I don't do time management exercises in a wild goose chase to get peace. I do them as a worshipful response to the peace that is perfectly secure in Christ alone. That's the first way Jesus solves our times major problems. But the second is this. And this is really kind of the basis of the entire redeeming your time system. I believe that Jesus shows us how God would manage his time. We believe that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, which means that Jesus had to steward the exact same 24 hour day that you and I are stuck with right now. And we're not in the dark about how Jesus did it, because we've got four biographies on how he lived his life. They're called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Right? And know the gospel biographies don't show Jesus with a to do list or an iPhone, but they do show him dealing with distractions at work. One time a guy literally dropped the roof over Jesus's head while he was preaching. Unless that's happened to you at work. You're not more distracted than Jesus was. The Gospels show Jesus trying to discern the essential from the noise, fighting for solitude, seeking to be busy without being hurried. In other words, they show Jesus dealing with the exact same challenges that you and I face today. And because he's the author of time, we can assume that he managed his time perfectly. Right? And so redeeming your time is really my answer to the question of okay, how did Jesus manage a 24 hour day? And I believe there are at least seven principles that we can glean from the gospel biographies that I've been connected to 32 practices to help us live out those principles in the modern context. But, Joey, to your point about hustle a minute ago, man, I think one of the most countercultural things we see in Jesus's life is that Jesus embraced productive rest. Yes, he worked insanely hard. But throughout the gospel biographies, we see him sleeping on boats, observing the Sabbath in a life giving way, offering restorative breaks to his disciples throughout their work day. Vacations are for losers, not according to Jesus. In fact, at the start of his public ministry, he spends 40 days alone in solitude. Communing with the father. Right. So we, faith driven entrepreneurs ought to approach productivity in a distinctly Christlike way. By God's common grace. We have a lot to learn from our non-Christian friends, right? But man, if we want to redeem our time, let's look to the Redeemer himself and how he did it 2000 years ago.
Justin Forman So take us into that, Jordan, because I'm fascinated, because I think so often times, fate driven entrepreneurs, we look at the stories of Scripture in the abstract, we look at them in history, we look at an abstract, we look at them as things that happened in a setting, in a place, a it happened outside of, you know, in the courtyard. It happened here. It didn't happen in the marketplace. It happened in the temple. But I think that, like what you're talking about, there's so much in Scripture that we can bring into our daily lives. So take us into that. One of those 32 practices that you talk about that I really intrigued on is this idea of praying what, you know, can you expound on that idea and just kind of take us into some of these specific, tangible things that we can pull from Scripture?
Jordan Raynor Yeah, I'd love to. And I'm riffing a little bit off of Phil Knight in Nike. He talks a lot about this in my all time favorite book, Shoe Dog. Not most life changing book, but my all time favorite book, certainly for entrepreneurs.
Justin Forman Hey Joey, we can't let him go any further. We got to give a shout out. So that's a big book for the faith driven team to come up with your disclaimer. But we're going through this as a team led by great member of our team, Autumn, that is taking us through this and just helping us as our team grows and as our team gets bigger, to understand the challenges and the complexities of scale and what comes with it, and balancing some of these core issues amidst all of that. So good book, good reference for anybody that's listening. Check that one out too.
Jordan Raynor Not only is it a great business book, it's the most beautifully written book I've ever read. Whenever I fall out of love with words and I'm on a string of, like, five consecutive four star books, I'll reach you, dog to fall in love with the English language again. Anyways, Phil Knight would talk about. I think all entrepreneurs feature of it or not, can resonate with this. At night he'd be at home, he'd be sitting on his recliner, right? And there would be a million problems within the business that he was working through. And he would talk about he would focus his thoughts on a single question. What do I know? What do I know to be true? Not what I think, not what influencers are telling me. What do I know? And so, in redeeming your time, one of the 32 practices is praying what we know to be true about the world, about God, about time and productivity and the place that we have within it. And I'll just read a real quickly. I come back to this prayer. I pray this almost every day. Okay. This is just a really tight distillation of what God's Word has to say about time and productivity. Say, Lord, thank you that my longing for timelessness is not a mirage and for setting eternity inside of my heart. See Ecclesiastes 311 I humbly recognize, Lord, that I will die with unfinished symphonies. But then, if my work is aligned with your will, you will finish my work in your time. As John the Baptist said, I am not the Christ, and therefore I don't need to complete my to do list in order for your purposes to prevail, see Proverbs 1921. Father, thank you that through Jesus I can never lose my status as your adopted child. And so I have no need to be productive. But I graciously accept your invitation to do as many good works as I can for your glory, the good of others, and the advancement of your kingdom. Proverbs 16 three says, commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Lord, I commit my day. I commit my to do list to you. Establish my plans in accordance with your will. Help me to be purposeful, present, and wildly productive for your purposes today. But regardless of how productive I am, I will know that you love me. Me. The security of your love make me both peaceful and wildly ambitious to do your good works today. Amen.
Justin Forman That's so good. So where have we gotten off track, Jordan, with specifically? Just like some of these practices. Where is the theology gotten off track? Like when we talk about some of these things and we talk about, you know, putting on the armor, of course, you want to put on the armor before you go into battle, but you don't just put the armor, walk in the battle with your hands down your side and then, like, not tighten up the armor, not grab the sword a little bit differently. We think about these things almost like it's a one time event at the beginning of our day versus like a constant adaptation in the battle. We're always adjusting. We hear all those quotes in those phrases about you can have plans and strategy and everything until the first punch is thrown, until the first shot is fired, and then all of a sudden we adjust. Where have we gotten off track with this? And we just we. Looked at as prep, but we haven't turned back to these things in the heat of the battle. How do we step away from the heat of the moment and kind of recalibrate into some of these scriptural practices and principles that we see there?
Jordan Raynor It's a really good question, Justin. I think where my head goes here is if for years I believed that I was communing with God in the 30 minutes that I spent in the word in the morning, and then the rest of the day, I was on my own, functionally. Right. And I've had to learn that that practice of being in the word in the morning is really just priming the pump to communing with God all throughout the day. God does not need any faith driven entrepreneur to do anything in this life. He doesn't need us. He wants us. And that means communing with him and listening to his words marinate in our hearts as we go throughout the day. But man, we can't do that if we are constantly hurried throughout the day, right? We have got to embrace productive busyness while eliminating hurry from our schedules, giving us time to think and pray and commune with the father in between the craziness of the day. I'll tell you for me, when I was running threshold day to day, this would look like just really, really short walks. Like literally some days it was just I had ten minutes in between sales calls, five minutes in between sales calls. It was literally just walking around the block intentionally, not looking at my phone and just processing what just happened in the meeting before and praying for God's favor. Praying scriptural truths. Like what I just prayed over this next meeting, taking a bit of time to be reminded of God's presence and pray for his favor throughout the day, not just one time at the beginning or the end of it.
Joey Honescko One thing you're talking about, Jordan, with all of these is the rootedness of an identity in Christ. And another piece that I think can easily get missed when someone thinks they're coming into a podcast about redeeming time and time management is the way you're talking about humility. Also, you know, mentioning John the Baptist and this idea that his work wasn't the only work, that there was more work coming after him and he was setting the stage. I think of, like Moses leading everybody up to the promised land and then not getting to enter in. Right. There's all these different things. But as entrepreneurs, we can easily feel this pressure to do it all ourselves and put it all on ourselves. And I think that that drives some of that hustle and grind. I know in my short entrepreneurial journey, I've seen that already, that when things start to be challenged or when I'm having to rely on other people, those are the moments where I'm most am actually, like gripping harder and being like, I'll just take care of it all myself. And so there's a pride in there. There's an arrogance in there. And there's also, as you've mentioned, this idea that I need to be productive, to mean something or to be worthy of something in some form or fashion. So can you talk a little bit about how we might approach our work humbly and with humility, in order to free up ourselves, to redeem our time?
Jordan Raynor Yeah, it's a really good question. Listen, sometimes the answer is you do need to just, you know, grip the task more tightly and do it. I think that gets lost in these conversations. Sometimes that is the answer. But more often than not, for entrepreneurs, it's not. And there is a lot of pride that we're hanging on to. And I really do think the roots of this are deeply spiritual. Right? I think, and I'm just speaking from experience here. I need to be productive in order to feel like my existence is justified sometimes. I would never use those words out loud. Right? But that's what's going on in my heart. If I don't crush this quarter's goals, if I don't reach the next big hairy, audacious goal in the business, what am I doing? I'm wasting my life. That's the language we like to use. And I have this simple practice I actually employ with my kids at night. But it's a way of also preaching the gospel to myself to remind me of my love and worth outside of my productivity. I got this from Justin early in his great book, habits of the household. Last thing I tell my kids before I turn off the lights, I say, hey girls, you know daddy loves you no matter how many bad things you do. And they say yes. I think most kids hopefully understand that and say, hey, you know, I also love you no matter how many good things you do. And they say, yes. I say, who else loves you like that? And they say, Jesus and man. As much as I'm telling my girls that I am preaching that to myself, I need to hear those words applied to my efforts to redeem my time. God loves me no matter how productive or unproductive I am in this life. And ironically, I think it's that truth that leads us to be wildly productive. Why? Because working to earn somebodies favor is exhausting. But all. Working in response to unconditional favor. The unconditional favor of the father is intoxicating. And I think for faith driven entrepreneurs, the key to being wildly productive is realizing that we don't need to be wildly productive. And once we realize that God accepts us, no matter how many good things we do, we want to be productive for his agenda. As a loving act of worship now, that still leaves really practical challenges in the morning, a prioritizing my to do list and making sure I'm collecting all my open loops and not dropping any balls. But that is the root of what we all need. This ability to work from a place of beloved ness, rather than in search for the beloved ness that can only be found in our Heavenly Father.
Justin Forman Jordan, this is so, so good. I mean, it's so timely. I think we're some of the life stages with our kids, and this is a conversation that you and I have talked about before. And I love this because in many ways we are trying to help, you know, fix our brokenness, fix the part of us that is sick. We're trying to fix the part of life that we have been struggling through in this last 20 years of trying to sort through. What did I hear at church when I should? I have heard at church what I did here at business school, what I didn't hear at business school. We're trying to make sense of it all, but yet what I love, what you're talking about is parents. And I think specifically as us in this generation, in this moment, we have this page turning moment to really think about the next generation that might inherit things. I mean, we always think about this as parents is, you know, you want your kids to leave the house in better shape than they found it. We want to leave our kids a place in better shape than they found it. We want them to be able to take it further than we've ever gone. And what I love is, is that you're talking about this from a continuum and a spectrum that we both share of saying, okay, how do we help people today? But how do we help the next generation? I want you to talk a little bit about this, specifically to the book that you wrote in the kids book, and I think we briefly touched on this before. But, you know, when you're talking about redeeming your time and you're talking about some of this, it starts so much earlier, right? It starts so much in the way that you're modeling it to them, but it starts in implanting some of those habits there. And talk about that book and what pulled you into that and how you see that kind of like book ending, if you will, kind of where this book is and where that is.
Jordan Raynor Yeah. I love that you're making the connection between this book for grown ups redeeming your time in this picture book. I hesitate to call it a children's book, because it's as much for grownups as it is for kids. But this picture book called The Creator and You, I actually every time I give the Redeem Your Time keynote, I ended by reading The Creator a new picture book to a room full of grown ups. Because this is the why of redeeming your time. Because when I was a kid, I was told that the only time that was worth redeeming was my time sharing the gospel with people, or my time on missions trips, the time I spent creating things, creating businesses that didn't matter to God as much. He didn't really care about those things. And so the creator in you is really just a poetic articulation of Genesis one and two. The last stands of the book says, because when you work, you make something new. You are doing what God has made you to do. You are showing the world what your father is like, a God who creates to bring people to light. And when you show others the creator in you, you bring joy to the world and to your father too. That's the why of redeeming your time, right? When we create things as entrepreneurs, we are scratching off a glimpse of the character of the first entrepreneur, God Himself, the Creator God. When we do things for the good of others, which is the essence of good entrepreneurship, we are scratching off a glimpse of what Christ has done for us. That's the why of redeeming your time. And I'm trying to get up stream 20 years here Justin Wright and implanting. It's like inception style, right? Just like planting this idea in our kids minds that the work they do has intrinsic value, not just when they're leveraging it to some instrumental and spiritual. And and I know we talked a lot about that. I can't remember what episode number was, Joey, but in the episode about the sacredness of secular work and the creator and use my way of trying to implant that idea really early on.
Justin Forman That's so great. I love the line and I feel it every night. I feel it in a car. Right? I feel in this. It's one of the things that is fired up about this faith driven students initiative is right in the essence of what you talk about is when you say it aloud to your kids, it's as much for them as it is for us. And when you're reading that book aloud to a group of 40 or 50 year old, whatever it might be, entrepreneurs like the raw emotion of that is just so powerful. There's just something when we read that aloud that it becomes so true and so powerful. Powerful. Thing. It's one of the things that unites us in the shared passion for students. In doing that, and knowing that that experience is powerful as it might be in a school setting. It's powerful in a family setting, and so fun to think about that. Before we close, I want you to take us back to, well, one more time, some of the practical tips. I feel like we just, you know, touch the surface of some of these. What are some of the other things? What are some last saved rounds, if you will, of things that you'd say, man, of all of these, here are some of the others that stand out.
Jordan Raynor Well, hey, since we're talking about kids and this is a challenge, I know for a lot of faith driven entrepreneurs, let's go there. So again, there's 32 practices in the book. Maybe the most life changing for me, both personally and professionally, was turning my cell phone functionally into a landline for a few hours every single night. Before I explain what I'm talking about.
Justin Forman Do we need to stop and define what a landline is for our younger audience? Listening here, I know I.
Jordan Raynor Feel like we do. I feel like we do. There was a time, believe it or not, where the phone stayed on the wall. Kids, it's hard to believe. No, man. Listen, like, let me offer an analogy before I explain what I mean. Imagine that the mail man has started showing up to your house 250 times a day, but he doesn't stay at the curb, right? He gets out, he rings the doorbell. Just wait. It gets crazier. You actually get up from whatever you're doing to answer the door. You take the mail, maybe you open it, maybe you don't. But at a minimum, you steal a glance at who it's from and what the subject might contain. Joey. Justin, if one of you guys were doing this, I would be flying to Dallas to have an intervention with Justin Foreman right now. This would be certifiably crazy. And yet, cognitively, this is exactly what most faith driven entrepreneurs are doing every single day with digital messages, text messages, emails, slack DMs, whatever. Right? And so not only does this block our ability to do deep work in the office, it also blocks our ability to do the deep work of discipling our kids when we're home at the end of a long day in the home or literal office. Right. So how do you solve this? Turn your phone into a landline for a few hours every night. Here's how you do it. Step one choose ahead of time when you want your phone to be off your person every evening, right? So for me, my phone is off my person from five to roughly 7:30 p.m. every single day. And this includes when I was CEO and functionally chief sales officer of a rapidly growing tech startup. Okay, same thing. Step two build a list of VIPs who will have access to you during that time. That might be your direct reports. It could be your investors, your assistant, whatever. Step three take out your iOS device and add all those VIPs to your favorites list. If you're an Android user, add them to your people list. That way, when you get to the end of these five steps, calls from your VIPs alone are going to come through. Not their text, not their emails, not every, you know, Instagram notification of people liking another picture of your dog just calls from your VIPs. Okay, so step one.
Justin Forman You had to get so specific I know.
Jordan Raynor Come on, I know that's really hard in somebody. Step one choose when you're going to have your phone off your person. Step two build a list of VIP. Step three add your VIPs to your favorites list on your iPhone. Step four you got to proactively go to your VIPs and tell them what you're doing. Okay, so you send a quick text message to your investor and your direct reports say, hey, I'm trying to be more focused at home at night time, trying to focus on my family. Okay, here's how you can help me. From now on, I will not be checking my phone from 5 to 7 p.m.. Whatever it is. However, you're a VIP in my life and so if you need me during that time, do not text me. I will not see it. Do not email me or slack me. I will not see it. But if you call me on my cell, I'll answer every single time I'm available. That's it. Step five take your cell phone. Put on. I do not disturb. Keep the ringer on and go. Keep it off your person. Out of sight, out of mind. For me, I keep it in my master bathroom. So what happens is, if a VIP calls during that time, I have to literally walk to the phone like we used to have to do with the landline, check to see who it is, decide whether or not I want to answer it right, and a lot of times I'll ignore it. Sometimes I'll answer it. But the point is, for those 2.5 hours that the phone is away, I am fully focused on my kids and my bride. Because I'll tell you what, Justin. If that phone's in my pocket, I will check it mindlessly because I'm an addict and so are you. And frankly, what's happening in my email inbox and slack is a lot more exciting than playing dress up with my four year old, right? But God can choose anyone to check those slack messages. He's called me alone to disciple that little four year old named Emory and my daughters, Kate and Ellis. That is my job alone. So long as I am living, and I want to do that job exceptionally well for God's glory in the good of those that I serve within my home. So again, that's one of the 32 brackets in the book. Bro, that has been an absolute game changer for me. My kids, I track this. My kids have seen me on my cell phone inside of our house one time in the last 90 days. One time I don't want my kids to remember a time when daddy was sitting on the couch on his phone. They got no picture of it. They got no memory of it, because I took a tiny bit of intentionality by God's grace and converted that cell phone. An old landline, 2.5 hours every night.
Justin Forman So good. I saw a picture of somebody had an old landline again. We might need to define what this is, but there was a picture of an old landline, and it had the phrase it said when the phone was tied with a wire. Humans were free. And like what you're talking about, they're of, like, making those intentional steps might sound backwards in the, you know, Twitter verse productivity cliche phrase saying, and yet it is so much more productive. It is that step in that direction. And sometimes, yeah, simplicity is the better side of that complexity. And so man, what a good way to frame that for us. So guys if you haven't checked it out you know here's a closing thought before Joey maybe jumps in and is here's a quick trivia question for Jordan is when you think about your books, you've written so much in this. If somebody was just picking up one of your books for the first time, what's the order that you would want them to pick it in? Like, what's the framework? If there was a framework of the Jordan Ranger book collection, like where would you start? What's the one, two, three of how somebody would dive in?
Jordan Raynor Were you on my call with Cal Newport a couple weeks ago?
Justin Forman No I wasn't.
Jordan Raynor Oh my gosh. Carl and I were talking about this. Carl and I were riffing on the fact that, like, authors lament the fact that they can't reverse the order in which they published their books, because, trust me, we have an order in which we want you to read our books. So, all right, since we're talking about fate driven entrepreneurs are ordered this a little differently than I would a broader audience. Book number one, I'll make it optional is either called to create, which I really wrote squarely for Christian entrepreneurs, or The Sacredness of Secular Work, which is my newest book. It's the Why of Work. It's helping you see how 100% of your time leading your business matters for eternity, not just the 1% you spend sharing the gospel and writing a check to the missionary on your refrigerator. Both of those books accomplish that. Step two. Book two I would say master of one, but entrepreneurs have already found their one thing. They know what that is. So skip master of one, go straight to redeeming your time. And then book three would be the creator in you. My three minute picture book that I wrote for you, founder, but also for your kids. That would be the order number one called the Great Slash. The sacred is second work. Number two, redeeming your time. Number three, the creator in you.
Joey Honescko That's so great, Jordan. It's always great to have you. And you know this question about as well as our host who at this point, we close every one of our episodes with our guests asking, what is the Lord teaching you in His word recently? It could be this morning. It could have been a week ago. It could be a small piece of Scripture, could just be something that has stood out to you in your prayer life. But what is something that you're hearing from God these days?
Jordan Raynor Yeah, man. Good. I've been hearing from God that I can hear unique revelations from God, that never contradict his word. But what I've found in his Word through the Holy Spirit and man. I'm an elder in a Southern Baptist church. We don't talk a whole lot about. We believe in God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Word. We don't talk a whole lot about the Holy Spirit. And so, man, I've just been doing a deep dive on getting to know the forgotten God, as Francis Chan put it, and talking with really serious followers of Jesus about the role the Holy Spirit plays in our lives and allowing us to hear from God in a very, very real way. Outside of those moments of reading text on a page in God's Word man. And so that's I have not figured this out. I don't know that you can't figure out, quote unquote, the person of the Holy Spirit, but God's taking me on a journey there, and it's really uncomfortable. I'll be honest. Like, it's, really. Uncomfortable. I have more questions than I have answers, but it's been the most adventurous I've felt in following Jesus in quite some time.
Joey Honescko Oh, I love that word of adventurous. Yeah, it's a journey and it's an adventure. But when we view it that way, it can be such a joy as well. Not something that we just have to grit through, but something that's exciting and discovering more and more of who God is. So thank you for helping us do that today, Jordan. Thank you for the other episodes. Thank you for your books, and we'll link to all the ones we've mentioned, even Shoe Dog, in the show notes. So thank you guys both. Thanks, Justin for co-hosting and listeners, we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be. We've got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There's no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org.