9/16/26 - 2164: The People Behind the People

Jim: This is iWork4 Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: It was the original Wizard of Oz movie where Oz said, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Larry and Richard Ross have spent their lifetimes behind the curtain lifting up the names and creative works of headliners all over the world.

Jim: Larry Ross co-founded A. Larry Ross & Associates in 1994 with a focus on offering crossover media relations at the intersection of faith, entertainment, and culture. In the role, Larry Ross has served many who are household names: Billy Graham, Joe DiMaggio, Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, and many more. Larry's role has always been to lift up the names of his clients so they can use their platforms for God's glory, and in DiMaggio's case I'm pretty sure it was about a good cup of coffee.

Jim: Richard Ross has grown up in the business but spent many years perfecting his own brand of media relations before joining Larry at &Associates this year as his dad Larry transitions his leadership role to him. Together, this duo is committed to shaping ideas that move culture, challenge convention, and hold up over time.

Jim: Larry and Richard join us today to share the story of living behind the scenes and influencing culture as they lead &Associates, and share how transitioning from father to son is working out. We'll get behind the scenes look. Larry and Richard Ross welcome to iWork4Him.

Larry Ross: Thank you Jim and Martha, it's good to be here.

Richard Ross: Thanks so much.

Jim: For first-time guests on this show and it feels like we've known you guys because we've been working with your agency for years, referring people to us to interview, but we haven't heard your stories. First-time guest on the show always get an opportunity to share where Jesus impacted your life. Larry start us off, where did Jesus impact your life?

Larry Ross: Jim, I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home. My father was a Bible scholar and New Testament professor at the seminary level. But he really knew more about the Bible than anybody I've ever met, but he was in his head. It never seemed to get to his heart, and so I was raised that the gospel is a doctrine to be memorized, a debate to be won.

Larry Ross: I am the poster child for evangelicalism. The house I was raised in, my boyhood home had to be razed in order to build the Billy Graham Center on the campus of Wheaton College, an alma mater that he and I share. I was his personal media spokesperson for 34 years, at the time traveling in global evangelism with Billy Graham for 27 years, and then I met Jesus.

Larry Ross: I thought I knew Jesus. I gave my heart to him as a little boy, recommitted in high school, but I didn't really have a personal relationship with Him in a way that was enabling me to do ministry, personal ministry, with anybody. I was writing press releases read by tens of millions of people, but I was doing Jesus. I was a professional Christian, if you will.

Larry Ross: The gospel was a marketing concept and I met a friend in DC who helped me understand that the gospel is a person. It's Jesus. Jesus is the gospel. It rocked my world, and ever since, Jesus has been doing me, and it's made a huge difference in my life.

Martha: Wow, that's really amazing.

Jim: Love that.

Martha: Thank you for your transparency because that had to be a really hard thing to come to grips with for all the time. So Richard, how about you? Tell us your Jesus story.

Richard Ross: Yeah, I came out of this great man and born into that evangelical landscape, so it was just always around and it was always presented rather similarly across the board. And there just was a, abundant familiarity with it.

Richard Ross: I think that I had a strong relationship as a young boy with Jesus. And then I think that there are certain aspects of my experience with mainstream Christianity that just got disillusioned over time. And then I - it just sorta fell off in my life. Basically, entirely for a few years. And then I would say it, it came back. Honestly, I was at a Kanye West concert in 2022, and the Sunday service choir was singing "Jesus is King" to the tune of " O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana.

Richard Ross: And the presence of the Lord was so big .I'd never been around anything that large before. And I felt like I was just next to a mere fraction of the size of God. And I'd never experienced that, and that did a number on my heart for the years to come. And then I ... Yeah, I was in the, I used to work for a company called Mizzen+Main. They're a Dallas-based menswear company. I was creative director there for a long time. Then they decided to make a change, so I got let go from my job. I was there for about eight years. And I... right after I got let go, I was trying to find another job.

Richard Ross: I was being real diligent to try to get it. I spent about a month doing it, and I heard God say, " Richard, you asked me for more time with Me. I've given it to you. Why don't you spend it with Me?" And I heard Him loud and clear, and I just stopped. And I kinda took a sabbatical for a few months and just spent the entire time with God reading His Word and praying.

Richard Ross: And at the end of it, I got a new heart. And then there was another venture I was a part of, but I feel like all of it was in preparation to be able... going into the family business was not in the, the bingo card for me until it suddenly was. And I don't think I had the heart that was required for the mantle that has been put on my father in this business and its station in the Kingdom of God.

Richard Ross: But I just - You know I love Jesus. The more you understand the incredible thing that has been done is just ... Is, it's, it never- ... it's unending to- ... to come into remembrance, coming to new realizations. It is consistently humbling. And so yeah that's a bit of my story there.

Martha: That's so good. And I know we'll get into this more in just a little bit when we talk about this transition, but Larry, I can only imagine that as you've seen things change in Richard, God has just given you confirmation after confirmation with that. So I wanna start with when you launched your agency back in 1994, Larry, why did it need to exist? Why a Larry Ross & Associates?

Larry Ross: Like Richard I came out of a career in secular corporate and agency public relations. First with General Motors Corporation. You mentioned Joe DiMaggio. Jim, he was spokesperson for the Bowery Savings Bank, my main account when I was working at a big agency in New York City. Great experience but I wasn't... didn't feel like I was doing anything for anybody.

Larry Ross: And had the opportunity to provide a public relations component to the agency of record for Billy Graham, Walter Bennett Communications, that did his advertising and television production. And so I moved to Philly and then to Dallas, and after about two years they wanted to take me off and start going into secular business again.

Larry Ross: And I just didn't feel released from Billy Graham. I saw a great ministry as well as business opportunity to continue working at the threshold of faith and culture providing crossover communications out of the church into the mainstream and vice versa. And I was never called to preach, but I believe that what we do is every bit as much ministry in lifting up the arms of the men and women of God, and also people who are not only serving God but the common good.

Larry Ross: For example, 10 years ago I served as communications director for Dr. Ben Carson. I realize he's not a politician, he's a citizen statesman on a mission for God and the common good. And so messaging him was no different than Billy Graham or Rick Warren or some of these other that we represented.

Larry Ross: But our job, like Aaron in Hur when Moses was standing on a cliff as the children of Israel, the Israeli army, the Israelites army was fighting the, I think it was the Amalekites. As long as he had his arm lifted up they were winning. When they dropped they would lose. And so we're called to hold up the arms of the men and women of God and extend their influence and the impact of the organizations they lead to and through the media, and more recently now with digital as well.

Jim: Larry, you've hung out with guys like Billy Graham, Rick Warren, you just mentioned Ben Carson. We've gotten to meet Ben Carson, what a great humble man. Incredible story too. Wow, incredible story. What's one timeless lesson you learned from these greats? 'Cause you get to walk alongside of them. What's one timeless lesson you pulled away?

Larry Ross: Each one is different obviously in how they're wired and all, but I would say the common denominator is they're faithful to their calling. Take Billy Graham and Rick Warren. Billy Graham has a timeless message. Rick Warren, I would say, has a timely message. Same timeless message, but he puts it in a cultural context. And Mel Gibson, we worked very closely with Mel on The Passion of the Christ, and he felt called by God to make that movie, and he was faithful to what God called him to do. He didn't deviate from that, and I think that's one of the, the biggest common denominators.

Larry Ross: The other is authenticity. In fact people have asked me if I could describe Billy Graham in one word; I have to use four. In humility, integrity, authenticity, and love. He was an ambassador of God's love in his generation.

Jim: Love it.

Martha: So good to hear that. So Richard, you said already a little bit that the family business was not really on your radar, so when did you realize that this was maybe where God was calling you to?

Richard Ross: It was last year when I was in a venture, my wife and I along with some family friends started up a water company called Holy Water which is basically the opposite end of Liquid Death, like Tall Boy canned water, all of it's prayed over .And we were doing that and then last year a longtime secretary of the organization had passed away and I attended the funeral. Afterwards my parents asked me... it just hit different.

Richard Ross: So we started talking. You know, I've been asked before but it was very quick "No I am not interested." In September of last year I felt very strong call - me and my wife both, separately, we abruptly left that venture, started figuring out how to get involved so it really was a call to jump in and have these conversations. God has continued to carry it through since then.

Jim: So Richard what...

Larry Ross: if I could just...

Jim: okay go ahead.

Larry Ross: Oh I was Just going say I wanna get back to why your podcast Exists - iWork4Him And I know that you're All about Faith at work, God at work. Been Involved With I Am Second, working with the God at Work Magazine, Back in the Day When That was a Thing.

Larry Ross: Faith in the workplace has been a big part of my career. I think for me it stems back to my Dad, Mentioned he was a Bible scholar and He would have Sermon I Heard him Preach Several Times As kid on the Great Commission - Go into the World and Preach the Gospel. I always thought as a kid "oh no that means if I'm not called to be a missionary, I'm off the hook."

Jim: Exactly!

Larry Ross: That's not true because my dad would go back to the original language, and if you know that the Verb tense - Pluperfect Subjunctive or Whatever it is, is "while Going" Everybody's going somewhere. You guys are going to the podcast or radio studio. If you're a doctor or a lawyer, you're going to reach a whole different group of people who might never go to church. And so all of us, while going, we take the Gospel with us and lift up the name of Jesus. My Mantra my whole career has been Suit Up, Show Up, and after meeting Jesus as I described a few Minutes Ago, I Added a Third - Lift Up the Name of Jesus, Let God do the rest. Pressure off.

Larry Ross: And, Jim, before we started this broadcast, you were talking about Plano which is next door to us and how people of the Muslim faith are now moving in. I was raised "my religion can beat up your religion." I can't tell you how many cab drivers I've witnessed to on the way to the airport and, Jim, if you said to Martha, "Hey honey we're gonna talk about this topic but before we start everything that you believe about that topic, you're wrong and I'm going to show you why," you'd probably be sleeping on the couch.

Larry Ross: It wouldn't work, but that's the way often approach people of other faiths. I had a Jewish rabbi friend of mine who told me once that the difference between the three Abrahamic faiths; Jews observe faith of Jesus he was a Jew a Rabbi ,a teacher. Muslims practice faith with Jesus see him as prophet. And of course we as followers of Jesus put our faith in Jesus. So its the faith of,with,and in Jesus, but He is common denominator not differentiator - the way world would want us believe.

Larry Ross: Of course each group sees Him differently but It's common ground with-which to start conversation rather than argument about religion so now l can't tell you how many cab drivers of other faiths I have witnessed too on my way to the airport. Now I just get in car and I say "Oh am follower of Jesus,""Your Muslim""Uh He's both in our books let's talk about Jesus."And they you cant them to shut up. The talk about Jesus all the way to the airport. Fascinating conversation.

Jim: I love that and that's so beautiful because of where you guys are at and where this country is at. There so many people that are seeking and we just need to introduce them to who they're seeking.

Larry Ross: But you know - If could just say, part of job is you know Jesus didn't say "make converts." He said " make disciples." Everyone you meet has an experience or understanding of Jesus. Some may seem Him as a man, a Teacher, a Prophet, Son of God. Our job is push them closer on that continuum to where they find Jesus and make personal commitment to Him. And so someone shared with me once that Jesus emphasized relational integrity over intellectual accuracy. Doctrine's important. We need to emphasize it, but Jesus was all about relationship and expressing love to everyone He met.

Jim: That is true and so well put. Love that. Let's take the conversation to today - The & Associates, Richard, that you are now leading. Tell us who you guys love serve.

Richard Ross: You know, as was coming into the business and my background is brand and marketing, and whenever I work with a brand wanna able to really understand the core of how it was founded and why it was founded and what was established. And it was a really great process doing that with my parents as I was stepping into this brand and this organization.

Richard Ross: 'Cause we originally were starting in the context of a rebrand and in the midst of that process of hearing the, the call that was put on my father and my mother and how they really stepped out in faith, it really was, it became apparent how this was just an end- and If you look at the career my dad has had you know, he told you where he came from, it is just the hand of God that's been on this whole thing.

Richard Ross: And I really do think that there was an anointing put on my father and a mantle put upon and a unique position in the Kingdom of God because we speak to one of the-- when you look at the word prophet, I did a, a word study on it. I believe it's "nabu" in the Hebrew, and one way that it could be understood is spokesperson. And a lot of times we, ... it's interesting that my dad is a spokesperson. He was Billy Graham's spokesperson. But oftentimes I think part of the role is being a spokesperson for God to some of these leaders in Christendom as they go and be the spokesperson for God in other areas.

Richard Ross: So it's a really unique point in the Kingdom of God that my dad has served in for a very long time, and that I have been entering into, dissecting and as I've been coming into the understanding some of the, like, spiritual mechanics, is a phrase I use, around some of these things. And so really we work with people of conviction where God has put a message on their heart, and we help them get that message out by the most effective means possible.

Richard Ross: The way this business started, it was through the news media, was the primary way that it was done. And today, that avenue is still effective, but it is one... media is the plural of medium, and so the news media is one of the mediums that a message can travel. But of course, with the emergence of all these other communications channels, there are so many ways, and oftentimes you have to hit multiple at once in order for the message to be most effective.

Richard Ross: But it really starts at the calling, the message that God has put on our heart. When God speaks to us, he speaks to us rather simply, but it is profound and it is deep and it is rippling what he can say. And so finding that, that essence of the simple truth that can then scale out to the fullness of the execution, that's kinda where we start with folks, and the common denominator is a call and a message that's been put on people's heart.

Jim: Love that.

Martha: And you said earlier, Larry, you were talking about lifting up the, the other people, and that's really very much the heart of iWork4Him. God told us from the beginning, "Lift up what I am doing in other people's lives so that people can hear it and be inspired or challenged or encouraged in some way of the story that God wrote in them can be" - it's not gonna look exactly the same for you, but it can be a challenge or an encouragement to whoever is listening.

Martha: So can you give us a practical takeaway, larry, I'll address this to you, for any leaders that are listening that might have something that they're trying to communicate about their organization, is it actually getting to the being translated appropriately for the intended audience? Like, how can you give them a tip with that?

Larry Ross: One of the things I think people need to understand is public relations is not about manufacturing an image. Maybe in Hollywood it is. But we have always - We never manufacture an image for anybody. Rather, we project an identity that already exists.

Larry Ross: And so as I mentioned, the folks that we've worked with, authenticity was a common denominator. Secondly, when we start working with a new organization, we often find it helpful to ask three questions. First of all, who are you? What do you do? Your organization. That's easy. Secondly, how are you perceived? And it may be that they're a well-kept secret. Nobody knows about 'em at all.

Jim: Yeah.

Larry Ross: And then, but the third is the difference between who you are and how you're perceived is the communication gap that needs to be filled, and that needs to be done by telling your story. The power of story is a big part of what we're about, is helping these individuals and organizations tell their story in a way that will resonate with with various audiences.

Jim: What's your, what's the one, this best kept secret, now either, either of the two of you can answer this question, that you guys uncovered, that somebody came to you and said, "Here's what God's laid on my heart"? And you're like, "I have not heard of you. I have no idea who you are." And when you released it to the general public, it exploded because it was a secret that shouldn't have been a secret, that God used you guys as publicists, as, as media people to get that message out there, and all of a sudden it resonated with millions.

Richard Ross: I'm gonna kick that to the legend.

Jim: Okay.

Larry Ross: I'll just give you one. Yes, we've represented Dr. Billy Graham for many years. He was already well established in his ministry and it was just a privilege to be able to help to continue to extend his ministry out beyond the crusades, out through the media. But we'd worked with many... actually in 33 years since we started the firm, 3,100 different clients, individuals, organizations, some retainers, ongoing basis, some projects, some authors, hourly whatever.

Larry Ross: But I remember we, in 1995, Bishop T-... Or maybe it was '96, Bishop TD Jakes moved to Dallas from Charleston, West Virginia. Nobody ever heard of him except in West Virginia. I had heard him preach once. I knew he was a phenomenal preacher, probably one of the most incredible preachers I'd ever heard. And, so he came and asked us to help him and I remember pitching him at first. I pitched him to Larry King. Remember Larry King on CNN?

Larry Ross: And I had talked to the producer, I said, "Listen. We've given you a lot of guests; we've never given you a bad guest. Please take a flyer. Trust me your going to be glad you did." So it went, that first interview was "bishop who?" to, at the end of the hour, Larry King turned to his producer and said , "Who was that guy let's get him back on?"So -

Martha: Mmmh

Larry Ross: It's a matter of being able to use relational capital to introduce them to people we have worked with before but at the end of the day its the anointing is on these individuals that God uses to take it to the next level.

Jim: I like that! TD Jakes was unknown, there you go .

Jim: All right, lets focus on transition now as we closeout todays show, because thats the big deal here. Were going form A Larry Ross & Associates to &Associates. You are transitioning to Richard. How long did it take in your heart before you knew that Richard was the one you wanted to hand the mantel to?

Larry Ross: It was, it was obvious, as Richard described that conversation, it was not something that was on his bingo card, not something that we had even thought of. I knew that for us to transition to next generation leadership, not speaking as in the family, but the next, to move from a founder led to a vision directed movement forward, it would have to be someone of like mind and faith. I was getting many offers to buy the business, but a venture capital firm couldn't service clients in the manner they expected.

Martha: Right.

Larry Ross: And so it was that conversation was this obvious the Lord's hand on Richard's life, and it really was as if He had been preparing him for such a time as this. He had, like Moses out in the wilderness tending sheep, he was a creative director and he was getting a lot of experience. But as - the same thing happened to me - unfulfilled in this... What he was doing, because his heart really was to serve the King and extend the Kingdom of God.

Larry Ross: And so it was just, it was just immediately obvious, even though it was hiding out in plain sight for a long time.

Jim: Hiding out in plain sight for a long time. Richard did you realize you were hiding out in plain sight for a long time?

Richard Ross: You can't see it with me sitting down, but at six foot nine, that's a little bit hard to hide. .

Martha: Wow!

Richard Ross: Doesn't translate on Zoom that much. Yeah. I, after what he said and your last question, when I was in just, the marketplace and working on the brand, I also have a theater background. That's what I studied in school, and I applied a lot of that to my brand work. I really treated brands like characters.

Richard Ross: And- when you are operating within a character, you find what is true about that character, you stick to it, and if you veer from that, the audience can feel it, and it's not appealing. It just, it throws off the production, it throws off the investment. And so I really learned how to do that within brands and define what's true and stick to it. And when you can stick to that truth that's really underneath. It's in that true maintaining its truthfulness. It comes out to where everything becomes imbued with it, and it is felt by the viewer and by the participant.

Richard Ross: I think what's really cool about coming into having all of my work be unto the Lord, it's that sort of truth is not arbitrary and just like wafting off of my own who knows where I used to go to draw upon finding that truth. But now when we work, like we say, when we work with people of conviction, we work to understand, what has God told you?

Richard Ross: And when you find that, you feel it too. And then we really work to help that truth maintain as it scales. That is, to me, to your question earlier, what I have seen be the quote "secret" of people resonating with a lot of folks because a lot of people will do what they feel they should do, like off of what they observe otherwise and they feel, "well it feels like we have to go about it this way." But that's not how God works.

Richard Ross: And when you operate within His frequency, if that's to be used, I feel like I, when you tune to what He's saying and you maintain that tuning, it is ... It resounds and it resonates. And so I love doing that with folks, is helping them find what is true about their organization to where every single touchpoint... 'cause you gotta be pretty diversified today. It's, you gotta have your website have an expression of that truth, your Instagram, your YouTube, your wherever else you go, your podcast.

Richard Ross: And whenever you can have all those things work together, and where the base is understood, and it's blossoming outward like it can, I think that's really when it can resonate and explode.

Jim: What I love about the creativity of &Associates is you went retro on your website. You totally went retro on the website. Just so you know, I noticed it. 'Cause I saw websites when they first come out and I'm like, "Oh, we went retro on the website." I didn't know that was a retro thing.

Martha: People have to go check it out. We'll keep it in the show notes. I think Larry wanted to say something.

Jim: Yeah, go ahead Larry.

Larry Ross: If I could say what Richard just described, we all - our generation remembers the film Chariots of Fire. And Eric Liddell would say- ..."when I run, I feel God's pleasure," as he won the Olympics in 1930- 34.

Larry Ross: And I believe watching Richard is the same way. He's, what he's just described, it's a, is a wonder to behold as I've seen him break down a well known Christian organization to the core of who they are and build it back up again, and then tell that story in a myriad of ways across the various platforms available to them.

Larry Ross: And I think in the context - I know we're wrapping up - if I could just put it in the context of your wheelhouse in iWork4Him, I think that Richard and I and all of our colleagues, agency colleagues, we're not Christian PR marketers. We're professional communications practitioners whose faith informs our work.

Larry Ross: And for anyone in the workplace, if you are a Christian shoemaker, that doesn't mean you put little crosses on the side of your shoes. You can, but it doesn't mean you have to. It means you do the best craftsmanship possible, and your craftsmanship, your attention to detail, your pride in your work, that is your witness, and that's what people notice.

Larry Ross: They notice there's just something different about you or the way you approach your work. And I think the world is watching, and if I could just add this one thing, put it in the communications context. Years ago, I read a back page essay of Time magazine. Roger Rosenblatt, Jim, you're a media aficionado, you may remember him, one of my favorite columnists. He's passed away now.

Larry Ross: But I'll read two paragraphs from his back page essay of Time that said What Matters Most. He said, "journalists put the question in practical terms: What should we lead with? The rest of the population asks more generally, 'What matters most?'

Larry Ross: They come to the same puzzle, survey events in a given period of time, and try to come up with the single moment, the headline by which the world may be characterized, stopped in its spin. What should we lead with? What matters most? What we confront in making such choices is not the events alone, but ourselves, and it's ourselves we're not able to place in order. The question is not what the press decrees as this week's news. The question is us. What should we lead with? What matters most?"

Larry Ross: And I think for any of us, whatever your profession, a believer in the workplace, what matters most is how your character, how you treat others, and extend God's love to your colleagues and your customers. And so that's really our witness, and the work that we're called to do is just a vehicle to express that anywhere God has called us to serve.

Martha: Amen.

Jim: I love that. I love that. Richard, as you transition with dad over the next several years, I don't know what it looks like, and we're out of time, so we'll have to cover that on another show. But there's gonna be some, "This is the way Dad's always done it," and we're not necessarily gonna do it that way any longer because the world is a changing place.

Jim: What is the one thing you look forward to most as you take the reins all alone eventually with & Associates and move forward?

Richard Ross: As I said earlier, it's just evident that the hand of God has been on my father throughout this entire venture. And you look at these great leaders in scripture that have such a unique relationship with God and then that relationship gets passed on in sort of some of the work that they're involved with God if it could be said like that. And so I look forward to experiencing that as, as it transpires.

Richard Ross: I don't exactly know what that's gonna look like, but it's just so evident in scripture of Moses to Joshua, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are in a familial succession thing. This is covered in scripture. And so there is... and there's a unique thing that transpires that I feel like I am in the midst of, and its a very unique thing to be apart of, and it is a real spiritual dynamic that is at play.

Richard Ross: And it's really lovely to be able to have different aspects of scripture come forward in different ways that I wouldn't have been reading certain things unless I was in this position. And at least I've got scriptures to reference that some of these folks in scripture didn't. So that's helpful.

Martha: Keep that as your guide.

Richard Ross: Yes.

Jim: Richard and Larry, we're so grateful for you guys sharing your story, for sharing &Associates, the old, the former A. Larry Ross & associates where you guys really, as you said, really taking that conviction that somebody has, that God's laid on peoples hearts and helping them give a voice to it, give an effective voice to it, get that message out there.

Jim: We can't wait to see what the next 10 years looks like, Richard, as we partner together with guests and people that you guys are helping publish and make famous. But Richard and Larry; Larry thanks for laying the groundwork, thanks for being such a great stalwart or faith. And Richard, we're just so grateful that you're taking over, and thank you both for being on iWork4Him today to share a little bit of your story.

Larry Ross: Thank you. I just wanna thank you both for your faithfulness and what God's called you to do. Reminds me of the story in John 5, the Pool of Bethsaida or Bethesda whichever way you, which Bible you have. You remember the story?

Jim: Sure.

Larry Ross: Yeah. It's the saddest story in the bible by the way. If you remember the parapolitic is by the pool for 38 years. The Bible doesn't tell us he has the best suntan in the New Testament by the way from. lying for 38 years. But when he finally gets healed, what happens? He takes off. He runs away. He doesn't stick around and help others who needed help like he did for 38 years.

Larry Ross: So Jim I know you're been around this business a long time. I wanna thank you both for hanging around by the pool. And when COVID shut you down and knocked you off radio, you pivoted and you went to podcasting, and you've remained faithful. And God's honoring your faithfulness, and we're just grateful to be a part of that today.

Jim: Richard and Larry Ross, thank you so much. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately, iWork4Him.

9/9/26 - 2163: AI for Significance, Not Just Success

Jim: This is iWork4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work, and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: It's a story as old as time. Man does well in high school, really well, and ends up being accepted to West Point. Same man graduates from West Point and gets deployed to Afghanistan. Does well there, too. Comes back to West Point as a professor, then gets medically retired because of skin cancer. What? That's not the way the story's supposed to go.

Jim: Wait, it gets even crazier. Medically retired major leaves West Point, moves to Florida, and is now selling Jesus chicken in Miami. How does that even happen? You guessed it, only God. Our guest is Jon Harmeling, who chose to operate a Chick-fil-A instead of taking the obvious defense contracting jobs.

Jim: Today, AI runs the admin in his restaurant while his people run the restaurant. Jon says, "Hey, it turns out a dining room and a team of mostly first job kids is a mission field." He's a husband, he's a father, and a Chick-fil-A operator who cares more about significance than success. Sounds like a Halftime story to me. Jon Harmeling, welcome to iWork4Him.

Jon Harmeling: Oh, thank you for having me. You guys are... You guys need to be my hype people. I'm fired up now. That was a, that was an introduction. Thank you.

Jim: Hey, that's your story. I'm just trying to put it in, you gotta introduce everybody to it. That's awesome. Jon, we always start every show with a first-time guest talking about Jesus. Where did Jesus get woven into your incredible story?

Jon Harmeling: Yes, thank you for asking that question. Not a lot of podcast folks touch on that topic. But that's certainly a huge part of my life. Very fortunate to be born and raised here in South Florida. Mom and Dad, faith in our household was something I just learned at a very young age. So somewhere around the age of four or five accepted Christ into my life, and just go through that, that journey of the seasons where your faith is super strong and rock solid, and then you go through other seasons where it's not.

Jon Harmeling: You might be questioning a lot and then come back around again. But my faith has always been a big part of my life. I'm a big fan of being cautious not to use the word religion, but use the word relationship.

Martha: Amen.

Jon Harmeling: And so I just think that's really important. I'm not a huge fan of putting boxes and labels on people. I don't think Jesus wanted us to do that. I think Jesus wanted a relationship with us. For any of your viewers or listeners, if they don't have any faith right now, just encourage you to really lean into that. We talk about physical fitness and mental fitness, but what about spiritual fitness?

Jon Harmeling: And so just take some time to really explore what that is, and I think you'll end up at the same truth I did.

Jim: Yeah, we talk often on the show that the garden - in the garden Adam and Eve had complete physical flourishing, complete mental flourishing, and complete spiritual flourishing 'cause they walked one with God.

Jim: And when they sinned, it broke all three of those things. And when Jesus came and died for us- That, he came to restore all of that. And that's the walk with Christ, is bringing back flourishing, both spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Jon Harmeling: That's good.

Martha: That is good. I love it. So you talk about your journey of your faith, and, starting that at such a young age, which is such an amazing gift that you had that. Let's talk a little bit about the journey in your career. You went from West Point to Afghanistan to West Point again, to Miami, in order to run a Chick-fil-A. How did your... I'm curious how your experience in the Army prepared you for the mission field you're on now?

Jon Harmeling: Yeah, great question. So I think really leadership is leadership. And I wanna be extremely cautious to use two different words very intentionally. There's management and there's leadership. And so I think management, when you hear the word management, I think you need to think of transactional, getting stuff done tasks. There's a lot of deadlines, there's numbers, there's metrics. For the most part, it's pretty overt.

Jon Harmeling: When we talk about leadership though, that's people, that's transformational. It's usually a lot more covert, a lot of times behind the scenes. It's not recognized. It's not on a spreadsheet. There's not a deadline. "Jim, you have to lead by Tuesday." You know what I mean?

Jon Harmeling: And so there's management and there's leadership. And I think something that came out of the military, actually when I was a cadet, was identifying that. I wrote a whole paper on the difference between managers and leaders. Can all managers be leaders? Can all leaders be managers? And I still think it's true to this day.

Jon Harmeling: And so I do think leadership requires competence, confidence, and caring. So competence, you still gotta know what the job is. Competence-- excuse me. Competence, you have to know what the job is. Confidence, to be able to stand in front of other people and project that mission, that vision to others. I think that those two make a great manager, but a leader is that third C, which is caring, and that's where you start bringing the people aspect into it.

Jon Harmeling: So in the military, we did move around a lot. We had 14 different-- we moved 14 different times, each of those with a different job, each of those joining a different team, leaving a different team. Joining a new school for my son. My wife joining a new organization for her work. Us joining a new church.

Jon Harmeling: So what I'm trying to say is there's just so many different interactions and experiences with a lot of different people, and you really start to get an idea of the kind of leader that you respect and the kind of leader you might say, "I don't think I wanna be like that person." And so I just could encourage folks in their own leadership journey, if there's someone you genuinely respect, it doesn't mean you like them, i'm saying respect. I do think those are-- that's a whole nother story.

Jon Harmeling: If there's a leader that you genuinely respect, take a second and ask yourself why. For me, it was always because I felt like that leader cared about me as a person and not me as an employee. I wasn't a number on a spreadsheet. I was a human being going through my own challenges and issues and opportunities in my personal life.

Jon Harmeling: West Point, a lot of times referred to as the leadership laboratory, so blessed to be associated with that. The military puts you in a lot of very unique leadership situations to, I would suggest, where the stress level cannot be higher. Life, limb, and eyesight is on the line, and the bullets are flying, you have to be cool, calm, and collected.

Jon Harmeling: That's very challenging. As you can imagine, my experience is nowhere near what some of my peers faced. Had a number of peers that gave their life for our country as well during that service. But yeah, the military is just a phenomenal opportunity to learn more about yourself, learn more about leadership, and I think the parallels into a Chick-fil-A restaurant have been pretty clear.

Jim: And we're gonna dig into that. But let's talk about sidelined for melanoma. That's no laughing matter. You live in Florida, you grew up in South Florida, which is why you're dealing with melanoma. We lived in Florida 20-plus years. Skin cancer is just one of those things like, boy, I wish I just... that's just terrible. How did God move your heart to sell Jesus Chicken after living a storied life in the Army and after being medically discharged for melanoma? How does that all fit in, that transition?

Jon Harmeling: Yeah. If it's okay, Jim I'm gonna try to do this in three minutes and share about a seven-year journey. I hope to not get emotional, but we'll probably have that as well. At the time, had a chance to go back to West Point, was a teacher, was in the Department of Systems Engineering, and the class that I taught was project management. Had a fellow instructor next to me who got pulled away to an opportunity at the Pentagon, and as she left, we needed someone to help cover the classes for the last two weeks of the semester.

Jon Harmeling: Another colleague suggested there's a gentleman in the Army Reserve, so like a part-time soldier. He's in Atlanta. We could put him on active duty orders, bring him up to West Point. You could teach side by side. Let's do it. So he came up. He was a colonel in the Army, so he's not one or two, but three ranks ahead of me, and he's working for me as the course director.

Jon Harmeling: So he comes in, I salute him every day. And just, "Hey, sir, great to have you. What is your full-time job back in Atlanta?" And he said, I work for the organization Chick-fil-A. I'm a kind of a business liaison. I help restaurants in the field, and I go back and forth between our headquarters in Atlanta and the field."

Jon Harmeling: And I'm telling you that, that first day, he asked if we can just go get a coffee together, and we spent an hour and a half, and he didn't ask any work questions at all. He just... He was curious about Jonathan. He was curious about my wife, Carrie, and my son, like what are our goals? What are our paths? Like this gentleman spent, I'm sorry to say, but spent more time in that hour and a half just wanting to know more about me than some other of my like formally assigned, leaders.

Jim: Wow.

Jon Harmeling: And it just blew me away. So he very quickly became a mentor. I would say friend, but he's still a colonel. I'm the young captain. So every now and again, he would let me use his first name when I talked to him. But we stayed in touch for the next year, so I went and visited him in Atlanta.

Jon Harmeling: If anyone's ever been to Atlanta or excuse me, been to the support center, what we call our headquarters in Atlanta, please go take a tour at Chick-fil-A. See behind the curtain. Really hear the story of how we got to where we're at. It is fascinating. It is inspiring. You'll love it. So I had a chance to visit Rob.

Jon Harmeling: His name's Rob Coker. Visit him at the support center, was blown away by the conversation, and the first thing I think you guys will appreciate, when I was in high school, my dad, arguably my best friend growing up, so blessed for that, he said, "Jonathan, what is your life's mission statement?" And I said "I wanna glorify God with my life, and I wanna help as many people as I can."

Jon Harmeling: And that's the best I could do as a sophomore in high school. Fast-forward 17 years, I'm now walking into the Chick-fil-A support center, and they have a, they got a corporate plaque. It looks a lot like this, and I know you can't read it, but it's the mission statement of Chick-fil-A, which is to glorify God by being faithful stewards of all that's entrusted to us.

Jon Harmeling: That's cool. And then part two is to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A. So in high school, I had my personal mission statement. Now I'm visiting this company that has almost the identical mission statement. I walked in the door. There's a a statue of Jesus washing his disciples' feet in the lobby of the support center.

Jon Harmeling: What is going on? You go up to the original founder. You go to his office. Sadly, he passed away but his Bible is still open there on his desk, like to this day when you go visit. And you just start seeing all of these little threads just kinda woven in. This place truly is more about people than profits.

Jon Harmeling: And so I sat down with Rob for lunch that day, and he said, "Jon, I, I think you should really consider being a owner/operator or franchise owner with Chick-fil-A." And I said, "I don't know what that means, but yes, I'm in." And so I went back to the hotel, and I applied that night. Then I called my wife and told her everything that happened. So I did that backwards. I probably should've talked to her before applying. But here's where the story gets crazy, and I'll try to move quickly through this.

Jim: You're fine. Go ahead.

Jon Harmeling: At that point, I was active duty military. I still, in my head, had 10, 15, 20 years left to go. I was just gonna stay in the Army until they kicked me out. But I felt so called to this Chick-fil-A opportunity that I applied. So but I'm still... I still have a full-time job. So am I leaving the Army to go do... Like what a... I'm not gonna reach retirement. I'm not gonna get the benefits I've been working toward. Like this just appeared. It felt like such a huge fork in the road for us.

Jon Harmeling: And one of the, my favorite Bible verse I've got inscribed on my military ring here, Proverbs 3:5-6, which is to "Trust the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He'll direct your paths." And I just, I kept praying that prayer. And so I went to the first interview with Chick-fil-A and made it through. I went to the second. I went to the third. We're somewhere around the seventh or eighth touchpoint with Chick-fil-A.

Jon Harmeling: At this point, it's been a year and a half, and it felt like two very clear crossroads. I need to get out of the Army and pursue Chick-fil-A or tell Chick-fil-A, "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm gonna continue serving our country." So I went to what is considered to be the most difficult interview with them. It's an in-person, roughly about a three or four-hour interview. I leave the interview, and I go and get in my rental car, take my jacket off, set my book bag down, just emotionally left it all on the table.

Jon Harmeling: "All right, God. This is... I did everything I could." And I'm sitting in the rental car, and I get a call from my doctor and said, "Jon, do you have a minute?" Which is a terrible way to start a chat with your doctor. And he said "That biopsy we took last week on your ear, unfortunately it is malignant melanoma, and unfortunately the story gets a little bit worse. The part that we cut off had cancer cells on the outside, which means the cancer is spreading into your body. We don't know how far it's spread. If it did hit your lymph nodes, you might have just a couple months left to live."

Jon Harmeling: So I'm now in the parking lot of the headquarters of Chick-fil-A, just left a four-hour interview. I'm crying in my car 'cause I'm like, "Holy smokes, I'm not even gonna make it to Chick-fil-A, like- ... at all. Like is this... Do I have months to live?" And now I'm... Like, it was just a, a surreal moment. I'm sure people saw me crying in my car. They're like, "Oh, I guess that candidate wasn't selected." It's like, no, there's some more going on there. But I'll fast-forward.

Jon Harmeling: Fortunately, we caught it early. I got a part of my ear chopped off. Who cares? No big deal, but we caught all the, the cancer cells. I'm good, but I now have a medical restriction preventing me from going back to war, and if you're not deployable, the Army's gonna retire you early. So- ... the fork in the road I came to, do I leave the military to pursue Chick-fil-A? And it turns out the decision was made for me.

Jon Harmeling: God retired me early at the same time was opening the door for Chick-fil-A. So just a, a wild series of events, and it's amazing when you go back and just kinda look at all those little touchpoints, the little nudge here, the little keep you on track there, the little don't get distracted here. Yeah, just a wild series of events.

Jim: So it was a complete surprise for you, but it didn't surprise God.

Martha: There's so many things to your story that we could learn from, but what I see as this thread for our listeners' sake is, you continued to walk in obedience of where you felt compelled towards the Chick-fil-A ministry really, 'cause that's what it is and God helped you in that decision-making.

Martha: Now a lot of people won't see it that way because they're like, "How could you see that kind of a diagnosis as a direction?" But God provided for you in a way that is just really miraculous. That's how, as an outsider looking in, that's what I see. And I'm so grateful that you're healthy and that you're on the other side of that because that is a big deal to walk through. So thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for letting us see a little peek ourselves about... 'cause a lot of people, we might not even realize. That was a very long decision-making process for you to walk out. You're talking about a couple years at least.

Jon Harmeling: Yeah, at that point I had been in the military, so 16 years in total, if you include the 4 at West Point, 12 of active duty. I had another 8, call it 18, years to go in the military career. So it definitely took took some time.

Jon Harmeling: It was everything I've known since I was 18 years old. I'm now entering... am I a civilian? Is that the word I'm supposed to use now? It was a wild season. So we retired early - what a blessing. Hopped in our U-Haul for move number 14, and we drove from West Point to New York down to Miami, Florida, and we pulled up on March 5th of 2020.

 (Jim laughs)

Jon Harmeling: And if you are thinking about what happened essentially that week of March of 2020... coronavirus and COVID locked it down on March 6th. So that was my first week of being a civilian, was heading into that. Goodness, what just a wild season for so many folks. And I know your viewers have so many different experiences and challenges that they went through.

Jon Harmeling: For me personally, in terms of Chick-fil-A, Chick-fil-A decided to pause all of their new restaurant real estate investments. And so the idea of "Hey, Jon, I think we might have a restaurant for you to lead in the next four to six months," ended up turning into it was about a two-year waiting period.

Jon Harmeling: So it was after the Army, before Chick-fil-A, I kinda was in this lull for about two or three years. There's a whole nother story I'd love to share in that season, but yeah, it was a long process to sum it up. From application to being officially selected was a five-year journey for us.

Jim: Phew, boy. That shapes your character a little bit. 'Cause when you pray for patience and God gives you things like that in order to get patience. But, as he says, patience delivers us in incredible ways.

Jim: I wanna pause here for just a second because at iWork4Him, we believe that your work is not separate from your faith. It's one of the primary places God has put you, and the stories like Jon's are proof of that. God has told us to produce this show on and on for 13 and a half years so that more people can learn these truths and be inspired by stories of faith like Jon has shared with us already.

Jim: We invite you to become part of this mission with us. Become a monthly supporter of iWork4Him, as little as $5 a month. You can go to iwork4him.com/donate and become a part of helping this team produce stories and help share stories like Jon's around the world. We'll mention this again at the end of the episode, and and we'll also have it in the show notes, but iwork4him.com/donate.

Jim: All right, so Jon you ended up at the Miami Shores Chick-fil-A. Most of everybody listening to this show today has been to a Chick-fil-A and had Jesus chicken. It's just amazing. Nobody makes a chicken sandwich like Chick-fil-A, and yes, maybe they don't call it Jesus chicken in Miami Shores, but that's what I call it. What sets your Chick-fil-A apart?

Jon Harmeling: It's hard to pinpoint that. I only have control over our particular restaurant, and so I'd be happy to talk about that. But I do think just Chick-fil-A as a whole, so not necessarily our Chick-fil-A, but as a whole, I think we just, we value people and experience so much more than we do profit and money.

Jon Harmeling: First and foremost, we're closed on Sundays. Arguably Sunday could be our busiest day of the entire week, and so you imagine the amount of money that's on the table, but that's not what's important to us. What's important to us is giving our folks a day to, to be with their families, to worship, to enjoy sports, to catch up on school, to sleep, to shop, do whatever they need to do.

Jon Harmeling: But for us, again, it's very much people over profits. I'm very blessed to have a wonderful team. We have 88 people on our team. I'm sorry, we have 89 people on our team. We just brought in a new leader, which we're excited about. And the part I'm really thrilled to share is we have 19 countries represented on our team.

Jon Harmeling: So when we talk about American Dream-type stuff, like I'm working side by side with folks that are quite literally very new to United States, first generation to America, doing everything they can to either become US citizens, all of the paperwork, all the authorization to even be able to get to the United States.

Jon Harmeling: In many cases, a lot of folks taking part of their paycheck and sending it back home to their families to help them get through some really difficult situations in many cases. And I don't know about you guys, I'll speak for myself, I spent zero minutes working to be a US citizen. I just... I don't know. It's just what my parents told me. I am a, an American citizen.

Jon Harmeling: And I'm working side by side with people that are spending so much time and money and energy, and it's so challenging for them to get to the US and to be able to work here in our country. And the gratitude and appreciation that they show to have an opportunity to work on our team, it's just it's humbling, I think, is probably the best word.

Jon Harmeling: It just takes... I have to force myself to take a step back and truly appreciate something that was just handed to me just 'cause I was born in this country. Wonderful team.

Jim: Let's dig into that. I know it's not it's a little sideways, but I love that conversation. Let's dig into that a little bit because, having lived in Florida, Florida is a melting pot, and the Miami area is a real melting pot. When you drive in the Miami area, it's like driving in any of the South American countries. Just crazy. Most of the time they observe... some of the traffic laws.

Jon Harmeling: The traffic suggestions.

Jim: Yeah ... you get traffic suggestions- ... in Miami, that's for sure. Talk to us about the ministry, because you've got people coming to work at Chick-fil-A. Some of them just need a job. They don't know that when they come to Chick-fil-A, they're also gonna get Jesus at the same time. That- ... they're gonna get a culture that wants to shape their character, not just give them a paycheck.

Jim: You've got an oppor- 29 countries, which means you're ministering to people that grew up in Muslim countries, 'cause you can't have 29 countries and not have Mus-

Martha: 19. 19 countries.

Jim: Nine- 29 countries, 19. I think I nined some. But talk to us about that ministry, 'cause you're obviously being a great leader. You're investing in them personally, but you get an opportunity to be Jesus to these people, too.

Jon Harmeling: Yeah, that's it. A, a quote that changed my life was from Tim Tebow, and so he got up on... And I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm getting emotional with this, but I'll answer your question. Just give me one second.

Martha: That's okay.

Jon Harmeling: So I went to an event, I went to an event with my dad. So after the Army, before Chick-fil-A, it was a really difficult season. Part of my story is I applied to 383 jobs and got rejected from every one.

Martha: Wow.

Jon Harmeling: Not excited. And meanwhile, I'm still competitive for one of the most difficult jobs that's out there, and I just, I was just str- It was not a great season of life. And so I told my dad, "Hey, there's this event coming up, Tim Tebow," even though he's a Florida Gator, my dad went to FSU. "Let's go to it."

Jon Harmeling: And Tim got up on stage, and of the thousands of people there, he looked right at me, and he just said, "The greatest tragedy in one's life is to be successful at things that don't matter." And I just... that just... it made me uncomfortable, 'cause the whole time I was pursuing success and more responsibility and more money and just keep growing and climb the Army ladder or climb the whatever ladder.

Jon Harmeling: And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's just my goal, my aim was off, and so that's where just mentally I was like, I turned to my dad next to me and just said, "Hey, I have to switch from success to significance. If I keep going down this track, like it's just I don't think I'm gonna be satisfied. To whom much is given, much is required, and I'm just gonna, try to make more money somewhere."

Jon Harmeling: And so it was just a really challenging season of life. So I turned to my dad and I just said, "Dad, I need some more juice. I need some more life. I need to get going on something. What do you-- How about you and I? Let's start a business together. Let's start a company. Let's start a nonprofit, a ministry. Let's go, man." And he's like, "Dude, I'm all in." And so at the time, I did secure one work from home job. It was great on paper, it just wasn't very fulfilling, and I did that for a month or two. And so I told my dad, "Hey, I'm gonna quit this job. I'm gonna quit this job and let's do something together." So I quit my job on Friday, and my dad dies on Saturday.

Jim: Oh, my.

Jon Harmeling: And so now I just, now I'm planning a funeral. He had no health issues, and it just was a passed away in his sleep. And so now I'm planning a funeral. I'm the executor of his will. What does that even mean? I just got a real estate license randomly. At that season of life, my first deal is selling my childhood home that we've had in the family for 42 years. So now I have to clean out four decades worth of supplies and materials- if I could sum up just an incredibly low season of life.

Jon Harmeling: You talk about questioning, questioning your faith or God or directions or is this the path you clear? And at-- I don't know if Chick-fil-A's ever gonna work out. I just quit the one job that I have. And so it was just such an incredibly low season of life. And so one of the things that came out of that story is as I was cleaning out my family's childhood home, my parents' home, my dad had Post-it notes all over the house, and it just said Chick-fil-A.

Jon Harmeling: And he misspelled it, unfortunately, so it was Chic-fil-A that he had on the Post-it notes. And every time he saw it, it would just remind him to pray for this opportunity that God laid on my heart. And it was such a special time to take that Post-it note and put it in the restaurant that he had been praying for. Unfortunately, he wasn't alive to see it come through.

Jon Harmeling: And so it is just-- it has just been this series of success or significance. And at the restaurant, what I never wanna do is, unfortunately, whenever I pass away, I don't want someone to go and start speaking at my eulogy and say, "What I remember most about Jon is growing catering 120% year over year. I remember Jon for how many nuggets he sold on Tuesdays, and I remember Jon 'cause he actually had the greatest scores on what..." Who, who cares? Seriously, at the end of it all, who gives a flying crud about some of that stuff that I was spending so much time focused on and completely bypassing this ministry that's right in front of me?

Jon Harmeling: And AI comes out. I've spent so much time on AI, but I've been using AI for success and not significance, and that's been this aha moment here in the last few months, is how do you use AI to help you as a leader? Not a manager. Remember we talked about that. I'm doing a heck a lot of that, a heck of a lot of that is using AI to help me do tasks, to be more efficient, to get the repeatable, the you know, busy admin work done.

Jon Harmeling: But when it creates that capacity and that extra free time, that white space on your calendar, what do you do with that white space? Do you find more busywork, or do you actually pour into your team and lead and transform and do everything that I got into this business to do? And so recently, AI has amplified so much of my time, and so even last week, we created a goals dashboard.

Jon Harmeling: AI reached out individually to every team member on our team and said, "What are you working on? What goals do you have? How can I help? You wanna learn English? I got you. You wanna learn how to drive a car? I got it. You wanna work on your immigration stuff? You need to contact a lawyer. You wanna get accepted to college. You wanna be a police officer, you wanna be a cybersecurity person, you wanna be a Chick-fil-A owner/operator."

Jon Harmeling: I now today, I have 88, soon to be 89 goals on this database, and AI has helped me. It has prompted me with, "Jon, these are the three touch points you need to do this week to make sure these folks are on track to reach their goals. "We've also found here's the next five steps that you can help coach them through so that they can in fact go to college in the United States. This got off track. This is on..."

Jon Harmeling: Anyways I think you can kinda see where I'm going with this, but I just think leaders today have such an amazing tool at their fingertips, and all of us are using AI for success, and we're being better managers. But I really think we have to pause and see how can we use AI for leadership to be more significant leaders. And that's something I've just been working on right now, here recently, and it's been really cool.

Martha: It's so powerful to hear you say that because so many people equate using AI with diminishing the human capacity, diminishing the humans as... but you have 80, almost 89 people that you are responsible for. That's a lot of people. So AI's not replacing them. You're using it in a way to enhance their wellbeing and their futures, and I think that's so powerful to point that out to our listeners because that's the opportunity to say, "How can I use this so that I can create more white space as the leader?"

Martha: Because you only have so many hours in the day, and you have a responsibility at home to your family as well as your work family. And so I appreciate that perspective because I don't know many people that are looking at it that way. They're looking, "How can I decrease my workforce by using AI?" And you're saying, "How can I enhance my workforce by using AI?" Fabulous. And I think that's so remarkable.

Jon Harmeling: That's awesome. No you nailed it. And I would suggest to leaders that are out there, if you have an organization and there's a natural anxiety that when the term AI comes up, it's like, "Crud, there goes my job." Or it's me or Jim or Martha, right? AI's gonna replace one of us or maybe at least two of us. And unfortunately, there are organizations out there that are just sole focus is to reduce their labor, reduce their workforce. All of that makes sense on paper, but you're missing the human element of it.

Jon Harmeling: And so that's where I just think the success versus significance kinda argument comes into play. I would suggest if there's leaders out there, if someone chooses to move on from your organization, maybe don't rehire, don't backfill them. Pause for a second. Is there any part of their workload that could be done by AI or could augment an employee that's still with you and help them do it? So another way to look at it, instead of removing employees to replace with AI, as employees naturally move on to their next season of life maybe that's how you reduce your workforce.

Jon Harmeling: Anyways, yeah, it's just been, it's been fascinating for us. If I can give you one example we just had from two weeks ago, I ran an AI prompt that was trying to alert me for anyone who is on track to go into overtime hours. That's something we try to manage throughout the week. And I got an alert, came back, and it said one of our team members in the back of house is on track to work about, 42, 43 hours that week and go into overtime.

Jon Harmeling: So again, the prompt came back, "Jon, alert, pause, make some changes, adjust some stuff." The next week, I ran a prompt that said, "Who on my team is being overlooked and could use some encouragement?" The same individual came back on my screen, and it said, "The reason she's going into overtime is because she actually worked a double shift on Tuesday to cover for her teammate so her teammate could go to the hospital with her child who was not feeling very well."

Jon Harmeling: What? Like I didn't- ... I didn't know, I didn't realize this. So AI for success told me to, make some changes to reduce overtime or at least manage overtime, and then AI for significance told me to go in and give her a pat on the back and say, "Good job. I see you. You're working extra hard. You didn't ask for anything in return. Thank you for covering your teammate. Oh, by the way, who checked on our other employee and how her child's doing?"

Jon Harmeling: And anyways, this is where I just think AI has such great opportunities to provide these insights. I am in no way suggesting that AI do the leading for you. I am suggesting that it can nudge you as a leader and provide insight and analysis, but then you still have to walk away from your laptop and actually go do the leading yourself. So in my case, both of the individuals I just mentioned, one only speaks Haitian Creole and the other one only speaks Spanish, and so that gives me an opportunity as a leader to try to thank them in their natural language as best as possible.

Jon Harmeling: So it just created this great leadership moment a smile, a pat on the back. Who doesn't love a little encouragement? And again, who cares about AI? Or excuse me, who cares about OT for overtime, is what I meant to say. But yeah, just really encourage folks to lean into some of these tools, but lean in for it, not just for management of tasks, but leading of people.

Martha: And man, that's so powerful- That's great ... because those employees naturally, instinctively have more loyalty to you when you see them and when you hear them and when you have that relationship with them to know what's actually happening in their life. So what a great example of how that worked out.

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Jim: Jon, got a couple more questions before we head off for the day. You are dealing with teenagers, a lot of teenagers. Of your 89, how many of them are under 20?

Jon Harmeling: Under 20, I would say probably about 35%. If you were saying under 25, that's gonna be about 85% to 90% of our team.

Martha: Wow.

Jim: All right, so a lot of people that are young, influential. In the media today or in the common conversations, people are always complaining about this next generation. "They don't have a work ethic. They don't..." they talk down. "They all- They're literally stuck on their phones all the time." But yet you are seeing them as a mission field. How have you seen this next generation when you invest your life into them, how do you see them responding? Because there's so much criticism of them, but how are you seeing them respond?

Jon Harmeling: Yeah, I think first and foremost, if there's folks out there that want to place a label or a box on an entire generation, I would... I hope... This will probably be uncomfortable, but shame on you, for doing that, to say, "Oh, everyone that was just born in this season of life is automatically fits in this category." That is so false. It's just... that is fake news.

Jon Harmeling: This generation is dying to be led by people. I would suggest the challenges with the social media and the scrolling, like isolation and loneliness, self-worth, confidence. There's so many unique challenges that are hitting these young people. And so if I can create this culture where people are actually excited to go to work 'cause someone's gonna give them a hug, give them a fist bump hear them laugh.

Jon Harmeling: My wife serves as the director of hospitality, so everything that has to do with the team member experience, the guest experience as well, but the team member experience - she gets to the restaurant, depending on what time of day it is, she has 32 hugs to give out. You know what I mean? That's cool. That's awesome. Everyone's super excited to see her. They see me and it's like, "Hi, Jon." But she walks in, they're very excited.

Jim: You said people are dying to be led, but that's not what you just described. You described that people are dying to be loved.

Jon Harmeling: That's extremely fair. That's very fair. And actually, I'll take that into consideration when I share some of these stories going forward. But I just feel like if you can create that culture where just people feel valued, they feel heard.

Jon Harmeling: There's a wonderful book First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham. I'm hoping I quoted that right. And he just talks about how if you can have engaged employees, how they're gonna stay with you longer, they're gonna work harder. They're gonna think about the business when they're not on the clock getting paid.

Jon Harmeling: I get text messages at night, "Hey, Mr. Jon, I was thinking about an idea. If we could move this over here, it would prevent me from having to take extra steps back and forth. What do you think?" And it's like, "Amazing. Yeah. Heck yeah. Let's do it." And then I also think there's just so much culture stuff we get to do.

Jon Harmeling: I mentioned on Sundays, we have a day off, so every month we try to do something as a team and get together. Again, using AI, I used AI to poll the team, "What do you guys wanna do? We could do anything. As long as you could physically get there, the restaurant's gonna pay for everything." And so this month through AI, it collected all of the votes and said that we're going to the beach on Sunday.

Jon Harmeling: We're gonna have a cookout. We're gonna be out there at sunset time. The team is most excited about playing volleyball and Frisbee, are the two activities that they voted on the most. And so it's just, it's been a really cool season of life. And I do think if you can create that culture, when you hire someone that doesn't fit the culture, they stand out like a sore thumb. Is that the phrase?

Jon Harmeling: It stands out a heck of a lot more, and other people are just saying, "Hey, I'm not sure if this individual is kinda jiving with what we're trying to do here." Now, that provides us as leaders a chance to coach and mentor and train. Maybe it's just, it's a newness. It's the first job. It's overwhelming.

Jon Harmeling: Some Chick-fil-A's get extremely busy, and it can be very overwhelming. But I do think if you can get that culture piece nailed, people either just fit in with the culture or they don't. And if they don't, we coach them. And if it's still not working out, that's a great opportunity to continue showing care to that individual as you maybe help them, find employment somewhere else or somewhere that maybe fits their needs.

Jim: You free their future is what we like to call it. You free their future for them to experience something else.

Jon Harmeling: Yeah. And you nailed it. And of course, there's so many difficult conversations, and one of the things that if people ask me, "What is the hardest part?" Yes, it's the people part, but by far is letting someone go from your team. And I've had multiple situations where it's a round peg in a square hole, and I know this is not working out, and it's just come on. Please just show up on time. Please don't fight your teammates. Please be in the right uniform. Please don't smoke anything before you come to work, like...

Jim: yeah.

Jon Harmeling: Please just do like some of these things, and someone shared with me that you can't want it more for them than they want it for themselves. And it's been really hard, especially one of my things that my dad had a big soft spot for is young men that don't have a father figure in their life, a father or a father figure in their life.

Jon Harmeling: And you just ... I lose a lot of sleep and it's just " if I could just coach them a little more, if we can just do a little bit more, we can make it work." And those have been some of the most challenging conversations is when we have to part ways, part ways with someone. But yeah, it has been a wild, amazing, hard journey these last two years for sure.

Martha: Wow. I appreciate you sharing so much and it's only the tip of the iceberg, I know. From just hearing, there's so much more that goes into it. But the example that you're setting for all of our listeners, and I know like me, I'm thinking what could I do to move to Miami to work for you, Jon? Or have my kids, or encourage somebody who lives nearby because you are, you have shown us how God has wired you to care about the people and to want to see them succeed.

Martha: And it, for so many people, because you may be their first point of employment ever, you are setting them up for a wonderful employment experience even outside of when they work for you. So if they ever move on to somewhere else, they are gonna be a better employee as a result of that. I take that as a huge win, but hearing your story, thank you for being obedient. Obviously, it's not been easy. Obviously, it's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into it. But you have a whole little community there that God has given you to be responsible for, and then they are responsible to their families.

Martha: It flows on, and just hearing how that has impact to their families and to your community and to all of your customers is huge.

Jim: Yeah, 90 households, including yours, getting impacted. And Jon, you'll go out and you can speak for- I mean, you'll go out and talk to other companies. This is something that you do. You encourage other leaders to learn from your experience, correct?

Jon Harmeling: Yeah. And thank you for asking that. I appreciate that. It has been fascinating as I go and meet with other business owners. We have church groups and small groups. We have a small group Bible study with just business owners.

Jon Harmeling: And it's interesting, whatever the design topic was or the planned topic for that day, we still get back to AI, and everybody's so excited. And it's just this idea of, yeah, of using that to just amplify your leadership, not replace your leadership. Like help set you up for success to, to be a better to be a better leader.

Jon Harmeling: And putting together this Frontline AI Leadership - I chose all of those words very specifically and just wanna document our experience that we're having at the restaurant. It's not a-- I'm not pitching anything, selling anything, not trying to make money. But the biggest value I get are some folks that reach out and say, "Holy smokes, that, you know, prompt you shared, that took me in like a whole new direction in my leadership." I'm so excited, to be able to do that.

Jon Harmeling: Creating leadership development framework within your restaurant. So organizing and scheduling. At what time am I sitting down with each of my directors? At what time are each of my directors sitting down with each of their shift leaders, and those shift leaders with the trainers, and the trainers with the team members?

Jon Harmeling: For it to be a leadership model of one to 88 is not smart- ... 'cause we also are called to develop, we're called to develop leaders within our own restaurant. We wanna grow and raise leaders, and I hope they can lead in other organizations.

Jon Harmeling: Two other comments, if it's okay, I'll share. Please don't write off the 16-year-old just 'cause they're young or they fit into whatever generational stereotype you have.

Jim: Yeah.

Jon Harmeling: We have had multiple situations of two different individuals. One comes in with the perfect resume we're looking for, amazing interview. The other one comes in, no resume, first job ever. All they've done is babysit their younger sibling. And the interview was uncomfortable, you could tell, kinda nervous. You could probably see where the story's going. The person that was perfect on paper in the interview turns out was just not a good fit for what we're doing. And that 16-year-old with some coaching and some mentorship thrived, and has had multiple promotions in the first few months, and is crushing it.

Jon Harmeling: And so I'm just saying, please give our young adults a shot and pour into them. Please don't let any preconceived, notions out there prevent you.

Jim: And the other thing, you're really just saying do what Jesus did. Don't judge people based on their behavior. Just love those people and love them into success. That's what Jesus did with every one of the disciples. Really.

Jon Harmeling: That's fair.

Jim: Yeah.

Jon Harmeling: It's fair. And I would also just take it a step further. For anyone that's in kind of a frontline industry and you interact with a lot of customers - or in our world we don't call them customers, they're guests and it's our pleasure to serve them.

Jon Harmeling: You might be the only person that smiles at them all day, maybe all week. You're the only person that used their name this week, or just genuinely served them, or cleared their trash, or refreshed their beverage, or took a moment and helped them to their car on a rainy day. And one of my favorite videos that Chick-fil-A has is a guest comes to the front counter, looks very well put together, smiles, and there's a subtitle underneath, and it shares a very real struggle that they're going with, or excuse me, that they're going through.

Jon Harmeling: And again, on the outside everything looks great, and on the inside it is just like we don't know what our guests are going through when they come through our restaurant. We've had some amazing, heartbreaking stories that have come through the restaurant, and they're like, "I come back here 'cause I feel good."

Jon Harmeling: Yes, we hope the food's good. We hope it's fresh. We hope it's accurate. But like when some people leave and they can't even remember what they ordered or what they ate, all they remember is that they felt good, like I think that's when you're really tapping into the ministry opportunity that we have inside our four walls.

Jim: Jon Harmeling, thank you so much for sharing your story, so much of your story. And to be able to- just in- it's inspiring just to hear that you're doing what Jesus said, "Love God, love people." And you're doing it in a Chick-fil-A. So it doesn't get much better than that, 'cause you get to eat Jesus chicken all the time.

Jim: And I know we need to let you go, because it's about lunchtime in Miami Shores, and I know it's busy. And the line around the building is double wide, and it's going crazy. But Jon Harmeling, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Jon Harmeling: Yeah, it's absolutely my pleasure. My last quote for you guys that changed my life is, "The greatest tool the devil can use in your life is busyness." And you mentioned we're so blessed to be in an organization that happens to be more busy than normal. But please, if there's folks out there that are just filling up their days with busyness, take a step back and pause, and just really pray and think about how God can use you to get away from busyness and start doing more of the leading that we're called to do. But it's been a pleasure hanging out with you guys.

Jim: Appreciate it very much.

Jon Harmeling: Hope we can do it again.

Martha: Thanks, Jon.

Jim: And listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, help us produce more of this. Join us in supporting us at iwork4him.com/donate.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, and our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately iWork4Him.

9/2/26 - 2162: You’re Not Meant to Lead Alone

Jim: This is iWork4Him

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: Hey, over the last 13 years we've explored and discovered many business owner discipleship programs that serve the needs of a wide ranging size and shape and focus of a business.

Jim: The newer one on the map is Kingdom Factor. Launched out of Indiana, Kingdom Factor has spread all over the country. Today we're going to talk with Greg Ballard from Kingdom Factor in the DC area. Greg is growing Kingdom Factor in one of the most influential areas of our country and the world. We better be praying for him.

Jim: Greg is here to share his powerful story, share maybe a little bit of frustration, and to share what God is saying to him. Greg Ballard, welcome to iWork4Him.

Greg Ballard: Thank you. Glad to be here today, Jim and Martha.

Jim: Hey, Greg, we do this with every first-time guest on iWork4Him. Tell us how you became a follower of Jesus.

Greg Ballard: Ah, one of my favorite stories. So I'm gonna start early and, but I'll get to that point quickly, and I think the early part adds to the context. So I was born and raised in upstate New York around Albany, the Albany area. Troy boy, if you will. Troy, Cohoes, Watervliet, that was my stomping grounds.

Greg Ballard: And I was born into my, my mother was a teenager when I was born, and my father was probably in his very early 20s. So very young parents. And my mom was one of 10 in a Catholic home, and my father was one of seven in a Protestant home, Methodist. And I was basically raised Catholic, but then as I got a little older, my dad was like, "We need to show you Protestant, what that looks like."

Greg Ballard: And so they, for one year they sent me to Sunday school at the Protestant church, and I got to see the differences, right? And the big thing for me was is the Protestants' priests were married and the Catholics' priests were not. That was kinda the big deal. But we had a parish within a stone's throw of my house.

Greg Ballard: Literally, if there wasn't a three-story building, I could throw a rock and hit the parish. So I became an altar boy very young, and I would walk there and walk back. And my parents didn't come, but I was an altar boy. I wore the, the gown, I poured the holy water, I snuffed the candles, and I got to ring the little chimes.

Greg Ballard: And, as they were kinda exposing me to these two different things, they were like when you're 16, you get to choose," okay? And in their mind it was binary. You either become a Catholic or you'll become a Protestant. And I was like I didn't know left from right either. But what they did not know is that they would end up, the marriage would end up dissolving, right?

Greg Ballard: So the, they divorced when I was about 13. And my sister and I stayed, we lived with my dad for a couple more years 'cause that's our community, that's where we grew up. And my mom she found another place, and within a couple years she actually met somebody and remarried. And immediately my sister and I, we're gonna go live with her.

Greg Ballard: So we moved west almost an hour into another city in upstate New York And the first year I was there things were fine. I stayed with my faith, I went to school, I got decent grades, and everything was fine. But I ended up connecting with some other people, and, my mom was like, " you need to go make some friends."

Greg Ballard: I made the wrong friends, if you could put it that way. And I found myself living out on the streets way more than I should've been, and my grades slipped. I ended up taking biology and started hearing about evolution, and I shifted, my faith shifted from a Christian Catholic worldview to more of an agnostic worldview.

Greg Ballard: And I was also getting a little arrogant, and I was also hurt by the divorce, things I didn't quite understand then. And so I decided to run away from a perfectly good home at the age of 16. And to survive on the streets of this small city in Upstate New York I became a herbal entrepreneur, if you will.

Greg Ballard: And that's how I made money. But I would go to parties, I would drink, I would do things. I was basically a reckless teenager for about two years, and I could tell you tons of harebrained stories that would make parents stay up at night. And eventually, doors closed on me there, and I had to remove back to my hometown.

Greg Ballard: And it was while I was there I ended up getting my HSED D. I got a job here, I got a job there. And then one of those jobs, there was somebody working, I was working in a restaurant, and he began to share the gospel with me. So I was about 18 years of age at this time, and I argued, and I would debate until... I was just that kinda kid.

Greg Ballard: And then one day, it was in Easter of '95, and the church that he had attended was launching their new building. Now, I was familiar with this church because I would take road trips with my friends out into the country, and we saw this construction site, pretty regularly.

Greg Ballard: And so he's like, "Hey, Greg, I want to invite you to come." So I took my girlfriend at the time, and we went to this church service. And this is a Baptist church, okay? And so here's my Catholic upbringing, my Protestant upbringing with stations of the cross, very ornate, very ceremonious. I went in, I think I genuflected.

Greg Ballard: I couldn't find the holy water, but I genuflected before I got in the row of this Baptist church with about 800 seats, and there's nothing on the walls. It's completely bare. Tons of sunlight, which is very different, right?

Greg Ballard: No stained glass. And then there's this pastor He was a fully bearded, full suit, 1970s former hippie named Duke. And he preached, and he used a 26-foot platform back and forth, running and jumping and screaming, and he shared his story. And I connected with him because he talked about his days getting high, getting stoned, using LSD. I related to all of that stuff. And there was such a movement, a moment in that experience. Something shifted for me.

Greg Ballard: And then a, a week or two later, I don't know what it was, this guy who had been sharing the gospel with me called me, and I was living-- So I'll back up a little bit. My dad had always told me, "I'm gonna throw you out when you're 18," right? He kept threatening that. He actually did it. We got in a physical altercation. A couple doors broke, window broke, and he literally threw me out, physically. And so my h- car had broken down on the side of the highway. I had really no place to live, and I finally kinda put it two and two together, "I need to get my own place."

Greg Ballard: And in our small town, we had a tenement building, so it was three stories. These two older sisters lived in their home on the first floor, and the second and third floor was basically rooms and a hallway with just rooms, and then there was a, a, a restroom and a shower room that were shared in each floor.

Greg Ballard: The smell of bacon and marijuana every morning. I had gotten a room. I was able to pay for it. I was in the second floor all the way in the back. And so I had this, this room I was in. I got a phone call, and it was this guy who had been sharing the gospel with me, and he just said, "Greg, do you realize that if you don't accept Christ, you're going to be condemned to hell?"

Greg Ballard: And I was like, "Yeah, I do believe that." I don't know what was going on, but I believed it. And he said, "Would you like to ask Christ to be your savior?" I said, "Yes, I would." And he led me in a prayer. And we hung up the phone, and 15 minutes later, him and his roommate were, like, all giddy. They showed up at my place.

Greg Ballard: They're sitting on my bed. They brought a microwaved hamburger in Tupperware, and I was like, "You guys are weirded out. You're weirding me out. I don't know what's going on." But something shifted for me. I end up going to church. The relationship I was within, I was in was very, carnal, if I can put it that way.

Greg Ballard: That changed. The dynamic changed in such a way that within a matter of a couple weeks or months, that relationship dissolved. And people I would spend time with, I can now sense being in their presence, I sensed evil. So where a month before I could hang out with this guy and we do stuff, whatever and no issues, now just walking past him I could sense evil.

Greg Ballard: And so God began to shift my social, the people I was around. And in less than two years, within two years of that decision, May 5th, 1995 I moved across state lines into Boston. I went into Bible college in Boston, and I spent four years there earning an undergrad degree. And so that's a long way of sharing that story of how God gave me a darkness to light conversion experience and really transformed who I am.

Martha: It's so good for our listeners to hear that because at some point they might relate to some of it, Greg. And to hear how God just used different people that entered your life, we never know where those seeds are gonna go. And here you are today. So thank you for sharing that. So where in your life did business enter in?

Greg Ballard: So I think that's a really great question. I could say it started, in those teen years when I was, buy low, sell high. But it was not ethical, it was not moral, it was not legal . And I just knew that I could do that. And then when I came to faith and I came out of college I think it was probably Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad Poor Dad, that made a huge shift for me into thinking I could take a different approach.

Greg Ballard: But I do know that watching my parents work the common job, I knew internally I didn't wanna do that. I wanted something that provided more, that gave me more freedom. So I had already had from a childhood formation made some decisions about how I wanted to approach work. And so in my 20s, I started a contracting business.

Greg Ballard: I did a couple jobs. I had done some multi-level marketing things. And then I got into youth transportation, and that's another whole kinda segment. But parents with at-risk kids would need their kids to be moved sometimes from A to B. And I end up building a business around that and then that became successful for a short time until I went into full-time ministry.

Greg Ballard: But I've always had this idea of business is probably one of the better ways to create wealth and to serve the community. And so that's been something that's, I think, been internal for a while.

Martha: Awesome.

Jim: All right. So but you've moved from being a business owner, then you went into full-time ministry, which we can have that conversation, (chuckles) because you are- ... you're still in full-time ministry as a business owner. And everybody listening, you already have heard, if you've listened to the show one time, you know that full-time ministry is right where you're at. If you're working somewhere, you are surrounded by lost and hopeless people. It's your mission field and your assigned place of ministry.

Jim: Greg, how did you get transitioned then into this Kingdom Factor thing where you're now discipling business owners? How did God move you there?

Greg Ballard: Yeah. So we'll back up for a little bit. I came out of college. I took on some side jobs, but my passion from that moment of coming to faith in Christ and starting to work through what my purpose was and how I wanted to invest time and energy and effort, and being in a Bible college environment my passion for the local church really took shape and grew.

Greg Ballard: And it was just as simple as what better use of my time and energy and talent than building his kingdom? Than investing in his church? And sometimes I would say, if I was gonna ever get caught in an affair, it'd be with the church, not someone in it, but with it itself, right? Because I would just give so much.

Greg Ballard: And so I basically had a tent-making philosophy. I would work two or three side jobs just to volunteer, just to be at the church when the doors were open, just to serve wherever I could. And so I did that for a couple years in the church that I had come to Christ in.

Greg Ballard: And then my pastor sat down and was like, "Greg, we love you. There are other places you can serve, and you can actually grow." And so I ended up starting to attend and getting involved in another church, one of the larger ones in our region, and it turned into a volunteer this, volunteer that, and then I met the staff, and then essentially I got hired full time overseeing probably about 50 different volunteers and a couple of other operations.

Greg Ballard: And year over year, they invested in me, and I grew. So about eight years I worked full time for a local church, and the last thing that I did there after being married is we founded a campus, right? They were doing a multi-site outreach. And so I got to pastorally lead, and that was really what I wanted to do, and I was loving it.

Greg Ballard: Young, growing, trying to figure things out but that ended, okay? That ended in an unceremonious way, if I could say. And it delivered a bit of a wound, honestly. It hurt all of us because of the way it was handled, and we ended up at that point in time relocating. We were like, "Okay. Hey, we're young. We just have... We got two kids. We can go wherever we want."

Greg Ballard: And the opportunity to pick where we wanted to live was in our hands, and so we moved here to Northern Virginia, and that's when I started thinking, "I want the church opportunity, serving in the church." I had candidated around for a few months, and I had this sense of no matter where I go, I'm gonna feel like a hired shepherd because I had no real connection to these places, to these communities, and I did not want to do that.

Greg Ballard: And so I was like, "What if I go into business and I can create value in the marketplace and I can use that value to advance the kingdom?" And that's really what started it.

Jim: So Greg, then how did that lead you to Kingdom Factor?

Greg Ballard: Yeah. So that's a 10-year journey. So we started, and plan A fell apart in about 30 to 45 days, and then we ended up going with plan B. And so I really, I bootstrapped the idea of starting a business in a place we'd never lived, had no network, no connections.

Greg Ballard: And my goal was I wanted to go wherever I could go and kinda get, quote-unquote, "behind enemy lines." So I created a business model that wasn't faith forward, right? I wasn't a Christian consultant, I wasn't a Christian business leader, but my faith and my values were driven by everything that I did. And so for about 10 years, I did coaching, consulting, working with different agencies.

Greg Ballard: And essentially what happened was I built up a bit of a business, and then with the most recent presidential election, we had DOGE come through. And DOGE-- Because I was selling to the federal government in many ways in 2024, we had our banner year for sales and support to services and products into the federal government.

Greg Ballard: I started thinking, "We need to press into this." And then in early 2025 we got the notice that basically every vendor that, every buyer we had relationship with was either told not to buy, retired, or was riffed. And so we had a massive loss, a pretty significant loss, I should say, of business revenue through that.

Greg Ballard: And that became a forcing function, right? So here I am in February, March of 2025 thinking, "What am I gonna do?" And throughout this whole process, I've been wanting to get back tointegrating my faith with my work. I did not think it would take 10 years to get to a point where we could do this.

Greg Ballard: And I started researching, I started looking around, and I found this program called Kingdom Factor. And so April 2025, I was meeting them, they were meeting me. We had this conversation. I got a great conversation with the owner, and he said, "Greg, let's try something." And so he hosted a call for me, and my job was just to see who I could get there.

Greg Ballard: And within 10 days, I had 16, 17 people show up on that one call, and he was like, "Greg, I was-- I'd be impressed if you had three. You had 16." So I had my first paying member before I signed the licensing agreement. And we got our first community up and running in eight weeks, which I didn't realize, but that was abnormally fast.

Greg Ballard: And so when I came out of my training and I was meeting other coaches, I was like, "Okay, something-- God's done something here." So now we're a year in, and we're continuing the-- My introduction to marketplace ministry has been pretty quick in the last 15 months. And yeah, so that's how we got to where we are.

Martha: I would love to hear just a little bit, kinda high level, what Kingdom Factor is and what sets you apart as a Kingdom Factor coach.

Greg Ballard: Yeah. So Kingdom Factor is a community for... is a peer advisory community for Christian business leaders. And so there are other models out there, but Kingdom Factor, I think, is unique in one it's not a franchise.It's not like a Vistage franchise or a Convene franchise or a C12 franchise where the chair or the forum speaker is kinda locked into the content, the format, the formula in their territory. So as a licensed operator, I can support people around the world. In fact, I have some international people in my online community.

Greg Ballard: And number two, I can bring my own content, or I can modify existing content. And the goal really is to solve a few problems for Christian business leaders, which, one of which is isolation. Many people are doing their thing on their own. And what I mean by on your own, I mean you are surrounded by people.

Greg Ballard: You have a spouse. You have employees. You have maybe partners. But they all have a stake. They have their own stake in what's going on. And so where do you get around people that don't have a stake in what's going on, in the decisions you make? And where do you get godly people around that?

Greg Ballard: And so we meet for a half day a month, about four hours once a month, and we basically are an elaborate, committed small group where we have accountability. We open and we look at God's godly principles. We solve real problems. Yeah, so we do what we call a crucial conversation where one member will-- they'll give, they'll answer, they'll write about a page and a half document in advance, and we'll spend 45, 50 minutes diving into that member's challenge for that month.

Greg Ballard: And then, so there's other components to it. But essentially it is a intentional community of Christian business leaders that share like-minded faith, share entrepreneurship, and want to see each other succeed. And we just offer that peer advisory council. And so you're getting input from people that hold your worldview.

Martha: Yeah. I love that so much, but I wanna pause here just for a second because what Greg is talking about is exactly why this podcast exists. We believe that our work is not separate from our faith. It's one of the primary places that God has put each one of us, and stories like this one are proof of that.

Martha: We make this show so that more people can hear them. If you wanna help more people hear these stories, you can become a monthly supporter for as little as $5 a month. That's iwork4him.com/donate. We'll say it again at the end of the show and also have it in the show notes.

Jim: And I also wanna say thank you to infiniteprotection.ai. SaferNet has now merged and grown into infiniteprotection.ai. They're an enterprise-grade cybersecurity company built for all types of businesses. They have one unified platform that secures devices, scans vulnerabilities, and identifies network risks before attackers can get in. A few highlights about Infinite Protection include every device and user covered, not just the network, always on monitoring and threat blocking, and they've got optional compliance and penetration testing.Online at infiniteprotection.ai, this is a iWork4Him endorsed cybersecurity company.

Jim: Greg, you work a lot with kingdom business owners, Christian business owners, and a lot of them don't really understand the significance of the ministry that they've been given, the biznisty - to give Chuck Proudfit out of Cincinnati, Ohio, a little credit - the biznistry that God has entrusted them with. How does Kingdom Factor help them understand the significance of that call?

Greg Ballard: Yeah, that's a great question, Jim. So we have three main pillars of content, right? And I believe it's Psalm 72, 73, and David shepherded them, and with integrity of heart, he guided them. And with skillful hands, he guided them. So David shepherded. He led, right? So there's a sense of personal leadership. How do you operate as an individual? How has God designed you? What has he equipped you with? And how do you get clarity around that so that you can make good, effective decisions?

Greg Ballard: So we set up personal vision.We do a lifeline. We look at your, we do a personal, a personality inventory and core values. So we spend some content, probably six months, just going through what is your personal operating system. And then two, we get into what we call business integrity. What does it mean to run and operate a business that aligns with biblical values, right?

Greg Ballard: How do we-- you know, and it's really about stewardship, recognizing that we're not the owners, we are the stewards. And then third, we get into operational excellence. How do we show efficiencies and improve our business model so that we can advance the kingdom of Christ?

Martha: So what do you see as some of the common struggles that your members are really struggling with?

Greg Ballard: So it all depends on where they are in their business. So we serve a lot of different stages. But if you're at that owner/operator, you're just getting started, it's mostly about getting a very clear offering. What do you offer and who do you serve? So avatar offering, and then two, how do you get people to know you? Do enough people know what you have to offer? Do you have some social proof that what you have to offer is desired in the market and that you can perform it?

Greg Ballard: In other contexts, if you already are established, it could be growing. Like, how do we scale this? Or finding employees. So I've supported a number of businesses on getting clear on how you onboard and select employees, and getting them equipped so that you can scale your business.

Jim: You mentioned something earlier, though, isolation. You're giving community. You're providing an opportunity for community for these business owners, because isolation, whether somebody's a leader in a corporation, a leader of a small business, a pastor of a church, isolation is a thing in leadership, because leaders really struggle being transparent with the people that report to them, no matter what the context.

Jim: How do you help leaders with isolation? Because this is... Again, you're trying to get leaders in a group to actually share what they're struggling with in order to be able to overcome this business issue. Isolation's a powerful tool of the enemy to take people out. How are you helping overcome that?

Greg Ballard: Yeah, absolutely. We have some agreements in our communities, right? So one, everybody has confidentiality agreement with what was discussed inside our groups. Two, we promote transparency and radical honesty. So part of my job is creating an environment where someone is comfortable to share things in a space that they may not feel comfortable sharing in other places. And so that's part of the thing that we offer.

Jim: Nice.

Martha: So good.

Jim: Good. And what I love about the fact is that Greg's one of those guys working from home, and today his kids, they all had sugar cereal for breakfast. And we get to hear a little bit of that. Greg, how many kids you got?

Greg Ballard: Pardon me, there is some background going on.

Jim: It's all right. It's all right. How many kids do you have, Greg?

Greg Ballard: We have four kids. 13, 11, 9, and about to be 8. Three boys and one girl.

Jim: Listen, I just wanna make sure everybody understands, when you work at home, sometimes you have noise in the background.I don't want Greg to feel bad about it. Let's celebrate. You got three boys. There's noise. And a girl. The girl's probably the quiet one.

Greg Ballard: Sometimes.

Martha: You never know. Yes.

Jim: We need to finish up, but we really wanna make sure people check out Kingdom Factor.If you're a business owner, what's the sweet spot for Kingdom Factor as far as size, for being a member in Kingdom Factor, right there in the DC area?

Greg Ballard: Yeah and I would say it may shift a little bit depending on which, who you're working with, but I've found that we're seeing some real value with businesses that are operating and they have some team, right?

Greg Ballard: So they have an operational... They have revenue. They have an operation, they have some team and they're able to get value because they're getting in a space without - that doesn't include their spouse and their other employees.

Jim: So they're in the scale. They've established. Now they're scaling.

Martha: Yeah. And we are gonna put those links in the show notes, Greg, so that people can reach out to you directly and get a chance to ask the questions. Say, "Hey, am I a good fit? Can we work on this together?" Whatever that might be, whatever the next step is.

Martha: Listeners, we're gonna put those links in the show notes for you so you can take that next step if this is something that, you're leaning into. You're like, "been looking for something a little bit different to help me in this area." So Greg, thank you so much for that.

Jim: Final word to you, Greg. What kind of word of encouragement do you have for that Christian business owner listening today that goes, " I need a community"?

Greg Ballard: So sometimes you don't realize it, right? And if you, what I would say is if you don't have a space where you can go and be radically honest about what's going on in your life, your faith, or your business, or all three of those, then you need to find something, or I would highly recommend you do find something because I think you're missing out on some opportunities for God to support you, to encourage you.

Greg Ballard: AndI'll share a quick story. And this is a story from another Kingdom Factor group. One of the members was ... the economics of their business had completely shifted, and he called his coach and he said, "Look, I'm ready to shut down. I think I'm done. I'm not gonna come back. My business is done." And the coach was like, "Hey, look, you're up for a crucial conversation. Why don't you come in, tell us what's going on, and let's see what we can do?"

Greg Ballard: And so he assented. He's like, "Okay, fine. I'll do it." And he went in, and they spoke about this for a bit of time, and then finally something clicked.And one of the, one of the other members said, "Why don't you try X?" And I forgot exactly, I think that this was an executive search firm, and the large companies were no longer needing the services. And so they decided to shift it to the small or midsize market, and they revamped the model, and it took.

Greg Ballard: It went hugely successful, ended up selling the business at a multiples figure. And that was because he got in a room with other people that cared about him, cared about his business, and allowed him to think in a way that he wouldn't have been able to do on his own. And I think that's kind of the example of being in community, is you have a perspective.You have your lane. You have what you're focusing on. But who's asking you the hard questions? Who's asking to say, "Hey, have you looked at this? Have you checked under that rock? Have you considered that resource?"

Greg Ballard: And when you can get into a community of people that can provide that, typically windows are opened and doors are opened that could not have been opened any other way.And so if you are operating a business and you don't have something like that, then set it up. Find a Kingdom Factor coach. Find another community. We have a virtual community. My passion is to build community around Christian entrepreneurism. And I, I just think there's so much value in that.

Greg Ballard: The other piece of this is so many businesses struggle, and so many business owners and operators are trying to say, "Hey, is this what God's calling me to do?" And if you don't have a sounding board, somebody that can speak or pray with you about it, it can be really difficult to know whether to go left or right.

Greg Ballard: And the people around you, whether that's your spouse, your partner in business, your employees, your vendors, they all have a stake in the decision that you're trying to make. And so they - great input, but they have self-interest in what you decide to do. So how do you get out of that? How do you get out of, and in a room of people that whatever you decide isn't gonna impact them, they're just gonna generally wanna serve you?And so that's what I would offer.

Martha: That's so good.

Jim: I love it. Make sure you guys check out Kingdom Factor online at kingdomfactor.us. And if you wanna talk to Greg, just look up Greg Ballard when you're on that website. Greg Ballard, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Greg Ballard: Thank you, Jim and Martha.Appreciate it.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, and our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately, iWork4Him.

8/26/26 - 2161: Emotional Endurance: Persevering with purpose

Jim: This is iWork4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work, and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: Romans 12:2 says that we should be renewing our minds, changing the way we think. But how do we do this? Leslie Bosserman was asking the same question as she battled the darkness of depression and discouragement, wrapped up in her blanket like a couch burrito.

Jim: Leslie needed help, and the Lord said to her friend, sent her a friend who prayed with her daily and led her out of the darkness, and eventually down the wedding aisle. Leslie learned something powerful during those dark days. She learned you need to work on building your emotional endurance. It doesn't come easy, and it doesn't come quick.

Jim: It's a process, and the process is strenuous, kinda like training for a marathon versus running the bases playing softball. Leslie Bosserman says that by persevering on purpose for an eternal purpose, we leave a lasting legacy with our emotional endurance. That's a lot, I understand. For all of us within earshot, we need to build this emotional endurance so that we are as effective as we can be in living out our faith at work.

Jim: Leslie Bosserman wrote her book, Emotional Endurance, as a guide on how to get our minds well in order for our souls to thrive and for our communities to flourish. She's here to tell us more. Leslie Bosserman, welcome to iWork4Him.

Leslie Bosserman: Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's a joy to be here.

Jim: Leslie, tell us your Jesus story.

Leslie Bosserman: Ah, so I grew up as a Christian believer. My parents actually came into faith late in life, I would say, two years before I was born. And so there is some kind of learning alongside of them, which was really powerful and hard at times as a child, we'll say. So I joke that I'm constantly being called to move to Nineveh.

Leslie Bosserman: So I grew up right outside of Silicon Valley, and then went to college at UCLA, and a lot of the people in my church community were questioning, "Okay, that's a pretty big, liberal, giant institution. Are you sure you're ready to move away from home and walk in faith?" And I was like, "Yes, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be a broadcast journalist. This is where I'm going."

Leslie Bosserman: I had so much faith and so much hope, but what really fortified my faith that freshman year was not just going through the motions of going to church, 'cause my family goes to church, and really taking true ownership of who I am as a believer, who I am as a child of God. And we grew up observing a weekly Sabbath from birth till now, and actually choosing to do that on my own in a busy institution where there's always something going on. So actually choosing rest, and choosing God, and choosing Jesus, that was a huge part of kind of that formative young adult development.

Jim: Did you have a specific campus ministry that you wanna give a shout-out to that made an, had an influence in your life?

Leslie Bosserman: It's so interesting. When I say being called to Nineveh, I actually worked in residential life, which no one would call a campus ministry, maybe a covert ministry but I was associated with CRU and Young Life, and some great people on campus, but I wasn't directly involved in their leadership. I've always been pulled to more mainstream causes to use my values and my purpose and my faith to infuse that wherever I go.

Martha: So good and such a good encouragement for all of us. And to know that in the college years, good solid relationship with Jesus Christ can be, just made cemented into your life. So let's fast-forward to what led you to write this book that Jim is holding up right now. Emotional Endurance. Where'd that come from?

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah, so actually dovetailing from college, so I think in my 20s, I learned the skills of what emotional endurance required. I learned that I didn't have them, that I needed them, and what even that was. And then moving into my 30s, I actually started coining it and practicing and teaching and coaching and training organizations, executive leaders, other college campuses on the science of emotional endurance.

Leslie Bosserman: And now in my early 40s, I wrote a book about it. So I think that's where all these skills tie in. And the framework of it, it came out of a lot of prayer. It came out of a lot of trial and error in all honesty, 'cause this is what happens when we are both entrepreneurs or business owners or busy parents or even single people waiting for what's next. So I won't give away too much, 'cause I know you have some great questions. But the framework was solid in my heart for at least 20 years before this book became alive.

Martha: You know what? That just gives us some really good validation, because you've lived it out, right? This isn't something you just, you know, found out about it last month. (chuckling)

Leslie Bosserman: I honestly, I joke I joke to my husband, I'm like, "This book has been living inside of me so long. It can only do so much good inside of me. It has to grow outside of me, otherwise it's not benefiting more people, and that's truly what ministry is."

Martha: Beautiful.

Jim: And your husband is who helped bring it out of you. That love, that's real. To me, based on reading your story and your book and getting a feel for your heart, those six months of being, what you called a couch burrito, I believe you said - wrapped up like a burrito on your couch, whatever you, it was, it was a dark time.

Leslie Bosserman: A blanket burrito. (laughter)

Jim: A blanket burrito. That's what it was. But you had thought all your life it was gonna be journalism, and all of a sudden you did your first news on the UCLA news network, your first anchor spot, and all of a sudden you started questioning everything.

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah.

Jim: And that's a resilience thing. And it really challenged you, and the Lord then brought, He brought your husband, your future husband into your life to kinda lead you out of that. That to me was the beginning of this journey, because it is a journey, isn't it? Emotional endurance is a journey.

Leslie Bosserman: And it's a skills-based practice throughout your entire life, right? So when I think about those formative years, so from that moment coming back from that news segment when I was 20 to, I think, seven years later on laying on that couch. So much happens in the span of seven years, and then it's also a blink, right? When we think about time and space and what we experience.

Leslie Bosserman: And I've known my husband since we were eight. We actually met at church camp. And so I look at some of the foundational strength of friendship and the things that we build throughout our lives, whether they're knowledge, skills, relationships, all these gifts that God gives us, and how He's investing in us even before we know how they'll be used.

Leslie Bosserman: And I think that truly is the framework for how we then build our emotional endurance through those seasons.

Martha: Okay, so why is this something that a lot of Christians really need to work on, but they don't really even recognize that there's the need?

Leslie Bosserman: So I look at the fruits of the spirit, for example.

Martha: Okay.

Leslie Bosserman: And we talk about, oh, love, joy, peace, all these things we want to cultivate. No one is like, "Let's go with longsuffering." "Let's just stick with that one", right? And when I really take a step back and say, what does our society, what does the workplace, what does the world need us to be to reflect the heart and the message of Jesus Christ to people, to believers and non-believers?

Leslie Bosserman: It needs us to be steadfast, strong, to be like accepting of when we have hard times. It's not this Pollyanna rose-colored glasses approach. I am such an optimist, but one of the things that this process of life has taught me is you're gonna have to name the times that are really hard, 'cause God redeems that for His good.

Leslie Bosserman: So emotional endurance as a whole is a framework for building specific skills to keep going when you don't really want to. Because the thing I think that sets us apart as believers is when someone sees us, they say, "There's no reason you should want to keep going. There's no reason through the suffering, through what you're experiencing, that you have this hope, that you have this faith and this joy.

Leslie Bosserman: There's no earthly reason that this should be here, yet here you are." And a lot of that is what I tie into in the skills practice in my book.

Martha: And I can't wait to dig into that more. And Jim's been alluding to your story and of your life, and that is interwoven throughout the chapters. So listeners, I encourage you to, as we're talking about this book, we'll put the link in the show notes for you to find it and get it for yourself, because this is an area that all of us, no matter where we're at, can work on.

Martha: I just want to say that over the course of our career, our path may change more than once, but choosing a cellphone provider that reflects your values is a change you only need to make once. Patriot Mobile is built on the pillars of faith, family, and freedom, with dependable, US-based customer service. Make the switch at patriotmobile.com/iwork4him, and you can make that switch today.

Jim: Patriotmobile.com/iwork4him. We did it. You should do it, too.

Jim: All right, so how do we get started, Leslie? Building emotional endurance takes time, as we talked about in the introduction, it takes a lifetime. You talked about this book's been inside of you for 20 years. Takes time.

Leslie Bosserman: So it takes time, and I believe, Jim, that you start exactly where you are now. Just like God meets us where we are in those moments, there's no checklist or prerequisites for accepting that grace, just like there's no checklist for just saying, I'm a broken-down hot mess today, and I don't feel good, and I need Jesus, and I don't know how to keep going."

Leslie Bosserman: And the admitting of where you are, and that might not resonate with you. You might say, "Actually, I'm feeling pretty good today. It's not the best day, but I'm doing okay." So wherever you are, that's your starting line. And we don't compare and contrast. We just start where we are. And then moving from there, we look at it and say, "Where do I want to be now and next?"

Leslie Bosserman: And so as an executive leadership coach, I've had a practice called Lead With Intention for over 15 years, and I've worked with clients from nonprofits to educators to Fortune 500 execs. And I look at this commonality of this desire to go from where they are now to what they really truly want to cultivate.

Leslie Bosserman: And we see this across all walks of life from young children who want to learn to read or ride a bike to executive leaders or entrepreneurs who have a vision. And so when I think about emotional endurance, it's more than just the resilience to keep going. It's a skills-based practice of when stuff is tough, how do you pick yourself up?

Leslie Bosserman: How do you bounce back, but with that perseverance and that desire and hope to overcome? So I really dig deep into the science of failing in your strengths so then you can lean into that, and the science of hope. And I go into a lot of different psychological tools that have been proven that the Bible said first. And so it's really this integration of science and scripture.

Jim: And let me just tell, for everybody who just got freaked out by the fact that you brought in the psychological stuff. Don't worry. I read this book, and I wasn't put off by all the psychological stuff. She puts it in... leslie does a great job of putting it in eighth grade language instead of college language. And she draws a picture that you can put in your mind, and sometimes there's actually pictures of your mind in there. So it's good. I understand some of that was necessary. That's the kind of stuff like, is a little-

Martha: But it's interesting because-

Jim: But it's how God did it ...

Martha: we've had several podcasts lately with amazing guests that are really helping us to see, okay, God created the science that now science is proving or sharing or... And all of us learn differently, Leslie, so that's one of the things that, we realize some people just need all those facts. Like prove it all to me. And other people just need- very simple, this is just what you should do, and it's God says it, so we should do it.

Martha: I was thinking about you saying, this is so much more than that era where people just said, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and let's just move on. Get over whatever you're struggling with and move on." And that doesn't make us into a better person and fully live in who God created us to be. So in your book, you focus on six things: failure, resilience, hope, courage, energy, and purpose. So all of these are necessary ingredients for the healthy mind that can emotionally endure. Which one is the hardest for you?

Leslie Bosserman: Such a good question. So this framework, these kind of, we call it six principles for developing emotional endurance, and in each of those principles, just for people that haven't accessed the book yet, I break it down into three skills, so it's really accessible. You can read it in two to three minutes. There's also reflection questions, so it makes it really interactive in that sense, if you choose that.

Martha: So I just wanna highlight, this is not a textbook.

Leslie Bosserman: No ... it's actually a gift book.

Martha: Yeah.

Leslie Bosserman: So it's a Zondervan gift book, so it's fun that way. You can read it in under four hours. Or in tiny chunks. But to your question I think the biggest one that I'm leaning in right now is hope to heal. It's one of the harder ones for me. I tend, like I said, to be an optimist, but to-

Jim: People listening already figured that part out. (laughing)

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah. But to have this sense of having an eternal hope for a bigger purpose when everything around you feels hard. I live in Sacramento, California, and I joke that God put me in Nineveh, because I never in my life thought I would live in the capital of California, literally a mile from the capital, as a conservative Christian believer who cares very deeply about my community.

Leslie Bosserman: And many people have said, "Why haven't you moved away?" Or, "There's more conservative places." And I'm like, it's hard to be a light in a room full of light bulbs, right? And you still can do that. But we are called to be in hard places for good godly work. And having that hope and having that ability to know that this is a temporary life for an eternal plan.

Leslie Bosserman: And I integrate the late Rick Snyder has this whole psychological theory on how to develop hope that the Bible beautifully coincides with. So I won't go into all the depth there, but if anyone is struggling with suffering or depression or anxiety or hopelessness I have a whole section on not just what the science said, but how did God input this in our hearts and then solidify it in our minds to help carry us forward.

Jim: As I was reading your book yesterday, I have a friend who's really been struggling with hope and his future. And there was just two pages in there where I took a picture and I'm like, "You need to read this right now." And he calls me like, "This, that was perfect." And I said "No, get the book. It's on the..." And I sent him the Amazon link.

Leslie Bosserman: Thank you that makes it worth it because that's the whole reason, right? That's the reason as entrepreneurs and authors and creatives, we do the work to show up to help other people we've never even met yet.

Jim: Okay, so for us, when you talk about... I laughed many times during the book. But one of the... Martha and I are to-doers, and lots, we're task-oriented. And the two things we really need to work on are creating margin- ... so that when unexpected things happen, they don't throw you off, or so that you're available when unexpected people show up. And then rest, the Sabbath rest thing, it's the most hilarious thing. The Lord's moved us to a church that the service on Sunday isn't until 10:30 in the morning, and they don't get done till 12:30. And it's a two-hour service.

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: And it's been great because it forces us to have a mellow Sunday morning. We're not getting up, running, going to church. And then so - let's just talk about that. Why is building margin in our lives key to building emotional endurance?

Leslie Bosserman: Ooh, so good. So Dr. Richard Swenson is the ultimate authority on margin. He's a Christian physician and wrote a book called Margin, and I read it-

Jim: Great book. Great book.

Leslie Bosserman: 15 years ago, right?

Jim: Yep.

Leslie Bosserman: And I put this into practice in my life. Also as I joke that I'm type A, my husband calls me type triple A. So I just say, "Great, I'm reliable and I'm always there in an emergency."

Jim: Did he say you were a Duracell or an Energizer?

Leslie Bosserman: No, I'm definitely Energizer. Not that I need to be branded, but from that I am... Like, if you look at from a Gallup StrengthsFinder profile, achiever is like my number one. Achiever and activator. And so when I look at some of these skills, doubling with strengths, having positive margin. So margin is defined as the amount of power you have, so the resourcing, the skills, the education, the support systems.

Leslie Bosserman: Power minus load, so load is obligations, stressors, stuff you have to do. Sometimes even positive things that are still heavy, 'cause that happens. So power minus load equals available margin. So if your load is heavier than your power and your resourcing, you're gonna feel depleted. Just no one would want to read my book if I didn't actually have margin on the edges, right?

Leslie Bosserman: If there was no white space, your eyes wouldn't know where to rest and land. Our bodies actually only heal and compute information when we have rest. That's our brain forms all those neurological connections while we sleep. That's why sleep is so essential. If you're also a parent of young children, I'm with you in this, and I know this. And it's still really important.

Leslie Bosserman: And there is a reason why God created the world in six days and then purposely rested an entire day and sanctified it, right? And yet I joke and I even said this in the book, that if God had not ordained the Sabbath holy, I would never stop. I would just keep going, right?

Leslie Bosserman: And like you said, having that invitation into the power pause or that ability to say, "I'm here. This is my purposeful pause to have sanctified time," whatever that looks like we don't need to wait for an entire day. We can do that throughout our week. And having a full day to do that, that is a true gift in our society that would tell us that, "No, you never can rest. You never unplug. Don't restart your body. Don't restart your phone." But we've been shown that if we don't do those, things will break.

Martha: Okay, so tell me about the difference between ta-das and to-dos.

Leslie Bosserman: I'm sorry. You gotta do it- Ta-da ... with the jazz hands. Ta-da. Ta-da. I'm a to-doer as well. So I'm the queen of lists and strategy. And we own and operate a co-working space with childcare, and I'm a full-time preschool director on top of an author and all these things. So there are lists... There are so many lists. And yet what I found, often, if I have a to-do list, and I get to the end of my day, and things aren't checked off, and I feel this c- this compulsion to, "Okay, I'm gonna work late," or, "I'm gonna finish these things."

Leslie Bosserman: And one, that's not healthy. It, in those seasons when I pushed that way, it hasn't helped my marriage or my family relationships or my sleep. I can be productive, but productivity is not the... The currency of efficiency is not what makes us feel successful, right? It's temporary. So what I started doing, at the end of each day, I have a separate journal, and I write down what I am proud to have accomplished or what I made progress in, and I call this my ta-da list.

Leslie Bosserman: And so instead of the to-do list, which still has boxes unchecked, I can look at that and say, "Okay, so today, I got all three kids to school on time. And we went grocery shopping and we had a client call." And those are just things that I might have already checked off my to-do list, but I also go deeper. Say "I went on a walk with a podcast in my ear or my Bible dwell app in my ear, and I meditated on God's presence in my life."

Leslie Bosserman: Like something that brings me back to not just what I did, but who I am. So I really focus on leadership from the inside out. So who you choose to be needs to shape what you do. Because we can do a lot, but at the end of the day, if we've accomplished a lot, but we're not - we don't feel a sense of completion or like positive pride, then it's just a lot of box checking.

Martha: Yeah. So good.

Jim: But there's some satisfaction checking a box. (laughing)

Leslie Bosserman: Oh, I love the box checking and the highlighting. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying ditch your to-do list for your ta-da list. I'm saying please also try a ta-da list.

Martha: Well, you know what? It's actually interesting, Jim, 'cause that's something the last couple of years we've tried to do when, 'cause we've been rehabbing buildings, and, you know- there, it's always, there's more that has to be done. And so we have actually started to say, "But did we celebrate this thing we finished?" So did the wall... What does it say? Celebrate the small victories. There we go. That's right. That's exactly right. So sometimes we've even caught ourselves being in an argument or something about what's next, and it's like, "Oh wait. We didn't celebrate that we just finished painting 1,200 square feet of a room." "Let's celebrate that. Okay, now what do we need to do?"

Jim: Take a picture!

Leslie Bosserman: Take a picture. Do something. Mark the moment. That's right. Do something, right? And I started, this seems so small, but one of the things we do in our family, we high-five a ton. And we have different fun high-fives for things. So if someone finishes something or our five-year-old's "Mom, kindergarten was great today," we'll be, "Great high-fives, double high-fives."

Leslie Bosserman: And then we have a, a kiddo with special needs who we have a whole people have secret handshakes. We have a whole high-five, like it has six parts to it. And he's all about it. So just taking the moment, it takes 10 seconds.

Martha: Yeah.

Leslie Bosserman: But yet we get so busy or so, "Oh, just give me a minute. Mom's busy." Like that isn't sustainable for a relationship. And so if we're always busy and doing, like I talk about how we trade in efficiency for sufficiency. And if we don't have that sense of rest and that sense of purpose, then we're not modeling that for our children, and also the people that we're managing.

Leslie Bosserman: If we're in, if we're out in the business world and we have teams we're managing, or even the colleagues we're working alongside, how are we modeling that? Where we talk a lot about positive work-life balance, I actually, I call it work-life dynamic, because there's a pace to it. There's a rhythm and a cadence and a tempo, and that's something I talk about in Emotional Endurance as well, like how to choose your cadence, and some of that is rest.

Jim: Yeah, a lot of it is rest, especially for to-doers. For sure. All right, we're gonna talk with Leslie in a minute about triggers and failure, because those are two things that I, when I read that, I'm like, ooh, I like her perspective on this. But I wanna talk for a minute about something that most of us as business owners fail to do.

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Jim: Okay. Leslie, we're not running out of time, but we're getting close. I wanna make sure, as part of building emotional endurance, you have to identify triggers. And as I was reading this, I was looking at my own self because there are certain triggers that shut me down, certain things. You get a little PTS. For me, it's not a diagnosed syndrome in my life. Could be. You never know. You'd have to ask Martha. We've been married 40 years. But there are certain things that are triggers that cause you to react certain ways.

Jim: Why is it imp- And I wrote some of them down because you ask questions at the end of every chapter. "Hey, what's a trigger for this? What's a trigger for that?" And I just hate, I, you get tired of dealing with people that get in your face, and it's a trigger to... I, growing up, before I became a believer, my trigger when somebody got in my face was, I'm just gonna get in their face. 'Cause the best way to approach a bully is to get back in their face and boys to boys, punch them. Because the best way to shut a bully down is to actually call their bluff.

Jim: But that's not necessarily a great adult way to handle things. Certainly not a Jesus way to handle things. Why is it important for us to know, Leslie? I'm just, confessions of Jim Brangenberg right here on iWork4Him. Why is it important for us to-

Leslie Bosserman: I'm glad my book touched you so much that you could admit this on air. This is good, Jim. Oh, yeah. This is good stuff.

Jim: It was - your book was great. I enjoyed it.

Martha: And all his neighborhood friends from his childhood years are listening in right now.

Jim: So that they now can buy the book- Jody and Paul just saying hi. Why is it important for us to know what triggers us so we can build our emotional endurance?

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah. So this is actually really one of the foundational pieces. I start the book with this. So there's a graphic that I created that really looks at the pattern between feeling an emotion and how that emotion in a split second turns into a thought. So it goes emotion to thought, that thought influences our actions, repeated actions turn into behavior, and then behavior shapes the character we're known for, right?

Leslie Bosserman: And so I'll say it again, emotions, thoughts, actions, behavior, character, and there's a whole lovely graphic. So what happens with triggers, whenever there's something that gets under our skin or we're just like, "Oh, it's been a day," or, "This happened again and again, and it's just too much." Or maybe it's something from our childhood that we never addressed or something that we were berated over or shamed into that we have just stuffed down, and all of a sudden it's coming up again.

Leslie Bosserman: So one of the core things I do in my coaching practice, but also what I, I teach in the book, is how to name your emotion so you can tame your trigger. So if you can name it, then you can tame it. And this isn't "Oh, I named my emotion, now everything's fine." I'm not saying that because it does take work and God, right? It's all of the things.

Jim: Oh, absolutely.

Leslie Bosserman: So what I do in this process is if you're feeling, let's say overwhelm is one that many people can relate to. So something happens, whatever the trigger is, and then overwhelm comes up and you feel your heart rate, you feel maybe shortness of breath, or your mind is spinning and you're not really focused.

Leslie Bosserman: Number one, the first thing anyone should do is breathe. I'm a big fan of breathing, like deep belly breaths. This book is not on like the science of breathwork. There's a lot of great books on that. But I practice that and I teach that as well. So-

Jim: We highly recommend breathing here on iWork4Him, we highly recommend that everybody practice- keeps you alive, breathing every day.

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah. It's just great for living. Yeah, intentional breathing. Like actually think about your breathing, right? And so when you do that, you get more oxygen in your brain. And then you think better, and you actually make better decisions. And so God designed us to have these powerful emotions, the good and the bad, and He also designed us to take our thoughts captive.

Leslie Bosserman: So in 2 Peter and 2 Corinthians, both of these chapters talk about how taking our thoughts captive and really allowing God's Holy Spirit to come in and say, "What is better than the thought I'm having right now?" So if I'm feeling overwhelmed and my thought goes to, "I will never get this done. I don't know how this will ever work out for me," that's not a place of possibility, right? That's a very limiting place.

Leslie Bosserman: That puts our body in fight or flight. It narrows our attentional focus. And based on that, we can't see everything out here that God desires for us. So instead, if we say, "I'm feeling really overwhelmed. I don't want to stay overwhelmed, but in this place of overwhelm, here's one thing I can do," and that might be breathing.

Leslie Bosserman: The next thing might say, "What would I want to feel instead of overwhelm?" So I do this as a coach. I'll say, "Take whatever you're feeling and then go to the opposite place and say, 'What could I replace this with?'" Now, this doesn't mean it happens instantaneously. But by separating that emotional, visceral, physical response with what you hope to feel, so the opposite of overwhelm for a lot of people is peace or hope.

Leslie Bosserman: So then I would say, what can I do to access an ounce more of peace right now, right? What would allow that to come into play? And so really helping people not just name what triggers them, but once they are triggered, what do they do with that?

Martha: That is so key, 'cause I know so many people that are like, "Oh, that's a trigger for me." Okay, but what are you doing about it?

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah. If you just say it's a trigger and use it as an excuse, that's called being a victim to your trigger. And staying a victim to your trigger. And God did not design us for victimhood. He designed us to overcome and be champions and persevere for God's kingdom.

Martha: Such a valuable thing. So right there, I just wanna stop and pause and remind our listeners, this is why we have this conversation, because how many people in your life do you love that have been stuck in that trigger, that they are a victim of it rather than living in freedom?

Jim: And Jesus came to set the captives free, and people are captive by their triggers.

Leslie Bosserman: Yeah. And our society has created this, this trigger warning zone, this safe space zone, and to some levels it can be helpful until it's not. And so I'm not here to necessarily berate all of this, but I live in the, I live in the capital of California. I see a lot of things and I see a lot of different perspectives, and I hold a lot.

Leslie Bosserman: And because of that, I have to be mindful of when I go into the workplace, when I go into a space where people have maybe ideologically and religiously opposite perspectives of mine, how do I hold space for them and not get triggered by what they're saying, but allow the spaciousness to let the values and the character and God's truth speak through me so they feel that peace, and they're like, "Oh- This feels different."

Martha: Yeah.

Leslie Bosserman: So when families walk into our preschool and walk into our business, we don't brand ourselves as a Christian preschool very intentionally because we want to be able to have a space where anyone can show up and they can come in and feel safe and seen and known and belong. That being said, we also have a space that has some very clear rules about behavior and how we treat people. So it's not just "Come as you are and do what you want." That doesn't work with two to five-year-olds, right?

Jim: Doesn't work with any age group, Leslie. Not really, no.

Leslie Bosserman: No, not really. It's just people ask me, "Oh, you do professional executive leadership coaching and you're a preschool director." I'm like, "Same skills, different audience." So it just depends. But I look at when we use triggers as an excuse to continue to have bad behavior, we let Satan win. When we name our emotions that are triggering us and the things or the situations that are triggering us, the emotions that are happening, and what we're choosing to do as a result to figure out what motivates us to drive positive behavior, that's where we tame those triggers and we live out our calling.

Jim: So powerful. And we're not gonna be able to go deep into failure, but Leslie goes deep into failure in the book. Not in our own failures, but just the idea that failure often related to our strengths and how we can fail forward, how we can actually learn from these failures. But I really wanna end with this question 'cause we're almost out of time.

Jim: As workplace believers, everyone around us is judging us, and they're judging our behavior in order to determine if the Jesus in us is somebody they wanna follow. And they're like "that doesn't seem very.." if you do something like that, which is fantastic for this conversation. Why is working our, on our emotional endurance such a powerful witness to those around us?

Leslie Bosserman: Oh, it's... I look at all the skills-based practices that are already in the Bible as ways of living and leading, and what I did in Emotional Endurance is I just took the principles that I had been taught, that I had then tried and tested, and packaged it in a way that hopefully reaches other people. So when I think about there's nothing new under the sun, right? Ecclesiastes tells us this.

Leslie Bosserman: So these skills, they're branded in a certain way, but it's not that I am the expert in this. I have a level of expertise from my practice, right? But when you look at practicing emotional endurance and making that part of your life framework, it's making the commitment to saying, "No matter what happens to me, whatever circumstance I face, I will not be broken down by these, these human, physical circumstances. I will allow them to build me up, but I also will allow myself to hurt and grieve and have those moments in the valleys, and walk in the valley moments."

Leslie Bosserman: It's not just about being in the valley and bouncing back on the mountain. That feels very fake. But it's how wherever you find yourself, what do you need to do to not just lay down and stay stuck, but to get up and have that sense of resilience and grit so you can move forward, whatever elevation you're at.

Jim: And it inspires all of those around us.

Leslie Bosserman: Absolutely ...

Martha: I just, as our listeners, I am imagining that every single one of them can relate and be intrigued by what God has helped you to compile, right? Taking the scripture, taking the knowledge that you have received, the studying that you've done with science, and putting it all together and saying there is, there is so much hope for us to live a more full life by living in the obedience of what God has shown us, and not living in the failure, not living in the the triggers, all these negative things that we've talked about.

Martha: But that, what do we do with that? What can God teach us and help us to become? And so I appreciate you doing the hard work and the heavy lifting on our behalf and writing this book. Listeners, I encourage you to get a copy. See it for yourself, and then share it with other people because I believe, whether it's in their, everybody's Christmas stockings at Christmas or along with your coworker gift baskets at Christmas or, whatever it might be, an opportunity for you to get that into the hands of other people. So I encourage everyone right now to check into it for themselves first. It's always one thing to elbow the person next to you and say, "Oh, you need this," but see it for ourselves. But thank you so much for writing this, and for the, just the joy and the energy you bring to the conversation, because it doesn't have to be a defeat. It can be a victory.

Leslie Bosserman: 100%. And one, one thing I wanted to just add is I actually initially wrote it for a mainstream population, and I kept writing and just it took a while to put it together, and God kept knocking on my heart saying, "This message needs me in the center." And I'm like, "Of course it does." And so instead of pursuing traditional mainstream publishing, I pursued Christian publishing.

Jim: Yeah.

Leslie Bosserman: And that transformed my life in amazing ways. But I also wrote it from the perspective of if someone has maybe fallen away from faith, or they haven't even been met with faith yet, and that you might have a colleague at work who is just struggling with purpose and direction.

Leslie Bosserman: This book, even though it has Christian principles and biblical scriptures, it's not something that's gonna slap you in the face with Jesus and make you run away if you're not a believer yet. So I wrote it for a mainstream audience with a Christian lens, if that makes sense.

Jim: Beautiful. And I would agree. Having read from the beginning to the end, this would be, this works for any of your friends that are willing to actually admit that they would like to work on this. Leslie Bosserman, we're out of time, but we wanna make sure and encourage everybody to get a copy of Emotional Endurance. Thank you for being on iWork4Him today.

Jim: Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for - It's been a lot of fun. We appreciate it.

Leslie Bosserman: Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Jim: Listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, consider supporting iWork4Him and spreading this message that your work matters to God, and all the pieces that come into making that par- that possible.

Jim: Join our quote-unquote coffee club. Give 5 to $10 a month at iwork4him.com/donate to help us reach more workplaces with this message, and reach more workplace believers with this message that your work matters to God.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately, iWork4Him

8/19/26 - 2160: KPI: It’s Time to Move the Needle

Jim: This is iWork4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: Two years ago at a 94X event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we had the opportunity to hear Nick Vujicic speak, and then we got to share a meal together, all courtesy of Sean Kouplen of Regent Bank, a highly recommended kingdom bank.

Jim: Frankly speaking, Nick's famous. Even though he's spoken in 78 countries on thousands of stages to millions of people, Nick is approachable and has a heart and passion for seeing others overcome adversity and become followers of Jesus. Mind you, Nick's approach is blunt, but his blunt approach is filled with love and passion for whoever's in the room with him.

Jim: For those of you who don't know Nick, Nick was born in Australia in 1982 without limbs, leaving his parents and doctors stunned. Did this create some life difficulties for Nick? Absolutely. Just imagine middle school. But Nick is an overcomer, and he loves to encourage and challenge others to see the reality of God all around them, despite the adversity they may be facing.

Jim: On September 26th in Plano, Texas, Nick is hosting a summit for 500 Christian business leaders, the KPI Summit, Kingdom Purpose Impact. Nick knows that business owners and leaders who follow Jesus are the brightest hope for flourishing around the world, and he will invest in them that night. Nick Vujicic is here today to share some of his story and talk about the upcoming summit and give us a window, maybe if we have time, into his F framework for life.

Jim: Nick Vujicic, welcome to iWork4Him.

Nick Vujicic: Hi, Jim. Hi, Martha. Love you guys so much. Thanks so much for having me.

Jim: Oh, we're so grateful to have you, Nick. We're so look- we've been looking forward to this time today. Nick, you were born into this world with no arms and no legs. Many humans would grow up bitter and angry at God because of this. You're a passionate follower of Jesus. How did that faith come about?

Nick Vujicic: It was definitely a journey of me wondering and grappling with the idea of a loving God who would allow me to be born this way, give everyone more than me, and not give me arms and legs when I prayed for them with a lot of faith.

Nick Vujicic: I felt like he was either unfair or he was not real. And I went to church every Sunday. My dad was the pastor. And they would always say, "Nick, you're beautiful. God loves you. He's got a plan for you. You're special." And I'm like, "I don't wanna be special. I just wanna be happy." And the whole question of where is God, it was a difficult thing.

Nick Vujicic: Age eight, I went through depression just because I started thinking ahead in my life, not gonna get a job, never gonna get married, not gonna have a family, and not gonna be happy. And I actually felt like I was a burden to my parents sometimes as well. And because of bullying and the taunting, those echoing voices really convinced me that I was never gonna be good enough for the world.

Nick Vujicic: And, I wanted to find my place in this world, and I couldn't find it. At age eight, I started planning out my suicide, attempted at age 10 to drown myself in my bathtub, believing I'd never be happy. And by the grace of God, I'm still here. And the one thing that I want every parent to know is the persistent love of my parents, that was the one thing that kept me here. I realized I loved them more than I hated my own pain, and they didn't deserve a boy without limbs, let alone a boy without limbs who ends his life.

Nick Vujicic: And so all I could see, Jim and Martha, were broken pieces, but little did I know that I would get married, would be fulfilled, be a father, traveling around the world, and now talking about something I felt like I did not have, which is hope.

Martha: Yeah, and that is so good. And, for, you are a father of four children, right?

Nick Vujicic: That's correct.

Martha: So not only did God allow you to become a husband and a father, but now being able to speak the gospel through amazing messages from your own testimony point, and you're also a business owner. So how have you kept all of that crazy lifestyle, the fame and fortune that comes with that exposure, how have you kept your marriage and your family from being messed up because of it?

Nick Vujicic: Yeah, look, the, the two, if you will guardrails that God gave me was getting out of depression, I realized to embrace the attitude of gratitude, to be thankful for what I had instead of being angry for what I do not have. And throughout the journey of starting as a speaker, then traveling, then getting married and becoming a father and entrepreneur, being thankful for what you have always goes- takes me back to the basics of, there's always gonna be something to do.

Nick Vujicic: There's always gonna be something more that, that could be achieved. But to truly be thankful for what matters most, which is faith, family, friends, and the core of that is the second guardrail, is my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Nick Vujicic: Between my family and my faith in God, and having a personal walk with him, knowing that everything I have is his, I'm just a steward of what he's given me, whether it's the 24 million social media fans and people that are looking at me as an example, if you will, of inspiration.

Nick Vujicic: But the, the whole beauty of all of this is when you have an attitude of gratitude and you have a daily walk with God, all you wanna do is help people know that he has a plan for them, and that with his wisdom, with his guidance, and people praying for you to keep humble, dream big. If this little boy with no arms and no legs could dream big, then so can everyone.

Nick Vujicic: And if God healed my heart and renewed my mind, he can do that for everyone. And I just want everyone to know that sometimes we limit what God can do in our life. Honestly. We had no idea what this little boy would be able to do without limbs, and little did we know that God definitely loves and delights in using his children and letting people know- with your yes, God can do anything. And if he can use a man without arms and legs to be his hands and feet, then God can use any willing heart and give you, the people around you whether it's my coach or mentors or my family, my prayer warriors my accountability partners, to make sure that greed, lust, and making sure that my righteousness of accountability as a faith leader, which is really important, making sure that I stand before the Lord upright by the grace of God.

Nick Vujicic: And I'm loving my life. I'm in my mid-40s and there's a film coming out about my life later on this year. But where I'm at is I don't wanna just travel and speak. I wanna now equip people for them to realize, yeah, that's, it's Nick's story, but we all have a story. Your history is His story. And for as long as you're breathing, you're not done yet. God's not done with you yet. And if He can use me, He can use you.

Jim: I love that, and that leads right into the next question. Our oldest daughter, Sarah, has been a fan of yours for years. She told us about you well over a decade ago, and we had no idea who you were.

Jim: Sorry. (chuckles)

Jim: So she gave us this question: Nick, given your parents' approach to raising you with equal standards and expectations, how can we convince the education system that empowering and challenging struggling students will help them to rise up and fight for a better life?

Nick Vujicic: I think it first and foremost starts with real compassion for each other. And it really starts within the school through those who know the love of God. We are currently under the Constitution that allows you as a student to start a prayer group, a Bible study. Any kind of faith-based club that you wanna start in your school, you can do that. And while that window's open, go out and be that light.

Nick Vujicic: Go out and be that salt, for sure. Go up and stand up against bullying and gossip and all these things. But definitely there are universal values and principles that we can all hold onto, no matter what religion we have, and that's where the bridge of love is bridged. And then people look at you a little bit deeper and they're like, "what's different about you? You've got a peace about you." And that's where you can share your testimony.

Nick Vujicic: But I think it's leading by example. That's a great question. But it's leading by example and not giving up. And also the educators to stand up and be a voice in your local school, as well as church leaders, okay? I live in Texas now, north of Dallas area. Church leaders to be aware of the influence we can have as community members in our school districts of becoming a school board member, actually understanding that there are grants that even states give to Christian curriculum for some of these extracurricular activities that we can influence the kids where they're at most of their hours during their teenage years.

Jim: I appreciate that perspective. I loved the story you shared online on YouTube about the fact that your parents, you said to your parents you wanted to make some money, and they said, "Here, vacuum."

Nick Vujicic: I asked them for a toy, and they're like, "Get your own money." I'm like, "How do I do that?" And they said, "Figure it out."

Nick Vujicic: And that was what my parents always said, "Be thankful for what you have. Don't expect things given to you. And get up on your own two feet." And so I actually vacuumed the floor for $2 a week to buy my own toy. And that's the kind of values we, we instill in our home. My 13-year-old son, he's an entrepreneur.

Nick Vujicic: He's now flipping cars. He's flipping furniture. He's selling jewelry. And he has his goals. And we're now fully homeschooling him because he's bored at school. He'll do school, but he wants to graduate earlier. The other son, he has a pastoral kind of heart, right? And no matter who we are, no matter what we're going through, no matter what we have, we all can do something and be thankful for what we have.

Nick Vujicic: Listen, can I just tell every parent, when you give your child everything they want, when they want, how they want it, they're not thankful for anything, and you're actually ill-preparing them for the world that we live in.

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Jim: Nick, you're hosting the KPI Summit coming up here on September 26th in Plano, Texas. What, why do you wanna get in front of these business leaders?

Nick Vujicic: It, it's really been on my heart to see the body of Christ come together. And in the years of me being able to speak to many church denominational leaders and pastors it's one thing to say that, we could do something together or someone saying, "Oh, that sounds interesting."

Nick Vujicic: But really, where the rubber hits the road, it's the marketplace. And Billy Graham, he said that the next move in America is gonna be in the marketplace, which are entrepreneurs, small business leaders, medium-sized business leaders, who are being the hands and feet, who realize that they are the church, to really move the needle and make a difference in a community, it really depends on the backbone of these business leaders.

Nick Vujicic: And to really come together and understand that not only is knowledge and understanding of different vehicles of investments coming up to a new level because of technological advancements and AI and information at our fingertips. And now, there's so many podcasts and different things that we can learn in, but also understanding that there are things called in the business world, you got the KPI, right?

Nick Vujicic: Key performance index. I'm just coming out of a five-year tiresome season where I've been trying to inspire people to do something together for the kingdom. And look at KPI as more of a kingdom purpose impact, and to realize that together we, we really can make a difference. When you look in our own communities homeless veterans, foster care kids, so many people in need.

Nick Vujicic: It's wonderful to go to church once a week, tithe the 10%. But where the needle really moves is when key business leaders see the kingdom purpose impact that we can all have together, given our gifts and talents, our calling, and the, if you will, the mantles that we've all been given to come together and collaborate and network.

Nick Vujicic: As an entrepreneur who started multiple startups I've been also tired of trying to convince someone to use God's money to invest in God's projects. And it's so annoying sometimes. And you're like they've got a million dollars, and they've got $10 million, and someone has $100 million.

Nick Vujicic: Guess what? It's so interesting that it's still pretty hard to convince a believer to do something they've never done before for the purpose of kingdom expansion. Now, I have a ministry, and this is not about ministry, and that's a nonprofit. What I'm talking about are investments, financial stewardship decisions, leadership in the marketplace, and in our own personal walk and our own family, leading well.

Nick Vujicic: There are so many high performers out there who are achieving a lot but actually sacrificing the most important things that God never asked them to sacrifice.

Martha: Yeah.

Nick Vujicic: And so we come from a holistic point of view of the church in the marketplace where believers come together And actually do something for the kingdom. And to understand that it, it's not a government that's gonna get the half a million foster kids off the list, or the 32 homeless veteran, 32,000 homeless veterans in Dallas off the streets. It's people like us who come together and say, "Hey, let's choose an initiative. Let's see what gifts and talents you have. What are you stewarding? The network of the businesses. This is this company. That's your gift, that's your talent."

Nick Vujicic: How can we come together and pioneer a never seen before, in my mind, unified body of Christ in the marketplace to change the world literally one person at a time? That's what it's all about. Let's move the needle for kingdom purpose impact. And think outside the box as well. Not just making money and then giving money away, but to actually find sustainable investment vehicles that are actually making direct mission-aligned impact at the same time. So that's what it's all about.

Martha: And we're gonna put the links in the show notes about how people can learn more about the summit.

Martha: And I love the... nick, you can motivate anybody, I believe. And so what a great audience you're gonna have there, and we can't wait to hear about the impact of that. But, there are so many things vying for our attention during any given day, but if this event resonates with you, we really wanna encourage you to make it a priority.

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Martha: And there's always-on monitoring and threat blocking, as well as optional compliance and penetration testing. I'll put that link in the show notes for everybody at infiniteprotection.ai.

Jim: Nick, when the event is over on September 26, the Kingdom Purpose Impact in Plano, Texas, on September 26, what are you hoping, as people are walking out the door, that they've walked away with?

Nick Vujicic: Jim, thank you so much. Listen we don't want just an event just to talk about stuff and get people moved in a way to do the hoorah and say, "Okay, good luck. Go out there- ... and be the hands and feet." No, what we want are these 500 key Christian business leaders here in the local area of Dallas region. We want not just friendship and camaraderie fused and galvanized, but to actually - this ain't a country club meeting. Get your Rolodex out of who you know to help someone there with that connection. Or what are your passions and your dreams?

Nick Vujicic: We're gonna do an exercise where we actually just look at each other and share what's your biggest fear in your life and what's your biggest dream that God's given you? And just to talk and communicate, what has God put on your heart to do? I think some of us are too timid to, to either share what God has put in our heart to dream big in, or we just come and we hear it from the people on stage, we get moved, and we don't know what to do with that.

Nick Vujicic: This is gonna be a beginning of a community that I'm gonna be in frequent touch with on a monthly basis moving forward. This is my own backyard. And I told my team, I said, "If we can't move the needle in DFW, we can't change the world."

Nick Vujicic: And so this is the whole idea. How do we come together as business leaders with our connections and the stewardship of what God's given us, and come together and see, okay, let's see this happen.

Nick Vujicic: Who has a passion for here? Go into a breakout with them. Who has a passion for this? Go and talk about that in that network of people. And so if there was ever a church that I would ever lead, every Saturday would be a business luncheon. It really would be, because we're gonna find out what's the need in the community and how could we meet the need? That's what it's all about. We want to initiate a movement here in our backyard.

Jim: But what if five business people from Minneapolis wanna come? It's only 900 miles south to Dallas. Can they come or is this only for Dallas people?

Nick Vujicic: Now look, it's for everyone for sure. I'm sure there's gonna be some people even flying from further parts. I actually was talking to someone who's thinking of coming from Hawaii. What we gotta understand is if God's like moving in your heart right now, and this seems exciting for you, I'm a speaker I don't wanna just put on an event for the sake of an event.

Nick Vujicic: And I'm not waiting for pastors and leaders to come together. They can't even, they can't even agree on what chicken to eat at lunch. You understand me? They're not doing anything to reach together the lost souls. And I'm an evangelist, I'm like, "I could preach the gospel," but how do we actually be the gospel?

Jim: Amen.

Nick Vujicic: What is it? That the world needs to see to start seeing goodwill back in the church like never before. And I want everyone to know you're invited. Come in person. It's gonna be electric, but you're gonna be coming in, into a, a fold of a community that thinks like you, that is aligned like you, and with the Lord's heart.

Nick Vujicic: And it's not just about performance. I wanna expand a little bit on the F Framework. We've got Sean Kouplen there, and he's gonna be talking about the importance of being humble and being coachable, even though he's an entrepreneur of more than 50 companies. So he talks about leading in the marketplace as the CEO, being teachable and coachable.

Nick Vujicic: Then we got Alvin Fenton, and he is a, a local guy here in DFW area, and he is this guy that's just got a calling to connect people, and people that want to see God move in the community. They just need someone who knows this or someone who has that. Alvin, he doesn't waste time. In 20 minutes, he's like, "Here, this is the guy. Here, this is the guy." He's got like- 6,000 people who could do something. You know what I mean? And all a text away.

Nick Vujicic: And I was so impressed because, oh, so many people, "I know someone. I'll connect you." Alvin's like, "There, it's done." You blink, it's done. And I just, I love that he sees it as a calling. And then you got Colin Myers from Blue Jasper Wealth Management, and we talk about the financial stewardship and the investment vehicles in doing the mission-aligned kingdom purpose impact investments. Really excited. I'm gonna be, also sharing the stage with Matt Granados, my coach, who helped me to balance my life out.

Nick Vujicic: So I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a stock trader, I'm a real estate investor, I'm an evangelist, a father of four, a husband, and the list goes on. Author, actor, producer, and so on. And when you are doing a lot of things there are some parts of our life that are put aside and buckets that are left empty.

Nick Vujicic: And so I'm gonna be talking about the F framework: faith, family, friends, fitness, finance, fun, and the fulfillment of it all. When you look at the word life, if you are living but there's no fulfillment, you take the F out of life and you've got lie. It's like, "I've got this. I've achieved this. I go to church. I'm still married." No, there, there's something missing.

Nick Vujicic: And so I'm gonna be breaking down the F framework for everyone, that you don't sacrifice or neglect the things that God has also asked you to be a good steward of, that really in life, the way that God has designed us with relationship with people, and how we steward our lives, it's all part of us living the fulfilled life on this side of heaven.

Jim: Oh, and if kingdom business owners and leaders across the world would understand that God gave them that business to bring flourishing around them, not only in their family, but with their employees and their customers and their vendors and the community that they work in, that's gonna change the world.

Jim: And so you're gonna start with that, that whole idea at the Kingdom Impact Summit on September 26th in Plano, Texas.

Martha: Kingdom Purpose Impact.

Jim: I said it wrong. What'd I say? Yes. Kingdom Purpose- That's okay. What'd I say? I'm sorry. It's okay. KPI.

Martha: Kingdom Purpose Impact.

Jim: I apologize, Nick.

Nick Vujicic: You're good.

Jim: You can find it, all the information online at nickvujicic.com. And if you want to know how to spell that-

Martha: Don't worry, we'll put it in the links.

Jim: Yeah, we'll put it in (laughter)

Jim: Vujicic. That's how you can say it. Vujicic.

Martha: I think we'll put a link in there to Nick's YouTube video where he tells you all the ways not to pronounce his last name.

Jim: Any final words, Nick, before we close today's show?

Nick Vujicic: Dream big, never give up, and keep on going onward and upward.

Jim: Nick Vujicic, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Nick Vujicic: Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Martha.

Jim: You bet. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.

8/11/26 - 2159: Can Risk = faith = Obedience?

Jim: This is an iWork4Him, iRetire4Him joint production

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling, and where faith takes on your retirement years and unleashes meaning and purpose.

Jim: Risk, it's like the final frontier to overcome before success is achieved. Risk is scary. It's unpredictable. It's risky. But you have to face risk head-on. Susan Schramm knows this all too well, so she wrote Fast Track Your Big Idea: Navigate Risk, Move People to Action, and Avoid Your Strategy Going Off Course.

Jim: Susan understands risk. She works with big risk-takers. Big risk-takers are scary because they fail almost more than they succeed. Susan's gathered wisdom from being in the fray all these years, and she's ready to help us all avoid the pitfalls of avoiding risk. Bet you didn't see that coming. Susan could be retired and sipping lemonade under an umbrella somewhere sandy, but she is still in it and at it and engrossed within it.

Jim: She hasn't checked out. She's sold out to help business people learn from her years of accumulated wisdom. So whether you're retired and listening or working and listening, this show is for you. We all get big ideas, but most of us cower in the face of the unknown, and the risk of putting the idea out in the open. Susan's here to bring all that into the Biblical focus. Susan Schramm, thanks for joining us today.

Susan Schramm: Thank you for this opportunity. Really fun. Great audience. I can't wait to talk, to share with all of them.

Jim: So Susan, before we get started today, tell us about Nehemiah's E-Community 3-Day Business Summit that launches this week on August the 12th. Who is it for, and what can they expect?

Susan Schramm: As board chairman of Nehemiah Entrepreneurship Community I am thrilled to be able to share a little bit about this event, which is really a community of leaders who are willing to step out and live out their faith in the marketplace. There, there are people from all over the world, business owners, investors, nonprofit leaders, church leaders from more than 100 countries who we've served in terms of both training, coaching, and community to build businesses and lead organizations based, doing it God's way.

Susan Schramm: The theme of this event, which we very are grateful that you are both gonna be emceeing, is called Kairos: A Call to Leadership, and as you probably know in the Bible, kairos refers to a divinely appointed or opportune moment when God's purposes intersect with human history. And that's really what this is about.

Susan Schramm: It's not leadership as a role or a title. It's about leadership as influencing the world you're in and engaging in it. So there has never been more need in the world for courageous values-based leaders. The problems are bigger than ever, the opportunities are bigger than ever, but it takes leaders who are comfortable stepping out and living out their faith with confidence, recognizing that taking risks requires a different type of courage.

Susan Schramm: The cool thing is that we have a business tour of companies around the world who are sharing how they're doing it. We have a whole day of training, and we even have a, a business plan competition, a global business competition that you can be part of and engage in. So it's a really wonderful opportunity for people who feel in many ways called to lead at a time such as this.

Jim: Susan, how do people find out more online about that?

Susan Schramm: So it's nehemiahecommunity.com, and I believe it's Nehemiah Summit. So I think we basically, if you Google it, nehemiahecommunity.com.

Martha: I'll put it in the show notes.

Susan Schramm: Great. We'd love to have you. We'd love to have all of you join. It is an experience. And by the way, we have a big worship group. We have worship every morning, and it's translated into multiple languages. We have people from Africa, from Asia. It is a unique experience for anyone who sees themselves bigger and feels like they wanna be inspired.

Jim: And for the, the listeners, just so you know how we got connected with Nehemiah, 14 years ago a guy I was mentoring said, "Jim, you're like my Nehemiah." And he goes, "And I found this organization called the Nehemiah Project online. You should check them out." And I reached out, and we've had a relationship these 14 years. And they no longer go by the Nehemiah Project, 'cause back then there was no eCommunity possibilities. But today it's Nehemiah eCommunity, which does span the globe.

Martha: All right. So we are pretty excited about that, and I hope that people will look it up and check it out and see if you can still get connected because it is, there is no other event like it that I'm aware of. So Susan- ... why are we talking about risk? Why, as followers of Jesus, there's no risk involved, is there?

Susan Schramm: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. You know, there is a whole mindset that says, "I've got God. I don't need anything else," right? Except let's read scripture, and we hear stories. We hear Esther stepping out. We've got Paul stepping out. We've got Nehemiah stepping out, every time taking risks. And one of my favorite examples is Esther.

Susan Schramm: Mordecai asked her to take a tremendous risk, and speaking up could cost her position and cost her influence. And we all say, we know that for such a time as this. But truthfully, the one line that I love about that was being silent is not acceptable. It has consequences, right? So the idea of taking risks is around us from time immemorial, and God has never said, "Don't take risks." He's actually said, "Take risks for me."

Jim: Or even better, "Take risks with me."

Susan Schramm: With me. Exactly. Exactly. Take risks with me. Let me walk with you to take risks. Exactly.

Jim: So risk and faith, are they related?

Susan Schramm: Yes, absolutely. I don't think they're inconsistent either. Faith is often expressed in how we respond to risk. Think about it. Risk is everywhere. Peter faced risk. Paul fa- everyone faces risk. But faith allows us to have context for how we make decisions and live in a world where there is uncertainty.

Susan Schramm: My definition there's a lot of financial planners always say, "What's your risk profile?" And usually what they're talking about is, how much money do you wanna lose? Are you willing to lose, right? (laughter)

Jim: That's right.

Susan Schramm: But what really when you think about risk, we all know there's a upside of risk. You take risk to get reward, and there's downsides of risk you might lose. But at the same time, really, it's all about an unknown. Risk is simply an unknown. It has two sides, and at the end of the day, how you navigate that unknown, how you prepare yourself to live in a world of unknowns speaks to the fact that you can move forward obedient to God's calling to you to live with faith in him as you take steps forward. It's not to get stuck.

Martha: So I'm curious how you decided to dive into risk as a conversation because, I don't know, I could say it's risky, but the reality is like, why do you think God gave you this message?

Susan Schramm: Wonderful. So I spent my career in large corporations like IBM and Nokia and Siemens, and I spent most of my time launching things. I also worked in church organizations and nonprofits, and most of my role, I had lots of different titles, but most of my role was helping someone go from, "I've got an idea," to, "Let's get everybody aligned to go do it," whether that was bringing in revenue or bringing in volunteers to change communities.

Susan Schramm: And over the course of years, I realized that some worked and some didn't. Some were pretty bumpy. And I started reflecting on what is it that causes that? And at, at the end of the day, I analyzed it, I did research, I interviewed millions of people, and concluded that the one element that sort of was the common factor was the people side of risk.

Susan Schramm: Yes, 70% of all startups fail. Lots of stories of people taking efforts, but some did well, and the common factor when they did well was they planned proactively for the people side of risk, not just the technology, not just the finances or the operations. And many times that really became the issue that was skipped, and I feel like in many ways the call that I heard...

Susan Schramm: i've only heard God speak out loud in my head so that you can hear Him outside and inside only once in my life, and He actually did say, "Take risks for me." And it was at a weird time in my life. My kids had just left for college. I was rethinking my career, and I'm like, "What is this thing called risk?"

Susan Schramm: And I believe that for the world to be successful, God calls us to step out, yet He sees people play small ball, and I think what He's encouraging me to do is help normalize this conversation about risk- ... so that people don't see it as something to avoid. In fact, they see it as something to help them engage confidently, more able to adapt and more able to lead in a sense that God calls them instead of playing small to the gifts he's been given, that you've, that each of them have been given.

Jim: What you've essentially said to me, and I'm gonna put it in Jimease, that not talking about risk can be risky.

Susan Schramm: Yeah, and that's counterintuitive for many senior, for many leaders. Many visionary leaders get very in love with their idea, and they lay out a plan, and they don't like the idea of people talking about the risks of it.

Susan Schramm: In fact, when people do, they might see that as Debbie Downer or the idea of sort of a non-loyal person. "Don't talk about the risk, I got it covered." Or they say, "Listen, don't worry, I have it all covered." What happens with risk is if you don't talk about it people's misgivings, their confusion, their skepticism, their fear, anxiety, starts swirling in their heads, and what will happen is people will essentially not take action.

Susan Schramm: And maybe initially they might say "Sure," or they nod "we're in." But over time they are not gonna be sustaining the idea. And so one of the most biggest frustrations in the world is when a person with a great idea says, "Why isn't everybody jumping in?" And yet they don't wanna hear anything against their idea.

Susan Schramm: It was funny, we recently heard at the US Chamber of Commerce from Bill Jurgen, right? Former CEO of Kraft. And he talks about a phrase called silent liars. They don't accept silent liars. That's the person who sits in a meeting, who nod their heads, say everything's fine, and then walk out and complain later. And really never talk. So at the end of the day, what's riskier is to not talk about it and think people are all aligned, they really understand and are gonna jump in with you and then have this great, wonderful idea that probably has lots of merit, not actually work because their concerns and ideas weren't heard.

Jim: So is that what you mean by the people side of risk?

Susan Schramm: Yeah. The people side of risk is the human element for every strategy, and it is always the most underestimated. Even in change initiatives, even in big change management initiatives, they'll make a lot of assumptions about adoption, about people moving forward, and a lot of times the assumptions have to do with the initial phase.

Susan Schramm: What people often don't consider is the human element of the, the transition everyone goes through. You first of all hear about a change. There's a tendency to evaluate it. Then there's this, if they have to make any change in their behavior, if they have to do something new, they're taking a risk.

Susan Schramm: It could be just looking stupid. It could be time that they're wasting. It could be, there's a lot of different risks someone takes to change what they're doing, and so many assumptions are made about whether people will actually move forward, and yeah, that's the people side of risk.

Jim: Wow. So good.

Martha: We're talking about risks, and it's one of the things that we have learned is that there's some risks that we just don't need to expose ourselves to, and cyber criminals never take a day off, and neither should your online protection. That's why we're so grateful for SaferNet. It's cybersecurity made simple for families and businesses with VPN privacy, virus protection, and internet controls that help you manage what comes in and what stays out of your computers and all your devices.

Martha: We use SaferNet, and we believe it can help you protect your people and your purpose. Go to safernet.com and mention iWork4Him.

Jim: And don't forget our summer picnic initiative. We're running out of time. Have a block party. Invite your neighbors over, and love on your neighbors. We want you to send us a picture to jim@iwork4him.com.

Jim: We even included a website page link in the notes today of here's how you could put together that picnic right on the iWork4Him website. Email me a picture when you've had your summer picnic party. It doesn't have to be huge. Just get to know your neighbors, jim@iwork4him.com, and remember, at the end of the summer, one special winner will be selected for a grand prize. All right. This is a big deal.

Jim: All right. Susan, it seems like Christians are taught to be risk averse, especially with investing. Is it the parable of talents that really deals with the positives and negative aspects of facing risk? It's easy for me to say. But the parable of talents talks about this risk versus risk averseness-

Susan Schramm: And in fact, wouldn't it be great if that was a full-length movie? I love that story. I love that story because you think about it, you've got this very innovative, visionary boss who goes away and invests and shares his assets, and helps three different of his leaders step up and says, "I'll be back. Take risks for me," essentially is what he's saying. And what was always fascinating to me was what about those people was different?

Susan Schramm: Really what it showed was the risk profile, the risk personality, the risk fingerprint of these different people. Some stepped up, probably, bought a building. Some other person invested in stocks. But one person was fearful that they wouldn't save. They wouldn't... they wanted to be safe.

Susan Schramm: They didn't wanna be... They, it wasn't that he was immoral, he was afraid. And I think when Christ comes, when the story is told and Christ comes back and says, "That person is the one that I'm holding accountable," it's because he's not calling us to not take risks. He's actually recognizing that we have different levels of a willing- willingness to engage.

Susan Schramm: But from where you are with what you have, take a step. Now, I suggest that we think of our risk profiles in two dimensions. There's the willingness to be aware of risk And then the willingness to engage in risk. And if you think right now about your team or your neighborhood, you know which ones are always looking out.

Susan Schramm: There's, they're wired to always seeing what the possibilities are that might cause things to trip up. You could call that the Debbie Downer, or you could call that the wise person who sees ahead. And then there's the engagement. Some people will just jump off a cliff, "That looks great, let's go." And you need some of that, but what you need to build a good team is you need all of it.

Susan Schramm: What often we underestimate, we come with our own perspective. We haven't thought through what is it about that person's risk profile that would make them take risks with me? What makes them wanna step out with us? And I think that, the Parable of the Talents, I think, is a wonderful example where God is...

Susan Schramm: the, the story encourages us to recognize, yeah, we're different. And in fact, that difference is how we're built as a community. Let's leverage our differences, and not put people in buckets because they're bad or good, but actually recognize that all of our perspectives are important for us to actually move forward together.

Jim: Speaking of moving forward, we got people listening today that are in their retirement years, and people that are still in their working years. And it's a risk. A lot of retirees have been told, "Step back, check out. No more risk-taking because you could lose it all," or whatever. And workers are going I wanna step back, chill out, because I don't wanna screw up, 'cause I wanna retire in a number of years."

Jim: It's all around this false theology that retirement's even biblical. Why is avoiding risk actually more... and the risk of change, because we got people that are retiring, they're like, "I don't know that I wanna start something new. I'm chronologically superior." We don't call people old on this show. (chuckles) But that, that change, we're so afraid to make change, that's more dangerous than actually facing the risk and facing the change. Talk to the audience that's, you could be retired, but you're not. You're still chasing it. Why is avoiding that risk of change so scary? How do we get past that?

Susan Schramm: When you told me that this was gonna be run for two dimensions of this conversation with retirement, I looked up the phrase "retirement years," and I found this definition I thought was interesting: a phase of life characterized by personal freedom, leisure, and new pursuits. Okay?

Susan Schramm: 'Cause you're exactly right. There's nothing in the Bible that says suddenly stop and kick back. God actually continues. But what it does say is there's seasons. I believe there are seasons of life, and I believe God calls you to a calling, and there's different ways for you to live it out in different seasons.

Susan Schramm: I feel like in many cases, what I find, actually, one of my unexpected audience-- I, I wrote a book, Fast Track Your Big Idea, with this idea of helping people startups and nonprofits who had this idea. I had no idea the number of people who felt called that said, "My career life did not allow me the time to pour into my real passion areas, so let me pour into it now."

Susan Schramm: And so people were actually willing to take risks in a new way, but they also often were concerned that they were, that they would fail, that they would look dumb, that they sometimes would - they wanna start something new instead of help somebody else 'cause they wanna do it their own way. There's a lot of people with different perspectives.

Susan Schramm: And I think what we're seeing is a huge generational unleashing of baby boomers retiring in a way that they aren't calling it retirement, they're calling it the next chapter- in many ways when they leave. And they are more resourced in many ways. They've saved. I'd say in corporate life, what I see is younger folks saying, "I'm gonna step out my calling." The person who in his 30s or 40s says, "No I'm good with that, Mr. Company. I'm gonna go do what I wanna do before I don't have energy and time."

Susan Schramm: So I think we're, I think we're actually... my view right now is that risks, the risk you take, you certainly have to have financial planning, and don't make dumb mistakes. God, the, the Bible says, in Ecclesiastes you definitely... He says, "Diversify six or seven things. A disaster might come. Have backup plans." There's no intention for people to just step out with no plan. But there is, I think, a growing excitement about stepping out to a new chapter of what they're called to do. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book, to be honest, because many of the things I found was they hadn't thought systematically.

Susan Schramm: In fact, one of the guys, my favorite reviewer said, "I don't have a big idea. I have a itty-bitty idea." And, but, it's a... So he started a nonprofit to help improve education in his little community. And within a few years he was struggling to get board members engaged, and he says, "I figured it out, Susan. What you're telling me is I've gotta think through a strategy to do this, not just jump in without a plan. God's not, God is calling me to make a difference, but He's not calling me to be dumb."

Susan Schramm: So the idea is to build a thoughtful way to de-risk your strategy ahead of time, and surround yourself with people who are encouraging you, but also will give you real feedback too. Not just listen into, in the bubble ...

Jim: and that's where the Nehemiah e-community can kick in with their biblical entrepreneurship classes, which are just fantastic. That was a free plug. She didn't, Susan did not ask me to do that. (laughter)

Susan Schramm: Thank you.

Martha: Okay. So how do you counsel somebody, though, that has this big idea, or maybe it's a itty-bitty idea, really good, but they're frozen in place because they are not wanting to pursue any risk?

Susan Schramm: So the first thing I would do is ask this one question. What problem do I need to solve? What is the problem? I have this feeling of doing something. What is the problem I need to solve? And then ask the question, what if I don't? Because at some point, people will not take action unless there's a consequence. There's no urgency.

Susan Schramm: You can't do it alone. No idea, unless you're gonna play tiddlywinks, to be honest, no idea is gonna be successful to make an impact in the world, even if it's in your family, without aligning people to move forward. But what will make the difference between getting frozen and not moving at all is urgency.

Susan Schramm: So if the problem you're trying to solve has no urgency, there's no... if it doesn't happen in 10 years, did it matter? Then they're probably, it's probably not worth taking the risk. But if you personally see that there's a consequence that you care about, then find five other people and see if they also see this concern about the consequence.

Susan Schramm: And from there, clarify, one - what's the problem you're solving? Why does it need solving now? Who has to take action to solve it? Not you all alone. Don't step up with huge investments. Create the community first that has an aligned view of what we're trying to achieve, and then you're not alone, and then you have sparring partners, and then you have the ability to make better judgment to step out.

Susan Schramm: The the saddest story is the write down all the if only I'd has that would haunt you.

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: If only I'd have done that. And If only I'd have done that. Exactly. If I'd only... If only I'd have bought stocks in 1974 when the... Actually, if you'd only bought stocks in 1987 when the stock market was at 800, and now today it's at 52,000, you're like, "Wow, I could have bought any stock and made money almost." All right.

Susan Schramm: It's like the story of how to plant... When do you, when's the best time to plant a tree? Was it yesterday? At any time what you're gonna do. But I think one of the things I see is people with... I met with this group of people with a big vision of changing the healthcare system, and they were nurses, and they were so inspired.

Susan Schramm: They put together a website and they put together their board and everything, and within a year, the board was starting to fall apart. Nobody was staying. They couldn't get volunteers. And I said "what are you trying to do?" They said, "We're trying to start a movement." And I said, "If you had 10 people, what would they do? Not a movement, but 10 people." Because if you scale it to something small and prove it out, you actually start clarifying what is the problem you're solving.

Susan Schramm: And it may be a little different nuance than you had in your head. People may be more excited about some element of it, one piece of it, and you can start bringing people along with you.

Jim: Nice.

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Jim: Susan, I want to shift the end of our show strictly talking about retirement years because you're in your retirement years. What kind of risks do retirees face?

Susan Schramm: I think people immediately think financial, right? That's where lots and lots of time is spent and a lot of communication. I think the biggest risk is the sense of either over-committing themselves to all the things they wanna do, and running out of steam, right?

Susan Schramm: That we see many people, marriages even failing because they start pouring themselves into every interest they ever had without aligning to what is most important. If you only had so much time. The other is the lack of identity. And that you see a lot when people were very identified with their business career, their corporate career, their whatever job they had or title.

Susan Schramm: And that lack of identity, if there's ever been a call to recognize that you are a child of God and your identity has never been more needed. And so I think the risks sometimes are focus. The lack of focus, and whether that focus... what I always encourage people to do, 'cause a lot of people wanna be entrepreneurs someday, and I always encourage them to be entrepreneurs in whatever job they're in, to think of themself, and to start their business plan work now.

Susan Schramm: Even as they're still working, and start testing ideas, finding out, doing research, finding out what are the problems that you're solving that others wanna solve, too. Because a lot of the time when people jump into things they're derailed. And that there's a lot of family time. People always are balanced.

Susan Schramm: I'm personally struggling a lot with life balance. I have grandchildren. I have parents in their 90s. I have a husband who loves to travel, and I'm building a business. I'm around the world. I'm launching a book. I have a lot of energy in consulting. So the idea of prioritizing is a big challenge in when you have enough financial resources to step out and use this last few years.

Susan Schramm: My husband has a phrase, I'm sure you guys have used on this show. The three phases of life, which is the go-go years, the slow-go years, and the no-go years.

Jim: See- And all three of those can be in your last phase of life. Really, at 65, you can have the go-go- Yep the slow-go, and the no-go all between 65 and 95.

Susan Schramm: And it's very humbling when you see someone who is in the no-go years and their world gets very small. They never leave a building. They have one window in their house that they see. The realities are the, it could happen tomorrow, right? So when we make choices, my husband and I have a go-go years budget- And we sit there as we plan our year, and every quarter we have a go-go years goal. And and the slow-go years are there for balance, but I will say that you're right. It goes, I'm sure it goes quickly.

Martha: Yeah. So let's talk about the peer pressure for retirees as well, because often we don't conform, there's that risk of not conforming to what everybody else is doing as a factor in what decisions they make.

Susan Schramm: Do you see that a lot? So what kind of peer pressures are you talking about? Because I'm intrigued.

Jim: I'm talking about the risk of not conforming. People are like "when are you gonna retire, Susan?? When are you gonna be d-"

Susan Schramm: I get that, that- All the time Okay. Definitely.

Jim: That's the risk. You get-

Susan Schramm: All the time.

Jim: Yeah. People are pounding you, like- ... "Susan, what are you work- you're not, you're retirement age. You could retire. What..." So there's that. So Martha and I lived in retirement villages for 20 years in Florida, two different ones, and there was that all the time. It was everybody keeping up with who's gonna retire soonest, and when you're retiring, who could run the homeowners association.

Jim: But it was, there was always, there's always that risk of, "Why aren't you, why are you still working?"

Susan Schramm: Okay, so you've had that question. I've had that que- How do you answer that question?

Jim: It's like, I'm never retiring 'cause I like what I'm doing. I'm having a great time. Retirement, I always want to be in a place where I have purpose and meaning in what I'm doing.

Martha: On iRetire4Him, we say, "If you have a pulse, you have a purpose."

Jim: And if you're not dead...

Martha: You're not done.

Susan Schramm: Okay. Then, sold. (laughter) because I think I have struggled with that. I get it all the time. And it's one of the things I had to learn not to be defensive about. And I did find that many of the people who say that did, do not, did not love what they were doing.

Susan Schramm: And so now they do love - they love being with their families or they put off, many of these people put off in their careers having a rich life of feeling of purpose. That's one of the reasons I love the marketplace ministry idea. Some people felt to be in the ministry you need to go and work in the church or be a pastor, right?

Susan Schramm: Then we started realizing, oh no, you can actually live out your faith in the marketplace. Those who do start to see the purpose they have every day in the way they can influence lives and families and neighborhoods by building, by even decision-makings that are counterintuitive, that are God-led instead of what profit would drive you to do.

Susan Schramm: And I think that I've noticed that the people that ask me that question the most, I ask, I turn it around and say, " why did you retire? What did you retire from?" And then when I hear that, I realize, oh my gosh, of course. If you were putting off having a purpose and feeling a sense of of value, of course you would leave that as far as possible.

Susan Schramm: But I think that the cool part is when you actually help them see how their season is actually an opportunity for having a different kind of influence in the world. And it may be the influence, I have a lot of people say, "My whole call is to serve my grandchildren." I say, "Wonderful. That's wonderful. That may be your call. Just recognize that it is a season- ... and there may be your gifts are big and your gifts are... And there may be you're not feeling like it's either work. Most of the time I hear people go, "And then I realized that my kids didn't wanna see me as much as I wanted to see them."

Jim: I can't imagine that. But there's so much more we could talk about this and... but we need to be done. But you wrote your book: Fasttrack your big idea. And that's what this whole conversation - navigate risk, move people to action, and avoid your strategy going off course. That's why we've been talking about risk with Susan Schramm today.

Jim: I encourage you to get a copy of this because it inspired this conversation. And, Susan, as you were saying what you were just saying, one of the other things we say on this show all the time is people always know what they're retiring from, but very few people know what they're retiring to.

Jim: And that's what we've gotta change. Whether you're working now or you've already retired, just know that God's not done with you yet. God has something rich for you in these years. Just say, "Lord, what is it?" And it may be you hate your job, but I'm telling you, it's your mission field, and you're surrounded by people who need to meet Jesus. And so in the years you have left, shift your mindset to a ministry.

Jim: But if you're already retired and you're looking for meaning and purpose, ask the Lord, "Who is it? What is it I should be doing with everything I've been given?" Because Susan Schramm's not done. She's pouring her life into the next generations and the next generation of all the wisdom she's been given. Susan, thank you so much for being on iWork4Him and iRetire4Him here today.

Susan Schramm: I'm thrilled to have had this conversation. I look forward to seeing you at the summit and continuing in this world that you are shaping every day with the conversations you're hosting. Thanks a lot.

Jim: We're so grateful to have you.

Jim: And that wraps up our conversation with Susan Schramm. And if something she shared today landed with you, I encourage you to sit with it and maybe share this episode with someone who also needs to hear it. This podcast runs on the support of people like you who believe in what we're doing. And if that's you, we would like to see if you would want to support more conversations like this one to reach more people.

Jim: You can donate to iWork4Him for as little as $5 a month. That's a little less than a cup of coffee anymore. Visit iwork4him.com/donate and help support the show. We'll put that link in the show notes as well. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.

8/5/26 - 2158: A Biblical Guide to People-Centered HR

Jim: This is iWork4Him

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: HR, the HR department. Someone from human resources is on the phone and wants to meet. Every one of those statements brings fear into people's lives. HR isn't an acronym that breeds trust, and it certainly isn't an acronym that we associate with a great place to incorporate my faith.

Jim: Brett Billups would disagree, and loudly, too. Let's be honest. Why do we struggle to believe HR is a great place to incorporate our faith? Because we operate with the world's systems in our minds. The world's systems have lost their minds. God created people. HR is all about people, or it's supposed to be.

Jim: So if God created people and HR is all about people, then it should be natural to incorporate all that God said to be used to help the people that HR is designed to help. With all that said, let's dig in with Brett Billups, who wrote the excellent book and runs an excellent organization all by the same name, Biblical HR. Brett Billups, welcome to iWork4Him.

Brett Billups: Thank you, Jim. It's a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much.

Jim: I got through that intro. That was a rough one, but it just... when people hear the word HR, they just go, "Ugh, HR?" Really? Everybody wants to, you know, it's right next to the word purgatory and taxes, I think. (chuckling)

Jim: All right. Before we get started talking about Biblical HR, please share with us, as we do with every first-time guest on our show, how did you become a Jesus follower?

Brett Billups: I grew up - I'm gonna give you a 30,000-foot view. I grew up on a 2,000 acre farm and ranch in the middle of Texas and went to church every Sunday, every Wednesday night, and walked down that aisle at 12 years old, like you were supposed to, and got baptized with my other two brothers.

Brett Billups: And then I just lived my life the way I wanted to, 'cause I thought I had checked a box and I was now saved. And after I left high school and college, I realized that I was living my life on my terms. And eventually, I got married, and then I got really sick. I was in the hospital about 10 days, and this was about 10 years after my wife and I got married. I was in the hospital about 10 days. My liver was shutting down. They took out my gallbladder, and I realized I needed to get serious about my faith.

Brett Billups: And at the time, my wife was reading Henry Blackaby's book Experiencing God, and she realized that faith in Christ was in a relationship with Him. And that's when I started realizing that I didn't have a relationship with Him. So I started, we started going to church more, and I started singing in the choir, and I started attending Bible studies, and we started homeschooling our kids. That's not for everybody, but it, that's what God taught us to, to be a godly husband and a wife and father and mother.

Brett Billups: And I realized that I grew up in a rules-following type of religion, did not have a relationship, but now I do. And that's my story.

Jim: Love it. Love, love it.

Martha: And that's such an amazing story in the sense that, there's probably a lot of listeners that they may still be in the rule-following stage even, and to realize that there's so much more is so powerful. So in the Bible then, as you started digging into your relationship more, somewhere along the line you figured out that the Bible and HR really are in- intermingled. Is that correct?

Brett Billups: Yeah, I did.

Martha: Jim's holding up your book.

Jim: Biblical HR. I hope so 'cause that's the title.

Brett Billups: That's the title. About 10 or 15 years ago, I was really, as I started growing spiritually and I was working for a very public organization, and I started struggling with how to align my faith with my work, especially in a corporate environment. And I could find... I would leave church on Sunday morning having listened to a wonderful sermon, a wonderful worship, and then just dread going back into the workplace the next day because of all the things I had to deal with.

Brett Billups: And so I started trying to find resources that would help me deal with these Monday morning issues, because I couldn't connect the dots between Sunday morning and Monday morning. And I could find a lot of high level things that, faith at work, theology of work kinda resources, but nothing that would really help me in the day-to-day trenches of what I was dealing with and what I was counseling others to deal with.

Brett Billups: And so I just started as I was dealing with a difficult boss, I was trying to counsel people how to deal with a difficult employee or do a performance review or how to interview or all of those day-to-day issues. I just started studying and looking at scripture on how to do those things from a biblical standpoint And that's when I started writing for my own edification. How do I need to counsel others on how to do this? And I was encouraged to put those into book form. And I said, "Ah, maybe when I'll retire or maybe in 20 years or so."

Brett Billups: But good friend of mine who used to be the CHRO for Michaels, strong believer, he said, "Nah, you need to get that out now 'cause it can help people." And so I did. And hopefully it's a blessing to people on just how to, some kind of map or guideline on how to deal with these complex everyday workplace issues. But they aren't, because we're designed and created to operate by biblical principles. We just are. And where better? That's the best employee manual you can have, is scripture.

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: And we've heard that many times as people looked at, hey, I didn't realize the Bible had so much to talk about business, or the Bible had so much to talk about marriage, or the Bible had so much to talk about money.

Jim: You found out the Bible had a lot to talk about how do you deal with people. So where do you get the biggest pushback on this idea, the idea that it's possible to have a biblically centered approach to human resources?

Brett Billups: What's funny is you get the biggest pushback when people find out it's from the Bible. You don't get pushback when you apply the principles because they work, they're right, they are God-honoring, they are people-honoring, and people appreciate. They're honest. They're trustworthy. Those biblical principles are that way. And but when people find out where are you getting that?

Brett Billups: And it says from the Bible. Oh that's where you get the biggest pushback. So it's not a question of, of do the principles work? We know they do. But it's the idea that there is an outside authority that gives some kind of reason and guidelines to how we can treat each other.

Jim: I love that. And we're gonna dig a lot deeper with Brett into his book, Biblical HR. But just a message here from SaferNet, one of our major sponsors of iWork4Him. You wouldn't leave your front door unlocked in a busy city, so why would you leave your computers, your phones, and tablets unprotected online?

Jim: We trust SaferNet because it helps protect our digital life with VPN privacy, virus protection, web filters that keep distractions and threats out. Whether you're leading a business, running a ministry, raising a family, or both, or all three, SaferNet makes cybersecurity simple. Visit safernet.com. That's safernet.com, and tell them iWork4Him sent you.

Jim: Brett, your book reads like a reference manual for handling HR issues from the leadership level down to the hiring process. How'd you figure all this stuff out?

Brett Billups: Oh, you see this gray hair?

Jim: Not really.

Brett Billups: That's how I figured it out.

Jim: Looks pretty good to me. (laughter)

Brett Billups: As we talked about before, is that as I grew spiritually and as I dealt with these issues on a, a day-to-day basis, it's just naturally flows together. What God taught me is that biblical wisdom, it works regardless of the situation or the circumstances. So as I dealt with these situations, okay, what is my spiritual side telling me from a discernment aspect? And then what is my experience telling me to do? So it's a discernment plus a practical application of the experience that really, okay, that's the way I need to handle this, is what works for me.

Jim: Okay. So give me, give us an example - here's the way Brett used to do it, and then Brett studies his Bible, and here's the way Brett does something now. Give us an example of fail and then pass.

Brett Billups: I'll have to give you my biggest regret. I used to work for a very large public organization, Kraft Foods, and at their largest pizza manufacturing plant. And had about 800 people. And the, with the defective pizzas, they would take them and throw them in a freezer bunker in the break room so people could take them out and eat them for lunch. But the policy was is that you couldn't just take a bag of those home for your own food because that was considered stealing.

Brett Billups: So I got a report of someone who was taking bags of these home, and so I looked it up on video, and sure enough, I saw this guy carrying two grocery bags of pizza out of the facility. And it was against policy, and it was considered theft, so I brought him in and I terminated him. And he begged me to reconsider because this guy had, he had a stroke a few years before, and this job was a blessing to him.

Brett Billups: And he showed up every day, good worker. And he said, "I didn't know that was against policy." But I held firm. And his family even called and begged me to reconsider, and no, I held firm. Where if I had just shown grace and mercy, we could have kept a good employee- in spite of my pride. Because I didn't wanna be seen as weak in the eyes of these other employees, that this guy's stealing, you need to, he needs to be terminated.

Brett Billups: And they didn't like him because they thought he was slow. They thought he was not a good employee, but he was. And so my biggest regret is that I didn't show grace and mercy at that point, and we could have retained a good employee.

Jim: Did you ever get a chance to go back and apologize to the guy?

Brett Billups: No, I have not. He's up in Wisconsin now. I don't even remember his full name, but it's Bob Kennedy. I remember his name. I remember his face, but ... that's my biggest regret.

Martha: There are things like that where we sometimes get the lesson the hard way. I'd love to hear a couple more examples, one in the area of interviews. How does an interview look different when it is done from a biblical perspective in HR?

Brett Billups: Sure. One of my favorite passages of scripture is 1 Samuel 16:7, where the Lord tells Samuel to go look for a new king. And he tells Samuel, "Don't look on the outward appearance. The Lord doesn't see as man sees. The Lord looks on the heart." So as you interview individuals, there's... The technical qualifications are important, absolutely. So you screen for the technical qualifications and experience, but you hire the heart.

Brett Billups: So as you interview individuals, okay, how do I do that? How do you get to the heart? So One of the most practical things that I can - there's two standard questions that I ask, and I'll give you a practical thing as well. So I ask, "Okay, so what are your hobbies? What do you like to do when you're not working?" That gives me a really good idea about where their heart is.

Brett Billups: Where do they spend their free time? Do they volunteer at a local hospital? Do they go salsa dancing on the weekend or what? That tells me where they spend their free time. And and then I also ask them, "Okay, what are your hot buttons? What do you... what gets an immediate emotional reaction out of you- ... whether it's positive or negative?" And that, that tells me what their emotional kind of buttons are.

Brett Billups: But then I ask them I utilize something called the STAR method, which is situation, task, action, result. Tell me about a time where someone asked you to do something unethical. What was it? What did you do and what was the result? That kinda tells you where their heart stands. So there's ways, there's questions that you can ask that you can get to the heart. Now, obviously there's some legal question that you can't ask from a personal standpoint, but there are some that you can.

Brett Billups: And they'll offer up, but believe it or not, when you start asking about people's hobbies, what they like to do, and then you ask further question to that, you would be surprised at how much they open up.

Jim: And what I notice is you didn't say, "Tell me about your experience that applies directly to this position," because you're looking for heart, because somebody with the right heart can be trained to do just about anything. But you're looking for heart so you can match culture. Is that what I'm hearing?

Brett Billups: Yeah, it is. Again, technical expertise is important. That is an entry point because if they don't have the minimum qualifications to do the job, they're not gonna be successful in the role. So you, that's gotta be taken into consideration. So you screen for all of that. All right, can they do the job from a technical and expertise standpoint? Can they do it? Yes. All right, now where's their heart?

Jim: Nice. I love that. So let's go to performance reviews because in the old days, once a year you'd sit down with your boss and there'd be a performance review, and a lot of times there'd be surprises on the performance review. And now today, what I've been told, 'cause I haven't had any employees recently, that employees like daily reviews or even hourly reviews. They wanna know how they're doing all the time. Does our faith really impact the performance review process?

Brett Billups: Absolutely. And I'm gonna attack this from a couple of different angles. So Matthew 7:1 and 2 says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For the judgment you pronounce will be judged, and with the measure you will use, it will be measured to you." So what that means is the yardstick that you're using to measure other people and measure others' performance, you better be careful because that same yardstick is gonna be used to measure your own.

Brett Billups: I've had a lot of bosses and a lot of people in performance reviews would tell individuals that, "You're not meeting my expectations." Okay. But look at the parable of the talents. How are they using the gifts that God has given them? Are they meeting God's expectations for the role? I gotta take myself completely out of it. So I measure to God's expectations and how they are utilizing God's gifts, not meeting my own personal agenda.

Brett Billups: So that's different. That's a different performance measurement and a different performance yardstick, because too many bosses look at it as a personal affront that you're not meeting my expectations. You need to do what I say. No, we are called to meet God's expectations and to honor and glorify God in the workplace, and that's how we need to measure. Are they doing that? Are they honoring God in the workplace? The other thing is that when I first became a CHRO, a chief human resources officer for a large organization, I was having biweekly meetings with all of the HR staff.

Brett Billups: And after a few months, I realized we weren't getting anything done. And I was getting feedback from my senior staff that, "Brett, these are just a waste of time. People are-- They're multitasking. They're not engaged. They're..." And so I just scrapped them. I scrapped all of them, and then I started having weekly one-on-ones with all of my direct reports.

Brett Billups: And that changed everything because then they became engaged. And it was a beating every Friday because every half an hour. But we made so much progress, both professionally and personally. Because if you do a, if you do one-on-ones effectively, it's discipleship. So you're bringing discipleship into the workplace when you're giving feedback, when you're giving these performance reviews, and when you're doing these one-on-ones.

Brett Billups: You're discipling your employees. It's not just holding them accountable. So it's not just giving them just giving them feedback on how they're doing in their job. Okay, but how can I help you do your job better? And what are you dealing with per... and especially on Fridays, I could ask them, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend?"

Brett Billups: "Oh, my dad's, it's my dad's 70th birthday. We're going out." "Oh, that's great." And so I, every week I would have a list of things that we need to talk about and then I can come back and ask, "Hey, how was your dad's 70th birthday?" It's discipleship.

Martha: Get to really know the people so that you know if things are changing in their lives and how to adjust in managing them and befriending them.

Martha: Okay, so we've talked about hiring, performance reviews. What about firing or freeing someone's future? What does that, is there a way to do that with a biblical process?

Brett Billups: Yeah, Christ held people accountable. A lotta times that's the biggest, I think, not hurdle, but concern about believers in the workplace. They don't wanna be seen as harsh. They don't wanna be seen as critical. They don't wanna be seen as unloving or impatient or unkind. But Christ held people accountable, but He did it differently to different people.

Brett Billups: So if you look at the woman at the well, He confronted her sin, but He did so lovingly- and kindly and pointed her to Him. But with the Pharisees, it's a completely different story. He had to hit them between the eyes with a two-by-four because of their hypocrisy.

Martha: Yeah.

Brett Billups: And so how you confront that performance and pointing people to godly behavior, again, not just meeting my expectations, but pointing them to godly behavior. And sometimes a termination is the most godly thing you can do for an individual because there is a... Sometimes that, that forced humility is the one thing that will point them to look to Christ.

Brett Billups: Now, you do it in a, a godly way. Number one, you make sure that you're doing your part, that you've communicated your expectations effectively and the organization's expectations effectively, and you've given them all the tools and resources, and you tell them where, "Okay, here's what you're doing well. Here's where you're not doing well." And if they choose to either not perform or if they don't have the ability or capacity to perform, then you have to make some hard decisions at that point.

Jim: But isn't it true, though, if you manage somebody well, you're really investing in them, and they still continue to struggle- I have found that if you manage people, they will manage themselves out the door because they- ... they know, hey usually when you have to fire somebody, it's a failure of management because normally if you hold them accountable, they're gonna remove themselves from an uncomfortable situation if they feel like they're not meeting expectations.

Jim: Maybe you'd have to fire somebody occasionally, but it just seems to me like when I see people having to fire people, it's because the manager failed to do the management job. Agree or disagree?

Brett Billups: I would agree somewhat in a lotta ways. And I think there are a lotta people that will manage themselves out of a job and choose, and self-select themselves out of a job. But there are individuals who will just out of a sense of rebellion continue to not do what you want them to do, and then there is that time where you have to continue- you have to tell them, " okay, you do this again, you're gonna get terminated."

Jim: No, we just say, " we're gonna free your future. We're gonna free your future." (chuckles) 'Cause that's really what it is. 'Cause a lotta times, as you said, when you let somebody go, a lotta times you're doing them a big favor.

Martha: You know- i'm thinking about the fact that, somebody that maybe is a manager or maybe is responsible for HR, that they, if they have not been using this biblical HR approach and they start doing it, if they hire with that intention, if they're doing weekly one-on-ones and having those performance reviews, then this third and final, the firing, is it takes on a whole different element than if you weren't doing it from the biblical HR perspective.

Martha: But yet, like you said, there are times where it, there's just something that happens. But having, knowing the person having a relationship with them can change everything, even in their firing, because you can help launch them for that next best thing.

Martha: So I just wanna take a moment here to remind our listeners, don't forget about our summer picnic initiative. We're encouraging you to have a block party, a potluck, whatever you wanna call it. Send us a picture at Jim's email, which is jim@iworkforhim.com. That will be in the show notes. And for in- more inspiration, you can get on our website. We have a special link that we're gonna put in the show notes for you as well that will give you some extra inspiration of maybe some things you can do at your party to really get to know and love your neighbors.

Martha: Remember, one special winner will be selected at the end of the summer for a special prize. We can't wait to tell you more about that.

Jim: Yeah, we can't wait, 'cause that's how we're gonna change our country. Have a neighborhood picnic- loving your neighbors. What an idea. I heard that somewhere. All right, Brett-

Martha: It's biblical. (laughter)

Jim: Oh, that's what it was. It's that Bible. Says something about that.

Jim: Brett, you deal with very difficult topics in your book, Biblical HR, which I'm holding up here if you're watching on YouTube, or Rumble. Forgot that it's from Rumble as well. That's right. You deal with topics like sexual harassment, inappropriate speech, unethical behavior. The world would say, "Whatever you do, don't push your religion on me. That's just the way business is conducted." What's your response?

Brett Billups: Then don't push your religion on other people. Just do what the Bible says. We are called to, to live out our faith first. And then as you live out your faith according to biblical principles, that, that could open the door up to bring people into a gospel conversation.

Brett Billups: But quite frankly, it's being hypocritical. If you don't live it out, then you're a hypocrite and nobody's gonna listen to your religion anyway. So live it out. And treat people according to biblical principles. That's the best witness you can do. You're not pushing religion on anybody. You're pushing godly principles in your own life out.

Martha: Yeah.

Brett Billups: So you're not pushing religion.

Jim: It's kind of a trick question, but I like the way you answered it because it, it's, we're not. Jesus, the religious people hated Jesus, so they're the ones that killed him. We are trying to introduce people to the way Jesus treated people, which, you know he came to free people, to set them free, to set the captives free. And dealing with issues like sexual harassment and inappropriate speech and unethical behavior really starts to treat people like the children of God, created in the image of God they are.

Brett Billups: Yeah.

Jim: But it's difficult because the world doesn't support that. The world, even the organized church, tends to push some of those things off to the side because they're uncomfortable.

Martha: Yeah. It's good stuff to think about, and I love the fact that it is set up as a resource for people to use.

Jim: Yeah. It's a how-to.

Martha: So Brett, how can you help our listeners to incorporate the biblical approach to HR, whether they're in a for-profit business, a nonprofit business, a ministry, a church, whatever that might be, how can you help them with one thing maybe to help them incorporate?

Brett Billups: I can help if they're, if they're dealing with a complex issue, complex situations, I can train them on how to deal with each of those topics from a biblical standpoint. Here's the biblical principle. Here's what you do before, during, and after this situation. But it's broader than that as well.

Brett Billups: When I was with a large construction company in the CHRO, I put together an HR strategy model, and there's seven steps on how to put an HR strategy together, just incorporating all of the HR function into one cohesive type of plan according and model those all after biblical principles.

Brett Billups: So it's two things. It's taking your faith off the wall and putting it into your day-to-day practice. A lot of times we just have our faith as a mission statement on the wall or as in the corporate policy manual. We need to bring it out of that and bring it back into how we deal with individuals on a one-to-one daily basis.

Jim: All right, so when you, do this, last question. When somebody implements the biblical HR model to HR in their organization, whatever size it is, small, medium, large, wicked small or wicked big, what's the impact on culture?

Brett Billups: I will tell you this, that the latest Gallup survey, you may be aware of this, latest Gallup survey indicated that employee engagement was at its lowest point in 10 years, and the reason for that is that a lack of managerial engagement.

Brett Billups: So if you just bring the concept of biblical principles and how you treat people and discipleship into the workplace, it improves retention, it improves employee engagement, it improves productivity. It is a, we know intuitively that it just it improves the health of your organization across the board.

Brett Billups: So if it's, because again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, and I preach this everywhere I go. We were designed and created to operate by biblical principles. We just, and they work. They are the best way to run your business. So why don't we do it?

Jim: You can check out Brent online at biblicalhr.com. Brent has been gracious enough to give us an extra copy of his book. If you wanna email me... Actually, here's what I want you to do. I want you to subscribe to our channel on YouTube. That's iWork4Him on YouTube. iWork, the number 4 Him on YouTube. Subscribe and then pop me an email, jim@iwork4him.com. I know it's two steps, but you get a free book, Biblical HR.

Jim: If you're in the HR department, you're running a business, you're running an organization, this is gonna change the way you look at how you treat people within your organization. Biblical HR, compliments of Brett Billups. Thanks so much, Brett, for being on the show today. I know we just barely scratched the surface but we're super grateful for the time you've given us today.

Brett Billups: Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

Jim: This podcast runs on the support of people who believe in conversations like this one we had with Brett Billups, and you can help reach more people for five bucks a month. That's one cup of coffee. It's actually less than a cup of coffee. Visit iwork4him.com/donate, and we'll put the link in the show notes as well.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.

7/29/26 - 2157: Will Your Mission Survive You?

Jim: This is iWork4Him, where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: We've been covering the faith and work movement for 13 years now. We've recorded more testimonies and emceed more conferences than anyone else in the faith and work movement. What we've seen, heard, and experienced has both inspired and challenged us, making it clear that much more needs to be done to transform how followers of Jesus live out their faith at work.

Jim: Discipleship programs are neat, but mostly leave business people empty and wondering, "Can I even live out my faith at work? Nothing I hear at church ever connects what I do on a daily basis with my faith in Jesus." That has changed in recent years, not within the four walls of churches for the most part, but within the missions of hundreds of organizations that are dedicated to discipling and training followers of Jesus how not only to let their faith impact all of their lives, but to penetrate the boardroom to the basement, the people from the top to the bottom of the organization.

Jim: Becca Spradlin knows this. She's seen it, heard about it, and she's written a book that documents what it takes for a Jesus-following business leader to bring about real kingdom impact that impacts company culture and prepares the company for long-lasting perpetuation of that culture even after the leadership changes.

Jim: Becca's book, Lead on Mission, is a fascinating read. It reads like a kingdom-focused Good to Great combined with How the Mighty Fall. Becca's here today to parse out just a tiny bit of the wealth of knowledge and wisdom in her book. Becca Spradlin, welcome to iWork4Him.

Becca Spradlin: Thanks so much for having me.

Jim: All right, Becca, we always do this with every first-time guest on iWork4Him. We're gonna talk about Lead on Mission, but first, can you tell us how you became a follower of Jesus?

Becca Spradlin: Absolutely. So when I was six, I remember praying a prayer by myself in bed one night, asking Jesus into my heart, and even though at the time I know it was more of a like a flannelgram understanding of Jesus coming into your heart, God used life that happened the decades that followed to really understand what it means to have a relationship with Jesus.

Becca Spradlin: Especially when my father passed away when I was a teenager, I felt the nearness of God unlike anything I had experienced before. So I feel like God uses those decades and time to refine us, to grow us, to help us learn and grow in our faith.

Jim: Fabulous. I love that, and I love the fact that you were young, but it was real. And because I was first introduced to Christ at six but then I ran the other direction till I was 13, but at 13 I nailed it. But it was, like I understand as a kid, I would've been so much better off if I'd had just embraced that at six.

Jim: All right, so Becca, you open up this book with this statement: "For leaders to steward their season of influence effectively, they must first live out the values they promote." Or in my words, "Do as I say, not as I do," didn't work for me as a kid, and it's not gonna work for me in the corporate environment where the leader is all about Jesus but his or her actions don't match. What's the real story here?

Becca Spradlin: There's a couple things in that statement that you pulled out. So first there's this season of stewardship, understanding you're not gonna be in that role forever. There's a humility that goes with that, understanding that this is a season God's called you to. So I think the being genuine in your faith is best illustrated by one of the case studies in the book.

Becca Spradlin: It's the ServiceMaster company. Okay And I know a lot of your listeners will be familiar with this company, started by Marian Wade in 1929. And he had actually, a life and death experience early on with some chemicals that he was using to do some cleaning, and after recovering from that, as he started this business, he realized he wanted this business to raise the question of God in the marketplace.

Becca Spradlin: And this was at a time well before iWork4Him and other faith and work resources were out there. This was kinda cutting edge in this space. But he was living out and leading genuinely. He would say, " if you don't live it out, you don't believe it." You're... It was really action-oriented, the faith pulled out of his actions.

Becca Spradlin: So he was living it out. The early leaders that followed him were also living it out. They were living out these values, these ambitions to honor God in the marketplace before they were ever written on the wall. And so once they got codified decades later and were put on the wall how there was that alignment.

Becca Spradlin: And I think the interesting part of this case, why I was so fascinated with it, is you think about the last 20, 25 years of the ServiceMaster journey, those values stayed on the walls after they went public, after leadership changed and some of the leaders were more aligned than others. And more recently, as those changes happen and you start to see the words on the walls change, you think, "Oh, they're drifting. The words on the wall change."

Becca Spradlin: But really the leaders weren't living it out. The words remain on the wall while there's that inconsistency when new leaders, especially external leaders, come in, and you start to see the discrepancy between leader behavior and what's on the wall, and then eventually what's on the wall changes too. So you almost see the inverse, where the words remained, but the leaders weren't living it out like those early leaders did.

Jim: I ran into a guy running a ServiceMaster franchise in Springfield, Missouri, not too long ago, within the last couple of years, and I said, "Hey, how's it going?" I covered Bill Pollard years ago. "How's it going? Is ServiceMaster still living up to its, 'Honor God in all we do?'"

Jim: He goes some franchises do, some franchises don't. It's really up to the franchise now," but he goes, "From corporate, it's not there." So that's really why I reference that how the mighty have fallen in your book too because ServiceMaster's a great example of how many generations, 60, 70, 80 years they kept it going.

Becca Spradlin: Yeah.

Jim: And they were able to revive it under Bill Pollard, but when they went public It became the death knell to the vision of the original founder. How do we stop this, Becca? Because I know I'm jumping right in. That's not- I wanna talk more about your book, but I'm just like, I'm just so tired of this.

Jim: They didn't have to go public. There were other ways to raise money, but when they sold out to the stock market, it seems like they felt like they needed to compromise in order to make it work.

Becca Spradlin: I think the interesting part of their case is that, again, it was founded in the 1920s, so this is a long, coming close to a century-old organization, and when they went public, the interesting thing was you didn't necessarily see the drift right away. They went public in the '60s. It was decades after that. So I think it's remarkable that they actually kept the mission and values intact, and their objective to honor God intact for decades. And it's because they had that right blend of the leadership in place, as well as, talking to some of the leaders there who've been there, they would say that, those early owners, even though it was public, the early owners were largely employees and other people that understood the ServiceMaster culture.

Becca Spradlin: So even though it went public, the ownership piece was still very much aligned. And so I think that was one of the contributing factors. That, and they were just doing really well. It was up and to the right, and when you started to see those financial challenges, then we start to question, oh, maybe it's we've been too focused on our values, the values that have served you well for the last 80 years. And then you started to question those things.

Becca Spradlin: Again, you're now a public company. You now have owners who are there for the money and for the return. So the motives change of those owners as the ownership changed over time. So you see a lot of different forces at work, and then you're left to wonder did the board... The board's representing the shareholders. That's their legal responsibility. Do they really understand that financial returns and these values were working together and weren't working opposite each other

Jim: And that's where the drift comes in. I remember reading in your case study that -'cause this is the part I hadn't heard - is that they eventually hired a leader from outside the organization who didn't have an appreciation. Instead of mentoring and bringing up your perpetuation plan from within the organization, you having trained them and ingrained them and shown them, "This is what works and this is why it works, and eventually you could be the CEO," they went to the outside.

Jim: And I see that all the time because they want whoever the high- the board of directors wasn't think- I don't know. It's ... Coca-Cola Consolidated is the proof that you can be a publicly traded company and honor God in everything you do, and they literally lead dozens of people to Christ every week in a publicly traded company. Last year they had almost 2,000 people within their ranks come to Christ as a publicly traded company, and they make boatloads of cash.

Becca Spradlin: Yeah. That's a great example.

Jim: So it can be done. So you went on this - and we could go on like this forever. And my frustration, Becca, and maybe you could calm me down, is that I think we've, as believers who run businesses, we have decided to say, "the world knows best about business, so we should do business the way the world does it."

Jim: Instead of when Abraham said, Mr. Sodom and King Gomorrah, I don't need what you got. What I got from the Lord, I don't want any of your stuff. My, the Lord is my provider. I don't want you to ever say Abraham got rich because I gave you cash.'" We have forgotten that God can do supernatural things, and we have forgotten that God loves business, that's something.

Jim: Becca, tell me, you've been a believer since you were a little kid. When was the last time you heard a sermon about Jesus running a small family business, and that Abraham had such a large corporation that he had to have 300 armed guards? When was the last time you ever heard a business sermon?

Becca Spradlin: Not to my recollection.

Jim: Never. So the word is five letters, never. And that's an issue, isn't it? Because as we're not, as believers, getting trained that God loves our work and he loves business. Business isn't a necessary evil. Business was given to us by God. Now- ... there are things that happen in business that are evil. There are also things that happen in church that are evil.

Jim: So let's come, let's find a solution here today on the show. How do we do this? You said in your book, you say, "Inconsistency can be more destructive than having no faith emphasis in the business at all." I used to say, this is something I used to say, "If you're gonna act..." This is what got iWork4Him started. As I was networking all across Tampa Bay, people would say, "I'm a Christian. You should do business with me." And then I'd watch how they did business, and I'd grab them by the shoulders and say "If you're gonna act that way, please don't tell people Jesus."

Jim: What's the problem here, Becca? Why do people who know Jesus not know how to let that faith impact their leadership, their company, and their culture?

Becca Spradlin: That, that is the question, right? I think part of it is they've not seen it modeled. So there is this kind of growing faith at work movement that's happening. But I do think people have not seen it modeled, and I do think we are taking too many cues from the world of when I get successful, what life looks like, what leadership looks like. And I think one of the things, again, back to ServiceMaster, the thing that made them exceptional is that servant leadership actually being lived out from the very top, getting down...

Becca Spradlin: there's this story of them in board meetings where they'd get down on their hands and knees to clean up the spilled coffee. They were doing that. The chairman was doing that. And when you grow up in that kind of a culture, you, that becomes second nature. When you bring in -I call it the external CEO disadvantage - when you have a healthy culture like that and you bring in an external CEO, they may be a believer, they may go to church, but they've probably not experienced that kind of servant leadership in the workplace.

Becca Spradlin: And so how do you inculcate that in them and that new leader? Now, I do think there's a case in the book of Correct Craft where a turnaround was needed, and they brought in an external CEO who was faith-driven, who pulled back onto the foundations of we wanna honor God through this boat building business.

Jim: Yeah, Bill Yeargin.

Becca Spradlin: Yes.

Jim: Again, what a great story. A phenomenal story.

Becca Spradlin: So it can happen. So you can, you, again, especially if you're in a turnaround, but when you have a healthy culture, how can you best do what you said? And what ServiceMaster did for so many years, they called it their shingles on the roof, building up the next leader for the next generation.

Becca Spradlin: And then, the CEO moves on to be chairman, and you have this cycle with this regular support and also deference for the other and humility that undergirds all of this. So I do think people haven't seen it modeled, and people have this definition of what it means to be a CEO and executive.

Becca Spradlin: And maybe it is their boards or influencers saying, "Make as much money as you can," as the number one, is the bottom line, versus how do you build a thriving culture? How do you see those returns like you talked about at Coca-Cola Consolidated, where people are coming into eternal faith in Jesus?

Becca Spradlin: How are we celebrating those things and elevating that so it's not all about the money? So I do think we're way too influenced by our culture. We haven't seen servant leadership modeled. And in those generational businesses, you may have a believing gen one or two, and then gen three comes in and is, "Okay, we'll leave the values there." But they, their faith might not be in the same place as the founder.

Becca Spradlin: So I think it can happen for a lot of reasons where you see this discrepancy. And I think at the end of the day, there's a lot of us believers who don't put the Christian fish on our cars, right? Because we are concerned. We, on the other side, people get scared to live out their faith at workplace 'cause they don't wanna be a hypocrite, and they're so fearful of those cases. And I think motivations really matter. And bottom line is what's God calling you to do? How's he calling you to live out your faith in your unique business and industry and context?

Becca Spradlin: And so that's why I think abiding and discerning with the Lord is just, is the foundation because well-meaning believers who are following Jesus, one might choose a very overt way in their mission statement to reflect their faith, and one may choose not to because they don't wanna create a barrier for people to coming to their workplace and experiencing the love of God.

Becca Spradlin: And both might have great cultures, and that's what you hope for, a commitment to excellence and a really exceptional culture of care that just reinforces, wow, I don't wanna leave this place. Maybe I don't know why they do what they do, but then you're curious, and experience the love of Jesus, and that's what you want. That's what you wanna see.

Jim: Exactly. This is exactly the kind of conversations we love to have on iWork4Him. And if you've been on the fence about supporting iWork4Him, this is what your $5 a month can do. It keeps conversations going. It reaches people who have yet to learn that God wants to be part of their work life, to help them run their business, to shift their thinking, to use them for His glory.

Jim: Go to iwork4him.com/donate. And don't forget our summer picnic initiative. Jesus told us to love our neighbors, to love our enemies too. How many of you know your neighbors? We're encouraging you To have a block party this summer. Invite your neighbors over. Take a picture of it, and if you don't know how to do all this, we actually have a page on our website that will be in the link on the show notes.

Jim: Hey, here's how you can put together a neighborhood picnic. But we want you to take a picture of you gathering with your neighbors and email it to jim@iwork4him.com. We are never going to turn around this country if believers don't know their neighbors, and this is the summer to do it.

Jim: Have a picnic, take a picture, send it to us. And a potluck picnic, people. That's what I'm talking about, where all the food is the best food from around your city. Have it in your yard because when it's on your property, you are the owner of that property. You bring Jesus to that property, and you can love on people right there in your yard or in your garage if it rains that day. You just might have to clean it up.

Jim: Remember, there'll be one winner at the end for the grand s- grand summer prize, but have a summer picnic.

Jim: Becca, what we just talked about makes me think, and again, this is a little off from what I said I was gonna say, but it's hiring.

Becca Spradlin: Yeah.

Jim: As CEOs, we tend to not hire people as smart or smarter than us for the positions of COO, CIO, CMO, all the ABC, CFO, all of those people. Yet that's what's so critical is the hiring and the raising up people those positions, isn't it? Because if those people aren't the kinds of people that fit your culture, that understand your mission, who've been mentored and discipled by you, not one of them's gonna be ready to take the position when you decide it's time for you to step down, move on to free your future, whatever you're gonna do. That hiring becomes so critical, and that's something we talk about every once in a while on iWork4Him, but people aren't very good at hiring, are they?

Becca Spradlin: Hiring is something I think people - we often take too little time. And just talking with leaders, you feel, especially when at the C level, you feel the pain of the vacancy. And you're like " they have the right competencies," and then you tend to compromise on that chemistry, that character fit. And, in a business context, you're not hiring for their faith, but you do wanna hire for their values alignment.

Becca Spradlin: So you should see evidence that these folks are gonna be a good chemistry, they're gonna be a good fit. But when you feel the pain of the vacancy, it can blind you a little bit to what you know maybe those small voices in the back of your mind saying, "I don't know, is that a yellow flag or a red flag?"

Becca Spradlin: So I always encourage folks, especially in those critical roles, have someone who you know to be mission and values aligned, who doesn't feel the pain of the vacancy. Make sure there's one interview with that person so they can get a good sense for who this person is. Are they a good character and chemistry fit? Are they a good culture fit for us? But not be compromised by the just, the drive of you just, ugh, you wanna fill the role. I had a leader share with me, it's better to have a vacancy than to wish you had a vacancy.

Jim: Yeah, there you go. I'm gonna tell you, people, to go even deeper. A few weeks ago, we interviewed Bob Spence, who wrote a book, The Game Plan For Hiring The Right People. He's my mentor. He wrote, it is the absolute best book I've ever read on hiring. It's hilarious, it's deep diving, and he has got a copyrighted way, a kingdom copyrighted way, on how to hire the right people. I recommend you go back and look at that, or listen to that show. Bob Spence, I don't have the date right here, but we'll make sure we get it in the show notes.

Jim: But it is A Game Plan For Hiring The Right People by Bob Spence. That is the book, because it involves everybody that person's going to have report to them in the hiring process, as well as the management team. It's pretty cool. All right, alignment. You just talked about alignment in, in your hiring. You wanna make sure people are gonna align. And alignment on purpose in order to stay on mission is an everyday task, especially while the day-to-day has to be maintained.

Jim: How critical is constant surveillance of these three things, the three things that you mentioned before, or that we've talked, that you mention in your book? Leadership, ownership, and governance that keep you on mission. Give us an example of a great company that's always evaluating this, one that still exists and is still honoring God. What, is there a company out there?

Becca Spradlin: Yeah, this is a great question. I would definitely reference like Correct Craft and other cases in the book because these things don't change rapidly, right? The leadership, the ownership, and the governance pieces, these are the three pieces you need to have in alignment in order to perpetuate and to take that culture that you've spent decades building, to take that culture forward. So you wanna see alignment in those things.

Becca Spradlin: I think we have way more failure cases than success cases on this because people take too little time to think about leadership succession, to think about ownership transitions. People are often too busy, especially in the small and medium sized businesses and the nonprofits too, they're too busy working on and in the business to work on the business to be future planning for this. So you gotta be really careful at those big transition points, and it's not a be careful in the moment. That's years of planning to make sure that you have that governance, ownership, and leadership alignment.

Becca Spradlin: So it's years of leadership development, years of planning for an owner transition and thinking that through, and discerning who should be, if there's a governing body, who should be on it and how that governing body works. So there's years of planning on that.

Jim: So wait a minute. You're bumming everybody out. They're like, "Okay, so this isn't like a six-month plan?" No, this is ... What, is this a three-year plan, a five-year plan, or could it be a decade? You're talking, this takes a long time to get your board right, to get your leadership right, to get your heart right, to get your culture right. If you're talking perpetuation so that it sticks like it did for 80 years for ServiceMaster-

Becca Spradlin: Yeah ...

Jim: this is a long play. Most business people aren't thinking long play. They're thinking a year. And today they're, people are doing, they're doing business plans, they're doing 48... they're not doing five-year plans anymore because things change so fast. So how do you get people to take the time?

Becca Spradlin: Yeah. I do think there's something there in what you said. It is actually thinking about the culture you wanna build today. I think a lot of people are building great cultures, but think about where do you want the business to be in 20, 50, 100 years?

Becca Spradlin: Now, every industry's different. I'm sure your industry's gonna be very much evolved and changed in that period of time. But if your business is still there, what do you want the culture to be like? And what, how do you plan when you think that long? And I think thinking and asking those kind of questions helps bring and build that humility, because you won't be there leading.

Becca Spradlin: So if you're not gonna be there leading, who is gonna be there leading? Who is gonna be the owner of that? So I think start thinking a little bit more long-term, because you and I both know there have been businesses that have spent decades building a great culture. They sell to a misaligned owner, private, public, what have you, and in three to six months, decades of intentional care and culture building is gone.

Jim: I literally had a tire guy... I'm sorry to interrupt. I thought you were done.

Becca Spradlin: No, go ahead.

Jim: We were in Jacksonville, Florida, five, six, seven years ago. I can't remember. I lose track of time at this point in time. We were interviewing a guy, and he had 30 tire centers all over Jacksonville, Florida.

Jim: And he sold out to private equity 'cause he wanted to retire. He was tired of it. Didn't know anything about ESOPs. Didn't know anything about the different solutions that are out there and available. And he literally cried. He goes, "Jim, in six months I didn't even recognize my own company, and all my best employees were gone." And it had been 30 years in the making. How do we stop that, Becca?

Becca Spradlin: Yeah. One of the cases in the book of a communications company, I really love. The, the owner of the company, he didn't feel like he wanted to sell yet, but he had a friend pass away suddenly, and it got him and his wife thinking if, what happens if that were to happen to me?

Becca Spradlin: So he started putting things in place so that when the time was right, they would have some support to help them with a business sale. And within a year or two, they decided to execute on that, so they updated the numbers, and they started looking for buyers. And he said there were six offers he got.

Becca Spradlin: One, some of them didn't understand the business. One was astronomical. It was just stupid large. And of course, the person helping him was getting a cut of it, and they're saying, "Oh, that, that looks really good." And he's like, "I don't have a peace about the character of the buyer, of the future owner. I just don't have a peace about it."

Becca Spradlin: And eventually, God provided a seventh option, an individual leader with, who's backed by some investors, and he talked with him and he talked about faith, he talked about the culture, and that leader/owner really liked the culture, had some connection to faith himself. And I think one of the really unique things that the seller did in this case when he did decide to go with that seventh buyer, he gave incentives.

Becca Spradlin: He gave some of the portion of the proceeds back. He gave an incentive for some of the senior leaders to stay. If they stayed, he pyramided it, so year one, year two, each year it got higher and higher, a bonus they would get if they stayed up till the third year, and then the fourth year would be a little less, the fifth year would be a little less.

Becca Spradlin: So if they stayed, they would get these bonuses because he knew they, he needed the executive leadership team to stay in order for the new owner, new leader, to come and feel supported and to carry forward the leadership. And he built into some of the buy-sell agreement certain programs, certain leadership development, things that they've been doing that he wanted those things to go for at least 12 or more months.

Becca Spradlin: So he actually built in some of the things that if you buy this, these things need to continue, and here's some other, the logistics. So he had the thought to craft that simple buy-sell agreement to keep some of those things that were culture related. Now, did some of them change after that year or two or three?

Becca Spradlin: Yeah, they did, but a lot of the leadership team is still there, and this is well past those bonuses that they were getting. Most of them stayed. So there was a lot of intentionality that went into that, both preparing for the sell, both selecting the buyer, and then also equipping that leadership team to stay and effectively support the buyer, the new business leader, but also the whole team that had been built over time. So there are success cases out there of successful sales, but it is, it takes a lot of intentionality and planning.

Jim: Is that a public-facing company you just described?

Becca Spradlin: Yes.

Jim: Can you mention their name?

Becca Spradlin: Oh, yeah. OneSource Communication. Yes. It's in the book. There's a case study in the book.

Jim: I must have missed that one or I don't remember. I apologize. I must... I read it, so I must have missed that one.

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Jim: Becca, as we finish up our conversation, we've talked about so much and really it's... We better, we gotta end with encouragement because there's... sometimes I get the glass half empty kinda thing 'cause I've been so frustrated 'cause I see so much opportunity lost, but there's been so much opportunity gained.

Jim: And I got to meet with Mark Whitaker, who's in charge of culture at Coca Cola Consolidated last week, and they're killing it. When I first- ... when Mark first got in his position, they were reaching 600 or 700 people, maybe 500 or 600 people a year for Christ in Coca Cola Consolidated out of 17,000 employees at 107 locations.

Jim: Last year, the number topped 200,000, and they're still wildly profitable. So there are examples all over the place, but have you seen any good examples where private equity did the buyout and kept the culture?

Becca Spradlin: I, unfortunately, I do not have great examples of that. I do think there are new private equity firms developing and managing toward this. So if you look at Correct Craft, I mentioned them, they're a boat-building company. They're owned by Ambassador Enterprises which is a faith-motivated private equity firm. And so in the work I've done with them and seen in their other companies, this culture piece, this people piece is really present and very much aligned with the ownership of that equity firm.

Becca Spradlin: So I am encouraged because I do think there are more examples of this happening, more private equity out there. There are also other options. You mentioned ESOPs. There's purpose trusts. There's different tools that you can do. And I think with any of them, again, back to the word intentionality, whatever governing structure, ownership structure, leadership structures are in place, you just wanna spend time on, on, on those, and make sure those are aligned.

Becca Spradlin: If you're considering selling to whatever type of buyer or structure, really understanding who's gonna be the future leader ... owners, influencers of that, and what are their long-term objectives. So I think really getting clear, if you're selling to this private equity firm or other buyer, what are their intentions?

Becca Spradlin: Are their intentions to build it up and sell it? If that is part of the mix, whether they're faith-related or not, I think it's really important to be careful because maybe the faith will go on another five to seven years or however long they hold the company. But if they're gonna resell it, then who's gonna buy it then?

Becca Spradlin: So I think it's really important to understand the motivations and the long-term plans of that future buyer and understand to just understand what the culture is gonna do. How long will it extend the culture and care for the team in the way that you want your team to be cared for?

Jim: Caution is what you just heard from Becca, is caution. Be cautious. Know your people. And as private equity thing it is you need to exercise caution. Don't just take somebody's word for it. Double-check their record. You need to do your due diligence. And the ESOPs, employee stock ownership programs, are successful. You can get the same kinda buyout if this is what you use to perpetuate, and you can perpetuate your culture 'cause you've raised up those employees who will then be running the business.

Jim: It's an option that you gotta look at. I loved ... I love this conversation. We could go on forever, Becca, but I've already taken up way too much of your time. Any final words? Any final things you wanna say to encourage our audience today about helping people to stay on mission, to lead on mission, to perpetuate that mission, and to keep it going into the future?

Becca Spradlin: Sure. All of us are prone to mission drift. I've worked with mission-driven organizations for 20 years, and more recently focusing on the topic of mission drift, and for me, it always comes down to abiding in Jesus. We need the leaders, the owners, the board members to be abiding and have a vibrant life in Jesus, an active life that informs and influences how they lead.

Becca Spradlin: Because the reality is there are a lot of different options out there. There are a lot of different decisions you'll make every day as a leader, decisions to transition, decisions in the operations, and there isn't really one right way of doing this, one right way of living out your faith. And God has given each person listening a very unique calling.

Becca Spradlin: So we need to be getting direction from Him and obeying that. There's a lot of best practices we can share and approaches and cautionary tales. But at the end of the day, it's how are we abiding in Jesus? How are we letting that inform the future ownership, leadership, governance, direction of our companies and our lives?

Becca Spradlin: So that would be my encouragement. How do we just stay close to Jesus? How do we obey what He's telling us to do? And be okay if it looks different, certainly than the world around us. It will, and it should. But even from other well-intentioned believers at church or in your business groups, He's gonna call us each to do something different.

Becca Spradlin: But it's always gonna be involve excellence, involve care for people, involve sharing the love of Jesus. But it will look different in each organization.

Jim: And please pass on this show to all your friends who are running businesses so that they can be prepared for that inevitable. Eventually, you're not gonna be able to run your company. You might be 85 or 90, but you eventually need to have a plan, and you can always bring in Becca to get some advice on how to do this the right way.

Jim: Becca Spradlin, thank you so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Becca Spradlin: My pleasure. Thank you.

Jim: Great conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, we encourage you to support iWork4Him in spreading the message that your work matters to God and everything you do at work does. Just consider giving a minimum of $5 a month at iwork4him.com/donate.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. I'm a Christ follower, and my workplace, it's my mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.

7/22/26 - 2156: The Christian Ceo - Formed By Fire, Guided by Spirit

Jim: This is iWork4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: Is there really a difference between a Christian CEO and a non-Christian CEO?

Jim: As a believer in Jesus, everything about us should be changing, should be different, and everyone around us should be benefiting from our faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom. So should there be a difference? Yes, there should be a difference. Krystal Parker is the world-renowned founder and president of the United States Christian Chamber of Commerce.

Jim: Is the Christian Chamber of Commerce different than the US Chamber of Commerce? Like day versus night. Krystal's here today to talk about her leadership journey and everything she's learned along the way. She's documented it in her latest book, The Christian CEO. Krystal Parker, world changer extraordinaire, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Krystal Parker: Dun-da-na-na. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate the intro.

Jim: You bet ... did you take your cape off for the show?

Krystal Parker: The cape. I did. I exchanged it for pearls and a jacket. What can I say?

Jim: Nice. You're undercover. I like it. Okay. Krystal, before we get to your book, The Christian CEO, let's talk about this year's US Christian Chamber's Spiritual World Citizens Expo that you held in April. What was the biggest highlight of the three days?

Krystal Parker: It came from some feedback that I got, and it was people that have attended a lot of conferences for many years. And their feedback was, "I've attended many conferences, and this was the first conference I attended that I could absolutely tell that it was prayed for and undergirded in prayer."

Krystal Parker: And it just really, that touched me in such a way because there were incredible divine connections, opportunities. Just even today I'm still hearing stories and stories, and one that came even just today was, "I couldn't believe the caliber of people that were at that conference." And what he said prior was, "I've attended a number of chamber events, and I usually just get a bunch of cards from people just looking for me to do business with them, but this really felt different."

Krystal Parker: And over and over, I'm just hearing the feedback. So I'm thrilled about how it turned out. I'm excited about what's next. And I think we got a lot of momentum to run with.

Martha: That's so good. As a leader, sometimes it's hard to personally get impacted by an event, especially if you've helped plan it. Was there a personal takeaway for you?

Krystal Parker: It truly is just seeing people experience the unity of business and faith. One moment that really sticks out to me was we had Miss Teen Florida, and she was part of the awards ceremony, and you guys know 'cause you were incredible emcees, and as she got on stage, here she is in her crown, her sash, just this beautiful young woman of God.

Krystal Parker: And prior to taking the stage, I was sitting by her and her mom, and she just over and over could not believe what was taking place. She... It was as if she never experienced anything like this in the marketplace. It was more "this is church, but these are business people." And then when she got on stage and she pulled out her Bible and she started to read her Bible, it was so moving to me to see this next gen leader and what, what is happening, and the caliber of the young leaders that are coming up and coming up even through the Christian Chamber.

Krystal Parker: I'll give you one more 'cause this one just happened also. One of the young professional business owners that was there, he came in from Virginia. He's part of the Virginia Christian Chamber, and he was really wrestling with a business situation where he chose not to do business with a group, make shirts basically, for a group that didn't share his values.

Krystal Parker: And he, at 24 years old, is experiencing the media mob over this decision, and fake orders, and just a massive tsunami of hatred towards him for choosing to stand on his values. So I didn't know this, but at the time he was really struggling. Should I go? Should I not go? I don't wanna go. It's a flight. It's a hotel. I've got this problem in my business. But he kept hearing in his spirit over and over, "You should go. You should go."

Krystal Parker: So reluctantly, he got on the plane, connected with his Virginia Christian Chamber team, came to the conference, sat through the speakers. The very last day was GiveSendGo Heather Wilson, and Jacob, as they shared about the time in their business where they were attacked by the cyberbully, and it cost them, and it was a beautiful only God story.

Krystal Parker: But at the end of that story, they talked about how they wanted to love on him, and how one day they were believing that he would come to know the Lord because of their outreach towards him, and how one day he might actually come and work for their company. And this young professional heard this for the first time- It moved him so deeply that he reached out and said, "Would it be possible to connect? Because I wanna let them know how that story has changed my whole entire approach in this whole situation."

Krystal Parker: And so gosh, just to think about the trickle effect. How one life, one story can change, touch, impact, and reach so many people, business owners, and even people that don't know the Lord yet.

Martha: So valuable that you're hearing the stories, that you're getting the feedback, too, because just imagine hundreds of those stories happening around the room that we don't even know. But God is working in amazing ways when believers work in community and share in commerce and in business, but more than that with their heart. And that's really what it brought to the table.

Jim: It was an amazing event, and we got another one coming up in 2028. We encourage you all between now and then to get involved in the US Christian Chamber, and some of the 34 Christian chambers around the country. Check it out online at uschristianchamber.com.

Jim: Okay. Now Krystal- your book, the Christian CEO. Krystal, there are thousands of books about leadership. I've read hundreds of books about leadership. There's even hundreds of books just about CEOs that are Christians. What makes your book different?

Krystal Parker: This is really about formation under pressure. What I'm really attempting to do in this book, first of all I really piggybacked from the theme of SWC 2026, was Yes, And. When you think about what that really means, it's carrying the tension. It's not really either/or. When you think about doing business in the world today, there is the wide road for business, and there's the narrow path.

Krystal Parker: Even in business, the Lord prepared us in His Word about this sort of intersection that we would face. And I think oftentimes people think it may be in just saying no to drugs kinda thing. But these little things come up in business all the time, and this formation under pressure is really about that fire.

Krystal Parker: It's about carrying the dynamic of the world standards and the biblical standards in doing business, and it's about this tension that exists. And so every single story that I talk about in there really talks about how you carry that tension in different dynamics of the book. The other thing I think that makes this different is my prayer for this book is that the Holy Spirit would just meet people wherever they are in their leadership journey.

Krystal Parker: And I have heard only explainable by God types of stories. People think I'm reading their mail. They think that I'm, like, some sort of super spy. And it's really just an aggregation of my own experience as a CEO, but also all the stories that we get to hear through the Christian Chamber and the experiences.

Krystal Parker: And so this book, somebody asked me the other day, "How long did it take you to write this book?" This book is an aggregate of stories for the last five years, and I put them all together and picked, and I had to pick 52 of the top stories that I felt most described this tension that exists within the Christian CEO.

Martha: And it really is what sets it apart. And speaking of different, here's something for everyone to think about. We use our phones and computers for everything, for work, communication, podcasts, ministry, everything. But one virus or online threat can stop all of that in an instant, and that's why iWork4Him trusts SaferNet for virus protection, VPN, and web filtering on all of our devices, whether it's the laptop or the cellphone.

Martha: Protect your digital life so you can stay focused on your God-given work. Visit safernet.com and tell them that iWork4Him sent you.

Jim: Krystal, you start off the book talking about formation, as we just talked about now, formation as a leader. Let's talk about how did, how God formed you as the leader you are today.

Krystal Parker: Oof. I, it makes me think of this song my, my daughter Giovanna - she's an opera singer, and there was a song she really wanted to sing, but it was probably a 10, 10 years ahead song for her, and it's The Refiner's Fire. And that's how He's formed me is through this refiner's fire. I can just so relate to that.

Krystal Parker: But another story comes to mind in thinking about her. And as an opera singer, stuff I did not know, is that they don't really hit their peak ability to perform until about 28 to 30. And so here she is, top 1% of school in the nation for opera, knowing that her... If she tries to push her voice too hard, then she'll lose that voice or her ability to sing at the level that she could've because she's pushed too hard.

Krystal Parker: And so it's really about how hard is it... Think about this: how hard is it to grow daily, practice daily, work daily, yet know that you cannot peak until nature does its work inside of your voice or your ability to be on top? And I think about leadership. So many people want to be discovered, but so few want to be developed.

Krystal Parker: My leadership journey has really been one of those. I was discovered early, if you will, in oil and gas. I had that, but I did not have the solid foundation that I needed to stay on top. There was so much stinkin' thinkin', there was so much that I just did not have foundationally, and one of the biggest things was an all-in abiding understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Krystal Parker: As a Sunday Christian, with a lot of sin and doing a lot of things for the right now, that's not sustainable business. That's not good business. And so God allowed me an opportunity to experience it, get the training I needed, and then get the work that I had to do, the refiner's fire, chip away a lot of stuff, so that He could give me my kingdom assignment.

Krystal Parker: And please hear me when I say I'm not there. None of us are. When you hit a certain age in opera, you just start to get the chance to sing at the level that you hear in some of the big opera studios and whatnot. But even as leaders- This is a constant work. You don't just get there. It's a constant, consistent eating away at, growing and developing, and getting better every day.

Krystal Parker: And so this is why I liken business to sports, because once a professional athlete gets the big contract, they don't just slack off. They go to work. They get trainers. They get people working with them. They're in the gym more. As leaders, that's what we're supposed to be doing as well. And so it's just a consistent work. I'm still in process. God's got a lot of work left to do on me. But I try to get a little, 1% better every day.

Martha: That's so good. So why do you think it is that CEOs that follow Jesus struggle with integrating their faith naturally?

Krystal Parker: Because I think there's a lot of influence in the world, candidly. There's just so much media influence. There's so much I would say unethical business that's out there. Shady contracts. Even when I was in oil and gas, we'd, be looking at 18, $20 million contracts, and we'd bid it out. And just like we do a lot of the work through USCCC, we bid it out. Some of the companies, their trick of the trade is bid low and then just pepper you with change orders.

Krystal Parker: These are the games that are played in business, and sometimes we fall into the ideation that if I don't play that game and I'm just value and honest, then nobody's gonna pick me as the business. I'm not gonna get awarded that contract. And so you get tempted to play the game that the rest of the world plays, even though it doesn't feel good ethically.

Krystal Parker: Think about resumes. Maybe you're trying to get a job. Everybody's lying on their resume these days, right? So maybe I should embellish a little bit. That's the temptation that we as believers, no matter what level we're in, fall into in this world. But I can tell you right here, as sure as I am as a human being right here today The Holy Spirit and following God will never leave you short or allow you to fail.

Krystal Parker: There will be this supernatural blessing and light over you. And if it's His will, you will get that contract. You will get that job. It will make no sense. But if you trust the world's unethical nature in doing business, embellishment as your way to get business, that's not sustainable business. That's not good business.

Krystal Parker: And when you lay your head down on your pillow at night and you feel that ick inside of you, that's not following what God's called you to do in your business. And believers, we have to be that city set on a hill. We have to be different. We have to set a new standard for doing business in this nation as followers of Jesus Christ.

Jim: And that's what your book goes - your book, The Christian CEO, moves the focus away from growth and profits to people and culture. Explain that.

Krystal Parker: A lot of... business is people. It's really, it is about people. It's about human capital. And even my first book aligns with that, The Best Robot Wins.

Krystal Parker: Certainly we're talking about AI and robot revolution well before we even saw ChatGPT enter into the workplace. But the big purpose of that book is human capital. It's the passion and light within the human, the ability to put them into engagement, to communicate with them, and to simplify their work so that they can be the best wherever they are.

Krystal Parker: And as leaders, it's your job to ensure that your humans in your workplace, or even your individual self, are operating at the best that you can operate individually. And so business is people. It's not transaction. It's not just transaction. It's not either/or. It's yes/and.

Jim: It's so good, yet so often we lose sight of that, that it's about the people. Because without the people, there's no business, 'cause eventually somebody here down the line is selling to people. Oh, yeah, it's all people. It's not corporations- ... because corporations are people. All right.

Jim: I wanna pause here for a second because what Krystal is talking about is exactly why this podcast exists. We believe that your work is not separate from your faith. It's one of the primary places God has put you. And stories like this one are proof of that. We make this show so that more people can hear that, hear those stories, and be inspired by them and live out their faith in their work. If you wanna help keep us going, you can become a monthly supporter for as little as $5 a month. That's iwork4him.com/donate.

Jim: We'll say it again at the end of the show and have it in the show moats. Show, we have it in the show moats. Those are the water around the bank account for the $5 a month. All right. Okay. Sorry about that.

Jim: All right. As a Christian CEO, they're always under pressure, Krystal, especially when his or her faith is public and the culture is constantly telling us that our faith is inappropriate in a business context. Yet the CEO has a life where real life interferes with CEO life. CEOs can be bombarded in public, but also by shareholders or owners. How can a CEO be prepared for the day that his or her faith will be tested in a public forum?

Krystal Parker: I think that's really what this book is about because I think a lot of even just ethics, 'cause I teach ethics at university, and ethics, if you can get into simulating the ethical pressures that your team or you might experience before you get into the situation, then when you get there you know what to do.

Krystal Parker: And so if you haven't thought about these things, if you haven't experienced this, and you don't slow down the game, you don't take time to pray, you haven't any clue or idea, you've never thought about this stuff, then you may be tempted or naive walking into things with no intention to do what you may do.

Krystal Parker: And so that's why this book is so important. It is about formation under pressure. It's about really thinking through, wrestling with some of the hard things internally so that when you're out there externally, you're prepared for what may happen.

Jim: Have you ever had your faith tested in a public forum where people came at you?

Krystal Parker: Yeah. Oh, yes I have. I have. And one that comes to mind is when I was in the gas company and I had a situation. I had just... again, youngest officer, 34 years old. They sent me to El Paso. That was my assignment, and was responsible for 47 cities on the west side of Texas, the entire gas company. So I had no experience in the field.

Krystal Parker: I only came in from office customer service. So now I'm responsible for construction, engineering, pressure control and maintenance. Everything from the minute the gas comes out of the ground into the home. And so I'm trying to get my bearings, and there was a... I also came from a corporate culture of union, and a very challenging corporate culture. So it was very rough where I came from, Kansas Gas Service, then I moved to Texas Gas.

Krystal Parker: And so I say all that to kinda give you what my experience was. And then in this moment, here I am tested, and there was a safety infraction and a lie, a cover-up. And my director, who I had only been in there for maybe a month or two, and I'm young, I'm the youngest one out there, only female on this whole team- And he lied and the HR person lied. They covered it up. And once I found out the truth, because the truth always comes out, I did not handle it very professionally.

Krystal Parker: I'll just say that. There was some explicits, there was some challenges, and there were things that I'm not proud that I said. And because I was so new and I was female there was a higher standard or a different standard for me evidently in that moment. And so I didn't do it well. I didn't do it well.

Krystal Parker: I look back on it, I regret the very things I said. When I say I called myself a Christian and there was no fruit, I know people would look at me and say, "If that's a Christian, I don't want anything to do with it." I wasn't prepared. I flew off the handle. I said horrible things, and I regret that.

Krystal Parker: There was another time that we were water testing pipe, and the water, we have to dispose of it, and you can't just take the water from the pipe test and put it into the water system. However, there are companies that do that, and this is a $100,000 getting rid of this water and cleaning it costs a lot of money.

Krystal Parker: We didn't get a rate case that went through. It was over a million dollars. Our budget's upside down. I could have easily said to them, "Dispose of the water," and then our budget looks great, we're flying in corporate, but it wasn't the right thing to do. And so that one I did right, but there were many times that I was tested and even today I think it's a higher standard, the work that we're doing at the Christian Chamber, because people are watching us.

Krystal Parker: And especially as Christians in the marketplace, people are looking at you going, "You say you're a Christian, so now my expectation is higher for you." And you can really crush the spirit of somebody that doesn't really know God or have a personal relationship with God, who's watching how you behave, how you perform, how you conduct business. So what do you want to do is you're wearing the logos of Christ everywhere you go. How do you want people to see God at work?

Martha: It's dangerous either way. So 'cause you gave an example of a really tough situation where you didn't handle it well, and one where you did. And dangerously, our world almost expects perfection as a Christian, and yet we are all human. So even handling that is so important so that they understand I am still a sinner saved by grace.

Martha: So I'm curious, Krystal, I'm gonna ask you a logistical question. 52 chapters, what is the intention of somebody reading this book?

Jim: I've got an idea, but we'll see what Krystal says.

Martha: That's what I'm kinda wondering.

Krystal Parker: Initially it was weekly, and the feedback we've been getting on the book was, "I'm just plowing through it. I just don't wanna stop." And so I would just encourage people, pause after, think through it, but just consume it at your pace. And don't take a year to get through this book. Just consume it as you will. Go back to it, stop, rewind, share it. But yeah. Initially it was to be a 52-week, and then we realized this, people wanna just plow through it. And that's awesome too.

Martha: Most CEOs are gonna say, "I ain't got no time for that." No slow. I wanna learn it all and, and be able to apply it, so that's so good.

Martha: In the final section of your book, The Christian CEO, that we've been talking about, you talk about endurance and legacy as a CEO. You say in one of your chapters, and I quote, "And leaders face this tension more often than we admit, especially when what we've built still works, just not where the world is heading." So we're talking about making change and driving change in an organization, and how scary that can be, and it can define the legacy that's left behind, whether that's good or bad. So how does a Christian CEO handle this differently than the world?

Krystal Parker: Yeah. I think in that chapter I used the bridge to nowhere story, and it's one of my favorite stories. They built this bridge in Honduras, and the idea was to build a bridge that could withstand a hurricane, and they had strong hurricanes. It wasn't like the Titanic, right? It, the unsinkable. The bridge withstood the hurricane, but what happened was the hurricane was so strong it moved the river, and so there was a bridge to nowhere because the river moved.

Krystal Parker: And I think about businesses and owners that oftentimes start something. And we all know starting something in business or taking over, making it yours, it takes a lot of lift, it takes a lotta love, it takes a lotta sacrifice. And sometimes we're so bent on holding on to what it is that we've built that we are not evolving and adapting with where the world is going in business, or even allowing God to use that idea to reach people.

Krystal Parker: And so we have to, as business owners, be willing and ready to adapt and evolve and go with God and not with our idea alone. And that's so hard. And so I always tell people, "You're best to fail fast, learn from the feedback, evolve, and keep going." And especially in times like now, where business is sped up so fast-

Martha: Yeah

Krystal Parker: over where it used to be. It used to be so slow. Business was slow. Now it's fast. And so we have to be willing to evolve and be in business so that we can create that legacy and have something to hand to the next generation of leaders that are coming behind us.

Jim: Krystal Parker with the US Christian Chamber as you present to us the book The Christian CEO. That was a great conversation. Thanks for being back on iWork4Him.

Jim: We love to have Krystal with us because she's representing a movement in this country that is taking over the marketplaces of all the major cities, and coming to a city to you soon. Krystal Parker, thanks for being here.

Krystal Parker: Thank you so much.

Krystal Parker: And I just wanna encourage your audience, that $5, $10, $100 investment in iWork4Him is good seed, great ground, and I love you guys. I appreciate what you're doing. You serve on the board. You guys do so much, and I'm so grateful for your work and thankful for you.

Martha: Thank you, Krystal.

Jim: Thanks, Krystal. That's iwork4him.com/donate.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. In our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately... iWork4Him.

7/15/26 - 2155: Unknown Today. Kingdom Leader Tomorrow?

Jim: This is iWork4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: A little over eight years ago, I was sitting in a room listening to a conversation about how the enemy has coordinated working with billionaires around the world to destroy freedoms, to destroy economies, to destroy human rights, and frankly, to destroy humans. Hundreds of organizations working together in lockstep, funded by a few who had an evil agenda.

Jim: And I thought to myself, and I prayed, "Lord, if there are billionaires who are funding the enemy's side, where are the kingdom billionaires funding kingdom work here on Earth? Who are they? Where are they?" And at the time, every millionaire I knew was holding tightly onto their money.

Jim: Now, I now know a few kingdom billionaires who are stewarding their wealth well. But we need a ton more of them to loosen their pockets to fund kingdom projects for this world. Art Serna says that God is gonna raise up a new class of billionaires who will steward the wealth well for the kingdom of God right here on Earth. His book, The Unknowns Rising: When God Unleashes the New Billionaire Class, is a riveting read. Are you one of those God will choose to unleash billions for you to steward?

Jim: Art Serna, welcome to iWork4Him.

Art Serna: Jim, Martha, pleasure to be here. I'm tingling right now, actually, your intro. It's a consequential time, and I'm glad to be here with you.

Jim: I don't know that anybody's ever said my intros were tingling, but that's very good, and I appreciate that.

Art Serna: There you go. There you go.

Martha: You know that the message of your book and what God has laid on your heart really resonates with us based on what God had been showing us, and that is gonna really drive the conversation today.

Jim: Art, before we start talking about The Unknown Rising, your book, we still want, we wanna know, we wanna start with your Jesus story. Tell us your Jesus story.

Art Serna: Yeah, so I, I grew up between two worlds, Mexico and the United States. Was born in Texas, but spent the first years in Mexico growing up in a Catholic home.

Art Serna: There was a reverence for God, but I hadn't met him, and it wasn't until my parents bought their first home in South Texas, McAllen, for those of your listeners who may be familiar with that area, the Rio Grande Valley. It's actually not a valley. It's super flat, but that's what they call it. But my twin brother became, in high school, joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Art Serna: And they started meeting in our home in our living room, and we did everything. We were super close. We were womb mates, and roommates at the time. And as we grew, I just started attending these Bible studies, and it just very much, like in the Book of Acts where Evangelist Philip comes and reveals who Christ is through the Book of Isaiah, there- it gripped my heart, and I knelt down in one of those meetings in the living room and I say " I want to be saved."

Art Serna: And from that moment on the Lord called me into ministry. It wasn't just salvation. I knew he had a calling on my life, and through time, he began to give me a concept of every sphere of society belongs to him, and he is using the leaven of the kingdom to transform it, and that changed the rest of my life going forward.

Art Serna: It messed me up for the rest of my life, Jim and Martha- Praise God. There you go ... and I'm delighted in that story, yes.

Jim: Did he mess you up, or did it straighten you up? Let's just be honest. It didn't turn your rights upside down. It turned your right side up, correct?

Art Serna: Correct. Absolutely. It's the upside down kingdom, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Jim: No, it's not. It's a right side up kingdom. Let's, Art, let's stop for a second. It's the right side up kingdom. We've been living in the upside down kingdom. Jesus turns everything the right way up. Okay, just let... Do we have this clear now? (chuckling)

Art Serna: And I wanna herald that message, yeah. The old is new. The new is better.

Jim: That's right.

Martha: But it is so fun to have this conversation even just in this intro time because people get very confused, right? Like if God wrecks you know- ... is that negative? Is that positive? Is it... it looks different than what the world would expect, and it doesn't mean it's easy. Doesn't mean it's without its challenges, but it is the right trajectory, and so that's really the conversation.

Jim: And the basis of it goes back to... Sorry, I want... Before you go to your next question- is that when Adam and Eve were in the garden, that was right side up. That was the things the way they were supposed to be. Physical, mental, and spiritual flourishing. Then it got turned upside down because they decided to do it their own way, and Jesus came to turn everything right side back up again.

Art Serna: And Jim, I wanna say, as we get into the conversation, that so much of this, institutional and organization like cities weren't a thing yet in the Garden. And sometimes we allow institutions, whether it's religious institutions and others, to give us a lens of how we see the kingdom. And I think what God is doing is changing the lens in how we see life. To free us from somebody else giving us the 3D glasses so we can see life and the cosmos through His eyes, 100%.

Martha: So good. Okay, so I wanna hear the backstory behind writing your book, The Unknowns Rising. James-

Jim: Right here, showing it right here on YouTube in case you're watching the video.

Martha: What's the backstory behind how this came about?

Art Serna: I'd never intended to write a book about billionaires. I was in my own Abrahamic journey, moving from the Texas area to the Mid- West, and who knew? But God had said, "I need to change your altitude, and to get your promise of who you are to become, you need to move upward." So here I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's right after COVID.

Jim: Wait a minute. You're a cheesehead? Oh, this all-

Art Serna: I am a Cheesehead now.

Jim: This interview is over. (laughter)

Art Serna: No, come on.

Jim: We're done right here.

Art Serna: Are you a Bears fan? Are you a Bears fan?

Jim: I grew up in Minnesota. They don't even talk to people in Wisconsin. That was a mistake. How did I not see that you were from Milwaukee? Oh, okay. Okay, I'm just kidding.

Art Serna: We should have a good season this year. We shall see.

Jim: It's good.

Art Serna: But,

Jim: I gave up on the Vikings in 1999.

Art Serna: So yeah, so you know, I moved to Milwaukee. It was right after COVID. I wanted to understand God's plan for what is going on during this time, Lord. And there was a time of prayer and fasting, and I came to a gathering of believers near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we were seeking God. It was called the Convocation. And I had the most profound prophetic experience to date at that time.

Art Serna: Where it's very much in a Daniel type of encounter where you're awake and you're seeing this vision before you, right? And God was basically letting me know that the history was going to be redefined and changed and in powerful ways. And this was before AI was even came on the scene in a major way.

Art Serna: That would've been in 2022. This was October 2020. And I saw a vision of a revelation of a new leadership class that was gonna emerge. I saw the Forbes billionaire list changing in real time in a quick succession, and new names that nobody would understand were making it on that list, alongside others that people would be familiar with.

Art Serna: And there was almost this echo in the Spirit about who are these people, and why are they here? It's very much like David coming on the scene, like who is this kid? And why, why is he even here? What is he trying to do? But that God would redefine the future of nations from what was gonna emerge.

Art Serna: And that was what, for me, became the message that he said, "You must share this message." So one, very much like Samuel finding David, they become affirmed, you can find them, and they realize that God has a plan for their life.

Jim: And we're gonna dig a lot deeper. Now go ahead.

Martha: Yeah, so I just ... So then as God revealed that to you, did you know right away that it needed to be a book? Or what did you really feel like he was, you were supposed to do with that information or that message?

Art Serna: Yeah. Honestly, I did not know that it was supposed to be a book. Actually, it was very much like Isaiah. I am a man of unclean lips. Like, why are you giving me this revelation? I am undone. And I actually didn't know what to do with it, to be honest.

Art Serna: I reflected on it, shared it with leadership in my church. And then just very much like Mary did, I reflected on those things in my heart for a number of years until God through time began to reveal and beckon me to say, "You must do this. You must put this out, and you must reflect on how it shapes your life as well."

Art Serna: So I, that took a number of years and the Lord doing his work in my heart. But it was ultimately me understanding that it was gonna be a revolution of creative intention and invention coming into the earth that God was gonna activate that and that was going to lead into a countless harvest over the nations. And it wasn't really a question about who's gonna become wealthy. It was about who, who can heaven trust with unprecedented influence during this time?

Jim: I love that. We're gonna get deeper into that. Martha?

Martha: So we just wanna take a moment here to talk about the fact that we all use our phones and our computers for pretty much everything we do, work, communication, podcasts, ministry, whatever it might be, but one virus or an online threat can stop all of that in an instant.

Martha: That's why iWork4Him trusts SaferNet for virus protection, VPN, and web filters on all of our devices. Protect your digital life so you can stay focused on your God-given work. Visit safernet.com and tell them iWork4Him sent you.

Jim: All right. So Art, obviously the reason I said, "Yes, let's have this conversation," is I read your book and I heard your heart, that this isn't a health and wealth conversation, "Hey, God wants you to be wealthy so you could have a big house and a big boat or maybe a cabin in the mountains and a house by the beach."

Jim: That this is about, like you just said right before the break, a harvest. Because right now they say - who "they" is I'm not really sure - that a quarter of the planet are following Jesus, and more than half of the planet ... No, and the rest of them are either following Buddha, the 1,100 gods of Hinduism, or Islam in simplistic terms.

Jim: And and there's a need for Jesus to impact the rest of the world. In fact, we're actually, you'll hear me talk about it in a second, but we're actually encouraging all of our listeners to learn to love on their neighbors. Actually have them over for a picnic this summer. Art, is there a process, you're saying that God has new billionaires in the waiting. What's the process for preparing somebody to steward billions? Because we're not talking about... we're gonna get into this. What's the process for for stewarding billions for the Lord?

Art Serna: I think scripture gives us a beautiful picture. When you look at Psalm 72, it's understood as a prayer over Solomon's reign, right? And at its start it speaks to, to not just, before it starts talking about prosperity, abundance, and the kingly reign of Solomon, it starts with these words. I want to read it for your audience. It says, "Give the king your judgments, O God, and your righteousness to the king's son."

Art Serna: And I think for me, that's profound. It is said of Solomon that he was perhaps the wealthiest person to be known at that time. We might call him a trillionaire in today's time. And God, that Psalm 72 uses this kingdom terminology I call it throne level lyrics, right?

Art Serna: To reveal that it was about Solomon's heart from the very beginning. And it develops the characteristics of the wealthiest man to become the trillionaire. It talks about justice and it talks about righteousness, which is the foundation of God's throne. And so Jim, I think God is a master in how to prepare His billionaire class by focusing first of all at the heart.

Art Serna: It's a heart level issue, it's a worship issue, so that you don't have any idols. So I think that's how God prepares them. I would ask people to look at Psalm 72 for realizing that wealth at this level and influence, it's really a byproduct of worship.

Martha: You know what, I wanna take a minute and just back up for a second because it would, might be very easy for the listeners to kinda tune out because "you're not talking about me because I'm not a millionaire or a billionaire."

Martha: So before we even dig into this any further- ... why should people be listening to this message? And what should they be learning from it? Because, just what I said, "oh, that's not gonna be me."

Art Serna: At the book launch when I first had it, a great company of believers that came to that, I told people "This isn't, like, how to become a billionaire 101 book." That is not why I wrote it. I said, "Now, if God has called you to be a billionaire and you read this book, it's gonna stir that in you. There's no way for it not to 'cause the Holy Spirit wrote this book." But I, I believe, Martha, that it is really written to the hungry and the seekers of truth who wanna understand, "What is my- Who am I in the midst of a move of God in a generation that would change the future of nations?"

Art Serna: So if that is people's hearts, then I think they should feel like it's about you.

Martha: Okay.

Art Serna: Because you're either going to be one, or you're going to be influenced or impacted by one, or you're going to collaborate with one with what God is doing. Very much like the... I think a lot about as I processed this time we were gonna have, a lot about the life of David because I wrote this book for the people that nobody knows yet.

Art Serna: David was prepared in the fringes of a Goliath battle that had to be fought in his generation, and doing so would further God's plan over the nations in his day. And it's said of him that he served God's purpose for his generation. And I feel God is doing the same thing today.

Jim: And I think it's so important also for everybody listening to understand that we have to be faithful with little before God will ever trust us to be faithful with much.

Jim: So if he's giving you 100 bucks, how you handling it? If he's giving you 1,000 bucks, how you handling it? That's the standard that God has. You need to be faithful with little. If I walked up to your car, I'm a car guy, and I look at your car, am I gonna be able to tell that you're a good steward or not?

Jim: Because if your car doesn't reflect your stewardship, why would God give you any more? If your house doesn't reflect your stewardship, why would God give you any more? And I think, Art, we need to go into this, we need to go dig a little deeper. Why do you think that the church does such a terrible job of training up current Jesus-following millionaires and billionaires to be stewards and not owners? To be kingdom-focused instead of power-focused?

Art Serna: Yeah. I think many times we believe, or the church doesn't think big enough, right? It has a church paradigm but not a kingdom paradigm. And I believe God is disrupting that. And so there's sons and daughters in His kingdom that, they lack affirmation, right? Because the slots we have in the traditional church institution program is not for them, right? They're sitting in pews. They're sitting in... david was shepherding sheep on his own, unknown in that sense, until God brought him into the battlefield.

Art Serna: I don't think people are - people meaning those that are leading the traditional church paradigm - have the Davids in mind, where God wanted to establish His reign through a Davidic reign that will lead to Jesus. And I think that's why we do such a poor job. We're not using the same design parameters of the kingdom that the Lord desires, is one way I would frame it.

Martha: So we're so used to looking around and seeing who's an up-and-coming leader, who's showing that they've done well or whatever, and that they're gonna be elevated to something else, instead of who is God preparing that we don't even know about.

Martha: And so I wanted to, I wanna hear about that. What is the problem with the current class of wealthy that you believe that God needs to raise up a new group of wealthy?

Art Serna: Yeah, I think he's expanding the table, Martha beyond the traditional list 'cause in, at least in my vision, it wasn't like Elon Musk was being bumped out of the Forbes list. It was like there were other people at the table. At least that's the way I saw it. I think it, it aligns biblically with the the the tares and the wheat. They're together in the garden. They're mixed in.

Art Serna: But I think God is expanding the table. And God just delights in raising up unexpected people because it shows who He is. David wasn't expected. Joseph wasn't expected. Esther was not expected. Even the disciples were not expected, right? And but God just, to confound the wise He does His thing. I think God has a sense of humor, just like Jim, all right? And I think God is just amazing.

Art Serna: So but specifically for me, my book focuses a lot on multicultural, bicultural leaders, that it wasn't those that would've been brought up through old money and old systems, but it's actually in some ways they've been, like, rejected, impacted, oppressed by a current system- 'cause it wasn't built for them. And that God just has a way to take those marginalized and say, "I'm gonna do a thing," right? "I'm gonna do a thing that's gonna confound the wise, and if you were to hear it, it would make your ears tingle."

Art Serna: Maybe that's the tingling thing, Jim. It's gonna make your ears tingle if you hear it. But I see some of these leaders coming out from Latin America, Africa, India, Southeast Asia. Obviously America. I live in it and love this country and I believe God is gonna further. But in, in my vision, there was this focus on invention, creative inventions, intellectual property and technology specifically.

Art Serna: We can get into that at the point that you feel is appropriate, but I, this concept of the new billionaire class, I wasn't just talking about people with new digits into their bank account, although unequivocally the vision said that would be the case. It was more about those who can steward extraordinary influence in the earth.

Art Serna: And that can be billionaires. That can be those that would redefine healthcare, education, entire systems that are failing right now, all, even the AI, what it's gonna become, those that would oversee those systems going forward and therefore have.. It wasn't just about money. It was about mission focus and kingdom impact.

Jim: And when you look at the current swath of influencers, you've got- and there are some amazing kingdom ones. We were just talking about Nick Vujicic just the other day, who's spoken in 95 countries to millions and millions, tens of millions of people, and you got Kim Kardashian. Who do you wanna be influenced by?

Jim: Both of them worth a lot of money, but who's influencing for Christ, and who's just interested in seeing pictures of herself? It just, it's one of those things. And I wanna pause here for a second because what Art and I and Martha are talking about today is exactly why this podcast exists.

Jim: Yes, we're exploring a topic that is a little bit different than normal, but we believe that your work is not separate from your faith. It's one of the primary places God has put you, and stories like this one and conversations like this one are proof of that. We make this show so that more people can hear those stories because we need to be thinking outside of the box.

Jim: The kingdom is not just the ideas that exist on the Earth. They exist in the blueprint room of Heaven. If you wanna keep iWork4Him going, you could become a monthly supporter for as little as $5 a month. That's iwork4him.com/donate, and we'll say it again at the end and have it in the show notes as well. That's iwork4him.com/donate.

Martha: And listeners, I also wanna take a moment to remind you of our summer picnic initiative. Have a block party and send us a picture to jim@iwork4him.com, and if you want some inspiration or encouragement, you can visit the webpage link that we'll have in the show notes. Remember, one special winner is going to be selected at the end of the summer to get a prize.

Jim: And remember, Jesus told us not only love your, don't just love the people that you're easy to - love your neighbors and love your enemies. And pray for those that persecute you. We need to start loving our neighbors, and this is gonna start right here on the iWork4Him audience. All right, so Art, where does AI fit into all of this?

Jim: Because AI tools are developing. It's incredible. A project we were working on in '24 is gonna be revolutionized. Right here on iWork4Him, our tapestry project could be revolutionized by AI, and also cut our costs too down 10% of what it was. How does AI fit into this whole billionaire class thing you're talking about?

Art Serna: Yeah, in, in this process of writing the book, God has led me by His Spirit to focus on the moment that Moses is sent to liberate a nation, and or birth a nation, right? And he had a technology in his hand at that time that God upgraded. His staff was a tool that he used in the shepherding - that's where he was. That's where God found him.

Art Serna: But God actually, when He interacts in the burning bush experience with Moses, He actually asked him to look at what's on his hand. When Moses was like, "I actually don't think they're gonna believe me." He said, "What's in your hand?" He said, "It's a staff," right? And God said take it and throw it." And out, He, God turned that tool of, economic tool in his day, into this sign of His sovereignty. And through that thing, He revealed to an empire, a pagan empire in Egypt, the power of God.

Art Serna: And I, and so the role of AI, you talked about historical disruption or change in your intro, Jim. I think that when I think about technology, every major technology through history has amplified something, whether the printing press, ideas, amplified ideas, electricity, productivity. I think AI is going to amplify intelligence. But more so I believe AI in the hands of the messengers that God raises up, those that have... I think AI will be transformed beyond what it is traditionally, like all the, of the cool stuff that it does.

Art Serna: I think God desires to take artificial intelligence as a tool and transform it into a sign of His sovereignty and miraculous signs and wonders in our generation. That makes me excited about the role of AI in the hands of future Moseses.

Jim: I love that. And AI is one of those things, okay, of course, we're in that generation where I'm a little skeptical of AI. I read Revelation when I was 13. I'm like, "What's it gonna take for statues to talk?" Now we know, okay? Now we know statues can talk. They can shoot lasers, no problem.

Jim: And that, that... Everything that John wrote about can now happen. It's literally all possible today, and it's expanding every day. But AI is gonna create also some challenges. But what I love is that there's people actively within the kingdom programming AI to understand the Christian side of things, the following Jesus side of things, as well as I'm sure there's people on the other side programming them to hate Christians.

Jim: So it's a, it's an interesting thing. Art, there's such a great danger, though, in amassing great wealth. Before you get billions, usually you have millions first, and then you have tens of millions and hundreds of millions before you get to billions, typically. I don't know. And now, Elon Musk has trillions, okay?

Jim: How do we keep this cutting edge group of entrepreneurs, how do we help them to change the world and keep it kingdom-focused and flourishing-focused and not self-focused? How do we keep them focusing on human dignity serving the collective good, which is a kingdom principle, instead of buying bigger houses, bigger boats, faster cars, with fat bank accounts full of money, doing no good at all, sitting on the sidelines?

Jim: That's what we see today. How do we do that?

Art Serna: Great question. I think we refocus the biblical definition of success, and very similar to other movements, or at least, the Jesus revolution, we gotta make sure the door is open to them. We can't deny them or not affirm them. I think we gotta recognize it as kingdom people that, one, they exist, one, God is doing this.

Art Serna: And then I think we, we introduce the apostolic call of Jesus to our generation, "Come and follow me." And I think daily you have to carry your cross. And I... in me, in seeing this, there, there's a there's a commission of dying to self that is very kingdom, very biblical. And I believe that individuals... you read many historical accounts of people that have amassed incredible amounts of wealth and are empty inside and are actually worse off because they haven't found this, the pearl of great price.

Art Serna: And I think we've gotta teach a generation and tell this message about this concept of losing your life so that you may truly find it. And if they do, I think they're gonna go on to build the most transformational things that will open the harvest fields in, in multiple nations. And I say for me practically, Jim and Martha, one of the works that I get to do, I'm excited about, is with an organization called Spine Hope, and it's providing-

Jim: Called what? Hang on ... you said that really fast. Say it again.

Martha: Spine Hope?

Art Serna: Yeah. Spine Hope. And it's an organization that is providing global outreach to perform very complex spine surgeries for children that would, don't have any access to this type, and they have spine deformities that are impacting their quality of life, some really critical life-changing type of impact in their organs.

Art Serna: And we are trying to utilize these tools to accelerate the way we can find, identify them, and then prepare teams to actually adequately perform. There's millions, about 30 million children in the world that suffer from some form of scoliosis. About 3 million every year that get added, adolescents 10 to 19 years old who are impacted by this.

Art Serna: And I think this is some of the kingdom-focused work, right? We need to weep with those who weep and develop the heart of Jesus to do that. And I think the Lord is doing that. And I think the rest of my life I want to dedicate to helping find these. And writing the book Martha, you asked me this, I felt from the Lord to say, "You don't have to understand everything about it," 'cause I wanted to understand everything about it.

Art Serna: "Lord, I wanna understand it before I go and do this." And he just said, "This is a Davidic stone." And you don't have to worry about how Goliath's gonna fall. You've just gotta worry about picking up the stone and launching it. And if you launch it, I'll take care of the rest. And so I think for us, how do we find them or help them?

Art Serna: I think it's being present, telling the message. And then very much like a Samuel type, a prophetic company, we've gotta be able to affirm them in the call, and especially as they begin to grapple. Jesus said part of his job description is, "I have come to kill or destroy the works of the devil-" who kills, steals and destroys. I think the kingdom people have a similar job description with him. And as his leaders emerge, I believe that it's not gonna be easy-peasy. I think it's gonna be a battle. And it's about this burden of carrying the cross. I think they're gonna need support.

Art Serna: How to understand the scriptures, how to understand the destiny of God and their role in it. And I want to be focused on that. That includes, I, I wanna build a micro school that supports these future leaders, 'cause I believe the Lord will raise them. A K-12 school that will be Cosmos Renewed Academy as part of my thing to help find them.

Art Serna: It's very much like an Avengers of the future. (chuckles) Where you find them and prepare them. And I think that's part of my obedience in preparing for that future.

Martha: It's really discipleship in all things. God calls us to a very, ... He gives us a handbook of how to live in a way that gives him the glory and him the honor. And Jim and I, more than 25 years ago, we thought we knew everything the Bible had to say about money, and God said, "No, lean in and learn so I can prepare you for the future." And in our situation it was so that money never is the reason you say no to something that I've called you to do.

Martha: And so much like that testimony in our life, it's getting people prepared for what God's gonna do. We don't know what mantle he's gonna ask us to carry. And so all of the believers need to get discipled in what the scripture actually says and be prepared for whatever God is calling them to, whether it is a life of very little or a life of a lot that is to be st- all of it is to be stewarded well and for the kingdom. So I love that idea.

Jim: And I and let's just say some- one of you listening today is, you've really, you've been told by the Lord you're gonna be stewarding billions one day Then right now you need to surround yourself with people, first of all, somebody that's got permission, one or two people in your life that have permission to smack you with a green treated 2x4 upside the head if you be stupid.

Jim: And that they have permission to call you out. And a group of people that are prophetic, that are prayer warriors, people that that will surround you so that money never screws you up, and that it does the work that God intends so he doesn't have to take it away from you. If you ever wonder why somebody's making a billion dollars and then the next minute they're sitting on skid row, if you haven't heard that term, look it up on the internet, it's because God gave them all this money and they decided to use it for themselves.

Jim: And it, and it twisted them. That's not the intent. The intent is for you to steward it and to do incredible things. 'Cause you could turn a billion into a trillion pretty easy. Look at Elon Musk. All he does is keep investing in things. And you'd almost wonder, does Elon Musk have some kingdom principles in there that we can learn from? Probably.

Jim: So how do we take that and keep multiplying it and keep making an impact? But you gotta surround yourself with people that you give permission to them to call you out. Because if you are surrounded by people who just are yes people or are people who want your money, that is not the kind of people that are gonna help you get it done.

Jim: Art, I'll give you the last thought right there. You got a minute or less. Go ahead.

Art Serna: Yeah, God is still building in the earth. He started in the garden. He's always done that. But he does it with agents of change. He wants people like Adam and Eve, you and I, to build with him. And I think the Paul and Timothy model is the way to do that.

Art Serna: In the background you see the AI Presidential Challenge. I did a project with my daughter. She won state in Wisconsin on what she built for the foster care system. I think God is calling us to prepare the sons and daughters to emerge because the cosmos, the creation, is groaning for the revelation of the sons of God. And I'm excited to connect with fathers and mothers in the Unknowns Rising to find them. Thank you, Jim and Martha.

Jim: I think we need to maybe have your daughter on the next time to hear what she did for the foster system. 'Cause if she helped the foster system, if she helped the foster system in Wisconsin, maybe she can help the foster system in the other 50 states, 'cause it's a hot mess and it desperately needs some innovation.

Jim: Art Serna, thanks so much for being with us today.

Art Serna: Thank you.

Martha: This podcast runs on support of people who believe in conversations like this one, and you can help us reach more people for just $5 a month. That's just one cup of coffee.

Jim: Little bit less.

Martha: A small one. Go to iworkforhim.com/donate. We'll put the link in the show notes too.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately, iWork4Him.