3/13/24 - 2033: Wear Your Values on Your Sleeve

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: We live in a world today that neither respects freedom nor religion. The whole DEI movement is not diverse, does not value equity, and is far from inclusive. That is, unless you believe all the things that they believe. The problem is that as Jesus followers, most of what they believe directly contradicts the life that our Heavenly Father desires for us to live and the workplaces of today.

So how do we respond? We respond by seeking out businesses that are involved in the freedom economy. Businesses that reject being woke and stand up to the tyranny by providing excellent products and services and letting customers decide if the company survives or not.

It wasn't until recently that I realized that even the online job posting world had gone woke with some of the major websites discriminating against major Christian organizations. Introducing Red Balloon, online at redballoon.work and Andrew Crapuchettes, the largest woke free talent connector in the country, celebrating kingdom values and providing great connections to great employees. Andrew, welcome to iWork4Him.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Jim: Hope you say that and really believe that at the end. I hope you actually, at the end of the show, you're like, yeah, that was really great. So we're going to get to the story of Red Balloon here in a minute. But first, tell us your Jesus story.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian household, which I'm very grateful for. In fact, Christian many generations back, which just gives you a rich heritage. And I'm very grateful for and as I was involved in my church, I was involved in the Awana program and everything else.

I've always just had a heart for people, which is funny that I ended up in the job board business. My previous job was I was leading a huge labor market data company, which I know sounds super boring. Economics is the dismal science, labor market data. But the point of it was I wanted to give people decision ready information so they could make better career decisions for their life.

So what skills are going to drive to the best occupational outcomes? And so we built it into a 50 million business. And I strive, I was striving every day to be a Christian CEO. I didn't use it as a prerequisite. I didn't jam my worldview down anybody else's throat, but I live my values out loud.

And as a consequence, the company was highly successful. We had a lot of people who just loved what they were doing. I had a lot of people came to the Lord, not because we handed out tracts but because I had people would come to me and say, Why are you people so joyful at work? Like when something bad happens, you're still joyful.

What's going on? I'm like, you know what? I'd love to grab you a beer after work and talk about that. And I think my Jesus story is I have lived a life that is just deeply blessed. I'm very grateful. And then I've had the opportunity to be able to bless other people with that and created thousands of jobs, started a lot of businesses and tried to glorify God and glorify his name in all of those things.

Martha: So was there a point where you actually realized that your job was in the marketplace was your assigned place of ministry?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, absolutely. I think there was probably a moment when I started my first business I was just trying to make a living and provide for my young family But I remember sitting down with a gentleman who was working for me who clearly had an anger problem. He was struggling, he would snap at people at work and I'd say look, so and so, this is not allowed. What you're doing here is unhealthy. And I realized in that moment that sin doesn't stay nicely confined in the workplace or at home.

And so I'm like, okay so and so, you need to deal with this. You need to get pastoral advice or whatever it is. You need to get to the bottom of this. And he did. And I found out from his wife later that his marriage was in far better shape because I was able to deal with that anger problem in his life.

And I realized as a boss, I am in a unique position. I have a lever with people that maybe a pastor doesn't have. Maybe their community member, their family doesn't even have because I sign a paycheck. And I obviously need to stay within my lane. My job is not to give marriage counsel at work necessarily, but the nice thing is, as I said, sin doesn't stay in these nice, confined things. And so if you can deal with stuff at work, you're actually helping everlasting souls be better people. And that was a moment, I'm like, okay, so what am I trying to do at work? What's my goal?

And so that's when we adopted these three principles of bless the customer - we want every customer to be better off because they interact with our company, whether they buy anything or not. Bless the employee - we want every employee to be a better person for their time with us, but even if they go to another business, we want them to be a better employee for that business because we care about them. We care about their soul.

And then we want to bless the shareholders because we are under authority. We understand that. And that's fine. And if you bless customers first and employees second, and then shareholders third, if shareholders realize that's their position, they're going to actually receive more blessing.

Not just the monetary blessing, but the cultural impact blessing, the families with great living wages blessing, right? There's a lot of blessings that kind of come from that. And so that was my moment that I got to do that.

Long story boring, unfortunately, living my life as a Christian CEO did end up costing me my job about three years ago. And I'm still grateful that I did it.

Jim: Okay. That's the story. What do you mean? I didn't know about that. So I'm just going to interrupt what I was going to ask. And what do you mean you lost your job because you love jesus?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Three years ago kind of 2020, you know actually coming into that my board- so I'd sold this business I'd helped start this business. Built it to a 50 million dollar tech business. Very successful, growing rapidly. Very profitable, but sold it a number of times. So I didn't have a lot of ownership left. Didn't have a lot of say. And as we went into 2020 my board basically said look you are welcome to be a CEO who happens to be a Christian on the weekend but you need to check your faith at the door and not be a Christian CEO.

And I said, it sounds a lot like you want me to not bring my whole self to work. And I know lots of Christians for lots of years, you're not threatening to throw me to the lions, but you're definitely asking me to not live out my faith in the way that I work. It's not a prerequisite. It's not a weird thing. Everyone here is comfortable. I've never had a complaint from a customer or from an employee. We have, hundreds of employees. Everyone's happy.

Anyway, so they decided that I was not the right person. I didn't have the right social media platform. And they literally told me, you're welcome to be a CEO as long as you're willing to check your faith at the door, but you can't be a Christian CEO. And so I decided that I would take door number three and left the company. And my wife got me a really nice bottle of scotch as a way to go, you lost your job.

 (laughter)

Jim: And that's, I imagine that's where Red Balloon came from, but before we find out about that, I want to know- so as a CEO, a leader, who do you hang out with to keep your priorities straight so that you can honor God, honor your wife, honor your family, honor your employees, your customers, your vendors, and your community? Who do you hang out with? Who's helping you to be discipled and holding you accountable?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. And it's, and it is a struggle for a lot of CEOs, right? That's why we have G7 and C12 and these CEO groups, because, even non Christian CEOs, Ben Horowitz talks about being a CEO, it's a tricky spot. I think he talks about the heart of the hard thing, about hard things. He, you don't have someone to talk to. Your executive team, I've got an amazing executive team and we're on the same page. We're striving to redeem the world of work through the work we're doing at Red Balloon.

But at the end of the day the buck still stops with me as the CEO. My wife is my best counselor. We talk about work all the time. And then I have various men in my church community who are not part of my business who I work to make sure that I maintain a relationship with because I need people who are gonna speak into my life. I'm, of course, have a lot of blind spots.

I'm gonna have situations where I need counsel. And you need to make sure that there's people outside of your business that are speaking to that. I don't have a great c12 group in town just because we're in a smaller town in Idaho here, but I have absolutely our pastors other elders at church. Make sure that I'm grabbing lunch, grabbing coffee, grabbing an opportunity to have people speak into your life because it's easy to get so busy that you never spend that time and you're going to have a blind spot.

And the funny thing about blind spots is they tend to grow if you don't deal with them. And so I am constantly asking, I'm like, okay, full disclosure. You can say anything. I'm not going to get offended. What are you seeing in my life that I need to be striving on? And I've gotten some amazing advice and pointers.

And. I'm a better person for it. I'm very grateful for their time and energy. And I try and do the same thing for other CEOs in town who are not connected with my business and just make sure that we're spending time and I'm speaking to their life as well.

Martha: That's so good. And I hope that the listeners are hearing how that might apply in their own lives and be looking for and asking other people about blind spots.

So Red Balloon is your newest venture. How did God shape you in the process to be ready for launching Red Balloon?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, it's a great question. Honestly, I went through this nine month battle with my board of my previous business. And it was clear that they were using a different standard than I was, right?

My, my goal was happy employees, right? Blessed customers, blessed employees, blessed shareholders. I want happy customers, I want happy employees, and I want to be delivering enormous financial benefits, right? So we were growing 25 percent a year with a 40 percent margin. Rule of 65 on a tech business we were successful by every category except for perception.

And I realized that people are going to be judged based on things that historically have not been the case in America in the marketplace, right? We open this talking a little bit about DEI and what that means right now. And the funny thing is DEI, those are actually Christian words, right? You think about the Trinity is diversity and unity, right?

Diversity is not a bad word. Inclusion is not a bad word, right? Everybody is welcome to our church. right? There's no, everyone is welcome. We want everyone there. But the problem is those words, D E I diversity, equity, inclusion, have been used as a bludgeoning device against a lot of Christians. And it's effective because they're words we actually believe in, but the left is using a different definition for those words than we are.

And so that's was this moment when I realized I'm getting beat up just because I'm living traditional Judeo Christian American values out loud in the workplace that are highly successful. That when you go through a battle like that- also I have this last name that's really terrible and everyone thought I had major learning disabilities for a chunk of my early life.

And so when all these bad things happen to you, then you don't care what people say about you, which is really nice. And God builds us up to that moment, right? And my wife pointed out, she said look, we wouldn't have the New Testament if Paul didn't go to prison. We wouldn't have Pilgrim's Progress if John Bunyan hadn't gone to prison.

And her comment, she actually- and you need to understand, she's Dr. Crapuchettes, I'm sub GED Crapuchettes, so she's the smart one. Just to be clear, she wrote an article in the Federalist shortly after I lost my job and she says, My husband didn't lose his job. My husband was redeployed.

And when the king tells you to go take another hill, who are you to say I don't want to? And when the king says the workplace in America needs freedom because we know that freedom is a distinctly Christian value and those who can be free in the workplace are going to be more likely to be free in other areas of their lives, you just need to go do it and stop being a whiner about it.

Cause no, I don't like losing my job. It wasn't fun. And the nice thing is all of it's played out that way. I have gotten hundreds of thank you notes from perfect strangers saying I found a new job through Red Balloon and it's changed the trajectory of my family. I'm going to church again. My kids are plugged in. Had three people write so far and say, I just want you to know you saved my marriage because of the job that my husband got through Red Balloon. So we've been very blessed to just be part of those stories. And it's clear that God just said, no, Andrew, you need to go take that hill. No matter how painful it is to get kicked out of your previous job.

Jim: Yeah. We love to hear how God shapes his followers so they're ready for what's next, their next assignment. Just like Andrew's been telling us. Not long ago, we heard the story of how God launched Patriot Mobile as an answer to a need in the cellular world for a conservative freedom, family, and faith option. Martha and I love how Patriot Mobile aligns with our values and supports causes we believe in, especially iWork4Him.

It's easy to switch. You keep your phone number. Just go to Patriot Mobile. com/ iWork4Him. They're a great partner in our ministry. We love to have it.

Okay. So what sets Red Balloon apart? There's lots of websites where you can list your resume to try to find a job. What sets Red Balloon apart? You're getting thank you notes. Something must be there.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Something must be different here! So what we do is we just tell employers we need you to sign a pledge if you want to post your jobs on Red Balloon. You think the constitution still matters and you're going to protect the freedom of your employees and your future employees, right? That's not super complicated. In fact, five years ago, that wouldn't even be novel. But it is surprisingly novel today. The news not too long ago called freedom a far right construct. What? No, that's what made America great. That's clearly a Christian value. And so that's all we ask of our employers.

And for the employees, you need to sign a pledge that basically you're going to show up, work hard, and not be a whiner. So again, you don't have to sign up for a statement of faith. You don't have to - all those things. We just want people to be hired based on the value they bring to the business, based on merit, not based on some other category that has nothing to do with the value that you're bringing to the company.

Because when you work hard and you're rewarded for working hard, it brings dignity to individuals, right? If you believe that you have your job merely because of who your parents are or, my brother in law owns this business, so I have this job, we all know that that's not going to bring the deep satisfaction and dignity that comes from working hard.

Earning it, right? And we learned this in kids sports. We learned this all the way along. When you work hard and you win and you earn it, that is actually what builds up your soul and makes you a better person and a better Christian. And so that's what we want to get back to at redballoon. work. And it's work because dot com sounded too much like communist to me.

And we want hard work and not communism. It's called Red Balloon because if you've ever been on a hot air balloon, it's this floating sensation. You don't have a lot of control, like looking for a job. And then people are traveling, they're going to red states or red businesses or places where they can be free.

And so that's why it's red balloon dot work. And for job seekers, everything's free. You can come in, you can download the Employee Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, which is an amazing document written by a labor lawyer. You can go to our resources page, you can get free training, you can put in your profile and employers might just reach out to you and ask you to work for them.

And then if you're an employer, it is not that expensive. You can post a job for as little as 75 a month. Or if you want us to take over the entire hiring process where we write the job posting, do a compensation review, source and screen candidates, interview them for you to make sure that their values align, we can do that too.

Martha: Wow. There's just so many great things that you just said, and I know that our listeners are getting excited and want to check out redballoon. work. I love that Red Balloon is offering such great resources for people to know their rights from a safe and conservative point of view, and I'll put that link in the show notes as well.

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Jim: Alright, so Andrew, why did Red Balloon become part of the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce online at uschristianchamber. com?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, absolutely. I am excited not only about the conference, but about the work that Krystal's doing with the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce. And let me point it out this way. When you think you're the only one that thinks the way you do, it is really hard to be brave. And we all know that. When we think, man, I guess I'm the only one who thinks this way. And the mainstream liberal media wants all the Christian and conservative businesses to believe that they're literally the only one that thinks this way and they're crazy and that just is a lot harder to be brave.

And let me give you an example. We encouraged employees a couple of months ago, hey, live your values out loud. You can come to red balloon dot work. That's great. But if you're at your current work environment be brave, just live your values out loud. You don't have to jam them down anybody else's throat.

You don't have to push your worldview on anyone else, but you can just not be afraid of the fact that you went to church on Sunday. And if someone asks how your weekend was, say, I had a glorious Sunday at church with my family. That's okay to say. People are asking you, right? And and I had a lot of people write me and say, when I did this, I found out that there were a lot of people at my workplace, who go to church or who shared my values. But we were all self censoring because we're worried what the other person is thinking.

And so what the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce is doing is it's reminding businesses, we're part of a large movement. There's a lot of businesses out there that are seeking to succeed in the marketplace, bless their customers, absolutely bless their employees and provide jobs, but also glorify God in the way that they do all of those things. And if you think you're the only business that's thinking that way, it's a lot harder to be brave, it's a lot harder to do it well. Additionally, we also need to be learning from each other. There's so many good opportunities to be God honoring in a very legal and polite and respectful way to your employees and your customers.

And you need to learn what other businesses have learned through this whole process. That's my encouragement to people and why I want to be part of it. We want to be a blessing to all those employers. We want to learn from them. We want to make sure they're learning from us cause we're all in this together.

Martha: And I can guarantee you that the things you're saying right now, our listeners are leaning in, and they actually probably want to learn more from you, Andrew. And you are a keynote speaker at the U. S. Christian Chamber Business Expo in April. Give us, without giving it away, give us a little sneak peek into something that you're going to be talking about that might entice these listeners to take that step and get registered and meet us in Orlando.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Absolutely. So there's, I'll give you two things that I want to make sure that I hit in that talk. The first one is how do you hire in this world? I was actually recently speaking at a Christian booksellers association and they really struggle because I had one book seller say, I just accidentally hired a Satanist and that really didn't play well with my customers.

I'm like, yeah, I could see that. And so hiring is very difficult. You don't want to, in one way, if you ask the wrong questions in an interview, you get a lawsuit. But if you don't ask those questions, you get a bad culture fit, and then you get a lot of heartache, and then you get a lawsuit.

I'm going to talk about some really practical things that you can do to hire values aligned people without getting yourself into legal trouble. So that's a very practical thing. And then the second thing I want to focus on is, what are things that we can do as Christian business leaders to be a blessing to our employees in a way that is going to be winsome, is going to be joyful and is going to be effective in not only the marketplace, but for their souls?

I've been blessed to manage and hire thousands of people over the years and really given this a lot of thought. And I want to make sure that I'm sharing those thoughts with those business leaders.

Jim: I love that. I'm excited that we get to share a stage with you as the emcees of that event. Please check out the US Christian Chamber Expo online, us christian chamber.com. Before we go, Andrew Red balloon.work. You see a lot of people experience a lot of things. Any final thoughts or encouragement for our listeners out there who are being impacted by the whole woke world at work and need a solution today?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, the big takeaway that I would give everyone is look: I started RedBalloon.work a little over two years ago and we almost have 4, 000 employers who are part of the platform or have signed up independently. We have over a thousand new job seekers every week and over 2 million people have been on the site looking for freedom. So freedom is in demand, this parallel economy is a market movement that you're going to want to be part of, and for a business to grow that quickly, it's not my brilliance.

It's obviously God's blessing, but it is clear that there is a moment in American history right now where people are willing to stand up. They're willing to push back. And so I, I would encourage people join the Red Balloon Movement, come to the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce, because the temptation when you read the news, you read what's happening in Ukraine or China or D. C. or any of these places, is to feel helpless, right? What can I do? I'm one vote, or I'm one person. What can I do?

But sitting on your couch and wringing your hands and watching Fox News is not going to solve any problems. Get off the couch and go do something. Come to this conference. Sign up on Red Balloon. And tell your friends about iWork4Him. Go do something because if every Christian and conservative in America today decides that they're going to change one thing about their life and do one thing different to support people in their community, I think this nation changes in a hurry. So I guess that's my encouragement. Red Balloon has grown quickly because people want it and my encouragement to everybody is get off your couch and go do something for him!

Jim: Amen. Andrew Crapuchettes from RedBalloon.work. Thanks for being on iWork4Him today. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.