Latest / Solving the World's Greatest Problems / Episode 4 - 12 Years Building A Business. God Wanted Something Bigger. | Brandon West

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Episode 4 - 12 Years Building A Business. God Wanted Something Bigger. | Brandon West · Solving the World's Greatest Problems

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, crazy story.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Did you used to have this company over here clean your offices?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I did.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: She said, That person who cleaned your office was the first person that we ever reached in this city who was rescued from sex trafficking.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, sex trafficking in in Gainesville?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard it happens over in Asia.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: It happens over in these poor countries.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, it happens here.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: You mean like in the US?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, like Las Vegas, Miami.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, here.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: In Gainesville?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is my city.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just realized that most of our life we just walk around with blind ears on.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really actually want to know what the brokenness is.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: God has positioned this business for something greater.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: As we live that out and be that authentically to the world, authentically behind the scenes, and then authentic in public.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that is where the sweet aroma of Christ begins to be so beautiful.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the person who feels paralyzed with all the brokenness that we can see.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I have felt that so many times.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: One speaker in my life along the way, he said, do for the one what you wish you could do for the many.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do for the one what you wish you could do for the many.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Solving the world's greatest problems is an audacious proposal.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, no generation has more talent, capital, or tools than ours.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The time has come for entrepreneurs, investors, givers, ministry leaders to reclaim the church's ancient calling.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: The scale of brokenness is too big for us to do this in silos.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Under his power, for his glory, together.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Solving the World's Greatest Problems Podcast.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: There are roughly 50 million people trapped in modern-day slavery right now.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, for the survivors who make it out, there are almost nowhere near enough places to heal.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But one business has a mission to change that.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Brandon West founded FOSS Creative at the age of 26 out of his home office.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: On paper, it's a digital marketing agency.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: But its real mission runs far deeper.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: FOOS donates 50% of its profits to launch care centers around the world to serve women and children impacted by extreme poverty and sex trafficking.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: His business set a goal to launch 30 care centers by the year 2030.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: They hit it five years early, reaching 37 care centers across 18 countries, serving 5,379 women and children.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: One founder, one agency, one mission.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the problem of human trafficking and how to solve it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Messaging that cuts through.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: But then there's those other commercials where you watch them, and you before the logo even shows at the end, you're you know exactly who it is.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Publix has a lot of those type of commercials.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you guys have Publix here in Texas, but they have a lot of those type of commercials.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um Uber has done some really provocative advertising in the past that I think really pushes the needle.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's for a creative, that's the question is like, how far am I willing to push?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how dissonant am I willing to be to stand out that still like aligns with my own branding and messaging and makes me feel comfortable enough to to put my my logo as the company at the end of this particular ad.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if one particular one stands out, but those are maybe some principles I think about with creative.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Keep going with that because like I think a lot of times when people start saying, Oh, I need a commercial, I need a YouTube video, I need an Instagram account, I need TikTok, whatever it is.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think oftentimes we're conflating like what part of the process it is.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: People are like, Oh, but you know, in 30 seconds, 18 seconds, whatever it is, you should stop the viewer, engage the viewer, sell the product, and they should just purchase right after.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: But that's not the case.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: How do you see ads, YouTube videos, stuff like that, the short stuff that stop people?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, with an ad nowadays, you only get a few seconds before it's skip the ad, anyways.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there is uh, I think a certain degree of which it's like, where is the hook?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: How soon does that hook happen?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: What is the hook that's good enough to get me to to continue to watch that pass when that button shows up, skip the ad.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: What would compel me enough to not press that button?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a very short period of time.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so for me, I I think there there is a point to that of what is the hook, how soon can I make that happen?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But with the reality still that like multi-channel exposure is is how that happens, I think for for me as a creative, like production quality is such an interesting question because all the creatives in the room want to have the best production quality, but then when I get the user-generated content, the iPhone video with a a personal story, I'm like, oh, this is intriguing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm curious what this is.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Production in today's marketing economy has this interesting potential backwards effect where if it's overly produced, sometimes my trust actually goes down.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: That is really challenging as a creative that wants to have everything with all the sure mics and all the best video cameras set up and all the lighting perfect.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: That challenges me.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's fun I love that because I years ago, um I mean, any team you're leading, any time you're managing, you're always kind of wondering, like, hey, did they engage with it?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Did they listen, or are they just jumping in with feedback without even kind of going through it?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I found myself intentionally misspelling words to see if like people would follow.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I still do this to this day.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I still work that in there.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, hey, I intentionally misspelled this, but it's it's a tripwire to see if somebody's really engaging kind of with that messaging.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I think now we're taking it even further to your point.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just use it as an internal tripwire.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta start thinking about this externally to say, almost like, how do I show like weakness or vulnerability and maybe a messaging?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's typosing glitches on another level to show that this is human.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, I won't judge you anymore when I see a LinkedIn post.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just be like, this was strategic.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: This was strategic.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I like that too, because that's a lot of like that's a lot of shielding for you.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you do make an error now, everybody gets to forgive you for it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: At FOS.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what that was about.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: We were just dropping that as a little bit of cushion.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: At FOS, there's two things that we talk about all the time um trust and awareness.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Any organization in the entire world, I don't care what they do, they only need two things to be successful online.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: They need awareness, people know that they exist, and then they need to build more trust than the competition, unless they're swimming in some wildly blue ocean in which there's no competition.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: But even for them, the biggest challenge will be awareness for a product or service that is offering a new solution that people don't know exist.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then to the people who find them again, the the issue of trust is still just as relevant to go.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've never heard of this product or solution before.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have a problem that you've never imagined could be solved.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm offering it to you.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me, it's worth the purchase.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, awareness and trust are the biggest things that people need to have.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So flip those because I mean it's awareness first, trust second in the order of things today.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: We we say at FOS that without awareness, trust has no platform.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And without trust, awareness is wasted energy.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So in either case, they're they're just as equally important.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think people want awareness all the time.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, well, I just I I I have enough trust.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: If people just knew, if I could just get more traffic, if I could just get more followers, then we would be fine.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And for us, it's going, okay, yes, but those are two lever levers that have to be pulled at the exact there, they're two cogs that have to be connected or the the system won't spin.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, what are the tools when we think about this like as a faith-driven entrepreneur?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because like we've we've wrestled through this.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: When we think about you know, everything which you just talked about, you're like, man, there's this, there's this passionate message of living intentionally, this life that's falling alive, living forward in your faith.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, man, what what extreme would we not go to to build that awareness, to break through that noisy kind of space?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when I think about that though, it's like, I mean, we're not gonna be the shock jock radio side of things.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: But we're also not gonna probably be the boring things that we need to might be driving past stop signs at 75 miles an hour.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: What are the tools in between that you think as a faith-driven entrepreneur that we need to be thinking about?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: How do we how do we be winsome and provoking?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: How do we stop people?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: What what are those tools that we can use in our belt to stop people in that awareness part of the journey?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Two words that come to mind for me are excellence and authenticity.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think when I started my company, I thought that being a Christian entrepreneur, being a Christian who owned a business, meant that I just did really, really great work with excellence.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the first time I ever built, even the first website we ever had, and my wife and I had this conversation at the beginning.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Will there be any place on this website where the name of Jesus appears, even if it's white text on a white background?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is like, will that be anywhere?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Will there be a Christian fish somewhere on the website?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we just decided, no, no, we're gonna do great work with excellence, and that's gonna be enough.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: The truth was, multi-years into the company, I never built a logo, designed a logo, built a website in which somebody came up to me afterwards and they were like, What must I do to be saved?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is so good.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just I don't know, maybe I'm not a good enough creative to make that happen, but that was insufficient.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember learning a Martin Luther quote along the way where he said, You don't have to put a Christian fish or a Christian logo on a shoe to be a Christian shoemaker.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it with excellence, and that that pleases the Lord.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that that answers the question of my work.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: My work is good enough.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I pursue an excellence that honors the Lord, but I think it's insufficient as a faith-driven entrepreneur.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: We get to go, hey, like God has positioned this business for something greater.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as it as we live that out and be that authentically to the world, authentically behind the scenes, and then authentic in public, I do think that is where the sweet aroma of Christ begins to be so beautiful to the world in the marketplace, to bring with that a product that is driven and a service that's driven by excellence.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the foot in the door.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: You deliver a great product and service that doesn't malign your reputation, you're not undercutting anybody.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is valuable to the people that you sell it to, and then an authentic, Christ-driven private life and private leadership and influence that then brings itself to the world and offers it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's a great invitation for a faith-driven entrepreneur to the gospel in the marketplace.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Trafficking, structural hunger, a billion people without the Bible in their language.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't unsolvable.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're just uncoordinated.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: At solving the world's greatest problems, we're a community of givers taking on the root causes of the world's deepest suffering, and we're taking them on together.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: We've identified more than 30 of the world's greatest problems, and the list keeps growing.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: We work alongside the entrepreneurs, investors, and ministry leaders already in the fight, and we fund the breakthroughs happening right now.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where it starts.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Choose your problem and start your journey with one of our foundation courses.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You won't just hear about the work, you'll see the breakthroughs, and give directly towards them.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Come on your own, bring a few friends, or host a room and set the table.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Come join the fight and find your people.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Learn more at solving.org.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Under his power, for his glory, together.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this tension.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes like we say, oh, when necessary, use words.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think we can look around the world today and say there's enough brokenness there.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's enough stuff like hitting us in our face, coming into our office through the lives of our own and our own brokenness or the lives of our team to say, gosh, it is it's necessary.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: It is the time to use words.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: But but you've built that trust with the excellence.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: You've built the trust and kind of the winsomeness.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: But then there comes a point where it is time to use words.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: But but maybe maybe some of the words are changing in terms of what we use and how we describe it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think so much about like the framework of our mutual friends of like Dave Blanchard and Praxis and just this idea of like redemptive and some of these things.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: But as somebody that pays so much attention to messaging and thinking about this, like what are some of the winsome words that are helping to become kind of these on-ramps to bigger conversations?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: What are those winsome words when we think about this as faith-driven entrepreneurs and we're branding our company, we're on our website, and we're maybe we're afraid of that and we're still in the white font on the white screen, but we want to take that next step.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: How do you see people trying to describe this intentional mission?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: What a great word that you just used.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think intentionality is the key.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody comes in and they they say in an interview, Oh, I you I've heard you guys have such a great culture.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Can you explain to me why it's such a great culture?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, uh uh we have a ping pong table and we have bi-weekly lunches as a team.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: The world's wondering, can I trust this?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is this everything that you everything I see on your Instagram profile?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna experience that on Monday?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: How about Tuesday?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: How about next Monday?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: My my second week, my second year, 20 years into the company.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Intentionality is so key.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: At FOS, we've developed what we call the flourishing framework.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this is six dimensions of flourishing that help us fulfill our mission.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's on our website.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: You could see it on social media.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna feel it on day one?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Our mission at FOS is to cultivate true flourishing in people and organizations while reflecting the love of Jesus to the world.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so when somebody says, What's true flourishing?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: What's your culture look like?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I can say, hey, let me tell you about the flourishing framework, six dimensions of flourishing that we want to focus on bringing to our team, their family members, our clients, vendors, and suppliers, and then our local and global community.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure that they're flourishing financially, intellectually, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and relationally.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we design a 12-month calendar each year to set to have two months spent on each of those six to fill up a year where we're helping each of our team members to plus one in each of those six areas and developing intentional things, intentional things that's saying to them, we actually care about you and your family and our clients, vendors, suppliers, and community flourishing around the world.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: That intentionality says, I think I'll get this in month two at FOS.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that framework.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: I love the language, and so you're pushing into this.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love for you to just kind of start to unpack some of the journey.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, give us a quick flyover size, scope, scale, how long you guys have been at it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: But then it sounds like there comes to this point where you're saying, okay, the culture, the intentionality, but then it sounds like there's this life moment where it says, Man, how do we care for the people inside the walls?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: But what's the role that we might play in the other problems that the world is facing right now?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: FOS started 12 years ago out of my home office.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was teaching, I was a teacher of Greek and Latin language, yearbook, algebra three.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And on the side, I was building websites.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: One for my church, then for a friend for$300, then for another friend for$3,000.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then people around me were going, This is a business.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm not sure.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't just a better friend that paid you more.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was the opportunities grow.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And something skills over time and something that is a passion at first, maybe can become a profession and a career.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so 2013, uh, asked five men in my life, my closest counselors, what do you think?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Should I do this?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they all agreed that I should surrender my teaching career and go full-time into this, even though I had a really young child, I was gonna have another one soon.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was a hard decision to make, even with a low salary.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: They called the golden handcuffs.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can I walk away?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Can I go do the hard thing and become a full-time entrepreneur?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: 2013 started that and walked through that question of what's it gonna look like from a Christian perspective?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: How do I be a Christian and a business owner?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that vision really grew over time.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: The first vision that I had was just simply the one employee I had.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: My goal was that at some point he would come to me unprompted and say, This is the best job that I've ever had.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was the first kind of commitment to flourishing, where somebody on this team would go, This is the best job that I've ever had.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And as that grew over time, and as the team grew larger and larger, we have 24 people on our team now.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: There was a moment in that journey where I realized that God had a bigger plan for this company.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Part of that came from a concert in Ocala, Florida, where I went and saw Matthew West and he had Compassion International with him.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And during one of the breaks, it was, hey, here's some cards that are in front of you.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: These are kids that you can sponsor through compassion.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he told a story that day that moved my heart.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like some sad story where you're like, oh my gosh, I want to get a part of this.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was his cynicism towards nonprofits.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: The typical black hole model of, hey, give us some money and somebody somewhere in the world will be helped for some problem that they have.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: What a compelling message.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Compassion called him and said, We're gonna fly you out on a trip, get on a plane, and hops on a plane, hops on a bus, hops on a donkey, whatever, winds up in this village, and this kid that he doesn't know just comes up and gives him a big hug.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the compassion guide who was with him said, If you give us$42 a month, you can sponsor this kid.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can write this kid, Julio, letters.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know his name.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get pictures of him.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can write him.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is a really compelling way to think about sponsorship.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so checked out that night with a kid, went to the register, gave what the FOS credit card to the person attending.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And over the next few months, seeing those charges come in and trying to figure out in QuickBooks, where do I where do you count that one?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: How do I how do I categorize this?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was a moment, I think, where my eyes were open to what stewardship meant.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very simple idea.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: As I would go and categorize this to gent uh to charitable contributions, there was a moment where I said to myself, I can pay this bill because I have money in my account.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the stewardship mindset was, well, actually, I've been given money in this account so that I can do something with it.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it was that very simple idea that that convinced me I am a steward.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: God's given me not just finances, but a team, a company, people, assets, resources that He intends for me to, like a river flowing through, give it out to somebody else on the other side.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I made a commitment at that point if we ever grow as a company, we will grow our impact equally, because if God's gonna give us more resources, he intends for us to do more and more with them.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think from that came a journey towards purpose and creating a culture and blessing people internally and externally.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: I love how, like, even what you highlighted is um there's been traditional ways that things have been presented to us to get involved that you know we're we're immune to.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe if I were to dare to say the words we've been inoculated to.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we talk so much about you know vaccines and other things, there's the inoculation concept that comes true to us maybe in our health, but we don't realize how it affects us in messaging.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that if we've heard a message presented one way or one time over and over and over again, we've put it in a box.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think about it like the word generosity, are you generous?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I think a lot of times people put a dollar sign or a percentage sign up to that, and they don't see it from a lifestyle framing and a mindset framing that we've we've conditioned it to be a number, and that's not bad.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Let's not take anything away from it, and how we can measure some of those things, but we put these messages in boxes.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: I love the fact that God uses new messaging, new ideas of somebody's journey to get your heart who spends so much time in messaging and thinking about that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's fun seeing how God kind of speaks in those ways.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Messaging is such a tricky thing because, on the one hand, it can be extremely manipulative as well.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: You work so hard on a message that you work so little in private to actually be.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: You've crafted the right words and the rat right phrases, your website reads beautifully, your social media.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is flawless, no spelling errors, all the things that the public and the people that you're trying to attract would want to see.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then they could walk in and you could be the exact opposite of everything that you portray.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we talk a lot at FOS about authenticity, authentic branding, authentic messaging.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard as a creative agency.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: On the one hand, you're like, I want to bring the best thing possible to the world to make this effective.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: But authentic branding for us at FOS just simply means who are you at your best?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let me craft that authentic message and bring that to the world.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: If that's not enough to bring to the world to be effective, then you are not enough as a company to bring a message worth bringing to the world.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: So what's that journey like?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because it here's one of the things that I hope that this episode really conveys to people is one, is like, yes, God's calling us to ministry in deed and ministry in word to the team that He's entrusted to us and that we're stewarding there.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we've talked a lot about that in different ways of benevolence programs and care programs and caring for your team and mission and work environment, all those different things.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's a point like where that credit card comes out, those statements get allocated, you're trying to figure out the QuickBooks.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: But it's one thing to see the statement, it's another thing then to go deliver that message to the team.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: What's that journey look like?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and and walk us into not the bright and shiny, but where the places where you're like, man, if I had a mulligan to do this over again, I would.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: I would go back and I'd say, man, I rushed this out too quick, or I communicated it this way.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: What's the journey for an entrepreneur to communicate authentically about where they might give as a business?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: 2022 was the hardest year of my life and my leadership.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Went through some of the most difficult things personally, the death of my mom from Parkinson's, some of the hardest things professionally that we've ever gone through.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Team member turnover, client loss, difficult mergers that we were attempting.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember along the way, one of my team members that I met with, as I shared with them, I said in a private meeting with them, you know, this has been challenging for me as well.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she said to me, Wow, that surprises me to hear.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Why does it surprise you?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And said, Brandon, you're you're just always so hopeful, so positive, so optimistic in team meetings about where we're going.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think it might be helpful for the team to hear that this has been challenging for you.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we're talking about authenticity in messaging and in leadership.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's a place for us as leaders to go, hey, this thing's been really challenging.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how it's affected me.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then turn and go, here's how we're moving towards the future.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think blending everything positive that's going on in the company with here's everything challenging going on.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: We do these quarterly vision meetings at FOS where we spend two and a half hours together as a team just going through what worked last quarter, what didn't.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be really transparent on what did we learn, and now where are we going?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of that came from learning.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: We can't just bring a message of hope and impact to our team.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: We also need to bring a message of authenticity in ourselves, in our leadership as well to the team to really connect and build trust.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, what's that like when you start then talking about um sponsoring kids?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think the journey did it starts there, but it builds on that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Talk about like kind of how that journey went from hey, that first step to like, okay, what is a unique place that we feel called to give to?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: That night when I chose to sponsor a child with compassion, and we made that commitment over the next few months.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if we're gonna grow, we're gonna grow our impact.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: There was a moment where I threw out to my leadership team years later this growing vision.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: We had sponsored one child for every single team member at FOS, and we were having regular letter writing sessions where we get together as a team and write letters and draw pictures to our kids and then send them off with like a birthday gift or something like that.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a moment where I was like, maybe, maybe it's something bigger.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I threw out to my leadership team, I said, Hey, what if FOS was actually an instrument for launching North Central Florida's first ever sex trafficking safe house?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember them laughing as they took out their pen and went, you know, visionaries going vision, and they wrote it down on a sheet of paper.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe one day, that'd be cool.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And a year later, God allowed us to be a part of that and fund the first ever sex trafficking safe house for North Central Florida.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Within a month, all the beds were full.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And within months and a and the year to come, we would see people even graduate from those programs and get into a safe place.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember when that when we handed the key to the executive director of that nonprofit and I dropped it in her hand, there was a moment where I said to myself, like, maybe I'm dreaming way too small about what God can do.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so we reset this vision.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: We want to launch five care centers around the world.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then a year later, we had already done another three.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, time to reset it.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, let's go crazy this time.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna launch 30 care centers by the year 2030.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And two weeks ago at FOS, we launched our 37th care center five years early, completing that vision.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: But to be able to bring that to a team member and say, hey, I want you to know your work accomplishes this.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: At FOS, I call myself the chief purpose officer that my number one job at FOS is to help our team members understand that their work has purpose.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one author along the way, he described an uppercase P purpose and a lowercase p purpose.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Lowercase P purpose was understanding like, I do work and it helps somebody around the world.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I bang on this keyboard, I click on this mouse, and somebody's helped by my work.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uppercase P purpose is understanding like my work and the company that I work for and the work that it does and the profit that it produces allows me and this company to bless people around the world.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the most important jobs of executive leaders is to help their team understand lowercase pee purpose, your work means something, and this company and what you're a part of is starting a movement around the world.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: So the world the problems of the world can sometimes feel daunting, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we can flip on any X or social media feed or whatever it is, and we can be inundated if not overwhelmed.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think information years ago was so scarce on so many of these problems, and yet now it's so overwhelming, it paralyzes us, and we become consumers, we become inoculated, we become immune, but we don't find that foothold to take that first step.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: But what was it for you that said, Hey, this anti-trafficking thing, that this is where we're going to war, this is where we're gonna fight.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get to that?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to the person who feels paralyzed with all the brokenness that we can see.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I have felt that so many times.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: One speaker in my life along the way, he said, Do for the one what you wish you could do for the many.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do for the one what you wish you could do for the many.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think our generosity that we bring with time, talent, treasure, and the truth of God that we've been entrusted with, eventually we just have to say yes to something.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we've said yes enough times, yes to this cause, yes to this brokenness, I'm gonna lean in.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: At some point we get to look backwards and go, what's the wake behind me showing?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Where's where's the impact?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the wake in those places where I might be able to go, hey, I've we've created a lot of wakes.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is the one that I want to go double down in.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Watched a video many years ago where this man shared a story about opening up the proverbs and these these proverbs about sowing in fields and reaping a harvest.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the question that he asked himself was, what fields have I sown in in the past that maybe God wants me to go lean in and reap a new harvest from that same field I've already sown in in the past.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think as visionaries, we're always like, what's next?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's new?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: What's the new big thing I'm gonna go do?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in faithfulness, we get to just ask, like, hey, maybe it's not always something new.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's something new in an old place we've already been, double down.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when we say yes multiple times, we get to look back at those wakes.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, God just goes, Hey, here's where I'm calling you to lean in.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we say at FOS that the places where we want to lean in with purpose are found at the intersection of a broken heart, opportunity, and skill.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: What breaks our heart?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where is their opportunity?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And where what are the skills?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: What are the resources that we have that we can lean in?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Purpose right in the middle of those three things.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, what was it for I love that.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: I love that framework of like looking back.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: When you looked back, was there uh a sermon that somebody gave, a message that somebody delivered, a statistic of something that hit home in your neighborhood, that in your community, where you said, Man, this issue, this is it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: What was it?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I met Alison Ungaro, she's the executive director of a nonprofit in Gainesville called Anu that fights sex trafficking.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when when we met at this gym uh at a talk that was being hosted at this gym, and she said, I've been wanting to meet you for some time now.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she introduced ourselves and I was like, This is amazing.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't even heard of this nonprofit.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Crazy story.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Did you used to have this company over here clean your offices?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I did.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, That person who cleaned your office was the first person that we ever reached in this city who was rescued from sex trafficking.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when she was in our program and she would come to us and say, I don't know who owns this company, but you need to meet them one day because what I see in this office just says something that that you need to be a part of.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, sex trafficking in in Gainesville?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, sex trafficking.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I've heard it happens over in Asia.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: It happens over in in these poor countries.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, it happens here.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: You mean like in the US?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, like Las Vegas, Miami.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, here.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: In Gainesville?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is my city.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know this city.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't happen in my city.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I just realized that that most of our life we just walk around with blinders on.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really actually want to know what the brokenness is.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I remember the first time I ever went on street outreach, 1 a.m., driving around Gainesville, Florida, and they're like, Yeah, we're we're gonna be looking tonight for people who we believe are being trafficked.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look for signs of that, and then we're gonna go up to them.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: You you will not get out of the car, Brandon.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get out of the car, and we're gonna give them a gift, and we're gonna help them know that they're loved.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what I learned from that experience, from that organization, from her as a leader, I think I learned for the first time ever in my life what the word dignity meant.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I could have defined that well several years ago.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: What dig we were created with dignity, with purpose, to have it ripped out from them.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when they walked into that safe, that safe house for the first time, and they're handed a gift basket and said, This is for you, and they're they're wondering, what do you want me to do for it?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is just because you are created in the likeness and the image of God and you have dignity.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think learning what that word meant, learning that dignity could be stripped from somebody, but then equally handed back to them so they could see that they were created with worth and value and dignity and purpose was really compelling for me to say.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe God has something for us in this work.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I I've said this a couple of times, but it's so worth always repeating is this idea of you know, I grew up in a wonderful Christian home where we taught, you know, the things that that God honors and that we're to seek after and to strive after.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I always thought it was like the father, the son, and this retired author that doesn't talk too much.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: And yet it's been this like childlike wonder these last 10, 20 years to see the way that he speaks.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think maybe it's like the movies that we put, oh God only speaks in tablets or this or that.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: But like seeing the ways that he works to say somebody that has a survivor that is being helped and provided a job is the very person cleaning your office and you don't even know it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we talk about like blinders and we think about in scripture and we think about like how can you not see the donkey on the road, or or how can you not see the person in the road, and then the donkey can see it?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we how do we miss that?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: And there's moments in all of our lives when those blinders just come off.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I love just the way the Holy Spirit works in that and says, like, this is the battle that's being fought around you.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know it, but it's it's now time to to ratchet up the fight.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: What did that look like as you've uh uh told that story?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because like there's an authenticity to that, right?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: That I love, and I think I think oftentimes we think we have to like make the story versus like find the story that's as you said, it's in the wake and it's something that's there.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like I maybe if I'm I'm taking this too far, but like when you think of like seeing these commercials of like Matt Damon talking about crypto, you're like, I don't know much.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: We have no relationship, I don't think he knows that much about crypto.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like something he's selling, and everybody's searching for something authentic.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: And when you know, when we think about anti-trafficking and you sit down with somebody like you know, Tim Tebow and you hear him having a similar encounter with his dad in his journey, it's authentic.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: What is that like when you say, like, man, guys, this is the fight we're gonna rally around as a team?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you share that message?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: How do you share that story?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: And what's the reaction been like with your team?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I have been convinced, and I don't think it's just because I'm a marketing guy in in this field and in this industry.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: I have been convinced that we are called to steward stories.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, I I don't think that that comes all that naturally to me.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have to sit down and I have to think about and I have to journal out, even if it's just bullet points.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here's where I see God at work right now.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's a little sticker that sits at the headboard of my bed that I can see when I get in at night, and it's just this little white sticker and it says story worthy.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a question for me of like, what was story worthy about today?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was convinced a few years ago as well, though, that when we've been given a story that's good enough, a passion, a purpose, whatever that may be, this is probably the galvanizer in me.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I get that, but I think there's a place to go.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you have something that's good enough to chase, maybe you have something that's good enough to share.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when we take that story that's been good enough for us to chase and go hard after and go, here's what God's doing in my life.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: What we know about generosity is it's contagious.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as we've gone, hey, here's what God's doing.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Would you maybe want to be a part of it?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen people all over the world raise their hand.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: When we started that that goal of 30 care centers, I thought to myself, I don't know how we would ever make this happen.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: And as we've gone and said, hey, yeah, actually, we've started a few care centers.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what what God's doing through them, here's how it's impacting people in extreme poverty and sex trafficking.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Would you want to be a part of it?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: People were like, Yeah, I'm in.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: We started a donor-advised fund through the National Christian Foundation called the Safe Global Fund, Strategic Alliances Fighting Exploitation.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we've just gone, do you want to be a part of it?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can give to this.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as we have enough money, we'll go launch a care center.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: We can, we can co-launch that together.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had leaders across the world say yes.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in surprising ways.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: I had a guy on on LinkedIn recently.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: He saw a post that I made about launching care centers and he just DM'd me and said, Can we talk?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: 20-minute phone call.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Yeah, I think we're gonna be in.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure exactly what for yet.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Two days later, uh, we're we're on the phone again and he said, Yeah, we're gonna give you$100,000.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: A couple weeks later, he says, Hey, can I fly down and just hang out with you for the day?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're on site.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have this big board at FOS with 267 light bulb sockets where we turn on a light bulb every time a big mission moment happens.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're turning on one with him, and I'm sharing the story in front of my team of like how we met.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, actually, I had an update to that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we decided to fund five care centers, we're gonna be$150,000 uh for all these things.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that was after months of me going, Compassion gave me five care centers launched.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure how we're gonna get them funded.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And God provides this guy out of nowhere who just says, Hey, like, you've been faithful to share something.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've been wanting to get involved, and I think this is God's plan.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Brought it back to his leadership team, which is always the potential like nail in the coffin, you know, I'll talk to my leadership team.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like okay, we'll see how this goes.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: His right-hand person has been sponsoring children through compassion, another person on this team sponsoring multiple children through compassion, and all these people were a heck yes on jumping in with care centers.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: The lesson for me if we're gonna be given a story, let's steward it well, share it with the world, and maybe God will use us to actually start something bigger than we could have ever imagined.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so I can't help myself.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I I said that we weren't gonna talk about sports analogies, but there's something here that I think is worth pulling into because we both live in big states where sports are a big deal.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: And whether it's Florida, whether it's Texas, like there is something galvanizing about like being on the same team, like rooting for the same team, the same players, the same stats, you're keeping up to the win-loss record, you're feeling a part of it, you're sharing these big moments, big experiences, journeys to it.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's a missing thing when we talk about solving big problems is I think that the church, the what should be the most connected body in the world is so disconnected that we don't know what's happening.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: And yet when we come together, just maybe we can get as much or even more fired up about those wins, those light bulbs, instead of what a bunch of 18-year-olds did for 60 minutes on the football field, and just saying, what does it look like to really like be in a battle together?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to come back to that and say, like, what's the potential from that business owner that called you up and we just heard it, but like where could this go if like as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we got on the same team to solve the big problems together.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote a book uh a little over a year ago called It Is Not Your Business to Succeed.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's based on a C.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis quote from his book Letters to Malcolm, just writing to his friend.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to his friend, Malcolm, it is not your business to succeed, but only to do what is right and then doing trust the results to a faithful God.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think the reason why we tell the wrong stories is we're measuring success in the wrong way.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have given ourselves to what I call in the book the outcome-based mindset.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am what I produce.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a successful leader when this is up and when my business is up unto the right, and all my profit and loss sheets are black and green.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And God's measuring something super different in our lives.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of our life, we'll be told, well done, good and faithful servant, not well done, good and fruitful servant.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Fruitfulness, results, outcomes, like those are in the hands of God.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: You could do everything right in life and in business and still wind up in the red.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: A market crashes, something closes, tariffs, shutdowns, whatever it is, and you wind up closing your business, closing your your entrepreneurial venture.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: You felt, oh, I knew God had given this to me.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: I knew God was gonna bless this.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, I was gonna bless it in a different way.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to be faithful.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: If we just tell those stories of faithfulness, here's what I've done.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how I listened to God, to God, here's how I leaned in and said yes, and then he did whatever he wanted with it along the way.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think if we could, if we could have courage to see success as that and not just outcomes, we would tell different stories and we would have different results.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: One that's that changed us and the people who get to be a part of those stories.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: So come back to this.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm a faith-through an entrepreneur and listen to this.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm saying, oh that that's great, but that's that's when you really arrived that you can get there.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: And what I love about your story here is like that you're saying, like, man, it's both.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's putting on the table in how we operate our business, but it's also putting on the table with what we do with the the proceeds, the the margin, the profit, however you want to slice it of the business.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's it's inside and outside, it's not an either or it's a both and.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I want you to just kind of give context to like what if I'm a faith-driven entrepreneur and I've got, I mean, 50 bucks a month, I can get involved in compassion.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm looking to say, man, I'd love to be a part of one of these care centers, like what what's the put flesh on that?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: How much is it?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: What does it take?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: What happens with what one of these care centers?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: The faithful, faith-driven entrepreneur just simply says, Whatever I have, the time, the talent, treasure, the truth of God, I put it all on the line for Jesus.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in Jesus, just use me.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think putting flesh on a plan for strategic ministry also just looks like, hey, sit with your team today at lunch, listen to what's going on.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Take a few people out, figure out what's going on in their life.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where can you lean in and be a gospel light and an influence?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: We we love doing big things.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'd love to launch this care center.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'd love to give$50 billion next year to this cause.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be great.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, say yes to that as well.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: But say yes to your executive assistant who's struggling.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Say yes to their family member who's in the hospital, and you could go visit with them and pray over them and read scripture at their bedside.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Those are so such beautiful moments that we get to be a part of as entrepreneurs.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: To the person who's wondering, maybe God's calling me to actually commit myself to a cause or some brokenness, I would just say, say yes once.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Say yes a couple times.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: What is engaging your team?
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which which one of the initiatives have they been like, oh, I'm so excited to come into.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've been telling my family about this versus like, oh yeah, we did this thing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, ah, forget it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that's firing up your team?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: What's firing up you?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: I sat down with an entrepreneur in my life this week who's jumping in on a care center.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: He told me their culture is flourishing more than it ever has in the history of the company.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: And all because he raised his hand and he said, I'll go launch one.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'll launch one in the Philippines where we actually have team members who work for us there and we can share with them the impact that we're having in their company.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had another one, do it in Mexico for the exact same reason.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he just shared with me, I wonder if these care centers are enough of a reason for me to keep saying yes as an entrepreneur in the hard times.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's a leader who's leaned in and said, I want to exist and I want to keep going for something bigger than just my next big house, my next big distribution check.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna use everything that I've been given for the Lord to bless people and to engage my team, which is just as equally important to me as a faithful entrepreneur.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Gosh, that's powerful.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love that perspective.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: So as we come to a close here, none of us can do this alone.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're huge fans of what Mike and the team at C12 is doing.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: Just talk about just the role that community has played in your life to thinking about these things and having these plans.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: I do these uh monthly daddy date nights with my son, both of my two sons, 16-year-old and 13-year-old.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: My 16-year-old now they're called man school since he turned 16.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: So monthly man school, monthly daddy date nights with my younger son.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: And on those, we just get to go out, do something fun, have a meal together, and I always have something intentional that we're gonna talk about.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: On one of them with my older son, we were talking about community.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he's definitely, he can like I have just a few close friends, that's good enough for me.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Man, I'm so grateful for that in your life.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: I just want you to know what community looks like for me.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I just started unpacking all the onion layers that surround me with community.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, son, I have to have all these just to be healthy in life.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have my family, you guys, my wife, I have friend groups, I have my connection group, I have my C12 group that I'm a part of, I have this other entrepreneurial group, I have the this marketing forum that I'm part of, all to just keep me healthy and sane.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think that community is such a big thing.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: For me, C12 has been this beautiful one where I think as entrepreneurs, we can walk home and expect that our wife is gonna be on our board of directors and she's just gonna get it.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna get it.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, how was your day?
• 46:54
  unknown: Boom!
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you unpack all these difficult revenue things, financial things, org things, op things.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And she's just like, wow, that's that's a lot.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think for me, I learned I I can't expect my wife to always be that for she wants to be everything that I need in my life.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember the first time I've ever walked into a C12 group, and it's all these entrepreneurs struggling with the exact same things I am.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, wow, these people get me.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the key word.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think as an entrepreneur, how do we surround ourselves with a community?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get involved with groups like FDE groups where it's like these are entrepreneurs who get it?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not just on the business side, not just on the revenue side, the sales struggle side, the ops struggle side, efficiency and profits.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they actually get this thing that's also going on in my heart where I'm wondering, how might God use my business as a ministry to have both of those in the same room and to go, here's how I've done it?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you're going, that's beautiful.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: If I could only steal, I'm just gonna steal.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just try and look for people.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna steal this from you, steal this from you, steal this from you.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And with all those things comes a plan where God's like, here's here's the the beautiful, unique thing that I've given you to go and steward for my glory and the good of other people.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Community, such an important part of that journey.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: So good, so, so good.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: So grateful for the way that um yeah, God has just uh brought alive this story and how you're authentically living this out.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um just so so grateful it worked out to be here and be together.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks for being a part of this.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, such a joy.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for the invite.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are your next steps?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: Give together.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: Meet friends and discover how you can go further.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Join us on a call, and we'll give you a 30-minute overview of giving funds and how they work.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Visit solving.org to join the call today.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Pick a fund and step into the story.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Breakthroughs are happening right now.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: God is already at work, and you're invited to join him.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more, visit solving.org.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's solving.org.
• 48:54
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• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we hope that you join us in solving the world's greatest problems.