Latest / Something Extra / Scaling the Power of Human Connection w/ Aaron Sanders

Transcript

Scaling the Power of Human Connection w/ Aaron Sanders · Something Extra

0:01
Aaron Sanders: When I stepped back and started asking the question fundamentally,
0:05
what do I do that will transform communities?
0:09
I started looking at the utilization of church properties.
0:12
And what I found is that there's three hundred and sixty thousand Christian churches.
0:18
And out of those churches, they, close about four
0:22
thousand of them net annually because there's just not much utilization
0:26
anymore.
0:27
And I thought, what if we were to take these underutilized
0:32
commercial properties and utilize them to full capacity?
0:35
It would do two things.
0:37
One, generate enough income so that that community of
0:41
faith was no longer struggling and gonna have to sell their building.
0:45
And the second piece is it would create a hub of community.
0:52
Lisa Nichols: It takes something a little more to lead with impact.
0:55
I'm Lisa Nichols, author of Something Extra, and this podcast
1:00
was inspired by our daughter, Allie, whose additional chromosome has shaped
1:04
how I see people in leadership.
1:06
Each episode features conversations with inspiring leaders from around the
1:11
world about what truly defines how they lead and serve others.
1:15
If you enjoyed today's conversation, please consider leaving a five
1:19
star review.
1:20
It helps more people discover the show.
1:23
And if you'd like to go deeper, my book, Something Extra, is available on
1:27
Amazon and through other major book retailers.
1:30
I'm excited to have Erin Sanders on the show today.
1:33
Erin is the president of TN Yield Company.
1:36
Well, Erin Sanders, welcome to the Something Extra podcast.
1:39
Aaron Sanders: Thank you for having me.
1:39
Lisa Nichols: I'm so excited.
1:41
Aaron Sanders: I'm so excited.
1:42
I've been listening to, other episodes, and I just love the
1:46
creative community that you've surrounded yourself with.
1:49
So honored to be here.
1:52
Lisa Nichols: And you're gonna be a part of it now.
1:53
And I know that, I know you're gonna really inspire our
1:57
listeners.
1:58
So I always love to tell our listeners how I get connected to my
2:02
guest.
2:03
And, you know, it really kinda started with Jim Bechtold, who
2:07
I don't know that you've had met yet, but Jim connected me to Lance
2:10
Welch.
2:11
And then I talked to Lance Welch, and he said, you need to meet
2:14
my friend Aaron.
2:17
And, yeah, that's the way that it all started.
2:20
And, you live in an amazing, amazing
2:25
little community, not little, but community in Tennessee that
2:29
I told you that I love, outside of Nashville in Franklin.
2:33
Yep.
2:34
Right?
2:34
Such a cool community.
2:36
I just, I love that place.
2:38
I've done one women's retreat there at South Hall.
2:42
Oh.
2:42
And I told you it was just, I just the quaintest little town.
2:47
I just loved it.
2:47
Aaron Sanders: I love it.
2:48
So I've been here for about thirteen years and South Hall is an a
2:51
really good example.
2:52
So when I first moved here, there was one lone skinny donkey on
2:56
a hillside, and he was right where South Hall is.
2:59
And now South Hall, for those that don't know, it's just a it's a
3:02
beautiful retreat place.
3:05
But this area has grown really fast in a short period of time.
3:09
But what's fun about that is there are a lot of people of like
3:13
mind getting together and they're thinking about expansion,
3:17
not just businesses, but wealth, good families and structure around that.
3:21
So it's an exciting time to be in middle Tennessee.
3:25
Lisa Nichols: I agree.
3:26
I just love it.
3:27
I just love it.
3:30
Well, let's talk about this.
3:31
I mean, you spent sixteen years in the financial industry before you stepped
3:35
into entrepreneurship.
3:36
And I read something that you said you were highly successful, but
3:41
unfulfilled.
3:41
Aaron Sanders: Right.
3:42
Yeah.
3:42
Aaron Sanders: And it really starts, I mean, just give your listeners, like, who is this
3:46
guy?
3:47
When I was twelve years old, I was probably the most boring kid there
3:51
is.
3:51
I don't know if you remember, this will date me a little bit.
3:54
There was an AM radio station.
3:55
It was called Money Matters and it was this, this radio show
3:59
that you could get strategies.
4:01
There was no Internet back then.
4:02
So at twelve years old, I would make model airplanes and
4:06
listen to Money Matters.
4:08
By the time I was fifteen, I had saved up enough money for a
4:11
car, but I wanted my parents to cosign a loan for me because I
4:15
wanted to build credit.
4:16
At nineteen, my wife and I were married and we built our first house
4:20
because I had been strategizing since I was twelve, which
4:24
naturally that kind of nerdiness leads you into a,
4:28
successful career in finance or if you're doing anything on that that
4:32
level.
4:33
Lisa Nichols: That is incredible.
4:35
That is incredible at twelve years old that you were listening to Money
4:39
Aaron Sanders: Matters.
4:39
I got a
4:43
rubber band and throw it out.
4:45
And I had this, I got this paper route and it was in
4:49
an older neighborhood.
4:50
So fifty five plus is where you had to be to live in that
4:53
neighborhood.
4:53
And I invented a process for, leaving the paper intact
4:58
and putting it between the screen door and the main door so that when
5:00
they open their door, it just falls onto the mat in their house.
5:04
And that blew that business up three times what it was.
5:07
And so I I started my entrepreneurial bent really early
5:11
in just solving problems, which is, an entrepreneur's,
5:15
wheelhouse.
5:17
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that is so cool.
5:18
Well, I'll just tell you real quick.
5:20
I'll tell you the whole story sometime, but I started a flower business when
5:23
I was seven.
5:24
Aaron Sanders: Oh, great.
5:25
Lisa Nichols: The only problem is I took all the flowers from our neighbor's garden.
5:30
Aaron Sanders: Your supply chain was faulty.
5:33
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
5:33
My supply chain was faulty, but my cost of goods all sold were zero.
5:38
Aaron Sanders: I love the
5:39
Lisa Nichols: other thing.
5:39
Yeah.
5:40
It was going really well until my dad found out what I had done,
5:43
but that's for another day.
5:46
But yeah.
5:47
Those seeds were planted, I believe, at an early age, you know,
5:51
obviously, for both of us.
5:53
But I love what you said about your your newspaper route.
5:57
Even at that age, though, Erin, you knew that you needed to differentiate
6:02
yourself.
6:02
Aaron Sanders: Yes.
6:04
Lisa Nichols: So that was your differentiator.
6:05
That was your little something extra that you were doing on your on
6:09
your little paper route there.
6:11
I just I love that.
6:12
Aaron Sanders: So much of it was intuitive.
6:13
Now I look back and there's leadership books about all this stuff.
6:16
But as a kid, I just was solving problems, and I wanted to
6:20
sell more papers because that gave me more, candy money on a Saturday
6:24
morning.
6:25
So like that was the motive.
6:29
Lisa Nichols: That was your why.
6:31
Yes.
6:31
More candy.
6:32
Aaron Sanders: And a skateboard.
6:33
I wanted to skateboard.
6:34
And that was big at that time in life.
6:38
Lisa Nichols: That's awesome.
6:39
Well, let me I mean, you clearly felt something missing,
6:43
though, because then you did jump in you to entrepreneurship.
6:48
Many people feel that innately in their gut,
6:52
Erin, in their soul.
6:53
They feel that, but they don't have the courage to act on it.
6:56
Yeah.
6:57
Aaron Sanders: And that's where that another that theme of little something extra
7:01
comes in, I because I was driven and at twelve
7:05
years old, I was doing strategies and at sixteen, executing things that caused me
7:09
to be successful at nineteen and twenty, I by the time
7:13
I'm twenty seven, twenty eight, I have stepped up the corporate ladder, and
7:17
I'm doing really well.
7:18
I've got the five bedroom house, the three car garage.
7:21
My kids go to private school.
7:22
My wife stays at home.
7:23
You know, all of the things, but I would always scratch the itch of
7:27
Christian expression and ministry by volunteering at
7:31
my church.
7:32
I didn't wanna be paid for that, but I did child and family counseling,
7:35
some premarital counseling.
7:37
And and truly, what what broke me was a conversation I was having,
7:41
my wife and I were having with a couple, and we were doing postmarital
7:46
counseling.
7:46
So this this had been resulted in punching a hole in the wall at
7:50
one in the morning, and we helped them get their kids somewhere safe and
7:53
then started the restoration process.
7:56
And this lady said to me, it's just so amazing meeting
8:00
with you and your wife.
8:01
It's like we went through a dark forest all week, and we come out
8:04
into this bright light on Saturday when we meet with you.
8:07
But we go back into a dark forest on Monday.
8:12
And this is where I started seeing success, the resources,
8:16
the five bedroom house, the three car garage.
8:19
It didn't really buy me any kind of relational equity
8:23
to move the needle in people's lives, which actually is what mattered to me.
8:28
Resources sometimes,
8:31
more money makes a bad idea last longer.
8:34
And that's really where my corporate life had left me.
8:37
It wasn't a great idea, but the money was there and it made it
8:40
last longer.
8:42
And so my wife and I really asked ourselves the question, what do we
8:45
need to do to put ourselves in a position that we're not just,
8:50
group psychotherapy to help somebody?
8:52
What if we actually connected them to, an expression of
8:56
the kingdom of heaven that would change their lives, not just
9:00
give them a moment's reprieve on a Saturday?
9:04
And that was the nail in the coffin, if you will, for going down
9:08
that road of what eventually led to
9:13
quitting the the financial
9:15
world, selling everything we had, and moving to Nashville.
9:20
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
9:21
Yeah.
9:21
What year was that year?
9:22
Aaron Sanders: That was twenty twelve, and we moved in twenty thirteen.
9:27
Lisa Nichols: Twenty thirteen.
9:28
So you moved from Wisconsin?
9:30
Aaron Sanders: Right.
9:30
We were right on the Minnesota, Wisconsin border.
9:33
My office, everything I did was in Saint Paul, but we lived in Wisconsin,
9:37
Hudson.
9:37
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
9:39
Well, I mean, but you and I have talked about this.
9:42
God doesn't waste anything.
9:44
Aaron Sanders: Right.
9:45
That's where
9:45
Lisa Nichols: So what you had been doing in corporate, how do you think that that
9:49
was preparing you for even what you're doing today?
9:52
Aaron Sanders: Yeah.
9:52
So one of the things that I felt like, was vitally
9:57
important was utilization of commercial properties.
10:01
And that that's kinda started me down the path of asking, what am I
10:05
doing in this corporate world is four zero one k's and retirement plans and
10:09
billions of dollars of moved assets, but what are they actually doing
10:13
to help communities grow stronger?
10:16
And so then I started looking at underutilized commercial properties
10:21
as part of an investment portfolio, to to be honest.
10:25
And what I saw is that churches tend to have the most underutilized
10:30
commercial real estate.
10:32
They tend to be in the best parts of town because they were started
10:36
thirty years ago when there wasn't really much of a town there, much of
10:39
a city there, and the and the city has grown up around it, but
10:42
it sat empty most of the time.
10:44
And so when I stepped back and started asking the question fundamentally,
10:49
what do I do that will transform communities?
10:53
I started looking at the utilization of church properties.
10:56
And what I found is that there's three hundred and sixty thousand Christian churches.
11:02
And out of those churches, they, close about four
11:06
thousand of them net annually because there's just not much utilization
11:10
anymore.
11:11
And I thought, what if we were to take these
11:15
underutilized commercial properties and utilize them to full capacity?
11:19
It would do two things.
11:21
One, generate enough income so that that community of faith
11:25
was no longer struggling and gonna have to sell their building.
11:28
Aaron Sanders: Mhmm.
11:29
Aaron Sanders: And the second piece is it would create a hub of community.
11:33
Any business, as you know, whether it's flowers or newspapers, is going to have
11:37
a an audience for it.
11:38
Otherwise, you don't sell the product.
11:41
And so what if we started use using those underutilized
11:45
commercial properties in a way that facilitated
11:49
community and connection outside of what a traditional church
11:53
does Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights?
11:56
What if we use those properties to highest best use?
12:01
And that idea is what birthed where I'm at today and what I'm doing
12:05
today.
12:06
Lisa Nichols: So tell us that story.
12:07
The company name comes from the Hebrew word, Avoda.
12:11
Aaron Sanders: Yes.
12:11
Avoda.
12:12
Right?
12:12
If we're gonna be real if we're not gonna be with us about it,
12:15
it's Avoda.
12:16
But we just say
12:17
Lisa Nichols: Avoda.
12:20
Yes.
12:20
And what does that mean?
12:22
Aaron Sanders: Well, that word is a Hebrew word and it means three things simultaneously.
12:26
It means work, worship, and service.
12:30
So in the original Hebrew language, when they when
12:34
we've like, god is talking to people, he said there's one word for work,
12:39
one word that is service, and one word that is worship,
12:43
and those are three combined into one.
12:46
So that's kind of the vision of the business that was started.
12:49
How do we take what I do in my corporate world and
12:53
facilitate a community of engaged people that are there to
12:57
help one another, not just attend a church together, but what does it do
13:01
to real life?
13:03
And then the other piece that I just as a business person, I know
13:07
that I give charitably to a church, but when they take that money
13:11
and use it to do HVAC and, keep the
13:15
lights on and and mow the yard and all of those things
13:20
that have to happen seven days a week when they only use it one
13:24
day a week.
13:25
It just the ROI isn't good for me.
13:27
So I was really excited to say, what if we create an
13:31
outreach, a community hub of activity for the
13:35
for that moves the needle in the community, but also generates enough income
13:39
so that those charitable contributions now go to take care of the widows and
13:44
the poor and the fatherless, people in our community that actually need the help.
13:48
And Mhmm.
13:49
That's really the the impetus behind it.
13:52
Now I sit in and here where I'm at is a a fifty acre,
13:56
two hundred year old property in Thompson Station, Tennessee.
14:00
And the it's more it's originally, it was a vision and
14:04
an idea, but now we're actually living in it.
14:06
So there today is a beautiful day here, and our coffee shop
14:10
is operating.
14:11
We'll have about three to four thousand people a week just go through the
14:15
coffee shop.
14:16
Last year, I put two hundred and twenty thousand people through this property,
14:21
and it is a remember, it's a church property, so it it would otherwise
14:25
be closed on Sunday.
14:27
Sure.
14:28
But the community of faith here has said, no.
14:31
We love the vision of seven day a week utilization.
14:36
And we have story after story of lives being
14:40
transformed.
14:41
One of them was my favorite.
14:42
I walked through the coffee shop.
14:43
Now it's a busy Saturday and, and on here, it's in a
14:47
two hundred year old manor house.
14:49
So the house was built in eighteen nineteen.
14:52
So there's business challenges with that when you have a two
14:56
hundred year old house.
14:57
So there's just that piece.
14:59
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
15:00
Aaron Sanders: But the coffee shop is called eighteen nineteen coffee because
15:04
the house was built in eighteen nineteen.
15:06
But behind the scenes, my staff knows that Matthew eighteen nineteen says
15:10
where two or three agree as laying hands on any one thing that God
15:14
will be there.
15:15
So I have this process in the coffee shop.
15:18
It's called intentionally awkward seating.
15:21
And you can't disrupt that because I want people to have to connect
15:25
with one another, not just buy coffee.
15:28
My mission is to make them connect with one another because I know that
15:32
when you have a relationship with somebody, you are statistically
15:36
less likely to have depression, anxiety
15:39
Aaron Sanders: Yes.
15:39
Aaron Sanders: And suicide.
15:41
So the coffee shop is Matthew eighteen nineteen.
15:44
We're together and God is there.
15:46
But from a missional standpoint, I want people to get coffee
15:50
and find their friend because their friend is what's gonna prevent them from having
15:54
depression or anxiety or, ultimately suicide.
15:58
So our mission statement says we will go after double digit decrease in
16:02
depression, anxiety, and suicide by intentionally creating a space
16:07
for people to do life with because everybody deserves
16:11
a community to do life with.
16:14
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
16:14
Erin, when you started describing this to me, I just, oh,
16:18
it just so resonated in my heart.
16:21
I just love it for our and we'll put this in the show notes.
16:25
But this is a beautiful property too.
16:27
It sits on fifty acres, right, in Homestead Manor.
16:31
So I think you host weddings there, all kinds of
16:35
things.
16:35
Right?
16:35
Aaron Sanders: We started the the best compliment we've gotten is the city
16:39
of Thompson Station came to us and said, for all intents and purposes,
16:43
your property is downtown Thompson Station because there are
16:47
so many people.
16:48
You can't find parking and this is a fifty acre property and you can't
16:52
find parking at ten o'clock on any given day, because the
16:56
community is loving to be out here.
16:58
And you're right.
16:59
It is a beautiful historic property, and the house is very,
17:03
southern charm.
17:04
Right?
17:04
Big pillars and all of that.
17:06
And your guests can look in the, show notes and see that.
17:11
But, yeah, it's a it's a beautiful model.
17:13
We do weddings.
17:14
We do corporate events.
17:15
We do fireworks shows.
17:17
We do, Christmas events where we make the
17:21
holiday, got a whole holiday market onto the property in
17:25
the month of December.
17:26
So
17:29
Lisa Nichols: I mean, I'm I'm sold.
17:31
I wanna come.
17:32
I wanna come.
17:33
I wanna come and visit because I love that area anyway.
17:35
And then when you told me about this, I'm like, I am coming.
17:38
I am Well,
17:38
Aaron Sanders: once again, my my sole,
17:41
mission is to create a space where
17:45
people can find one another, where they can connect.
17:48
Really, the heart of this started.
17:50
We bought the property, and it we didn't have a lot of money and
17:53
a lot of ideas on how to move to the next spot.
17:57
So I just opened up to the farmers market.
17:59
Now this was August of twenty twenty.
18:02
So this was right in the middle of COVID time.
18:05
And so we had a a event venue that was open air, and there
18:09
were I thought, I'm gonna call the farmers market people because they were meeting
18:13
in a grass area around the corner out in the sun, and August in
18:16
Tennessee is not a place to be in the open air.
18:20
And so I called them and said, hey, would you guys wanna come into
18:23
our beautiful event barn and have your farmers market?
18:26
And they said, we would love to, but we don't have any money.
18:29
And I said, well, we've got that in common that we don't have money.
18:33
So we're just trying to figure out what to do with this property.
18:35
Would you come and just bring some life to it?
18:37
And that first day, there were seven straggling vendors that came in
18:42
and set up shop.
18:43
I'll never I set tables up outside, and a little lady was sitting at
18:47
the table, and she had gotten some food from a food truck.
18:51
And another lady came and timidly said, you know, there's no more seating.
18:54
Can I sit with you?
18:56
And when they sat down, an hour later, I saw them still talking with
18:59
each other.
19:00
And so I went over and I said, I just wanna say that you
19:02
blessed me that during COVID that you were two talking with each other.
19:06
And I'll never forget this.
19:07
The lady looked at me and she started crying.
19:09
And she said, I moved here from New Jersey and then COVID hit.
19:12
And I have no friends.
19:14
I have no connections.
19:15
And today I just met a friend and I find that we knit.
19:19
We both knit.
19:21
Six months later, there are forty five vendors and
19:25
they're the, the plot property's going.
19:27
And I see the two ladies again, and they had formed a bond and
19:31
a friendship.
19:32
And it's out of that, that I created the eighteen nineteen coffee shop.
19:37
Lisa Nichols: That is such a beautiful story.
19:38
Well, Aaron, I say this all the time.
19:41
You curate rooms where people come together and magic
19:45
happens.
19:45
Aaron Sanders: Exactly.
19:46
Lisa Nichols: I'll tell you,
19:48
on a much smaller scale.
19:49
But when I launched my book, I we had a book launch party at
19:53
a beautiful venue that my team had found.
19:56
And, you know, it was an eclectic group of people, just a diverse
20:00
group of people, some business colleagues, some, from ministry,
20:04
just friends, right, that came to the, the book launch party.
20:09
And these two ladies came up to me afterwards.
20:11
Both of them had been widowed, and they met at the book launch
20:15
party.
20:16
And they said, we just met.
20:18
We love each other, and we're gonna start cruising together.
20:22
Aaron Sanders: Love it.
20:22
Aaron Sanders: Yes.
20:24
Lisa Nichols: I just it was, like, one of the highlights of my night just saying,
20:28
oh my goodness.
20:29
Bringing these people together.
20:31
Bring people together, curate those rooms and magic happens.
20:34
Aaron Sanders: People are just innately amazing if you give them
20:38
the chance to have a safe place to be.
20:41
How often have you had the conversation with that friend who is just a
20:44
safe place for you, and you leave feeling so refreshed even though they didn't
20:48
solve any problems?
20:50
And that if we can if we can create a scale for that,
20:54
to me, that's what the the believer, a Christian expression should be.
20:58
Like, we should be able to find those relationships.
21:01
And I don't want a barrier of a church service at ten
21:05
AM on a Sunday morning to prevent somebody from having that friendship.
21:09
So I built a business around it, and it seems like we're
21:13
Lisa Nichols: I love it.
21:14
Well, I have lots more questions for you, but we do need to take
21:17
a quick break, and we'll be right back with Aaron Sanders on the Something
21:20
Extra podcast.
21:22
AD: Hey there.
21:22
In a challenging business climate like this, savvy leaders look to technology to
21:26
find an edge.
21:27
This can mean the difference between staying ahead of the curve or playing catch
21:31
up.
21:31
It's time to collaborate with the highly skilled experts at Technology Partners.
21:35
Our team of technologists draws upon decades of experience
21:40
for your project.
21:40
With each bringing a passion for solving problems and a track record of success,
21:43
how can we help you overcome your biggest technology challenges?
21:47
Visit technology partners dot net to book a free consultation with one of our
21:50
leaders.
21:52
Lisa Nichols: So welcome back to the Something Extra podcast, everyone, with Aaron Sanders.
21:55
So, Aaron, you started
21:58
Avada Holdings in twenty twenty.
22:02
What were the biggest unknowns at the time that you were facing?
22:06
Aaron Sanders: So I think the biggest challenge we had is getting people to
22:10
buy into a vision that a church property
22:14
would be a seven day a week thing.
22:16
What people have this sacred and secular concept,
22:21
that that's why I chose that word, aboda.
22:23
It's because it's work, worship, and service.
22:25
It's only one word, but it's same thing that happens on Sunday and Monday.
22:29
So the real challenge was, one, getting the community to understand
22:33
that this is a church property, but it's not gonna behave
22:37
like a church property.
22:39
So we have something locally here called the Spring
22:43
Hill I Heart It.
22:44
And I don't know why it's called Spring Hill I Heart It, but it's
22:48
a Facebook group.
22:50
And as you know with any kind of social media group, they have opinions
22:54
about almost everything.
22:56
And we this church group had bought a Jewel
23:00
of Williamson County fifty acre historic property that everybody
23:05
felt like they owned anyway because it's just a beautiful part of history.
23:09
And we got blasted on social media because a church
23:13
bought it.
23:14
And you know what they would say?
23:15
A church bought it.
23:15
That means we're all gonna lose access to this beautiful place that we never
23:19
get to go because churches typically shut their properties down.
23:23
And so we had the the biggest challenge we had is to grin and
23:26
bear it and prove a model that is different.
23:29
And after about a year, all of those messages
23:34
on Facebook and those net the naysayers were fans
23:38
because
23:39
Lisa Nichols: Became positive.
23:40
That's cool.
23:41
That's awesome.
23:42
Yeah.
23:43
Well, let talk to me about this.
23:45
You talk about creating friendship bench spaces, and we've already talked
23:49
about this a little bit.
23:50
But, that term, I guess, comes from Zimbabwe.
23:54
Aaron Sanders: Yeah.
23:54
I was this was fifteen years ago, and I had finished
23:59
my work day and was on the drive home.
24:00
And I heard NPR had a a special where they were talking about Zimbabwe
24:05
and the the challenges they had with depression, anxiety, and suicide.
24:09
Initially, they said we're gonna hire psychologists to go and counsel people
24:14
in the nation of Zimbabwe, but they didn't have enough money to do that.
24:17
So they got one psychologist who went village to village, and he would
24:21
train the elders to sit and listen, not solve problems,
24:25
just to sit in the middle of the village and listen to people.
24:29
And they would leave a bench in this the village after they train the
24:32
elders, and the elders would sit on that bench.
24:35
Now after a year, they had double digit decreases in
24:39
depression, anxiety, and suicide nationwide in Zimbabwe.
24:43
And you can Google this.
24:44
There's a a paper or you can chat DBT and that's the AI thing
24:48
that we're moving to.
24:50
It's called Zimbabwe Friendship Bench Project, and it's out there.
24:54
So white paper on it and explaining why it works.
24:57
But that's the model that we decided to choose.
24:59
When you have fifty acres of a beautiful green space and a mile
25:03
long trail throughout, we put friendship benches out and
25:08
we staff up extra on our business model
25:12
and we staff up on our church model to just walk around and visit
25:16
with people.
25:16
If you're sitting on a bench, you're gonna find a friend.
25:20
Lisa Nichols: That's so beautiful.
25:21
I love that.
25:23
Now I want to put friendship benches everywhere.
25:27
Aaron Sanders: What's what's beautiful about that is we've just had a tragedy in our community.
25:31
So,
25:33
a business two business leaders in our community were flying into
25:37
Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and they ended up they're following
25:41
their GPS right into a mountain, and it and it killed the business leaders,
25:45
two of them.
25:46
And his son and his nephew were in the plane as well.
25:50
And they were an integral part of this community.
25:52
I mean, they there's they're part of the vision.
25:54
And so we we just had to, close the door on their life
25:58
yesterday at a at a ceremony.
26:01
But the young adults were twenty one years old, and their community
26:05
of young adults that have been doing bible study and life together actually
26:09
got together.
26:10
One of them has started a business that does metal work, and they're
26:14
all put chipping their money in together to put friendship benches
26:18
in honor of their friends that are fallen.
26:21
And they're gonna have a whole process where the young adults watch on those
26:24
friendship benches to make sure that the legacy of their friends continues to go,
26:28
that they have friends and connection.
26:30
So it's not only just a business model to to have that.
26:35
It's a community piece where everybody gets to pull together.
26:39
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
26:39
And so beautiful.
26:41
You know, and I think I mean, kinda to your point, I mean,
26:46
Erin, I I read all about that and have
26:51
a slight connection, with Taylor Husky,
26:55
through CEO Forum.
26:57
But,
26:59
yeah, I think modern society, though, I think is starving,
27:04
really, for real connections
27:06
and real friends.
27:07
I mean, things have become so digital, and I'm grateful for technology because
27:11
you can keep up with people across the miles.
27:14
But,
27:16
I worry Yeah.
27:17
Especially about this generation
27:19
Aaron Sanders: and And that's
27:20
Lisa Nichols: what really understanding.
27:21
Aaron Sanders: That's really what I saw happening.
27:23
So I've I'm old enough now that I've got three grandchildren.
27:26
I've had a my granddaughter born two days ago, so that was,
27:30
my one Congratulations.
27:31
So fun.
27:32
But I started seeing a trend pattern when I talk about three hundred sixty
27:36
thousand Christian churches.
27:37
And, if I'm gonna be a believer, a Christian person,
27:41
then I believe that those principles are to transform the world that I live
27:45
in, not just to make me feel better about myself.
27:48
But I see this trend of church properties
27:52
and and all these fun things that I just described to you not happening
27:57
across the country.
27:58
And so why my motivation in that is what am I
28:02
leaving for the next generation to have what you're talking about as AI progresses?
28:07
And I love AI.
28:08
I've used it for a lot of things.
28:10
I think that technology is amazing, but it's gonna be more and more vital
28:14
that you have a community hub of connection.
28:17
And I see that gathering on a Sunday is not growing the way that
28:21
it will be there to support my grandchildren.
28:24
I pour everything into this to revitalize that.
28:27
I say I'm planting seeds for trees that I will never live long enough
28:30
to be under.
28:32
Lisa Nichols: One of my favorite quotes, and that's precisely what you're doing.
28:36
That's the legacy, Erin, that you're gonna leave behind.
28:39
But you you talk a lot about stewardship versus ownership.
28:44
I love that because I
28:47
I talk that way too.
28:48
But what is the difference?
28:50
Aaron Sanders: So I look at it as
28:53
I have a a mindset as a Christian of I'm
28:57
advancing an outlet of the kingdom of heaven.
29:00
The the Bible talks about you you I want your will, God, to
29:04
be done on earth just like it is done in heaven.
29:07
And for me, that means I'm stewarding something that
29:11
is, owned by an entity that I work for
29:15
or I serve, and it's not a corporate entity like it used to be.
29:19
I look at the kingdom of heaven owns all things, and I
29:23
am an aboda.
29:24
I do stewarding down here to make sure that everything
29:29
advances the ideology of the kingdom of heaven, and that is, at its base,
29:34
love.
29:34
This is why we train our baristas to, instead of making it
29:38
weird, sometimes Christians can make things weird.
29:41
I speak to that as as a Christian who has made things weird.
29:44
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
29:45
Aaron Sanders: Not throwing stones.
29:46
But one of the things I tell our baristas is I
29:50
want you to tell that person write something on the cup that's just
29:54
one word, two words, something like that, and just tell them, when I ask
29:58
what the purest love says about you, I just wrote that word on the
30:02
cup and hand that to them.
30:03
Make their day.
30:04
Right?
30:05
Blow gold on them from that standpoint.
30:07
But you don't have to make it weird because God is the purest of
30:10
love.
30:11
The the kingdom of heaven is an outlet of a franchise of love on
30:15
the earth.
30:16
So why can't we just not make it weird and just say, this is
30:19
what if I think of love and you, this is what I think of,
30:22
and it'll change people's lives.
30:25
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
30:26
That's so beautiful.
30:27
Well, I was gonna ask you because I do I subscribe to what you
30:30
just said.
30:31
Sometimes it can be weird.
30:33
But, you know, how can you live out your faith
30:37
without being performative or preachy to people?
30:40
And that is one way to do it.
30:42
Right?
30:42
Just those subtle little things.
30:44
Aaron Sanders: Yeah.
30:44
This this, I started telling a story earlier, but I'll swing swing back to
30:48
it.
30:48
It was a busy Saturday, and there's people all over the place.
30:50
And I was walking through and somebody said, hey.
30:53
Do you work here?
30:53
And I said, absolutely.
30:54
What can I do for you?
30:56
And she said, can you explain the magic of this place to me?
31:00
And I said, well, you have to help me understand what you mean by
31:03
the term magic.
31:04
What are we talking about?
31:05
And she said, well, the magic is two days ago, I came to this
31:09
property for the first time.
31:10
And when I pulled off the road and my tires hit the rocks, I
31:14
just started sobbing and I couldn't stop.
31:16
She said my makeup was destroyed and I just wanted coffee,
31:20
but I felt just this overwhelming,
31:24
tears.
31:25
I couldn't stop it.
31:26
And she said, turned to the table and she said, today, I brought my
31:29
family here and I want them to experience the magic because
31:33
we have a really challenging subject to discuss as a family,
31:37
but I wanted to discuss it in the magic that made me cry.
31:41
And I said to her, are you a believer?
31:43
And she said, no, I'm not.
31:45
I said, well, I can bring you to five employees right now.
31:47
And I wouldn't tell them, what, prep them.
31:51
I would just say, what do you pray will happen when wheels hit the
31:54
rocks?
31:55
Because it's a prayer we pray every day when we open our property.
31:58
And the answer to that would be, we pray that you would encounter
32:02
the purest love, that you would encounter God when you drive onto this property.
32:07
And so what you experienced, the magic that you experienced is the purest love.
32:10
And he just wrapped his arms around you.
32:13
And I turned back to her and she's crying and she says, well, maybe
32:16
I'm a believer and I just didn't know it.
32:19
So that's the covert.
32:22
Don't make it That's awesome.
32:23
Don't make it weird.
32:24
Just absolutely live out your faith and structure your
32:28
my business models around intentionally awkward seating and rocks
32:32
that tinkle.
32:33
And that means, like, my my maintenance people know I
32:37
don't wanna hit a pothole when I come here.
32:40
Well, why?
32:41
Because that person's being transported.
32:43
I I anticipate every person having that kind of an encounter.
32:47
And have you ever hit a pothole and it snaps you out of everything?
32:50
I don't need that.
32:51
So my my maintenance people know their avoda
32:55
is to make sure there is never a pothole.
32:58
That there is
32:58
Lisa Nichols: No pothole.
32:59
Aaron Sanders: No pothole.
33:00
The grass
33:00
Lisa Nichols: No pothole.
33:02
No potholes allowed.
33:03
Yes.
33:03
Aaron Sanders: And the grass is mowed nicely and the garbage is picked up and it
33:06
looks pristine because God is gonna do his part to encounter them.
33:10
We're gonna do our co laboring part to make sure that nothing interrupts it.
33:15
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
33:16
Aaron, I could not love what you're doing more.
33:18
I truly couldn't.
33:20
I've got a little lightning round here for you, of questions.
33:24
We could go on and on and on, but maybe we'll have to do
33:27
a part two.
33:29
Are you reading any kind of leadership?
33:31
Are you a reader or a listener?
33:32
Aaron Sanders: I am a audiobook listener.
33:35
So I I have found that I need to do two to three x
33:38
speed, and I can listen to a lot of stuff.
33:41
Lisa Nichols: Right.
33:41
Right.
33:42
Is there one in particular that you've listened to recently that you would
33:46
recommend to our listeners?
33:47
Aaron Sanders: Yeah.
33:47
I think that this is an annual read for me, and I'm in the
33:50
process of going through it right now.
33:53
And it is You Are the Placebo, and it's,
33:58
trying to think of the author.
34:01
Lisa Nichols: You Are the Placebo?
34:02
Aaron Sanders: You Are the Placebo.
34:04
Lisa Nichols: And it's really And you read this annually.
34:06
Aaron Sanders: Yes.
34:06
I
34:06
Aaron Sanders: read it annually.
34:08
And, it is an amazing book that helps you to understand
34:12
your thoughts actually create your environment.
34:15
And they're they're it's a very,
34:21
psychological way of saying, just take your thoughts captive and make sure that they
34:25
are not driving you and you are driving your thoughts.
34:28
So it's so much creativity in these expressions, even like the
34:32
double digit decrease in depression, anxiety, and suicide, that came from a,
34:37
meditation time in the manor house asking what
34:41
can I do that will will bring people into a place
34:45
to get connection?
34:47
And so slowing down and realizing a lot of the answers are in the
34:51
six inches between your ears, but it's so loud that you don't slow down
34:55
long enough to Mhmm.
34:57
Joe Dispenza is the author of that book.
35:00
Lisa Nichols: Joe Dispenza.
35:01
Okay.
35:02
That's awesome.
35:03
Thank you for sharing that.
35:05
Hopefully, next time I ask you, you're gonna say something extra.
35:07
Aaron Sanders: Yeah.
35:08
There you go.
35:08
I actually I I do have the book.
35:11
It's ordered.
35:12
I don't have it in in hand, but I loved hearing the
35:16
concepts through all of your podcast.
35:17
So I'm so excited to read the book.
35:20
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
35:20
Thank you, Erin.
35:23
There's another one around mindset that I'm just gonna mention that I've been
35:27
reading, that the listeners might want to pick up as well.
35:30
And, Erin, maybe you've already read it, but time your thoughts.
35:33
Aaron Sanders: I have not read that.
35:34
Lisa Nichols: I'm at potato.
35:35
No.
35:36
That's the one I'm reading right now.
35:38
And it's, I mean, completely what you just said resonates with
35:42
me too because it starts right here.
35:44
Right?
35:45
So what we put in there and, you know, and then there's eighteen inches
35:49
between your head and your heart.
35:52
Aaron Sanders: Yeah.
35:52
And sometimes that's the longest eighteen inches.
35:54
I I know things here
35:56
Aaron Sanders: Amen.
35:56
Aaron Sanders: But I don't live them from my and that was really the change and
36:00
the transformation of why I quit the corporate world and started doing what I'm
36:03
doing now.
36:04
It it finally made it from here to here.
36:07
Lisa Nichols: Yeah, for sure.
36:10
A daily habit that grounds you.
36:12
Aaron Sanders: So every if my staff is listening to this, they're gonna just roll their
36:15
eyes, but I have three strategies every day that I do.
36:19
And I actually require not just my children to do it, but employees.
36:23
You're gonna do spiritual development every day.
36:25
You're gonna do physical development every day, and you're gonna do mental development
36:29
every day.
36:30
So that means you might take some meditation time.
36:32
You might take some physical move your body because the endorphins need to get
36:37
functioning.
36:37
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
36:37
Aaron Sanders: And then you're gonna learn something new every day.
36:40
And I challenge people to learn something outside of your sphere
36:44
because it was a couple of guys in a bike shop that
36:49
solved the flight issue.
36:50
Right?
36:50
They they're the ones that outside of their industry, they
36:54
had revelation that's that solved the issue that the flight
36:59
industry was working on.
37:01
So as a rule, breakthrough comes outside of your
37:06
framework.
37:07
So learn something outside of your framework.
37:09
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
37:11
I love it.
37:11
Well, I could keep going on and on.
37:13
I've got lots more lightning questions, but we're running up against the clock here.
37:17
I have to ask you.
37:18
This is called something extra.
37:20
Aaron, what's the something extra that every leader needs?
37:23
Aaron Sanders: So there's something extra that I think we are taught, especially
37:27
in the industry that I was in, to be risk averse.
37:31
We we strategize around it.
37:33
We buy insurance around it to make sure that we don't have that risk.
37:36
The problem is that as a Christian business person,
37:41
I faith is the center of everything I do.
37:43
And if I look through the Bible and I see faith, it looks a
37:47
lot like risk.
37:49
And so I'm trying to change my language.
37:52
The something extra is to take faith, not just as a concept,
37:57
but as an an application, that substance of things hoped
38:01
for, but the evidence of things that just not seen.
38:05
And that's risky.
38:06
So every business leader that you can extrapolate this down
38:10
to, you just need to be more comfortable with risk
38:15
because that's where the beauty is.
38:16
It's messy.
38:17
Family's risky.
38:18
Taking having kids and, and getting married is all risky,
38:23
but it's beautiful when it's done.
38:26
Lisa Nichols: Right?
38:27
That's so good.
38:28
I've never had anyone say that out of three hundred and seventy
38:32
seven gust.
38:33
So thank you.
38:34
I love it.
38:35
Woo.
38:36
Alright.
38:36
Erin, this has been so much fun.
38:38
Thank you so much for spending some time with us today, and I just
38:42
know that your story is gonna help our listeners.
38:44
Aaron Sanders: I really appreciate you posting this and pulling this community together, Lisa.
38:49
Announcer: Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
38:53
Copyright Technology Partners Inc.
38:55
Twenty nineteen.
38:56
To learn more about this week's guest, check out the show notes at tpi
39:00
dot co slash podcast.
39:02
If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a review.
39:06
Thank you for listening to Something Extra.