God's Plan for Your Work: Faith Insights From Contractors

Hey, everybody, it's Jim Johnson, your host, and I am super excited to introduce the folks that are going to be on here today for our podcast. I don't know, about a week and a half ago or so, there was a post made on social media that unusually drew my attention. It was about this concept of work and, and how we perceive it and what it might mean to each of us as individuals and really particularly this individual. And as soon as I saw him, like, what a great topic for a podcast, and so I reached out to him and I'm going to bring him in right now. Hey, Chris, welcome to the show, man. It is good to have you on. You're the one that started this whole thing and it was all about work and, and stealing. Like there was stealing involved and there was work. So, so good to have you on, on the show.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I. It's funny, I think when you get really good at building organic content and with what we do in this industry, right. We work with contractors. If you, if you put a really nice headline on something and you'll grab some people's attention. But this writing that I did literally just came from my heart in the moment. Like, I was no thought to it. I just, I sat down and I just. And I'm happy to share, you know, what I wrote. And I think it literally did start with I stole something yesterday. Nothing stopped me and I feel zero guilt or something. No, not to, you know, kind of like quote myself, but I think that's how it started. So I believe that it probably got a lot of attention.

It did. It was like that, like I stole something. All right, what did he steal? Like he's.

And I don't look. And what's that? The. The what commandment says thou shall not steal? Right. Yeah.

Right away. You just broke one of them right away. That was awesome. But there was this like, that was an attention grabbing headline or a hook. And I'm like, oh, he stole some kind of secret from somebody. He's going to share it with everybody. I would read what kind of guru bull crap he's putting out there today. And then it got really serious. I don't want you to share it just yet. But then one of, one of our other good friends steps in and he has some comments about. I'm going to bring him in right now. Mike Goldenstein. Mike, welcome to the show, man. Good to have you on board.

Oh, I'm excited for this one.

Yes. Like you had some really good comments right away on it. And I'm like, I know that guy. And I know that guy. This is going to be a great topic if we talk about it. And I messaged on the. I made a comment on the post, said, hey, guys, you want to do a podcast? You're both like, yeah, let's do it, let's do it. And then I went, okay, so who is the most philosophical person I know that's also annoying? Oh, my right hand man, Nathan. I'm like, I gotta invite him to this conversation because he's going to have a lot of input on what work looks like. And so welcome to the show, Nathan. Good to have you on board, buddy.

See what I mean?

Annoying. This is going to be an amazing conversation, I think. And so in order to kind of set this up a little bit, the title of this podcast is what is Work? And it came from your post there, Chris. So in order to start this off on the right foot and bring everybody into the conversation, would you take just a few seconds to read that post through to kind of set the scene?

Absolutely. And I'll frame it up with. I think I. I took a really. I don't know if we'll have the post up here, maybe an image that'll just pop up, but this was the image, and I think I. Let me see if I can find it over here. And I took it kind of at an angle, and I had the. You could tell I was working in a hotel, right? It was early in the morning, kind of nice shadow. So I think the image itself drove plenty of tension as well. So I'll just read this for you very quickly. So I said, I stole something yesterday. Nothing stopped me and I felt zero guilt. Randy Hurtado, he's down in Granbury, Texas. DT Homes. Great, great family down there. Before our training, from way across the room, I spotted a few Bibles that you had stacked up. See, I was doing a training down there, and I saw a bunch of these Bibles in the back of the room, and they were, like, wrapped. And I was like, oh, they must be for any of us just to take and have one, or maybe they give them to their clients, right? So I grabbed one and I put it in my bag. You see, I. I needed a new Bible because I had been borrowing my wife's Bible, which is right here. That's my wife's Bible. And I said, hey, thanks. And I said, you know, listen, it's time to do the work. And I put it in quotes. And I think that's really where that got me on the line of talking about work. So we started the home improvement contractor training off with Bible study in the morning, where his pastor came in. And this is really where the whole topic actually came from. So in yesterday's Bible study study, prior to the training, we were discussing the word work with your pastor. At the end of our group, I pulled him aside, I said, you should have a sermon on work someday. He was like, well, what do you mean? And I explained, well, some people wake up in the morning and say, oh, I have to go to work, or, ugh, I have to get to work, right? Like, that whole, I have to go to work, I have to get to work, right? And I believe that work can be a few different things, right? The definition, the term, it's maybe what we do to make money. Maybe it's what we do to share the word, right? The Bible, or what we do each day to improve the lives of others. So even though I feel the frustrations of work sometimes and the pressures that it gets to me as an entrepreneur, which is a lot, by the way, I love getting to work. Like, I'm exuberant about it. I have a passion for what I do. I. I try to share the word in my actions each day, and I'm working to improve the lives of others. That is how I define work. In Philippians 2, 12, 13, the Greek word gaius is translated as work. And it means to continually work, to bring something to fulfillment or completion. I'm excited to get to work today, exclamation point. I have a blessed and. Have a blessed and an amazing day from Dell. So that was really kind of summarizing the DT trip, the Bible study, meeting his pastor, saying, hey, this would be kind of a cool sermon, right? Talking about the word work. And then I did a little bit of a study to see where the word Greek came from. And that's what I ended up with. Which, you know, ironically enough, in this industry, as masculine as we all seem, and for some odd reason, people are like, I can't believe that you can just openly talk about your faith this way. I love it because this is really solidifies the circle of people that we've created in our circle. And then oddly enough, throughout this particular day, and it might be the reticular activating service system ras, but everybody, it popped up. Corey Combs was in some place, and he popped up where he was talking about his faith. And then we had Tommy Mello that got baptized, and he was talking about it, and it was a literal circle. Akuma matata of like everything happening oddly on social media, that the blessings were happening all over the place this day. So, like, not that I started it, but this is how we started our day. And I just wanted to kind of share that message of, you know, what his work. So that's, that's where it all started. That's why we're here.

Well, yeah. First thing that grabbed my attention was that the training you were doing started off with. It sounds like a Bible study.

Yeah. In the room was full.

Yeah.

At 8, you know, 7:59 in the morning, the room was full. Everybody had their. Their Bible and it was, it was serious. It wasn't like.

And it's not the only company I know of like that there's actually several. It's surprising considering what I knew about the industry 25 years ago to 20 years ago to 10 years ago to 5 to now. It's like this progression of being able to be a little bit more open about our faith, which can repel or attract people. These types of posts tend to attract a guy like me.

Right.

And so that was the first thing I noticed, that there was a Bible study involved in a training. Okay, that's pretty cool. And then there was Bibles sitting out for people to take, not necessarily steal, which was super cool. I was like, hey, that's a really good idea, Randy. Well done. And I want to give a shout out to Randy just that he is willing and able and capable of doing those type of things. The other thing that drew my attention was there was a pastor there. It wasn't just a bunch of roofer guys. And the guy's pastor was there to lead this thing, which I thought was pretty amazing. I was also a little surprised that he was caught off guard by a sermon on work. I was expecting, like, hey, maybe he's done one of those before. So we might talk about that a little bit today. But the thing that I noticed more than anything else was your tone about work. Not that this I have to or I gotta or that kind of thing, but man, I get to. You're excited about it. And that has probably a lot to do with your passion for what it is that you do, but maybe also some passion for the, the people you get to work with, in effect, and provide value to. Yeah, so that was kind of my impression. Mike, how about you? Like you, you read the thing before I did. You actually commented before me, which is one of the reasons why I actually commented was you had a. You had your own unique view, as usual. So what about you?

Yeah, I Just was wondering why you, what led you to grab the men's Bible instead of the women's Bible when.

You had.

If you had read. I mean, I said I had been using my wife's Bible, so I was already using a woman.

So you already got the woman's perspective and now I got. Okay, all right, I missed that part of it. But you're right, I do remember you were saying that.

So.

No, it's, it's, it's fun when you start talking about this and, and you know, and my, especially when we're, we're, we're all a little bit used to traveling a lot and, and we're surrounded by very, you know, type A driven entrepreneurs and trying to figure out what does that mean to your home life and your family life and if we are created for work, if God has created us for work, and yet how quickly that can spin out of control. We appreciate what we do and enjoy what we do, but there's tensions and that's what Nathan and I talk about a lot. There's a tension to it that you can corrupt that experience as well.

Nathan, how about you? I know you've read through it a few times now at this point, what, what caught your attention?

I liked, I like the, the positive affirmation that work, that work is something we're supposed to do. That's like, we were built for it, we're meant to do it. And you know, you, you can impact how much you enjoy it or your fulfillment from it based on your attitude around it too. And so I liked, I like the idea of making, making a positive choice. Sometimes, sometimes it's really, really difficult to do. And sometimes we don't even necessarily have a choice in how positive our work is or that environment. The amount of choices we have, especially as it relates to this, are very uniquely Western. Like that's the idea that we have a choice to work and where to work and when to. Like all that is, that's, that's. This is potentially the first time in the history of mankind where people have had choice around this versus just being told or kept where they're supposed to be. So I liked the idea of, you know, getting to work and having that feel to it and the acknowledgement of it too.

Yeah, I like the vulnerability of it. Like, hey, let's have a conversation about this. But here's, here's the big thing that hit me in my head because I know Chris pretty well. Chris is non stop. I mean, it's a thousand miles an hour. All the time, Mike. About 999 miles an hour. All the time. I'm probably fine telling me slow.

I just.

A lot slower than you. Right. And. But we. You mentioned entrepreneurs and who they are and. And the inherent aspect of it, that there's some hard work involved. How much should we work?

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's really encouraged. Like, so you got to take the Bible in its. Its entirety. Right? You've heard me talk about this a lot, Jim. You know, you can go into the Bible, you can pick out whatever verses you want to back up your point of view. And even if you take one person, like, let's just take Solomon, if you read through Proverbs, you're going to be sitting there going, man, am I, sluggard? I got to pick it up. I mean, there's all this condemnation to the person that won't work. I mean, I mean, it's just, dude, if you. If you are not working, shame on you. You know, I will tell you where to go. And then by the time you get to the next book, that's Ecclesiastes. There's a little bit about the, you know, positive of work, and yet now it's saying it's all meaningless. It's a chasing after the wind and talking about the, you know, getting out of control with the amount of work that you do and what you're trying to accomplish, and it doesn't mean anything anyway. So there is a balance to what you're trying to do. And you can find very specific pictures of it, you know, depending on whether you go to Proverbs or to Ecclesiastes, and it's written by the same guy.

May I interject?

Yeah, go ahead. There's a conversation, man. We're buddies, but go ahead to your point.

21, 25 proverbs. Ready? Lazy people who refuse to work are only killing themselves. All they do is think about what they'd like to have. The righteous, however, can give and give generously.

Exactly.

I mean, I read one the other day, and it got me in the hot water with my wife. It was about. And I can't remember where it came from. And it was about how a woman does this and a woman does this for her home, and she does this and she does that.

She's like.

And I'm reading it to her. I'm like, this is amazing. She's like, am I not doing enough around here? Oh, I'm sharing the word with you. She goes, do you not think I'm doing it? You know, because no, you're doing enough. I just thought this was interesting.

Yeah.

Proverbs 18:9. The one who is slack in his work is a brother to one who destroys. Honey, I'm telling you, your laziness is like a person who is destroying the home.

Oh, my goodness. I knew this was gonna be. It took us all of 5 minutes to get off the rails. Perfect.

Serious. I just was reading. It was just. And I liked sometimes just open it up. And whatever I read is what came to me for the day. And she was in the kitchen, and, you know, we were just getting ready to get the start because we worked together. And I just read it to her, and she just, you know, took the meaning out of it. She's like, am I not doing enough? I'm like, no, you're. You're a rock star. Are you kidding me? You get to work with me every day.

Well, I, I, I think that's a great point that we tend to hone in on a verse that fulfills what we perceive to be a thing, whatever it may be. Yeah. A rule to follow, a way to work, what prosperity is, like, all these various different things. And we go, oh, this is it. Because that's the word, right? Like that verse or that even sometimes a section of a, Of a book or a whole book. But, Mike, you brought it up. Like, we have to look at the Bible as a whole of what this instruction is when it comes to work. And the first example that comes to me was God. Like, what is. What did work look like in Genesis? And he worked passionately for six days to create what we have here. We can have all kinds of argument about that kind of stuff, but he worked passionately about this thing that he cared deeply for. And then he rested. He took some rest, which is why your wife. We'll talk about that in a minute. But why your wife insisted on a bit of rest.

So let's, let's finish that thought, though, right? Because we just said, you know, what, What Solomon said, you know, it's brother to the guy who destroys. And yet the very next chapter, well, it's in the next. In Ecclesiastes. So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous. To me, all of it is meaningless, a chasing after the winds. What does a man really get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun all his days? His work is pain and grief. Even at night, his mind does not rest. This too, is meaningless. So you got the same Guy. And so. And it presents a very, you know, dichotomous relationship between mankind and work. I liked what. We had a discussion on it a little bit earlier, too, in that something changed, Right. Because when did work start? Nathan, can you talk about that? Like, so in the very beginning, Adam and Eve in a garden of perfection, work actually existed.

Yeah. So.

Work.

Work has always existed. And honestly, I think that I'm feeling this context of work being vocational mostly around this conversation. But I can tell you right now, if you've got kids and you get home from work, are you done working? You are not done working, right? And then on a weekend when you're not talking to clients like, are you done working? Nope. Because yard has weeds in it. Yard, lawn needs to be mowed. You got to go fix a shelf. You know, there's other things that have to be done. I mean, even the things we enjoy doing require work. You want to go for a hike or you want to go fishing, and you're looking for that, like, remote stream, and you got to hoof it back there. You want to. You want to go skiing, you want to, you know, just about. You want to go play golf. I mean, almost everything requires some effort of some kind. And if you. If you just take the real literal definition of work, which is both a noun and a verb, okay. Almost everything is work of one kind or another. It's an exertion of energy toward an end, for the most part. And. Excuse me. Work. Work started right at the beginning. God created Adam, and he created Eve, put them in this garden and said, your job is to tend this garden. So, I mean, and the next thing that happened were taxes. I'm just kidding. They got put in this garden, and they were supposed to work right from the get go.

Yeah.

Okay. And then somewhere around chapter three, right. Something changed about work. And now all of a sudden, work was not necessarily a 100% pursuit of purpose and joy and passion, and it did not perfectly yield the desired results any longer. Now, all of a sudden, there was toil, there was pain, there was failure. There was probably some destruction involved. There was There, like, work all of a sudden. Work all of a sudden became manifestation of an.

Of.

Of idolatry and had the opportunity to become that thing and that now all of a sudden, instead of applying our work and obedience to God in this garden, now all of a sudden, we can spend all of our energy and effort and lifeblood and pursuits of. On things that satisfy us somehow.

Hmm. So the thing that changed, was it selfishness, pride? What what stepped in the way?

Yeah, sin. I mean, the God cursed the ground according to Genesis, and now it was no longer. It was no longer like every. Like Adam or Adam had a green thumb everywhere he turned. Now all of a sudden, things. Things might not go exactly according to plan. Something may not grow. Or maybe God immediately created dandelions.

But think of that like in, you know, going back to Chris, where when you were working hard, but having the results and just results and results. Like having. Having a job in the beginning, in the. You know, where there is no corruption or curse, where things are efficient and effective and there's growth and, like, there's nothing holding you back to where now there's a striving, There's a. There's grievous nature to this. And with no results sometimes. And I'm sure you're experiencing a lot of that, you're in the grind right now, you know, and. And there isn't the results. There's. There's risk to what we do and what we, you know, put our time into.

Yeah, for sure.

But you said. You said the word. That is a hot button or a word that just drives me batty. The grind. We're in the grind. And I think another word for that might be toil, right? Like, hey, it's difficult on a daily basis. And I don't like that word. I don't use that word in my own vocabulary. I don't like if. If what I have to do is a grind. It doesn't feel like there's any passion behind it, any purpose behind it, any joy behind it. Now, don't get me wrong. Difficulty is a different thing for me. I don't mind challenges. I love obstacles. I love when that stuff's in the way because it tells me whether I'm up to it or not. But this feeling of, oh, my God. To me, the grind is, oh, my God, I got to go to work today.

Well, that's because you're a sluggard, Jim.

I think it also depends how you use the term. Right, because hustle. The grind. I think that a lot of these words. Words to the kind of. Maybe some of the younger people out there. I'm in the grind, man. Hashtag grinding. Right? Like, if they don't think, some. Sometimes they're just using the words without even understanding that the grind ain't much fun when your hand inside the blender.

Yeah. How does that word make Mike or Nathan feel when you hear it? Like, is that cool? Not cool.

I don't mind it. But and because I do think that work is a gift from God, I believe that he ordained us to enjoy work. There's nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. That's Ecclesiastes. What I think ends up happening, though, is we segment our minds, and especially people that are very, you know, have high aspirations. It's the prayer of Jabez type, expand my territories. I had a pastor friend of mine that really helped solidify this idea because he. He kind of. He looked at me in. In a time of need where he said, mike, you are one of the. So he said, there's. There's three major things that a man is called to do in his life. To be a conqueror. This is to expand your territory. This is like your prayer of Jabez. This is the guy that's motivated, that is maybe a workaholic, that this is just his. His passion in life is to have a big reach. And he said, mike, you're one of the people that go off the grid with this. But he said, there's two other callings that we are also given, and one is to be a farmer. You have to cultivate your homeland. And if you have issues with your wife. And, you know, my wife and I, I travel a lot. I'm gone a lot, and we struggle because I am not a very good nurturer. I'm not a farmer. I don't. I don't. I don't tend to the field the way that I need to as a farmer. I'm more of the conqueror guy. And so I have to. I have to very specifically go back and do the best that I can to be that farmer and nurturer, too. But that's still not the only things.

There's.

There's another one of it is being protector. And that one, you think that I'm, you know, I'm kind of a personnel. I'm protector, too, but that I'm not.

And.

And the reason is because sometimes when I'm out on the road and I'm. I'm expanding my territory as a conqueror, and I can see that there was weeds showing up in my farmland, and it's time for me to come back and. And be a protector. I'm like, not yet, or I got something else. I'll get to it. Like, I need to be fiercely protective of my family, my wife, my relationships, my homeland. And again, now we've gotten outside of work. But I think this is what brings balance to this entire idea and why we have to Take again the entirety of scripture and understand what it is that humankind is given, you know, from God.

Well, I don't know if you got outside of the scope of work. All of those things you mentioned took effort. And if work is effort, those two things are synonym or synonymous. I think they work. Nathan, I said grind, and you and Mike spoke at the same time. I didn't hear you.

I said, it makes me think of coffee.

Makes me think of coffee.

Great.

There we go. There we go.

I didn't get mine today.

I had to go to the dentist, so no coffee this morning.

Oh, I went to the dentist last night. That was a definite grind.

Yeah. Why is there smoke whenever you go to the dentist and get. Like.

I gave my. I gave her a hug when I got up from the chair. Do you know why? She listened to me. I said, listen, I'm very sensitive. Teeth go easy on me. She listened to me. She went easy on me. I got up off the chair, gave her a hug.

I. I said the same thing. I did not give a hug at the end. I did give her a high five. Like, hey, well done. That was the least painful experience I've ever had. So, yeah, that was my. My morning. Like, even my mouth is still numb and all that stuff, so maybe I shouldn't talk as much.

So.

Nathan, go ahead. Sorry.

I.

With regards to the grind, I. You know, the grind cannot be always. I think that the grind is okay and that there's a season for it. So. You know, Mike mentioned Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is probably my top three favorite books of the Bible. And in there, Solomon talks about a time. A time for. A time for planting and a time for reaping and a time from. For waking and a time for resting. A time to live and a time to die. And so I think that, like, there are times to grind, and you can find joy in it, for sure. You know, I think, like, you know, when. When I'm forgetting who it was. Lately, I've been. I've been hearing a lot about Kobe Bryant's, like, workout regimen, like, his dedication to his workouts. That's a grind. Like, that's a grind when he's got. I don't know what. A hundred free throws to do before he's done with his workout. And he's like, okay, I gotta get. I got 70 more free throws to do. You know what I mean? Like, that's a grind. And then he's. You know, then he's going to play and he's going to be one of the best. But I think that grind does. Is. Is real and. But. But there's seasons for it. And so you should recognize those things because if you're constantly in grind state, which I do see a lot of that in social media, it's like constantly grinding, constantly pushing, constantly. And I'm like, unless you are single without children, that's at the expense of somebody. And if you are, it's at the expense of you. So you need to. Once again, though, there's a season, like you're young. You're young and dumb and full of energy and just ready to rock and roll.

Right.

Like, get after it, you know, Especially if it's not. You're not hurting anybody. Maybe that is your time, you know, to do some of those things. And it's one of the best ways to gain experience. So I think that there is a time and a place for the grind, but you just got to be careful of it.

Yeah, maybe it's the tone of that word. Just to me individually, the tone of that word kind of sets me on edge because I'm familiar with Kobe. I'm familiar with his workouts, and I don't think he perceived them like we perceive them from the outside as a grind, but I don't think he perceived them as a grind. I perceived them as part of the journey, part of the joy, part of what it took for him to achieve what he was after achieving.

Oh, but he was competitive about him too. They tell stories about him knowing that other people were in the gym and he wouldn't stop until they left. Yeah, that's almost like. I think about that. That's almost a narcissistic level of. Of dedication to excellence. Because all of a sudden he's dedicating his workouts. His workouts are dedicated to making somebody else think something about him. But as soon as they leave, he's probably gone.

Yeah. You know who that reminds me of? It reminds me of David Goggins. Like, that dude's just an animal all the time, every day, all day long. It seems like from the outside now, that's our perception in the outside world. What's. What's his day to day operation look like? I'm not sure, but. But he causes me to perceive that I'm supposed to be going hard every second that I'm awake and never stopping.

Yeah.

Which I don't know how healthy that is for everyone. Maybe it's great for him. And so there's a part of that too. Like each person, I think there's some individual level of intensity that they apply to work. Like, Chris, you strike me as Mr. Uber Intense, like all the time, every day. As a matter of fact, it kind of. Whenever I first got to know you, I was like, I don't know if I like that. Yeah, this is a little bit like, yeah, this is too much for me. And. But as I've gotten to know you better and better and better, there's so much passion behind it. There's so much joy in what you do, and I have a lot of respect for that. I can't do what you do, nor would I want to do it the way you do it, but I have a ton of respect for your ability to do it the way you do. And I, I think that we sometimes see other people and then hold ourselves to that standard of going, that guy's beating me because he's out there doing so much more than me. It seems like. You guys ever feel anything like that?

Oh yeah, this, I mean that's the whole, it's the whole social media, man. It's that whole. Right. You just, you see the guys? What's it, Tim, Tim Grover's unrequired workout. What is that?

Like?

Some of these guys are just 75 hard.

I'm just mad that you said it out loud because my phone now heard it. It'll be on one of my next posts probably. And now I'm gonna have to find out about somebody else out working me. That's gonna be wonderful.

You do you only almost feel like in from the perception is people think that I'm this, this energized, ever ready body that just goes from 5 o' clock in the morning until midnight. No, when the workday is done, I go, you know, my wife's like. Because people are like, oh my gosh, how do you deal with him all the time? She's like, you should see him at 7:59 and a half. Like it's, you know, like I, I let her high, let her come down. So yeah, I think the perception, right, the videos, the, the writing, the post, the laughing. Mike's really good at this stuff too. That there's a serious side that we've been able to all share with each other. That there's a nice discussion when we go out to a steak dinner and we talk about life and we're not being silly, we're not being funny, we're really talking about, you know, it's maybe something unfortunate that happened to his son, got into a horrible accident and we shared the Story of best of Success. And I felt like it wasn't one of those moments that we were trying to get attention and be silly on camera. We were having a real conversation. And I remember, Mike, when you got back from that, I reached out my, dude, if there's anything I can do to help, help, let me know. And, you know, we connect on a different level now because of something tragic that happened in. In your son's life. And I think that those moments in life that we take advantage of to let the cameras and the microphones down and the high energy of us, you know, whatever the attention thing that we're.

Trying to do, we get to see.

These beautiful moments of humanity in one another. Say, man, I now feel so much closer to Mike because of something tragic that happened in his family. And we get to then be on another level of spirituality together, of helping each other with anything. Like, I'm that guy that you call on a Saturday and say, hey, Chris, can you bring your truck over? And I'm like, absolutely. I got this Saturday morning off. And I'll say, and then I'll get there. I'll go, so what are we doing? It isn't like, well, what are we going to do? It's, I'll be there Saturday. You happen to catch me on a good day, I'll bring my truck, and then I'll get to the house and go, so what are we going to do?

You're different from me for sure.

I'm like, I'm that guy, man.

If I have my truck, what am I supervising?

I have the ability to do it. And. And, you know, sometimes that was the calling, was for me not to be doing something where I am, but to be there to help someone else. So I try to. I try to be helpful when I can and not. Not say no.

So let me ask you this, because there's one of my favorite stories, parables of my entire work professional life, outside of the Bible.

Was.

Is the. The guy that there was a competition and who could cut more wood in a day, and it was with chainsaws, and they started cutting, and the one guy just took off. Like, every hour he would just leave. And the other guy's like, I am going to win this. And he's grinding away. The other guy just keeps leaving. Like, every hour just leaves. And after eight hours, they looked at it and. And the guy that kept leaving and making. The one that was doing the grind all day and getting more and more and more frustrated because the guy who kept leaving had four times more Wood than cut than the guy that worked all day long. The moral of the story is, where did that guy go? He was sharpening the saw. The problem in that story and the one that I struggle with is that everybody recharges. Everybody sharpens their. Their sod differently. I remember my 12th year at GAF. They had to teach me how to take vacation time inside the system. I'd never die.

I mean, 12.

Like, I just, I might have taken off. And even today I. I just, I. Vacation is not my time to recharge. That's not what I do. And you know, if my wife is listening to this, she's probably getting frustrated with me because I just, I don't slow down. But I do get recharged. And there are people in times that recharge me. So again, I don't have the answers to this stuff, but I am keenly aware of what's going on in my life and the importance of sharpening your saw because otherwise you become completely ineffective both at home and at work.

Oh yeah, that's funny. It reminds me of going on vacation with my oldest daughter as an adult for the first time. And I had an itinerary. We were set up. We're getting up at 7am we're gonna go do this thing. There's our workout. We're gonna go do this thing. We're gonna hike this thing. We're go waterfall. We're going to ride these horses. We like this whole thing, right? And she's like, hey, dad, just. Where's the swim up bar? Can we just do that? We just. That's all we need to do. There's. You don't need a whole. Like, you don't have to see everything. And so, Mike, I'm a little bit like you. Even when I go on vacation. I feel like I need a vacation when I get back because I'm gonna stay pretty busy, which I sit here and I. And I'm keenly aware of it too. So what I've started to do is I've started to sacrifice some of the way that I would prefer to do one of those vacations for the ones that are around me and be aware of like, hey, okay, what I'm doing is affecting somebody else the way I work. And I'm not talking vocationally, just the way I work as a human being isn't the way everybody else does.

Yeah.

So when I'm in those circles and in those places, I try to be very aware of what value are they getting out of this experience as well. You ever have anything like that come across your table for you? Any of you, like, where you're just like, hey, I got to sacrifice some of the way I would do things for somebody else's work?

Well, if you've ever been in a leadership position and you want to be effective, then you 100 need to figure that out as quickly as possible. Yeah, people don't, people don't work the same way. Some people. Jim and I are a good example. Jim's a bit of a sprinter, and I ended up marrying a sprinter.

Not me. Just to be clear.

No matter how often he asked me, I continued to tell him no. So Jim, Jim and my wife both tend to just pound through something in as little time as they can possibly do it, and they will stay on that task. I'm a marathoner. I have, for me, I enjoy creating a rhythm to my life that allows me to accomplish something over a period of time. And I can sleep if it's not done. Doesn't bother me. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go to bed, then tomorrow I'm gonna keep working on it. Then the day after that, I'm gonna keep working on it. And so you're, you're, you're gonna have to realize that there are people that, that function in numerous different ways. It doesn't mean I can't turn the heat up when I have to, and it doesn't mean I can't turn it off when I need to. But everybody. But your ability to understand that about yourself, first of all, will probably reveal consternation that you have with others around you in the way that you work. When some people are like, hey man, it's 7:30 in the evening, it's time to go home. Meanwhile, you might be thinking, well, there is no home. It's not done. So you gotta, you gotta be able to navigate that. And it starts with understanding your own rhythms to it. And there's also different, the concept around this is like, there, there are different messages for different people. There's no one right way to do. Just there's, there's a few things. I think there's very few things in life where it's like, this is how this has to be done. I always like to use the accounting. Like there aren't a lot of creative ways to do accounting. And if you start getting creative with your accounting, you usually end up in jail. So like, accounting tends to be pretty straightforward. Like, this is kind of how you do this, right? But other than that, there are tons of different ways to get to the same place in the, in the same way. Like, you know, if you look at the way Elon Musk has done things, the way Jeff Bezos and then I. One of my favorites of all time is like listening to Joe Rogan talk about how he got his podcast where it is. And he will straight tell you, had zero intention, made no effort, and had no expectation that he would have the number one podcast on the planet, period. Wasn't his intention or his desire. He did not set his eyes on a goal or a vision and then begin grinding his way towards it. He found something he loved doing and just kept doing it.

There you go.

And so I'm like, but that's not for everybody.

That just happens to work for him and his weight.

So, so, you know, constantly watching all of this information all the time about how things have to be done is just generally it's not, it's not. Doesn't always have to work that way. And so I think that you need to understand that. That being said, that being said, though, if it's between sitting on your ass or working your ass off, go work your ass off. Like, and that's where I think guys like Goggins a lot of those messages that his message is probably not aimed specifically at very, very hard working, dedicated entrepreneurs and employees who get up every morning and they work there. We work hard. He's probably not trying to tell that person, okay, you don't work hard enough. He's trying to inspire the person who probably knows they've got more in them but don't want to give it. So you gotta take that. You gotta take messages that you get through a, a filter of wisdom. If you know you're lazy, you know you're lazy, right? Like you, you should, you probably know it. And whenever you see somebody talk about how hard they're working, if it's bothering you, you might want to check yourself first.

Yep.

Interesting.

So we've, we've covered what work, right like this. I think it's effort is. We're all unified on that. It's different for everybody. The amount of effort they're willing to give. Doing something is better than nothing. So what's the job?

Well, maybe I'll kick it off. I feel like the job. So if my work is, is to like, my passion is just some of them. My passion is to help contractors, right? So I help contractors and I help the homeowners and then I help them with financing, which brings affordability. Like get niche right with what I do. So if I come in here and go, okay, my job is today is to pick up this device and help contractors and homeowners with affordability. And by this means of this thing we call financing is my work that I do to do that job every single day. And then the feeling of what I get back from it is the joy of people referring to me or knowing that deals are closing because I'm helping with people. Affordability that brings that whole passion of why I keep showing up each day to do the work, to do the job. Now, if I showed up each day to do the work and there was no passion and there was no positive reinforcement back from the contractors and the consumers and the things that I do and the referrals that I get, then would I want to keep doing this job, to do this work? Right? So I think we. I mean, for me, my work is. My job is my passion. But why do I keep showing up each day? It's the feedback that I get from the work and the job that I do that make me get back up the next day, get creative, figure new problems, I'll solve more solutions, keep showing up and keep working to do the job that I do to help other people. So I think that with me, it's real focused on, I know why I show up every day, because I know the outcome of whom I'm helping. It could be business, it could be margins, it could be profit margins, it could be people having jobs, it could be homeowners putting roofs and air conditionings and pool. Like, I know what the outcome of what I do here each day is, and I know the positive feedback that I get back from it. And that's why I keep showing up to do what I do.

Okay, Mike, one of my favorite quotes of all time from Chariots of Fire. I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. And I'm one that I just. I love that because I do feel God's pleasure. But I do hope that in my interactions. And again, I've been gifted with the ability to do this on a national level, and I love what I do and how I do it. But I do hope that people see that I can feel God's pleasure in what I do. And my ultimate purpose is to glorify God and to give people a glimpse of how much fun that I'm having in that thing that God has gifted me to and. And, you know, purposed me to be so that. I mean, I don't know, I hope that's not too esoteric, that. Just saying. Oh, you know, I just kind of. It is. I, like, I, I feel like I have a very purposeful life and that I live it very purposefully, but God has given me very unique, quirky personality type, whatever.

That's a good description. Yeah.

But I love it. And, and let's go back to Ecclesiastes, and I'll end with this. Ecclesiastes 9.

9.

Enjoy life with your beloved wife during all the days of your fleeting life that God has given you on earth during your fleeting days, for that is your reward in life and in your burdensome work on earth. My wife and my family are everything, even though they probably don't feel like it sometimes, you know, because I do have this tension of, you know, enjoying feeling God's pleasure in my work. But yeah, I mean, it's all there.

Nathan.

The Westminster Confession of Faith says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And so I think that's the job. Jesus said, do not worry about what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or what you shall wear. The Father knows that you need these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added to you. And even, even in the Scripture that, that Chris put in his post, Philippians 2:12 and 13, I think. Paul directs. Paul directs the people to. I'll make sure I don't misquote this. That one I don't have right off the tip of my tongue there.

But.

Therefore I think it's continually work to bring something to fulfillment or completion.

So Philippians 2:12 and 13 is therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And so I think that is the Job. And literally Philippians 2:13 says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So if I had to sum that up.

The.

The idea is, I think that we. We pursue what makes him happy, and not only will he give us the desire to do that, he'll give us the strength and the ability to do so. And in doing so, we are working out our. Our salvation day by day and step by step. That's our job. And so for some of us, that might mean being a pastor, or for some of us that Might be mean being a deacon or a missionary. For some of us, it means teaching contractors how to help their customers through financing or helping contractors with their websites and giving customers tools to understand pricing or helping business owners to build their companies. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it also means being the best Christ follower you can be, being the best possible husband that you possibly can be, and being the best father and friend and son. That's what it means to seek the kingdom. And it's going to pull you in a million different ways, and you're going to feel tension all over the place, and it's not going to be easy, but it's worth it.

That's really well said.

I told you guys he was a closer. I knew it. I showed up late, but he closed. Well, he didn't close yet.

We haven't heard what Jim says.

Jim, how are you going to follow that?

I know, really, you should probably just quit. Jim.

No. Well, I'm good. Like, first off, I agree. I'm gonna. I'm gonna say I agree, but I think there might be a little more to it. In the Bible, there is a concept. And so God worked, gave work to humans, right? Then Jesus came and gave us some more work. And that work that he gave us was the great commission, Matthew 28:19 20. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And so I feel like that's the job. And I do that by my obedience to my Father, Creator, Master of the universe. The. The instruction that he's given through this word that he's provided gives me the insight on how to do that job well and with wisdom. My job is to do the best that I possibly can according to his instruction, to help others find salvation so they can spend eternity with me. I know that sounds like a bad proposition. Maybe it's not me. I mean, Jesus might rank a little higher, that'd be cool. But that seems like the job to me. The beauty is we can all do it through our work. Through our work, we can build disciples. We can show the values of being a Christian, we can show the wisdom of being a Christian. We can show the actions of being a Christian, a Christ follower. And by those things, it's. If you do them and you do them well, the opportunity will present itself whether you want it to or not. I get asked all the time, why are you the way you are? Like, well, I know this guy named Jesus, like, he died for me. It's really cool. I'd like to tell you about him. That seems to be the job to me, which is obedience. As Nathan laid out to the instruction that was given to us of how to do what we need to do, I think so many people struggle with this idea of, what's my purpose? What's my purpose? What's my purpose? What's my purpose? It's pretty clear, and it's pretty simple. Love God, love your neighbor, help others become disciples. That's how I've simplified it down now. How do we do that in our work? So that'd be my last question, you guys. If that is the job or some version of it, how do we do that in our work in a way that doesn't repel everybody because they think we're a Bible thumper? Go ahead, Chris.

I did a podcast, man. It's the other day down at a recording studio in Boca Raton. I had no idea who they were. I showed up to the studio, I sat down, and I just met the people that invited me to do a podcast. And I believe I started it with whatever my morning word was. They weren't ready for it. They didn't know that I was going to start the podcast by quoting whatever my study was in the morning. Nor did I, because I don't know what I'm going to talk about when I show up for these things. No idea. But I started it with my reading. Sure enough, they were Christians and Christ followers as well. And you could see the room light up more so to the point of shock of them, like, whoa, black shirt, beard.

Ha.

You know, I looked like you, Jim. I look cool, right?

I'm a long ways from cool, but I'm gonna take it.

Type A personality, boisterous, you know, just. They weren't ready for it, man. But once they realized, well, we've got one here with us. We have one. This is so good. It opened up everything. You could feel the energy in the room lift up. They shared some stories. I shared some stories. The entire podcast was just full of passion, and you could just feel it in our conversations, like. And I think that just sometimes bringing the conversation out there, it is enlightening and bringing it to the forefront that there's more of us than we know, Right? Like, I was having.

We're all in hiding. We're in hiding. We think we're all over the place, babe.

You can't stop us. I was having a bad week a couple weeks ago. I needed help. I need People to pray for me. I was an entrepreneurial mess. I needed help. I hopped on and I think I was on the phone with somebody doing. Working on a deal. And we prayed together for five minutes. And then I got another phone call from Brian Jones over at Ring Digital, and he sent me a postcard. You know, just saying, hey, man, I'm praying for it. Like, this is starting to. The word is starting to just come out of me and pour out of me on a daily basis. And I can feel him working through me now with what I do.

That's so. I would call that being bold.

I don't even know what it is. It's just. I'm just feel like it's necessary to share some stories, share some beliefs, be open and ask for help. Like, I needed help. I need somebody to pray for me. The other day, and the guy, we.

Just did it together.

We hopped on here on my desk. I cried a little bit. We finished the prayer. I went up and had an amazing day. So I'm just being a little bit more open about it. I think in my. In my world now, it's pretty awesome. Then my mom calls. Are you okay, Mom? I'm fine.

Why?

Well, I. I saw your message and.

I just want you to know that.

We'Re praying for you too. No, no, you can't do that. Don't pray for me like that, Mom. This is a man thing. You know, you. When you're like. Your mom's like, oh, my gosh, are you okay, son? You know, like, no, mom, it's okay. We're men. We can't talk about this openly now. Oh, my goodness. It was never like that back in the day. Like, think back in the 80s.

Well, I still don't think. I still don't think it is quite there yet, but it's coming. You can feel the swell. It is something that we are able to actually talk about in our industry today that we would not have done five years ago. Oh, yeah.

Agree 100%.

So. So, Mike, if we know what work is and we know what the job is, how do we do the job in our work?

Yeah. And my word for it, without getting, you know, cliche is. Is authentic. And in Greek word for authentic is without wax. And what they would were doing in that those days was if they had a piece of pottery that they were creating and. And when it was, you know, baked in the fire, sometimes they would develop cracks and imperfections and they would fill those with wax so that you could barely see them. It was like applying Makeup to these. And so I, I think when we live an authentic life, it's without wax, it's without cover up, it's without. There's the boldness and without fear that Chris was talking about, but there's an authenticity that we don't have to cover our faults and we can live authentically, you know, again, being open and honest about our faith, about our families, whether it's good, whether it's bad. We don't have to cover ourselves and make us something that we're not. Which, again, in the Facebook world is, you know, it's listen. But that's where I love the word authentic to add to, to what Chris was saying. With boldness and, and without fear.

So what you're saying is women shouldn't wear makeup. That's what we're, what we're getting at.

I thought he was saying he lets people see his crack. No crack cracks.

I have more than one.

What do you think, Nathan?

I don't think you have to do anything but be ready. So you've gotta. You've got to prepare. That means you've got to study, you've got to open your heart, you have got to be wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove. You need to be in a position of as quick and as instant of obedience as possible, because I believe that God will bring those opportunities to you. So, no, you might not be walking through the front door of your office screaming, I love Jesus. You know, in that I don't think you have to. God will bring to you those opportunities, and you need to be open and ready to be obedient to him when he brings those opportunities to you. Just like Chris did with that podcast. He just walked in and he was like, I'm sure something inside of him led him to do that. And it was a command by God, and Chris had to be obedient to it, and he was obedient to it. So I think it's. It's a matter of proactively preparing yourself and then having your. Your heart and your mind open. When God goes, now you need to say something, or now you need to do this, or you need to volunteer for that, or this person needs your guidance or needs your help or needs your love. And I think that if you are prepared, then you don't have to do anything. God will just bring it to you.

And you have to respond, yeah, that is so wild. I just, I was invited to a devotional by somebody in the industry and, and I. And I've been invited several times and I usually say no, and it's mostly because I have two or three other devotionals going on at the same time. I have one with my wife, one with a group of men that I am associated with, and it's like a third one on top of it, and they're going on all the time. And this one grabbed my attention enough that I said yes to it. Nathan, you're on point. This idea of preparedness or thinking ahead. And if you guys out there on the podcast can hear my dogs barking right now, that means that my wife has shown up. So we'll just bear with that while we're talking. But this whole devotional, it's a seven. It's actually a nine day devotional with like a beginning and an end, but it's really seven days and these seven things that we should be prepared with. And this first one, the very first day, was being ready. This concept of being ready. And the. The verse that stuck out to me, 1st Corinthians 6:13. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith. Act like men, be strong. I was like, I know, get over the whole saying men in the Bible. It's talking about all of us.

Yeah.

That one. To me, like, being watchful, standing firm in the faith, like, that's your preparedness. You're putting time into this thing that's going to allow you to fulfill the opportunity and the commission that we have been given. This. If I go and spend time in the Word and I spend time in relationship with God and I spend time there, every interaction from that point forward will allow me to provide value. And Nathan, that was just really good. Really, really way better than the other one. Oh, just kidding. It's great. So I think that covers a lot today. I feel like this is something we could probably have a conversation about. And I don't know if we solved any problems for anybody, but I think maybe they get to see that we all struggle with this concept of work, the job, what really is the purpose behind what we do, how much is enough and what's not enough. Like, all those things we all struggle with that the one piece of. So I'll. I'll give a piece of advice. Maybe you guys can think about one to finish with. But the one piece of advice that I would give is stop worrying about your status and what other people think of where you've gotten to at this point in your life as some kind of preconceived notion of whether you're doing life right or not. That's the outside world burdening you with false expectations, especially here in our country, versus a lot of others out there. Just be consistent. Do your work each day. Do it with passion. Do it with love. Do it with a little obedience to our Creator. And I promise you, the way your life feels will change dramatically. I know mine has. I don't feel the pressure anymore. I feel like, hey, I'm gonna go do what I do, and I'm gonna do it very well today, and that's enough.

Yep.

And tomorrow I might try to do it a little bit better, or at least the same. Mike has brought it up multiple times. The book of Ecclesiastes. It's interesting that you bring that book up because Nathan encouraged me millions of times to go and read the book. And I didn't want to. I knew. I didn't want to. I knew what the book was about. Don't want to go read it because it says, hey, everything you do is worthless. And so why are you worried about it? Right. But really. And truthfully, the end of that book is what was powerful. The things that we should be about. We should be about work and do it well. Yeah, we should be about community and relationship and do that well. We should be about food and drink and enjoy them. Like, hey, that's a pretty cool life if you think about it. So that'd be my piece of advice.

Yeah. If anybody else wants to jump into Ecclesiastes, my. I would really encourage you to start with Proverbs so that you get the whole picture of. Of Solomon, you know, where he was and where he developed and where he ended up. I mean, getting those two books in conjunction with each other is really going to. Cook your noodle.

Yes, cook your noodle.

So is that your piece of advice? Put those two things together?

I would.

I would put them together. I mean, because you. You again, you see a different part, you know, of. Of. Of a man that, you know is probably one of the most successful human beings this world has ever known. And. And you get to see two seemingly contradictory. But you'll see the. His. His personality and his. His walk with God in a very different way when you. When you put them in conjunction with each other. And again, the whole idea is to get a systematic view of what the Bible. What does the whole Bible say about work? Because you can poke it. You can pull it out of one verse, one chapter, one, you know, book, and then you get to get out of one author. What does the whole Bible say about work? And. And it'll probably put you in a different place.