Ali Llewellyn & Nick Skytland (NASA Innovators)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode.

Foreign.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Rayner. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week I host a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how their faith influences their work. Today you're going to meet two extraordinary innovators and strategists. Their names are Ali Llewellyn and Nick Skitland. Nick is the Deputy Chief of the Exploration Technology Office at NASA where he's focused on helping NASA, you know, no big deal, return to the moon. Ali is is the Director of the 1958 CO Working Space at the Johnson Space Center. Ali and Nick are also co founders of a consulting practice called Quite Uncommon where they help organizations like Campus Crusade and Al Jazeera innovate and shape the future. They also wrote a terrific new book that we talked a lot about called what Comes Next, which is a guide for Christian leaders to, quote, shape the future in an ever changing world. Ali and Nick and myself, we sat down recently. We talked about the two unique advantages the church has for shaping the future of the world. We talked about how to cast vision based on not the familiar past, but rather future possibilities. And we also talked about why interdependence is a critical key to mastering anything vocationally. I think you're going to love this conversation with my new friends, Ali and Nick. Allie and Nick, thank you so much for being here. So before we get to the meat of the conversation, I have to ask, the book is titled what Comes Next. You have a chapter titled into the Unknown. Are these subtle nods to two of my favorite musicals, Hamilton and Frozen 2? What's the deal here, Ali?

Well, I'm a huge Hamilton fan and we love the Hamilton tie ins. I've not actually seen Frozen 2. I think Nick may have. He has a young daughter, but I'll smile and nod at the Hamilton.

There you go. Was this intentional, this Hamilton nod or was it just a great title?

No, it was just a great title. And I mean, what's great is it ties in. So many people use it right and it makes sense in so many contexts. And so we love that.

I love it. Hey, Nick, you and Allie both work at NASA, but you also work together as co founders in this consulting practice. Quite uncommon. Give us the 30 second elevator pitch of what you guys do through this practice.

Yeah, so we help people launch ideas, convene communities and think about innovation, think about strategy, think about what comes next. And so all the work that we do is really centered around that. Thinking about the future and helping people navigate uncertainty and, and doing that intentionally and strategically.

Man, 2020. What a year for you guys to be in business, huh?

Yeah, I know. I mean, we could not have predicted what happened in 2020. And even the title of the book, what Comes Next. I mean, we came up with that prior to all of this. And so, you know, God's timing is great.

Allie, what's the story that led you and Nick to team up on this consulting practice and this book?

Well, the story as we like to tell it actually is many years ago we were both working at an event that was called Yuri' and Yuri's Night is the world celebration of Space Exploration. We're having an event locally here in Houston that Nick was running. And my volunteer job was to be Cosmo, which is a 12 foot tall inflatable astronaut costume.

That's amazing.

And so I walked around and took pictures with kids and that's really how we connected. And as we continued to do work in kind of separate spheres, we realized we had a lot of common interests and that our gifts and talents really brought out the best and kind of drove a really great team together. We realized we had shared faith and so many opportunities that seemed to make so much sense. But it really started that night at Yuri's Night.

And Nick, I mentioned this before we start recording. I was really blown away by this book. It's one of the best books I've read on vision, casting and innovation. And I was worried it wasn't going to be exciting, accessible, given that, you know, you're bonafide rocket scientist. But it was, it was a very accessible book. And I think it was this futures framework that made it really accessible. So, Nick, can you give us a brief overview of that framework?

Yeah. Well, let me also first say that my wife also was really worried that the book would not be readable and accessible. So one of the first people we had read the book was my wife. I said that smart. Just be honest with me. Just be honest. What do you think? And she's like, I did not think that I would like it, because I thought it'd be way too technical. And you work at NASA. And at the end of the day, she's like, this is really helpful for me. I can totally use this. And I'm a teacher.

I love it.

And I said, okay, good. We know that then we struck the right balance, because the Futures Framework is very intentional in that it's really well thought through. We put a ton of work behind it, but we also wanted it to be simple enough that anyone could pick up the book and really understand it. So just a really brief overview of the features framework. It includes the four forces and then eight intersections. So the four forces are purpose, people, place, and technology. And we like to think about this as the invisible wind that's wreaking havoc and destruction on us. And we can either react to these forces that are influencing our world, or we can respond well to them by understanding them better. And then at the intersection of those four forces are eight intersection points. And this is really the core of the Futures Framework. It's our identity, how we relate, how we belong, how we gather, what we design together, when we do gather, who we collaborate with, how we scale ultimately to have impact. And so the book walks you through futures thinking. The four forces, the eight intersections, and then once you understand where it is you're going, you have that clarity. The end of the book helps you think about a strategy to get there, and we give you next steps. Yeah, I love it.

And, Ali, you made this point in the book that most of us tend to predict the future based on the familiar past rather than future possibilities. Right. And, of course, that limits our potential to what we already know, what we've experienced in the past. How do we change that? How do we condition ourselves as leaders to cast vision in terms of what's possible rather than what's happened before?

You know, the thing that really happened in my life that flipped that switch was traveling and going to unusual places and seeing different realities. You know, my first mission trip in the Ukraine, I met several women who had lived through the Chernobyl disaster, and they would never have children because of the radiation poisoning and all these things. And it was so consequential to me in that moment to recognize certain assumptions I had growing up in America about my future were radically different than these women that I was meeting who were my same age, who looked just like me, but had a very different future because they lived in a very different context. And so starting to recognize, as I meet people and get to know people and put myself in the Shoes of people who their reality is different or their background is different. It really helps me realize that my world is not the world, My experience is not the one. Experience helps broaden our perspective.

Yeah, travel is a terrific answer to that question. Nick, I want to pose the same question to you. How do we condition ourselves to cast vision in terms of what's possible rather than what's happened in the past?

Yeah, we talk a lot about exploration and going on adventures in the book, and we really liken it to that. We all kind of aspire to be able to travel and to go on adventures, but many of us get overcome by our fear and all the uncertainty around us. So we just stay home. We're afraid to open up the door. We're afraid to get on the plane. We're afraid to go to somebody other place that we've never been before. So we talk a lot about going on adventure and what that requires. It requires that we are brave, that we overcome our fears, that we permit ourselves to take that first step. And so a big part of this book is literally just about giving you permission to participate in the future, to influence the future, to lead others into the unknown. Because it requires being an adventurer, being an explorer.

But to do that, you got to know what you want. I mentioned musicals before. Hamilton, my favorite Frozen 2. Every Broadway writer, Lin Manuel, whoever knows that to have a great musical, you've got to have a great I Want song.

Right.

Ariel wanted more, Tony wanted Maria. And I see a lot of content these days that helps people get what they want with very little content that helps them decide what. What the heck they want in the first place. Right. Do you see the same thing in working with leaders, Nick? And if so, why do you think that's the case? That we don't spend as much time thinking about what we want?

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I mean, that's why we wrote this book and it's why we get called all the time, is we'll be working with an executive in an organization who maybe it's a bigger organization and they have some resources and they know that they need to change. They know that the world's changing around them. They have somebody who's willing to lead, but they don't know where to go and they don't even know where to start. And so we've written down hopefully, a roadmap to give that leader somewhere to turn, to help them figure out what is it that they want. And we work with a lot of organizations who have a mission Statement on the wall. But the mission statement is something that maybe not everyone connects to, or maybe it's just kind of poetic language, but it isn't really a tangible light to where they're going. And so we really help people be more specific in what they want, because with that being specific, you have the clarity of where you're going to go. And I should caveat this. Nobody knows what the future holds. Right? None of us have a crystal ball, so we're not fortune tellers. But what we can have is a little bit more clarity, understand our desire of where we want to go and use that to navigate us forward.

I think you're hitting on something that's really important. Kind of this difference between mission statements and really concrete vision. Right. So mission. I always think of mission statements, and mission is like, why does this organization exist? Right. That does not answer what do you want and where you're going. Right. Talk a little bit more about that, Nick.

Yeah, I mean, you said it really well. The existing mission statement kind of drives the organization at a very high level, but it just isn't enough clarity to know what you want. It's more aspirational words on a piece of paper. You need to be more specific. And sometimes people just don't want to do the work of being specific or they don't know where to even start, what questions to even ask. And we actually talk a lot about asking good questions in the beginning of the book, because curiosity is what this is all about. Being able to ask good questions, to kind of understand what our assumptions are, what our beliefs are, what's been encoding into the business model of our organizations, what traditions we're holding on to that we might need to let go of in order to move forward. And so all of that is kind of wrapped up in a mission statement. And really, we think that people just need to be a little bit more specific.

Allie. Nick mentioned curiosity, which I think is an essential quality for masterful innovators, which obviously, based on your backgrounds, both you and Nick are. I'm curious how you personally Ally. How do you cultivate curiosity, like on a regular basis?

Yeah, So I read incessantly. I think that's the obvious answer. Right. Is reading, learning new things. Lately I'm into these master classes that you can follow and just going, what's the new thing? What's the different idea? How can I learn from that? I'm currently in grad school, which takes up a lot of my curiosity at the moment, as we apply these kind of questions to different spheres. Different sectors, different industries, but it's really that diversity of getting out and learning new things. Part of the joy of our day jobs and some of the people we work with is the experience of being around people who are technically very, very gifted. And so part of my curiosity with them has been, what do you do? Why do you do it? What did you have to learn to get there? And asking those questions a lot to the people that I encounter day to day and starting to see the patterns in their answers.

Ali, other than curiosity. Right. What else do you think it takes to really master the craft of innovation and strategy? Kind of where you sit professionally? What are the other keys to that craft?

Yeah, so one of the keys, I think, that really pulls the right thing out of people is interdependence. A lot of times we think mastery is a solo endeavor. We think that innovation is the person with the best ideas. But it's really that interdependence that we learn to trust each other. Back to the empathy thing, right? We learn to have empathy for each other, but we learn to trust each other's piece of the puzzle that they're putting on the table. And I think the times that I see the best strategies is the people that are pressing into that connectedness and that reliance on each other, because other people are going to reflect to me about myself and my ideas better than I ever will. Together, we represent a more fuller image of God than any of us do individually. I always see that as an element. Another element I really see in mastery of innovation would be persistence. It's that persistence. We talk about it in the book a lot. Persistence and exploration. Persistence in finding an answer. You know, it's not necessarily the person with the most skill. It's the person who doesn't stop looking until they solve the problem that I think we see a lot of that distinction in.

I love that.

So part of mastering any craft is just good habits, good routines. We talk a little bit about that on the podcast. So, Nick, I'm curious for you. What does a typical day look like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed?

Yeah, a lot of people ask me this all the time because. So both Ali and I tend to be. I guess other people could see us as pretty active people. I do Ironman races.

No, no, no. Time out, Time out. You've done 21 Ironman races. Active is quite an understatement, Nick.

Yeah, I have three kids. They are all young and require a lot of time and attention and energy and anyway, so A lot of this really comes down to discipline, rhythm, and habit. Even when we were writing this book to find and create space in our schedules, in our lives, to do it, to give it the attention it needed, we had to make it a habit. And as we all know, habits are really, really hard. And so we actually loved writing this book together because we could hold one another accountable. Which, you know, is a really big part of having a good habit is having someone else hold you accountable to it. And so this is how we kind of live our lives. And a lot about what we talk in the is innovation requires having a habit and setting a rhythm because sometimes you just don't want to do it. And it's really just a matter of, like Allie said, perseverance, moving forward, and being intentional and diligent about that.

I love that. So, Ali, speaking of routines and daily habits, you mentioned the book, that one of our challenges to casting Vision is just getting past the urgent day to day of our roles. I know a lot of people struggle with this. So for you personally, Allie, how practically do you ensure you've got enough room on your calendar for quote, unquote, important, non urgent work?

You know, like he was saying about accountability, we carve out a place usually every week to touch base on those things because your day tends to get swallowed by the urgent. Right. But if every week we're saying, where do we want to go next? What do we want to look into? How are we feeling about that? What did you read? So we have an annual rhythm of looking at a strategic. We probably about once a month do some intentional work toward that. But every week, putting on the calendar for us, it's usually on Fridays, you know, how's that going? Where do we need to go next is how we work toward that.

Nick, do you call each other out when. When there are things on that to do list that shouldn't be there because they're just not important or, you know, kind of tyranny of the urgent stuff.

Yeah, we really do. We do it annually, we do it monthly, and we do it weekly. Annually is actually a little bit easier for us to do that because we can look back at year and say, okay, what took so much of our time and attention that really shouldn't have and help me hold myself accountable to not letting that happen again. It's sometimes easier to step back and see that at the macro level than being in it day to day and week to week. But that actually helps us then on the week to week and the month to month, because we Know what each other's goals and priorities are. We know what roles and responsibilities we are stepping into. We know the things that we're saying yes to and the things that we're saying no to. Trust requires permission from both parties. And so we're able to give each other permission to hold each other accountable. And over time, we build that trust that. You know what? Ali called me out, but she's really right. I said I wanted to do this and she's just holding me accountable to it.

Yeah, it's really critical. Years ago I was running a business and my co founder and I once a week would literally pull open our to do list and we called it our stop doing meeting. Right?

It's like, all right, so great.

We decided these are our goals. Here are objectives and key results for the quarter. What on your to do list isn't in line with that and you had to really defend it. And just prepping for that meeting all week, knowing somebody's going to call me out on this, being in line with my objectives and key results, that was super, super helpful. So I love that you guys do that on a weekly basis. Hey, Ali, I really appreciated that you guys wrote this book explicitly for the church. You weren't apologetic about that. This is a book for Christian leaders and there's such a strong theology of innovation and creativity and risk. And in the book, you talked about how heaven is the ultimate preferred future for every Christ follower. So how practically should that truth shape our work every day as leaders?

Yeah, I think it has to, right? Jesus taught his disciples how to pray and he said, pray that we would see on earth as it is in heaven. Now, we don't have all the specifics about heaven. So practically speaking, that doesn't tell me, you know, what color to paint the streets necessarily or how to build the house. But it tells me a lot of things, right, that should influence day to day the decisions that I make. It talks about the nearness of God. You know, it talks about Jesus as the light that they didn't need the sun to shine. For Jesus, the Lamb of God was their light. Talks about how we'll all be there. We all have rooms in the house together, right? Gives us lots of pieces of the puzzle that think help us frame the direction we want the future to go. We've encountered so many Christians who go, well, we don't know what the future will be. Or they resign themselves theologically to, well, we'll just take whatever future comes and call that trust. You know, God is good. We'll take whatever future comes, but really wanting to set out for people. No. God's given us a model of holding up a future destination, kind of a future vision in front of us that we're going toward. And we're remaking the earth little by little as we go more in the image incrementally of that vision. And so really trying to use that to help pastors and leaders kind of understand the idea that we co create that future, that we're part of shaping it, and not just passive spectators.

That's beautiful. So I want you to go a level deeper, Allie. And Nick, I'm going to ask you the same question. Allie, how did your work move us incrementally closer to the kingdom? Like your work at Nassar, your work through this consulting practice. How do you see that bringing us a little bit closer to the kingdom, being on earth as it is in heaven? Yeah.

So I consider my vocation to help people envision, understand and create the future. And the biggest roadblock I see to that is people don't think they can. They see themselves as powerless or they see other roadblocks in their way for whatever reason. And so my work kind of across the board and I've had a wide variety of career choices. I taught high school, I was a youth pastor for a long time. You know, I do consulting now. All these things, what they have in common is helping people see their own power that they have in the image of God and as a child of God, to do work in the world that matters. And so sometimes that's cheering for them, sometimes that's helping shape their vision. You know, I'm currently in graduate school. I'm doing a master's in futures to look at how do you help people see that future? Because a lot of people, they go, well, I'm not wired that way. You know, I'm very practical. How do you help people who that's their self image see that future? And so that's really kind of the ministry call that I've taken up is whether it's one on one or with teams or with organizations, helping them know that they can and then helping launch them on that call in that trajectory to see what God's called them to do in their context and in their future.

I love that. Nick, you've worked on some really cool projects at NASA, helped launch the NASA Twitter account, which we all love following so much. How does your work at NASA specifically bring us closer to the kingdom?

Yeah. So I think we have an opportunity no matter where we are. What our job is, what community we're working in, in what organization we're in to serve others well. And oftentimes it's easy to serve others just by being the one that kind of asks great questions, that's present, to be able to ask the questions when the timing is right. Oftentimes I have the opportunity to also just be the one who casts visions and says, hey, you know, this is the way things always have been done. But what. What about this? What could it look like if we challenged some of our assumptions? The harder work that Ali and I do is when we have the opportunity to call out assumptions in organizations. And we try to do that in a gentle way, but we say, hey, you know, do you realize that one of the reasons that you're holding so strongly to the past is because you just have a huge assumption that you're unwilling to let go of? And so a lot of our work actually is kind of centered around the verse in Samuel and in chapter three, where he talks about now, in those days, messages from the Lord were very rare and visions were quite uncommon. And we like to talk about that. We live in a time when there's so much knowledge and so much information, so much going on, but yet we as humans, we're just nearsighted. We don't rely on God first. We don't put our faith in God, we don't trust in God first, and we kind of trust in our own selves. And visions are quite uncommon. Understanding what God is calling to us is not something that we maybe necessarily go to first, especially in secular organizations. Right. So just being a light in your vocation, wherever you might be, is how we like to think about the opportunities that we have to serve wherever we are.

I love that, Ali. I love that you guys quoted Proverbs 29:18 in the book. Where there is no vision, the people perish.

Yeah.

There's this biblical idea that vision's essential to human flourishing. Right. Like, can you talk about that and how that fuels your ambition for your work?

Well, and you know exactly how it does, building on what Nick just said. I think what has made us kind of cringe on the inside is that people say, of course you're good at seeing the future. You're from NASA. You know that people would say, of course, NASA is like that. And I think our heart cry has been, of course, the church happens to be like that. It's the church that has to stand out. It's the church that should lead our progression into the future. You know, NASA's great for what it is. And that's been a gift. And that people all of a sudden go, oh, maybe you know something about vision. But how much more should we as believers, as those created in the image of God, be those who can carry that forward? And so it's really kind of helping people grab onto that vision where you get hopelessness. I mean, back to the idea of travel and seeing people in different context, right? Hopelessness is we stop seeing a future that's possible. I think about the pandemic and people who have been shut in at home and have gotten really frustrated and felt really trapped. You know, it's because they can't see a life outside of the four walls, right. It feels. It feels dangerous or threatening out there. When we see organizations that feel like they're perpetuating a cycle and can't get past it. Right. Because all they're stuck in is today, again and again and again. Right. Appropriate to talk about on Groundhog Day. But again and again, vision is part of how we're made, that we would see, not just in ourselves, but in other people, what those possibilities are. And I think it's essential to our flourishing because it's essential to being in the image of God. God sees those things rightly. And so as we see those things rightly, we can live the way we were meant to, too.

I love that.

And the church should be leading the design of the future, number one, because we know the truth of what the ultimate preferred future is, the kingdom. But number two, also because, as Ephesians 3:20 tells us, we're able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, not by our own strength, but quote, according to his power that is at work within us. We have the Creator God dwelling in us. We are his image bearers to go shape the world, to look more like the kingdom. So how does that scripture for you, Ali? How does that enable Christ followers to take bigger risks, to take bigger swings and set bigger goals?

Well, I know in my own life, and this is how I encourage people in that, right. It comes back to, it's not about me. Like, I'm not the limiting factor. When I can't take a risk, it's because I'm scared of the implications. But when others come alongside me and we stand shoulder to shoulder, I'm like, okay, well, what I can't see, you can see. And what you can't see, I can see. We start to think beyond our own limitations, our own perspective. And so I think it's Very quickly we start to press into that. And it's not just other community, it's not just other brothers and sisters. It's God himself who's with us and who calls us. So how can we not? How can we hold back and leave it all on the field? I mean, that's the opportunity of this life, right? Is to try everything we can in our limited existence and our limited time on Earth, that we would move the ball forward toward that kingdom, toward that destination, toward that future.

It's the irony of what secular thinking tells us is the quote, unquote, biggest story of work, right? The modern narrative of work is. Work is about creating an identity for yourself, creating worth for yourself. But if it's all about me, it's actually incredibly limiting. It looks like a big story on the surface because work is providing me with this sense of self that's obviously faulty, but it's actually a really small storyline because we can only accomplish so much on our own, right? The bigger cosmic story is me getting lost as one of billions of actors in this grand drama that God is orchestrating for the world. Right, Nick?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you so got it correctly, and I think so. I was thinking about what you guys were just talking about. I mean, really, our nearsightedness is part of the human condition, right? None of us have that vision that God has for the future. So we really have to work. We really have to work to be a farsighted leader. But we're called to do that, and our work is all about that. Which is why when we built the Futurist framework, we start with identity. Because unless you get that right, the rest of this stuff doesn't really matter. I mean, if you don't understand your identity in Christ at the beginning of this, I mean, all the things you'll design and the people you collaborate with and the technology you use to scale what you're doing, all of it is kind of in folly, right? And really, the first four parts of the framework are pretty important because we have identity. And then in our identity, Christ builds us to be in relationship with others, right? So then the very next thing is like, who are you in relationship with? And then what community do you belong to and what does it mean to belong? And then where do you gather and how do you gather and what does that look like in the digital age, for example? And what we've noticed in a lot of conversations with leaders over time is that a lot of those things kind of get muddied up together, especially in the work environment, because oftentimes our identity is so tied to who we are at work and not who we are in Christ. So what we try to do is just really unpack those to get started and form a good foundation, because then you have a lot more clarity about what comes next.

Yeah.

Hey, Nick.

So I've been thinking about this idea a lot over the last few months. This idea that there's always, always, always going to be a gap between our vision for our preferred future and the present reality. Right. I think NASA's actually like the best case study for this. In the 60s, we said, we're going to the moon. It's like, okay, great. But there's this huge physical gap in between vision and current reality. How does the gospel enable you personally to be both ambitious for that preferred future, but also. I don't know if content's the right word. Right. But content with whatever progress the Lord provides, even if you never attain that preferred future. Does that make sense or am I talking nonsense?

No, it totally makes sense. And the way I think about it and the way we write about it in the book is the gospel is our lens that improves our nearsightedness so that we can see the farsighted vision that God has for us. We can see it with more clarity. And that will allow us to, in our current situations, be content with where we're at, but have a longing and a desire to move forward and be unwilling to be the status quo and remain where we are, knowing that God calls us forward. And so we all need a corrective lens. And the gospel is that. And so all the futures framework is the gospel kind of thought about in a few different categories. Right. We're just trying to get you to dig in to the gospel, Think about the future that God wants us to be part of, and then be bold enough and courageous enough to move forward.

Ali, anything you want to add on this topic of the gap between the vision for preferred future and the present reality?

Yeah. You know, it makes me think of one of my favorite scriptures. It's either the end of Hebrews 11 or in Hebrews 12, right. Where they talk about they looked forward to the heavenly city, they believed in something, something, but they did not achieve it. Right. But God counted it as faith, and he blessed them, you know, And I want to live in that gap because that gap requires me to live in faith. We want to change the future. We want to build the reality. We want to do all those things because that's the place that I'm relying On God. That's the place that I am not satisfied with my circumstances, but I'm looking forward. That's the place where I've dependent on his power and not just what I can manufacture for myself. And I think in Scripture that tells me that that's a place that God's gonna bless with fruitfulness and with hope.

And it's this recognition. You hit on it, right. That God is responsible for the outcomes and the results. He doesn't need me to do anything in this world. If I don't finish the job, he's gonna finish it through somebody else. Right. God doesn't need any of us to finish our to do lists. We get to worshipfully participate, but he doesn't need me to do anything in this world. Right?

Absolutely.

So, Ali, three questions we'd love to wrap up every conversation with. I'd love for both of you to answer these, actually. Allie, which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others?

You know, I hate to admit it, but my go to in this department, I grew up Anglican and reading all the old Anglican theologians. My go to in this department is either the Great Divorce or the Space trilogy, both by C.S.

I love it.

Of course, it has to be. That's a great answer.

Right. It helps people see a different future. And it's great because he's so creative and he thinks so differently, but it points you toward the gospel, where you can see the gospel by pushing your expectations way out there. And. And those are two of my favorites in that.

I love it.

Nick, which books do you recommend most?

I'm going to go back to the theme of habit, rhythm and discipline, because I think that having vision which is rooted in the past, deals with today's realities and is focused on the future, requires us to be willing to participate in that. But also having the habit building that muscle that we can do it day in, day out, when things get hard, when our lives are messy, when we're yelling at our kids, when our neighbors bugging us, when our boss is mad, you know? And so I am going to recommend a book that Ali actually recently gave me for Christmas. It's called Every Moment Holy. And it's liturgies for our daily life. And they're like modern liturgies, modern prayers that we can take time out of our day no matter what it is, whether we're fighting with our wife or shopping and we're about to make a big purchase, just to use the gospel as a lens to see the world.

Rightly, I love that answer. I have not heard of that, but I just wrote it down for myself, of course. Read Great Divorce and the Space Trilogy. But you guys can find all those books, as always, at jordanraynor.com bookshelf okay, Allie, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel shapes the work that they do in the world?

So I will say a guy that I just have recently been reading a lot of in my graduate work is a man named Kevin Kelly. And Kevin Kelly was, I believe, the founding editor of Wired.

Interesting. Kevin Kelly wrote the famous I could be getting this wrong, but I'm pretty sure Kevin Kelly wrote the famous post on 1000 super fans or whatever way, way, way back.

I believe that that's true. What I just read was called what Technology Wants. But he's a believer and he's so far out there in terms of AI and the singularity and the things that he sees coming in the technology world, which I think is a very rare place for people to talk about Christian faith. And so I'm so intrigued since I've heard him talk more and more about his faith in Christ. I would love share more about how that frames his perspective as he looks at technology and as he looks at innovation and invites other people to do the same.

That's an amazing answer. I really love that answer. We're going to track Kevin down. All right, Nick, same question to you. Who do you want to hear on the podcast talking about these topics?

All right, I got two people. First person is a good friend of ours. He's actually the guy who wrote the foreword to the book. You may have already had him on the podcast. I don't know Will Mancini.

I know Will, but we haven't had him on yet.

Oh, man, you are missing out. Will's amazing. And Will is amazing in particular when it comes to creating clarity and living a life of more meaningfulness. He's written a number of books himself, including God, Dreams, and Church. Unique. You? Unique. He has a new book he just released. He is a huge mentor to us, and we actually go to the same church.

And I was gonna say he's in Houston, right?

Yeah, yeah. We're in the same community, so I highly recommend Will. I'm also going to recommend somebody you've never heard of before. Who? I'm just going to recommend somebody that is kind of a risk. Right. Oftentimes in our space, people always want the astronauts to speak. Right. But I would love for you to hear from an astronaut wife about what it looks like to live this way. And we have a friend, Stacey Morgan. Her husband's Drew Morgan. He actually recently flew into space. She's actually working on a book herself right now, and she has a lot to say and a really, really uni perspective.

That's a really good answer. I like that a lot. All right, Allie, one piece of advice. You guys have given great advice already, but one piece of advice to leave this audience with. They come from a bunch of different vocations. What they share is a desire to do great work for the glory of God and the good of others. What do you want to leave them with, Ali?

You know, I think the thing that changed my life into the current work I'm doing, it was really a conversation Nick and I had where he said, you're going to do this next. And my immediate response was, I can't do that. But I did. And I did, because I let a trusted friend, really, I can point back to where I stood when we were having this conversation. I let a trusted friend push me out of my comfort zone and believe that I could do something that I couldn't see. So I would just encourage people. What's the last place that somebody said, try this or do this, and you had the thought, I can't do that, or I'm not adequate for that, or I don't know how. And let them push you out of your comfort zone, because that's the place you're going to discover that gap where you're going to learn where you can fly.

I love that. Nick, same question to you. One piece of advice to leave us with.

So I would recommend that Everybody reads chapter 14 in her book. It's called Paper Rockets. So we know that the difference between a rocket that flies in space and a paper rocket is just the will to do it. And I want to be super clear about something that we've kind of skirted around, we haven't addressed directly in the podcast. And so I just want to address it now. Your job is not to foresee the future. God has that under control. Your job is just to enable it. You're part of God's plan. Your leadership matters. So you can't be afraid of the future. So you just have to get started. And the will to do something matters so much because you can read a book like this, you can listen to a podcast like this, you can turn it off, put the book on the shelf, and never think about it again. So the difference between those that are going to usher in that future that God has for us and those that are going to sit on the sidelines are the people who choose to do something about it.

I love the picture of the paper rocket. That's really good. Hey Ali and Nick, I want to commend you and everyone listening to this episode for the kingdom building work we are doing every day. Thank you guys for serving now the nation, your clients wealth through the ministry of excellence and thank you just for helping us imagine futures that are bigger and bolder and just closer to Jesus. Picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. Hey guys, the book is called what Comes Next and you can learn more about Allie and Nick's work@quite uncommon.com Ali and Nick, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much, Jordan.

Thank you, Jordan.

Man, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I did. Hey, listen, you guys know that I don't do this podcast alone, right? We got a big team behind this and every week at our all hands meetings, I actually read some podcast reviews and book reviews and a bunch of other stuff to encourage my team and the work they're doing every day. So can you do me a favor? Can you take 30 seconds right now and go leave a review of the podcast on Apple podcasts for us? And I would love to read some of those to encourage our team to keep doing the work that we're doing week in, week out. Hey, thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of the called Mastery. I'll see you next time.