Megan Hyatt Miller (CEO of Michael Hyatt & Company)

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. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. 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. We talk about their daily habits and routines, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work. Today's guest is Megan Hyatt Miller. She's the CEO of Michael Hyatt and Company, where they teach leaders how to, quote, win at work and succeed at life. Prior to taking the reins of CEO, Meghan spent a number of years, almost a decade, as the company's chief operations operating officer, building the company's remarkable culture with a team of about 40 people. Guys, this is a terrific episode. We talked about how Michael Hyatt and company cut their team's working day by 25% from eight hours to six hours a day, and what that has done for their business. We talked about how practically we could be mentally present at home. I talked about the number one indicator for me personally, personally, as to whether or not I'm going to be fully present mentally with my kids and Kara at the end of the day. And finally, we talked about how our adoption as children of God enables us to take bigger swings. One of my favorite things to talk about on this podcast. You're going to love, love, love this episode with my new friend, Megan Hyatt Miller. Hey, Megan, it's a joy to have you here today. Thanks for being here, Jordan.

Thank you so much for having me on. I am pumped to be here.

Yeah. So off topic to start, but anytime somebody comes on the show who's adopted, I take host prerogative and go off topic because I love adoption so much. We've both adopted. You've adopted three kids, right?

That's right. I have five children. I married into my first two who are 20 and 17. And then in 2011, we adopted two boys from Uganda at the same time. They're now 12 and 10. We're actually gonna be back to Uganda in June, Lord willing to see their birth families, which will be the first time we've Done that since we adopted them. It'll be really exciting. And then two years ago, we adopted a baby girl from Orlando who is actually turning 2 on Easter Sunday. She was born at 1 pound and 2 ounces, 27 weaker. And she's just a little miracle, a total blast. So my husband Joel and I say we're going to be just parents forever because we got 20 to 2, 18 years between them. But our house is loud and fun, and like you, we are really passionate about the hard and good work of adoption.

Why are you so passionate about this?

Well, you know, I think unfortunately, in this world, in the fallen world, there are just kids that ultimately are not able to live with their birth families. You know, that's certainly plan A. I feel like adoption in some ways is like Plan Z. It's like when all other options have been exhausted, that's kind of what's left. And in the brokenness and the sadness that leads up to a child being available for adoption, and even in the brokenness and sadness that is trying to become a family from that place, I think God does some pretty amazingly redemptive work, not just for the kids who are adopted. But, you know, I don't know about your story and ours. I mean, I think Joel and I, my husband, have been changed as much by the process of, you know, walking with our children in their journey of healing as they have been. And it's been incredibly difficult, and it's been the most valuable, fruitful thing that we've ever done or could imagine doing as a family. So, you know, I never want to romanticize it, but I also feel like it is holy good work, you know, that we are grateful to get to do.

We're new friends and we're going deep right off the bat.

I know, right?

But talk. Talk a little bit more about that. Like, for you and Joel, your husband, how has the Lord used adoption help sanctify you?

Yeah, well, I mean, the hard truth about adoption is that no child becomes available for adoption without massive trauma. You know, the fundamental basis for being a person is ruptured in order for a child to be available for adoption. I think, unfortunately, sometimes that gets kind glossed over and it's, you know, you see people's Instagram pictures and it looks amazing, but there's just unbelievable heartbreak and wreckage that has happened to that child before they've been adopted, which means that for, you know, probably the rest of their life, they're going to be healing from that trauma and to have the burden and the privilege of walking into someone's trauma into their woundedness at that level. First of all, you know, you're not going to make it as a couple unless you have a shared vision for your family that healing is what God's called you to be about together and as a family. And I think it's. In many ways it can be a lonely journey. And I think Joel and I have learned to rely on each other, to be kind of the soft place to land on the hard days when it feels like we're not getting anywhere and that healing is never going to come. And also, you know, nobody understands the exhilaration of seeing healing happen and going, man, we're not where we were three years ago or five years ago. And you know, look, what God's doing in these kids lives is just amazing. You know, I think it can either drive you apart or drive you together. And we have really committed to each other that it was going to drive us together. And it's so humbling. And it also, of course, connects you intimately to the work of Christ in, you know, our own lives. Yeah. I mean, it's a sobering picture.

Oh, yeah, right. And I can forget it. Right. But especially for the first year, Emery, my adopted daughter has been my daughter. Sorry. The daughter we adopted in our family has been our home for 18 months. And for those first few months, I thought about it constantly of like, this is me, right?

Yeah, right.

I am only in the family of God through the adoption I've been granted through Christ. And by the way, what a beautiful picture of your child's birthday coming up on Easter. I know.

Isn't that amazing? So cool.

It's so cool. Incredible. All right, so thank you listeners for indulging us on that wildly.

We could do a whole podcast just.

On that topic on adoption. Exactly. So, all right, let's talk about Michael Hyatt and Company, the work you guys do. But let's set some context. Who in the world is Michael Hyatt? For those that don't know. And what does Michael Hyatt and Company do?

Yeah, so Michael Hyatt is my dad. I'm the oldest of five kids and he was former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company, now HarperCollins Christian Publishing, and left in 2011 to start his own business, Michael Hyde Company. And basically we are a performance coaching company for leaders and their teams. And we really help people get something we call the double win, which is the ability to win at work and succeed at life. You know, we don't want people to be Choosing between those things, we really think that you can have both. And so we do group coaching, we do one on one coaching and we do corporate training. We also have a physical paper planner product called the Full Focus Planner, which has been really successful for us. And all of this is designed to help people get that double wind, to prioritize the things that matter most at work and the things that matter most at home and in their personal lives so that they can really have lives of meaning and impact, impact and significance. And ultimately, you know, as you said, we don't use this language necessarily explicitly, publicly, but to glorify God through their work at home and in their professional world.

I love it.

Yeah, so that's us.

I love it. So I'm curious, you just got promoted to CEO in January. Did you always want to take over the family business? Was this like a first child gene, like wanting to be a nurse?

Like I probably need therapy. Right, right, right, right. No, I didn't. It's funny, I came to work for my dad in 2012 and actually this kind of our adoption story. So, you know, we adopted our two boys from Uganda in 2012. I got married in 2009 and inherited two kids that way. So you know, just a few years I had four kids and I thought, well, I think I'm going to be a stay at home mom. And that last, I quit my job previously. That lasted for about nine months. And really the journey of having children from hard places with some significant needs was just pretty overwhelming. And I thought, okay, I need something else in my life besides that. If I'm going to have the energy I need for that, I got to have an outlet. So I'm going to go back to work part time. And it just kind of snowballed because our business just grew and grew and grew and grew. And before long my dad came to me and he said, hey, I really want you to take over the day to day operations. I want to make you the chief operating officer. And I said this is, you know, really long story short, I tell the story in our new book. But you know, I said, well I really, I think I can, I think I do well at that and I think I could make an impact. But I've got these boys and they need me and I have to be done by 3:30. I have to pick them up from school because you know, they need my full attention and focus. I cannot be available after that period, the end. And he said fine, I don't care. I mean all I care about, you know, are the results, if you can make it happen, you know, 9 to 3, 30, like more power to you. And he was just, you know, he's all about results, not about micromanaging. And, and so that was really the beginning of this journey to what for me, you know, he has his own story that he tells in our book, but of what we call the double win, which is winning at work and succeeding at life. And for me, it was all about, I have something outside of work that is so important, the stakes are so high that I can't afford to neglect it, I can't afford to outsource it. Like, it's gotta be me, you know, and so that's really kind of how I ended up ultimately in the capacity that I am. And then, you know, a few years later after that, he said, hey, I really wanna create a succession plan. There's some other things I, other ways I wanna contribute in the business. I wanna go down to about three days a week and, you know, there's some other things I wanna do with your mom outside of my professional life. And he's definitely not retired, but he's just kind of changed his focus. And so we were on about a two and a half succession plan journey. So for that amount of time, I did know, but you know, it was kind of us discovering together what the future was going to look like. And you know, now we're business partners and it's just, it's really special. I feel so grateful. This can go wrong in so many ways. And mostly, you know, people come up to me all the time and telling me their horror stories of family business or succession. It's a disaster. So I feel very fortunate and blessed that ours has been the opposite of a disaster. It's been a huge blessing. Yeah.

I successfully passed the baton to a CEO of the last venture I led. Not a family business. But it's a stressful time and by the grace of God alone, that worked out really well.

Right.

So I want to dive into something a little deeper. You were CEO for a number of years. I know culture has been a really big focus of yours. Right. Culture within the company. I imagine that's going to continue to be a big focus. Now that you're CEO, why is this so important to you?

Well, for a couple of reasons. You know, first of all, the most practical business reason, and this is something my dad has said for a long time, is that culture is the unseen force that drives operating results. So, you know, you can get good short term results without focusing on culture. You know, you can get it through brute force. You can get it through abusing people. You can get it through other nefarious means. But what you can't get is sustained success and a kind of success that you're gonna wanna have 10, 20, 30, 50 years down the road. So that's one thing, I think. The other thing is it really comes from. And I'm so excited I get to talk about some of these things on your show. It really comes from a sense of stewardship, you know, that people are our most valuable asset that we get to steward in our business. These families who come to us, and we get to play a really meaningful role in people doing the work that they're made to do. We get to play a meaningful result or meaningful role in our clients experiencing transformation and getting their own double win. And what that means for their families, their employees, their futures is huge. I mean, there's a lot at stake. And we really feel like culture is a kind of stewardship, you know, on a larger scale. And in cultivating that, you know, not only do we get great performance, but it enables us to have a more meaningful impact, not just externally through the work that we do, but also internally in the lives of our employees and team members. You know, which to me, that's the most rewarding part of my job, when I know that I've got a single mom on my team who is able to pick up her child from work because our workday ends at 3pm you know, and what that means, like, that gets me really excited, you know, things like that. So I don't know. That's probably not the full answer, but that's kind of off the top of my head.

Terrific answer. And it's part of the reason why I care so deeply about culture too, from, like, a practical business standpoint.

Right.

You guys know this from your experience, right? Like, I'm a big believer. Customer satisfaction never rises above the satisfaction.

Absolutely.

Ever.

1,000, right.

We say that customers come first, but. But that's actually kind of dumb, Right? Like, the team comes first. I was reminded at Disney, I was at Disney last weekend or two weekends ago. The difference between Disney and every other theme park, sure, it's cleaner, sure the rides are better, whatever, and they've got better ip, but, like, it's the people, it's the team. You could tell they love working for Disney, and thus you love being there as a guest.

Right? Right.

It's such a tangible expression of that. So before we go any further, what is culture? Define culture. This is such an Amorphous term in business circles.

How do you define. Yeah, I mean, I think culture is kind of the unwritten rules of engagement. You know, it's how we do what we do and it's what we allow, what we tolerate, what we expect, what we, you know, don't tolerate. And it's really kind of the relational operating system of our business in many ways. And I think that it's invisible in a lot of cases, and it's easily ignored. It's hard to build, and it's very, very easy to dam, damage, or destroy. So it's kind of one of those things that, you know, runs on things like trust and accountability and self leadership and integrity, things that, you know, are challenging to play out. But my gosh, you can damage it in a heartbeat without even meaning to or without understanding the full implications. So it's something we take really seriously.

It is really hard to build because a lot of times it can be amorphous. I like the analogy of the relational operating system, right, because it's this thing that runs in the background that makes everything else work. So because of that, it becomes challenging to build. So how do you build it? How, practically, what have you done over the last almost 10 years at Michael Hyatt and Company to build this remarkable culture?

Well, you know, here's what I think that it. First of all, it starts with a vision. I mean, we really believe that everything in business, or frankly, in your personal life that's successful is going to start with a vision. No one ends up at a destination by drifting somewhere they wouldn't choose. You know, like there's. If we're going to end up at a destination that we want to get to, it's by design. It's not going to be by drifting. And so I think that's really important, that we start by having a vision for our company, a vision for our culture. What kind of culture do you want to have with your team? And then you have to make it really practical. You know, for us, that means that we have a really clear vision, we have a really clear mission, and we also have really clear core values. And those are not just posters on the wall in our office. Those really are where the operating system gets worked out. You know, for example, I can remember a time years ago when I had to fire, or I was considering firing several people who. There had been an egregious conduct violation that had happened with a number of people on a certain team. And I was trying to decide, you know, nobody wants to fire anybody. It's brutal every time. And I could look out the kind of glass above the frosted part in the middle, and I could see the core value framed outside my window that said unyielding integrity. We do what's right even when it's expensive, embarrassing, or inconvenient. And I thought, there's my decision, you know, and so I think culture happens when you have an operating set of principles that are not just on the wall, but they're things that you act on day in and day out. And as a leader, you call out, so you say, hey, we have to make this decision because unyielding integrity is our first and most important value, you know, or wow, what a great decision, HR to prioritize people as one of our values. So you're connecting behaviors with values and you're holding yourself to a standard as the leader that whatever I do becomes the de facto standard. And if there's any gap between that and our stated values, first of all, whatever I do wins. And cynicism will fill in the gap between those two things, which is toxic for culture.

Yeah. I was talking with Deanne Turner, former vice president town at Chick Fil A, and talking about how they lead by teaching principles rather than specific, you know, things to do and the way that they integrate those and the way that they really take root is by stories. Right. And I think the same is true with values. It's one thing to define values one time.

Yep.

It's another thing to come back every week at an all hands being back. Hey, this thing that happened this week, here's why we did it.

Yeah.

Connecting it to values. How else do you guys hold your team accountable to not just, you know, practical goals, but doing things in line with the company's values? What does that look like?

Well, what. One of the fun things that we do is every. At our annual team meeting leading up to that that happens in early January, we have a survey that goes out where people can nominate people on the team for embodying our core values. So we want a physical, you know, again, to use Christian language, kind of an incarnational example of our core values. So that when one of our values has been infectious enthusiasm and one of the guys on our marketing team now, marketing director Neil Samudre.

I love Neil.

Neil's a friend. Yeah, right. Okay. So like, you know, Neil total makes sense to you. Neil is like the most infectiously enthusiastic human being you've ever met in your life. Like, he just sort of like bounces. He's so enthusiastic, you know, I Mean, he just. Every day, he loves working here. He loves the work that he does. You know, it's amazing. And so Neil has won that award a couple years in a row. And what's great about that is, is that nominated by his peers. You know, my dad and I don't get to vote. We've taken. We've recused ourselves from that process. And so whenever you're wondering what does it look like to have infectious enthusiasm, you think about Neil, you know, and that's, like, so clear, because Neil just oozes that value. And similarly, you know, I could point to other people on our team, but we always want these values to be incarnational, to be humanized so that people understand what they look like, because it just doesn't do us any good if they're just hanging on the wall.

That's really good. I love that idea of time, people. That's fun.

Yeah, it's been great.

I think, you know, sometimes for a lot of leaders, spending time and money on culture, it can feel soft, it can feel expensive. It could feel hard to draw a line to roi.

Yeah.

Until a pandemic hits or some other crisis confronts a business. I'm really curious, like, how did you guys see those investments pay off the last year?

Well, I think you're right. I mean, it's kind of like having a savings account, you know, and you can draw on it, and if there's no money in that savings account, when you need the money, you know, you're going to be overdrawn or not. And what we found is, I mean, first of all, last year was so hard in so many ways, and I never want to minimize that. You know, it was tough for our team, like every other team. What was amazing, though, was the performance that we had in the midst of that was incredible. We actually beat our financial goal for profit by 50% last year while cutting our workday down by 25%. You know, I'm sure we'll maybe talk about that a little more later, but to me, that's only possible because the kind of. Of teamwork, the trust that we have, the camaraderie, the shared values and alignment around those things, you know, that's critically important, particularly when things are so difficult. So I'm just so proud of our team and the way they showed up. And, you know, we were really intentional about trying to take care of people through that process, whether it was providing, you know, subsidies for mental health care as people needed it or other things, or just, you know, doing things to help check in on people and fund stuff. And we had, we had like a virtual gingerbread decorating contest that was super fun around Christmas. Only we do that in person. You know, people had to do like a self portrait gingerbread. It was, it was so funny. But, you know, just like all kinds of things to try to help people stay connected and not lose what we've worked so hard to create. But it certainly was not ideal. But I'm glad that we had the equity there that we did that we.

Could draw on when we needed it is equity, right? It's social capital and equity. All right, go back to this. Cutting your day by 25%. I actually, I didn't realize you guys did this. What was the decision? Why'd you make it? Talk us through that.

Well, okay, so, you know, if we go back in time to like April 2020, right. We're a few weeks into the pandemic. It's. We don't know what's going to happen. You know, it's, we're in lockdown in most of the country. Kids are home from school. There's no daycare. I mean, it's just like an absolute crisis. Right? And what we found is our people were coming to us and they were like working eight hours. Feels like working 16. I've got my toddler crawling on me. I'm trying to do virtual school, teach my 8 year old how to use zoom. You know, I'm trying to figure out how to go to the grocery store. Every single thing in my life is hard right now and stressful and I just can't do it. And I had been working, as I said earlier in my story about our adoption, I had been working till about 3:30 every day for years, you know, since my children were little, so I could pick them up from school. And we just decided, okay, let's give it an, let's do an experiment and see if we can cut our work down to six hours and give people some extra time so that they can go take the kids for a walk at the end of the day so they can, you know, just have some time to decompress before, you know, it's dark outside or whatever. And what we found is very quickly we decided to make that a permanent thing, a permanent goal that we were going to pursue. So we have almost everybody on our team doing it now. A few teams are still working toward it. By June, everybody will be there. That's one of our annual goals this year, to have the entire team doing it together. And it was just amazing what happens when you create constraints. And something we talk about, my dad and I in our new book, Win at Work and Succeed at Life, is that constraints drive innovation. When you have constraints in place, all of a sudden there's more productivity, there's more creativity, and for sure there's more freedom. And what happens is that you start holding people accountable for outcomes and results, not processes and tasks. You know, and I think that's just such a great lesson across the board that we could have not only not a drop in our operating results, and by the way, we didn't cut anybody's pay, we didn't lay anybody off, you know, none of that. We just cut our hours and we totally exceeded our already aggressive goal.

So I talk a little bit about this in my book that's coming out in October called Redeeming youg Time. You know, the deep work, there's a four hour. Like science has proven this over and over again. There's a four hour cap on the amount of deep work you can get done in a day. So that's true. Like I know Louis C.S. lewis. A lot of times we just like write for four hours and then like take the rest of the day off.

Right.

And I've heard other people do that. I'm like, no, it's actually logical.

Right. Like it is.

If you've already done, you're creating 80 of your value in that time, maybe 90. You check a few emails and that's it. I know I don't do that, but I get it. Like I could see how that could actually make a team even more productive. So I love that. All right, you talked about end your day at 3:30. I'm curious what the tick tock of your day looks like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. What is a typical day for you?

Yep. So as I said, I have five kids. So you know, everything has to be really intentional and yet not overly rigid because, you know, there's so many things going on in our house. Our kids are, are 20 to 2. So we've got every stage you can imagine we have represented in our world. It's crazy. Basically, I get up at 5 in the morning, Monday through Friday and I immediately make coffee. That is my top priority. First thing in the morning, then I have a devotional time. I plan my day in my full focus planner and identify what my top three priorities are going to be for the day and review my schedule. I then plan my food for the day. That's one of the disciplines I have around self care just so that I make sure I'm nourishing my body. It's not really diet oriented so much as it is just trying to be thoughtful about hey, what is my body going to need today? So I'm not like 2:30pm driving through chick Fil A, you know, drinking a milkshake because I'm just starving to death. Not that that's there's anything wrong with the Chick Fil A milkshake. It's actually of God, I think. But just this would be the right time, you know. So I do that and then about 6:15, I go upstairs in my home gym. During COVID we made our rec room into a little gym and I lift weights or go outside for a run and that's a really important part of my day. But it has to happen between 6:15 and 7 because my 2 year old daughter wakes up at 7 and that's kind of when things kick off and start, you know, getting kids ready and doing all the things. And then I'm at work by nine and I'm leaving to get kids from school at three and you know, from there. But you know, most of my days are filled with meetings. Our executive team reports to me or big project kind of brainstorming visionary work that I'm doing right now. I'm in book launch season so I'm doing a lot of interviews like this, which is really fun, you know, but I don't have a lot of downtime in my day. One of the kind of trade offs of this six hour day is that there's not a lot of breaks, so to speak. You know, I usually eat kind of a quick lunch but I'm done at three and I love that. I feel like I've really had to make intentional choices about the things that I'm investing my time in because they have to be high leverage or it doesn't make sense. You know, I think that's one of the secrets of this double win idea. And then I go home and you know, get the kids from school and we spend the afternoon together and have dinner and, and they're in bed between seven and eight. And then Joel and I have a little time together. I'm in bed by nine, so that's, you know, it's not, it's not a real sexy schedule. It's kind of normal. But it works.

But it works. That's exactly right. That's almost identical to my schedule. I love it.

Yeah.

So you mentioned this book a few times that you and your dad just Published When a Home Succeed at Life. Part of that is being fully present at home, which I know you're really passionate about.

Yeah.

How practically do you do that? You get home at 3, 3:30. What does it look like for you to be fully present present?

Well, I think what it looks like is it starts kind of one of the practices that we talk about in this book is that we talk about constraining your workday and what we mean by that is putting hard edges on it. So it means that I'm not working before 9, I'm not answering email at 6:15 in the morning. I'm working out at 6:15 in the morning. I wait till I have time built into my day to answer email or to check Slack and those kinds of things, which is what we call a workday startup ritual built in there. And I'm also not working after three unless it's an emergency. And that's pretty clear, clearly defined what that looks like. So that means that for starters I'm not working. You know, I'm usually when I get home I'm giving my 2 year old daughter a snack, she's woken up from her nap and it's snack time, you know, and then we usually go outside and play or we have, you know, football practice in the afternoons, just that kind of stuff. And then we're making dinner and doing homework. I mean it's just, it's the really ordinary stuff. The difference is I don't have my laptop open or I'm on my phone checking email and only half there, you know, and that, that's the difference. And that's what I knew when our boys were young, if they were going to ultimately get to a place where they were thriving, I couldn't do that, that it was too costly. What's really interesting though, and I don't want people to miss in this idea of winning at work and succeeding at life. This is not about some kind of warm and fuzzy work life balance thing where you make a compromise and you say, well I guess I just can't work that hard. It's not about that. It's really, I mean because we kind of, in the book we say there's, there's these two prevailing ideas culturally. One is called the hustle fallacy, which most of us have been consumed in at one time or another, which is I just got to work a little extra this week or I really got to put the pedal to the metal for this season because I just launched this business or this ministry or whatever and unfortunately just a Little while becomes forever, and it becomes the normal, you know, or the flip side of that is something we call the ambition break, which is, oh, I don't want to do that. You know, my kids are only little once, or I've got to take care of my parents, or I have a chronic illness, or I don't want to get or whatever. So I'm going to just kind of tap the brakes and I'm really not going to lean in to the full extent possible. We're saying no. There's a third option that's called the double win, where you can win at work and succeed at the rest of your life. And that's really what we want people to be pursuing. But this is what we're talking about in this book, is really a strategy for performance in all areas of your life. That this is not just about how do you perform better at home? Because you're probably out of balance there. Although it is is. It's about how do you perform at your best in all parts of your life. And that comes when you're giving attention to all of the life domains that matter.

That's really good. It reminds me of Paul in First Corinthians 10:31.

Right.

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, whatever you do, you're at home, you're at work. Do it all for the glory of God. How do we glorify God? One way is just being intentional and stewarding well the gifts he's given us. Right. So in terms of being fully present home, you know, I'm a disciplined guy. I'm very good at putting my phone away. I actually keep it in our master bathroom for the two hours that I'm with my kids in the afternoons.

And I like that.

It's great. It's much harder for me to stay fully present. Mentally. I'm getting better at it, and I'm finding what your triggers are. Yeah, I am. Have you figured this out? And if so, please share all your secrets.

All the secrets. Well, first of all, I am figuring it out with everybody. I will say I feel like I've had a harder week with this. Honestly. I was talking to my husband about this last night. We were laying in bed and I was like, I just feel like I am struggling. I had a couple hard things that happened at work, and I was just mentally tapped. And first of all, I think we have to give ourselves grace, that this is going to ebb and flow. I mean, this is kind of like if you were practicing mindfulness or something like that. And, you know, or centering prayer or so, you know, one of those kind of disciplines. Like, anybody will tell you your mind wanders. It's not just like a switch, like, oh, now I'm pressing, you know, like, binary. It's like you're constantly kind of bringing yourself back. And I find that it takes me some time to settle in. I have to give myself some cues. Like, I change clothes when I go home, which is kind of funny because I'm not really that dressed up at work anymore. So it's kind of like from one similar thing to another thing. But, you know, like, some of those kind of cues are important. I also have to remember, like, with my body, I have to breathe. Sometimes it helps me to go for a walk when I get home. In fact, Joel was telling me last night, he said, maybe we just need to go back to walking for 30 minutes when you get home from work. Because he works from home, and I mostly work in our office. And I was like, what a good idea. Yes. Because it just helps to settle my brain and just to know that I'm gonna have that, like, monkey mind kind of thing going on for about 30 minutes when I get home, where I sort of feel like I'm between two places and I can't settle. I only live, like, a mile from our office. I don't have any commute to kind of decompress, which I think is also challenging in some ways. So I think this is constant challenge. And the best thing we can do, like you said, is to set ourselves up where it's harder for us to get off the off ramp. You know, where it's not as easy to jump on Instagram. It's not as easy to answer the email. We put some friction there so that we remember to come back to where we are.

It's interesting that you bring up walking, because I was actually just journaling last week that the number one indicator for me, me, as to whether or not I'm going to be mentally present with my wife and kids in the afternoon is whether or not I went on a run during the day.

Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah.

It's like God did not design our brains just to receive information. We have to make creative connections, and we need silence and stillness and solitude to do that. So on my runs, I don't listen to anything. I have headphones on so that people don't think I'm a weirdo. But, yeah, I'm just trying to make creative connections. But when I don't do that, that I'LL be playing Barbies with my girls and be working out a problem in my mind, in my brain at work. It's a real challenge.

So, yeah, I agree with that. I think a lot of stress and anxiety gets worked out physically and we underestimate that because our world is so information oriented. We forget that we're human beings, you know, that we have a body and that we, we often underutilize that. And I am a huge believer in exercise. I like live for exercise and I'm not like, like some crazy nut. I'm just like for, for my mental health. Like, I feel like that's critical.

Yeah, I don't run to exercise my body primarily, that's a secondary benefit. I do it to exercise my mind. Hey, so this idea, succeeding at life. I'm really curious, kind of talking about this intersection of faith at work now, like, how do you think your personal definition of succeeding at life is similar and different than how a non Christian might define success?

Well, yeah, I think probably most. Well, maybe that's not fair. I was about to make maybe too much of a generalization. I think it's easy to think of success in just financial terms if you're not being thoughtful about it. And I think that is a great tool. You know, I think money enables us to have lots of choices. It enables us to help people. You know, I take a lot of joy in being able to employ people and provide stability for their families and opportunity. All that kind of stuff's great. But I think that's one part of life. I think that they're, God made us as whole people and there are so many aspects to our lives that need to be attended to. So in the book when at Work and Succeed at Life, we talk about basically three areas of non negotiables. As you're kind of thinking about, okay, what does the double win look like for me? And this is really part of the strategy of figuring out kind of your blueprint is identifying what your non negotiables are. And this is exactly what I did when I brought my boys home. And you know, my dad said, I'm ready for you to take over the business. You know, blah, blah is number one. What non negotiables do you have for your own self care care. Because if, you know, it's kind of like if that's not in place, lots of things fall apart. What about your relational priorities? And then what about your professional results? And they're in that order on purpose, you know, And I would put in self care. I Would put, you know, your own spiritual connection and well being in that, you know, if that is not in place, then all kinds of things fall apart. That's the foundation.

What's your non negotiable there?

Yeah, so my non negotiable is my devotional time. Every day I have done a devotional by an Anglican woman who's actually passed away now called Phyllis Tickle. And what a name, Phyllis. I know, right?

I love this woman already.

Such an old name. I know, she was great. She was amazing. But it's called the Divine Hours and it's seasonal and it basically is kind of based on the Book of Common Prayer. It's very similar, you know, scripture in it. It's prayers, it's all kinds of stuff and it doesn't take very long. But I have learned over the years to set a low bar for these kinds of things. If I set the high bar, like the thing I can do on the day when I get up, up 30 minutes extra early, you know what I mean? Like all those kinds of things, I'm not consistent. So I have been very consistent, including when our now two year old daughter was teeny tiny and you know, waking up all night long, I mean, it was like if I can do it on those mornings when I haven't slept, then that's a good discipline because I can, you know, reasonably do that most days. So that's my baseline there. And then Joel and I pray before we go to bed every night, which is a really sweet part of our evening ritual that as parents and partners, you know, that we just cherish. That time's the last thing we do before we go to sleep. So that's kind of our non negotiable around that. And then of course we go to church or attend church virtually lately, you know, which is important to us as well, and pray with the kids and. But it's once you know what your non negotiables are, you know, that's really, that's how I define success. You know, I want to make sure that I'm not only am I making the kind of professional contribution I feel like God has enabled me to do and called me to do, but I'm very clear on what that looks like with my family. There's all kinds of things that are not on my non negotiable list. For example, like one of the things on my list is dinner around the table with my kids five nights a week. That doesn't mean I have to cook. That doesn't mean that it's fancy. It doesn't mean it's on real plates. You know, sometimes it's sometimes back to chick fil a. Sometimes it's chick fil a, sometimes it's leftovers. Sometimes I, you know, I do cook or whatever, but it is. I want to sit down at the table and I want to talk about what we're grateful for. I want to talk about what the wins were. That's what I want my kids to remember. So that's a non negotiable for me. And I literally build my life and my schedule around it.

I love that. I'm curious in what ways you see the work you guys are doing at Michael Hyde and company Connecting to the work God wants to see done in the world, right? Just connecting redemptive plans for the world and for human beings.

Well, you know, one of the things that is the most meaningful to me that I see with our clients. So we have a big group coaching program for business owners, senior executives and nonprofit leaders. And we also have one on one coaching. We also do corporate training. But in this group coaching program called Business Accelerator. In order to be a part of this program, you already have to have a certain level of success in your business, you know, as measured by financial metrics. Cause we want people at similar levels in the program. But almost inevitably people come to us with that piece of success on track. They might want to accelerate it. They have certainly more scaling that is ahead of them. But they usually come overwhelmed, they usually come burnt out. They usually come with some domain of their life, whether it's their physical domain, their marital domain, parental, social media, whatever. Something is out of whack. And I feel like we have this kind of unique opportunity to help people discover a path to this double win where they can continue to reach their God given potential in their business and even do that faster and better and more meaningfully. But they can also do it in a way that is sustainable with holistic success. Us that, you know, we hear from spouses, kids, employees, whatever. These testimonials of people saying, man, he just took the first unplugged vacation he's taken in 20 years, you know, or wow, I got to go on sabbatical with my kids right before they went off to college or wow, I feel like totally freed up to care for my parents who are struggling, you know, with dementia or Alzheimer's. Like I can be present for that. That's what like gets me excited is we can help people achieve not just more success in their business, which is super exciting. And I Love that part, too. I love business. You know, it gets me totally excited. But we can help people do it in a way that their whole life changes. And that I think, honestly, that's why this book matters to us, is because we want more people to have access to a third option, you know, in their lives. Because, you know, in my dad's own store, we both kind of have our own double wind story. He didn't grow up with this kind of an example. And certainly in the early years when I was growing up, he was a workaholic. He wasn't around. He missed a lot of things. My mom was really on her own trying to raise five kids, five girls, if you can imagine that, you know, without a lot of input from him. And it was really through some health scares where he thought he was having a heart attack and hired a coach. And, you know, who challenged him and said, said, you got to get this figured out. You know, this is not going to end well. And he really doubled down and figured it out, and figured out, okay, what does it look like to be somebody who's a high achiever with big professional goals and abilities and also not neglect my family, my health, my most important relationships, my impact in the community, my spiritual life, all those things? And so that's a very different story than mine, but I think a lot of people can relate to that, and that's really where a lot of our clients. Clients come to. And that's really the work that God's given us to do.

I love it. We started out talking about adoption. I'm really curious how your adoption as a child of God has impacted how you work, how you think about work, ambition, your.

Yeah.

How does that connect for you?

Well, you know, this has kind of been interesting through the succession process with my dad. We went on a trip in August. This was actually the, like, the first trip we had taken, which was just a driving trip to a resort in East Tennessee that was kind of all spread out. It was like we could do it with COVID you know, and it was really intended for us to just kind of do some planning around the succession and noodle on some thoughts that our coach had instructed us. You know, she said, I want you guys to think about what's the soul of your company, because that's really what's getting passed on and what needs to be passed on. Megan, even past you, you know, as you're thinking about, how do you infuse that this into the future and kind of keep passing this baton? And so as we were Talking. And she's like peeling back the onion layers. You know, this conversation between my dad and I, and he said, you know, I think the heart of my leadership and this company is that I believe that our life is a gift. That fundamentally we didn't do anything to earn it or deserve it. It was literally a gift that's handed to us. All the people, all the opportunities, all the things that. That have come into our care are gift. And when we think about it like a gift, our orientation is one of gratitude, deep gratitude, humility, stewardship. You know, we don't own anything. We're just stewards for this time, whether that's people or opportunities or financial resources or whatever, like, where all of these things are given to us with the intention of. Of entrusting them to us to be cultivated and then return to God, hopefully in better shape than they started out. You know, that. That's really kind of that eucharisto idea that people like Ann Voskamp and others talk about, you know, and it was just a really special time for us to kind of put words around something that I think we both knew but had not explicitly articulated in that way. And I think that is fundamentally rooted in our theology and in our faith. Faith. I mean, it's just. It's inextricable, really.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's this idea that everything is a gift, and it's the core of the gospel. Right. And if.

Right.

If Our adoption as children of God is something that has gifted us, which we believe it is.

Exactly.

It's also something that we can never, ever lose. Right. And to me, that enables me to take bigger swings at work.

Right.

Because now.

Totally. What a great point.

Regardless of success or fail. Failure. I have been graced. The ultimate thing, peace with God through Christ. Right. Period. Now, it doesn't matter if I succeed in reaching those goals. I want to do it as an act of worship to make my father proud, but I'll have to do it. Right.

But there's a freedom in it. It's not like, from this place of scarcity and anxiety. It's really from a place of, like, you know, we have a father who owns cattle on a thousand hills. You know, there's no. There's no scarcity. There's just. There's just freedom.

Barricades up to the plate in a position of freedom rather than fear.

Yeah.

Right? Yeah, I love it. All right, Megan, three questions. We wrap up every conversation with. Number one. Other than your own books, that doesn't count. Which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others?

Oh, gosh. Okay, so my three favorite books right now are the Loyalist Team. These are all kind of culture books. Radical Candor, which is another. Another great book, really influenced my leadership. And then Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. Just absolute.

Those are great. Have you read no Rules, Rules by Netflix?

No.

It's phenomenal.

Is it awesome? I'll send you a copy. It is. I'm putting on my list book on.

Culture I've ever read.

Great.

Now it's Netflix, so take it with a grain of salt. When you have billions of dollars in cash, you could do a lot of things, but. But it's interesting, so. And you guys, I can't wait to read it. As always. Can find those books@jordanrayner.com bookshelf shelf. All right, Megan, who do you want to hear in this podcast talking about how the gospel influences their work?

Well, I would love to hear Chip and Joanna Gaines talk about that. Yeah, that's a great. So fascinated by what. What they've done. I think they're easily underestimated, and I think they're unbelievable visionaries that are just like regular people who've done something that probably won't really be appreciated until it's. In hindsight. I think that's.

That's a great answer. All right, last question. One piece of advice to leave this audience with a lot of leaders, but a lot of people who wouldn't consider themselves leaders across a bunch of different vocations. What they do share in common is they are apprenticing themselves to Jesus Christ and want to do great work for his glory and the good of others. What do you want to leave them with?

Wow, that's a big question.

It is.

It is a big question. You know, I think I would say that God wants bigger things for you and bigger dreams for you than you can imagine, and that God can use you in ways no matter how inadequate you feel. And, you know, about every other day, I feel inadequate about something or afraid about something, and I just feel like time and time again, God comes through and has bigger plans for me and not for my own glory, but, you know, something that he wants to do. And I look back over the last decade or two, I'm just like, wow, it's amazing what God's enabled me to do when God's, you know, enabled our company and our family to do. And I don't think I'm very special. You know, I think that that's. I think that's just kind of how God works. And I think that sometimes we say no for God before he says no. And I would just encourage people to be open to God's yeses and to be open to what you feel God's stirring in your heart, even if it feels like it's out of reach at this point.

I love that it reminds me of one of my favorite verses in all Scripture, Ephesians 3:20. Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, we're able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. Not because we're great. It's because he, the Creator. God works through you and me in the work that we do in the world today. Hey, Megan, I just want to commend you for taking big swings. Commend you for the exception of exceptional redemptive, I believe, work that you guys do at Michael Hyde Co. Just for serving your team and leaders through the ministry of excellence. Guys, the book is Win at Work and Succeed at Life. Five Principles to Free Yourself from the Cult of Overwork. Megan, this is a ton of fun. Thanks for being with us.

Jordan, thanks so much for having me. This has been really a pleasure.

I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as as much as I did. Hey, if you did love it, do me a Favor, go take 10 seconds right now and go rate the call to mastery on Apple podcasts. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in this week. I love, love, love making this show for you guys. It's a joy. It's one of the great joys of my work. Sharing these stories, sharing how people are doing redemptive work in every corner of creation. I'm grateful for you guys. I'll talk you to to you next week.