Neil Ahlsten (CEO of Abide)

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. Every 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 their daily habits, and how the gospel influences their work. Today's guest is my friend Neil Alston. He's a crazy impressive co founder and CEO of the Abide Sleep and Meditation app, which was recently acquired by Guideposts. Before Abide, Neil spent seven years at Google, and before that he was the Darfur Chad Refugee Program manager for the United States State Department. Neil and I sat down recently to talk about how what you listen to before bed can rewire your brain, how to identify yourself as a Christian at work, and the 20 minutes of fun routine that Neil does with his family to cultivate rest and joy. I think you guys are going to be really encouraged by this conversation with Neil Alston. Hey, Neal, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks. It's great to be here.

So we were catching up on Zoom a couple weeks ago, and I wish we could have had that conversation then. But your professional story is fascinating to me. You started your career doing work in the developing world for food for the hungry Department of State, and then you made the leap to Google. Seems like a big leap. What's the story behind that transition for you, Neil?

My operating motive is to always help people. Like that's what motivates me the most. But I'm kind of a mathematician and a geek and I started out doing refugee work and humanitarian work in really, really tough places in Africa. I was in Congo on the rebel side helping people who were displaced. I was in South Sudan on the rebel side. I was in Darfur and Chad helping refugees. And that was in many ways very fulfilling. But I also felt like I wasn't necessarily solving the root problems that people were having. I was more just helping them get back on their feet. And I felt like technology was probably the biggest influencer coming. And I went and I had some finance background and I applied to Google and I remember one of the most hilarious interviews I answered Questions I have ever given this person asked me, they were like, you know, like, how is all this work in Africa gonna help you when you're in here? We're working with these businesses that we're trying to negotiate with. Like, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna add? And I was like, well, yeah, I've negotiated with Sudanese rebels before about laying down their arms. I think I can negotiate with Apple. The other person, like just like their jaw dropped. And I'm like, okay, yeah, you probably can. And it's honestly true is like bringing that perspective of like just creative thinking and listening to people and trying to understand what's possible is really an effective skill set across anywhere. Yeah.

I've read so many books on how Google hires. I've always been such a big fan of their hiring culture. And that's something that always pops up. The wild questions that you get. But in your case, the wild jaw dropping answer. That's a great answer.

Well, it is and it's great if you can have a few of those in your back pocket. And I had another one that the VP who I was going to be reporting under, he asked me like, where would I want to live? And it was. He was trying to build a trap for me. He was like, anywhere, any place in time. He. And I was like, maybe the renaissance would have been great because it's like the emergence of this new culture and everything. And he's like, well, why don't you just move to Italy then? And I was like, dude, because the renaissance is happening here today. It's in Silicon Valley. Like, this is the moment. And he was like, okay. So they try to like back you into these places where your answer gives them fodder to sort of like throw tough questions at you. And it's nice to have another one in your back pocket to say, no, wait, I don't just have one responses. I've got multiple.

I love it. What were you doing for the seven, eight years you were at Google?

I worked my way into actually leading deal reviews with everybody. So like Apple undersea cables and things like that. It was actually a really interesting job, but it was all internal facing. So I was working with the general counsel, our CFO and stuff like that. And it was like business school on steroids. I learned every Internet deal that you could basically ever imagine. Yeah. What all that's thought and felt about it. Yeah. And that was fun. And then from there I wanted to go on to the deal making side. So I wound up helping launch products and doing new Advertising products, insurance products, financial services products where we had to go out and get data to get advertisers on the platform and do other things like that. And so I enjoyed it a lot. It was, Google was a great place to work when I was there.

But then you made the leap to, to start this Abide Meditation app. Why leave Google?

That's a great question. I did not actually start out wanting to leave Google. I thought I could find Christian entrepreneurs who I could mentor and stay at Google. And I built up a whole team, ran events, got a whole bunch of people who were interested in working on the project. And it wasn't until we actually started experimenting with product stuff that I felt like I needed to leave Google. I had this one moment where we were prototyping a prayer experience and we tried audio prayer. We were like, well, let's try text, let's try audio, let's try video. Let's just, you know, prayer is the most common behavior that Christians have. Like, what would it look like if we brought in these different formats? This was in like 2013.

Yeah.

And it was just clear that audio was like electric. People getting prayed over in audio was just like there was some movement of the Holy Spirit. It was like not explainable through scientific experience. It was like, there's truly something spiritually profound happening when people hear an audio prayer prayed over them like that. I was just like, if I know the good I could do and I don't do it, that's almost like sinning. Right? Like, I know this good that could be done in the world by doing this, because I've seen it in users, in prototyping. And I talked to my wife about it and she's like, oh, it's about time you leave Google. You need something new. And I was like, oh, really, honey? We have four kids and you only leave a good paying job. So yeah, that all worked out.

For those who don't know what's abide, the product's been out there for, I don't know, seven years.

Ish.

What is the product?

The product is in the app is audio meditation. And meditation includes scripture, reflection and prayer. So you fill yourself with God's word and with the Holy Spirit and reflect on what's going on in your life and take action steps to move forward as well as sleep content. So the sleep content is a lot of affirmations and spiritual content that really helps, you know, God's presence as you're falling asleep. Those are the two primary pieces of it. And we have very large libraries of incredible narrators and writers who put those together. And then there's obviously background music and notifications and alerts to get you in when you want them and other things that. That's the core of my thing. We also have a YouTube channel that has a million subscribers to it, which has been hugely successful. The podcast that gets several hundred thousand dollars a month. So Abide is a media company really about helping people spend quality time with God, morning, night, and then when you need it, you're anxious during the day, things like that.

And you guys were recently acquired by another media company, very old media company. Guideposts. Tell us about that transition for you guys.

Yeah, it's been a great transition. Guideposts has obviously been around for. Since the 1940s, I think is when Norman Vincent Peale founded it. And they were all about sharing the gospel in relevant ways to help people in their everyday life. So, like, super similar vision, but we're very focused on different media channels, primarily print publications.

Yeah. Cause in the 40s, the way to do that was through direct mail.

Exactly.

Sending magazines to people, and today it's apps and podcasts and YouTube channels.

Exactly. And so we saw it as an opportunity to expand and reach audience and to build up our organization. And then they saw it as an opportunity to get into more tech and sort of leapfrog forward. And so they've got some great people there and really smart thinkers and innovative in the print space. I mean, they're one of the few people who's really succeeded in direct mail and print when the industry's been hurting. It's fun to diversify and to work with other really good people in the space.

Yeah, I think it's easy to see how the humanitarian work you did at the State Department was quote, unquote, ministry. I think it's probably easier for our listeners to see how the work at Abide is ministry. You're talking about prayer, meditation. I think it's probably harder for people to grasp how your work at Google was ministry. Do you define it in that terms? And if so, in what ways did you view your work at Google as ministry, Neil?

Yeah, that's a wonderful question. In a lot of ways. I think everywhere you're at, you can choose to turn it into a ministry. And there were some very direct faith at work movement things that I was involved in of like leading Bible studies, getting people to think about God's word, to pray over Google, to be really present there, and to be not hiding my faith. Right. So like when there were opportunities with Colleagues to be able to share about that background, being open to it. That's a big ministry. And obviously there's values that not all, but a lot of values align with. And I'd press into those helping the poor and serving things in Africa. And I actually spent two years working on getting people Internet access in Africa with Google was a focus of mine when I was first moving to business development. And that felt very just helping people, helping them have a better life. So I think those opportunities, part of it is like not putting aside your faith when you show up at work, if that's what motivates us and drives us. And I think also makes us more exceptional. Like, Jesus wasn't unexceptional. He was exceptional in what he did and wanted excellence. And I think that that same philosophy, then people trusted me. They were like, oh, you're one of those Christians that I could work with. Like, you're actually smart. I had somebody say that to me once, like, you're Christians actually smart. Which is a sad thing about their perspective on believers because obviously that's not what the case. But to be able to represent God in a way of professional excellence and values, it's admissions field.

Yeah. It's sad, but it is often true that Christians are known for mediocrity. But it's one of the reasons why this podcast exists to call us all to the pursuit of excellence. Because I think when we are excellent at our crafts, we, as Paul says in First Thessalonians, we win the respective outsiders. This is part of how we win their respect and the opportunity to point them to Jesus. Right.

I think so. I think being the most excellent version of yourself is what God wants from us. Yes. That is what we strive for. And that excellence is spiritual, it's intellectual, it's all those capacities physical. We should be the most excellent version of ourself, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Right. It's like, come on. It's like God putting us on steroids to do better and hopefully that triumphs. And there's so many examples of that historically. Right. If you look back at a lot of the great mathematicians and philosophers and whatnot who are believers and Pascal and Pascal's like, there's a lot of evidence of that historically. It's like, let's live into that today. To be in the space of showing the excellence that happens in the faith community.

Yeah. And living that out wherever we are, whether we're working for a quote unquote ministry like abide or a Google. I think in the church today, there's this lie, this really ugly, deeply entrenched lie that God only cares about the spiritual realm, right? And specifically saved souls. But Jesus said he came to make all things new, to redeem all things, right? In Genesis 3 tells us sin broke, yes, human beings, but also the material world, the world of work. And I look at Google, I'm like, Google is making my work life better. It's fixing a lot of things that are broken in the material world. It's contributing to human flourishing. And when done with proper motives, I think that's ministry, right?

Oh, totally. I don't like separating at all, like this spiritual world and the physical world and saying they're totally different. It's like God created us as physical beings and put a spirit in us and they're both part of it. And even in heaven, I think people get confused sometimes. Like, no, go read it. Like, we have bodies in heaven, we're still like, we don't stop having a body and start floating around as some disembodied spirit. Like, the physical is part of the way that God moves and works. And so I'm totally in agreement that us living out our faith in the physical world is really, that's our intersection with the kingdom of God. And we're called to bring the kingdom of God into this world. That's the ministry of Jesus. It's like the kingdom of God is here.

It's breaking in right now. We're ripping pieces of it through the veil into the present. I get questions a lot about this, especially for people working in big companies in corporate America like Google. It's like, what are winsome, non offensive ways to just identify yourself as a Christian, right? Maybe 20 years ago it was like subtly, quote unquote, leaving a Bible on your desk. But like for you at Google or the State Department, how were you able to win? Somely just raise your hand and say, yeah, I'm a follower of Jesus.

I find that when you're a believer who's following the faith authentically, the big decisions you make in your life are informed by that, right? And if you talk about your own life, like your own life is always a space that is yours to talk about. And so like, even if people talk about, they'll be like, oh my gosh, so we adopted twins from Congo, right? Like, we have two biological kids and then we adopted twins. And people are like, well, why did you adopt when you could already have kids? And like, what? And I'm like, this is an opportunity, right? Like, I mean, come on, you just Handed me. And obviously, like, I don't try to just sell only that part, but it's part of the whole story. It's like the part of the motivation, right. Is like, came from. Go read, like James 1, where it says, true religion is this to serve orphans and widows in their distress. And it's like, I believe that and I acted in that way. And I have two Congolese kids who are part of my family who need a college education and food. Right. Like, and so I think that people received that really well. They'd be like, oh, my gosh, like, that motivated you to do this. Who's going to tell you that you're, like, proselytizing them? They'd be like, oh, you're just telling your story.

You're just being you. You're just being real.

That's right.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. I love it so much. Yes. Your work at Google's ministry. But there did come this point where it sounded like the call from the Lord was like, crystal clear. Like, hey, you gotta go now. You gotta go focus on this abide project. Was it crystal clear to you? Did it feel like an overt, albeit likely not audible call from God to.

Go do that work? You know, I've had seasons where I've had pretty overt audible calls from gods and ones where I haven't. In this particular case, it really was like almost literally an audible call from God and even having people prophesy over me, which is not something that is normal in my life. Like, I'm not somebody who has that normally happened. And I think I needed that in order to persist during the hard times that would come, right? To just rise up, be like, no, God called me this. I don't care if it's hard. I don't care if it's not easy. And there's been other paths. Like, God didn't audibly say to me, like, you know, my wife go adopt twins from Congo, but we did, and that's part of our life. So. But God gives you, at least in my experience of this, God did provide us with enough evidence that we were on a path that was a good spiritual path to be on that made it really easy to fight through the hard times. It's a marathon, it's a long race. And I think that some of those are helpful. And it's a great question. People who are out there today who are wondering, like, what do I do? I feel like I'm in a career where I'm not making a difference with my Faith, I'm not having the impact that I have. Like, how do you deal with that? And you know, part of it for me was just trying to stay open to what God would be calling and try to commit some time on the side to actually do things. Even when I was full time with Google, still maintaining some activity and openness. And then you're just watching out because sometimes God will throw you a curveball and you wind up moving in a different direction than you anticipated. And that definitely happened in my life.

Yeah. This is something I've written about before. If the thing you're doing vocationally today isn't the thing you want to be doing or the thing that you think you could do most exceptionally well in service of God and others place little bets outside of the main thing. And over time, you know, if something starts to grow really quickly or somebody prophesies over you, says, hey, this side thing is the thing, that's when you make the leap.

Right.

But it starts by taking those little bets.

Absolutely. And I think that's something that we continue to do throughout our life. Even at Abide, we continue to place bets in other areas, like small bets. Right. Like, let's try things that are new zones of possible ministry or influence and see what works. And that keeps you fresh and it keeps you innovative and it keeps you moving forward. I'm a huge fan of that.

Yeah, you touched on this before. Abide focuses a lot on sleep. One of my all time favorite topics. I'm curious, how does meditating on God's word help us sleep better? Like, what are you hearing from users? What's the connection here?

This was a great question when we first got into it because we got into sleep because we saw people were trying to use our app to sleep.

Yeah, yeah.

And there were two big questions for me is like, one is, what's the theology behind sleep? Like, why would you need content to sleep? And the other was like, well, what's the user experience? Like, what are user. And if those two intersect, we're in a good place. And there's actually in the Bible, very clear statements by Jesus about spiritual reasons you might not be sleeping. One of my favorite is when Jesus is on the boat and he's asleep and the disciples wake him up because they're afraid the boat's gonna sink. And Jesus basically turns to them and says, you're not asleep because you don't have faith. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, could I be up at night? Because I don't have faith. And then we went and looked at it, and we're like, the Bible in David is, like, full of these psalms around the fact that we're up at night. And I personally have this experience because I don't have faith that God is going to take care of tomorrow. I don't have faith that God accomplished what he was going to do today. And I'm stressed about all these things because I literally don't have faith. And if I had the faith, I could sleep in confidence. And so we actually saw a number of places. Spiritual attack was another one. And protection and letting people know when God's angels encamp around you. It says in the Psalms, right? The angels of the Lord encamp around those who fear him. It's right there. God's protection is over you as you sleep. So if you're gonna. If you feel like under spiritual attack, there's definitely reasons why connecting with God as you fall asleep and in. In your brain, as you study the. The actual brain chemistry of what happens, your brain at night is rewiring itself based in large part upon the state at which you fall asleep. And if you fall asleep anxious and stressed and in that reptilian brain, you're going to be rewiring things in different ways than if you fall asleep in peace, in faith, knowing God's love and being affirmed in your identity as somebody who's loved. Right. And somebody who's cared for, and that will actually rewire your future brain. So there's a lot that goes on there, which is why, like, falling asleep, it's actually a ministry. I see it as this huge ministry right now that we're helping people live a healthier, fuller life, because we're helping them fall asleep in a better way, which is probably honestly how people fell asleep. Like, 400 years ago, people would read the Bible out loud as they fell asleep to their family, right? Like, that's what they did. And they prayed before they fell asleep. Like bedtime prayers. Come on, people.

Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah. To sleep is to trust, right? It's an act of faith that God's going to keep the world spinning. God's going to keep my business spinning, my family alive, even if I'm not there to do the work. I talked about this in this terrific episode of the podcast with my friend, Dr. Benjamin Long. He's a sleep medicine physician who's, like, gone all throughout scripture just looking for what scripture has to say about sleep and has this, like, really robust theology of sleep, which, now that I'm talking about this I'm like, I got to connect you with Dr. Benjamin.

Yeah, I love that.

Brilliant. But no, it's just this idea again that sleeping forces us to recognize God is God and we are not. I'm curious though, other than sleep, like, what else are you doing personally in terms of rest to remind yourself that you are not in ultimate control of your business, of your family? Do you Sabbath, do you take breaks throughout the day? What does this look like for you?

I do. And because I think that sort of refilling yourself, right, like you can't bring your best if you're not full. And I try to be really good about shutting off during certain hours to spend time replenishing myself and with my family doing things and creating habits around that because I'm big on habit formation. We have this thing that we do with our family I call like 20 minutes of fun on Thursdays where everybody's like together and we just do activities that are like life giving and storytelling. And there's always candy and food involved too. Like just wait, all right, Wait.

We got to go deeper on 20 minutes of fun. Teach us a class on 20 minutes of fun. What is this? What exactly does it look like? I love this.

So I said 20 minutes because the kids could never say that it was too long. But it always goes for an hour to an hour and a half. There's almost always an element of bringing yourself to it. Their participation changes the way that it happens. So like some of the things that we do is sometimes we'll sit around, we have a roof deck and I have like a propane fire pit up there so we can sit around the fire pit and we'll tell stories about each other. So I'll like start a story and be like, okay, we're going to pretend like we're on a spaceship and then everybody's got to tell the story about the next person of what they did when they were in outer space.

That's great.

And people will go around the circle. You know, they said like 10, 12 year old kids for like 20 minutes making up stories about their brother or sister that are just. And you give them a little bit of sugar so they're all jazzed up, right? So you're like roasting marshmallows. And they think the most memorable things. And we also do well, actually it's not really bedding, but like we place spoons. I don't know if people are familiar with the game spoons, where you put out spoons, but instead of spoons, I put out like different candies, like jelly beans. And there's ones people like and ones people don't like. And anything that will get people really has some element of chance and variation and spontaneity in it, but brings out yourself. I just love. And so the kids look forward to it all the time. They're always like, what are we going to do for 20 minutes of fun this Thursday? Like what? You know, and the neighbor kids come over. We even do stories of Jesus. We talk about opportunities to witness. We witness kids by sometimes telling, including Bible stories. And it's just a lot of fun. It becomes part of the life story of what we do together.

But this is part of how you rest, right? Like, your phones are away. This is after the workday is done. You said it's on a Thursday.

Thursday night. It's a 20 minutes of fun. And it's. Yeah, but for me, I get rejuvenated by that because I see the kids having joy and having fun and laughing and not on screens and, like, everybody having a party, and I'm like, okay. Like, that fills my soul with joy. And I need those things to just know that, like, I'm going to get recharged and I'm going to get plugged in.

Yeah, I think we all need that. I think we need more fun, more joy. I think a lot of times God is happier than we are. God is more joyful than we are. That's been really convicting me lately. I also think, like, one of the practices I'm trying to really learn is abiding. We're on the podcast with the CEO of a Biden because I think there's a huge difference between doing our work for God and doing our work with God and abiding with him, communing with him. So I'm curious for you, what does communion with your Heavenly Father look like, look like?

Personally, a lot of mornings, it starts out with some classic just turning to God's word at the beginning of the day. Right. In different forms and then trying to apply it throughout the day. I really think that a lot of communion for me with God is being able to reframe what I'm doing in the moment to be like, how might God be present in the circumstance? Right. If I believe God is present everywhere, how is God present in every meeting or in an interaction I'm having with my family, with my son, with my wife? Meditation is about just taking everything that we're doing and turning it, reframing it back towards, like, how is God present in this and what is true that God has said that I should be doing in this place and time. I have the fortune because I work at a Christian organization. A lot of times that means, like, praying in meetings. And that prayer, we vocalize them together. I mean, you can pray silently in a meeting if you're frustrated about something. Like, I've literally had that happen where, like, I was so mad at somebody in a meeting because of things they were doing that I just felt like were violations of what is true and right and just. And sometimes I've let myself get mad and angry and bad things happen out of that. I'm going to be honest. I'm human. But there have been other times when I've turn that into an opportunity to say, you know what? I'm going to pray that the Lord moves in this person's life. I'm going to pray that they have an openness to receive what is good and what is, you know, what God wants out of this circumstance and out of their life. And it totally changes the moment. Instead of being one of anger and frustration, it becomes like, here's a ministry opportunity for me, and I don't necessarily have to. I love Francis who says, like, preach the gospel at all times, use words when necessary. Is kind of like, in some ways, by me reacting in a godly way maybe to that circumstance, it's helpful. I think that's just part of what I try to do to keep myself sane, is to reframe in those ways. Yeah.

Scripture is clear that what we do right now has an impact on eternity. How does that shape how you go about your workday?

I'm going to answer a slightly different question first and then come back on that one is that I really believe, and I've seen evidence that acts or prayers done in faith can endure for long periods of time.

Tell me more about this.

Yeah, I'll tell you very specifically about this. One example would be that the prayers David wrote in the Psalms, even though he's dead, and he wrote those prayers 2,800 years ago, however long ago, they're still active. And those prayers that he prayed are still making a difference in the world today. And I see prayers that we recorded five years ago. People are like, yeah, but that's just a podcast. Like, why would that matter? Somehow in the spiritual world, God is multiplying that. That even though that person isn't saying that prayer right now, they prayed it in faith. And so I do think that the acts and the prayers that we do in faith, it doesn't Stop. Time is not the same to God as it is to us. Those prayers we pray are incense before God in heaven. The prayers of the saints. Right. Are incense before God in heaven. And that heaven is not in the same space time that we are in here. And so I do really honestly believe that some of the work I'm doing today is probably because my ancestors prayed for me.

Yeah.

And that's influencing who I am today. The prayers that my great grandmother prayed in faith for her descendants is influencing me. And the same is true of what you do. So every day, the acts that we do, there's some multiplier effect to that, that honestly, it's up to God. I'm like, I see evidence of it, but I can't tell you how it works. I can't describe a causal pathway for it because I don't understand that, but I totally see that. And so what does that mean? In my daily life, it's trying to identify those opportunities to do things that are going to have eternal impact. The thing that kills me, Jordan, about this is so often those things are deficiencies in me. When I come before the Lord and I'm like, oh, yeah, I want to pray to make a difference. And what can I do that's going to change the world? And God will be like, you need to go apologize to your son for being mad at him yesterday and pray for him. And I'll be like, oh, man, you're totally right, dude. Like, that's. You're right. Like, I actually need to, like, go heal something that I did wrong or be more active in something. And so I do think that part of that reflection process is really healthy in this to be able to. And a part of that which is also brings the joy we were talking about earlier is the gratitude and thankfulness for the things that God has done. Because I think we're so quickly forgetful in this society. Everything is so, like, immediate that bringing back in. Oh, my gosh, like, God has done these things in my life. God has blessed me with these relationships, with these material things that I have with, you know, these memories also leads to a much deeper joy and faith. Because it's like, well, if God was faithful in the past, I can trust he's going to be faithful in the future. Yeah.

I wrote a division about this recently in the context of Genesis 1, where God takes the time to step back and ask what's good of his work before he asks what's next, he steps back and he appreciates this is good. What I made is Good. And I'm thankful for it. Okay, now what's next? It's just so contrary to the way that we live and work today.

Right.

So I'm curious if you've got rhythms in your life that force you to dwell on what's good before asking what's next?

Absolutely. One of the best rhythms that we have is at night when we go to bed. I try. And I'm not. Don't do this every night. But to ask the kids, what do they think thankful for? And I say that what I'm thankful for to kind of be like, okay, at the close of the day, what happened today that we can be grateful for? And it seems simple, but often those simple things are the things that are most profound in people's life. Yeah. That sort of daily repetition of being able to say something that happened in the day that we're grateful for. It just implants in my memory. I think that's really one of the strongest. And people have different methods for that. Some people do it in journaling. Some people do it. And like we do as a family. Family. Some people do before meals. But I think building a habit out of it is. It's so powerful. Yeah. And people love it. And that's another one of those areas where I feel like you can invite anybody into who's not Christian.

Yeah.

Just being like, what are you grateful for?

Yeah. What's good in your life right now?

Yeah. Who doesn't want to answer that? I mean, some people might be really stressed out and have a hard time answering that question or feel. Feel betrayed or whatnot. That leads to a different conversation. But, like, it's so inviting to wish more of that in people's life. I just find that such a beautiful human connection to have.

Yeah, I agree. I think part of our response to this idea that our work matters forever is like a commitment to mastery, like a commitment to getting really good at what we do because we believe our work as ministry. You prove yourself to be a great founder. You guess had what appears to be a successful exit with guideposts. Like, what do you think great founders do that average founders don't do?

Having talked with and worked with a lot of founders in a lot of different levels, I think that most of the great founders that I know are one is their exceptional listeners. They've listened throughout their life and their time at what they need to change in order to succeed. Right. Because you have to pivot. Every business. Like almost no business is the same. You launch it on day one, day 180 or 360, you have to make changes. And a lot of those changes come by, like, looking and observing and listening. You have to be a phenomenal listener, and you have to be incredibly resilient, I think, is the other thing. It's just fearlessly and unapologetically resilient about pushing through. One of the seed funders of my business was somebody I'd worked for previously who's. Who's not a believer. Let's just say he's wildly successful. We'll leave it at that. And he said, neil, like, you're gonna need faith for your business to succeed. He's like, you are gonna be in those moments. And his business almost went broke before it turned around and became wildly successful. He's like, you're gonna need faith. And I do think with entrepreneurs, and I would encourage any of you who are out there, if you're in hard times, obviously there are times to, like, hang it up if it's truly not the right thing and restart something else. If you can't be resilient through rough times, you're just not gonna succeed. Succeed, yeah.

To riff off Hamilton, you don't get a win unless you stay in the game.

That's right.

You know, it's interesting. We hear a lot regardless of the vocations of our guests. Number one key to mastery is listening to feedback. But I love that you've added resiliency. And in these two things, I actually think they're one thing, which is humility. Right. Like, humility is a prerequisite for listening well and accepting feedback. And humility is also critical for resilience, because if you don't have humility, you take losses really personally, and it allows you to quit much earlier on. Is that ringing true to you? Does that make sense?

I think that humility is a big part of that. And that was one of the things when we talked about, like, my own resilience in this came partly because I was like, lord, you called me to this. And I believe that you're going to get done whatever you're planning, regardless of what I think of it, I think that's a bit of at least one approach to humility. Yeah. I guess an approach to humility that I take is seeing myself through God's eyes.

Yeah.

Right. Because it's like, well, God sees himself and other people and everyone else, and God loves me, but I'm part of this bigger ecosystem. And I think that for my business, resiliency, that was a really big part of it is just being like, okay, like, I'm going to be resilient because I'm accomplishing God's purpose. And it also lets me be resilient and bless other people who are sometimes competitors, because some of my competitors are Christians. Right. Who are also trying to like advance the gospel and our other apps. And to be able to be like, you know what, I'm actually, I'm praying for them, like, honestly, that God would do good things for them is a form of resiliency and humility. As part of that, we're more co laborers and yet I still want to, you know, have a better app experience in them.

Exactly. Of course. Right, right, right. But it pushes both you to be better and serve people better through the ministry of excellence.

Right, absolutely.

Let's go back to little bets for a couple minutes. How do you cultivate a culture where people are genuinely encouraged and incentivized to take bets on new risky things?

One thing that totally stands out and all of my team gives me this to feedback is to in some ways celebrate failure. If it was a good attempt, and it was, the lessons were learned quickly. Instead of fearing failure, celebrate what you learned and try to learn it fast. And I think that this is something I've heard over and over again from my team is they're like, this is the first place where I feel like I can fail and not have massive repercussions as long as I fail in the right way.

And as long as we're learning from.

Those mistakes and we're learning from it. And as a matter of fact, I am one of the first. I try always to tell people about our failures and be like, dude, we tried this and we failed. We tried this and we failed. We tried this and we failed. This is what we learned. Because if it comes back to that fear of failure, I think a lot of people live, they're frozen by a fear of failure. And so they won't take big chances because they're so afraid of failure. And this is actually a very psychological thing inside of us. And they've set up experiments. I'm like an economist by train, so I go back into that. But there's these classic things they set up where basically people are loss avoidant. And it's just so true. And so if you can make failure not a major loss, but recognition of it, a learning experience, and cultivate that in your team, they're much more willing to take bets.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Neil. This has been great. Three questions. I love wrapping up every conversation with number one. Which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others?

I have recommended and gifted Vern Harnishes, scaling up to a number of people. He just basically summarizes so much in such a short period of time. It's such an easy read. Another one I love, High Output Management by Andrew Grove. And I've given that to multiple people. It's just like he helped define how we manage people in the tech space. There's some spiritual ones in there, too, but I think that a couple of those are ones that I never stop giving away.

Yeah, those are great titles. Andy Grove's a genius. I'm such a fan of that story. Neil, who do you want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel shapes their work?

Peter Thiel.

Yeah, Peter's been on my list for a long time, and I've never reached out and even made the ask. I gotta do that because I think that'd be fascinating.

I saw him in a faith conversation through the Church of Go to San Francisco Reality SF that moderated it with another. And it was. It was crazy. Good talking about, like. Well, what? Like. Because he's talking about, like, you know, what about working on things that extend life, like radical life extension.

Is this the conversation he had with N.T. wright?

Yes.

It was so good.

It was insane. It was so good.

Yeah. So, guys, I'm sure our editors will put this in the show notes, but just go to YouTube and search Peter Thiel and nt right. I actually cited this conversation in my first book called To Create, right at the very end. It's fantastic. They did two of them, and they're both terrific. That's a great answer to that question. All right, Neil, you're talking to an audience of Christ followers who do a lot of different things vocationally. Some of them are entrepreneurs, some of them are marketers, some of them are plumbers, some of them are lawyers. What they share is a commitment to doing great work that advances the kingdom. What's one thing you want to leave them with before we sign off?

I think if you have a diverse group like that, I really want to leave them with the concept that in a lot of ways, like, I love your mastery, one, that you're created in God's image to do wonderful and beautiful things, this world. And that's going to look different for you than it is for everybody else. And what I want to really focus on with that is, like, just looking at the environment you're in today and taking a step back and being like, given where the world is at today and who God is. How can I be moving in this place? Yeah, because like, marketing is ministry today. There's just so many different ways that we can be moving in today's world. Just give that good thought.

I was having coffee with somebody the other day, and they said, if Jesus were king of your office today, what would change? What would be different?

Right.

That's a great question. That makes it just real concrete, real practical. And whatever you think scripture says is the answer to that question. Go do that thing with the gifts that God has given you, with the role that he's designed you for. Go do that thing. And that's kingdom work.

Amen to that.

Neil, I want to commend you for the exceptional kingdom work you do every day, for reminding us that all work can be ministry, whether you're at, you know, Google, the State Department, or Abide. And thank you for reminding us to abide, to commune with the father and experience being an adopted child of the king. Guys, if you want to learn more about Neil and his work, go to Abide Co or just search for the Abide app in whatever app store you've got on your phone. Neil, thanks again for joining me.

Jordan, thank you. It was a pleasure.

I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. Hey, I want to hear which episodes of this podcast you're enjoying the most. And the best way to do that is by just mentioning the episode name right there in the review you leave on Apple or Spotify. Wherever you review your podcasts, we read every single one of these reviews. We use the data to help inform where we're taking the show in the future. So leave a review, let us know which episodes you love, which episodes you don't, so that we could be making the call to mastering even better in the future. Guys, I love you. Thank you for tuning in. I'll see you next week.