Shay Cochrane (Founder of Social Squares)

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 everyone. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional, their most masterful work for the glory of God, for the good of others. Each week I'm hosting a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their craft. We're talking about their path to mastery. We're talking about their daily habits and how their faith, how the gospel in influences the work that they do each day. Today, I'm really excited to share this conversation I had with my friend, Shay Cochran. Shay is an incredibly impressive founder. She has built two businesses, both well into six figures in revenue, and she did it while working 16 hours a week. Shay is a masterful founder, much like her husband, Graham Cochran, who I had on the podcast a few weeks ago. By the way, if you haven't listened to that episode, I would highly encourage you to check it out. It was the very first episode, full episode of the Call to Mastery. But I recently sat down with Shay, Graham's wife, and Shay and I talked about our first entrepreneurial endeavors as kids. So you get to hear what my first business was as well as Shay's, and why Shay's was shut down by military police. There's a great story behind this. We talked about how Shea stumbled into creating essentially this styled stock photography industry. Shay was the first mover in what's now a pretty big niche of stock photography. We also talked about why dad guilt isn't nearly as prevalent as mom guilt. And we talked about how she is able to ensure that her business thrives with only 16 hours of her attention each week. If you listen for no other reason, that's a pretty compelling one. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Shay Cochran. Hi, Shay, how are you?

I'm doing great. Really excited to be here.

Good. I'm excited to have you here. This is really fun. We were just talking with your husband. Graham had a very interesting conversation. So if you haven't checked out that episode with Graham Cochran, make sure you go check it out. So, Shay, my team uncovered something about you in research researching this episode that I did not know. Something we share in common. We were both Kid entrepreneurs. So you, at the age of six, which is earlier than me, what business quote unquote did you start? At the age of six.

So I had many.

Yeah.

One of them was selling friendship bracelets out of Altoids tin on the playground. Another one was selling icy like slushies Kool Aid frozen into styrofoam cups. This is one of my. We lived on base. My father was in the army.

Yeah.

And it was shut down by the MPs because they were finding styrofoam trash all over base. That's amazing because we sold so many. We bought it. We ended up buying a big trampoline with the proceeds. So yes, there's a history there.

Wait, so how many, how many slurpee cups does it take to like have the military shut you down? Yeah, that's a lot. How old were you when you started that?

Around the same age, probably seven, eight.

Where'd you get this entrepreneurial bug? I mean, your dad was military, so I assume it wasn't from him.

No. My mom was always creative and crafty, so we would help her make crafts for art shows and things like that. So I don't know if that was where it came from. Neither of my parents are entrepreneurs or business owners for that matter, so who knows.

The Altoid can thing though is great.

The mint smell for the bracelets was just a value add for them.

Just giving them way the extra smells. Exactly. So I didn't really realize I didn't identify myself as an entrepreneur until later in life. It was really, honestly was like after college, a couple years into my career that was like, oh yeah, entrepreneurship is what you call, you know, this thing. But looking back, it makes total sense. Like I was the kid that did all of the, you know, school sale, fundraiser things, won all those competitions. When I was a kid, my first quote unquote business was I sold baseball cards in my room. So basically. And we like lived in the middle of nowhere. So it was like all my parents friends. It was a terrible business model because we had to rely on my parents hospitality for like people to come over and pity buy cards. You were actually like serving customers. I was not. So you and your husband Graham, who we've had on the show are two of my favorite entrepreneurs. We haven't even known each other that long, but I respect you guys a lot. You guys have two daughters?

Yep.

Have you encouraged them to start their own businesses?

Oh, absolutely.

Have they done that?

They have not started their own businesses yet, but we are always trying to plant in them. The idea that you have a specific, unique set of skills and abilities that someone else can probably benefit from. And we've all, obviously we're trying to teach them about where money comes from, that it comes from work and give them opportunities to kind of tie those two things together in their minds so they do chores to get money, that kind of thing. Chloe, at the age of 10, she's purchased her first stock.

Nice.

She's pretty excited about it. That's amazing. She tries to brag to her friends, but they don't know what a stock is. It's a very. And then the seven year old explains what a stock is and it's just really funny.

So who did she buy stock at?

Disney.

I love it.

We had to bring it down to like something she would understand. She owns a part of Disney.

She owns a part of Disney. She owns a part of Elsa.

Exactly.

Everything. Every Elsa thing she ever purchases. Exactly. She owns a part of. So I'm really interested in talking about your story. I mean, you essentially created this like styled stock photography niche is that inadvertently, inadvertently created this kind of industry that's happening now. So for our listeners who don't know what this term is, what is styled stock photography?

Yeah. So typically when you think of stock photography, you think of iStock or Getty Images, which is obviously widely known, widely used, but largely pretty commercial, maybe leans a little bit more towards very masculine type of images, but they've been around forever and they're still doing great. So what was missing was something that was for, let's say like a female creative business owner. If she needed images of a laptop and an artist's hands working on calligraphy or something like that, you probably wouldn't find that on iStock. In fact, you wouldn't because we tried. So that's where I kind of came in really. It was the idea of a client of mine at the time. I was doing commercial work, sort of brand photography for individual clients at the time. And one of my clients said it would be really great. I just need. I have peaches in my brand and here's my brand colors. It would be really great if you would just photograph some darn peaches and sell me a generic image that then you could sell to other people. So really it's not even my idea is what I'm saying. It actually came from one of my clients who said, you know, I just need something really simple and I feel like you could also then sell that to other people and it would be a value to everyone. And I had Been at the time trying to figure out how to scale what was then a fairly small commercial photography business. And when she said that, it just kind of made all the pieces come together in my mind about how it could be scalable and also how it could serve the clients that were reaching or the customers that were reaching out to me who couldn't actually really afford to hire a commercial photographer. So I wasn't a good fit for them, but there wasn't anywhere to send them. So that idea that she planted at that time, which I'm so grateful for, just kind of made all the pieces come together for me and I just kind of jumped in from there.

I like the nuance you just kind of breezed through between the term client and customer because I actually think it represents the shift in how you've thought about your business. So client is typically used in a service industry. Customer is typically used when you're selling products or selling SaaS software as a service. So. And that's kind of the shift you made, right? I mean, you were doing this commercial photography work for hire, you were freelance photography, worked with Emily Ley, who's in Master of One, my next book, and then made this shift to this more productized offering. Right. So tell us a little bit about those offerings today. So you got the Etsy Stock Shop, you got Social Squares. Can you give us the basics of those products?

Yeah. So the Etsy Stock Shop is basically high res images that you can build your brand around, meaning, you know, you have your logo and you have your color palette and then you have this set of images that you're going to use across all of your different online platforms that is going to also consistently represent your brand in the same way that your logo does. And then we have Social Squares, which is styled stock images specifically for social media. They're used well beyond social media, but that's kind of their primary purpose is because anybody who has an online business these days knows how important it is to have imagery to stay front of mind if you're trying to be on a platform like Instagram or Pinterest. So Social Squares kind of comes in and helps that need for endless imagery that Instagram and platforms like that require specifically for female creative business owners.

So I know there's a lot of female creative business owners listening right now. They're driving and they don't want to pull open their phone to figure out how much Social Squares cost. Please don't do that. What's the price point for Social Square?

25Amonth. If you're doing it monthly and then it's about 19amonth if you're doing it annually.

Yeah. And it's unlimited access to unlimited images, unlimited downloads, and you can sort by color. You can category.

Yep. We're going to have all kinds of. We're actually in the middle of a site build, so it's just gonna get incredibly even more exciting. But you're gonna be able to really customize the curation of images so that it's specific to your brand. If you run multiple social media accounts, it will be specific to each of your different accounts. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. That's interesting.

I love that.

So you were a practitioner before you were an entrepreneur in this like scalable business model. Right. So you were a photographer and now you're scaling up social squares in se stock shop. So you had to pursue mastery of photogr in this one part of your career and entrepreneurship in another. Right. So I'm interested to hear if you think there are common principles, Right. When you're mastering something super technical like photography and mastering something more general like entrepreneurship, like, are there common principles of like, what it takes to become really great at either of those disciplines?

Well, we all know that to a certain extent, in large part, it comes from hours invested. Yeah.

Discipline over time.

Exactly. The fact that I did wedding and portrait photography for eight years before I even got into styled stock photography served me really well from a technical perspective. So I think today we offer one of the most technically well executed styled stock image collections. And that is in large part just due to sheer hours. Like at this point, I've been taking photos for a really, really long time. Other than that, I mean, I think always being a learner, that seems like another just very cliche one. And it's actually one that I'm not very good at because I tend to be very head down and just doing the next thing that I need to do and not necessarily taking all the opportunities that I should be to really learn and to get critique and to sort of intern, so to speak, under other people that are really doing a better job than I am.

So when you, when you do make time for that, what does that look like? Who are you reading? Where are you going to learn?

Yeah. So you know what's funny is I was thinking about this lately. I spend a lot more time trying to learn how to be a business owner than I do trying to learn to be a photographer. And I think that goes back to one of the things that you said earlier. You said there was kind of a moment when you realized, I'm an entrepreneur. And I think that happened for me or over time. I realized that because when I was doing wedding and portrait photography, I always said what I really liked was running a business. The photography was just the fill in the blank that allowed me to run a business.

Interesting. That's the reverse of most people, though. I know most people start a photography business and they hate the business side of it and they just want to, you know, shoot photos. You're the, you were the opposite.

I like the business side of it. So back then it was wedding and portrait photography that was the fill in the blank. And I think what I do now has a lot more meaning for me and it's a lot more enjoyable. So I don't know that I would say the exact same thing, but I think I'm first entrepreneur, business owner, and second a photographer. I don't think that answers your question.

No, that's. No, that's interesting. So like, who do you read like to get better at the craft of entrepreneurs? Like who are your go tos to learn about that topic?

Oh, gosh. Well, I'm currently reading Just Almost Done with Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor, which is not really business ownership, but is kind of helping me kind of put it in larger perspective.

A favorite of guests of the call to mastery for sure.

And you know, it's because of your recommendation and I'm almost done with it. It's been like absolutely life changing. On a very practical level. The book Traction was just really, really helpful for me as someone who did not go to business school, does not have a lot of entrepreneurial experience, never worked in any kind of like corporate environment that was at all related to what I'm doing now. And I'm really just having to kind of learn from scratch. That was just a very helpful, actionable book. There's probably a hundred others. Some others that I like would be like the Pumpkin Plan, things like that that kind of help you really focus in on what's going to be the best use of your time. I've read a lot of those types of books.

I recommend Traction a lot especially to like early stage founders. Can you give our listeners kind of the brief 60 second overview of that book? Because I actually think it has a lot of parallels to Master of One.

Right.

Master of One is all about how do you find the one thing you're going to be exceptional at in your career. Traction is kind of that in terms of like marketing channels and sales channels. Right. Can you give us an overview of the book.

Yeah. I mean, for me, the biggest takeaway was just really helping you sort of step by step systematize some very critical processes like assigning responsibility for different areas of the business, setting up your core values. It talks a lot about how to communication across a team. So team meetings. What do goals look like? What do weekly goals look like versus monthly versus quarterly versus yearly. How to formulate a 5 and 10 year plan. I actually reread Traction almost every year for the past like three or four years. I'll usually pick it back up and just reference a few things. There's always areas that I'm doing well at and a few that I've kind of let slide. So I use it even now as a reference point book just to kind of get back on the right track. Some of the areas that I haven't really nourished enough.

I love it. So you work 16 hours a week.

Yeah.

Which I love. And you've got this very rapidly growing business. I mean, you get two six figure revenue businesses. You get a team. Can we talk about the B word?

Yeah, let's do it.

We were exchanging emails about the B word balance this week. Right. We were trying some emails about this, so.

Because you said, I know I did hate the term work life balance and I agree with you, but I don't know what else to call it. So. What?

I don't know what. I don't know what else to call it. I don't know what else to call it either. Right. It's like I actually don't love the term faith and work either, but I haven't come up with anything better. And for those who are curious, I hate it because we treat these things as separate. They're not. They should be like fully integrated. That's what this podcast is all about. So let's talk about work life balance or whatever the heck we want to call it. So Shay's a member of my master collaboration for founders and this topic came up in our last monthly forum. We got 12 of us that meet for three hours every month. You actually published a really good series of blog posts. I actually think we're saying the same thing on this topic. I just think vernacular kind of gets in the way.

Oh, for sure. I think we're. I do think we're.

I think we're very much aligned. So how do you define balance? Because I think that's where people get tripped up is like, what do we actually mean by work life balance? So what do you mean by work life balance?

I don't know where people are getting held up with that or tripped up with that idea of balance. I don't know if it's the pressure that they feel that everything has to get the same amount of time, effort and intentionality. I don't know why we hate that word so much or if it's just so hard to actually pull off any semblance of what we would call balance in our own lives that we just have kind of become aversive to it. But for me, it just means that everything is getting the amount of time and attention that it needs to thrive, not maximizing everything's potential. Because then I'd be working more than 16 hours a week if that were true.

Sure. So, and you and Graham have some, like, very practical ways that you guys go about kind of designing balance into your life and being proactive about designing that. Can you talk about those habits?

Yeah. So they sound so simple when you talk about it.

They really do.

It's really not rocket science. It's probably something you've considered and said, eh, I'll be okay. We both try to be off of our phones after 5 o'. Clock. We don't have anything pushed to our phones except for text messages. So we don't have slack messages, email, anything like that pushed into our phones. That is helpful. We also don't work after five. So as you mentioned, Graham and I are both entrepreneurs. So we have both been business owners under the same roof for the entirety of our marriage. So now we're talking 14 years during a lot of different seasons of business and life where we have had to figure out the hard way that we needed to create some kind of parameters. So it's over time that those things have kind of evolved. So not working on the evenings, not working after 5 o', clock, not working on the weekends, not taking work on vacation. Again, none of this is rocket science, but they are things that we have just, they have proven themselves to be effective for helping us to maintain some level of protection around the things that really matter. Our marriage, our time with the kids, you know, community involvement, church involvement, etc. So those are probably two of the big ones. Just the lack of work in the evenings, weekends, vacations, that kind of thing.

But I think the phone piece is really important.

It's the hardest one.

It is the hardest one. So. But I'm huge on this, right? So I don't have any notifications to my phone. My phone is always on do not disturb and on my laptop I have no notifications either. Text messages though are tough. Right? Like in the middle of the day, I'll like check my phone and see text message notifications. I'm thinking about turning those off. Like there is a way to do it. I just, I'm not brave enough.

It doesn't communicate via text very much unless it's like really an emergency. We'll usually send a voxer or something like that, which if it's sitting in an app, then it's gonna get checked whenever I actually check the app.

But if there isn't, I think this is where people get like hung up on this idea of like putting your phone to sleep and not touching it throughout the day. There are ways for the people who need you most to find you.

Absolute. Here's the thing, I sell stock images. No one's going to die.

No emergencies.

There's just not really a legitimate emergency. Even if, worst case scenario, the whole site went down for 24 hours. Yeah, we're going to be fine.

Yeah.

And I think it's that perspective that just has to kind of in those moments where I'm like, oh gosh, this is a problem that has to be solved right now or I'm going to lose my mind. And it's like, oh, you know, we're probably going to be okay if it waits till tomorrow.

But it's one of those things where once you get in the practice of it, you realize that your fears were much greater than reality. Oh, absolutely right. And say with work, life, balance, like of saying that, okay, I am only going to work from this hour to this hour. So for me, like the first year of a care and I's marriage, I would work from 5am to 8pm it was terribly unhealthy. Right. And then somewhere, but very common, very sadly, very common. But somewhere along the way I said, okay, no more checking of email or doing anything really productive work wise right after this hour. And that simple practice is like a total game changer. So like when I think about balance. We're going to talk about this in our next collaboratory meeting. I always come back to what I think is our mandate as Christians.

Right.

First Corinthians 10:31. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do everything that we do for his glory and his glory. His character is a character of excellence. So it's this idea of excellence. I think it was James Kennedy who said, excellence in all things for the glory of God. Right. And so to me, balance is okay. And I think this is what you were saying, figuring out what is the right amount of time that I need to dedicate to each of these areas of my life in order to be excellent in all of those commitments. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So what are some. You talked about this, I think, in your latest blog series, but this idea of mom guilt.

Yeah, right.

Which I want to talk a little bit. I know Kara, my wife, has experienced this, and I think this is especially true in Christian culture, maybe even more specifically Southern Christian culture. Right. Does Graham deal with dad guilt?

I don't think so. Do men deal with that at all? I have no idea.

So I deal with it a little bit, but I think most men probably just don't get asked the question. Right. So why do you suppose that is? If I can ask a loaded question.

I guess if we're even just talking culturally, it is more culturally acceptable for Graham to really dive all into work and for it to take up the bulk of his time and attention in America, in Western culture. So for that reason alone, I don't think the same expectations are there. Maybe even from the children's perspective, the same expectations aren't necessarily there because dad maybe is already not around as much. It's not. They're not necessarily as disappointed if dad can't go to the field trip, because it's usually mom that goes to the field trip. So then when mom can't go on the field trip, she's the one that kind of hears it from the kids and maybe feels it, especially because it's generally other moms who are at the field trip.

So it's like a systemic cultural problem. And I don't even know if it's a problem. I mean, it's a reality.

Well. And you know, what's interesting is I was on a podcast earlier today, and she asked me, what would you say over the, you know, last 14 years of business ownership that God has given you freedom from? And my answer, and this was really the first time that I had thought about it, is that. But I do think that one of the main things that God has given me freedom from is freedom from mom guilt. And it has everything to do with the balance and structure of priorities and kind of how we go about those things. Because since I know that I only work 16 hours or two and a half days a week, and I'm off the other five days of the week to do all the mom things, I don't feel guilt leaving for work. I don't feel guilt when I have to say I'm Sorry I had to actually miss that class party because that's mommy's workday. We also have really tried to bring our kids into what God is doing in and through each of our businesses. And so I think anytime that comes up, it just takes a little bit of extra time and intentionality to explain to the kids why we do this. Why does mommy work? What am I doing? What is it that I'm like giving to the world? How am I making the world a better place through what I'm doing? What has mommy's work enabled us to do, not just for our family, but for other families. And that helps us them to understand and have a little more buy in into what's going on. And I think that coupled with those boundary lines being in place have freed me from feeling like I should be mom ing in those hours when I really am diving all in with work.

So you're touching on something that I'm really passionate about, this idea that structure leads to freedom. Structure leads to great freedom. Because you're talking about these like super rigid schedules. Right? I mean, you guys have hard and fast rules of this is when we work, this is when we don't. The lines are very black and white.

It's like budgeting. People think budgeting is rigid and it doesn't have any freedom. When the reality is budgeting allows you to have freedom in how you're going to use your money. And we've, you know, experienced that firsthand as well. So I think that's a really good application.

Absolutely. I mean, budgeting of money, budgeting of time is the discipline of really free people. Yeah, right. It's just a discipline that you have to cultivate to experience true freedom mentally, emotionally, relationally and all of these things. So I love that. Can we talk about your routines?

Yeah.

So you work two and a half days a week. What does a typical, let's say a workday, a day that you are working. What do one of those days look like?

So each of my work days are only six hours long. So I have two six hour days and a four hour day and that goes by in a second.

Sure.

I've divided that time up so that I'm making sure that I'm doing the things that are the absolute best use of my time. So one day a week I'm shooting. That's on Thursdays usually I'm shooting almost every single Thursday. So that's almost half of my entire work time.

Wow. Yeah.

The other day on Tuesdays, I usually go in and I'm Working. I'm spending a few hours doing some kind of. I just call it desk work. But it's basically anything other than email that needs to be done. So like today, for example, I'm writing an onboarding sequence for Social Squares or updating that sequence. I'm usually doing that. I'm usually doing a few hours of art direction and shoot planning because that ties to the best use of my time. And then I'm spending a minimal amount of time in email and then that day's over. That's pretty much it.

How much time do you spend in email?

An hour a day.

An hour a day.

An hour, a work day. An hour, a work day. An hour in the beginning, half an hour at the end.

At the very beginning.

No, sorry.

Good for you. Okay, good.

So what do you do half an hour at midday? After I've done the most important project for that day, then I will do a half an hour of email as more even like a mental transition.

Yeah.

Another common practice. We hear a lot on this show. Right. Do the most important things first.

Absolutely.

That first 90 minutes, in my case, 90 minute or two hour block. And then check email. So I'm curious to get your take on this. I think a lot of people see email as shallow work relative to deep work as defined by Cal Newport. And I think most email is. But I actually started finding that like so because of that, because I viewed email shallow work, I would always put it at the very end of a block. So If I had 90 minutes of deep work, I would roll right into email and then I would take a break before my next 90 minute block. But I actually started figuring out that because I was so tired, at the end of that 90 minutes, I would get an email and I would make really, really bad choices. Right. So I would either be that you.

Then send that into the.

That's exactly right. I would either be like way too fast respond to a message or more common for me, committing to something that I really shouldn't. Yeah. So you need this tremendous amount of willpower to say no, which in my email inbox, the majority of it is me saying no to a lot of different things. So do you do email before or after a break?

Well, I am not usually the one who's having to make that initial yes, no decision first of all. So that I have somebody else that is screening all of those opportunities for me. That makes it a little bit easier. You know, what I'm doing in email right now is a lot that has to do with needs of my team. So it's not quite the same challenge for me. Usually what is in my email is things that actually are very important for me to tend to so that the rest of the people can do their work. And that's partially just because it's a newer team and we're still kind of in the middle of onboarding. So I would say it's a little bit different, but I do think everything in my inbox is fairly valuable.

Yeah. You just hired two members of your team. I think we always learn something new every time we hire somebody. I'm big on this idea that hiring, whether you're a manager at a Fortune 500 company or you're an entrepreneur, it's the number one skill that you can develop. What did you learn in this round of hiring?

I learned from you how important it is to create systems that are going to make it easier in the future. So I think each. I mean, this is for every startup. You're kind of figuring it out as you go to a certain extent. So every time, ideally, hopefully, you're getting a little bit better, but I think we put some things into place this time that will make us leaps and bounds better the next time around. And so I'm really, really excited about that and grateful because time is everything to me. Like, time is such a valuable currency in my world. So anything that I can do to systematize the process and still make it an effective process is really, really valuable to me right now. So I think that was probably the biggest thing that I've learned is just how a little bit of extra time invested on the front end is going to really pay you dividends with future similar decisions.

Yeah, it's something I've learned a lot. So because Shay's a member of the collaboratory, all the members of the collaboratory basically get unfettered access to me and by whatever wisdom I could share. Through my years as an entrepreneur, I feel like I've learned a lot about hiring. Right. And it's just this idea of taking the time to methodically plan out what you are looking for in candidates before you even accept that first resume is, like, critically important. Maybe I'll share that information publicly in some way in the future. Let's talk about the intersection of your faith and your work that is kind of the core theme of this podcast. So just start at the broadest level. How does your faith and your apprenticeship to Jesus Christ influence your work?

I would say what I think about in that question is how it affects, let's say, like the Core values of the business, which affects the behavior of the employees and their interaction with the outside world. So the fact that I'm a believer and image bearer of Christ and believe that any interaction with me or with the company should also be a reflection of character traits of Christ, like kindness, patience, generosity, humility, it has profoundly affected the core values that I've chosen to establish for the company and then those standards that the employees are held to, even when they're not believers, because not everybody that works for me is a believer. So I think it has been an incredible opportunity to get to image Christmas for non believers who work for me. I would say that's one way. I think that it affects, like, you know, it's kind of all just repeating the same thing. But it affects, obviously the way that we treat everyone internally and then the way that we treat every customer as valuable as their needs is important.

How do you extend grace to employees in particular, while still maintaining exceptionally high standards of keeping them accountable? How do you think about that tension?

I live in that tension every single day because I do think that I have fairly high standards that are hopefully delivered with a lot of grace and kindness and patience. So I will try to default to believing the best about the person. I will try to default to giving them the benefit of the doubt. And this is the same. This is the way that we treat customers the same. I will try to be over and above with my patients maybe a little bit beyond what would be savvy.

Yeah.

For a owner to do. I try to default to those things unless there's, like, really a good reason not to.

It's hard.

It is hard.

Yeah, it's really hard.

It is hard.

Have you experienced. So you mentioned some of your employees are not Christians. Have you experienced opportunities to talk about your faith with those people because you have established relationships with them indirectly?

It used to be the whole, like, idea of us being image bearers of Christ used to be literally written into our core values. So at times I was actually, like, going through those with them and that terminology was still in there. I've since kind of changed it a little bit so that it feels like it can be more applicable to them because they are not necessarily going to relate to that. So they need to be motivated by other reasons to be kind, patient, generous, et cetera. No, there have not been very specific, direct. Also, a lot of my employees are new to my team right now. So originally I had a culture of all Christians working for me. So this has been a little bit of a learning curve. For me.

Was that intentional or did that just happen?

Nope, it just happened. But it's exciting.

Yeah, I love it. What would be different about the products and the way you guys treat customers if you weren't following Christ? Can you put yourself in those shoes.

And think about it? Wouldn't it be easier because you could just kind of put out the minimum viable.

Yeah, but it wouldn't. Right?

Right.

So I think about this a lot. Like, you say that, but like you couldn't because the market wouldn't respond to it. Right. Like biblical principles prove true. The market proves biblical principles true.

Right. Yeah, that's right. You're absolutely right about that. So how would the product be different if I were not?

Or just the way. So thinking not just internally about the venture. Right. But externally and how you guys treat customers, the products, whatever. What would be different?

Everything would be different. I mean, ideally. Right. Everything would be different from what their interactions with us are like to whether or not we're over delivering, you know, the quality of their interactions with us, the quality of their interactions with the product. Hopefully, every single thing is affected by the fact that I'm a believer because we are called to a certain level of skillful work and excellence. So I think everything.

Yeah. So we had Graham on the podcast, and we're talking about kind of your family story and seeing how the Lord has moved and going from this place of not knowing how you guys were going to make ends meet to you both having these thriving businesses. How do you maintain perspective in that and recognize that ultimately you weren't the ones who produced that. Right. That as we said in the collaboratory the other day, wealth and honor come from God alone. Like, how practically do you guys maintain that perspective?

Because that is our story. We cannot escape for a moment the fact that it has all come from God.

Because you've told the story.

Right?

Right. We're aware of the story and we witnessed it firsthand that maybe Graham, maybe a little less than I. I kind of had that entrepreneurial spirit. He may be less so. So he would be the one that would say, I didn't want to do this. I didn't know how to do this. And in looking back at the way that his business was built, he can say, oh, my gosh, I did the right thing before I knew that was the right thing to do. Or I did the strategic thing before I knew that that was the strategic thing to do. And God clearly just put his hand on it, gave him wisdom as he was building the business, and it took off Directly because of God's hand being on the business. And I feel very much the same way. I feel largely ill equipped, unprepared. I am very often hitting the ceiling on what I know about how to kind of take my business to the next level. Especially now, you know, six years in or whatever. I'm often hitting that ceiling. So every single day I have to come into work and say, God, please give me discernment, please give me wisdom, please give me creativity. Please, please give me creativity to do beautiful work, to do skillful work, please give me wisdom to make these decisions. So I don't think we can escape that idea even for a minute that it really is all God's. Every moment of that story has evidenced that it was not you. You were not qualified for this.

Right.

You didn't have connections or resources or whatever it was that would have been great to have. We didn't have those things. So it was all God. Undeniably.

What do your spiritual disciplines look like personally?

Bible reading and prayer.

What are you reading right now?

I'm reading Deuteronomy at the moment, but I'm also doing a study of Genesis, which has been really fantastic. To study Genesis and God as the creator and then go and create. You realize that like the source of pure creativity is God unmatched creativity. And then I have access to that which is really humbling. And also I'm like every day, okay, God, can you just like drip a little bit of that down towards me as I do this creative work? So that has been a really, really neat parallel to read about the God of creation, a creative God. And then also go and create as a part of my day to day work.

Yeah.

So those are probably the two main things that we're reading and then prayer.

Yeah.

I mean, all of my business exists moment by moment through prayer.

Yeah. What do your prayers for the business look like?

I'm always mostly wisdom.

That's like wisdom about specific decisions or.

Yes. And blanket wisdom for all of the decision that I need to make that day. Wisdom and creativity are really the two things that I'm asking for the most. Because like I said, I'm at a point where I've had to hire people that are way smarter than me because I don't know.

Right.

I don't know how to market my business, take it to the next level. I do not know how to organize systems so that everyone else can thrive. I really have taken it as far as I can take it on my own with the knowledge that I have and just the sheer, like, intuition that I have.

Yeah.

So that's very, very humbling. And I know without a doubt that I do not have on my own what it takes to see it to its fullest potential without God's help. Directly through other people, through the Holy Spirit, through discernment, through wisdom. Often wisdom and creativity are the top of the list.

No, I love that. So three questions I like to ask every guest. Very curious to hear you answer these. So what book or books do you recommend the most? Maybe biased gifts for other people. Like what are the books you just.

Keep on business related?

Any books spiritual, business related? Anything.

So Graham and I both are really big fans of the Go Giver.

Yep, he mentioned that.

Okay, so that's one. I would say the two I mentioned traction for new business owners, especially if you're building a team. And then now it's going to be every good endeavor for sure.

Yeah, it's a classic. Yeah, it's so good. What one person other than your husband, you can't say him. Would you most like to hear talk about the intersection of their faith and their work on this podcast?

I would say there's a girl named Megan Gonzalez who is a phenomenally creative stylist and does very similar work to me, but doesn't own a stock photography business. She works directly for a lot of big name clients and she is just undeniably creative through the Holy Spirit in like really, really crazy ways. Like, just so I really look up to her and the work that she does. And I'm always asking her, like, how in the world did you come up with that idea? And she's the one who will remind me like the same Holy Spirit that was there at creation is present in your office. So ask him.

I love it.

So I would say get her on here.

What part of the world does Megan live in?

She's in Minnesota.

Minnesota. I'm not gonna be in Minnesota anytime soon. I was gonna say maybe we could schedule it in person. We may need to reach out to Megan. And what one piece of advice would you give to somebody who, like you, is pursuing mastery of building a great company?

I would say that discipline is going to be one of the things to get you the farthest probably out of everything else. Because whether that's discipline to create boundaries, whether that's discipline to learn to set aside time to learn discipline to kind of sit yourself under other people who are a little bit farther along than you're at in your field, I think all of those things. Take discipline, discipline to keep your other priorities in check. All of that requires discipline. So I think as much as specifically for the creative who wants to operate out of freedom and whimsy, I think it's going to be discipline that's going to really get you the farthest discipline.

That'S going to create the space for that creativity. Absolutely right. So, Shay, we've been getting to know each other a little bit through the collaboratory. One thing I've really appreciated about you and just really want to commend you for is your heart for your customers. We've been talking about some changes to your business and you just keep coming back to how much you love your customers and want to serve them well. So thank you for doing that. Well, thank you for the ministry of excellence. Thank you for revealing the character of our creative God, that God of Genesis. So if you want to connect with Shay or learn more about her awesome products, Social Squares, Essie Stock, go to shelley shay cochran.com that's S H A Y C O C H r a n e.com Shea, thanks for being here.

Thank you so much, Jordan. I appreciate it.

I'm such a huge, huge fan of Shay's. Thank you guys so much for tuning into that conversation. Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you subscribe to the Call to Mastery or follow if you listen on Spotify or somewhere else so you never miss an episode in the future. And hey, if you're already subscribed, especially for those of you listening on Apple Podcasts, take 30 seconds and go review the show. You'd be shocked at how important those reviews are to the way that Apple ranks podcasts. So by reviewing the show, you're essentially helping us get this message and this content into the ears of more listeners, right? So, hey, before you guys go, I've got another short conversation I wanted to share with you guys. As you guys know, I'm an avid reader. I'm always adding new books to my reading list. So I recently sat down with the author of a book I added in my reading list. His name is Todd Chipman. He's a professor of Biblical studies at Midwestern Biblical Theological Seminary, and he wrote this really interesting book called Until Every Child is Home. You guys, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, Kara. My wife and I are in the process of adopting. We've long had a heart for orphans and for orphan care. And I picked up this book in particular because I think Todd is saying something relatively new and interesting on the topic of adoption and orphan care. Basically, the core premise of the book is that by focusing on orphan care within the local church, that ministry pilot positively impacts basically every other ministry of the local church. So it's a really, really interesting, I think really biblical take on this topic. So I sat down with Todd to ask him a couple of questions about the book that I wanted to make sure that you guys heard. So here's my conversation with the author of Until Every Child is Home. Todd Ch. Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

My privilege shorten.

Yeah. So my wife and I are actually in the process of adopting for the first time. So I'm particularly excited to talk about this book. I love the title. As soon as I saw the COVID I was like, oh, this is like wildly compelling. Rudy did a great job on the COVID So tell us about Until Every Child is Home. What's this book about?

Todd here? I suggest that the framework that is common to Christians and churches that doing what you're doing, doing what I've done, foster care, adoption, that the framework that's commonly held that this would suck the life out of me, this would be a dead end for all pleasure or off a cliff, one of the two. That's the framework that is often set out that that is actually 180 degrees wrong that what happens is that this kind of ministry opens up so many other kinds of ministries and actually fosters them that it has a compelling force to it. So my book is based on several different biblical passages. But one of them, James 1:27, very common, pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this to look after orphans and widows in their distress, to keep oneself unspotted from the world. I write my book from a perspective of someone who is adopted. Readers will find out and your listeners. I was adopted 500 days before Roe v. Wade was passed.

Wow.

I'm the product of a one night stand. There's no information that my biological father knows I even exist. My mother was birth mother was kicked out of her home when she found out that she was pregnant. So I have a checkered past in that regard. I was the candidate for an abortion. I was born in that family. I was adopted after a month and a great home. One of my earliest memories is being adopted. So I write from that perspective of being adopted but also adopting. But I also write from perspective of someone who teaches New Testament. I'm a biblical studies professor and in the book of James, if I'm just teaching James to a group of students and I come across James 1:27, what people might find interesting is that I don't read that first as someone who is adopted or as an adoptive parent. I read it as a biblical studies professor. And in James 1:27, we have this needy group. Let's put them together, orphans and widows. But throughout the book of James, there's another needy group. It's the church.

Yeah.

The church needs to practice its faith. That's why God gives trials. Consider it pure joy. My brothers encounter trials of various kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. The church needs endurance. It needs opportunities to practice its faith. That's why God gives trials. That theme runs clear throughout from James 1 all the way through the end where Job is mentioned and Elijah. Consider the Lord's grace. Job got it all back at the end. Consider Elijah prayed and it rained. So God is faithful through these trials. And when we think about that framework that trials hard tasks, being an entrepreneur to note you're taking a risk to do something that's going to do good for others. This helps us. It doesn't just help the kids. This is not just something where we're rescuing children, though that's true. And we can talk about that here in a moment. But doing good to kids, but this does good to us. It helps us to practice our faith. It helps us to find opportunities for the whole church to come together and use their gifts. Gifts of discipleship, gifts of hospitality, hospitality, gifts of presence. The gift of presence is one of the unrecognized gifts of the church. People who can be around and provide stability. Does so much for my family and my adopted daughter. So gifts come to the fore. We're able to deal with racial issues better as we do this because if you take a few steps into foster care adoption, racial issues are going to need to be addressed. We prevent abortion, which helps us, but we also provide ability. Public apologetic. People see us doing this work and it helps our witness.

I mean, there's no better visible representation of the gospel, in my opinion, than adoption. But I'll be honest. I mean, so we're just the beginning stages of this process. And we actually had a call about a. About a born baby situation the other day that we decided not to present on for some medical reasons. But I remember sitting there was the first time it got like, really real for me. I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. I'm publishing a book. I'm, you know, traveling and speaking. Like, I don't know how we're going to pull this off. A very, very Selfish questions. Right. But what I'm hearing you say is not only are we sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the child and serving the child and serving the birth mom, but we are actually blessed in the process. And the church, the local church, is seeing the benefits of that blessing as well. Is that what you're saying?

That's exactly it. And the local church has the capacity to do this work alongside of you. So what you're feeling there, Jordan, every parent feels that's overwhelming. Oh, my. This is, how am I going to do all of this? That's natural. And the Lord meets our needs and those opportunities, but the church is his instrument for meeting those needs. So we can go to our church. We can get a schedule. Who can come over to my house and help on this day, just hanging out. Who could maybe bring a meal a couple of times a week in this regard? Who could help with child care for my other children? We have to take this one to therapy or to a doctor's appointment. It's allowing the church to rise up. What I try to argue against in my book is that for those folks who say, we just can't do this, they actually need to think twice. Now, someone who's just saying, I don't want to do it. I just don't want to. I don't really. I can't be the Holy Spirit there, but I can be strategic and say, if you just feel like you can't do it, but you kind of want to, hey, I am your man. Let me help you think about how you can do this with the local church.

I love that. So who's this book for? Is it for pastors? Is it for people considering adoption? People who have adopted? Who's it for?

It's for those who are considering primarily, and that would include them in their churches, with pastors. I think folks who have already adopted will find it encouraging. They'll find the stories that I tell uplifting. And they'll have moments where they say, ah, yes, I was there. That kind of thing. Those who've already adopted may feel a sense of encouragement, appreciation of what they've done. I think that will just happen. But for those who are considering and for church leaders here, I'm wanting to set out a strategy for how this helps us. I want to flip the script, as one of the chapters is called, on how engaging this, taking a risk, doing something good for others. This kind of an idea helps us. It's not just helping the kids. It really does help us. I have a chapter or Excuse me, a section. The final section of the book is to pastors. Because this ministry is so hard if pastors don't involve themselves in it. And we go set out, James 1:27. We go set out passages like Deuteronomy 24, where God is telling Israel to do this kind of work and be considerate of others, orphans and widows. Especially if pastors don't engage themselves, but they ask the congregation to, they are just loading the congregation with a burden that is very heavy. So pastoral involvement. And when we think about jobs in the world, which jobs have a qualification for good family leadership? 1st Timothy 3 times 1. You sort of have to have that. Well, if you line up the pastoral characteristics in First Timothy and Titus 1, you have a list of the needs of kids who are in care. Yeah, there's a match.

Yeah. So I'm going to ask the third question. I always ask authors on this podcast, but I'm actually going to answer it myself and then ask you to answer it. So. So the question is this, how will this book serve our audience, the audience of the Call to Mastery, these Christians who are seeking to do really exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. And I want to take a stab at answering this because I just made a connection that I hadn't made before. You know, I'm an entrepreneur. I talk a lot about entrepreneurship in my first book, called To Create and this idea of risk. And for me, this book is helping make that connection of risk in my work to risk in other areas of life. And viewing risk as this common thread, it's not something that we're just called to do in our work, in our efforts to create culture. We are called to risk for the sake of the gospel in other areas of life, including adoption and caring for orphans and widows. This is a risky thing. I don't know what I'm getting into as we're going through this process of adoption right now. Right. I could talk to friends and I'm so grateful that I'm at a local church where I don't know if 30% of the congregation is adopted or fostered, which is wonderful, but it's still unknown to me. So. All right, let me turn the script to you. What else do you think that this audience of high achieving Christians can get out of this particular book?

Your readers, your listeners, are folks who often find a sense of fulfillment in their work, and that is healthy and good. One aspect of this kind of ministry that can help, that is finding a sense of fulfillment in work, in the relationships in our work, but also in our families and demonstrating that to the world. A sense of wholeness that can come, a sense of growth in knowing God. In my book I have several sections and one of the sections, each section is three chapters. One section, so three chapters on this theme of how by doing this kind of work, we get to know God better ourselves. Now I want to be clear that we know God through His word. This is how he communicates. But we do know, get to know God better through experiences and obeying him and church fellowship and all of the rest. Well, here we have an opportunity to reflect God to others. I write in the book about being someone who is an academic. I have a PhD, I get to teach. And I have these ideas about knowing God from words and texts. But when I adopted my girls, I got to know God in a more personal way because of how I am treating them. I recognize this is how God sees me. And I recognize that these girls, when I took them in, they really had no one. And that is just what God did for me. Every time I feel like I have to go the extra mile for them, I'm reminded of what God has done for me every time I see their success. And I've taught them to ride a bike that has the free wheel mechanism so they have to use the hand and go down a hill scared to death. You know, I did that just a couple weeks ago and I'm their dad and I taught them that and I kept them safe and I did this and I realized that's what God does for me. He brings me along in life and new experiences. And there's a richness that can come to your authors or to your readers. One other note on along this line, and this is something Joe, I think it's important, but I think your listeners and your readers will resonate with this. Sometimes we are folks who are, who are maxed. We're busy, we're a types, we're going. So we may think, I don't know if I can do this work. And that is an important question to ask to what level I could be involved and what that would look like. I have to watch my bandwidth. But I have recognized that in this sphere of ministry, many of the folks I find are folks like us.

Yeah, that's true.

Where we're wanting to this because we're people who are risk takers. But we're taking this risk thoughtfully, strategically, in relationships with our local church seeking God. We're not alone in it. And if we can just slow the pace of our lives just a bit. And I like to use the metaphor of allowing children to merge into our lives so we slow down when we are on the interstate of the freeway to allow folks to merge just a little bit. It's a short slowdown, but we accelerate soon enough. If we'll slow down just a bit and allow the kids to merge into our lives, we'll actually expand our capacity to be entrepreneurs, to take risks to help them think about doing good. We'll have opportunities to multiply and it will show to other people.

Man, that's an excellent answer. We talk a lot here on the Call to Mastery about how our work reveals the character of God. Right, his creative working character. But we also reveal the character of God in other areas of life. And I think in caring for orphans, it's one of the most visible representations of God's character that we have the privilege to reveal to the world. Todd, thank you so much for joining me and having this conversation. I really appreciate, appreciate your time, brother.

My pleasure. Best wishes to you in the podcast. I'm excited to listen again.

The book is Until Every Child Is Home by Todd Chipman. Highly recommend that you guys check it out if you're interested in that conversation. So, hey, that's it for today's episode. Again, if you're enjoying the Call to Mastery, subscribe. Review. Those are the two things you could do to make sure that we get this content into the ears of more listeners. I really hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Call to Mastery. I'll see you guys next week.