Stefan Kunz (Artist)

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. Hey, if you're loving this podcast, you are not going to want to miss my next book, Master of One, which you guys all know is going to release on January 21st. You could pre order the book today, which is kind of weird. I don't really pre order books, I'll admit that. Right, maybe you don't either. But hey, listen, I'm giving you a great incentive to get your copy early. If you pre order the book and and go to jordanraynor.com right now, you're going to be entered to win a trip for two to Europe. You, the guest of your choice. You guys are going to go on a private tour of La Sagrada Familia, the world's largest church, which I write about. Master of One. I'm going to then meet you in Barcelona, take you guys to dinner, and then you and your friend are going to go by yourselves on a seven night European cruise on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. It's going to be incredible trip through Italy and Spain and France. So go to jordanraynor.com right now to pre order the book and enter that sweepstakes. Hey listen, today I'm honored to have on the show a friend of mine named Stefan Koons. He is a masterful artist known for his signature hand lettering style. This guy's got more than half a million Instagram followers. I'm sure a lot of you already follow this guy. He's done work for some incredible clients like Apple, Coca Cola, Hillsong and others. And Staphon and I recently sat down with and talked about how he's thought about being open about his faith even when he's working with non Christians at clients like Apple and Coca Cola. We talked about his morning routines that keep him pumping out great work, great art. And we talked about his wildly successful and popular 30 Days of Bible Lettering project, which I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen on Instagram or heard of on YouVersion or somewhere else. So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with my friend and Stephan Koons. Stephan, thanks so much for joining me. How are you man?

Thank you. I'm really Good. How are you?

I'm good. We've been trading WhatsApp messages for, I don't know, six months trying to get on the phone together, and now we're finally here. It took a podcast.

We've never made it before, but this time, face to face on a podcast call. Always works out.

Always works out. Hey. So, Stefan, you are the first European that I'm having a conversation with for public consumption here on the podcast. And our listeners know that I am giving away a trip to Europe as a part of the Master of One preorder sweepstakes. We're giving away a trip to Europe, going to seven night European cruise and go tour La Sagrada Familia, Goudy's world famous church. So, as our first European guest on the podcast, I have to ask, have you been to La Sagrada Familia before?

Well, I've only seen it from the outside. Never gone inside because it's always crowded.

Yeah. So for those of you that don't know, you guys have heard me talk about this as we've been promoting the book, but La Sagrada Familia, this incredible church. You probably know Gaudi, right? Gaudi, this very famous architect built some of Barcelona's most famous attractions, but for the last 12 years of his life, dedicated himself to one project. Truly a master of one. He built this church and was architecting La Sagrada Familia, which has been under construction for a hundred years, which, like, boggles my mind. Like, even by, like, European standards, I feel like that's unheard of. Right? You guys don't have construction projects that last 100 years, right, Stefan?

No, definitely not. We usually our buildings, like, take a lot longer to build than any other places.

So, Stefan, for those. And I know a lot of our audience here is familiar with your work. Right. But for those who don't know who you are, you meet somebody at a cocktail party. How do you describe what you do for a living?

I usually take it very casual. Like, I don't want to give away too much in any conversation. I don't want to show myself who I am, like, define that of me. So I usually tell people I'm an artist, and the next question I get is kind of like, oh, can you make a living with that? And I'm like, yeah, it's pretty good.

Yeah, it's a pretty good living. So. And you do a lot of different things, right? So you're doing design work for big brands. You're also doing these online courses where you're teaching other people hand lettering, what really pays the bills for you? Because that is the question, right? Like, how do artists make a career out of this? You're making a good living doing this. What's paying the bills?

So it's definitely different things. It's a lot of client work that I do. That's one big portion. The other portion is actually a product that I'm selling. So it's a tool that helps people in lettering. It's called like a letter builder and a grid builder. And it's been a fantastic tool to help people draw words easily, draw letters easily. So it's becomes really like following a line, like filling out a box that kind of easy so that anyone can do it and help people make it easier to get more perfect, more consistent, more confident in what they do.

I love it. So you describe yourself as an artist, right? But you've really double down on this niche of artistry, of hand lettering. For those people who have no idea what in the world hand lettering is, how would you describe that? How is it different from calligraphy? What in the world is hand lettering?

So we have kind of like these three main topics. So it's calligraphy, typography, and hand lettering. So calligraphy is kind of the drawing of a word in the same style, like over, like consistent, and over and over again. It's like pressure, sensitivity, hand motion and muscle memory that's involved, like mastery of the hand and the tool. The second one is typography, which is kind of the mastery of the form of a shape of a letter. So any form font that you'll use, any type that you'll use for, like Arial Helvetica, like these popular Times New Roman. These are font designers that are typographers. They set in how the distance between each letter, how the letter is built, how we can actually familiarize ourselves by making it easier to read. And finally, the hand lettering artist is kind of the guy who's a little bit loose, draws letters in its favorite way. But for me, the importance is how to show people the beauty of a word, make it interesting to read, so that when people see like a sign, an advertisement, a mural or something, like even a, like, it can be a mural in a company's building where it's like, you come in and you see the vision of the company, but it's drawn so beautifully. It's not just like a text on a wall, but it's like beautifully masterfully done. And people come in and they want to read it, they want to Spend time in front of that wall and read through it because it's just beautiful because it presented nicely.

Yeah. And that was a pretty good description of your work. The words you're drawing make the way you are lettering. These words, make words come alive in a. In a different way. So I want to come back to this idea of mastery and how you pursued mastery of your craft in a minute. But first, let's talk about. I'm really interested in your story. We actually haven't had a chance to really talk about that before. So you're kind of living the artist's dream. You found a way to, like, earn a good income as an artist and doing that work full time, but you haven't always been doing that. So, like, talk us through the trajectory of your career and, like, how you got to be doing the work you're doing today.

Yeah. This is basically the talk that I give is really create art, not excuses. And it starts out with, see, I show them. I kind of tell them about where I'm at, what I've been able to accomplish. And I see, like, it looks all great, but that's not point A to point B. Like, it's not a straight line. It's not a straight curve. And I actually, like, before that, I was in banking, and before that, I actually started out with, like, wait, time.

Out, time out, time out, time. You can't. You can't breeze past being a banker. So you were a certified Swiss banker?

I was a certified Swiss banker, yes.

By the way, that's like, a big deal, Right?

Like, I don't think we like money laundered or something like that. I'm not offering, and I don't know how to do it, but it's a stigma that people think, like, Swiss bankers know how to launder money. And it's just. I just want to make this clear. We don't, but.

Right, right, right, right. So was that your first job?

That was actually. Well, like, kind of small jobs here and there, but this is what I did for three and a half years. So, yes, it was my first job.

Wow. So most people would look at that and kind of see banking as this, like, stark contrast to something creative, like being an artist. Did you see those things as fundamentally opposed, or did you see banking? Did you approach your work as a banker creatively? Like, how do you think about that?

Yeah, interestingly, yes. One of my mentors in the banking, while I was still learning the job. You always are with a mentor, and he said you approach everything different than anyone else. Here you approach task creatively. You'll think out of the box, you'll think out of something. And I do actually believe that no matter what job you're doing, it's creative. You're solving problems. As soon as you have to solve problems, you are thinking creative. Even if you're working, working with cars like security or something, like, you have to solve problems and you have to make it safe and sound. And so you have to come up with creative solution, how to solve these problems. And that's creativity.

I love that. All right, so you're a banker. What's next?

Well, the thing was that before I became a banker, I was enrolled in art school in a pre year thing just before you can actually study graphic design or any art form. And I wanted to become a graphic designer at that point. But somehow during that art year, our teacher gave us a full week to create whatever we wanted. And I thought, this is amazing. I have the freedom. I can do whatever I want. I have a whole week, which is usually longer than any other exercise he's given us. And somehow I came back every day home and just feeling exhausted and not creating anything because I was just blocked, overthinking everything, just kind of striving to become this great thing or create this great thing. And it's what was holding me back all this time. And so at the end of that week, I really felt like I didn't have what it takes. So I did what every failed artist does again. I went into banking.

I love it. So you're in banking, but what were the steps to getting to doing the work you're doing now? Did you just start taking on freelance work on the side? How did that work?

Like I said, I still was. I liked being creative, I was creative, I loved drawing. I needed a creative output and that was kind of instilled in me and just that was natural to me. So during my years in banking, I worked in a or I helped out in a church. I built up a creative team and got like a lot of leadership in that area. But since I was leading the creatives, I didn't want to step into it and do those jobs myself. I could have easily done it, maybe even everything better than everyone else. But at the same time, I knew to help them get forward, to help them be the best they can be, I needed to step back and I still needed a creative outlet. So I started this thing on instagram back in 2008. I saw like on my Instagram account, I saw no beauty in it. And so I had to. I felt like I needed to either do it right or not do it at all. And so from that point on, I changed it, and I went in and I started, like, doing these text, like, photos with text. And at the beginning, it was really simple and basic and boring. And then it became this thing that.

You can see now, which has 500,000 followers. That's a pretty wild trajectory from just 2012. All right, so you have 500,000 or so Instagram followers. You built up this massive following of people who love your work. I remember. I think I stumbled across you when I was building up an Instagram following around, called to Create. And I loved your work. I was obsessed with it from day one. So you're unequivocally a masterful artist. Right? You have figured out how to pursue mastery of this craft and in particular, this particular style. What do masterful artists like yourself do that less masterful artists don't do? Right. Like, how did you. And how do you. I don't think mastery, as I mentioned, a master of one. I don't think mastery is a destination. It's something that we're always continually striving for. How do you practically pursue mastery of your craft?

It's interesting because you would think that you have, like, this set goal. You're going into one direction, you're feeling like, this is what I want to reach. I've never had that with this part. Like, I've never actually thought I would become a lettering artist. And for me, this whole journey was always a one step at a time thing. So I never knew which direction I went, but I knew kind of like, I always had to add one more step. And I described my creative process in four steps. Like, the first one being inspiration. Like, get inspiration. Find something that you really love. And then two, copy and learn from it. Creating something. And three, create something from what you've learned and what you've been inspired by. Because if you just have those two first steps, then you're not actually advancing anything. Or you're not. Like, you're just consuming, but you're not putting out anything. And then the last step. And the last step is probably important, and it doesn't matter in any area. You are. But always take one more step, always improve, always try something new, and always take one more step. And that one more step is so important because if you multiply those steps into, like, 10, 20, 40 steps, like, every time, then you get into a burnout where you just, like, perfectionism, and it will, like, hold you back but if you just take one more step, you always get further to your destination. And that's why I'm at where I'm at after like years and years. I feel like 2014 was kind of when it started, 2017 was when it really took off, and now it's 2019. And I feel like I've taken like thousands and thousands of steps and that's why I'm at where I'm at, I feel like, because it's always like one more step. And I always have this urge in me to always improve something or always keep trying out something new. And this one more step is always, it can be a killer because like when you're doing a mural on a wall, you're like, it's something final. And if you're trying like one more step on this mural, like, what if I try this like that, like, what if I use the splash and I do something like this? And then suddenly you realize like, oops, that was one step too far. But you've learned something. You've learned more from your mistakes than you learn actually from your successes.

Yeah, no, that's really good. And it reminds me a lot of what I wrote about in chapter 8 of Master of One. Right? So books not out yet, but as you guys are hearing more about it, chapter eight is all about how do we become world class masters of our craft, right? And Dr. Anders Erickson from my alma mater, Florida State, talks a lot about purposeful practice, right? So it's not just 10,000 hours of practice that makes us masterful, it's purposeful practice. Right? And one of the elements of purposeful practice is masters always raise the bar. Or in your vernacular, masters always take one more step. Right? So we're never content, we're never satisfied. We're always raising the bar to get better and better at our craft. So, hey, Stephan, speaking of the book, thank you for endorsing it. You're very, very kind to endorse the book. Your name is right there in the front of the book that's about to be shipped out in a few weeks. So for those people that are listening that haven't had a chance to read the book yet, you got an advanced copy way, way, way in advance. How would you describe the book to them?

For me, it was like reading through it and it was an easy read. I think I told you I read it in like two, three days, like couple of hours and like straight through it because it's an easy read. It has a great flow in it. And the best Part is I actually want to read in more days because the great thing about that book, and I'm going to read it again, is the motivation afterwards. Like, yes, actually I want to double down. I want to give my best. I want to become the best that I can be. Become the best in the field if I can, whatever God allows me to do as well. But the book is so great because it tells stories of other people who have done their best, who have tried to be excellent at whatever they do. And so that is what is so motivating and encouraging for myself and inspired me to actually go back. I've got this new office now here and coming back every morning and trying to sit down, to actually start drawing and again purposefully work on my craft, on expanding it. Because I know that the better I can be, the better I can represent who God is and get the opportunities to speak in front of people, to share the story. And that's kind of what it's all about.

I love that. I love that so much. So I think a lot of people are going to pick up this book and realize that they haven't found their quote, unquote, one thing yet, like the thing that they are going to really sink their teeth into and be a world class master at. But I think maybe the same number of people will have the experience that you had, right? They'll pick up the book, they'll read it and they'll realize, hang on a second, I am doing the work that God created me to do. And my prayer is that the book will motivate them to double down, as you say, on that one thing, and show them a path to becoming more masterful at it. Right? So my prayer isn't that everybody would read this book and change their vocation, right? My, my prayer is that people will, will, will pick up the book, will understand the concepts and will just commit to mastery of something. And that very well could be the thing that they're doing today. So when I sent you the book, we were exchanging some messages on WhatsApp. By the way, you're literally the only person on earth that I communicate with on Stefan, my, my one European friend. But I love it. I know. If I have a notification, it's from Stefan. So, Stefan, you mentioned something a couple of minutes ago that I thought was really interesting. When you were at the bank, you had a mentor and you said you always have a mentor at the bank. And as you know, in Master of One, I talk a lot about the value of apprenticeships, right? A word that frankly, most Americans, like, don't use anymore. Is this concept of like the mentor, protege relationship more common in Europe or is that like, specific to bank age?

No, it's pretty common. So anywhere you would learn any profession, Anywhere where you don't study your profession, it's apprenticeship. So usually in Switzerland, any job you learn in three years, like, if you want to work on insurance, you'll have this apprenticeship, like three days on the job, two days at school, where you just learn all the basics. And during those three days where you're on the job, you have someone who will take care of you, who will answer your questions, who is responsible for teaching you what, what you need to know on the job. And so that's kind of the mentorship person. They'll give you feedback, they'll give you a grade at the end of the apprenticeship. Usually it's between six months where you spend in one team. If you're a graphic designer, you'll spend three years on the same job. So that's kind of how it works here in Switzerland.

Yeah. So here in the States. Right. We would call that an internship, essentially. Right. It sounds like a pretty similar concept, although it sounds like it's more structured and formal in Europe, which I like. So in the book I talk about this value of, you know, I think there's two forms of apprenticeship, if you will. Right. Like, one is this like direct apprenticeship, which is what you had at the bank. You have somebody who you're reporting to who's giving you very specific and personal feedback on your performance. And then there's this concept of indirect apprenticeships. Right. We can't find the right mentor, so we submit ourselves to the wisdom of, you know, masters via books or online courses, et cetera. Do you find that. That direct apprenticeship is more valuable than an indirect apprenticeship, and if so, why?

For me, it hasn't been the best approach. I kind of wish always to have someone to share about, but in most cases, I've always learned more by myself. Like whatever I wanted to learn, I've learned on my own.

Yeah. So we've talked about kind of your path to mastering your one thing. I'm, like, really fascinated by people's routines and their habits and kind of the things that they swear by that make them super productive. So. So let's start here. Can you talk about what a typical workday looks like for you? Like, walk us through from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. What does your day look like?

A typical day. And looks more now that I Have one than I had before. So it's getting up at 7am, have my coffee machine set up to turn on. Just before that I up and I'll go, I'll make a coffee. Love latte art. So before even started with lettering, I did latte art and taught myself how to do it in over four months. And so that's a skill that I wanted to master. And then I usually will read the Bible. Right now I'm going through Romans 12, like trying to read that same chapter over and over again. And as soon as I'm done with that, I'll shower. Well, pray I'll shower and then just get ready and go out the house right into next door to the next building, into my office. And now I've set it up that I will start drawing. And I read the book Atomic Habits. And just interesting to see that places where you sit, where you are, like these connect to a different pattern. So I've set it up that I have a desk right behind me where I sit down and I only draw on this desk. And so the first thing that I'm going to do in the morning is draw and make it a daily habit of drawing, of practicing my drawing and just put out something, like create something before I actually start the day. And as soon as I get done with that, I usually go into emails, administrative work, and then in the afternoon either my assistant will come in or like every other day and I'll have either work with her or for her and then finally either draw some more, finish some work that I have lined up and then in the evening go out for dinner, do some exercise. Like right now I'm training for a half marathon, so it's a challenge to kind of get ready for that. The run is in one and a half weeks or so.

Wow.

Yeah, it's time. But it's also like I've been learning so much from running again. I've trained once before for one, but this time it's just getting back into this routine of doing long runs, of spending a lot of time just with your thoughts and training your mind to actually overcome a lot of obstacles is a really good effective tool to also learn that into your job, to sit down, be able to work deep and hard and finish that. And then in the evening, either I go back to work to finish some things up or I'll go home or meet some friends in the evening.

How much sleep do you get?

I try really hard to go to bed before midnight. Around 6, 7 hours is at the moment the usual I wear a Fitbit tracker just so I know the actual number of sleep that I get.

Yeah, yeah, me too. I actually got a Fitbit for a different reason. It's actually like one of my favorite little hacks. My audience may be laughing because maybe you guys all already do this, but I wear a Fitbit. I only wear it to bed so that it can wake me up silently so I don't wake up my wife because I get up, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like been a great little hack that my wife greatly appreciates. Especially when I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning, my alarm used to go off. And that was not a good. That was not a good time. So you talk about. You mentioned a habit that I personally have adopted and I think pretty much every, like, really high achiever I know has adopted, which is this first thing in the day, not checking email and sitting down and doing deep work. But when you get to the office, the first thing you're doing is sitting down and drawing. Right? How long, how long do you draw for that first block?

It really depends on how it's going. Like, I usually try to finish something so I won't actually get up before I finish my first piece. And that can be an hour if I do something longer. Like it happened that it just goes till noon, but it rarely goes after noon. So four hours maybe max. And one to two hours definitely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. So you also mentioned something like I don't do well at all. But I've been thinking more and more about, like, you have personal goals, right? Like that that aren't productive. Like, you wanted to learn how to make latte art, right? Or you wanted to run a half marathon. Like, have you always been like that? Like, do you have me? I'm assuming you have very concrete, like, professional goals. Do you also have these, like, personal goals on a pretty regular basis that you want to. You want to tackle?

I try to think of something as I start doing these. These goals, weirdly enough, I set them strangely during the year. Like, last year was achieving a gold status on Star alliance, getting a frequent flyer in status. That was a good goal to reach. Then this year it's like, all right, I want to visit three new countries that I've never visited before. Like every year, reach, like, visit three new countries. So this year I've already done that. And I kind of try to have these goals, but very loose. It's not like, oh, I want to achieve this. I want to achieve this. And right now, one of the goals that I'm trying to set. And it's like, it takes some time because I know that when I commit to a goal, I want to do it. And I'll do pretty much everything, like a challenge. If I accept a challenge, I'll be relentless in making it happen. My assistant will tell you a story about that. We did a step challenge during work week and we were just both crazy. I didn't know that she was also so competitive as I am, but she was really doubling down. And for the last half hour, the last half hour of those five days, I had to go run just before midnight, even though I already had done a long run during the day, just to get ahead of her and be easy at night. I went for another run just before midnight and I just won by a thousand steps. And we had over 80 steps, 6,000 steps. It's a bit insane.

That's absurd.

One of the long goals that I'm trying to think about right now, and it's not set in stone yet, but it's like doing a marathon on every continent. That's kind of like one that I feel like this is a lifetime achievement.

I love that goal. That's a great goal. I mean, I will not be doing that. But you do you. And I'm all about that. That's awesome. So let's talk about your childhood a little bit. So you grew up as a missionary kid, right? By the way, where were you?

So I was born in Africa, in Benin.

Okay, yeah. Interesting. And so you grew up seeing your parents do this work that we in the church would traditionally call full time ministry. Do you see your work today as ministry?

Well, yes and no. So, yes, I would call myself a digital missionary because what my parents did was go to places where there was no access, where they actually spread the word and share the gospel. What I'm doing on social media is using the word of God. And right now I'm running a 30 days of Bible study challenge and using that to share about 30 verses in 30 days every day 1. And I'm totally behind on my own schedule right now. But when we started out, it was kind of really like sharing this, sharing my thoughts. And I got a book coming out in October. Well, maybe it's going to be aired by then. But it's a book with like 60 verses with thoughts of my that I've written on Instagram and kind of reformulated, rewritten. It's kind of this thing where it's giving people the inspiration and encouragement for their daily day. Or a great coffee table book. It's hard because I'm actually running a business. I'm doing what I do and do really well. But it's funny because nowadays you can marry that together with full time ministry as well. Even though I wouldn't consider that. But at the same time I feel like, yes, like truly actually you would consider anyone doing their job well. Like in your book described as well. It's like if you do your job well, if you are representing God in this way, like you're representing God well, like work is worship and so doing that is actually being in full time ministry. So no matter what you do, where you place, this is your thing.

I could not agree more. I think we get hung up a lot of times in the church in this idea that the only thing that's ministry is sharing the gospel in words with people. And of course that is ministry. But we also minister to people when we love our neighbor as ourself. You know, that was a. When Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourself, that was a complete sentence. You love your clients as yourself. You know some pretty big brands when you do exceptional work. And oh, by the way, you know, I use so many projects like 30 Days of Bible Lettering that are discipling people, that are getting people to engage with scripture on a deeper level. And I did want to talk about 30 days of Bible Lettering. This is super interesting to me. But for those in our audience that have no idea what this is, explain what 30 days of Bible Lettering is and why you started it.

Something that helped me after this thing that I was stuck in. Like when our teacher gave us this exercise to do in one week, I was frustrated that I didn't really come up with anything. And what I do in my talk is talk about what changed. How did I go to the bank and then get back into art? Was really because I took this one challenge and it was the hundred day creative challenge. And this challenge, it changed everything. And what I've learned, I've tried to formulate it afterwards. What did I actually learn from this challenge? And that was excuses are holding us back. And that's why my talk is called Create Art. Not excuses is because excuses is what is holding us back to create even more things. And after I had finished this 100 day creative challenge, I was done. I didn't want to touch another challenge anymore for another month. And then suddenly this urge became, know what? Like I did create so many things during this time. I was so productive. I felt great. Like it was A challenge. And for me, I was thinking about doing this, like, what could be the next challenge. I didn't want to embark on another hundred day challenge, so I kind of wanted to make it something easier. And I thought of like 30 days and talked about 30 days Bible lettering challenge, like 30 days of Bible verses. Because I knew I needed, like, for the next challenge I did. I needed to have something already prepared. I couldn't start the challenge without any preparation. I talked about this in a workshop and I talked to people. And then during the Q and A, people asked me, what's something your next challenge? And I talked about, I might be doing this challenge and blah, blah, blah, and use light words. And then someone else asked me, what are you most afraid of? And I told them right now, if you heard the words that I used, it was slightly, maybe, if possible, if nothing comes in my way, maybe I'll do this. Kind of like, I'm talking about the marathon as well. And for me, this was so interesting because back then I realized, you know what, I'm afraid. And at that time, I just committed to that challenge. On the way back from that workshop, I reached out to five friends that I had met on Instagram and I asked them like, hey, I'm planning on doing this. Do you guys want to help? And they were all like, yes, let's do this. We kind of compiled 30 Bible verses. And I didn't think I would do this all by myself. So I kind of sent out on Instagram saying, I'm going to be doing this Bible lettering challenge, starting fresh. Who wants to join? I don't know, maybe two, 10 people will sign up. But then over 500 people just instantly turn on the first day and they were crazy about this. And it took off. And we are on round eight now and three, four years in. And back then, it was just crazy because the second or third round, I counted in the numbers of how many people do we reach. There was an analytic tool that helped me do this, and it said over 2,3 million people per day were being reached with those Bible verses that people were sharing. And so that was just phenomenal for me because I never thought that something that I would start somewhere in Switzerland, small city, not big. I kind of grew up. I wasn't as big as I'm now, but at that point, it was just something huge and something amazing. And what God allowed us to do was even translate those. We had a youversion Bible reading plan at the same time. Then we had the next round. We had 13 or 15 different languages translated into this reading plan that we created. So many people were helping to make this even bigger and helping other people to use it, and it was just. I couldn't believe in myself. And now it's still, like, still a big thing. We almost have like 200,000 hashtags used on this 30 days of Bible lettering.

Hashtag, by the way, just to kind of sum up what 30 days of Bible lettering is for the audience. So this is super simple, right? So Stephan and his friends say, hey, here's 30 Bible verses over the next 30 days. Letter each one of them, right? So draw this beautiful hand lettering artwork and post on Instagram. I mean, that's, that's, that's the whole thing, right, Stephanie? It's that simple, right? So you, being a master of your craft, right, had this massive audience, right? You get this idea of, hey, I'm going to letter these verses. Does anyone want to join me? All these people share, and now they're sharing scripture in their Instagram feeds with all of their followers and are reaching millions and millions of people, all because you had credibility as a masterful artist on your platform. So anybody who says that mastering Our Way work doesn't matter eternally, it's crazy. What awesome, awesome story. So follow up question for you personally. What do you get out of Scripture? How is your interaction with scripture different when you're taking the time to letter a particular verse? When you're taking, I don't know, an hour, 90 minutes to draw out a verse as opposed to just, you know, reading it in Scripture? How does your interaction with the scripture and the Lord differ in those two scenarios?

There are definitely two things. One is you spend so much time on a verse, you spend time on every word you think about. How should people read it? What's important? What word do I want to scale up? What word do I want to make smaller? How can I improve the reading flow? What words are not necessarily important for the reader to see at first sight? And how can I draw out the message of the verse? And so there are so many things that go into planning and writing and drawing something more than just it needs to look nice, it needs to be readable, legible, and it needs to give the right impression right at the start. Like, do not be anxious. Don't put the weight on anxious, even though it's an important word. But it's like this. Do not be anxious. All these words are important, but there are some different verses that have this other feeling. The time you spend on each single word helps you Kind of to take time to think about what. What do these words represent, what do they mean? And you kind of linger longer on every single word, like slowing down Bible reading to hundreds of what you spend time on. So that already helps you to think about it more, to meditate really hard on it. But then after a while also, and I'm just also completely honest, you turn off and you switch off and you just go into drawing mode and you just draw. But the second part is when I post it on Instagram, and I rarely just post it with, hey, this is the Bible verse. Here's where it's at. But I usually will think of a story or try to think of a story to connect to that verse, share about my personal life, share about fears or things that people could help. And I try to really connect with people. And I know a lot of my folks that follow me, they're not Christians. So the goal is also to kind of translate the Bible verse into something that they can understand, that they can take with them, that can encourage them. Because I know that any verse, that's why I started actually drawing verses in the first place, was because I was thinking, you know, I know that words have a big impact, and I want to make sure that whatever I write isn't just something loose or something unimportant. Like, not all those who wander are lost is like one of those famous quotes that nobody knows exactly what this means or what do I gain from knowing that quote? Nothing. So that's why Bible verses are something that I feel like this is the only thing that I know is true that will hold the test of time and will always bring life. And so I've had to make a big decision before I actually really quit my job and started dabbling into doing more professionally. Like a friend of mine, he said, and he was a Christian, well. But he, with good intentions, told me, you know what? You should think about taking off all your Bible verses, because you won't probably get any jobs from big companies. You have a religious thing on your thing on your feed. This is not going to work with big companies, because their image shouldn't be connected to anything religious. And at that time, I honestly took the thought and I thought about, should I do it or should I not do it? And I got bullied in school before. And so. So going through that thing was, for me, I got bullied because I was a Christian, because I was a missionary and maybe some other things, but it always came down to, oh, you're Swiss. No, I'm German. But you were born in Switzerland. No, I was born in Africa. So why were you born in Africa? My parents are missionaries. I didn't compromise back then because I felt like, you know what? I'm not going to compromise on who I am, on my identity. I'm not going to just evade the question. I wasn't willing to do it back then or now as well with the verses. And I decided to not compromise on sharing those verses because I felt like, you know what, if people don't want to hire me because I'm a Christian, they shouldn't hire me. But I don't want to get jobs because I compromise on not showing that I'm a Christian. And now that I get to go into these client meetings or to talk to these clients, they know that I'm Christian. They know that. They know the full well that I share Christian values. Like, I'll have an ad for a gin brand the next day, and then the day after, I'll have a Bible verse on it. And people like Christian will. Only Christian will come back and actually ask me, how can you deal with doing advertising for an alcohol brand? That's not fair. That's another story. But it's interesting to see that even though I've not compromised, God has actually given me more opportunities than I probably would have ever dreamed of or would ever thought possible to have. I got to have a billboard on Times Square with my name on it that people could actually look up on my Instagram. And, man, what greater possibility could you have than that?

That's incredible. Yeah. This is so fascinating to me because you are a master of your craft, first and foremost, because you are primarily focused on the ministry of excellence. You're getting these incredible client gigs. I mean, you've done work for Apple and Coca Cola. It doesn't really get bigger than some these brands, right? And as somebody who's hired a lot of contract work, as somebody who's run companies that aren't overtly evangelical, I get it. What do I care if you're a Christian? All I care about in that role as CEO or director of marketing, whoever's hiring you is finding the best artist, right? And so you're the best artist. And, man, that gives you such influence to be able to just be salt and light inside of some of the biggest companies in the world. So, man, just. I just want to encourage you, right, that your work is tremendous, tremendously important. All the work you're doing, whether you're posting Bible verses or doing, you know, work for tag. I saw you did this cool project for TAG in Manhattan. Super cool. All of that is important. So, hey, this is something I think a lot about. I want to get your take on it. I think all artists, whether they're designers or authors or entrepreneurs or artists. I know I felt this before, right? Like, I think we have this, like, deep desire to see our work outlive us, right? Like, somebody was asking me yesterday, like, why do you think we're so obsessed with books? I'm like, I think because it's one of the products that, like, really never goes away. And we're, like, obsessed with this idea of immortality, frankly. Right. So assuming you have that same hope, you've got the same hope to see your work live on beyond you, what's the legacy you want your work to leave? Like, what do you hope the people gain from interacting with your work?

That's a good question. Right now. I think I'm too young right now to think of legacy. Like, I've grown up with the Instagram age, where everything is, like, immediate and instant, and it goes up and it goes down, like, right away. Like, it will be buried down in your feet somewhere along. Like, those pieces don't live forever. They're just there for the moment and for the. The second that they're up. It's definitely a thought that I've been thinking about more. Like, what is something? Like, what can I create that will be around for longer, that will be made for an eternity? And so that's why I feel like what will go through eternity or longer than I'm around is, like, me using the quote, create something today, even if it sucks. Encouraging and inspiring people that people will remember more of the inspiration and the encouragement. If you've done the Enneagram challenge, I'm an eight. I'm a challenger, and I will always challenge other people, try to get the best out of them. For me, art right now is more of a way to communicate a message that I have and that I feel like, you know what? The only way I can challenge other people is by writing something on Instagram, by drawing it out. It's funny, because a friend of mine, she said, like, your art is only a way to actually communicate that message. Just like, for her photography, she's a photographer. She used photography to express herself. But it's not the medium that is important. It's more the message that is. And so that's why talking of longevity of eternity is, like, it's definitely going to be more the message than the art.

Yeah. Interesting. All right, so Three final questions I like to ask everyone who joins me for one of these conversations. For first, other than the Bible, what one book has most impacted your life? An impossible question, by the way. I don't think I could answer this, but one book that's impacted your life the most.

Have you ever heard that Tim Ferriss said never ask that question?

No, I haven't. That's really funny.

The reason why he said, and I read the reason why it's hard to ask that question is because it's harder to think about that than to say, what are three books that you have gifted the most? Like make it easy so people.

Interesting. That's a good question.

Fast. Because they'll know what they've gifted the most.

That's a great question. All right, so which books have you gifted the most?

Bible. Wrong answer. I've actually all given all my books away. And one that I've loved to give, others to give is like one of the two books that Bob Goff has made like Love does. And the other one, Everybody Always. Everybody Always. I think Everybody Always is probably the best book to give away to a friend because it has so many great stories of loving other people. And it's not Christiany or something. It's like stories of him and he's just a phenomenal guy. Donald Miller's story brand book is amazing. It changes the way you think about using stories to communicate a message of your brand. And third book. Yeah. I got into the habit of reading at the early beginning of this year. Third book, you recommended that book to me. That was excellent. Wins by Horst Schultz.

Yeah. Great book.

Great, amazing book. I read it in one day.

Did you really?

I really did. Saturday I sat down and I read it and I'm like, I'm fascinated by how he built this company. Absolutely amazing. And the way I tell everyone I've been now in a hotel, I've, I've flown. I just got back. I had a great deal on a first class flight to Bogota and I kind of realized what excellence in the hospitality industry means and how they deal with it. In my hotel room, it was great. I had a projector in the room, but there was no way to connect it because the person who was there before me, he stole the Chromecast.

Oh no.

And how the hotel dealt with it, they were like, like, we don't care. I told them the morning they were going away, like, yeah, cool. Too bad for you. The person before stole it and I'm like, I kind of want it. And finally had to wait 40 minutes and in a Ritz Alton, even though, yes, the level is a lot higher. But think about not giving your staff 2,000 bucks to use on expenses. But, like 50 bucks. They could have bought a Chromecast in 10 minutes if they had the allowance for that, but they didn't. I had a bad experience and so, yeah, not going back there.

I love horse. You got to go and listen to the podcast episode that we produced with horse. It was a really great conversation. All right, second question. What one person would you most like to hear talk about the intersection of their faith and their work on this podcast?

Kind of would be interested in actually hearing Justin Bieber in five years?

Yeah, yeah. Justin Bieber, five years. All right, so we'll put a pin in that and come back to Justin in five years. That's a great idea. Why do you say five years? Years, though?

I feel he's at the beginning of his journey of being a Christian, and it's so hard in that industry to actually do anything. Like Chance the Rapper is phenomenal in how he does things. I just saw that he was on the Ellen show and he just said, you know what? I'm a faith believer. They talked about him giving away $1 million to two things. And he just said, you know what? Faith has always been a big thing. It's my faith in Jesus. And totally open in that conversation. And so that was interesting. But I feel like for Justin being one of the biggest, still top trending artists on Spotify and any other medium, to actually allow God to impact his songs and his music impact, and not that he has to change everything around, but how he will use that and how he will deal with things. And I feel like he's already done amazing transformation. I'm so impressed by that. Always cheering for that. And I'm just curious how it's going to affect him and transforming him. And the same way with Selena Gomez or the Jonas Brothers, I was impressed. I saw the documentary on the Jonas Brothers. Same thing. Pretty interesting.

Yeah, that'd be an interesting conversation for sure. All right, last question. What one piece of advice would you give to somebody who is pursuing mastery of their one thing? Right. So you're pursuing mastery of your craft as an artist. What one piece of advice would you give to somebody else who's pursuing mastery at their vocation?

Don't let excuses get in your way. I really define it on six different excuses that we use all the time. It's perfection. It's time. It's our skills. Like, we don't have enough skills. We don't have enough time. We don't have. We cannot be perfect enough. We cannot manage to make it perfect. Our ideas are not original. We don't have the right resources. There's always going to be an excuse that it's going to stand in our way. And every day, if it becomes a habit to allow these excuses, people say they're not creative, but they come up with creative excuses of not to do anything. That's why I tell people, create art, not excuses. Create something and it doesn't have to be perfect. But this one thing is all about coming up with one more piece, creating one more piece, and it's not this one piece. I feel like Gaudi was right to do that at the end of his life to create this church, but he created so many other pieces during his life and he couldn't have done the last piece. The question is, will your work be ever perfect? I don't think so. But the more you do, the more you put out. They've tested this all along. If you take 100 photographs like a teacher told students, 100 photographs or just one photograph, the students who took 100 were better photographers. Like their work was better than just the class. The students who did just one photo.

So no excuses. I love that. Hey, Stefan. I know I said it a few minutes ago, but I just want to commend you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for revealing the character of our exceptional creative God. Thank you for loving your 500,000 neighbors well through creating beautiful art and helping people see beauty in art and also in God's word. Man. Just thank you for loving your clients. Well, thank you for loving these people, Apple and Coca Cola and Tag and all of these big brands really well by doing really great work. Your work matters. It is eternally significant. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for our friendship. Hey, if you want to learn more about Stefan, this truly world class, masterful artist, you can find out about him the 30 days of Bible Lettering Challenge and his new book@stefankoons.com that's s t E F A N K U N Z. Stefan, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Hey, before you go, I got one more shorter conversation for you that you're not going to want to miss. I recently sat down with the author of a book that I've added on my personal reading list. The author's name is Andy Kolber. The book is called Try Softer. Kind of an interesting take. So heading into 2020, this idea of, you know, stop trying to do things harder, try Softer. And it's kind of a different approach to anxiety and stress and constantly being in survival mode. The book actually just released yesterday. I had an opportunity to get my hands on an advanced copy that I started reading and have really been enjoying. So I sat down with Andie to ask her just a few questions about the book. Here's my conversation with Andie Kolberg. Andy, thanks so much for joining me.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Yeah, so we're recording this in September, but people are hearing this conversation right after the new year, and I wanted to make sure that this audience for this podcast of high achieving Christian professionals hear this. Right. I think there's a lot of wisdom in your book. I know. I'm very excited to read Try Softer. I think it's such a countercultural message. So let's start here. What's this book about?

Yeah, there are so many things I could say, but I think the underlying heart of it is that Trying Softer is really about changing our posture towards pain. Instead of the cultural norm of just trying harder or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I'm really encouraging folks to do something a little bit different, which is to try softer with hard things. The heart of it is about paying compassionate attention to our experience and our body and allowing that to influence what we do next. You know, so many of us have been taught to really white knuckle ourselves, like through pain and through hard. And I use white knuckle really intentionally because what I'm saying there is. I'm trying to delineate this from hard work. There's value. Like, I really especially. It sounds like for your listeners, you know, folks might be thinking, oh, my gosh, who's this woman? You know, what does she know about my life? And I totally get it, partly because that was me and that's been me. That's been my journey. I am a survivor of trauma. And part of the way that I learned to cope with hard things is really by saying, like, well, then I'll just be the best. Like, I don't mean that in an arrogant way, but to essentially say, no matter how much pain I'm in, no matter what's going on with me, like, it doesn't matter. I'm going to minimize it, I'm going to numb it, I'm going to push it down, because what matters is that I look okay on the outside. And so for me as a therapist, what I've come to learn is that that is just brutal on our bodies, it's brutal on our souls, and we just pay such a high price. And the thing is, is that it is such a paradox because we live in a culture in which it's praised. And oftentimes in our families, like, especially if we grew up in a certain type of a family that might be really praised, like, look how sel are. Look at what a high achiever you are. And so we get this idea that that's what is required to be loved. And really, I believe God invites us into such a different way that, you know, Jesus came in a body, lived in a body, and showed us what it meant to be truly human. And that included emotions and experiences and connection with self and others. And so try softer is really leaning in to that mess.

What does try and softer look like?

So I really like to use that synonymously with compassionate attention, because that is really the key to unlock what that looks like in every person's life individually. Because I think of this, like, less of, hey, here's your five steps to trying softer. And it's a little bit more like, I'm going to teach you to fish. So now you can go and you can catch the food that you need to to live. And so compassionate attention requires awareness of self and others. And that allows us then to say, like, a great example might be for me, as a person who's had to come a long way in really connecting to my own internal experiences, I've had to learn to recognize when I'm at my limits. And when I'm at my limits, my body is giving me information. Like, I'm irritable and I'm exhausted. Exhausted. And I have no patience for my kids, and my heart is beating 100 miles per hour. If I can have some compassion for my own experience, I can say, whoa. Like, maybe I actually need to say no to the thing I have tonight. Because even though that matters, and I've given my word, right now, I am, like, on the edge of my sanity. And my sanity matters more than meeting an external requirement.

Yeah.

So, like, in that example, that might be trying softer.

I think that's a big struggle for a lot of us. So who's this book for? Andie?

Oh, how much time do we have? No, just kidding. No, I think that this book is really for anyone who's found themselves trying harder in lots of different situations and finding it's not working. And so oftentimes this lines up with folks who are struggling with anxiety, depression, and lots of ambiguous types of pain. I talk a lot about. I come from what's called a trauma informed perspective. And what I mean by that is just having a holistic view of our bodies, that our experiences are accumulated in our body, and when we have unaddressed pain, those influence us in the here and now. And our nervous system is constantly responding to the information that we're experiencing. And when we ignore that, we often find ourselves really, really stuck. And so I would say that this book is for folks who are like, I am stuck. Like, hard work actually isn't helpful right now. Like, it's not getting me where I need to go.

So for our audience of Christians who care deeply about their faith, but also care deeply about their work and working hard, right, to do good work, not necessarily for their own fame and fortune, but for the glory of God and the good of others, what are they going to take away from this book?

Yeah, I love this question. I was thinking about this quote from, and you might have heard it from St. Irenaeus. And it's like, the glory of God is man fully alone. And as I've written, try softer. This has been a really important idea for me that there's a sense in which becoming who God has called us to be like with, you know, just all the parts of that we carry. The imago day that we're sort of unwrapping our truest identity is a way that we glorify God. And one of the really fascinating ideas is that from especially like a neuroscience perspective, and there's a lot of faith integration when we are connected to our own internal experience, we actually have really the capacity to empathize and connect with others. And to the extent that we're cut off from our own internal experience, we actually are cut off from the ability to empathize with others. So from a faith perspective, it's like, wow, how do we love our neighbor as ourself if we honestly don't know what's going on? Or even if we can't have compassion for our own pain? And so trisopter is really an invitation to not just observe ourselves, but to observe ourselves with the compassion that God, I believe, already feels towards us. God is so compassionate and good that if we can sort of steward that to our own experience. Wow. Like, what would that be like if we're really embodying the kindness of the God who made us?

I love that. Well, Andy, I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on the book. The description itself was enough to add it to my reading list. So thanks for taking a few minutes to chat with us?

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Again, the book is Try softer. It released yesterday. You guys can go pick up a copy wherever books are sold. Hey, that's it for today's episode of the Call to Master. Remember, you can go pick up master of one right now@jordanraynor.com and enter to win this incredible trip to Europe for you and a friend. Thanks for listening to the Call to Mastery. I'll see you guys next week.