Tim Croll (LEGO Masters contestant + Director of Serious Play at Narrative.live)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back guarantee on this book. I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why? Two reasons. One, this is a different book for me, right. I know this is a very different biography. What is Jordan Rayner doing? And I know it's risky, so I'm going to de risk it for you. Because listen, in my other books, Redeeming youg Time, the Sacredness of Secular Work, Master of One, etc, etc, I am telling you and me how we can glorify God in our work, but in five Mere Christians, I'm doing something very different. I'm showing you what that looks like practically through these unforgettable life stories of five Mere Christians from history. These are the top men and women that I would love to have on this podcast today if, you know, they weren't dead, right? So that's the first reason this is a risk and I'm gonna de risk this book for you. Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it. Highly recommended. End quote. But here's the thing. In order to qualify for this money back guarantee, you got to do two things. Step one, pre order five Mere Christians in any format, hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And then step two, go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form on that page and that's it. But you got to do it by midnight Eastern Time on May 9. By filling out that form, you'll also get all of the pre order bonuses listed on 5 mereChristians. Calm and be entered to win this crazy, epic trip for two to Europe. So visit 5meerchristians.com right now to sign up. Now, please enjoy today's episode. Hey friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the Gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as coroners game wardens and meteorologists. That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to Tim Kroll. He was a contestant on season two of Lego Masters on Fox and has spent 20 plus years as a consultant helping businesses play and work better. Tim and I had a great discussion about what we can learn from God's word, about a theology of play. We talked about how Legos serious play methodology can help you and your team solve problems at work. And we talked about why the opposite of play is not work, but depression. Trust me, you're going to love this conversation with my friend, Tim Kroll. Tim Kroll, welcome to the Mere Christians podcast, my friend.

Man, I'm so excited about this. We get to come on here and we get to talk about play. So let's, let's get going. Let's go.

I know this is gonna be. This is gonna be a blast. So I've got a Tim Kroll story I love. I was walking around this LEGO event with my kids in Tampa, and we, like, make eye contact. You like you're Jordan Ray. I'm like, wait, you're Tim Kroll, who's emailed me from LEGO Master. You were a contestant on LEGO Masters, this reality Fox. What's your favorite story from that experience? What's the story you've told more than.

Any other from LEGO Masters?

Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of an interesting thing. When we talk about it, I kind of have, like two different paths. I have the experience and the relationship that was able to recreate with my son. I mean, he had just stepped out of high school and this was like him stepping into a manhood kind of a situation. So there's a lot of really cool stories and around that. But there's also this other aspect of how it has impacted other fathers. We were the father son duo. And so looking at that, there's two different parts of that. So first of all, the one story that I can say my son is the opposite personality of who I am. He's very introverted, laid back. And it's a good thing because I'm more extroverted. If something triggers me, I'm going to go, boom, I'm going to hit it, right? And so there were several situations where somebody would ask a question, something wasn't quite right, and my son would look over and say, dad, dad, calm down, calm down, calm down. But it was such a healthy way to kind of look at our relationship. And I'm really grateful for those times because I got to see him really become a stronger man and be more determined and kind of clarify his purpose and clarify the direction that he wants to go. Now he's in his 20s, so he's just still some confusion and that's okay. But he has more of a purpose and more of a direction.

It's good. I love that so much. I hope I get to do something like this with my kids. I don't know if it's LEGO masters knowing, knowing Ellis and my eldest. There'll be some baking competition with Arty Sequero or something like that. Hey, I am curious. So LEGO is a huge part of your life. It's a huge part of your work. Has that always been true? Is LEGO a lifelong obsession for you? How did you get into lego?

No, actually, it never really. It was never fully integrated as it is fully integrated today. It was a big, big difference. Now as we were growing up, we didn't have the money for lego. Wasn't really that big of a deal. I mean, I'm a Gen Xer, so we had Lincoln Logs and some of those other things. We didn't really get into lego. It wasn't until my wife and I got married and then my bo boys started really getting into it and they were 8, 9, 10. And we started buying for Christmas and whatnot. Our goal, though, Melissa and I, we always had a purpose to make sure that we were involved in our kids lives. We were doing things. So Christmas you get a LEGO set. Well, now you're going to work with your kids, so it's kind of like you're getting to put it together more so than they are. So that's the kind of relationship that we created and crafted. At about 10, my son kicked me out and said, hey, I want to do this on my own. I'm like, oh, okay. Zach at 13, that's when he started doing what's called mock. So I'm going to use a lot of acronyms. I'll explain them as we go. But mocks are my own creation and LEGO has tons of acronyms. So he started creating mocks. Built this huge bridge, massive bridge. It was about 4 foot long. And I'm like, this kid's got some talent. I'm really shocked. It just coming out of his brain. It's like da Vinci or something. Like he's just using legos. It was really cool. And again, going back to our purpose with Melissa and I, we always wanted to make sure we were involved with our kids. And so I actually come down to the basement where he's Building and we start building. And it was those kinds of things that allowed us to be able to figure out that LEGO actually has some powerful techniques to be able to. I'm getting to your question, so let me kind of swing this back around here. LEGO was the third mute party that allowed us to have deep conversations. When I realized how powerful that third party was, the activity, that's when I started integrating it into teaching and into training, into all of these other pieces that I have. I've got a master's degree in leadership and I've got all this education and I was a. I went to college for youth ministry, all these things. And all of a sudden I discover through working with my son how powerful the LEGO is. And now it's like, dude, why am I not integrating this? Why am I not putting this in the educational part? Why am I not creating these workshops and these trainings to be able to help adults as well as kids understand how to apply strategy and theory to their lives?

That's good. I really like that. I've heard this referred to as a third thing, right? Like conversation can take on a richer level of depth when you're throwing a football with your kid, when you're doing Legos with your kid. And actually you, you probably know this. The founder of lego, Ole Kirk Christensen. This is one of the reasons why he loved the brick is he watched how it was an excuse for him to build relationships with. At that time it was his grandchildren, right? Because he stumbled onto the plastic bricks later in life. Hey, so Tim, you were super kind to endorse my new book, five Mere Christians. This collection of binge worthy biographies of men and women I want most on this podcast but can't because they're dead. Including Olaker Christensen, the founder of lego. He's one of the five and you are actually one of the very few people who already knew a lot of this story. Most people don't know the story of Lagos founder and this guy.

Phenomenal story.

Oh, it's an unbelievable story. It is a made for TV story. This guy was a modern day job who lost everything multiple times. What's also interesting about this guy's story is he deeply believed in the value of play long before most people did. I'm curious to get your perspective on this. Do you think there was a connection because he. We don't have a lot of his words, right? But based on what you see in his life, do you think there was a connection between his love of play and his love of the Lord? His seriousness about Play and his seriousness about his faith. Is there a connection there?

I think absolutely. And it's hard to sit down here and emphatically prove something like this is what you're saying. You can't sit down here and say, oh, here's all of the facts. And again, going back to your book called To Create, sometimes as modern day Christians, we have to have this black and white. We have to have all of these facts listed out. We have to be like, okay, if you're not this person or in this position, then you're not actually in ministry, which is such a false narrative. When we look at his life, the way that he lived, the action that he did and attempting to do right, I fully believe that there was definitely a connection between his faith, his love for Jesus and his Savior as well as how do we actually now apply it.

I'm working on a new project right now and thinking a lot about a theology of play. And I do love how much time Jesus spends with kids. And of course they were playing. That's what kids do. That is the work of childhood is play. And I also think, I think we see this theme throughout the Godhead, all throughout Scripture, right? God does not work just to solve problems. I've written about this in the sacredness of secular work a little bit. Right. He appears to do some things just for the fun of it. There's this quote for this theologian I think about a lot, this guy named Gustavo Gutierrez, who says utility is not the primary reason for God's action. In job 38, 25, 26, God says he sends, quote, torrents of rain to water a land where no one lives. End quote. Why? Apparently just for the fun of it, you create the platypus. Why? Just for the fun of it. And if God does some things for the pure joy and play of doing them, then we as his image bearers, can too. Right, Tim?

I think you're so accurate in that. And I mean, I have this mental picture of. It's going to sound very non theologic, but I have this mental picture of this older gentleman sitting up in heaven and seeing something really funny and just doubling over with laughter because of something that just went. I mean, shoot, if we look at it. So follow my line of thought here. If we look at it and the way that we actually look at our kids and sometimes our kids say the funniest things in the world and we just sit there and then we just like crack up and we have a good time and we laugh. And I mean, truly, if we look at the fact that God is our Father and he's our. The one that we look up. Why wouldn't he have that same kind of reaction when we do something or we tell a funny joke and he's just up there giggling away at something like that whole idea or concept that just lives in my head rent free. And I think it's something that we miss as humans because we get too serious, we get way too fundamental, and we forget about this fun side of what has been created.

Hey. So play is intrinsically good, but I am learning from you and from others that play is also essential if we want to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. That play does actually make us more productive. And I'll admit that I'm a slow learner here, but I am learning this slowly but surely. Can you tell our listeners what you've learned about how play can make us better at the work God has created us to do?

Oh, my. This is a deep question. How much time do we got?

Yeah, you can take your time.

We got. So when I do a LEGO workshop, the incredible aspect of it is I focus on what is the. So basically I'll do a discovery call with whomever it is that I'm contracting with to be able to do that.

Yeah, let's back up for a second. This is good. This is good. Tell us a little bit about these workshops that you put on. Take us inside of one of them.

Okay, so let me just give you the example of what I have done in the past, so that way kind of can relate. But the goal of this is to solve the challenge or the problem that's basically keeping you up at night, and everybody's a little bit different. And while there's a lot of fundamental principles and things that are going to always stay the same, the application is going to be different per company, per individual, per challenge, whatever. So that's the first thing. We had a situation where I was working with another company here locally is Treetops. One of the challenges that they had was communication, Being able to effectively communicate not only within their staff and their sales department, but with the reservations teams, the customer service. And then they were making some changes. And so they had a person that reserved a year ago may not get the exact same thing that they're getting this year. And so there's a lot of challenges and a little bit conflict that was starting to come up. So what we focused on was effective communication. Well, there's a thousand talks out there. The education for communication is all over the place. But practically speaking, how do you apply for theory, strategy into an everyday situation? And that's where the serious play comes in. So I come in and I'll do a session between three to four hours, the first 30 to 40 minutes, sometimes it's about an hour. Depending on questions, we'll go over those principles. What is effective communication? What does it mean? What are the barriers to effective communication? How do you overcome it? What's a feedback loop? There's things like that that are basic taught principles. Now we say, okay, now we're going to stop, we're going to divide up. And I actually typically do about a team of three, sometimes team of four, but usually a team of three. And I give them a challenge. I basically take a set, I break that whole set apart, and then there's some secret sauce that I'm not going to give you everything to. But it basically is, you have the instructions. One person's a leader, they have the instructions, but the other people don't. Your job is to verbally tell the other person what to build without pointing, without building, without doing. You can only use your words to be able to do that. And if you can imagine now you have this picture in your mind, and you're the only one looking at that, whatever it is, and you're trying to tell somebody else and trying to describe what they have no idea. And that's communication is getting what's in your head into somebody else's head. That's effective communication. And so we go through those challenges. So what I do is I'll actually stop them about every 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and say, okay, what are the problems? What are the challenges? How do we overcome? What can we do different? What's going good, what's going bad? And that facilitates the discussion around effective communication. And then, for example, sometimes people are not the greatest communicators, and they start to realize that. And so they're telling somebody something, and the people looking at them like, I have no idea what you're talking about. That opens up what we call the feedback loop of how do you tactfully tell somebody they're messing up and we have no idea what you're saying, and you need to try better, try different, use some other words. You got to do something different because we just don't understand. And that's the feedback loop. And we've had that situation happen multiple times. That's just one of probably 20 or 30 examples that I can give you. And whether it's leadership, whether it's conflict resolution, whether it's team building, whether it's personal development, personalities, I mean, there's all kinds of application when it comes to the actual series play and how that integrates into our lives. So to answer your question, kind of coming full circle on that is how does the play affect us? One is if we do not have the ability to understand and practice soft skills, that hinders the hard skills, the talents that God gave us. It hinders that because we're not able to actually do that effectively with more people. So serious play really develops, for the most part. There are some hard skills, but for the most part, serious play develops all of those soft skills that as frankly and unfortunately most organizations, they skip over the soft skills, they skip over the emotional intelligence or the eq. And that's where serious play comes in, to be able to make it a more cohesive, functioning team. And when I say that there's statistics and data, I mean it's like a mile long. If you start doing research on how efficiency and emotional intelligence and all of the soft skills play into more productivity, more profit, more cohesion, less turnover as far as employees, like, there's so much data that I could go on for hours just on that one part.

Yeah. It reminds me of this quote from Dr. Stuart Brown that I read in his book play. Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of, what is it, the National Institute for Play?

Yeah, I believe so.

Yeah, I think I'm getting that right. He says in the long run, work does not work without play. End quote. Like, I love that. And it's taken me a long time to believe that. I'm a hard data driven guy and play feels soft, but I do believe it in addition to its intrinsic value. All right, you mentioned this term, serious play. That's trademarked by lego. Yeah. You gave us a great case study of serious play a minute ago. Define it for us though. Give us a concrete definition of what you mean by that term, serious play.

The simplest way for me to define serious play is taking activity to apply to your daily lives. So we all have knowledge, we all have learned facts, we've gone to school or we've got it through some other method of training, teaching, and we have all these facts. What we lack is the ability to apply what we know, and that's the wisdom side of things. So serious play gives us the practice without all the pressures of business or making mistakes, we can practice what we've learned. And again, a lot of it has to do with just basics, working together, talking with other people. How do we actually function as a society and that's where the activity is important to apply what we've learned.

Yeah. And here's what I love, what I'm hearing you say, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that play does not have to only exist outside of work. There's play in the work. Right. Like, I felt guilty for a really long time about not having a hobby. To this day, I have no hobby. Something outside of work that is exclusively play. But I realized that, number one, almost none of my heroes had hobbies. Very, very, very few of my heroes had hobbies. And two, a lot of my work, by God's grace alone, is play. Right. Dr. Brandon, I mentioned before says one of the trademarks of play is that you lose track of time while you're engaged in the activity. That's how I feel. Writing. Writing is play for me. So here's my question for you. Can there be some aspects of our current work that are play?

Well, I would even contend that some aspects of your current work are your hobby.

That's right.

So like you're talking about writing and you said, well, I actually don't have any hobbies, but yet you get involved in writing. And that technically is a hobby. And some people just do it for fun, but some people have made it their business. For me, the play aspect of it is kind of my hobby. I enjoy just all kinds of different play type things and that list is pretty long. So my hobby of play kind of branches into a whole lot of different pieces. So I think that there is definitely something there in regards to how play can be effective as well as it can also be your hobby.

Is there a sense for you that when you do play, when you spend time in things that are in that get to column and not that have to column, that you can experience God's love in a different way because it's a rebellious act of declaring that you have worth and value irrespective of productivity. Does that make any sense? Tim?

Makes perfect sense and actually goes right back. Your book called To Create, and I know you've gotten a lot of people that have said this exact same thing, but there's such a freeing aspect when you read that and the way that you introduce the book and the aspect, and I know your listeners all know this because I'm sure they've read it, but the way that God introduced himself as a creator, I was like, yes, that is exactly how I feel. I couldn't put it into better words because there was this pressure to perform and I grew up very strict Baptist. So there's this pressure to perform not only in your life, in your lifestyle, but also in business. And then according to success, you go to college, you get a job, and that's what you do to be successful. I didn't fit that mold at all. And so that pressure to be able to fit in or to do stuff created a chameleon like effect in my own personal life, especially all the way up through my 20s and 30s. And I felt like I was always performing. And it wasn't until you realize that God created us individuals. And that individuality is how he loves you and how he reacts and interacts with what you do. And when you can embrace that and understand that you don't have to be something in order for him to love you, it changes the way that you do business, the way that you do life. It changes everything about you as your performance. There's no longer that pressure. Like you just said about I have to produce in order to be loved. And I talk to so many men, too. We battle with this because we feel like we have to have a title in order to be something. And we associate our identity with that title rather than the fact that we have been created and crafted with skills and talents and God's put those in us and we are perfect the way that we are.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. I think Plays an act of rebellion. I think Sabbath is an act of rebellion to this end. Right. Because I've heard some people define play as simply that get to have to framework. Right. Play is something you would say you get to do. Work is something you'd say you would have to do. Although I would of course argue that those lines get really, really blurry really fast. But Sabbath is that.

Can I pause you on that?

Yeah, please.

This is a passion for me. And the reason why is because it's very, very personal that get to have to. I call it Drainers and Drivers. That was from Tony Grubmeier. I've heard another person call it boosters and zappers. I don't care how you define it, but this is a life lesson that I had to learn when I was going through a bunch of stuff. This is about six, seven years ago. And that whole pressure to perform. There's an activity that I now do with a lot of people. There's a list of all the things that I have to do versus all the things that I get to do. And my list of have to do was 10 times longer than my list of get to Do. What that affected was me breaking down. And when I talk about building personal development, there's four areas. This comes from Luke chapter 2:52. Jesus grew in both wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. So there's four specific areas that we grow personally, and those are buckets. When I have to do and only have to do and I don't do get to, my energy gets drained physically, spiritually, mentally and socially in every aspect of that. And that leads very quickly to emotional breakdown, physical breakdown. That's when you have all kinds of heart problems, challenges. There's all kinds of things that go on there. I had to learn after I broke down and started beating the crap out of a garage door one day because I couldn't think. I had to learn how to take those things that were in my have to and either do delegate or, or delete and make my get to list longer. And so for the past five to seven years, I have been solely focused on what do I get to do instead of what I have to do and make that have to. It's never going to go away. You're always going to have to have some things that you have to do. But I need to make that short compared to the list of the things that I get to. That then full circle comes back into. The reason why I'm using serious play mythology is because I get to go teach people and I get to play and I get to. And now it's all. It's fun for business. So I know this is a little bit of a rabbit hole, but I think it's a really important thing.

It's a holy spirit, Doug rabbit hole. You don't know this at all. Yeah, I'll share this, whatever. I'll be real, be vulnerable. This has been. It's been a very challenging six months for me, probably the most challenging of my life emotion. I gotta be careful here because I recognize that most people on earth spend most of their careers doing work that is 95% in that have to column. And I am blessed and privileged. It is a gift from God that I have anything in the get to column. So I want to preface this with that. That said, I've entered into a season of my career because of the success of the books and this podcast and speaking and my communities, that I have more in that have to column than I have ever had before. Right. Even before, when I was running this larger tech startup day to day threshold360, I feel like I have more than half took on that ever before. And it Sounds really selfish. I'm just being real raw. I had this conversation with my wife last night on the couch. It feels unbelievably selfish for me to say, okay, great, let's just get that have to stuff off the plate and let's focus more on get to convince me otherwise.

I have had multiple men talk to me specifically about this topic and I feel like that's why I'm so passionate about it and my experience. So let me back up and give you my story. Yeah, a little bit on that and then we can kind of untangle some of these parts.

This is great. Yeah, this is super helpful.

I lots and lots of things. I'm going to start the story basically right about the time that I started working with a company called Sunfrog. Massive, massive amount of success. In fact, when I first started working with the guy that owned the company, he sat there and said, I don't think this is going to go anywhere, but let's go ahead and try. I got paid about $800 a month, plus I got a percentage of whatever we sold. Thought, well, we'll give it a shot. We'll see what happens here. We ended up taking Sunfrog, which was an online T shirt company, from about, I'll say about $5,000 a month in gross revenue to $15 million a month in gross revenue within a matter of two years. Massive amounts of success. And as you can most people, especially in business, if you have that much success that quickly, wheels fall off the bus and you got to put them back on while it's moving. It's just what you got to do.

Got to build the plane while it's flying.

Oh my goodness. It's so intense. And so the have to gets really, really long. And then I worked with another company that was on E Comm. What happens in E Comm is our busiest time is our fourth quarter. What else happens in fourth quarter? Well, all your holidays, all of your family obligations, all of these things. So the final year that I was in all of this, I had all of the business stress of owning and operating and doing all the E. Com stuff and trying to make bank in the fourth quarter. And then I had to go and spend time with my parents and Melissa's parents and all of these other obligations that we had. We got to my parents and in that one weekend there was a backup. The sewer came in. We had the basement was flooded. We were up till 3 or 4 in the morning. Extremely exhausting physically. And I've already been drained because of all of the other stuff. And then we drove back from Pennsylvania back to Michigan. And that's when the garage door fell. And I'm sitting there in the driveway with my family in the van and I get out and I tried to pick the garage door up. I couldn't do it. And I don't know what broke in my brain, but it literally broke. I could not problem solve and all I could do was attempt. My brain was saying, I have to go through this door. And so I do it like the WWE and I'm like flying people's elbow and all this. I'm trying to beat my way through a steel door, steel reinforced door. It's not going happen. And all that time that's going on, this little warning bell is going off in the back of my head saying, hey, is this what you want to your wife to see? Is this what you want your kids to see? Is this, is this the person that you really want to be? And I just, things started triggering and falling into place. And that's when I met Tony Grubmeier, who really helped me as far as a mentor. And things started looking at. And I had to go back and apologize to my kids and to my wife. And like, you don't have to respect my actions in that moment. You still have to honor me as a dad and as a husband, but you don't have to respect those actions. I was wrong and I apologize for those. But if I didn't have that wake up call and that, that close of that mental breakdown, I wouldn't know something else was wrong. Because then we continue and we push harder, especially those that are driven, we push harder and harder and harder. And next thing you know, when you are, and I don't care if you're doing a job that you love or whatever, there's always these things that you have to do. And it could be as simple as answering emails. If you allow yourself to get to the point of complete empty, you will not be worthwhile to your company, you will not be worthwhile to your family, to your kids. And that is what scares the crap out of me. So when I look at that part of things and I say, well, I feel guilty because I have to take care of myself, or I feel guilty because I'm delegating something that I have to do, or I feel guilty because I'm just eliminating something, then I think of what is my priority. What has God called me to be? He's first called me to be the husband and the father. He hasn't called Me to the business aspect. I get to do that kind of stuff. But he called me to be a husband and a father first. And if I'm not taking care of myself in order to be the best possible husband, the best possible dad, then I have failed my responsibility. And that's where I feel this guilt that we feel about taking care of our bodies and taking care of our mental and social and spiritual well being. We can't show up. We can't show up and perform and be effective. And this whole training thing, what I challenge people to do is take 30 days and every day on your list you write one side you got your have to's and one side you got your get tos. And every day just write down what you did and see your list. If your list on the have to's is longer than the get tos, you're gonna start to break. Somewhere something is going to break. And it could be a mental thing, it could be physical, emotional. That's why we have people that implode. And I can go on about multiple stories of people I've watched implode and break and they no longer have either. Effective businesses, effective ministries, their families break apart. I can go down those. You don't want that. So take care of it now.

Yeah. And I. I think we as Christmas have got to think differently about this idea of self care, of which play I would put as a subset of this idea of self care. We value self care as a means of self sacrifice, right? Like if we are not taking care of ourselves, we can't serve our brothers and sisters well. And there's this quote and I, I was just, I just processed my notes from Dr. Stuart Brown's book Play. It's why these quotes are so fresh in my mind. He says in there, the opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression. My dang. Like, I've never thought about that that way. But I'm seeing the early signs of that in my life. And if I want to go the. I mean, Lord willing, I pray that God allows me to do this work for another 40 years. Before we go, I do have to ask you this. When you look at Ole Kirk Christensen's life, you and I share a love of this guy, this founder Lego beyond his heart for play. What else do you see of how the gospel clearly shaped his life and work? What else do you see the young man that can only be explained by his faith in Jesus Christ, his family?

I think that's the biggest telltale sign, is when you look at how he acted and responded with his family. The other little known fact, which I'm sure comes out in your book, and this may be a little bit of a teaser, I think it comes out. I remember reading it. There's. Maybe it was the interview that you did. I can't remember where I read it now. But anyway, the whole aspect of what he did during World War II.

Oh, yeah.

And I mean, I didn't know that that was actually something new to me. But for somebody to do that and take on that response.

So our listeners don't know.

I know. That's why I was kind of, I was kind of teasing.

Tell them what you remember. I give away everything.

Oh, okay, okay. I was like kind of teasing that just so they could go read.

Nah, give it to him now.

That's actually one of the most interesting things is the fact that he actually smuggled arms and ammunition across into Nazi control territories through his boxes of toys. And so he would put them on. He didn't tell anybody. So that way if there was nobody, he didn't tell anybody. And multiple times it talks about. I don't remember, like, I can't remember if it was in the book part of it or in the podcast part that you did, but multiple times the Nazis would come into his shop and it was like, oh. And then they would just kind of turn a blind eye. There's things like that that just would. They didn't see it and how do you not see it?

Oh, they. So there's this story we tell in the book. These Nazi soldiers invade denmark, World War II, Lego's just taken off and they try to commandeer the workshop. And Olay son Gottford is there and acts dumb, acts like he doesn't know German. And the soldiers like, okay, whatever, we're just going to leave. Well, that didn't work. When they showed up to Olay's home and they commandeered his home, like we're moving it. And they literally, these Nazi soldiers moved into the first floor of Olay's home in Billund and he would smuggle grenades in these Lego boxes under these guys noses to Allied forces. And here's what I love about it. Yes. This guy embraced playful and useless quote unquote things. And I believe glorified God in doing that. Right. He understood that he had value in his play and not just his productivity, but he also understood that we Christ followers are called to serious work, to see evil in the world, to call evil what it is, and to actively fight against the darkness. Of this world with the light that we have in Jesus Christ. And he's such a great example of that. I love this guy. He's a legend.

And I would say one other thing that you can see very clearly is even in the darkest of times in his life, when he was at the edge of breaking, which frankly, anybody that's over 30 probably has at some point felt that, the tears in the shower that you don't want to tell anybody about, which some of us have been there, and the absolute breaking of your soul. He was at that point multiple times. Business is gone. I just, I've felt the pain just by reading some of the things that he's gone through, because I can relate so well with those. And the absolute, hey, we have a really, really high point. Everything's going great. Next thing you know, you're at the bottom, you know, like, what is this? It's like you said earlier, a real life kind of a story of Job. And it's true. You can feel the pain in his life.

Yeah. And yet he blessed the name of the Lord.

Yes, exactly.

There's this quote I just pulled up in the book where he's talking to his lawyer who comes up to his house, and Olay says, quote, to be honest, I've given up. I owe debts everywhere. My wife is dead and I'm left with four children who depend on me. What am I supposed to do? I might as well pack it in right now. End quote. And it was later that night or the next day that he holds himself away in a closet and gets on his hands and knees and cries out to the Lord and laments and prays for relief. And it was there in that closet, if I'm remembering the story correctly, that God gives him a vision for this giant factory. He didn't have the vision for the Lego brick at the time. Right. But it was what would eventually become Lego. And he's like, that was a gift. He's like, I knew God was with me. I knew I would do the thing. And I just got up and did the work the next day. It wasn't easy, right? But it was easier knowing that God is with them and had his back. Hey, Tim, four questions. We wrap up every episode of the show. Number one. All right, Tim, look ahead to the new earth. Isaiah 65 says, we're all going to long enjoy the work. Work of our hands. What job would you love for God to give you on the new Earth?

I want the random one.

Okay, great.

So here, here's what I mean. Because Everybody, I was listening to you and all these guys, like, I want this job, or I want that job or whatever. I want to be able to skip around and do a bunch of them. I get bored with repetition. Like, I don't want to be in one. I like, I want to do everything. I like, I want to be in every different position at different times, and I don't want to be just in one. I'm like, give me this question. I'm like, no.

So I'm the same way. And the more I meditate on the reality of the new Earth, it makes me so much more focused on the thing I'm doing right now, because I believe I'll have billions of years to try hundreds of different crafts that I'm currently putting on ice. I love that answer. I love that you want the rotation. That's good. Yeah.

Put me in the. I'll be the villain, man.

Hey, if we opened up your Amazon order history, which books were do we see you buying over and over again to give away to friends?

So I have to actually answer this question with the question, and then I'll explain why. So the reason why I do that is because a lot of times people ask me for a book recommendation, and I'm like, you got to give me a category. What are you looking? What are you learning?

All right, so here's the beauty of this question. This is why I ask it this way. I used to ask, which books do you recommend? And that's an impossible question because what you just said, it's so contextual and personalized. So I'm just interested on the whole. Right. Like, if you literally opened up your Amazon order history and just counted how many times you bought a book, which one just happens to show up the most?

Mentor Leader by Tony Dungy.

Oh, I love Tony.

That's the one that shows up the most I have.

There you go.

I don't get celebrity itis, but I want to meet Tony. I've never met him.

Tony's amazing.

He's one of my heroes. He's one of the guys that I look up to and see all the stuff that he's done. But the Mentor Leader book, I feel, is the most powerful leadership book. And he talks about how he led the Colts to so many championships and how he did it. It just was a phenomenal, phenomenal book. I've got others that I recommend, but, like, for that specific question, a number of times, that's probably the number one.

That's good. I love that Tony's still hanging out around here in Tampa. I saw him a few weeks ago. He's the best. He's the best. Hey, who would you want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel influences their work?

I actually prepped this question. There was a lady that I heard. Her name is Sarah Miller. It's S A R A and Miller. And she has an incredible story about running a nonprofit. It's called A House on Beekman. And I don't know if you'd be able to get her or not, but she left college and her story. I won't give all the story away, but basically, she left a very lucrative career and a very promising future in order to be able to end poverty in South Bronx. And it just is a very practical aspect of I want to be and serve and act like Jesus to the people in South Bronx and overcoming much gangs. I mean, you name it, South Bronx is not a nice place. But she was able to find a way to be able to minister to those people.

All right, I just looked her up. We have tons of mutual connections, so we'll reach out to Sarah. That's great. All right, Tim, you're talking to this global audience of mere Christians who are doing a bunch of different things vocationally. What they share is a deep desire to do their work for the glory of God and the good of others. What's one thing you want to say or reiterate to them before we sign off?

Don't be so serious.

It's a serious play, guy.

I know, I know, I know. But I often think back, the original joker, and he says, why are you so serious? You know, like some of those guys that just. The challenge is we become adults and we think we have to put away all of the playful things, all of the things of laughter and all of these, we lose that. And that's what gives us life. That's what gives us the ability to keep going. And see hope is all of the fun things that we have in our lives, the laughter, the enjoyment of relationships. We get so focused on success or what the world defines as success and position and money, and we've put that away, bring that back out, laugh every day. Find a reason to laugh every day.

Yeah. And I would add on to that, play with God, because he is our ultimate source of joy. And even. Listen, I have lots of friends who are not believers, who are spending most of this life. They're playing through life, right? And they're not doing it with the Lord. And that is empty. Right? But if the joy of the Lord is truly your strength, and you're playing with that strength as your foundation. It can be a beautiful thing. Tim, I want to commend you, man, for the great work you do for the glory of God and the good of others, man, for reminding us of what play looks like. Practically reminding us that play is productive for our goals and our souls and for just giving us a lot to chew on. This was a really meaningful conversation for me personally, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners would agree with that. Guys, if you want to connect with Tim and learn more about the work that he does with these LEGO Serious Play workshops, you can find him at timcroll.com and on LinkedIn at Tim Kroll Tim, thanks for your time, man.

Thanks for letting me be here, man.

I'm really looking forward to the day where I can watch Tim Kroll and Oleg Kirk Christiansen bond over Lego in front of a bonfire on the New Earth. Hey, I didn't know Oleg Kirk Christensen story until a few years ago when I picked up this book just purely out of a fascination with the Lego business. And I start reading about Lego's founder and I was entranced. I had no idea how dramatic this guy's story was. As we alluded to in today's episode, Christensen watched the Lego factory go up in flames not once, not twice, but three times. He spent years on the brink of bankruptcy and in just the span of a few days he suffered the unimaginable loss of both a child and a wife. And yet he consistently joined God servant Job and saying the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord. He glorified God by persevering through unimaginable trials in his life and in his work. And I'm so freaking excited to share his story with you in my new book, five Year Christians. And for one reader, I'm excited to also send you to the original Legoland in Denmark. That's right. I'm giving away a trip for you and a friend to go visit the homes and workplaces of Olay Kirk Christiansen and C.S. lewis, whose stories I share in Five Mere Christians. You can learn more and enter to win the sweepstakes@5merechristians.com thank you guys so much for listening. I'll see you next week.

Foreign.

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