Tim Newton (Senior Creative Officer at Ramsey Solutions)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every single week, I'm bringing you a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their craft. Not necessarily world famous, but, but world class at what they do. We're talking about each guest path to mastery. We're talking about their daily habits and routines and how their faith influences the work they do every day. Today, I'm so excited to share this conversation, this energetic conversation I recently had with Tim Newton. He's a world class branding expert currently working as the senior creative officer at Ramsey Solutions, Dave Ramsey's company, unofficially within the organization. He's the branding guy, the one responsible for helping to bring great brands like Dave Ramsey into the world. And as you're going to hear in a minute, I saw Tim give a presentation back in October of 2019. It was easily one of the best presentations I've ever seen. It was all about branding. And immediately afterwards, I ran up to him, got an introduction from somebody and asked for him to come on to the Call to Mastery. So Tim and I recently sat down. We talked about how Nike and Apple and Disney and have built transcendent exponential brands, basically by mimicking the way that we make personal friendships today. We talked about how Tim's faith fuels his passionate hatred of credit card companies and student loan services. And we talked about how to open up space and time for God to speak into our lives and into our work. I think you're going to love this conversation. I think you're going to get a lot of prayers, practical advice from it. Please enjoy my conversation with Tim Newton. Tim Newton, thanks for hanging out with me, man.

Yeah, no problem. Excited to talk to you.

Just to kind of establish some context for the audience. So I was in Franklin for this Ramsey influencer event back in.

What was that?

October 2019. Yeah, and so we're sitting through like two days of presentations right from Ramsey staff on media, training, on publicity, on publishing, and, and you took the stage and you, you know, no offense to you, I think you know, this probably the least star Studded name on the, on the itinerary. And everyone's like, who the heck is this Tim Newton guy? And 30 seconds in, everybody in the room just sat up straighter and started taking furious notes. I think, I think somebody interrupted, was like, hey, you can stop taking notes. We're going to Send out this PowerPoint deck. What's that? And we all breathe this collective sigh of relief. But no, seriously, one of the best presentations I've ever seen in my life. I immediately texted your boss, Lu Lefever, just one word.

I just said, brilliant.

And he text back. He goes, yeah, Tim is working in the spirit when he talks about branding. So, yeah, I'm excited to have you here. So before we talk about branding, you mentioned in your presentation one of your favorite brands. Nike.

Yeah.

You just showed me the Nike shoes in your office.

Yes.

I've got to ask, since it is my top, I don't know, easily top five books of all time. Have you read Shoe Dog?

Yes, of course I have. It's one of my favorites too.

It's so hard for me to express to people how great this book is because I listen, I love business biographies. Right. So. And on the surface, this looks like just another one, but it is really exceptionally well written. There's a 0% chance that Phil Knight wrote this book.

Yeah.

Somebody goes, wrote it for him. Yeah.

It's so interesting, man. Yeah. You just dive in and it just keeps on going. It's good storytelling. You just understand the, the heart where he was coming from. It's a great book. Yeah.

What was your, what was your biggest takeaway from the book?

My biggest takeaway from the book is, is that, man, Phil Knight, he had such a deep passion for what he was going after that he was going to be unstoppable, but he was just a regular dude. And that's what I like about it is there was nothing amazing about him. He wasn't spectacular. He wasn't the best athlete when he went to college, but he just had a passion, he had a vision for what he wanted to do, and he just kept going after it and nothing was going to stop him. And that was the thing that I was really paying attention to. It was like, wow, man. When you have it that deeply ingrained in your head and in your heart. Heart, you're unstoppable. And I think about that on my day to day work, honestly, like, how the passion drives me. And I know when I'm passionate about something, I feel unstoppable. And when I'm not passionate about something easily stoppable, you know? Yeah.

There. You know. I don't know where Phil Knight is on his faith journey, but I actually think he articulates one of the most beautifully articulated, like, theologies of work in the book. Like, there's a section, I think it's towards the end of the book where he's basically just talking about the goodness of business. He says. I think he says you're participating. Participating more fully in the grand human drama. Right. When you just make great things and build great brands and build great business. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm in.

Love with this guy. Yeah.

Yeah. We gotta. We gotta talk to Phil Knight about where he's at in his faith journey.

I think that'd be very interesting. I'd love to find out.

So, Tim, let's talk about your story. So you've been at Ramsey Solutions for 11 years. You're not that old of a guy. So I think the answer to this is gonna be a pretty short story. But what's the story that led you to working at Ramsey?

Of how I got here. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's an interesting story. Like, I was a Dave fan. I lived in Houston, and I was. I was painting, and I was playing drums, just doing those kinds of things. I was a creative director in Houston. But when I was painting, I would listen to Dave Ramsey, the audiobook stuff, and it made a ton of sense. And so there's one day I was shooting around playing basketball, and the Lord clearly said, tim, you need to get out of that place. Like, the place I was working.

Were you at an agency?

It was, yeah. You can call it an agency. Yeah. But the Lord was saying, you've got to get out of that place. And I had no plan, no nothing. And I had a baby that was five months from being born, and I had no plan, nothing. The Lord just said, tim, you need to get out of that place. And I'm like, for real? Are you sure? Hold up. Yes. Get out of that place. So I left. And the CEO at the time, like, he was. He was furious that I left because I didn't have a good reason for leaving. I was like, yeah. The Lord said, I got to get out of it. And so, like, in his opinion, it wasn't a good enough reason, but I left. And I started looking around for jobs, and I saw that Dave Ramsey needed a graphic designer. And I was like, dave needs a designer. I could do that. And so I went up to Nashville. I didn't know it Going into it. But a year after starting the job, my wife at the time left, joined the military and left. And I became a single dad at that point. And it was really. It was pretty tough, you know, but I had to figure it out. Years later, I look back and realize that I didn't have a great support system necessarily. My family was awesome, but a group of friends around me day to day in Houston. But in Nashville, I came here, and instantly I had a support system to handle what I had to handle and to take care of my son and do all that kind of stuff, you know, and so he got me there. And then as time went by, I just started getting more. More and more into leadership and all that. But then a point came a few years ago when I started getting all these panic attacks and. And I was going through this, and at the time, I didn't think that panic attacks were a big deal until I was feeling it myself. And I literally thought I was dying, right. I ended up at the emergency room one night because I thought I was having a heart attack. And the doctor said, you're just stressed. Your heart is fine. So I was like, what? And so then I came to work the next day and I had another panic attack. And my leaders said, tim, you need to go home and not think about this place for a week. And that was one of the coolest weeks, because I couldn't even watch movies because it was giving me panic attacks. But I ended up doing like three and four hour quiet times every day. And the Lord showed me so much, and he said, you got to stop doing this. Got to stop doing this. And what was uncovered for me was that I was trying to do all the work I was doing to prove myself, to prove myself as a designer, as a leader, as an illustrator, basically giving glory to myself and not glory to God. And so the Lord just said, stop doing all this and just do this one little thing right here. And it was thinking about branding. And so I was like, okay, you know, and I started going down that path. And then all these thoughts about branding just kept showing up in my journal. Like, I'd have my quiet times in the morning and these thoughts for branding would come up. And I'm like, well, not right now. I'm doing quiet time. I can't think about that right now. And so I'll just put those notes in the back of my journal. And after a while, I had pages and pages of notes about branding. And the Lord had just guided me down that path. Like, every step over this journey. For 12 years, the Lord just guided me to the next thing, to the next thing. And then he showed me this branding stuff. Stop doing all this stuff you're trying to do. Just think about branding. And that's what really got me on this journey of how I'm talking about brands. It's been amazing.

I love it. And what do you think it was about branding, right, that like drew you to the discipline, the.

I don't know, like there's such a, you know, I'm a creative at heart. I'm a creative, I paint, I illustrate all that kind of stuff. And there was something that just made sense to me about how brands worked and how they, if you build a great brand, you could reach the emotions of people. Like that's what we're doing with art and with creativity. We're reaching the emotions of people. And I just started seeing the connection of when a brand is done well, then you reach the emotions of people. And we act out of emotions. We just justify things with our rational brain on the back end, but we do everything out of emotion. And so branding, I just saw that connection. I'm like, oh my gosh. If we just build a brand like this, we can reach the hearts of people. And what we're doing here, we're trying to make people change their behavior so that their lives are changed, whether it's money, marriage, any of that stuff. And it takes reaching their emotions. And I just saw that connection with brand. I'm like, oh my gosh. There is something to this about. If we can reach them right there in that spot, then their, their life can be unlocked and something great can happen.

So your title is Senior Creative Officer, which is quite broad and probably intensely so. What do you actually do day to day at Ramsey Solutions? You're the, I mean you're internally, you're known as the branding guy. Right. But like how does that express itself on a day to day basis?

It's, it is really hard to put into words because there's a lot that we're trying to do. Like I am trying to guide excellence with design and creativity also and how we're telling stories and all that kind of stuff. I do lead a lot of how we're thinking through brands and I do some workshops within the office about setting the right foundation for a brand. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff too. I'm trying to pay attention to the business and the numbers with the business and how creative affects that and how we're putting tests in front of People to see what's connecting and not to affect the business. There's so many aspects to it and my day is honestly pretty different every day. There's so many different things are pointing into, but all of it to me are tied together of creating brands that are going to change the lives of millions of people out there. And that's really the basis of what that all comes to, you know.

Yeah. And that includes personal brands, personality brands like Dave, like Christy Wright, like Chris Hogan, but also I would imagine your other brands that aren't attached to people. Right. Entree, leadership, etc.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not over those brands, but I do, I'm making sure that the brands that we're building, that I'm involved in the conversation, but I'm seeing how all these brands are tied together.

Yeah.

And how they make sense globally. Yeah.

That's super interesting. So once you identify this thing, I love how laser focused you are. I mean I just published a book called Master of One. Like you're so clear on your one thing, a branding. How did you go about pursuing mastery of that branding? It's pretty subjective, right? So, so how do you purposefully practice the art of great branding? Like how do you go about mastering this thing?

Well, one thing that I realized pretty quickly is that when most people talk about brand, it all feels like fluff and it's really hard. Like you said, like it's hard to nail down what is brand. Exactly. That was the first thing I wanted to tackle is how to create systems to get people to understand tactfully how to build a brand. Because I couldn't find anything that did that. All the books that I read, nothing says try this order, do this first, do this and this and this. It all just seemed like fluff and that just wasn't good enough for me. And when it comes to brands, there are so many garbage brands out in the world that take advantage of people and don't actually help people. And that drives me insane. What I, what I want to do, the reason I care about this so much is because I want more brands out in the world that genuinely care about people. And I want to destroy the brands out there who are genuinely taking advantage of people.

I love it, I love the word choice. Destroy garbage.

I'm serious. Right.

I mean, but that, that's, that's part of your personal brand, right? Is this deep passion about this topic?

Yeah, it is. And that passion is a God given passion. Like for brands, it's, I can only describe it that way. I have such a heart for it because. Because I can see it. I can see what it. What it needs to be, and I can see what's happening to people out there who are believing lies from bad brands. And it drives me insane. And so I was like, okay, I got to figure out how to make sense of all this so that I can guide other people on how to build a brand that is going to care about people.

And I want to talk about that process in a minute because it is the best distillation I've ever heard on how to build a great brand. We're going to get to that, but first talk about your definition, how you define the word brand, and how that differs from what you call a transcendent brand.

Yeah, so. So brand. When it comes down to it, there's a lot of different definitions of brand, but the best one I've ever heard is it's trust and meaning fueled by experience. And so at every touch point that you have with a brand, there has to be deep meaning in it. Like there's going to be meaning no matter what. It's going to be bad meaning or good meaning, but it has to have deep meaning. And then you have to be able to trust it, which means extreme consistency over time. And every experience needs to be a reflection of that meaning. So it's meaning and trust fueled by experience. But a transcendent brand takes that, and a transcendent brand exponentially grows outside of your control. And so that means you have to emotionally connect with people so much that they're spreading the brand for you. If we are just limited to our abilities as a company to grow our brand, it's not going to go very far. But if our audience is building the brand for us because they have been affected by it and it has emotionally reached them, then we're going to reach millions and millions of people. And so that's the difference between you can have just a brand, you can build a good brand, or you can build a transcendent brand that has reached the hearts that makes everybody else talk about it for you.

Yeah, and I come from Silicon Valley tech startup culture. I would call it an exponential brand. I think. I think that terminology is probably interchangeable.

Right.

But a brand that your super fans are just multiplying over and over and over again because you're creating a product that's so great that they have to tell others. In your presentation, you talked about Nike, you talked about Apple, you talked about Disney, some of the brands that you respect the most. How does this Happen. How do you build these transcendent relationships with customers?

Yeah. Well, so I was thinking about it, and I was like, man, you know, we don't trust companies. We don't trust brands. We don't trust businesses. We just don't. Times have changed, and we don't trust them. But what we do trust is humans. That's why we read ratings and star reviews and general reviews and all that. We trust that we trust people on Twitter. You know, all that we want to hear from real people.

We trust random people, by the way.

Yeah, I know. We don't know. Yeah, yeah. And not companies. And I think it's because so many bad brands out there have lied to us, and so we don't trust them. And more studies are coming out. I read One that said 84% of millennials don't trust companies at all. I'm like, man, 84%, that's a big number that's probably just going to keep climbing. And so, like, okay, what do we trust? We trust humans. We trust humans. And so I started thinking about it, and I started thinking about my history with brands that I'm emotionally connected to. And you mentioned Nike. I'm emotionally connected to Nike. And it started with the Jordan 11s. The ones with the black patent leather on the bottom. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Amazing shoes. First time I saw them, I was like, gosh, those are. Those are unbelievable. But I couldn't afford them, so instantly I thought they were for the rich kids or the popular kids. I wasn't either one of them. So I was like, wow, those shoes are amazing. Those must just be for the top people, you know? And then I was watching Jordan win championships, and he's the face of Nike and all that, you know, I was watching them win over and over again. And then all these. I have all these memories with Nike of me playing basketball wearing Nike shorts and me having great games wearing Nike shoes and all that. And then over time, I was seeing my Houston Rockets associated with Nike, and the messages they were putting out in their ads were connecting to me. Like, those things meant something. And then I realized that over time, they had never changed. Like, they. They just stayed extremely consistent. And as I thought about it, I realized, wait a second. That's how we build friendships, too. It's that exact same path. And so I'm after. I was like, yeah, we see them, and there's something we just. We just like about them when we see we can't put our finger out. But some we just like. And then we talk and we realize we have stuff in common, and then we build memories together and do some really cool stuff. And then we grow our understanding with each other, our families grow together, all that. And then you realize that they've been consistent for years and years, and that's why you trust them. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, if you just follow that pattern and do it intentionally, then you could build something pretty great. But the biggest difference, though, is that with a human, the soul already exists, and everything about them is a reflection of the soul. With a brand, you have to identify what's the soul of the brand, and then all of those steps are a reflection of that soul. The biggest thing is understanding what is the soul of the brand. What is the deep meaning? What is that fiery passion behind you, your brand behind you, that's creating this brand that you're going to put out in the world? And then how is all of those other steps going to be a reflection of that? And if you do that and you're extremely consistent over time, you could build a strong friendship with this brand. And then you want to tell everybody about this friend and you want to share about it and you want to buy from them and all that because they're such a good friend. Does that make sense?

It makes total sense. So there's no way we're going to have time to talk through all the six steps of this process. But let's start with the most important one. Let's talk about the soul of the brand. And how do you go about clearly articulating that?

Especially.

Especially for an established brand. I think this is probably. I shouldn't say it may be easier to do when you're starting up right, when you're starting a new brand, starting a new company. But, I mean, you're walking into an organization that's, you know, decades old. Like, I've got an existing business. A lot of people listening to this have existing businesses and brands that they're a part of. How do you go about articulating the soul of a brand?

Yeah, well, people follow people who have passion. Like, we want to follow people that have a lot of passion. When you think about Nike, Nike is a total reflection of Phil Knight. Like, everything about it is. You read Shoe Dog. Nike is a reflection of Phil Knight all the way. I try to talk to business leaders to identify what are the three main things that you're passionate about. What do you believe? What are the things that make you angry in the world because anger causes change? Like, what are those things that you are so passionate about. And with business leaders, I've been around for a while. I got to talk to a lot of business leaders at our entree leadership event. And I was talking to some and I was like, well, why did you start this business to begin with? Because I realized that they had kind of lost what it was that really drove them. And I said, well, what made you do this in the first place? And they started identifying these things that almost made them cry of why they started doing this. I'm like, have you ever told me your team members that story? And they're like, no, I never have. You've got to tell that story to your team members. Yeah, but it's that passion that we follow. And so with Phil Knight, I'd say with Nike, what they believe is that you can overcome obstacles, you can achieve the impossible. They also believe that we should innovate the future of sport. And then they believe that every, if you have a body, you're an athlete, those are the three main things to believe. And everything about their brand is a reflection of those three beliefs. And so I try to guide teams on really digging in and getting it so clear. Like a lot of companies, they want to say, well, we're about these 30 things. And if you say you're about 30 things, then no one's going to remember any of it. You have to have three very clear. This is what I believe. This is what we're angry about in the world. This is what's not right. And we believe that this is what should happen. And when you start putting that kind of stuff out in the world, people will follow it because most likely they believe the same thing. They just don't have a voice in the world to say it, but you do. So it's really, that's the big part is identifying those three really core beliefs. And like I said, I love the question of what pisses you off in the world.

Yeah.

Is that. And when you're really going to find this is why my business exists. You know, so then from there you just start identifying, if this is what I believe, then what is the visual expression of that? Like the way we dress, the way we walk, the way we talk, all of that is a reflection of our soul. We do all that stuff because of who we are on the inside. So it's the same with a brand. If you've identified this is what we're about on the inside, then how does that need to be expressed on the outside?

Yeah. So you talk about kind of this three tier hierarchy Right. Kind of going from the middle of a circle, outward from the middle. So at the middle there are these core beliefs.

Right.

Then this next rung is. Okay, how are those beliefs perceived? Right. How brand perceived? And then finally, like, what is the brand expression? So you already mentioned Nike's kind of three core beliefs. You can achieve the impossible, you can overcome this internal enemy, you could be victorious, etc. How do you. How is that perceived and how is.

That expressed with Nike? I haven't talked to Nike about if. Let's do it Tim, then yeah, let's do Tim Newton.

Do you have a personal version of this?

Yeah, I believe. And you've already heard one of them, I believe that businesses that take advantage of people shouldn't be in business. I believe that. I believe that you have to have genuine passion for what you're doing in the world. You know, I believe that you just have to love people well. You know, like, you have to love people well. But so those, those three things make me on the outward with when it comes to people. I'm very inviting when I talk to the team. At least I hope I am. But. But I try to be like the way that I dress, the way I'm around work. Like, I try not to look too stuffy or too, too much with all the nice goals, anything but. But I still want to be nice. But I do try to make it look like you can come and talk to me. My door is always open. That kind of stuff when it comes to the business just shouldn't be taking advantage of people. Like, you can. You can hear it in the way that I talk of how, how angry I get about it. Like in my words, I use words like destroy and passion. All these kinds of garbage. Yeah, and garbage. That's garbage. Yeah. That is a reflection of what I believe about that. It's not right that these companies are doing that. So you can hear it in the way that I talk. And then passion like that comes from it too. When I'm on stage, I can't help but be passionate. And you hear my voice. It's the same kind of thing I get. I don't like reading anything off my phone on stage. I don't even like having a podium. I like walking all over the stage because I want people to see this stuff matters and I'm passionate about this. And so it's expressed like that when it comes to me personally.

Yeah. I think for any personal brand, it's probably expressed in tone and body language. So speaking of a personal brand, you Talked about in this presentation that exponential brands tend to sell lifestyle. Right. I'm really curious. I mean, you're working at Ramsey Solutions talking about that personality, Dave's personality, or what lifestyle is his personal brand selling?

Yeah, I mean, you take a look at it. He is selling a lifestyle of freedom with money. He's selling a lifestyle of debt freedom, a lifestyle of building wealth, and lifestyle of giving outrageously. And that's. That's all being free with money. That's what he's always been about on the radio. And it's. It's expanded now because we talk about marriage and parenting and all that, but when it was mostly about money, like, that was the lifestyle he was selling. The reason I say that is because we're not really selling products. We are selling that lifestyle, and the product is a means to the lifestyle with us, specifically with money. What we're selling is stuff that people don't want to do, like budgeting, doing your taxes and insurance, digging into that kind of stuff and learning about money. Like, that's stuff that people don't really want to do. But once they get a vision of what life can be like, and that's what Dave is doing when you hear him on the radio, he is giving a vision to millions of people on this is what your life can be. You can go to a restaurant and look at a menu from the left side instead of the right side, where the prices are like that. That is possible for you. You can buy this shirt even though it's not on sale. Like, little things like that. Or more like you can have millions of dollars in retirement, and teachers do it all the time, and police officers do it all the time. Like, you can do that if you invest wisely. Dave is constantly giving a vision of what your life can be. And then it comes down to, well, how do you. How do you get there? Well, you can start with every dollar. Our budgeting app. You know, you can. You can start like that.

Yeah.

But you're leading.

You're leading with lifestyle. Right. You're painting a vision of a picture of what life could be like. Right. In this family, in this community. Right.

Yeah.

And then selling products, that's.

That's.

Now that's brilliant.

So mostly that's what grabs us.

Right, Right, right. And then the product is the answer to the rational questions of, well, how do I do that?

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you lead with that. Yeah.

So you talked a few minutes ago about the fact that you don't have a typical day. Right? In terms of what's on your calendar. But I am curious, are daily habits and routines that get you going?

Right.

So from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, what does a day in the life of Tim Newt look like?

Yeah, well I'll start off when I go to bed because I go to bed at like 8:30 and I get made.

Amen brother.

Yeah, I kind of feel like nothing good happens at night and all the great stuff is in the morning. That's right. So I wake up at 4 o' clock every morning. I have my coffee pot set to go up at 3:55 so that I can get my coffee and then I'm upstairs doing quiet time for an hour. My day has to start with that. I talked to a guy years ago, he was an older guy, a mentor of mine, and he said, Tim, you have to start your day aligning your heart and your mind with God. Because if you do that, like what tends to happen is we end up talking about our problems to our friends and to people and all that. And that's fine. But if that happens all the time, we're just spreading all this stuff out, all these problems when really like it becomes a self focused act, you know, over time if you just keep doing that. But if you're aligning your head and your heart with God every morning, like he was telling me, if you do that, you can express those things to God and you can be taken care of so you can spend the rest of the day serving everybody else. And when he told me that, I was like, man, that's okay. That makes a ton of sense.

So park here for a second. What does, what does your time at the Lord look like every morning? What are you reading? How are you praying? Like what does that look like?

Yeah, well, I'm reading the Bible every once in a while I'll read a book like Soul Keeping by John R. Orford.

Yeah, sure, yeah, great book.

So yeah, sometimes I'll read that or those kinds of books, but it's mostly the Bible. I do try to stick to the Bible and what the Word is saying. And so I'll spend about maybe 15 to 20 minutes reading and then I'll spend about 30 minutes or so journaling and then praying after that or while I'm doing that or whatever. It's just depending on what comes to mind. I believe it's important that I spend a lot of time in journaling and prayer because the first few minutes is just a jumbled mess of thoughts and it takes A little while to spread through some of that and get to the quietness where I can start getting a sense for what the Lord is saying.

So, yeah. So your leader at Ramsey Solutions, Luke LeFever, was on the podcast recently talking about journaling. Did you learn this discipline from him?

Well, actually from my sister years ago. Interesting. I have a twin sister, and I was going through a really hard time. It was maybe like 10 years ago or something. She said, tim, you really need to be using your mornings in the Word and journaling about it. You really need to be doing that. And I was like, okay, yeah, you know, I can do it. She goes, I bet you can't do that 10 days straight. And I was like, I bet I could. And so, you know, and I'm competitive, so, like, I want to double dog dare you. Yeah. And so she would text me. I told her I was getting up at 5, and she would text me at 6 and say, hey, did you. Did you read this morning? And I text back, sure did.

So much pride. I love it.

So 10 days went by, and then after 10 days, she was like, I bet you can't do 10 more. And I was like, I sure can. And so the same thing would happen. Then it started becoming a habit, and I started realizing that I had so much more clarity in my days when I was doing that. And so then I craved it. I wanted to be doing that every morning. And I looked forward to the coffee and to the. To the time with the Lord to get some understanding. And then I started realizing, well, five o', clock, I don't have enough time. I got to start doing at 4:30. So I started waking at 4:30. And then over time, I realized I still need more time. I got to wake up at 4. So I started waking up at 4. And then that was my cap. I said, I can't do anything.

Can't do any earlier.

Yeah, that's really what got me started journaling, because that helped me to grab my thoughts and make them clear and everything. And what is it?

So a lot of people have talked about journaling on this show. What do you think it is about journaling that makes that practice so spiritually rich?

I don't know. I think because we're. We're so in our heads all the time, and everything seems so much like a big deal when it's in our heads. And once you write it on paper and see the words, you can make sense of all this stuff that was in your head. And so for me, when I write it out I feel like I'm doing something with all these thoughts that are randomly showing up in my head and I could see it. And so just, it just gives me more clarity on. Oh, that's, that's what's going on.

I like the practice of. And I think this is really important. Right. Journaling after you have spent time listening to what God has said in his Word. Right. Otherwise I'm just jotting down my thoughts. I'm not responding to what God has already said in Scripture. All right, so you talked about your mornings. So you brought us up to 5am Take us through the rest, Take us through the rest of your day.

Yeah, that's just fine. So then, yeah, when it gets to five o', clock, that's when I start working on stuff. Whether it's stuff for work or if I have a review to do with somebody on my team or something like that, I'll spend about 5 to 6 o' clock or 5 to 6:30 thinking about that because I find that that's when I have the most clarity of thought. And I'm an internal processor. I have a hard time in meetings keeping up with what's going on because so many words are said and I'm trying to understand the perspective of everybody while I'm trying to think of my own thoughts and all that, you know, that it's really hard to stay in it to where I need to stay in it. And so I use that time in the morning to really prime my brain for what I'm going to be going through in the day and understand what do I feel about this thing we're going to talk about, what do I think about this? I need that morning time to really dig into that because during the day I can't in real time. Like I'm a terrible brainstormer. Yeah. Because I just need time to think, you know, and usually in brainstorms everybody's talking and so I use that time to prime my head for the day of what I'm going to be going through. Or I'll go play basketball. There's guys I play basketball with at 5:30 on Wednesdays and Fridays. And so I'll do one or the other. But yeah, so then I'll get to work and I'll just take a look at the day and see what, what meetings I have coming up at what time. And, and I'll usually point out what are the three main things I need to make sure I do today based on all this stuff I got ahead of me. What are the three Main things. Because if I try to think about all of it, then I'm just going to get overwhelmed and stressed. But if I just have those three main things, it keeps everything feeling pretty simple, which is where I want to stay.

So you just jot that down on a piece of paper. It's like, okay, if I only get these three things done, that's. That's a good day.

Yeah. And I have an Evernote document that I'm just always going through and say, okay, this is what I want to have done today. This is what I want to go after. And so I just stay locked in on those things. And if I don't get to the other things below those three, totally fine. Like, I've given myself the okay to not get to those, which is fine because it's impossible most days. So I'll do that, and then I'll just go through the days, hit all those meetings, think about the things I think about any of that stuff, and then I'll go home after that. And I'm just with my family. Like, we don't watch a lot of tv. We don't. We're not really on social media. You'll never really see me post about anything. You know, my wife didn't have any social accounts. And we just spend time as a family. We open up that space and time and play games and have a great time at home.

Like, I love it, I love it, I love it. So I'm really curious about your faith story. Were you. Were you raised in a Christian home? Did you come to faith later in life? What did that look like for you?

Yeah, I was raised in a Christian home. My. My dad, he was the worship pastor at the church we went to. It's a Methodist church in Houston. He was the worship pastor there. And so we grew up in it. But I didn't really have my own faith until much later on. So I was, like, 21 years old. That's when I really met the Lord. And I really started developing my faith and all that. My dad laid the groundwork for it. He would read the Bible to us at nights. There was five kids, five of us, and he would read the Bible to us. So he set the foundation. But it was really. I started going to a Baptist church when I was a little older, and I was like, oh, this is very different from a Methodist church. Very. Yeah, I like all the clapping and dancing around, but, yeah, so I started going to Baptist church, and then. And I really met the Lord then when I was 21, then it's just been an ongoing understanding and uncovering of stuff years and years since, and there's a lot more to uncover.

I can. I can attest to that myself. So this podcast is all about how our faith in Christ impacts our relationship to our work, how it influences our work. I'm really curious. What are the spiritual dynamics that fuel your passion for great branding? Have you made that connection in your mind? And if so, what does that look like?

Well, I mean, you know, we're talking about loving people, serving people. Well, like, Lord calls us to love God and love people. And with brands, it is all about loving people. Well, that's. That's really all it is. You know, the brands that always have one and always will one win are the ones that are the most human. And the ones that are the most human love people, because people love people. Like we are. We are wired to be around people. So I see branding as, you know, and I tell. I tell teams that we're basically building a human. When we're building a brand, we're building a human, and we're building a best friend relationship with our human that we built and the audience that's out there, the customer. And so what that means then is just loving people. Well, I see that connection. And when I think of people who I genuinely love, what is it about them that I love about them? Whether they care about other people, they give constantly. They tell really compelling stories. They're. They're engaging with me. Like, they listen to what I have to say. And a brand should do all those things too. Like your branch should act the exact same way, because that's loving people. Well, and so that's the biggest connection I make with. With brands and spiritualities. We're called to love people.

So, yeah, yeah, love your neighbors yourself is a full sentence. We talk about that a lot here on the call to mastery. Right. That is good. That is glorifying to God in and of itself. As you're talking about those characteristics. Right. Trustworthiness, telling great stories, being empathetic, listening at us. I'm like, oh, you're describing Jesus Christ.

Right.

I mean, that is.

That is the characteristic. Pretty much.

And just applying that to businesses. What are some practical examples of brands that don't love people? Well, right. Like when we are not. Yeah, yeah. Share some of these things that really piss you off, other than. Other than, like, overtly lying to customers. That's an obvious one, right?

Yes. Yeah. Credit card companies, student loan companies, they are lying to people. Like, when it comes down to these These businesses are only making money when other people are losing. They're only making money when people are in debt or when they're being charged fees of their money for no reason. Like, that's how they're building these big skyscrapers out in downtown. They're lying to people. And it drives me insane when I see these commercials of these credit card companies having their happy coffee shops and they show someone getting their credit card in their mail and then they start daydreaming about all the great stuff they can do with their money. They're not showing the debt that gets accumulated and the marriages that fall apart because of money. Like, they're not showing any of that stuff. The reality of these things. And they're not. And they're not letting you know that their debt and your fees, that's how they're making billions and billions of dollars. They try to paint this picture of this happy life. Do whatever you want. Yeah, you can, but then you're going to pay for it later on. And so all that stuff is a lie. It drives me crazy that they're taking advantage of people like this. And student loans, that is terrible, man. They're going into, they're going into schools to talk to kids who haven't really learned about money yet. And painting this picture of, you can get this degree, you could have this life that you want if you sign up for a loan. And these people, the interest rates are so high. They're paying off these student loans for decades after they have them. And these kids don't know about that when they're coming out of school. I hear stories of kids who committed suicide because they can't handle the pressure of paying back these bills and creditors coming back to them. You know, like, this stuff is happening. But in their ads, they're just painting this, this picture of this perfect life you could have with debt. And it's just, it drives me insane. It's totally taking advantage of people. And you see, like advance loan. Like, you see these, these, these loan kind of companies in the payday loan. Yeah. And in the poorest neighborhoods taking advantage of these people. When all you got to do is make money to save it. And say, like, what we do isn't a get rich quick scheme. It's a get rich slow scheme. But it is, it is for real. It's legit. It's the way to do it. It's how, it's how God says to handle your money. It's how our grandma's handled money. Like, that's the way to do it. But, man, the way these companies are taking advantage of people, it's not right. It's not right and it angers me.

It's predatory. Right. In a lot of ways. And one of the things I really appreciate about. About Dave and all of Ramsey Solutions is you guys are trying to redeem. I would use that word. I think you guys use that word internally. Redeem a very dark industry by just telling truth. Right. And telling truer stories. And yeah, it's. It's this get rich slow story. Yeah. That is truth. And by the way, that is biblical. I think a lot of us fall for these get rich quick schemes. But get rich slow is pretty biblical. Pretty tried.

Patience. Yeah. Patience is what will do it.

I love it.

Yeah. Angers me.

So, Tim, three questions I love to ask to wrap up up every conversation. I'm really curious which books maybe Shoe Dog is your answer that you recommend or gift the most to others?

Let's see. Well, I mentioned soul keeping before. That's one that really affected me like that.

How so?

Talk about that. It got me to understand the soul in a different way. I always thought soul was just this thing that's inside of you that can't describe. But it started articulating what the soul really is. And when I started reading that, I totally connected back to brand, too. We're talking about understanding the soul of your brand. Same kind of thing about how the soul is connecting all these parts of you. What's the word that he used? Anyways? It connects all these. All these parts. But, you know, but just like the solar, the way he was describing soul, I've never understood it like that before. And it gave so much clarity on how to take care of the soul. I hadn't thought about it the way that he said it. And so anyways, that. That one was a great one. That when I was done, I was like, oh, my gosh. Amazing. Yeah. What else?

What else?

Other books that I like. Like. Yeah, you mentioned Shoe Dog. Love that one. Also, I just got finished reading the Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger, the CEO. Good. So good. That one, too. And then the one by Yvonne Schoonard, the owner of Patagonia, CEO there. It's called Let My People Go Surfing. That was interesting. Also, I like seeing how these. How these CEOs, like, those are brands that I consider transcendent brands. And I like seeing their passion in their words and seeing that their brand became a reflection of what they were naturally passionate about. Like, it started with a passionate human so those three books are great. And as a. As a business book, I still go Back to the 21 irrefutable laws of Leadership by John. Like that. That one is also one. I still go to him. Like, that is a very good point about how right there. So what was your.

What was your biggest takeaway from Iger's autobiography? I loved. I love that book. Is there anything that stood out to you?

Well, the biggest thing that stood out, like, it's kind of personal to us as a company, but the way that they had to bring together Marvel and Lucasfilms and espn, like, they had all these. All these businesses, they acquired Iger. He mentioned that he had to talk to all of his leaders and let them know that their business is going to have to take a step backwards for a little bit for the greater good of all of these things working well together. We're kind of doing the same thing at work. I know that Luke mentioned to you, global branding, we have all these brands out in the world, and we have to make sure that these things are all living together in the same world in a way that makes sense to our audience. Because I want Ramsey to be the Nike of money out there in the world, and we totally can be because of how we're going in the market with a message that nobody else is going out there with, you know, but. But I want us. I want our brands to be living together in the same world. And we've. We've done a great job of getting it there, and there's still some room to go. But our global brand, the way it's all connecting, I was connecting those dots with us and what Disney has done. I was like, oh, my gosh, Disney, they're going through the same thing. That's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Learn. Learn from Iger. Yeah, that's a. That's a good mentor to have. What one person would you most like to hear talk about how their faith influences their work?

Oh, yeah, that's a good question. Okay, so I grew up in Houston, right? Yeah. Love the Houston Texans. I know that it's a. It's a weird team. They do weird stuff, but desean Watson. Yeah, deshaun Watson. Yeah, he's. He's extremely talented, obviously. But then when you watch what he does in his personal life, there's all these stories about how he gives money to people working in the stadiums and people around town because they need it and all that. He gives it freely. Like, we talk about giving outrageously. Like, he gives outrageously. And I follow him on Twitter and everything. And he's the stuff that he tweets out about scripture and what his pastor says and all that. I love seeing a guy who's so talented out in the world clearly stating he's a follower, showing he's a follower, really. When athletes are saying that stuff on the tv, thank God for this and that. I love it when they do that. I don't think it's cliche. Love it. Because I think if kids are watching these athletes and. And kids just want to be cool and they see that this guy is a believer, then they might make the connection. I'll believe in a God must be kind of cool. You know, I love that you brought.

That up, because I think we can get really callous to these, you know, God be the glory and raising your finger up to have an after you score touchdown. But, like, who am I to judge somebody? They say that they believe that God helped them win the game. And that's a good thing, right? Like, it's a good role model for kids.

It is. It's a good message. Like, kids are looking at these, looking up at these athletes wanting to be cool, wanting to be like them. And if. If God is associated with them, like, in their brain, there's an association of how cool this guy is and God, then they'll start connecting the dots that, oh, God must be cool. And that's. That's a simplified way to look at it. But if that's how kids. If that's how young kids are looking at life early on, then, yeah, let's. Let's start having them, you know, believe that God is cool, you know, and to at least plant that seed that this is a good way of life.

I think there's also an application for all of us, whether we're branding experts or entrepreneurs or authors, whatever, associating our Christian faith with excellence. Right? Makes us win some in the world. Kids want to be around winners. People want to be around winners. Man, what a charge for all of us to pursue mastery, whatever we're doing, so that we could be win somewhere.

Yes, that is such a good point. Yes. I love. I love. Well, I listen to a rapper show Baraka. You know, Shobaraka.

No, I have no idea.

Idea. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You gotta check him out. He's pretty awesome. He's a Christian rapper. But when I listened to him, I was like, man, this. This music is awesome. And then I started paying attention to the words, and he was. He was rapping about Jesus and his relationship with the Lord. And I was like, he's a Christian. And I love that. First I saw that he was just awesome at his craft, and then I realized he's great. So it wasn't like, he's great for a Christian rapper. He was a great rapper, and he happens to be Christian. That I love seeing.

You're basically reading chapter nine of my new book, Master of One. So I talk about. I talk about Lak Ray in the exact same context, right? And contrast him against the quote, unquote, Christian film industry, which leads with message over mastery of their craft and shockingly, you know, produces really crappy movies, whereas somebody like Lecrae just focuses on making great art. And, oh, by the way, I'm a Christian. And if you listen closely enough, you're gonna find Jesus. That's the way that the church is winsome in the world.

Yeah, I agree. And that's what I hope we're doing at work. Like, by helping people with their money problems and being excellent at that. We build a relationship by helping them with their initial problems. Hopefully the point where they trust us, and then they realize, oh, Jesus is behind this stuff. Like, this is God's way of money. Oh, there must be something there. Like, we want to be excellent for that reason, so that we handle their initial problem, so that they build enough trust to see, hey, there's something deeper.

There's truth.

There's truth at the core.

All right, last question. Tim, what one piece of advice would you give to somebody who's pursuing mastery of their craft, whatever that is? Maybe they're. Maybe they're, you know, branding director, or maybe they're. Maybe they're a sales executive. Maybe they're an author. What advice would you leave them with?

Man, the biggest thing and I talked to my team about this is make sure you open the space and the time for God. Like, you have to. I talk to a lot of Christians who, you know, they pray in the morning, but I realized, like, their prayers are, like 10 minutes long, 15 minutes long. And it's not a time thing necessarily, but you have to get to that place where you can shift through everything to get to that silence to really understand where the Lord is guiding you. I can't tell you how many times in my quiet time I could sense God saying, go this direction right here. And my job, like, honestly, I can't believe the life that I get to live right now. I honestly can't. My wife is amazing. My kids are amazing. I love my job. I get to be a senior leader here, and I Look around at the other leaders. I'm like, wow, they're so smart. What am I doing being a senior leader here? But God has led me to all these places that when I was trying to do it myself, it led to panic attacks and it led to stress. But God's way has been so much fun. But it was from opening up the time and space to understand clearly. Take this next step right here and God will show you the way. If you open up the space and the time, it's not just a quick prayer here and there. Like, open the space and the time to understand it, and God will show you the next step. You'll get a sense for it. And then your path will just start getting so ridiculous. Like the stuff he's going to. And a lot of it's going to be tough, too. Like, it's not like you're going to pray and it's going to be fun and easy the whole time. It's going to be difficult. But where he starts taking your path, man, in the greater scheme of the story, is something so amazing. But we have to open up the time and the space to listen to what the Lord is saying.

So well said. Tim, I just want to commend you for working as your leader says in the spirit, doing exceptional work to where you clearly are feeling God's pleasure when you're doing what you're doing, what you're ready to do. Thank you for serving your company and your customers well. And thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. I appreciate it.

Oh, yeah, no problem, man. Thank you. Thank you. It's a lot of fun. I appreciate the kind words, too.

I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. Seriously, if you have not read Shoe Dog, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Such a great read. I think I'm going to be reading this thing once a year from here on out. I've already read it two or three times. Hey, if you're enjoying Call to Mastery, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode in the future. If you're already subscribed, do me a huge favor, take 30 seconds and go. Leave a review of the show. Thank you guys so much for listening to the Call to Mastery. See you next time.