Will Acuff (Founder of Corner to Corner)

Foreign. 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 postal workers, psychiatrists, and tree trimmers. That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to my friend Will Acuff. He's the co founder of Corner to Corner, a Nashville based nonprofit that equips underestimated entrepreneurs, especially from historically marginalized communities, to turn their God given ideas into thriving businesses. And they've done that with more than like 1500 businesses that generated $37 million of revenue last year. Will is doing extraordinary work. Will and I sat down recently to talk about how we can find joy in our work even when it sucks. We talked about how his trailhead practice can lead you to spirit led self awareness at the start of your. And we talked about why you and I need to stop limping towards God's throne and start running towards it instead. I think you're gonna love this episode with my friend, Will Acuff. Will Acuff, welcome to the Mere Christians podcast.

Jordan, thank you so much for having me today, man. Excited to be here, dude.

I'm pumped. We. We met. You forgot this. I'm going to call you out here. We met after this speech I gave at. Was it at Lipscomb.

Lipscomb here in Nashville? Business as Mission Conference.

That's right. This is like way back in 2019, we lost touch. Your brother John reconnected us and I'm so glad he did because when I looked up Corner to Corner, I remember what you guys are doing. I'm like, oh, right. This is why I loved this guy when I met him. Tell our listeners about Corner to Corner.

Yeah, so we're a nonprofit here in Nashville that equips underestimated neighbors with the knowledge, tools and networks that they need to launch and grow a small business.

Okay, what's the next sentence? Was underestimated neighbor. Go. Go a layer deeper.

Yeah. So really my core belief here is that ownership ends poverty. And when you give incredible image bearing neighbors with God given passion, creativity and drive. Right. Which by the way, no nonprofit needs to give them that. Like God already did that. Yes.

He already did the hard part.

He already did all the hard part. All we need to bring to the table is three really simple ingredients. Education, mentorship, and capital. That's it. And you see businesses grow. So at Corner to Corner, we've been doing this for a number of years here in Nashville and We've now launched over 1600 of these entrepreneurs from low income neighborhoods. Right. And they've in turn become the economic engines of their families and their neighborhoods. So we're talking, last year Our impact was 37 million back into the neighborhood economy.

$37 million in revenue produced by these businesses.

Yeah. And when we say that, we're talking low overhead businesses.

Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah.

Like, no, give me an example. Yeah. So like one of my favorite from last year, this amazing woman, she's a schoolteacher here in Nashville, right? She has invested her entire life into helping our kids succeed. And as she's looking at the future for her son, she's going, how am I going to pay for college? Right? I care about education. I want this for him. Right? Oh, and guess what? Nashville has become one of the most expensive cities in the Southeast. Yeah, yeah, right. And so she's trying to figure out how to make this happen. And she goes, I'm gonna have to create a small business to start a college savings fund. That's the goal. So she comes to us and she's like, hey, the thing that I can bring to the table is these incredible recipes that I learned and at my grandma's kitchen when I was six year old girl, like, right? I'm. I'm in the kitchen with her when she tells you these recipes, Jordan. And like describes the process of learning it. You're like both crying and really hungry like at the same time. So she came and she goes, hey, my goal is to Launch and do 10,000 in revenue in year one. 3,000 will be my overhead, right? And 7,000 to start this savings fund. Really clear linear goals, right? And so by the end of the year, I found out she's done over 36,000.

Oh, my gosh.

So I call her. I'm like, how? What happened? What did you do here? Yeah, yeah. And she's like, well, I found out that a local college, Tennessee State University here in Nashville, that they needed a new caterer for their marching band. And like, this is a marching band that protects yet 9,000 different types of drums.

Yeah, right.

Like Grammy Award winning TSU marching band. And on the phone she goes, well, Will, you know there's two different types of marketing. And I was like, okay, go on. Like, I love this.

Tell me more. Yeah.

She's like, you can take pictures of your food for Instagram, or you can use your marketing budget to give your food away and create passionate customers. There you go. And I was like, amazing. So she catered for free and then she Took her most excellent recipe, her grandma's caramel crumble cake. And she, like, took a slice of that crumble cake and walked it over to the band director and waited for him to taste it. And as soon as it was, like, in his mouth and his eyes were, like, open and surprised at how good it is, right? She goes, I heard you're looking for a new caterer, right?

This is so good.

And she closes the deal, right? And then she comes to us and goes, you know, I started at 10. I hit 36. I'm just getting started. Do you guys think you could get a pitch meeting for me with the Kroger grocery store chain, right? And so we set up that pitch meeting, and Kroger was like, we would love to help you get ready for this next level of opportunity, right? And so, you know, the ideas are all over the map. But none of our graduates are setting up like a medical lab. Do you know what I mean? Like, the overhead is lower, and our whole emphasis is start small, start now. How do you get to revenue as quickly as possible so you can solve real problems in your life today?

And you guys are just giving them a framework, giving them a roadmap. They've already got every. They've already got the raw ingredients. You're teaching them to extend the food analogy, how to bake the cake, 100%.

Yeah. Because at the end of the day, who's your target customer? What problem are you solving for them? What's your financial model? Right? Can you actually understand what your break even point is? Right? And then what's your legal entity? You know, all roads lead to llc.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. But that, man. But I love that you're going to the margins. I mean, this is a truly redemptive quest in that you could be. Listen, you could be making a lot more money teaching other populations how to build businesses, but you're intentionally making this crazy affordable. I saw yalls, like, academy product, this program they're going through, it's like value to like 7200 bucks. You sell for 160 bucks. I love the work you're doing, man. I'm a super fan of corner to Corner, so keep doing the work. All right, so you just released a new book called no Elevator to Everest. We're going to talk about what the book is in a second, but talk about the path to the book and specifically the role that this nonprofit, Corner to Corner played in the formation of the ideas inside the book.

Yeah, for sure. So to give kind of framework on my life, right. 18 years ago, my wife and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee and intentionally moved into a low income neighborhood, right. With all the stories and stats that would kind of come with that category. And we did it because we needed to get a theology of neighbor. We had realized I'm a pastor's kid, raised in the church, right? Like at one point I was the church janitor. So, like I'm embedded into the thing, but I had learned so many good kind of maybe big ideas and doctrinal things, right? But how to actually love a vulnerable neighbor day in, day out as a lifestyle and not as like a one off mission trip. Like, I didn't have an answer to that, right. And so my wife and I, we were like, let's move in to try to get that. So, you know, my wife, she's way tougher than me. Anybody who knows us knows this immediately about her. And she started working at the men's prison and became a former offender, job training specialist and helping neighbors transition to employment. And that started our journey into like walking this out. But fast forward, what we saw over and over and over again was economic opportunity. And really the lack thereof was like the first domino that would fall down and spiral an individual or a family out of control. And so that was the genesis of Corner Corner, right? Like, what would it look like to have a relationship based, kingdom centered nonprofit where we're grounded in like love neighbor as you love yourself. Right? That's kind of critical. It's not a suggestion.

Pretty important.

Jesus wasn't like, you know, you might also want to try, right? That wasn't what happened. And then also this, this idea that our neighbors are image bearers, which I had really come to see, that we had made that a footnote in our theology and not a tenet, right. And so that was like the grounding. We'll fast forward. We start this thing on our front porch just as our own side hustle, right? And God blesses it and grows it and it gets bigger than we could do. And it was just our side hustle from 2011 to 2015. And then we moved into full time work. And it keeps growing, keeps growing. And meanwhile, simultaneously at home, we were growing our family through adoption. Both of our kids came out of domestic adoption out of Memphis, Right.

I'm an adoptive father domestically, so I love this so much.

Right. And it's a wild and beautiful and yeah, a journey that starts with so much joy and also the brokenness of the world embedded into the story. Right. For us around, I have a son who's 13 now and a daughter who's 9. And we've been with them both since birth. And when my daughter, or, sorry, my son was about two and a half, he stopped sleeping through the night. And not like the occasional, you know, blurry nights that I think all young parents get. This was days turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into years, multiple sleep studies, surgeries, et cetera. And that was our beginning journey into the world of disability. So on the outside, corner to corner is like, right. Oh, my gosh, everything's going so well. The growth looks up and to the right. And meanwhile, at home, the challenges were getting more and more dynamic to the point where, you know, 10 years into this journey, you know, my wife and I are just at a breaking point. And the answers that I was looking to get from the faith community, like, I was getting a lot of, like, you just need more faith, buddy. You know, or like that kind of like, you know, when doctors used to say, like, take two of these and call me in the morning, right? People were throwing Bible verses like that, you know what I mean? And I was hurting, and I felt like battery acid, you know, just like, internally, just like, ugh. And my wife, at that point, she, you know, in the face of all this, she. And I've got permission to share this, by the way, to any listeners for the record. Yeah, yeah, for the record, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD and experienced clinical depression bouts that would have her struggling to get out of bed. You know, and so the work I'm doing in the world is framed by a very common thing, I think, in work, whether secular or faith, however we want to frame it, which is, there is a problem and I solve it, right? And I had become an expert at that ability. And then I'm trying to apply it in my home. But my son is not a problem to solve, and my wife is not a problem to solve, Right? And so I'm basically using a playbook that is never going to work because people are meant to be known and enjoyed, right? Not solved. And so I get to this breaking point, and my wife, she finds this. We call it trauma camp in our family, but she finds this trauma intensive that really helps sow in the seeds for her of. Of kind of new hope. And she came home and she's like, you gotta go. And I was like, but do I. Aren't we. Is it.

Isn't this like a two for one deal? Yeah.

Can't you just give me the Cliff Notes? Right, right, right. Yeah. My actual phrase was Aren't we therapized enough as a family? And she was like, hey, jerk, that's not a word. And yes, you do need to go. So I went and it cracked me open and returned me to myself, like in a profoundly beautiful way. And what I found in that moment was God's tremendous love for me. And it was like this combo of like love for self intertwined with Jesus love for me in a way that was utterly healing. And I came back from that, that experience and I was like, I'm going back into a hard context, you know, like the, the context hasn't shifted. And so I asked the question, like, how do I turn my life into a joy lab? What would that look like? Like, if I'm meant to, because I, I don't want to survive this anymore. I actually want to thrive this. Right. And so that became the framework that then led to the writing of the book. And really, I would say the way that I had learned to be out in the world in a work sense, right? Grind, problem solve had given me work success in some ways, but hadn't given me a way of being where I could be attuned to the life of the Holy Spirit abiding in me.

Well, and you allude to this in the subtitle of the book. So the main titles, no Elevator to Everest, the subtitle is Shift from Survive to Thrive through Spirit Led Self Awareness. And I think that's what you're talking about. And I say that. And our listeners are like, I don't know what Will is talking about. And I'm not even sure that I as the host do, even though I've started to read the book.

I love it.

What do you mean by that term? Because that's what unlocked it sounds like, based on what I've read so far in the book, that shift from surviving to thriving at home and even in.

The work, 100%, it changed everything for me. The way I would describe it is, I think many of us in kind of, let's say American Christianity, we have learned to do work out here. For those listeners, I'm pointing away from my body, right? But we have not learned to do work internally, Right. Which from a Christian standpoint, produces a fundamental tension. Right? And what I mean here, if we break this down spiritually, our faith is a trinitarian faith. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. Jesus in John 14 very clearly says, I'm sending you the Spirit forever. Right? Forever is a big word in the mouth of our Savior, right. That has Some weight.

That has some weight. Yeah, yeah.

And then he doesn't leave it a mystery. He tells us where the spirit will be. The spirit will be in you. Right. But from a practical, like, efficiency model standpoint, I had learned to do work outside of me. What is the next. I'm scanning the horizon for the problem I'm solving. Right. And so internally, like, I had no methods to go deep internally. Right. To get curious about what are my thoughts, what are my emotions, what are the underlying currents that are driving my behaviors. Right. All that internal stuff that we know is showing up and is dictating some of my actions. But it's the current underneath the boat, so to speak. Right. And no one had, in my cultural background had said this is something that Christians should know how to do.

Well, yeah, you're a pk. It probably sounded super selfish to you.

Oh, dude, yeah, absolutely. Well, and again, let's draw a really fine point on it. In my Christian background, I had learned that the journey of faith is knowledge of God and knowledge of self. Just to the extent that, you know you're a sinner who needs Jesus.

Yeah, yeah.

But after that, forget knowledge of self and just do knowledge of God.

Bible study is always the answer. More Bible study. We're brains on sticks 100. That's the only way. Become more like Christ. The problem is, of course, the people, a lot of people I know who at least like Jesus, know their Bible's the best.

Oh, dude.

Yes. You're good.

You're good at sword fighting. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like in sword drills.

Dang.

But like the theologians, like Augustine was talking about knowledge of God and knowledge of self. Calvin was talking about knowledge of God, knowledge of self. Right. This is not a new idea. When you add the. The notion that you and I are created by the most high God, in a very real sense, you and I are image bearers in the world who have the thumbprint of the most High upon us. Why wouldn't we seek to know ourselves as image bearers? Do you know what I mean? So it was a total paradigm shift. And then the. The Spirit led part is really anyone who does self awareness work from the framework of faith never goes alone. We go with the Spirit.

I love this man. So talk to us about what this looks like practically. What is. How does Spirit led? What is that process? I'm getting super practical, right?

Like, yeah, yeah.

I love applying my. Well, no, but this may be part of the problem of looking at this inward thing with outward, trying to find an outward solution. But what has it looked like practically for you to implement spirit led self awareness in your life?

Yeah, totally. I think there's a temptation when we get into the more mystical sides of Christianity. Right.

Which makes it down to three points. Yeah, well, no, no.

But also to go, like it's either all mystery, so go sell your stuff and live in the desert, you know, and like, you know you've arrived when you're eating loaded lotus, you know, like you're, it's locust and camel fur. And I'm, I'm a mystic now, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

Or if you can break it down to a three point sermon. Right. Like we have these two extremes and I think there's something for us here in the middle. And so practically, Thomas Merton once said, find your practice and practice it. What we're talking about is developing a life giving daily practice that tunes you to yourself, your true self, your image, bearing self, tunes you to God. Right. Tunes you to your relationships and tunes you to the work around you. Right. And so to get, you know, double click again, one practical practice there in the book is called the trailhead.

Yeah. I love this. Yep.

Because I've never met a human who wakes up neutral. Right. Every single one of us wakes up going, oh, man, I'm anxious about that meeting or that argument I had right before bed. Or I'm excited about this. Like whatever the landscape is, we're feeling and experiencing a ton of stuff before our feet hit the floor. But 99% of us just get up and push all of that down and go about our day. Right. And we don't realize later, oh, why was I short with that colleague? Why was I really anxious about, you know, like why was. What was driving my behavior all day? Right? And God in his mercy, he built us with all these indicator tools, right. Like think about your emotions as like the check engine light on your car. Right. And so the trailhead exercise, 10 minutes in the morning, I wake up for me, I get a cup of coffee. I actually moved a single cup, Keurig, into the bedroom. So I can just press that. I grab the cup, I go and I sit in this chair, a chair I moved into the room for this purpose. And then I close my eyes, I do a couple deep breaths just to fully still myself. And I go, huh, what am I most feeling right now? That shift to curiosity. Yeah, right.

What's the primary emotion I'm feeling?

Yeah, the primary. And again, to use the image of the trailhead. Right. Think about this. Anytime you show up to Hike a trail. There's a little trail marker. It tells you, hey, this is how long the trail is. This is what's going on. Da da, da, da. And that biggest emotion, that's the trail sign. Oh. So like for example, we have some medical stuff currently going on with my son, right. That I woke up this morning with anxiety, right. And so it's getting still. I'm sitting there, oh, I'm feeling anxious. Huh. What's driving that anxiety? I am worried that if this doctor can't give us a clear answer, we'll never get a clear answer. What story am I telling? Yeah, I'm telling a story that God doesn't have more options or God doesn't have more creativity. You know, I am starting my day from a place of fear based stuckness, right. And as I'm naming it and getting more and more curious, I'm going further into the trail, right? And just like if you hike a real trail, you might come three miles into the waterfall that was worth the whole price of the trail. You get to these moments of spirit led self awareness to go, and then you're able to practice what the Bible talks about. Cast all your fears on the Lord because he cares for you. You can't cast something you can't even name.

Yeah, that's really good.

So that's a very practical way, 10 minutes in the morning, showing yourself self compassion and self curiosity. And the self compassion piece is also critical because I find so many Christians have gotten really good at attacking themselves but not meeting themselves in mercy. And sometimes I like ask them the question, would you love yourself less than Jesus loves you?

Talk about that self compassion and applying the eyes of the Father to ourselves as it's applied to your work. Like, can you think of a situation at work where you, your default mode was beat yourself up. Criticize, criticize, criticize, Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. And this exercise, either the trailhead exercise or one of the many other exercises in the book, kind of, kind of led you to have compassion with yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so my primary role these days with Corner to Corner, you know, we're a team of about 20 people at this point, you know, is fundraising, Right. My whole job is like inviting generosity, which if your listeners have not done that, that is a tough job.

I could think of better jobs. Many, many better jobs.

Yeah. And it's also funny because you're, you're not selling an actual product, right? There's not like a same kind of exchange that's happening. And so often I can get Into a place where I go, oh, man, that meeting didn't go how I expected it to go because I didn't quite say the thing right? Or, you know, and I'll go down this shame spiral, right? And I equate this to like the younger brother in the prodigal son story, right? He has this moment of beautiful awareness where it says he came to himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And I love that. That's the self awareness we're talking about, right? And he knows that the only place his true self can be is in his father's home. And he starts that. That path homeward. But he gets caught in the same spiral on the journey. Woe is me. I don't even get to be the son anymore. The best I can hope for is the servant. And I think that's what a lot of us do. We limp to towards the throne, expecting condemnation and expecting that condemnation to match the tone of our own condemnation, right? And so when I find myself in that place, I used to sit in that man for weeks, even months, and it would. That insecurity and self condemnation would lead to frantic action in the workplace.

So you're beating yourself up. You're like, man, I'm a failure. That mean didn't go, well, somebody else should probably be raising money for this. How does that show up in frantic activity?

Yeah. Because what fear drives an increased desire for controlling outcomes, Right? Always fear leads to control, which leads to activity. Right? And fear tells you more. Activity is always better. Fear never is an editor. Do you know what I mean? Fear is never like, hey, you should be at rest right now. And so then it'll be like, oh, well, that one meeting went poorly, so I need to book six more meetings. Oh, and hey, I have that time carved out on Thursday for rest and reflection and journaling. But I should probably book that with three meetings now, right? And then fast forward, by the end of that week, I'm drained emotionally, spiritually, energetically. And then I'm showing up short with my kids and with my wife.

Probably a pretty good indicator if we look at our calendars and see lots of frantic activity, especially activity that's not moving the needle. Although even activity that is. It's probably a good symptom of fear.

100% man. Right? But so now where that used to drive the action, the activity would give me the hit that my fear was looking for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Totally.

Feel a little better. Feel a little better. Feel a little better. Now that will happen on a Wednesday, Thursday morning, I will have that trailhead moment. And now, like, if you had said to me four years ago, hey, Will, could you do an hour of contemplative prayer and meditation? I would have been like, are you insane? And now that feels like I'm just getting started. Like that, that length of time. And I will go, oh, there I went again, huh? I started to believe that I was responsible to obtain the cattle on a thousand hills, right? Oh, no, no, no. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, so I don't have to. He has called me to faithfully cast seeds and. And trust him for the outcome.

That's good. That's really good, ma'.

Am.

Hey, you've experienced a lot of suffering at home, a lot of pain. I can't imagine having a child who can't say. In fact, I'm actually thinking about a buddy of mine named Will who might be listening to this right now, who's going through this with a kid even. Even less severe than what you did, but a kid who can't sleep. And I remember telling him, like, man, I can't imagine this, but you've also experienced hardship at work. I want to address this nasty little strand of the prosperity gospel, because I hear Christians saying this. They're like, oh, well, they'd look at you, be like, wow, well, man, maybe you just gotta have more faith. Or, man, maybe you're experiencing this extreme suffering at home in your war. Maybe that work isn't aligned with God's will. Right. Which. Oh, my gosh. What would you say to that person?

Yeah, I mean, I'd say a couple things. First, I'd start with, I don't see a lot of straight lines in scripture. Right. God does not seem to be overly concerned with efficiency. Right? And so somewhere we got it in our heads that the shortest, most successful path was the godly path. And I can't. I literally don't see an example of.

That even in the life of Christ.

Oh, no, absolutely not. No. I mean, think of, like, Jesus is on the earth for 30 years developing, right? Being grown into who he's going to become. His active ministry is three years. And every time he gets a crowd, he says something that makes the crowd flee, right? So he is not a good gatherer in the way that we would.

It's pretty bad marketer by the world.

100%. Yeah, eat my flesh. What.

What is right talking about?

And everyone expects him to be a king who rides into the city on a white horse with a sword, and he says, no, no, no, I'm going To come in on a donkey to die. Right. And so I would say that. And then I also say, I think in the past I thought that you couldn't have a painful story and have full joy, like it was one or the other. But I actually think that faith is so intermingled. Right. Like the journey I have been on with my son and with my wife, with my family has led me to more joy than I could have fathomed being possible. Right. Like it is. I can't believe I get to live the life I get to live. Like that's what it feels like. Oh, man. Every single day I am getting to sit caught up in the mystery of the most high God who loves me.

Because you were forced to, because you were desperate. Because of the pain. I'm putting words in your mouth.

Yeah.

I think that's what you're saying. Like the pain from. Forced me to my knees.

Yes.

And then on my knees I found fullness of Joy in Christ.

100%. Yeah. As long as the strategy was still me. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm missing the full joy. Or to say it again in the language of Jesus, John chapter 12, he says straight up, unless the seed dies right then, the thing can't grow. He actually says the seed is going to be alone. Right. My own ambition, ambition to figure it all out on my own was leaving me more and more isolated, isolated from relationships, isolated from the God that I followed, you know, and so the, the pain and the suffering that comes in life, which by the way, if you haven't hit it yet, give your life a little more time. Right? Like this is, you know, as one of my friends, Jay Wolf from Hope Heals, that whole disability community, they say all the time, like, give it time and you will be disabled too. Right. Like that's what happens with the elderly. Right. And so like at some point we will meet suffering. And if you really want your suffering to be worse, then don't think that God uses suffering. And then you'll also be feeling condemned and suffering.

It's good. I was really frankly surprised, since you're a first time author, that this book is as practical as it was. Because in my experience, most first time authors with on that, they, they say all the things they want to say and they don't put the cookies on the bottom shelf with the reader. There's so many great practices in the book. The trailhead's one of them. What's one? What's one that you would recommend? Talk to the listener right now who is experiencing suffering, especially on the job. They just got laid off. Or. I'm thinking. I'm thinking about somebody who I know listens to the show all the time. Her name is Lisa. She's in the federal government, has a very high profile job. Her job, her life sucks right now. She would tell you her work sucks. And, and, and work is very, very hard. What's one practice that you would recommend to her? To experience joy in the middle of the suffering and the pain?

Totally. Yeah. So the, the practice that I would invite her into is something called the daily notice. Okay. Many of us have work moments, work seasons, maybe work decades, that feel more stuck and suck then grow, right? I think that that is a common story, and we begin to function in what's called the default future. It sucks now, it will suck in the future, right? But for the Christian, we serve a God who conquered death, right? So, like, every day is launch day into a redemptive ark. Every day, right? And so the daily notice is a practical way to help us get at this. And what I mean is you might do 20 activities in a day, and 19 of them suck, but one, maybe just one, sparked a little bit of that feeling where you go, ah, this is me, right? This is me aligned with how God made me to be in the workplace. Right? And I call those little moments, right? And I've heard others refer to them as like a full body. Yes, right. You know, and sometimes you leave a creative meeting or whatever, and you're like, I want to flip over a car with my bare hands. I can't believe I got to do that. Right?

Yeah.

Those are trail crumbs by the Holy Spirit saying, this is who you were made to be. This is the way. And so the daily notice is literally, you get out a notebook, sheet of paper, whatever, and at the end of every day, take about 10 minutes and you just list bullet style, right? All the things, the main things you did that day, meeting with Tim, you know, breakfast with blah, blah, blah, right? Emails for two hours, like whatever it is, right? And then you simply add a plus next to those that gave you life in the way that I'm describing here. A zero for those that left you neutral, right? And then a negative for the ones that drained you, right? If you do that 10 minutes for 10 days, you'll have a really good sense of the patterns that. That are happening in your life. And then you just want to embrace the idea of, hey, Lord, what would it look like for me to move towards more of the pluses, right? And Immediately the objection, because so many people are in a stuck place. Maybe they even feel cynical about their work. And to those people, I would say, what would it look like for you to take some of those negatives, right, from the daily notice and go, could I delete? Could I delegate? Or. Or could I do differently any of these three negatives such that they are no longer on my plate or no longer negative? So another practical example, I've got a friend who's a research doctor with Vanderbilt. Crazy busy, right? A million things going on. And email always felt like a soul sucking activity for them. Right. And I was like, well, when are you doing it? It's like first thing in the morning. Oh. So as soon as you're like, ready to go out and be creative and think about research ideas, you're doing the thing you hate the most. Cool. That sounds like a terrible plan. Why don't you shift that to after lunch? And I said, what's your favorite music? And she named this symphony, you know this one. Bach Concerto. Right. Or whatever. And I. And I said, listen to that.

Yeah. Pair the bitter with the sweet.

100%. Right. And suddenly it didn't make email a positive, but it made it a neutral.

Yeah, that's good.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, totally.

But I think the bigger thing, Jordan, if I could zoom out, is a lot of people believe that the suck just has to suck. Right? But we serve a God of all creativity. When we left the garden, sometimes I used to think we left the garden empty handed, but we left it with a brain. Can you imagine? Like, the human brain is the most complicated thing in the known universe, right? Oh, my gosh. How would we take a touch of that creativity and apply it to where we're stuck most?

It's good, Will. I Love it. Hey. Four questions. We wrap up every episode with number one. Isaiah 65 tells us that there's coming a day on the new earth when there are only pluses on that list that you just talked about that we will long enjoy the work of our hands, free from the curse of sin. What job would you love God to invite you to do? Free from sin and suffering on the new earth.

Yeah. I would like to be the person who is the hype man for everybody's amazing ideas. Like, that's what I'm gonna do.

We'll be amazing at that. Yeah. I want to be. Be like, did you see what she's doing? That's amazing.

Look at Stacy, guys, right?

There's no way. That's not the job. God's giving you. I.

There's no way, dude. I, like, sign me up. Yeah.

Hype man. Professional hype man. I love it. Hey, if we opened up your Amazon order history, which books would we see you buying over and over again to give away to friends?

Yeah. So the first one you'd see is Henry Nouwen's the Prodigal Son, but specifically the 25th anniversary edition, because the second half of it is they took a conference weekend thing that he did, like, a small group breakout, and they took all of his notes and put it in there.

Very cool.

And it. I mean, that is a book I never stopped reading.

Wow. You read over and over again.

Over and over and over again.

I love it. I love it. Hey, who would you want to hear in this podcast talking about how their faith shapes the work they do in the world?

I want to hear the Boston Celtics head coach.

That's.

I might be getting his name wrong. Joe Missoula, I think, is it. I've seen him on, you know, social media and other things. He's a believer, and he just has a really funny and kind of sarcastic way of when, like, people are asking him questions he thinks are frivolous, he'd be like, why should I care about that? No, like, somebody once asked him, they're like, what was it like to have the prince, like, some royalty from England, Celtics game? And he's like, I. What are you talking about? And they're like, did you know about that? He's like, I didn't know about that.

Didn't notice. Next question.

And he was like, I have no king but Jesus. Next question. That's so like. And I was like, baller. Baller. Answer for also a really successful coach.

Really successful. Really young coach, too.

Yes.

36 years old. It's crazy.

I'd like.

That's a great.

Listen to that.

All right, we'll reach out to Joe. Will, what's one thing from our conversation the last 40 minutes? Do you want to reiterate to our audience of Christian professionals before we sign off?

Yeah, I would just invite them to believe that joy is possible now, no matter. Like, our context should not dictate our joy.

I would argue. Can I go a little deeper and.

Get you to respond this?

I would argue if you can't find joy now, you're not going to find it when your circumstances change.

Oh, no, no. I think that's absolutely true. Like, I think so many of us are caught in some version of the hedonic treadmill. Right. Something out here will make Me. Okay. I mean, that is the way of the world, right? It's super hard to fight that. But the reality is you are an image bearer of the most high God. And you right now have the abiding Holy Spirit of Christ living in you. The very spirit that raised Christ from the dead is at work in the cellular level in you. Right? Like what in the world? And so we have what we need right now.

It's good, man. Reminds me of this quote from Andy Dillard said, quote, on the whole, I do not find Christians outside of the catacombs sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? End quote. That's it. That's it, man.

Yeah, man. Thank you, Jordan. This has been such a joy.

Well, I want to commend you, man, for the exceptional work you're doing for the glory of God, the good of others, for believe. Not. Not just believing intellectually that the Holy Spirit is at work in you, but allowing a deep understanding of that power to shape your vision of what's possible in your work, in your community, in your family. But also, man, I love the balance of, like, you take a big swings for God, quote, unquote. But. But more importantly, doing that work with God in communion with that source of power, knowing that that is the win, it's not the achievement of the goal. The win is what you're doing on your knees in the morning in communion with the spirit. So, bro, thank you for being such a great example for us, guys. I highly encourage you to check out Will's book, no Elevator to Everest. Will, thanks for being with us, man.

Thank you so much, Jordan. It's been a pleasure, man.

I love that guy. I love the work that he and his team are doing at Corner to Corner. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. Hey, if you did leave a review of the Mere Christians podcast right now on Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening to the show, man, we read every single one of those reviews, and they are huge fuel for my team to keep going and keep making this show that we bring to you guys week after week. Love you guys. Thank you for listening. I'll see you.

See you next week.