Beating Chaos with Purpose: Strategies for Integrating Faith and Business with Gary Harpst

Gary Harpst: 00:00:00

I hope that people will have an aha moment to realize that

Gary Harpst: 00:00:06

God has called them to bring order out of chaos and not be its victim.

Gary Harpst: 00:00:14

And if you feel like you're a victim, It's because you haven't yet really

Gary Harpst: 00:00:20

clarified what your purpose is.

Gary Harpst: 00:00:23

Um,

Tim Winders: 00:00:34

In a world where leadership often feels chaotic and directionless,

Tim Winders: 00:00:38

how can biblical wisdom provide a solid foundation for guiding ourselves?

Tim Winders: 00:00:44

Today on Seek Go Create, we welcome Gary Harpst, a seasoned CEO, teacher,

Tim Winders: 00:00:49

keynote speaker, and thought leader who has seamlessly blended business

Tim Winders: 00:00:53

excellence with biblical principles throughout his impressive career.

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From founding Solomon Software to creating Lead First, Gary has

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demonstrated a profound commitment to developing effective leadership habits.

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Rooted in spiritual truths.

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His latest book, Built to Beat Chaos, Biblical Wisdom for Leading

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Yourself and Others, offers a timely manual for navigating the

Tim Winders: 00:01:16

complexities Of modern leadership, Gary, welcome to seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 00:01:22

Thank you,

Tim Winders: 00:01:22

Tim.

Gary Harpst: 00:01:23

I'm looking forward

Tim Winders: 00:01:23

to this.

Tim Winders: 00:01:25

I am.

Tim Winders: 00:01:25

I'm looking forward to this too.

Tim Winders: 00:01:27

So you're coming at us from Ohio and I'm in Arizona and we've

Tim Winders: 00:01:31

got the black uniforms on here.

Tim Winders: 00:01:32

So you and I are obviously colorful guys in our black shirts, if someone

Tim Winders: 00:01:36

looks in my closet here in the RV, I've just got these black t shirts.

Tim Winders: 00:01:40

That's, that's it.

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glad you're here.

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We're going to have fun with this conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:01:44

I've read through most of your book and you and I line up in a lot of things

Tim Winders: 00:01:49

and we'll just have fun discussions.

Tim Winders: 00:01:50

But before I get too much farther.

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What's your answer when someone asks you what you do in your many years of

Tim Winders: 00:02:00

experience and wide range of things you've done, but if someone asks you

Tim Winders: 00:02:04

what you do, what do you tell them?

Gary Harpst: 00:02:08

Well, have you ever seen the movie The Hobbit?

Gary Harpst: 00:02:12

There's, there's a scene in The Hobbit where Gandalf, who is a

Gary Harpst: 00:02:18

representative of an angel, according to the author, Tolkien, Gandalf shows

Gary Harpst: 00:02:25

up on the hobbit story and says, Hey, you want to go on an adventure?

Gary Harpst: 00:02:28

And, I think that's kind of what, what I'm, like Gandalf showing

Gary Harpst: 00:02:33

up with young entrepreneurs who are running a business and it's

Gary Harpst: 00:02:38

growing and they're on this journey.

Gary Harpst: 00:02:40

They have no idea how to keep all the balls in the air.

Gary Harpst: 00:02:45

And I was on that journey.

Gary Harpst: 00:02:47

40 years ago, and we went from one person to almost 500 over a period of years.

Gary Harpst: 00:02:54

And it was an amazing, exciting, scary journey.

Gary Harpst: 00:02:58

And so that's, I like working with CEOs of, or owners of small

Gary Harpst: 00:03:03

businesses that are growing rapidly.

Gary Harpst: 00:03:05

And they want to figure out how to manage the growth and integrate

Gary Harpst: 00:03:09

kingdom impact at the same time.

Tim Winders: 00:03:14

And, and I appreciate, I like the Hobbit example.

Tim Winders: 00:03:17

I actually, for some reason, felt urged a couple weeks ago to watch the

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Lord of the Rings trilogy again, the one that now is 20 plus years old, the

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Peter Jackson, and haven't seen it.

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In a while.

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And truthfully who has, you know, 10 hours to spare.

Tim Winders: 00:03:36

So I, I, I kind of sort of did it late at night and my wife didn't want to watch

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it with me, but I watched through those.

Tim Winders: 00:03:43

And I, I, I've been, I've been really doing some deep kind of studies and

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some biblical things and all that.

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And I, and I, I think Tolkien would even say there's a lot of, I don't

Tim Winders: 00:03:53

know, this allegory or whatever he called it, but, but I mean, I did, you

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know, you just see a lot of, I think at root, it's a good versus evil.

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Story and, and, I actually enjoyed them and truthfully 20 plus years

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later, they still hold the test of time and also fascinating.

Tim Winders: 00:04:09

So first thing I want to do, you and I, right before I hit record, we, we

Tim Winders: 00:04:14

started discussing a little bit about age and, and some things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:04:20

I think I want to start.

Tim Winders: 00:04:22

With that, because you mentioned 40 years ago, you were a startup guy.

Tim Winders: 00:04:26

And, and you and I are, we'll, we'll say we're in our 60 plus age bracket.

Tim Winders: 00:04:33

It's my wife got onto me one time.

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She, she heard, heard me because we're in an RV.

Tim Winders: 00:04:37

She hears, I actually asked someone their age and it was a female and she got onto

Tim Winders: 00:04:41

me, but, but, you probably don't care.

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You'll probably tell it.

Tim Winders: 00:04:44

How old are you?

Tim Winders: 00:04:44

You can tell us your age.

Gary Harpst: 00:04:46

Yeah, I'm 73 soon to be 74.

Gary Harpst: 00:04:49

And I love that, quite, I mean, the sort of the topic of how people

Gary Harpst: 00:04:53

think about work and retirement.

Gary Harpst: 00:04:56

It, that changed for me a long time ago.

Tim Winders: 00:05:00

Well, I've, I've just hit 60.

Tim Winders: 00:05:03

And as I shared with you, when we, before we started out, we're in kind of

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Arizona where people are wintering and everyone is retired playing pickleball

Tim Winders: 00:05:13

and all that, which is awesome.

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But in some ways it's discouraging to me.

Tim Winders: 00:05:18

And I don't want to, I mean, if that's someone's life's journey,

Tim Winders: 00:05:20

I'm not, I don't want to criticize it if that's what they believe, but

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when I bring up that we have large.

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Amounts of our population, Gary, in our age bracket that are essentially done.

Tim Winders: 00:05:37

I mean, I'm, that sounds harsh, but what comes to mind, what do you think

Tim Winders: 00:05:41

about this talent, this wisdom and all that there you're doing nothing.

Gary Harpst: 00:05:49

Yeah, I, I, I, my best way to respond to that is

Gary Harpst: 00:05:52

to explain how I think about it.

Gary Harpst: 00:05:55

I, I can't really step into their shoes, but my own.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:01

early in my life, I, begin to see the integration of

Gary Harpst: 00:06:05

the God calls us to purpose.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:07

He, we are, we are created for a purpose.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:10

I'm an engineer.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:11

You know, engineers are like hammers.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:13

They see everything as nails, you know, . And so I, when I look at the world

Gary Harpst: 00:06:19

and I look at myself, I see something that has been engineered for a purpose

Gary Harpst: 00:06:25

and, It turns out that I believe that purpose, that's part of the reason I

Gary Harpst: 00:06:29

wrote the book is that we're, we're actually built to overcome and to be

Gary Harpst: 00:06:33

creators and have dominion is the word used in Genesis, or over, you know,

Gary Harpst: 00:06:38

there's just so many different phrases, but basically it means you're not

Gary Harpst: 00:06:41

supposed to be a victim of this world.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:43

You're supposed to have an impact on it.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:45

And, so the idea of retiring.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:49

really doesn't enter my thinking.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:51

I'm, I'm either get up in the morning and I'm engaged in purpose or I'm not.

Gary Harpst: 00:06:57

And, whether I'm engaged at purpose, building a product or a service or

Gary Harpst: 00:07:02

visiting or caring for my neighbor or whatever, it's all purpose.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:05

And so I don't think about work as work.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:07

I just think about it's one way to use my time and my energy.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:12

And, and I try to just make sure I'm walking in the purpose God called me for.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:18

So it retirement is not a term I use.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:20

I, I, my goal is my goal personally is to live purposefully until I

Gary Harpst: 00:07:28

can't, you know, and then I assume God will move me on to something else

Tim Winders: 00:07:33

is your pace different than it once was.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:37

I don't think so, at least from a time point of view.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:40

I, you know, my wife and I are both very engaged.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:43

She, she's in a full time ministry that's not a paid position, but

Gary Harpst: 00:07:48

she's working, you know, a good 40, 50 hours a week in that ministry.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:52

And I'm, I'm at least that number of hours.

Gary Harpst: 00:07:55

And, I talked to, other people my age, many of them are working full time.

Gary Harpst: 00:08:00

I mean, they're, they're putting their full time engaged that we don't punch a

Gary Harpst: 00:08:05

clock, but you know, I put in long hours.

Tim Winders: 00:08:09

Yeah, I'm going to, I'm, I'm going to come back to that because I think

Tim Winders: 00:08:12

that as is a good topic because it relates to purpose, but I have a very pointed

Tim Winders: 00:08:17

question I want to ask for the listener.

Tim Winders: 00:08:21

I want you to address this.

Tim Winders: 00:08:23

There could be a listener that let's just say they're in their twenties or

Tim Winders: 00:08:27

thirties and they've just popped in.

Tim Winders: 00:08:31

They, they may have seen the title or whatever, and they've got.

Tim Winders: 00:08:35

Two 60 plus year old guys talking about principles and we're going to talk

Tim Winders: 00:08:43

chaos and leadership and business.

Tim Winders: 00:08:46

Could you real quick, I mean, I know we could, this could be a Holy Spirit type

Tim Winders: 00:08:50

answer, but could you tell that person why they need to stick around and listen

Tim Winders: 00:08:56

to us for the next 45 minutes to an hour?

Tim Winders: 00:08:59

Why it's important for someone younger to listen in on what

Tim Winders: 00:09:03

we're going to discuss here?

Gary Harpst: 00:09:06

Well, there's a verse in, in, let's see, I think it's in

Gary Harpst: 00:09:11

Ecclesiastes, it says, no, it's in Psalms, it says, teach me to number my days,

Gary Harpst: 00:09:18

that I might present a heart of wisdom.

Gary Harpst: 00:09:22

And the word number, it sounds like counting, and it is, but if you look

Gary Harpst: 00:09:28

at the other places that same Hebrew word is used, there's a richer meaning.

Gary Harpst: 00:09:35

It really means, teach me to under, to live purposefully and, and so what I would

Gary Harpst: 00:09:44

say to a younger person is, most of wisdom in life comes from understanding, the long

Gary Harpst: 00:09:52

term consequences of short term decisions.

Gary Harpst: 00:09:58

And for God has wired the universe so that we don't immediately understand

Gary Harpst: 00:10:03

the consequences of our decisions.

Gary Harpst: 00:10:05

in Ecclesiastes, it says the reason men do foolish things,

Gary Harpst: 00:10:10

is that there is a separation of time between when we do something

Gary Harpst: 00:10:15

and when we see its consequences.

Gary Harpst: 00:10:17

So one tool for you as a younger person is to make sure you allocate some time

Gary Harpst: 00:10:24

to some of us guys who have three, four or five decades, have been down the road

Gary Harpst: 00:10:30

and it can have seen and look back on things that we did 20 years ago, 30 years

Gary Harpst: 00:10:36

ago, and give you some insight that that would be my, there are advantages of being

Tim Winders: 00:10:41

older.

Tim Winders: 00:10:44

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:10:44

I was thinking earlier when we were talking about pace.

Tim Winders: 00:10:47

When I was much younger, I would have been definitely

Tim Winders: 00:10:51

categorized as a hustle and grind.

Tim Winders: 00:10:54

I'm an engineer too, by the way.

Tim Winders: 00:10:55

I'm, I'm a Georgia tech engineer and industrial and systems engineering

Tim Winders: 00:11:00

would be my, I guess, my field.

Tim Winders: 00:11:02

And I've always been systems.

Tim Winders: 00:11:04

So we're going to have a good conversation about process and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:11:08

But, but, and, and so I was a hustle and grind guy.

Tim Winders: 00:11:11

And when I asked about pace earlier, I think something that I'm getting to is

Tim Winders: 00:11:17

I still have roughly the same hours.

Tim Winders: 00:11:21

But I, I don't think it's the grind or the hustle that I once had at a younger age.

Tim Winders: 00:11:26

You're nodding.

Tim Winders: 00:11:27

Would you agree with that?

Tim Winders: 00:11:28

I totally

Gary Harpst: 00:11:29

agree with you.

Gary Harpst: 00:11:29

I, I would call it this franticness now.

Gary Harpst: 00:11:32

I there's a, there's a centered.

Gary Harpst: 00:11:35

Peacefulness of the time I spend and it is different than 30 years ago.

Tim Winders: 00:11:41

Do you think that that was just part of our journey or

Tim Winders: 00:11:43

do you think if you had it to do over again with the wisdom now that

Tim Winders: 00:11:48

you could operate at a different?

Tim Winders: 00:11:50

I don't want to call it pace.

Tim Winders: 00:11:52

It's not ours.

Tim Winders: 00:11:53

You mentioned time.

Tim Winders: 00:11:54

We're going to talk more about time because I'm fascinated with

Tim Winders: 00:11:56

that conversation, but I do think that there's things that are

Tim Winders: 00:12:00

just going through our minds.

Tim Winders: 00:12:01

I think the word uses the word anxiety.

Tim Winders: 00:12:03

I think, I think many times I am not anxious for nothing as I should be.

Tim Winders: 00:12:09

I have anxiousness.

Tim Winders: 00:12:10

Like we've got employees, we've got workers, we've got payroll, we've got, and

Tim Winders: 00:12:14

all these things are rolling in my head.

Tim Winders: 00:12:15

And, and I look back now and I think I wish I hadn't allowed

Tim Winders: 00:12:21

that to take up as much space.

Tim Winders: 00:12:23

Does that make any sense?

Gary Harpst: 00:12:24

Yeah, it does and I would only thing I would add to that is My wife

Gary Harpst: 00:12:29

and I are working out and it is a battle But what the point of the analogy I want

Gary Harpst: 00:12:36

to draw is That you, you look back on your life and you think, I wish I had,

Gary Harpst: 00:12:42

I had more of the maturity I have now, you know, the only way you get muscles is

Gary Harpst: 00:12:47

by working out and, and, so I don't know that I can, maybe I could have gotten here

Gary Harpst: 00:12:53

a little faster cause I was slow on the uptake, but I don't think I could have.

Gary Harpst: 00:12:59

skipped over the experiences, the, the painful experiences that made me get on my

Gary Harpst: 00:13:06

knees before God and say, I can't do this.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:09

I'm, I'm done.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:11

I'm, I'm empty.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:13

And then he reveals a little more of myself and I just don't think I could

Gary Harpst: 00:13:16

be who I am unless I went through that.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:19

And, you know, to you younger guys, You know, about all you can say about

Gary Harpst: 00:13:23

that is God is on the other side and he's, he's through those hard times,

Gary Harpst: 00:13:27

but they actually are good for you.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:29

You just, I know it doesn't feel like it.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:31

In fact, Hebrews says that no discipline feels good in the moment.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:38

but when you come out on the other side and that's one advantage of being at

Gary Harpst: 00:13:42

our age, you start to see some of the.

Gary Harpst: 00:13:46

Upside of the things you went through.

Tim Winders: 00:13:49

Well, and we also have that hindsight where we can look back

Tim Winders: 00:13:52

and there are times, and I may ask you about a few of those here, because

Tim Winders: 00:13:56

our, one of our underlying themes is redefining success, you know, what

Tim Winders: 00:13:59

are the things that have molded us?

Tim Winders: 00:14:02

And many times it's some form of, I call them catalytic events, something that

Tim Winders: 00:14:07

we would define as definitely not good.

Tim Winders: 00:14:10

but, but I know for me, you know, it was business failure in Oh

Tim Winders: 00:14:14

eight that led to some really ugly stuff, but I looked back on it.

Tim Winders: 00:14:20

And my wife and I say this all the time, the listeners that have been listening

Tim Winders: 00:14:22

in, no, we would not be the people we are today were it not for that situation.

Tim Winders: 00:14:27

That issue.

Tim Winders: 00:14:28

I wouldn't be enjoying winter down here in Arizona.

Tim Winders: 00:14:31

You know, living in an RV, traveling, we've been traveling

Tim Winders: 00:14:33

now for over 10 years.

Tim Winders: 00:14:35

And I would probably still be camped out in a big house and middle of, you

Tim Winders: 00:14:39

know, where I was in Georgia, which was great, but I don't think that

Tim Winders: 00:14:43

was part of the plan and the purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:14:45

What are some things going back because you've got I think the introduction

Tim Winders: 00:14:50

that it's real funny You know, I use this word seasoned I think often

Tim Winders: 00:14:55

with people that are Mature we'll call it, you know, that means they've

Tim Winders: 00:14:59

been through a lot of stuff season.

Tim Winders: 00:15:01

That's what season means It's a good way of saying it.

Tim Winders: 00:15:03

But what are some you know, we don't want to go through the the career you've

Tim Winders: 00:15:07

had totally I want to get to talking about chaos and and definitely purpose

Tim Winders: 00:15:13

and process and people that that you have some expertise in, but what are a

Tim Winders: 00:15:17

few, I guess, ups and downs along your journey that have helped you arrive

Tim Winders: 00:15:23

at this place where you can discuss the things that you're, you're doing?

Tim Winders: 00:15:28

I guess, I guess maybe an aside bar question is, have you always been

Tim Winders: 00:15:32

locked in on your purpose or what helped you get to that place along the way?

Gary Harpst: 00:15:39

That, that locked in on purpose.

Gary Harpst: 00:15:42

Maybe, it's useful to talk about beginnings when I, when I, first decided

Gary Harpst: 00:15:47

to get into business for myself, it was a, joint conversation with two

Gary Harpst: 00:15:52

other fellows as an outcome of a prayer group, and I was a young person, 28,

Gary Harpst: 00:15:57

29 years old and single, and I was young early in my walk with the Lord.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:04

And I, I just felt.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:06

Conviction that I wanted to, whatever I do, really yield my life to him.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:12

And I didn't really know what that meant.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:13

I still don't, I still pray for wisdom on that.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:17

But the point was that, I refused to, to, Enter into this business, unless God

Gary Harpst: 00:16:23

gave me some kind of indication that, he was in it and I held out for months.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:31

I just prayed and prayed and prayed and, and some days I'd wake up and

Gary Harpst: 00:16:35

think, Oh yeah, I should do this.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:36

But it was more of a surface level thing.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:38

But one morning I still remember it.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:41

I woke up with this deep inner sense.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:45

that God was saying, yes, I'm giving you the green light on doing this.

Gary Harpst: 00:16:50

And the only reason I go through this for our young, younger people is,

Gary Harpst: 00:16:55

the value of really seeking the Lord for direction in your life, whether

Gary Harpst: 00:17:03

it's who you marry or what house you buy, you know, the big decisions.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:10

There is a huge blessing if you can get a word from the Lord, a grounding

Gary Harpst: 00:17:16

that says, I called you to this.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:18

I'm not, I haven't had that in every decision, so don't, don't get me wrong.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:22

But I do want to illustrate the benefit of that because as we got into the business.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:28

We several times thought this is over, you know, it, I mean, we're out of

Gary Harpst: 00:17:33

cash, he just every which thing, and I never ever doubted that God had called

Gary Harpst: 00:17:40

me into it in the middle of all that, even though there were times I thought

Gary Harpst: 00:17:44

the thing was going to come to an end, but it really made me realize he never

Gary Harpst: 00:17:48

promised to make the thing successful.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:51

He never, that was not part of the piece.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:54

The piece was, yes, this is the next step for you and go into it.

Gary Harpst: 00:17:58

And, that surety really was helpful.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:03

So that's a, an upside story.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:05

Now there are definitely downside stories.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:08

I want one time I'm a stubborn guy.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:11

My dad would came out of the depression.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:14

I was always taught to never, ever give up, you know, this, this, You're, you're

Gary Harpst: 00:18:19

never defeated if you don't give up.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:21

And so I latched onto some project in our company, spent millions of dollars

Gary Harpst: 00:18:26

on it, as the CEO, it was wrong idea.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:30

And I, but I, I was taught quitting was failure.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:36

And, so I remember one February saying, God, we can't afford this project.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:40

I need you to increase sales.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:42

That was my idea of a.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:45

And, God's idea of a solution was our sales dropped by 20

Gary Harpst: 00:18:49

percent or 25 percent suddenly and unexpectedly that same February.

Gary Harpst: 00:18:55

And he slapped me upside the head and said, you dummy, you

Gary Harpst: 00:19:00

need to get rid of that project.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:02

And, you've held on to it too long and he forced me into that.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:06

Well, I had to lay off half of our staff.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:09

We were 175 people at the time.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:12

we went down to 83 and these are, I mean, we're in the cornfields of Northwestern

Gary Harpst: 00:19:17

Ohio, these were all, I knew these people, their families, friends, et cetera.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:22

And, it was.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:23

the most challenging thing I had to do was to lay off half those people.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:28

But the choice was to do that or let the whole business go down.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:31

And that's not what we were called to do.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:34

So those things really shape you.

Gary Harpst: 00:19:37

You get, you get honest with God in the midst of that in

Gary Harpst: 00:19:40

a way, nothing else will do.

Tim Winders: 00:19:44

She brought up there that just got me thinking one was something

Tim Winders: 00:19:50

you were taught don't ever quit, never quit, never quit, never quit.

Tim Winders: 00:19:55

And to some degree, a lot of us are taught that.

Tim Winders: 00:19:59

And then the second thing that you brought up was what is success.

Tim Winders: 00:20:04

And many times things were taught feed into what we believe success is,

Tim Winders: 00:20:10

because I think we've got examples in scripture and other places where, and

Tim Winders: 00:20:16

I've had personal examples where God's told me to walk away from something.

Tim Winders: 00:20:21

And that's not an easy thing to do.

Tim Winders: 00:20:24

And I'm questioning, well, are you sure God?

Tim Winders: 00:20:26

Because you know, you know, daddy told me never to quit.

Tim Winders: 00:20:30

He said, who's your daddy?

Tim Winders: 00:20:32

I'm your dad, you know, who you're going to listen to, but, but what I'd

Tim Winders: 00:20:37

love for us to do now, because we, this whole topic of success, I think messes

Tim Winders: 00:20:43

with us and I think it leads into that purpose question and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:20:46

How.

Tim Winders: 00:20:49

How have we gotten skewed in our definition of success?

Tim Winders: 00:20:56

I think that's one of the foundational places.

Tim Winders: 00:21:00

That's the reason we address it in the way we do here.

Tim Winders: 00:21:02

I think that many times what people do is.

Tim Winders: 00:21:05

They define success based on either material, financial or, which

Tim Winders: 00:21:10

there's nothing wrong with that, but for those that start going

Tim Winders: 00:21:14

down this biblical path, that's not necessarily our guiding force there.

Tim Winders: 00:21:21

And then also there's the way we were raised, the way society and culture is.

Tim Winders: 00:21:25

And then a whole nother factor is, you know, comparing ourselves to others.

Tim Winders: 00:21:28

So I guess I'm hitting a lot of different things here for you to talk about.

Tim Winders: 00:21:34

Success and maybe how you go about defining success now

Tim Winders: 00:21:38

at this Stage of your life.

Tim Winders: 00:21:40

So that was a really big softball question for you to hit it

Tim Winders: 00:21:44

wherever you want to hit it Yeah, I

Gary Harpst: 00:21:46

appreciate the breadth of the question and it it's a deep deep

Gary Harpst: 00:21:51

question probably many different ways to attack it but You know, one of the

Gary Harpst: 00:21:57

things I noticed early in my life as a young believer Was that I would look at

Gary Harpst: 00:22:03

people more mature than I was And think that their life and their behavior was

Gary Harpst: 00:22:12

what it meant to be a Christ follower.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:17

And, and there's biblical reason for that.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:20

Paul says, you know, you should be like me in certain attributes or traits.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:25

But as I grew in my understanding, you begin to see the scriptural

Gary Harpst: 00:22:31

truth that God makes us different.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:34

And he equips us, with unique desires, unique skills.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:39

And not only top of that, he puts us in different time and seasons of history.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:44

You know, so Gary Harpst in the year, 1200 would have been doing different

Gary Harpst: 00:22:50

things than Gary Harpst in the year 2000.

Gary Harpst: 00:22:53

And if, if you believe in a sovereign God, you, every individual life

Gary Harpst: 00:23:00

is a masterpiece of uniqueness.

Gary Harpst: 00:23:04

Not only just in your DNA and all those sorts of things, but in the time and the

Gary Harpst: 00:23:07

history, the people, you know, the place you live, there's just nobody like you.

Gary Harpst: 00:23:12

And, as I grew to respect that, I mean, it took me decades to really get to the

Gary Harpst: 00:23:18

point, but answering your question, I began to really realize that when I.

Gary Harpst: 00:23:26

Look at other people and say, I should be like them.

Gary Harpst: 00:23:28

It is a form of idolatry.

Gary Harpst: 00:23:32

instead of being rooted in God, you made me and created me and gave me certain

Gary Harpst: 00:23:38

things, I should steward what it is you gave me, not spend my energy trying to be.

Gary Harpst: 00:23:45

Like someone else and, I still struggle with this because even at my age,

Gary Harpst: 00:23:52

I still look at the other day I was complaining to myself and to God about,

Gary Harpst: 00:23:57

well, so and so did this and they were a lot more successful with it than I

Gary Harpst: 00:24:01

was at this and, and I started attacking myself and saying, what did I do wrong?

Gary Harpst: 00:24:06

And, and, God keeps whispering, just take what I've given you and use it.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:14

And quit worrying about everybody else.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:17

And, so that success boils down to that.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:20

Having such a close relationship with God that you get comfortable

Gary Harpst: 00:24:25

in your skin with who God made you, you don't get comfortable.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:31

In, I don't know, relax.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:33

I mean, you're relaxed in your relationship with him, but you

Gary Harpst: 00:24:36

strive to do the best you can.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:38

You know, you, I, that idea of just being lazy around God, I

Gary Harpst: 00:24:43

don't, doesn't feel right to me.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:46

you know, I want to wake up and be engaged and give it all I've got,

Gary Harpst: 00:24:49

but know that it's not me, it's him.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:52

So there's, there's a fine line there between carrying the load

Gary Harpst: 00:24:55

yourself and walking in his path.

Gary Harpst: 00:24:59

I,

Tim Winders: 00:24:59

I've battled that too because I am, am generally, I'm guessing

Tim Winders: 00:25:04

you are too a, a quick decision maker.

Tim Winders: 00:25:07

Mm-Hmm.

Tim Winders: 00:25:08

that decides something.

Tim Winders: 00:25:09

I have a fair degree of confidence in my decision.

Tim Winders: 00:25:13

Mm-Hmm.

Tim Winders: 00:25:14

sometimes that gets me in trouble sometimes.

Tim Winders: 00:25:16

It's helpful in certain situations.

Tim Winders: 00:25:20

And, and, and I, you know, I get around some people, especially

Tim Winders: 00:25:24

when I was in Bible school, that they were extremely passive.

Tim Winders: 00:25:29

in waiting for the Lord.

Tim Winders: 00:25:31

And I feel as if one of the things the Lord spoke to me during that time was

Tim Winders: 00:25:36

he said, they, that many people that are, that are that way need a little

Tim Winders: 00:25:40

bit more of you in them and you need a little bit more of them in you,

Gary Harpst: 00:25:45

which is typical, right?

Tim Winders: 00:25:47

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:25:49

That's typical kingdom of God stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:25:51

But, but listen in business world, Gary, and then, and this is one of the

Tim Winders: 00:25:54

things that I think a lot of us struggle with, and I think it leads into a lot

Tim Winders: 00:25:58

of the things you talk about, though we have words like scale, we have

Tim Winders: 00:26:04

words like, profit loss, we have words like, how many employees do you have?

Tim Winders: 00:26:09

And, you know, revenue and you've, you've been through exits, which is.

Tim Winders: 00:26:13

A little bit of the Holy grail in businesses.

Tim Winders: 00:26:15

That's when, you know, we've had a number of them that we've interviewed

Tim Winders: 00:26:19

and, and I'll talk to people that have gone through an exit and just a few

Tim Winders: 00:26:23

weeks ago, we talked to one that he exited and then he felt as if he had

Tim Winders: 00:26:27

failed because he didn't know what his identity was after he went through the

Tim Winders: 00:26:30

exit, really odd, you know, it's like the thing that everybody is moving

Tim Winders: 00:26:34

towards, and then we talked to somebody who's done it, I still think that.

Tim Winders: 00:26:38

We, we have this natural tension between what we need to sit down and

Tim Winders: 00:26:45

listen to God and do what he tells us.

Tim Winders: 00:26:49

And then also what's going on out here in the world and what we think we need to do.

Tim Winders: 00:26:53

So somewhere along the way, I don't want to say you figured it out.

Tim Winders: 00:26:58

But you, you moved to a place where you had a better understanding and,

Tim Winders: 00:27:04

and I see where you've got, you've gone through three books, you've

Tim Winders: 00:27:06

gone through a few iterations.

Tim Winders: 00:27:07

I think you were once it was the six disciplines.

Tim Winders: 00:27:10

Now it's lead first.

Tim Winders: 00:27:12

Talk a little bit about, I don't know if you need to go back a few years,

Tim Winders: 00:27:15

but talk a little bit about the transition into where you are now.

Tim Winders: 00:27:19

And some things that led you to share and teach some of the

Tim Winders: 00:27:22

things you're talking about now.

Tim Winders: 00:27:25

Well, this is,

Gary Harpst: 00:27:28

It's a penetrating question and I, I, I'm answering it

Gary Harpst: 00:27:32

in a way that I don't think I would have answered even two years ago.

Gary Harpst: 00:27:36

So it tells you, you never stop learning back to your younger people.

Gary Harpst: 00:27:42

I had about a, my life, my professional life so far has been

Gary Harpst: 00:27:47

broken into about, in 20 year periods.

Gary Harpst: 00:27:50

I, when I was 30, I started a company.

Gary Harpst: 00:27:53

And we sold it 20 years later, that was named Solomon Software, grew very

Gary Harpst: 00:27:57

rapidly, and it was a, very successful business, technology business.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:02

The next 20 years was spent working with small, mid sized businesses, teaching

Gary Harpst: 00:28:08

them how to use business systems to manage growth, because I had just come out of

Gary Harpst: 00:28:14

a 20 year period where that was painful.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:15

I was growing 30, 40 percent a year just to keep up in our industry.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:21

And, it was, I had hair then, you know, and, so the next 20 years, I, I thought,

Gary Harpst: 00:28:27

well, how do you apply systems and processes and help people learn all that?

Gary Harpst: 00:28:32

Well, that 20 year period is coming to an, has come to an end.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:36

And I'm, I feel like God is leading me into another 20 year period,

Gary Harpst: 00:28:40

which is what lead first is, lead.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:44

First 20 years taught me about growth in business.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:47

The next 20 years taught me about systems and processes that I could have

Gary Harpst: 00:28:52

a lot applied to the first 20 years.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:55

And managed better.

Gary Harpst: 00:28:57

This third 20 years that I'm a couple of years into appears to

Gary Harpst: 00:29:01

be that, that God wants me to take overlay biblical principles.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:07

For caring for people and building an organization that's mission and values

Gary Harpst: 00:29:13

are more than just making a profit, but they're truly, kingdom minded.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:19

You know, Jesus in the, in the, the, when he was teaching us to pray says.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:25

our father who is in heaven, thy kingdom come and thy will be done.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:31

And so that's all background to an answer to your question.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:37

I now reflect back and look at what we built in Solomon software.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:41

We, we grew to have almost 60 million in sales, had 450 people.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:47

And, we sold the business.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:50

It was growing at a rate that.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:52

Well, it just, there were a lot of business reasons why it made sense.

Gary Harpst: 00:29:56

and the partners we exited and a lot of people got a fair amount of funds,

Gary Harpst: 00:30:01

including our employees, a lot of, stock options and those sorts of things.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:06

What I now realize, and I did not then, was there's another dimension to

Gary Harpst: 00:30:12

a business besides its balance sheet.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:14

It's the relationships of all the people.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:17

And the values that those people hold collectively.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:22

And when you sell a business, you pretty much guarantee that

Gary Harpst: 00:30:27

that is going to be destroyed.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:29

Third part.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:31

and I'm not saying you should never sell a business.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:33

I don't, that is not my, my.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:38

But as, as God has moved me into this third 20 year period, I've

Gary Harpst: 00:30:41

come to realize that there are all the levers, all the thing it takes

Gary Harpst: 00:30:47

to really run a good business.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:49

It's hard when you're growing fast and to deliver high quality products in a

Gary Harpst: 00:30:53

predictable way and do it profitably and hire the right people and train them.

Gary Harpst: 00:30:58

All those things are incredibly difficult.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:01

And if you do it well, Then you will grow and you will have increasing

Gary Harpst: 00:31:06

profits, which I'm in favor of profits.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:08

I think it's a sign of good stewardship that you, you're using

Gary Harpst: 00:31:12

the resources God has given you.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:15

And, you should be generous with it.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:17

What I did not really grasp is that the effort to keep, to grow a

Gary Harpst: 00:31:23

business and keep people to build an ecosystem that cares about people

Gary Harpst: 00:31:28

and loves on people the way God says.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:32

Another asset, it's not a financial asset and it's not a business process asset.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:39

It is a human relationship asset.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:43

And I now realize when we sold our business, we had a fair amount of that

Gary Harpst: 00:31:48

because of the way we'd run the business, but I didn't think of it as an asset.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:53

I just.

Gary Harpst: 00:31:54

Thought of the business in the dimension of, of market share and

Gary Harpst: 00:31:59

sales and those sorts of things.

Gary Harpst: 00:32:01

And, so it's a long answer to your question.

Gary Harpst: 00:32:04

I'm sorry for that, but

Tim Winders: 00:32:08

yeah, I think that's good because this is one of

Tim Winders: 00:32:11

the things that It's difficult about this type conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:32:16

We've had a lot of them here at CICO create very similar

Tim Winders: 00:32:18

to this, but I, I love it.

Tim Winders: 00:32:20

I, and I think it speaks to the friction, the tension, the contrast between a

Tim Winders: 00:32:29

kingdom of God business and a world system business and attempting to marry the two.

Tim Winders: 00:32:35

Because there is the ROI off the, off the, you know, the balance sheets and

Tim Winders: 00:32:40

the spreadsheets that's important.

Tim Winders: 00:32:43

But what you and I are discussing here is the ROI within the kingdom

Tim Winders: 00:32:48

of God, which is different.

Tim Winders: 00:32:51

And so that kind of leads to a question that's going to probably

Tim Winders: 00:32:55

get us down the path of discussing, some, a few more specifics.

Tim Winders: 00:32:59

And that is how, one of the things that I've observed, I'm going to be very,

Tim Winders: 00:33:06

I don't, I don't think this is, it's, it's, it's a dichotomy to me at times.

Tim Winders: 00:33:11

I have been around business most of my life.

Tim Winders: 00:33:15

I was actually saved in a business setting, which kind of is part

Tim Winders: 00:33:18

of how I came to be the way I am.

Tim Winders: 00:33:21

And one of the things I noticed was it was very rare that people could bring in.

Tim Winders: 00:33:26

Kingdom of God and or ministry principles into that and do it.

Tim Winders: 00:33:30

Well, sometimes it would get weird and different things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:33:33

Yeah, I agree.

Tim Winders: 00:33:35

And then I've been over on ministry circles.

Tim Winders: 00:33:37

I've been to Bible school.

Tim Winders: 00:33:38

We have a family foundation and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:33:42

And many people in those areas, Gary, they don't even bring any

Tim Winders: 00:33:46

of the business principles in.

Tim Winders: 00:33:47

It's like everything is like this super hyper, hyper spiritual,

Tim Winders: 00:33:51

hyper, and that's not entirely bad.

Tim Winders: 00:33:55

But see, I think where we are is you and I are discussing right

Tim Winders: 00:33:58

here the intersection of those two.

Tim Winders: 00:34:00

Amen.

Tim Winders: 00:34:02

And so with that, what are some of the challenges that we have when all

Tim Winders: 00:34:10

of a sudden we're trying to bring these two, I'll call 'em realms.

Tim Winders: 00:34:13

I mean, I'll go ahead and bring, I'm in a deep study right now with my wife that

Tim Winders: 00:34:16

we're studying the Kingdom of God and the heavenly realm and the natural realm.

Tim Winders: 00:34:22

And I'm just realizing we're operating in different realms.

Tim Winders: 00:34:24

But yet here we are with the business, with investors,

Tim Winders: 00:34:27

with employees, with people.

Tim Winders: 00:34:29

So I know that's another, we're doing some deep heavy questions here, aren't we?

Tim Winders: 00:34:33

What are, what are some, what are some reasons why, what are some reasons,

Tim Winders: 00:34:37

Gary, why people can't do it easily?

Tim Winders: 00:34:39

I mean, cause you would think if someone's a Sunday go to church guy or

Tim Winders: 00:34:43

girl, I'm sorry, let me not be sexist here and they run a company or they go

Tim Winders: 00:34:47

to work in a business Monday through Friday, they ought to be able to bring

Tim Winders: 00:34:51

those together just perfectly because they're coming from one person, but yet.

Tim Winders: 00:34:55

They don't.

Tim Winders: 00:34:57

Why?

Gary Harpst: 00:34:58

Yeah, you frame, I think, really significant questions.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:03

And I thought a lot

Tim Winders: 00:35:04

about that.

Tim Winders: 00:35:07

Do we need to go lighter?

Tim Winders: 00:35:08

Do we need to go lighter questions?

Tim Winders: 00:35:09

Do we need to go light?

Tim Winders: 00:35:11

No, I

Gary Harpst: 00:35:11

love them.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:12

And I thought a lot about this particular one.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:15

And the term that comes to my mind is integration.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:18

Balance.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:20

versus integration.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:21

God designed an integrated universe, not a balanced universe.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:27

And many of us go through life thinking we need to achieve balance that, okay,

Gary Harpst: 00:35:33

I'll give God some of this on Sunday.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:36

I'll give my wife and kids some time here.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:38

I'll give my work some time here.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:40

And we have this as opposed to figuring out, wait a minute,

Gary Harpst: 00:35:43

how do I weave my spirituality?

Gary Harpst: 00:35:47

into my relationship with my kids and my wife and my work.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:51

How do I even weave my work back into my family so that they see how I handle that?

Gary Harpst: 00:35:56

That's an integrated view.

Gary Harpst: 00:35:58

And the reason I, well, I'm sure there's several reasons

Gary Harpst: 00:36:02

that we don't do that very well.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:04

But today, I think one of the reasons is just fear that we, we think we can't.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:11

And, there's the, you know, the social pressure to to avoid those things,

Gary Harpst: 00:36:16

and that seems to be increasing, talking about, faith, but we can't

Gary Harpst: 00:36:21

blame that 100 years ago because it wasn't social media 100 years ago,

Gary Harpst: 00:36:25

and we, we didn't do it then as well.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:27

As well as we should have, or we wouldn't be in the situation we're in today.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:32

And so I think there's, a lack of skill.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:36

There's a fear factor and a lack of skill.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:39

And so today lead first, one of the first things we have to do, remember I mentioned

Gary Harpst: 00:36:44

to you, we come alongside young CEOs, but for one of the first things we have to do

Gary Harpst: 00:36:50

is attack the idea that they can't do it.

Gary Harpst: 00:36:53

And, we've, we've thought about this a lot and think one way to explain this.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:00

We have to give the CEO a way to talk about why they're doing this and that it's

Gary Harpst: 00:37:05

not a threat to those who don't believe as they do, and the way we've done it is,

Gary Harpst: 00:37:12

is, think about this base layer, we'll think about a pyramid with three layers

Gary Harpst: 00:37:16

and in the base layer is what is it that.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:19

people want from a business.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:21

I don't care what faith you are, whether you're an atheist, whatever.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:25

And most people agree that they would like a business that's healthy.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:28

So it's going to be around next year.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:30

My job's going to be last.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:33

They'd like a business that's growing because they want to

Gary Harpst: 00:37:36

have new opportunities later on.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:39

They'd like management that they can trust.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:42

And an environment that works well enough that it's not total chaos at work.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:47

You know, those are things, that base layer of the pyramid, it

Gary Harpst: 00:37:50

doesn't matter what your faith is, you say, yep, we agree on those.

Gary Harpst: 00:37:56

Then you can go up a layer, and there's more and more of this

Gary Harpst: 00:37:58

awareness growing right now.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:00

We call it, there's, the secular world even calls it soul care.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:06

It's the idea of beginning to look at people as humans.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:10

and outside of work, what, what, what's going on holistically in their life?

Gary Harpst: 00:38:14

They, and, it, everybody agrees with that.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:17

They would like to be around people that care about them.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:20

And they don't care whether you're Hindu or Christian or whatever.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:24

The question is whether you care.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:26

And so these first two layers are really not threatening at all.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:31

And, so as a Christian to go in and say, look, these two

Gary Harpst: 00:38:34

layers are important to me.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:36

And here's why my, my relationship with the guy I believe in holds me

Gary Harpst: 00:38:41

accountable to doing these things.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:43

And, is it in your interest to work for a company where you know that I, as the

Gary Harpst: 00:38:48

owner, am held accountable by, I feel like I'm held accountable to treat you right.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:53

Is that threatening to you?

Gary Harpst: 00:38:55

And it shouldn't be.

Gary Harpst: 00:38:56

And, so the third layer is more controversial, but this is the way I

Gary Harpst: 00:39:02

explain it, I say, you know, the first layer is something a good business can

Gary Harpst: 00:39:06

do for you, the second layer is what your friends and neighbors can do for you.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:11

There is a third layer that is unique to the gospel.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:16

Which is there are some things that Jesus can do for you that nobody else can.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:21

I mean, I can, I can give you money if you need it or take you to the

Gary Harpst: 00:39:25

hospital, but I can't heal your past.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:28

I can't give you a new identity.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:29

I can't give you eternal life.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:32

And so we, we call this a kingdom impact model, these three layers.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:37

And we are teaching our CEOs to be open about that third layer and say, look,

Gary Harpst: 00:39:43

I believe that this layer is available.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:46

If you don't, that's fine.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:47

But if you want to know more about it, here are some ways to learn about

Gary Harpst: 00:39:51

it and to just be open about it.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:53

So that's how we're attacking the problem.

Gary Harpst: 00:39:56

Well, the good

Tim Winders: 00:39:57

thing from what I've heard, I love that model is that if

Tim Winders: 00:40:01

you do well in that base level and then that next level up, then I, I believe

Tim Winders: 00:40:07

it naturally draws people to have a discussion at that level, the challenge.

Tim Winders: 00:40:11

And listen, we, we're not going to go down this path, the challenge that we

Tim Winders: 00:40:15

have in, we'll call it church world or Christian world or whatever now is that

Tim Winders: 00:40:20

people are not doing some of those base.

Tim Winders: 00:40:23

Yeah, they're, they're not performing well when they're stewarding

Tim Winders: 00:40:28

over a business or a church or, or, or a department or anything.

Tim Winders: 00:40:34

And then they're really not doing well in how they're

Tim Winders: 00:40:38

interacting with their neighbor.

Tim Winders: 00:40:39

Either totally agree.

Tim Winders: 00:40:41

Regardless of what their neighbor looks like, acts like or does, they are getting

Tim Winders: 00:40:46

in a mode, and I don't want us to go down that path because we, we've got enough

Tim Winders: 00:40:49

chaos and we're gonna discuss chaos here.

Tim Winders: 00:40:52

We've, we've got enough of that going on.

Tim Winders: 00:40:54

But that is, I like that model because I love the foundation, because it

Tim Winders: 00:40:58

bothers me sometimes what I see people that are using the name Christian

Tim Winders: 00:41:03

doing out there, because what it's doing is driving people away from

Tim Winders: 00:41:06

having those, what I call the eternal conversations that we want to be having.

Tim Winders: 00:41:11

We should be drawing people in with what you're talking about.

Gary Harpst: 00:41:15

However Well, Gary, one more thing before you move on the,

Gary Harpst: 00:41:21

you said something very significant about the first two layers, increase

Gary Harpst: 00:41:26

the effectiveness of doing the third.

Gary Harpst: 00:41:29

And this is, this is a pointed hard conversation to say to

Gary Harpst: 00:41:35

young CEOs or leaders of.

Gary Harpst: 00:41:38

Businesses that are stewarding them for the Lord, that when you run, when

Gary Harpst: 00:41:44

you don't know what you're doing and don't run a business well, it affects

Gary Harpst: 00:41:49

your ability to build the kingdom.

Gary Harpst: 00:41:54

You know, it's, it's not, you can't just operate at the third layer.

Gary Harpst: 00:41:58

You have to put the nuts on the bolts.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:00

If you, if you're going to build.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:03

Cars, you better build quality cars.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:06

If you're, you know, you've got to have an organization where you hire people

Gary Harpst: 00:42:09

and train them and hold them accountable.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:12

All those skills you think, well, that's business stuff.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:15

Well, no, it's not business stuff.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:16

It's life stuff.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:18

And if you don't do that, right, you don't earn the right to share the gospel.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:24

You know, and then that's what I would say.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:26

You, you mentioned earlier, this divide between churches saying they're all

Gary Harpst: 00:42:30

spiritual and in no business, and then business is all business and no spiritual.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:33

The truth is they need the competency of each other.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:37

Many churches.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:38

Are so heavenly minded.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:40

There are no earthly good, you know, so you've heard that phrase before.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:46

And, and many businesses are so business minded that they don't care for people.

Gary Harpst: 00:42:50

So you could tell I got on my soapbox there a little

Tim Winders: 00:42:52

bit.

Tim Winders: 00:42:53

So no, I love that.

Tim Winders: 00:42:54

And, again, I want us to get to discussing this, but it, it, I will

Tim Winders: 00:42:59

often one of my routines in the morning that I've loved doing the

Tim Winders: 00:43:03

last two or three years is listening.

Tim Winders: 00:43:05

To the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5 through 7.

Tim Winders: 00:43:08

It's about 15 minutes.

Tim Winders: 00:43:09

It's a great quiet time.

Tim Winders: 00:43:11

And it's different than reading it, Gary.

Tim Winders: 00:43:13

I don't know what it is, but I mean, I, I listen in and the last sentence

Tim Winders: 00:43:17

in Matthew 7, I don't have the exact verse, but as it's wrapping up, it said,

Tim Winders: 00:43:22

and, and the crowds were amazed because he was one who spoke with authority,

Tim Winders: 00:43:27

not like their scribes and teachers.

Tim Winders: 00:43:30

And so what you just described was, was somewhat, because we, we do

Tim Winders: 00:43:35

need to be quote unquote successful and good stewards with our people.

Tim Winders: 00:43:40

We need to show love.

Tim Winders: 00:43:42

We need to do those things where commanded.

Tim Winders: 00:43:44

Otherwise, we don't have the authority.

Tim Winders: 00:43:47

To what I believe, and you know, to talk to people about this,

Tim Winders: 00:43:51

we become the hypocrites, and that's not what we want to do.

Tim Winders: 00:43:56

And so very, very, very good.

Tim Winders: 00:43:59

All right.

Tim Winders: 00:43:59

So let's, let's, let's move into the, the big topic here that, that drew me to you.

Tim Winders: 00:44:04

Truthfully, it was, it was beating chaos because most people that are

Tim Winders: 00:44:10

listening in, which is very odd.

Tim Winders: 00:44:12

There's a dichotomy here too, that we may discuss, but, but let me

Tim Winders: 00:44:15

just, first of all, set the stage.

Tim Winders: 00:44:19

You're addressing, you're talking about beating chaos and how as

Tim Winders: 00:44:22

leaders and people in business, we, we are equipped to do it.

Tim Winders: 00:44:26

We can do it.

Tim Winders: 00:44:27

And there's, there's a lot of things there, but, but first of

Tim Winders: 00:44:30

all, set the stage, talk about, are we really living in chaos?

Tim Winders: 00:44:35

Because my wife and I were discussing this the other day and we were just

Tim Winders: 00:44:38

talking about how chaotic the world is.

Tim Winders: 00:44:41

But yet we're sitting here in our motor coach, we're comfortable,

Tim Winders: 00:44:45

we're peaceful, we've got food, etc.

Tim Winders: 00:44:47

so I guess first of all define chaos and where are we at in this and then maybe you

Tim Winders: 00:44:54

could go into why do we need to beat it?

Tim Winders: 00:44:57

Sure.

Gary Harpst: 00:44:58

there, we, I think it's helpful to think

Gary Harpst: 00:45:00

of chaos in three categories.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:02

One is the insurance policy disclaimer for earthquakes and, tsunamis, those

Gary Harpst: 00:45:08

sorts of things that we label as acts of God and we can't attribute it

Gary Harpst: 00:45:13

to it caused by humankind directly.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:17

That's one.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:18

The second is the chaos that is among us, between us.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:22

husband and wife, children and spouse.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:24

Parents, neighbors, nations, you name it.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:30

I had a sociology teacher in college ask this profound question.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:35

He said, why is it that humanity has progressed so far technologically

Gary Harpst: 00:45:41

and not at all sociologically?

Gary Harpst: 00:45:45

And I never really had thought about the fact that we had made no

Gary Harpst: 00:45:47

progress sociologically and that was, that class was 40 some years ago.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:52

and, the evidence is.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:54

Still true.

Gary Harpst: 00:45:55

I mean, we've killed more people in the last hundred years than we Did in thousand

Gary Harpst: 00:46:00

years prior to that because we have better technology to do it with and So

Gary Harpst: 00:46:07

the the chaos among us has not diminished and we've not really gotten any better

Gary Harpst: 00:46:12

at managing the third type of chaos is the chaos within within us and The, the

Gary Harpst: 00:46:23

chaos within us is a result of, in, in the top, or in the story of the flood,

Gary Harpst: 00:46:29

God reveals something about our design.

Gary Harpst: 00:46:32

It's very subtle and it's only in one sentence.

Gary Harpst: 00:46:35

He said, God's standing here as the designer of this creation and

Gary Harpst: 00:46:38

saying, you know, I'm looking, he's looking over his design.

Gary Harpst: 00:46:41

He says, you know, this thing's not working very well.

Gary Harpst: 00:46:43

He says the, in one sentence, he says, the intentions.

Gary Harpst: 00:46:47

Of the thoughts of their heart is only evil always one sentence, but

Gary Harpst: 00:46:54

he did tell us something about us.

Gary Harpst: 00:46:56

He said, we have intentions, thoughts, produce intentions, and our

Gary Harpst: 00:47:03

heart is what drives our thinking.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:06

And so he, he really laid out a four part architecture for, how he designed

Gary Harpst: 00:47:13

humans, heart, mind, which is reason.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:17

Heart is desire.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:19

Mind is reason and reason is supposed to filter our desires and rechannel them.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:26

Oh, that's a good idea.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:27

Nope, that's not a good idea.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:29

So heart or desire, reason, and then intention is actually the point at

Gary Harpst: 00:47:35

which you have formed an idea of what you want to do, that the reasoning

Gary Harpst: 00:47:40

is, Oh, you think about a lot of options and you finally say, yep,

Gary Harpst: 00:47:43

that's the one I'm going to marry, then your action is I go ask her.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:48

And, so those four states, well, internal chaos is when there's

Gary Harpst: 00:47:53

not alignment among those.

Gary Harpst: 00:47:55

Internal chaos is I want this thing, I don't have the skill to deliver it.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:01

And so what I do, I get mad, I get angry.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:05

And so internal chaos is, very deeply, it's the deeper cause of chaos among us.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:13

You see what I mean?

Gary Harpst: 00:48:14

And the early stories in the Bible, the very first one that's very pronounced,

Gary Harpst: 00:48:20

you know, in Genesis, God says he created us to have dominion or to rule.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:24

In other words, we are designed to have the ability to To bring order

Gary Harpst: 00:48:29

out of chaos to, to make things, create things, whether it's cooking

Gary Harpst: 00:48:33

a meal or, painting a picture, he said, we're designed to do that.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:38

But the very first example where he gets explicit that it's not

Gary Harpst: 00:48:42

happening is with Cain and Abel and Cain begins to feel this inner chaos.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:49

He feels like God's not, he's loving his brother more than he does him

Gary Harpst: 00:48:53

and he's beginning to feel jealous.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:55

So his desire and his actions are all getting all jumbled up.

Gary Harpst: 00:48:59

Inside of it.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:01

And it's, it's going to boil up into murder.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:04

So this is, this is how significant this internal chaos is.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:08

And God says to Cain before he killed his brother, he says, you know, sin

Gary Harpst: 00:49:13

or evil is crouching at the door and it's seeking to possess you.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:18

And he said, you must master it.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:22

And the word for master is very similar to the word in Genesis where

Gary Harpst: 00:49:25

God says he created us to overcome.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:29

So that's a long answer to your question about what chaos is,

Gary Harpst: 00:49:32

but it's a deep, deep topic.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:35

And, what, what most people miss in scripture is God in about the

Gary Harpst: 00:49:40

24th or 5th verse of Genesis.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:42

He says, he's talking to himself.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:44

It's a way, amazing way it's worded.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:46

He says, you know, let us.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:48

Create man in my image and do the, and let him have dominion

Gary Harpst: 00:49:52

and rule and he has to multiply.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:56

There's a lot wrapped into about two sentences.

Gary Harpst: 00:49:59

Well, if you stop and ask, okay, we're made in God's image.

Gary Harpst: 00:50:03

What do we know about God at that moment in time?

Gary Harpst: 00:50:06

And all we know is the previous 25 verses.

Gary Harpst: 00:50:09

That's all that's recorded in Genesis.

Gary Harpst: 00:50:12

And so ask yourself, go back and read those verses and see what you

Gary Harpst: 00:50:18

can learn about God, because he just told us we're made in his image.

Gary Harpst: 00:50:22

And one thing I like to ask people is what's the very first thing God created.

Gary Harpst: 00:50:27

And most people will say.

Gary Harpst: 00:50:30

Light if they if they're familiar with their Bible, but if you read it, that's

Gary Harpst: 00:50:35

not what he created first What he created first was chaos He says in the beginning

Gary Harpst: 00:50:40

God created the heavens and the earth and they were void and without Form that's a

Gary Harpst: 00:50:48

that's a definition of chaos And he took the trouble to say that the very first

Gary Harpst: 00:50:54

thing he created was a form of chaos Chaos itself is not evil God created it.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:03

But what did he do with the chaos?

Gary Harpst: 00:51:05

He then began to bring order out of it in six stages.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:08

He separated the light from the dark, the land from the sea, the Guy from

Gary Harpst: 00:51:13

the ground, he brought order out of that chaos one step at a time.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:18

And then he said, you are created in my image to do the very same thing.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:23

And, Satan lies to us and tries to rob us.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:29

Of the understanding that we're all created to do this, and I

Gary Harpst: 00:51:33

use my grandmother as an example.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:36

She would create these feasts for Thanksgiving.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:41

That's bringing order out of chaos.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:43

You know, she'd go to the cupboard and pick all these things.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:47

And, I mean, there's so many things in the cupboard and she'd pick a few and turn

Gary Harpst: 00:51:50

them into a recipe and make something.

Gary Harpst: 00:51:53

Well, the stuff on the wall looks like chaos, but what the meal is

Gary Harpst: 00:51:57

order and, you notice you don't have order until you have a recipe.

Gary Harpst: 00:52:06

Otherwise, it's just a bunch of stuff in the cupboard.

Gary Harpst: 00:52:09

And so purpose is what God uses to bring order out of chaos.

Gary Harpst: 00:52:16

His intent was to create mankind, and that's how come he brought

Gary Harpst: 00:52:20

order out of the chaos he did, to create a place for mankind to live.

Tim Winders: 00:52:24

Long answer.

Tim Winders: 00:52:26

Why is it, Gary, that some of us, I don't think it's everyone, I've

Tim Winders: 00:52:31

actually been around a few what I would call leaders that seem to thrive

Tim Winders: 00:52:37

off chaos and they create it if it doesn't exist and it is their style.

Tim Winders: 00:52:42

I don't like that.

Tim Winders: 00:52:43

I mean, we even have some political leaders right now that

Tim Winders: 00:52:46

that might be their, their style.

Tim Winders: 00:52:48

I don't want to go down that path.

Tim Winders: 00:52:50

I think you and I, I think I read somewhere that you consider

Tim Winders: 00:52:53

yourself a problem solver.

Tim Winders: 00:52:56

I consider myself, I mean, we're both engineers and, you know, we

Tim Winders: 00:53:00

see something, we want to fix it.

Tim Winders: 00:53:02

We see something that's out of order.

Tim Winders: 00:53:04

We want to create order from it.

Tim Winders: 00:53:06

And, and I will often say it's my desire, and this is maybe looking at

Tim Winders: 00:53:13

it from a negative, it's my desire to have some control and it's my

Tim Winders: 00:53:17

desire to possibly be a mini God, be a mini, you know, I want to control

Tim Winders: 00:53:22

my world, my, my realm that I've got.

Tim Winders: 00:53:25

And I think in many ways that's good.

Tim Winders: 00:53:27

And sometimes it's not good, but talk about how, especially as leaders, a

Tim Winders: 00:53:34

lot of people that are business people, entrepreneurs, they're that problem

Tim Winders: 00:53:37

solver like you and I are, why is it that they want to control and how

Tim Winders: 00:53:43

does that relate to this, this, this chaos topic that you're teaching and.

Tim Winders: 00:53:50

Well, just take that and run with it briefly.

Tim Winders: 00:53:52

I'm also watching our time because we're getting a little pressed here.

Tim Winders: 00:53:55

But, you know, we may need a couple of two or three more hours to really unpack this.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:00

Well, I think the root of your question is, is very

Gary Harpst: 00:54:03

helpful to think about if you're a leader, what is the role of a leader?

Gary Harpst: 00:54:08

Why?

Gary Harpst: 00:54:09

And one of the, one of the things that scripture would suggest is a

Gary Harpst: 00:54:14

leader is somebody who understands the relationship between desire and reason.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:19

And imagination and action.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:21

And so when you've got somebody that's upset in front of you, there, it's always

Gary Harpst: 00:54:27

related to a hundred percent of the time that a desire they have is not being

Gary Harpst: 00:54:33

fulfilled now, the desire could be wrong.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:38

They could be running, wanting something they shouldn't want.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:42

Or they could want something that's right, but they don't know how to get it.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:47

But it's the gap between desire and what you're getting that creates anger.

Gary Harpst: 00:54:53

Now, if you say, well, why, you know, why is, why are we like that?

Gary Harpst: 00:54:57

Well, God created us to have dominion.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:00

You know, you, as an engineer, a design specification when he created human

Gary Harpst: 00:55:05

beings was, I'm going to make a creature.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:08

That is hungry to have dominion.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:12

And so that's why we're that way.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:14

I mean, we, it's a good, it's good news, bad news, but he

Gary Harpst: 00:55:18

designed us to have dominion.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:19

So he put this fire in us to solve problems and to, to rule and to have

Gary Harpst: 00:55:26

power and all of those things that.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:29

We see in the behavior of others where things got built into us, but

Gary Harpst: 00:55:34

there's a big, but he intended for us to use those things and bring

Gary Harpst: 00:55:38

them in alignment with his purposes.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:41

And when our purposes, when we take that capability, that's built

Gary Harpst: 00:55:46

into us and run wild with it.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:49

In our own desires.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:50

In other words, I'm the ruler instead of God, then it turns into chaos.

Gary Harpst: 00:55:55

And, I think as, as, leaders, you will do much better when you see anger or in

Gary Harpst: 00:56:03

an employee or bad behavior to realize that's a symptom of something else and

Gary Harpst: 00:56:11

a good leader, whether it's with your children, your spouse or whatever,

Gary Harpst: 00:56:16

will quit reacting to the symptom.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:19

Quit, you know, my wife says something to me sharp, my

Gary Harpst: 00:56:21

inclination is to sharpen back.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:24

And the reality is there was something behind that and if I can just have

Gary Harpst: 00:56:27

the presence of mind to take a deep breath and say, look, I know her, I

Gary Harpst: 00:56:32

know she wouldn't want to hurt me, uncover what it is that's there.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:37

And sometimes she doesn't want to talk about it.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:39

Sometimes she's not even aware of it, what's causing it.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:43

But if we love people and care about them, we'll get, we'll realize

Gary Harpst: 00:56:50

that our actions are a byproduct of our desire and our reason.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:54

And that's where the problem lies.

Gary Harpst: 00:56:56

And you know, the Old Testament says our, our hearts are broken.

Gary Harpst: 00:57:00

There's something wrong in our genetics with.

Gary Harpst: 00:57:05

We desire wrong things, and that's what the gospel is all

Gary Harpst: 00:57:10

about, giving us a new heart.

Tim Winders: 00:57:14

Yeah, correcting those things that were wrong.

Tim Winders: 00:57:16

It's interesting as you were saying that, I was thinking about times in my

Tim Winders: 00:57:20

life and people, leaders, as a coach, I work with people that they will, I

Tim Winders: 00:57:26

guess they're good at stepping into chaotic situations and order out of them.

Tim Winders: 00:57:33

And then there's also people that are good at maintaining order and not

Tim Winders: 00:57:38

allowing things to get chaotic again.

Tim Winders: 00:57:41

And sometimes those are two different skill sets.

Tim Winders: 00:57:45

Is there a difference between them?

Tim Winders: 00:57:46

I mean, what do you see as the contrast between those two?

Gary Harpst: 00:57:49

Yeah, I do think there's a big difference in it.

Gary Harpst: 00:57:51

You know, some people are good at bringing about the change.

Gary Harpst: 00:57:54

In other words, they can visualize something that should be different

Gary Harpst: 00:57:57

and they create some chaos.

Gary Harpst: 00:57:58

Hey, you don't ever advance without creating some chaos.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:02

And so those people can be chaos creators and, they tend to be high Ds and there's

Gary Harpst: 00:58:07

about 15 percent of the population that's in that chaos initiators.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:14

But what, you know, it's interesting, that, there's a chapter in my book on

Gary Harpst: 00:58:17

this topic that it, that it takes more energy to maintain, maintain something

Gary Harpst: 00:58:24

we've created than it did to create it.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:29

And you know, it's easy to, to, conceive a baby.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:33

It's not easy to raise a baby.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:36

It's, you know, you build our house, we built our house in the woods

Gary Harpst: 00:58:39

here 40 years ago, 30 years ago.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:42

I've spent more now on keeping it up than I did when I originally built it.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:48

Roofing it, painting it, landscaping it.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:51

And to your point, some people are initiators.

Gary Harpst: 00:58:55

They're good at bringing about the change, but they're awful at maintaining it.

Gary Harpst: 00:59:00

And others are good at maintaining the status quo, but they

Gary Harpst: 00:59:03

don't want any change, but we need, we all need each other.

Tim Winders: 00:59:07

I've learned about myself, especially younger in life that I was

Tim Winders: 00:59:13

pretty good at going into situations that needed to establish some order.

Tim Winders: 00:59:19

And then I would lose the patience with that long haul that it took

Tim Winders: 00:59:24

to keep it and I would generally want to move to Something else.

Tim Winders: 00:59:29

And that's not uncommon, uncommon.

Tim Winders: 00:59:31

I'm just like you.

Tim Winders: 00:59:31

It's not uncommon, right?

Tim Winders: 00:59:33

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:59:33

Hey, Gary, the, the book built to beat Chaos.

Tim Winders: 00:59:37

I've actually got it on my, I've got it on my Kindle here.

Tim Winders: 00:59:40

I like the cover.

Tim Winders: 00:59:41

I like that.

Tim Winders: 00:59:41

I like that.

Tim Winders: 00:59:42

That's a very chaotic drawing there.

Tim Winders: 00:59:43

Biblical wisdom for leading yourself.

Tim Winders: 00:59:46

What is the thing that you want to accomplish or that you really want to

Tim Winders: 00:59:51

get out to the world with this book?

Gary Harpst: 00:59:54

I hope that people will have an aha moment to realize that

Gary Harpst: 01:00:00

God has called them to bring order out of chaos and not be its victim.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:08

And if you feel like you're a victim, It's because you haven't yet really

Gary Harpst: 01:00:14

clarified what your purpose is.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:17

Because if I, if I look at the world, like, like the, if I walk into a

Gary Harpst: 01:00:22

kitchen or a, and I don't have a recipe, I don't know where to start.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:27

I'm just completely lost.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:30

And that's, God has made this rich set of resources, billions of people and minds

Gary Harpst: 01:00:37

and all the tree, everything's so rich.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:40

But if you don't have some purpose, that richness overwhelms you.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:45

So that's my message.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:46

we're, we're meant to be victors, not victims.

Gary Harpst: 01:00:50

And, but it's rooted in making sure you've got a purpose that is right.

Tim Winders: 01:00:57

I enjoyed because there's, there's like three things.

Tim Winders: 01:01:01

That you bring together and maybe you and I speak similar language.

Tim Winders: 01:01:04

So I'm definitely attracted to definitely heavy on scripture.

Tim Winders: 01:01:08

You don't back away from any scripture at all, which is, which is great.

Tim Winders: 01:01:11

And you also obviously practical business and interaction skills,

Tim Winders: 01:01:16

but then also you bring in some.

Tim Winders: 01:01:19

Pretty heavy, I'll call it physics, science, and other things like that.

Tim Winders: 01:01:24

I mean, I'm reading some things here going, Gary just went over my

Tim Winders: 01:01:28

head a little bit here and I was like going, that bothers me some.

Tim Winders: 01:01:31

so who would you, who would you define the book is for?

Tim Winders: 01:01:34

Give me a good, I mean, I know we want everybody when we write

Tim Winders: 01:01:38

books because there's value there, but just give me a good profile.

Tim Winders: 01:01:42

And then we've got a few things we're going to finish up here with.

Gary Harpst: 01:01:45

Well, the book is for that, that senior leader who wants

Gary Harpst: 01:01:49

to get serious about integrating their faith and their business.

Gary Harpst: 01:01:54

And Hey, I'm the book is just as much about business as it is faith, because you

Gary Harpst: 01:01:59

cannot care for people if you can't run a good business and we try to separate them.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:06

You cannot separate them.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:07

Doing quality work, building a product is spiritual.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:13

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 01:02:14

I think the thing I love.

Tim Winders: 01:02:16

I think, I think the love is that you brought you, you are, you know, we're

Tim Winders: 01:02:21

trying to bring that kingdom of God into this business world and you're doing

Tim Winders: 01:02:25

everything I can see a great job of it.

Tim Winders: 01:02:29

And with all the things you're doing, Gary, why don't you hear, we'll include

Tim Winders: 01:02:32

it down in the notes, but tell everybody where they could get resources, where

Tim Winders: 01:02:36

they can connect you with the lead first or the book or anything else, anything

Tim Winders: 01:02:39

else you want to share that people that might want to connect with you and go into

Tim Winders: 01:02:44

all these deep conversations that we've.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:47

Yeah, we certainly go to the website because all

Gary Harpst: 01:02:49

of our resources are there.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:51

Leadfirst.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:54

ai is the, qualifier on the lead on the website.

Gary Harpst: 01:02:58

There's some of my personal writings and there's a newsletter if you're.

Gary Harpst: 01:03:04

If you want to hear more about these sort of thoughts of the intersection

Gary Harpst: 01:03:08

of faith and business, because I write something every week and have, have

Gary Harpst: 01:03:11

a video every week, those kinds of things, we have a platform to, it's not

Gary Harpst: 01:03:15

for everybody, but for, for business who wants to figure out how to cope

Gary Harpst: 01:03:20

with the growth and giving people good performance reviews and training them and.

Gary Harpst: 01:03:25

Keeping track of goals, all that plumbing that it takes

Gary Harpst: 01:03:28

to manage a growing business.

Gary Harpst: 01:03:30

we have some tools for that too.

Tim Winders: 01:03:34

Very good.

Tim Winders: 01:03:35

Gary, I appreciate all that.

Tim Winders: 01:03:36

And I've been checking out a good bit of that here over the last few days as

Tim Winders: 01:03:39

I've been researching and I, I love.

Tim Winders: 01:03:42

The language you're speaking and the message that you're getting out there.

Tim Winders: 01:03:45

I really appreciate it, Gary.

Tim Winders: 01:03:47

We are seek, go create those three words.

Tim Winders: 01:03:50

My final question for you, I'm going to let you pick one of those

Tim Winders: 01:03:52

words or force you to pick one of those words might be a better way.

Tim Winders: 01:03:56

Pick one of those words that just means more to you resonates, whatever currently.

Tim Winders: 01:04:00

And why?

Gary Harpst: 01:04:02

Yeah.

Gary Harpst: 01:04:03

Create is the one that comes to mind.

Gary Harpst: 01:04:06

We are create Ted.

Gary Harpst: 01:04:09

And we were created to create.

Gary Harpst: 01:04:13

And so I love that word, create involves purpose.

Gary Harpst: 01:04:16

You've got to know what you're trying to create, but you have to have

Gary Harpst: 01:04:21

skills to do it, wisdom and knowledge.

Gary Harpst: 01:04:23

So create is a very rich encapsulation of what God, intended when he created us.

Tim Winders: 01:04:32

Very good, Gary, thank you for this conversation.

Tim Winders: 01:04:36

Boy, I loved it.

Tim Winders: 01:04:36

Make sure you pick up the book built to beat chaos.

Tim Winders: 01:04:40

If you've been listening in, we'll have some links down there and

Tim Winders: 01:04:43

just check out all that he's doing.

Tim Winders: 01:04:44

I think it will be a, it'll be a blessing to use to those folks

Tim Winders: 01:04:47

that are attempting to bring this business world and the kingdom of

Tim Winders: 01:04:51

God together in, in, in whatever.

Tim Winders: 01:04:54

Whatever you're doing.

Tim Winders: 01:04:55

We're SeekGoCreate.

Tim Winders: 01:04:56

We release new episodes every Monday.

Tim Winders: 01:04:58

If you'd like to support what we're doing here, you can go to a website and do

Tim Winders: 01:05:01

financially support us or write us a note.

Tim Winders: 01:05:04

Just go to SeekGoCreate.

Tim Winders: 01:05:05

com forward slash support.

Tim Winders: 01:05:08

And you find all the information there.

Tim Winders: 01:05:10

Until next time, continue being all that you were created to be.