Episode 86 - What Shapes Your Desires? with Toby Kurth
Today we are talking to Toby Kurth, the lead pastor at Christ Church San Francisco. Toby has been a faithful voice inside the Faith Driven Movement, a friend, pastor and even Chaplain to our team. We’re excited that we finally got to have him on the show today—feels like this episode is long overdue.
We’re going to hear a bit of his story, and we’re also going to dive in with him on the 5 Marks of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, which he was instrumental in shaping. If you haven’t read those yet, we suggest you check them out, but if you want to hear more about what they are and why they matter, this episode is for you.
Toby also forced us to ask a great question—what shapes your desires? Asking this is key to aligning our values and desires with the way God wants us to do business. And as Toby shared with us, when our desires match God’s desires, there’s no limit to what He might do through our work.
Useful Links:
The 5 Marks of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur
Do You Know What Is Shaping Your Desires?
I Am The Light of the World - Toby Kurth Sermon
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry [00:03:23] Toby, thank you for being on the podcast.
Toby [00:03:25] My pleasure.
Henry [00:03:26] As you know, you are our corporate chaplain. And you know, if you're listening to this by guest, you know that we are big, big proponents of chaplaincy. And of course, we need to have that for what we do here at Sovereign's Capital and also faith driven entrepreneur and faith driven investor. I got to know Toby originally because a recommendation from William marcoh host and William said, you've gotta listen, this guy's sermons. And I started listening to them and realized that William was right. And they're a couple. It really made impact. One of which I want to unpack a little bit on this show. And this show is probably going to be rambling a little bit because there's so many different things we talk about. What I would like to get at is some commentary on our five marks. You helped us to review that super important that as we espouse different theological themes that we root them in while we get input from different people who understand God's word better than we do. And you were gracious enough to go through that with us. And I want to talk about that a little bit. I want to talk about the dangers of that, maybe just being a checklist, someone to talk about what additional march might be with time. I want to talk about the power dynamic of an entrepreneur. And then we also collectively talked about the fact that we'd love to get into this sermon that we listened to and that we've listened we've put up on the blog and that we've highlighted in the past and talked about in the past, which is what shapes your desires. So before we get into other things, let's go ahead and start there. What is this sermon that I listened to that helped me to really understand? This is the type of person that we really want to speak into theologically about what happens on the program, among others. There's a bunch of other folks that have guidance. And this Chip Ingram has been great. Tom Nelson from A to flourish, JD Gary or others, they've been super helpful and encouraging. But your sermon that you talked about, what shifts your desires impact to me as a Christ? Fowler impacted me as a consumer and that to me as a saver, as an investor, absolutely. As an entrepreneur. Talk about that a little bit, please.
Toby [00:05:26] It really begins like most good theology all the way back in Genesis 1. So you see this idea that what does it mean for us to be created in God's image and in a very real way, we are created to imitate. And Rene Jarod's theology on this is phenomenal is think yes. About Trei on the show. But he really gets this idea that we are born to imitate. And if you think about in the garden, we are born to imitate God. We are supposed to be like him. We're supposed to reflect him to the world. And so we're born into this world. Pre-wired, hardwired, rather, to imitate. And if we imitate God, it leads us to freedom. And so who God's called us to be. But because of sin and brokenness in the way the world works, we always go outside of ourselves, our sense of identity and rarely land on God. And so if we don't land on God, something's shaping our desires other than God.
[00:06:12] And it can lead us to rivalry and all kinds of destructive patterns of a personal life, a business of everything else. And so I think for me, the big awakening I had was, do I really know what's shaping my desires? Because I fundamentally believe I'm going outside of myself or a sense of identity and purpose. I'm going outside of myself to have my desires shape. And what was kind of a scary thought is if I don't know what's shaping my desires, it's probably not something good.
Henry [00:06:38] So that's really interesting. So on a personal level, I understand what shapes our desires in what shapes your desires also shapes what happens in the way that you consume. And if it shapes the way you consume it, it shapes the way the marketplace happens and the shapes the way that the economy happens and the shapes the way that there are opportunities created, both good and bad for entrepreneurs. Talk about this memetics in the way that you see it play out in the marketplace, which is where entrepreneurs are.
Toby [00:07:07] So it's interesting is and this has been written in a lot of scholarly research, but we tend to think of our rivalry as being with some people that are different than us, but our greatest rivalries are often with people that are the most similar. We are going outside ourselves to model ourselves after somebody else. And so on a subconscious level, our desires are being shaped such that we don't even know why we want what we want. So when it comes down to it, like I tend to like brown leather shoes and I think I like brown leather shoes just because I like them. But at the core, something shaping that desire. Now, that seems like a pretty silly kind of thing, but we talked about this, Henry and I mentioned that message. A pair of Black Easy 350 Nike tennis shoes that cost sixty five dollars to bring to market a few years ago sold on eBay for towards ten thousand dollars. So inherently, they're not worth any more than $65. So what makes them were ten thousand? Well, your imitation of somebody else's desire. Other people are competing over those products with you. And the more we compete over these things together, the more it seems like our rivalry and competition is legitimate and we're just leading each other down this destructive path. And so the way we do our own consuming and the way we try to help others to consume or want them to consume our products that we're producing is all wrapped up in this. And there's many layers of that, especially in Silicon Valley. But you think about Silicon Valley is one giant memetic machine. Tons of Stanford grads over the years. And they would all point to the evils of this that the other thing about the corporate world. But every single one of them, virtually that I've spoken to, they want to go into tech. They went for an early stage startup and they want to cash out at IPO.
Henry [00:08:39] So I think about this and it caused me to think about things deeper. One of the things that jumped out at me, my Bible reading somewhere in Ecclesiastes and I'm paraphrasing here and I can't even tell you the exact chapter and verse, you'd think I'd be better prepared. But it talks about the fact that the envy of one another's goods are another's goods is what creates the economy.
[00:09:01] It's Ecclesiastes '44. So he says, I saw that all labor and all skillful work is due to one person's jealousy for another.
[00:09:09] So that's amazing and it's amazing on so many different levels. One of which is because we all know is to be very, very true. And so that's driving an economy when we see them mimetic desire, driving prices in price inefficiency and arbitrage opportunities or where a profit opportunities. How do you think about that as an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurs are wired and maybe they're not wired. Maybe we should unpack that. But entrepreneurs tend to want to seize market opportunities. And if I can buy a shoe for sixty five dollars and sell for ten thousand, that seemed to be a market opportunity. Am I exacerbating this whole envy of one another's goods by the enterprise that I've created, or does that not matter?
Toby [00:09:52] I think it's interesting because obviously there's many different perspectives on how you engage the economy and some people will tell you just have integrity and go out there and do business and everything will work out OK. But I do think if we understand at a core level that every human being's image bearer of God entitled to dignity and to worth and to honor and to love and to respect and to all those things, then I think we have to ask the question is the way I'm doing marketing is the way I'm doing business, helping them to understand their image, better nature, helping them to embrace dignity and worth and honor and extend that to others. Or is it appealing to their more basic natures and actually having a destructive impact on their lives? And I can be a hard question in some capacity. I think it has to be a core question. What we're having am I having a restorative redemptive impact on these individuals or am I having a destructive impact, not just am I making money off of them.
Rusty [00:10:42] So take that, Toby, and contrast to the call for us to be excellent at what we do. Right, that we're supposed to demonstrate excellence. And, you know, the truth of the matter is we should be asking the question, why is it sometimes that those of us who might be trying to do something for our Christian values or ministering for sometimes don't live up to the excellence of the rest of the secular world? And why do we let that happen? So contrast that to our competing in this economy or are we supposed to just stand above all of that and just that excellence will shine through?
Toby [00:11:18] I think it's it's a good question, obviously. I think it has to come back to identity again, and that's why I think excellence comes from. But there can be one thing. I want to produce an excellent product just to outcompete somebody else and someone that they sell. Or can I tap into something even deeper and say that the reason I want to create the reason I want to be entrepreneurial, the reason I want to go out and do and make and produce is because that's how God is and that's how he's made me. And when I do these things, I can reflect him. But am I doing those things in a way that kind of helps connect other people to their true nature? Or am I doing it in a way that kind of diminishes and destroys?
[00:11:54] And I think we see the most healthy and helpful kind of competition oftentimes in sports.
[00:11:59] Jesse Owens is competing in these Olympic Games hosted by Hitler, and he is the world leader at that point in time. And he's competing. It's lots. Like the Nazis hope for victory in this category, Lutz has been a European leader. Owens has been the world leader and Jesse Owens in the second round. This is about to fall out. There's a footfall thing that happens where they measure your long jump by the distance between the end of the board and where you land in the sand. And so Jesse Owens keeps footfall and keeps going over that limit. And he's get one more jump over and he's out of the competition.
[00:12:31] So arguably competitively, that's better for Lutz, because if Jesse Owens is out, he's got a gold medal wrapped up. Hitler's happy. Everyone's happy, but lots does not want to see someone he admires so much. Go down. And so he, in broken English, comes over, puts a towel down and tells Jesse Owens, basically, you don't have to maximize your distance. Just put this towel back. Jump. Make it into the final round and regroup. And so Jesse Owens does. That qualifies. Goes to the final. And then you have lots. And Owens both jump farther than they've ever jump before. And they finish it with gold and silver medals. And it began a lifelong friendship, at least until Lutz was killed in World War Two. So that kind of competition elevates.
[00:13:12] You want beauty in a way that makes somebody else the best self they can be, and you're the best self you can be. And you're both elevating your game. You're both doing better you could ever possibly do. And if one of you slightly better in the other, so be it.
Henry [00:13:25] It's a great story. So you continue to be fascinated by this memetics. And what it might mean is we as entrepreneurs understand the base nature of the way the economy works and what motivates somebody. What influences and shapes their desires and the way that we might have a redemptive view of things like marketing about how not to necessarily just appeal to their base nature. I think of the popular venture capital fund that says, you know, we invest in the seven deadly sins. If you want to look at our investment, the door to Ashley's slaw thing, gluttony. Right. So that you can make money by looking at that. But I think that a Christ follower is called to something greater so we can get a sense for what that might look like maybe in marketing. But memetic theory, you posit that when we try to imitate God as we were originally created to, that's a good thing. How might we as entrepreneurs, trade enterprises that imitate God rather than go into and are motivated by some of the baser elements of memetic theory?
Toby [00:14:23] Yeah, I think it's. And this is again, kind of a jihad thing he lays out is we all have this illusion that we're autonomous and we're making our decisions and doing what we're doing of our own free will. And we imagine that God or Jesus wants to take away from us an autonomy we suppose we have. And what's your art argues very effectively as it's actually once we imitate Christ, that we're freed up from these destructive rivalries we never knew were in trapping us before. And so I think when we do business and build companies in a way that frees people up to connect to who God created them to be, and there's free to that. Right. There's again, dignity and worth and honor and love and affirming the common humanity of everybody when that's happening. I think that we are having a redemptive impact on them beyond just a business impact.
[00:15:07] And so I think we ask those kind of questions as a net result of me being in business. Are people made more whole or they made more fractured or having a destructive impact on their life?
Henry [00:15:19] Show us some examples. If you if they're top of mind for you of the good and the bad and the ugly of that, what are some businesses and some enterprises that you've seen created? They get more to this kind of Garden of Eden type of memetics versus maybe some businesses that you seem created that are on the flipside of that.
Toby [00:15:36] So I think there's this kind of framework. If you if you go back to the garden and we had this conversation before, but if you go back to the garden even before the fall, God's call on Adam and Eve was to subdue the earth. It was to bring order out of chaos and to bring like a beautiful human impact. And so I think as we think about doing business today of things that bring order out of chaos and things that make the world a better place, not in just a temporary or superficial way, but going down, you know, deep to the core of what you do and why you do it. The easiest examples of that, obviously, are enterprises that invest in people that are at risk. And so I'll give you one. It's like a low hanging fruit. Then I'll go to something that's bigger. Old School Cafe in San Francisco. There's a woman named Theresa Goings down there, and she was working with kids in the system. And then she realized that once they're in the system, she can only have a limited impact on them. And then so she decided she wants to have a more broad impact on them. And so she goes out and starts a business that's a catering and restaurant business that employs youth from sixteen to twenty six. It's faith based, but they're investing in these kids and they're teaching them every aspect of the restaurant industry and they're teaching them really, you know, how to be good, the whole human beings. And then they're running a successful restaurant as a result as well. Now their food is good. And so, Teresa, you know, they've had a little bit of a hit here and they're on their business because kids just aren't as good as waiters as the waiters that are here in San Francisco. And so if she went out and just hired waiters that could maximize her business, she would make more money. But they take a little bit of a hit. So they can have a positive. Destructive impact on the whole on these kids and the number of stories they have of running business in this way are astonishing. I have another friend that did a start up like that in in Japan where he hired people that have learning disabilities or were Down syndrome to assemble a lot of his products, simple products, but to assemble them so they can have a real human impact. And that way, some of those are kind of like low hanging fruit. Might seem like they're not applicable to every business. But I do think I've got a friend that's doing this in Colorado now. And he's because of this image of God theology and because he's thinking about his broader impacts. He's thought, how can my hiring look different? I know how to do hiring in a traditional way. But what are some pools of people that I can invest in to provide increased dignity and worth and honor to that maybe because of their socio economic class or ethnicity or background, haven't had the same opportunities that I've had. And so they have massively retooled their strategy for hiring to go in and look at how you could do that in a way that could have a more positive impact. So they're thinking more than just about the pure profit of their business.
Henry [00:18:10] So another kind of riff on memetics and just trying to do what somebody else did. And that's there's a lot of us that would look at an example of this and say, I want to do the same type of thing. I love the time we get together over lunch. And you talked about the example of Liberia and West Africa and the dangers of just trying to rinse and repeat. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Because I think it's got a lot of great application for entrepreneur.
Toby [00:18:38] And I think this could sound like some of the foundational principles of what you guys are doing with nature of an entrepreneur. There's this idea that if we don't embody the values, if they don't truly emerge from how we've been shaped as human beings, it just simply won't work. And the illustration of that is, you know, the American constitution, before the American constitution, there were the Articles of Confederation, which were a massive failure. But this group of leaders, the United States, they kept working through all these different systems of government. So then when they finally put the American constitution down on paper, it wasn't just a series of principles. It was something that really matched the process and the experience and the wisdom of all of those in the room. So these men had been changed through failure and through seeing everything they done for that in the history of their country. And so when they finally put the constitution down, it worked because it emerged from who they actually were.
[00:19:28] Now, by contrast, Liberia, which was founded as a colony in 1847 in Africa, they looked at the US system and said, that works. And so they took almost, you know, word for word, the US system of government and drops it in place in Liberia. And it was a miserable failure. And so the question is, why was it a miserable failure? And the reason that was, is because it didn't emerge from who they were. The soil hadn't been till that hadn't been properly prepared. So when that seed went out, it couldn't bear fruit because it just wasn't ready to. So everything that we do has to emerge from who we really are. And from the core of our character, you can't build a company that has integrity if you don't have integrity. You can't build a company that says it values honesty if you don't value honesty. I can successfully lead a Jim if I hate working out.
Henry [00:20:16] Now, you brought that up and you'd said that has some overlap with Faith Driven Entrepreneur. And when we started talking about the Liberia example, it was within the concept of a discussion of the five marks where we said we think that there might be five things. You're unifying principles that everybody can agree to. And you brought this Liberia example and said, be careful that it's not just the Constitution. This is something that's worked well through sovereign's capital companies and through band-width. And you've seen that there's some universals here. But if you hold this up as to be on and on and just implement this, don't expect it's always going to have the same results if it's not mirin how God has worked through somebodies life and their opportunities. You talked about that a little bit more in and hopefully you won't throw the five marks, which is something we believe in strongly here. Faith driven enterprise completely under the bus. But you know, that's what you're getting, right? There's a danger of going ahead, finding out something that's been a principal, this work for somebody else and then just implemented right away in your life for your business.
Toby [00:21:14] Yeah. So I think that beautified marks is a lot of it's emerged from the process of you and others trying to do it and seeing success and seeing some failure. And so that process itself has changed you. And so it's not just about like getting the principles down on paper. It's about how do we help others embody these principles more deeply. So in a very real way, it doesn't matter what the end documents says if it doesn't embody the group that's trying to follow it. So there's a real formation piece that cannot be missed. We're not about just laying down five simple principles done work, but we're saying these we want to live lives that are accurately summarized by these five marks.
Rusty [00:21:56] So, Toby, I tend to think that you've got a very unique vantage point for our listeners today. One, you're a pastor to you, chaplain, a group of. Festers in the not always, but predominantly a lot of their ventures in the technology space. And you're right here in the middle of Silicon Valley, in the heart of innovation, as you map memetics and what you're talking about, sort of our need is Christ followers to sort of pierce through what's going on in the culture. Give us your insight and perspective on the current generation and our faith driven entrepreneurs who are out here listening, who just doesn't necessarily mean that all of their team are faith driven, but they might be working with a generation that cares a lot about meaning. They care about purpose. They want to know that the company is doing really good but doing well. How could you give us advice on how to map across our beliefs to that generation where it comes alive for them?
Toby [00:22:57] I think that's excellent. I think the core of it, I'm raising three sons as well in this environment. My oldest is 17. And the question we talk about a lot is, you know, why do you want what you want? Or another way of saying it is, what are you for? You know, we know with all kinds of things in the world or for. Right. I know what my phone's for and oh, my computer's for. What am I as a human being for? And what's informing that? Now, coming back to again, the idea being an image of God at the core, I'm going to share my faith. I know that because they're an image of God, they're entitled to dignity and to worth and to honor and to love and to respect. And so I want them to understand that at a core level that they are unique and special and amazing because God made them and he made them to be like him. And so when I'm trying to guide people in all kinds of walks of life in the decisions they're making, you got to get at a core of like, you know, why do you want what you want? What's really shaping that desire is what's shaping that desire. Good for you and good for others, or there's some aspect to it that is actually destructive to you or destructive to others. And the reality is, when we are living free of having a destructive impact on ourselves or having a destructive impact on others when we are imitating Christ or maybe even people that look like Christ, it actually frees us up to be more creative, to be more kind to me, more loving, because it taps into who we are and why God created us. I mean, do you ever wonder why, like things like harmony and peace, like feel so good, right? We feel great. And then when you get a big fight with your wife, not that I ever have, you feel terrible because God created us for harmony and peace and, you know, destructive patterns of life that have negative impacts on others feel bad because they're very much against our nature. And so the more you can try to help someone understand what they are created for and the amazing dignity and worth and honor and love they have before they do or say anything, just who they are. There's dignity and worth and value, too. Then I think it frees them up to express creativity and entrepreneurship and beautiful and wonderful ways.
Rusty [00:24:58] What I also love about that is you can ask those two questions to a nonbeliever. Yeah, right. I mean, you can sit with a nonbeliever and say, what are you for and why do you want what you want? And leave them in a place of questioning themselves, but also asking the person who's asking that question, why do you ask? And I think that sometimes that's something that we miss in our time in the marketplace, which is to ask those probing questions where somebody comes back around to you and goes, well, tell me why you're asking. And we get to share faith.
Toby [00:25:30] Well, I think you can do that a really winsome way, too, because you can present it in a very real way and say, look, here's a question. I think every human being on the planet, regardless of what their faith system is or isn't, needs to answer like what are you or I'll give you my perspective, given my faith and you know who I am and here's where I find meaning. You know, I want to help you find meaning. And so I think you can be accessible and winsome and not be awkward and weird and off-putting.
Rusty [00:25:54] Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Thank you for that. I think that's great advice.
Henry [00:25:59] Toby, one of the things that we've talked about in the past is the concept of a power dynamic and the power dynamic that we can be conscious of as entrepreneurs and bosses and people creating products and services inside them. And then the power dynamic that we're not even aware of. Talk about that a bit. Talk about the upside and the downside of the power dynamic that every afternoon or has but might not be completely aware of.
Toby [00:26:25] Yes, I think all of us, no matter who we are, where we're born, have a certain amount of power at our disposal. And most of us have heard the famous quote by Lord John Acton, a 19th century British member of parliament, that said power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So in most the research and all that kind of stuff shows it. There's a power dynamic in every single human relationship to some degree or another. And so the question isn't, do I have power? The question is, how am I using the power I've been given? And what at a fundamental level do I think that power is for him? There was a big study on a book of proverbs by G.K. Beale, that Old Testament scholar, and he extended the conclusions of the study really to the whole Old Testament. And he said you could rightly summarize wickedness in the Old Testament by this phrase, you're disadvantaging others for the benefit of yourself. And you could rightly summarize righteousness or being like God and the Old Testament with this phrase, you're disadvantaging yourself for the benefit of others. And you see this pattern in how Jesus used power whenever he was on earth. Brian, the Reds, who's a pastor down in Mountain View at abundant life, he's got a lot on this. And Brian's an African-American pastor and talked a lot about the power dynamics and culture and uniquely from his perspective. Then I wrote this down. He says, I don't think privilege in and of itself is the problem. I think poor stewardship of privilege is a problem. After all, Jesus was the most privileged individual to walk the face of the earth. He was God in flesh doesn't get more privilege than that. And so the question is not that you feel bad or weird or guilty about using power, but you recognize what you've been given. And then you ask yourself, am I stewarding this in a way that looks like Christ? Am I disadvantaging myself to benefit others? And that can look like a lot of different things. I'll tell you this, I did some stuff in politics in the past and I've been around a lot of pretty High-Powered business people and the ones that have a lot of integrity and the ones I truly respect. There's been one commonality and they make time to invest in others irrespective. It's not a networking thing. It's not a tit for tat. It's not a quid pro quo. It's they are legitimately wanting to invest in others. And I think you can kind of think about that yourself. Like, what's one example? Do I do my time as a resource given to me by God to certainly get dominated, to get done? But do I recognize that there's a sacrificial view of my time where maybe I don't want to take this meaning, but maybe God's going to use me in this person's life to mentor them or to help them in some way, shape or form to stewarding power and privilege as a business owner?
Henry [00:28:55] I think that's a great mindset as you think through that. What are the different ways that you think an entrepreneur might think about the power dynamic? Let's start with employees and what are some ways that if we're not conscious of the opportunities to add power and privilege, then it might go wrong? And I suppose that there's some obvious examples about looking to love on other people. But when somebody is not really conscious of the car dynamic where it can go wrong and you're working with entrepreneurs here in Silicon Valley, you've probably seen a number of entrepreneurs that have not stewarded privilege and power. Well, what does that look like? So we can avoid it.
Toby [00:29:30] I mean, I think it's it's interesting one, right? So if you look at like Christ used his power, he gave it away. He used it to love and to serve others.
[00:29:38] And I think there could be a scarcity mentality sometimes in entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley where people are afraid to give up power because it might jeopardize their position or their future opportunities for success. And that's not true in everything, what I'm saying. Like you're asking me for some kind of negative example. So here you can have good intentions. You want to maximize your preservation of your position. And so you're going to work your butt off and you're going to get a lot done and you're going to be successful.
[00:30:03] But you might have opportunities to bring other people into the process as you get away from that scarcity mentality that actually brings in more abundance than you can ever produce on your own. And so I think that's, again, a pattern of. And I think we all believe this at one level. If I am investing in others, it leads to an abundance and not a depletion. So, you know, the more Christ invested in, the more price perform miracles, the more Christ laid his life down for others, the more good fruit and everything else spread from that. So the more I spend my time investing in others, the more empower other people in my corporation or within my sphere of influence. It's going to result in an abundance and then not a scarcity.
Rusty [00:30:43] That's good. That's good. But what you're saying is we're not in a zero sum game.
Toby [00:30:49] Yes.
Rusty [00:30:49] But that's the message that society and the message that industry sends us so many times is that it's a zero sum game. One must win, must win. Lose, but that's not the kingdom message.
Toby [00:31:01] No, I think the simplest way of putting it for me is like we're given power to be like Jesus in the way we use our power.
Henry [00:31:08] So an entrepreneur gives up some power, allows other people to make calls. That might be different from what the entrepreneur might have. He's given up power is given a privilege. And the net goal is that that other person gains maybe at the expense of what the leader would want within bounds. But the end result is that you have a more thriving business and culture where people feel that they have some power and they have some privilege, and that makes the workplace more attractive to them. Tell me about if any example is negative or positive come to mind in terms of the power dynamic. And this might be harder to come up with, but the power dynamic that an entrepreneur has with their customers. That's a good question. So we have you know, I think about some of the different companies I pay money for to receive different products and services that are important to me and their different times that I have felt like a victim. I felt powerless for somebody who has my phone service or my electric service or, you know, fill in the blanks or I am stranded with my family in an airport and I'm reliant on an airline, somebody I paid money for. What does that look like to steward a power dynamic between an entrepreneur and the company they steward and their customers?
Toby [00:32:27] Yeah. None of us like feeling like that, right? Like you feel like someone else has your power resources and they're not serving you as a result of it. They don't care about you as an individual. You're just a number to them. And I think a lot of that, again, goes back to identity. What does that feel so wrong? There's a core level on which every human being knows being used and abused is a terrible thing and feels wrong. And so I think for all of us, you think about again. What impact do I want to have on another human being through the way that I'm doing work, the way I'm providing products and services? There's some way and this is you can't always do this in every single turn. But like, does someone feel valued as a human being because of the way they're interacting with me and my company or because of the way that product? I think we see some of this in like data security. Right. Like this company looks like they're giving you some for free. And then you find out that they've been selling your data and you feel used and abused. And that conversation can get kind of complex. I think, you know, we have increasingly a a culture of victimhood, which some people look at that and say, well, everyone's a victim, so forget it. I don't care. But I think as we have an increasing culture of victimhood and I heard this recently when someone was pointing out that our superheroes today are very different than they were a generation ago.
Toby [00:33:37] So in the 80s, Superman was morally perfect and he was sacrificial to a fault. And he was strong and bold and whatever else. And in the recent remake of Superman, he's a victim. He feels used and abused and he doesn't know how to use his power or whatever else.
[00:33:52] And so many in our society now, as reflected in our movies, naturally identify with people that are more victims, because our baseline assumption now is somebody else wants to use me for their good and my detriment. Whether it's Facebook or whatever else. And so I think the gospel and imitating Christ shines brighter. The darker our culture gets and the more we slip into a victimhood culture which is either accurate or not accurate, but the more our culture goes in that direction, the more when we do business differently, the brighter it's going to shine.
Henry [00:34:23] So it's actually a really interesting framework for us as business owners to understand how might we empower and privilege our employees starting off with our senior management team. But how might we empower and privilege them? And then how might we empower and privilege our customers? And what would that look like? And just to have that discussion and thought I haven't thought through that lens before. I've thought about serving the customer. I thought about looking to love on them and looking to retain them, looking to delight them in all good frames. I think, as always, good to know it does. My customer at bandwith, my customer, Zorin whatever. Do they feel delighted like happens at Chick-Fil-A, but do they feel actually empowered? Do they feel privileged? That's really good.
Rusty [00:35:08] Well, sometimes that comes down to the action that the company takes on behalf of the customer, not only delights them, but it's when they're astonished, right. When they're astonished that a company would go bend over backwards, go that far to make me happy. It's almost impossible. I think what you're saying. Toby, it's almost impossible at that point not to have in somebodies mind to say, hey, there's a good person on the other end of that line. There's a good company on the other end of that, that decision making process. But that's really hard work.
Toby [00:35:39] And that's important. That's very principled work. I think we've all felt this right. Like you call customer service and, you know, you're gonna be dealing with a low level person that probably can't solve your problem. And when they don't solve your problem and they act as though I don't give a rip about you, it just compounds it makes it all the worse. Right. But I've been on a call before where someone hasn't solved my problem, but they've genuinely expressed empathy and concern. And you feel a lot different when you get off of that. There's a lot of foundational principles for Desmond Tutu and helping to lead South Africa out of the era of apartheid. He has a few key ideas. I think that stuck with me since I first read them in there. He basically argues that all of our own personal humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others. And he says in a negative way, he says, I cannot diminish you without diminishing myself.
[00:36:26] And so I think when we do business in a way that has a de-humanizing impact on somebody else, we're actually dehumanizing ourselves in the process.
Henry [00:36:34] Toby, there are a bunch of different places we can take this. We can unpack more of those. But I also want to be sensitive to your time and I also want to be sensitive the fact that we challenge you earlier today about anything that you think that a Faith Driven Entrepreneurial audience should hear about, that we can refine. And then Russ's closes off eventually by asking you what God is doing to your life. And Rusty may have other questions, too. But before we did that, I wanted to check in with you, because I know that you'd put some notes down for today's call and want to make sure we take it in any direction you think makes the most sense.
Toby [00:37:04] Now, I appreciate that. I think for me, one of things that even this week that I think as I've been praying and thinking about different things, that God's really used some of my reading and sermons I've been listening to, to really give me a strong sense of hope that when you get this vision of what God's actually doing in humanity and that God is living and active and working, it provides you with a sense of not, oh, I can just maybe survive this horrible culture in. But it gives a sense in which I can actually have a positive impact on it. And God's got me here for a reason. And there's a way that N.T. Wright puts this when we talk about Christian ethics, just as we oftentimes limit, that's like morality and rules and whatever else. But really it's about practicing in the present, the tunes we're gonna sing and God's New World. So to me, that's a really hopeful thing that the more I help people in this city, in Silicon Valley, in the entrepreneurial world, understand that there is an eternal God that created them with a beautiful and wonderful purpose, and that the more they mirror or image or imitate what God wants to do in their lives, the more they become part of that that beautiful song that God wants all of his people to saying that you can do business in this way and God is going to actually use you to have a positive and constructive and restorative impact upon all the people that you touch.
Henry [00:38:18] That's really good. So the takeaway from this is that there's going to be business in the New Jerusalem and you're practicing that right now. I love practicing the tune and we're all gonna be singing and heaven is our business a way to practice that tune? Are we gonna be entrepreneurs and do work in heaven?
Toby [00:38:32] Absolutely. I mean, God's the original creator and entrepreneur. Right. So that very core of who we are reflects more than almost anything else. That the impulse we have to create and to produce and to bring order out of chaos is a thing God created us for. And the fall has not impacted that. It's impacted our ability to do it well, but it has an impact of that core drive that God's given us.
Rusty [00:38:54] I just hope God is merciful enough that in heaven we don't have to raise money on say.
Henry [00:39:02] You tell me I'm not gonna be able to do my job?
Rusty [00:39:05] We may have to find you a new job, to find you a job. Toby, what's God speaking to you about this week? Could be a verse. Could be anything. But, you know, what's God saying to you at this moment in time?
Toby [00:39:16] I think God for me and for a lot of people I've been interacting with. I think it's a unique and amazing time to be alive and to be living in Silicon Valley. And I think God is beginning to move in ways that most people never thought possible. And I think overwhelmingly for me is God wants to make me more aware of the privilege of where he's put me than the challenges of where he's put me. And that's beginning to reshape the way I think about a lot of things. It's kinda like I tell my kids all the time that we need more gratitude and less attitude. But every time I tell them that I'm convicted myself. But I think, you know, to be in San Francisco or Silicon Valley or doing whatever you're doing, wherever you're doing it at this point in time in twenty nineteen is an incredible privilege and call of your heavenly father. And so to sit back and to say, wow, what a time to be alive. This is incredible.
Rusty [00:40:11] That's great. Hey, thanks for being with us today.