Episode 136 - Around the Table: 2020 Year in Review
We’re just as happy as you are that 2020 has finally come to an end. There’s been turmoil, turnover, and uncertainty around every corner. Yet, here at FDI, one thing has remained constant—this podcast.
Week in and week out, we’ve recorded these conversations as we always do, and we couldn’t be more grateful for all the guests that joined us as well as the grounding consistency that this routine has provided.
For those who have listened along all year, this will be a time to reflect on what we’ve heard. And for those who are just joining us, this will be a great place to find the episodes you need to listen to next. As always, thanks for joining us on the journey.
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 FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome to a special edition of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I'm here, as always, with Rusty and William, and this is a special edition in that it gives us a chance to reflect on the work that God has done through the ministry in our lives over the course of the last year. And it's been an incredible year. I don't need to tell you that unless you're listening to this 25 years in the future and trying to figure out what we're talking about. But this is 20, 20, of course, in a world in which the life of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur has looked different than it ever has before. And we've had just as I reflect back on the different folks we've had on the program and some of the things that have happened in the ministry, in the conference, and I reflect and I look at this as a really special year and a year in which God was really at work. And gosh, that sounds so pithy and cliche. You'd expect someone to say that that's driven by their faith on a kind of a ministry podcast like this. And yet when I look back through the guests that we've had on and the feedback we've gotten back from the audience, I feel thankful and blessed. And I don't know if you guys see the same. Am I missing? It might seem Pollyanna.
Rusty Rueff: No, you're right on. I mean, it's been such a challenging year, but so many of our guests have been able to give us words of wisdom, experience. I mean, clearly, we've just been navigating from one been to the river to the next. Right. You know, I mean, it doesn't go much further than that. But, you know, the encouragement that I've gotten and the uplifting from recording these and listening, you know, has been just fantastic. So I hope our listeners have to. It's really helped me.
William Norvell: I agree, Henry, I think it's good to feel thankful and blessed, and I do, and I think it's also good to hold, in the other hand, that many people may not feel that way and that it's still a very trying time. And this season is still a very difficult season where maybe they haven't felt God's presence or maybe don't see his provision yet, but are still holding on to hope that he will show up. And so I think there's both, you know, and I think we've heard that from our guest people in the midst of crisis clinging to Jesus and people who've seen Jesus come through as he always does, in his own unique way.
Henry Kaestner: I want to go back through this past year and a bunch of things I want to do. I want to reflect on some of the things we've seen in the ministry and reflect on some of the lessons in the themes and what we feel that God has spoken to us through things like the conference and some of the other things we've done that God sent through us. I think most especially about the Right Now media video series that's been particularly fulfilling for me. But so much of our ministry to our broader audience is this weekly podcast. And if I were to think about one thing that really symbolizes our work together, it's it's indeed this podcast, because Faith Driven Entrepreneur worship is all about storytelling. It's about the story about God working through entrepeneurs. You know, one of the things I was reflecting on was just yesterday was that when we first started thinking about doing a podcast, I thought, we'll get out there and we'll do 10 or 15 or 20 of these and we'll go through kind of the who's who of the faith driven entrepreneurs. And then, you know, maybe we'll just shut it down after six months or so. We'll just get some great we'll chronicle some great stories and maybe six or seven into this. I thought that that might be what we would do. And yeah, it's been amazing that, you know, one hundred and forty or so podcast episodes into this. The list of people that I want to tell their story to is just exponentially increased. I mean, I can see that doing this for this isn't a contract negotiation, but I can see this doing this for the next five years. We just has so many more stories that are out there. Reflect, though, with me, if you can, just over the course of last year, what are some of the guests whose stories have impacted you the most that have left you with just a different vision of what God is doing through business owners and entrepreneurs, three particular for me and the FDE offerings.
Rusty Rueff: And one of them was so helpful. In fact, I've used his content from the podcast, I would say hundreds of times, and that was Jeff Henderson. So with Jeff came on and talked to us about, you know, what you're for. In the midst of that, he dropped out five questions to help us get through the pandemic.
And those five questions were to be asked at any moment inside of a crisis or you don't quite know where you're going to go or what you're going to do with your business. And they've been so helpful to others, I think they're worth restating. The first question is, what should we stop doing? Like what wasn't really working before? But now we're in a new situation. But we were hanging on to them. They were it was legacy work or are somebody liked it or it was just part of what we always used to do, but it never really yielded fruit. So why don't we just stop doing it? The second one was what is working that we should double down on, right? What should we double down on right now? Because if we put our efforts there, it will yield. The third question was where can we gain new ground that we wouldn't have thought that we could do before? The fourth one was what do we have to address that is essential in the moment? In this moment, you have to stop and think about what the moment is and what's essential that we have to do, and we have to do it at high quality. And then the last one, which is the one that just opens up and I think we've seen it through the pandemic with so many businesses, is what's made possible in this moment that wouldn't have been made possible before. And, you know, clearly the connection that people are having all around the world where, you know, we basically flattened the world through Zoome or through any other video conference where people are working remotely, you know, a lot of things have been made possible, a lot of things still to be made possible. But those five questions that Jeff threw out there were really, really helpful for me and have been helpful for me when I've been able to advise others. And it's been nice to be able to reference him looking back. So that was one highlight for me. The second one really quickly was Glen Jackson around the episode of Achieving Preeminence, and he did a one liner that God's favorite color is transparency. And I have held on to that in this year because in a year where, you know, for a lot of reasons we've wanted transparency, you know, God's favorite color is transparency. And then the last episode, which I just am so proud that we did in a good way, the episode with Rob Thomas and Jeff Parker about how they came through a real crisis and came to reconciliation. And what stuck with me with that was two business partners. You know, one had betrayed another. They came apart. They came back together never as business partners again, but as friends. And the statement was, forgiveness doesn't mean reconciliation. Reconciliation takes extra work. And I think that will always stick with me.
That, you know, just because I forgive somebody doesn't mean that we're automatically going to have reconciliation. If I want reconciliation, I've got to work at it and somebody else has got to work at it with me. So if that was all we did this year with those three, I would have been I would have been happy.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, no, there's really, really good. And I get to tell you, I should come up with my own list. Right. But there's something remarkably powerful about Robin's story. And I mean, I felt like we were part of, you know, what it was. It was a special thing is a lot of times we have entrepreneurs on the program that just reflect on their life and they're able to tell their story in a way that brings us in. And gosh, I love all of our guests. But there was this part that I think you get in at Rusty, which is this difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.
We were a part of the reconciliation.
Rusty Rueff: It was happening like right then Mastro's first time had really done this. Yeah.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. To be clear, there had been some amount of reconciliation that happened before, but it almost felt like we were just kind of like invited into this process with them and that it was a special I felt privileged to be a part of that conversation. And I found myself during the course of the conversation going back to like, OK, so here's the antagonist and here's the protagonist in this story. And I went back and forth and it was like watching three seasons of a reality TV show and you're like a character in it. At the end of it, I just really felt that I was super powerful. And another one, when people ask me about podcast episodes that really make an impact on me, I've got to always come back to Phil Fisher, Phil Fischer's podcast, where he talks about the identity of an entrepreneur. And it's minute 16 a minute. Twenty to four minutes in his articulation of the identity of an entrepreneur or I think the richest four minutes we've ever done and just gets it what we're about so much. But what makes it so special podcast really good. And it was great on its own is when it's juxtaposed against Casey Crawford. And it's us getting on the podcast with Casey and just talking about Phil Fisher. And then Casey said, actually, you know, I know that Phil tells me that I need to be able to have an anxiety free life or if I have too much anxiety, that's a problem in my entrepreneurial life, which to be clear, it is.
But he says, you know, some part of me doesn't really resonate with that either, because I see David going off to war and I see Jesus sweat, blood.
And just to be able to kind of further explore what it looks like to be getting out there and just relying on God and being in the crucible and depending on God. And what's a healthy amount of anxiety and stress and what does that look like? And to see Casey wrestle with that I thought was super special, just telling us now that it's at minute 26, I was 16 to 20. But listen, the whole episode, it's all great, Phil, that you're 16 to 20 is amazing to 15, 20 also amazing. But that whole episode, you can never go wrong with Phil Bishop. But those are some of the impacts that I really reflect on over the course of last year. Yeah.
William Norvell: You know, this is the first time we've done a year in review. So some part of me just mentally goes back to, you know, what you said. I mean, we've been doing this for three years. That's kind of crazy. And for our earliest listeners, they know that they were saved from the early incarnation of this, which was me, Rusty and Henry taking questions and just giving you all our thoughts, like you're going to get here on the year in review. And you said, no, we really like your guest. And it turns out you guys should ask more questions. And so we shifted. And here we are, though, you know, the times have changed.
Henry Kaestner: We wanted this a great time. I'm sorry to interrupt you, William, or maybe I'm not sorry, but I think. Ah, no, I am. I am. But I'll tell you, one of the things that's super important is the engagement from our audience. When you come in and say, gosh, I got a guest, somebody that you really needed to take a look at their story, or I really would wish that you would help me to understand the theme of mental illness. And gosh, the Max Anderson podcast episode was so formative for me. And just can you go deeper into that about what I'm struggling with? That's awesome. But let us know about the format. Let us know about the things that you think are a great and part of that maybe never, ever, ever do another year in review episode again. That's Fair Game.
William Norvell: And that's how we get a lot of our guests, you know, it's people and friends and listen, that's how we started our spin off podcast, Faith Driven Investor. The we'll talk about here in a little bit. And that's been a lot of fun, too. And as I thought back on some of the entrepreneurial guests, I'm going to do some one-Line quotes and maybe I'll start a conversation between the three of us and maybe what what you heard in that.
But, yeah, we're talk about the crisis. I thought back to Michael Hyatt. He said two things. He said, you need to decide how you want to come out of the crisis. And he said secondarily, no one ever drifted to a destination. They would have decided. And so the idea is, you know, you can walk through life. You can.
End up where you're going to end up, you can get through this crisis, but if you have a time, maybe during this holiday season to take a breather and decide what you think the Lord is pushing you towards and decide to go there with a community, with people, with the Holy Spirit, it can be really powerful to make that decision and move towards something as opposed to letting the world sort of take you where it's going to take you.
Rusty Rueff: That's good. You know, to that point in your question that you ask always at the end of every podcast, and if you're not there, we ask it for you. You know, so many times we heard what God is speaking to them is about direction and you know, what they should do next and trying to make decisions. And I think that is a good word from you, William, taking what Michael said, that, you know, we need to ground ourselves there as we think about where we're going to go, because I love that, you know, we're never you know, you don't ever drift in a direction you would have liked to have gone. But we have to ground ourselves in Christ.
Henry Kaestner: No, I want to go. This may be out of order in the podcast, but while you're on the topic of asking guests about what they're hearing from God and his word, I'd like to throw that at you, William. You ask that now hundreds of times. What do you feel that God is speaking to you right now from his word?
William Norvell: Well, usually I ask that after we've given the guests time to reflect and figure it out. But I first. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm just kidding. I would say the biggest theme that I have been just meditating on for probably six months, you know, I always ask that is, you know, has been a season or is it today? The season of my life I've been in as humility. And there's many verses that could show that Jesus talks about that a lot. But the one that just stuck with me is John three thirty. And that's a he must increase and I must decrease. And that's John the Baptist speaking. And I don't know, I've written a small paper if anyone's ever needed to read three pages. I think John the Baptist does not get enough airplay in the world. And Jesus said there's never been a man born of woman that is more than John the Baptist in that statement. And I think what he just showed so much through his short life, we only know so little about John. Right. But we know that he I just imagine he must have had so much humility, one, to say that and to to be chosen as the person who can hold the baptism of Christ. How many people could have held the baptism of Christ and not gotten puffed up and arrogant? I mean, that list has to be pretty sharp. Who were able to be chosen to baptize our lord and savior? And to not let it go their head so that they drop it.
Rusty Rueff: I'd be looking for all sorts of opportunities to absolutely drop that, like, hey, what are you doing last week?
William Norvell: But just imagine in our world, right, if we were focused on he must increase I must decrease all our decisions, all of our attitudes, our families, the way we raise our children, that by the end of my life, people will speak more of Jesus than they will of William.
And that's where God's been chosen.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I think that's probably a pretty safe bet that people will be talking more about Jesus. One hundred years more than normal.
William Norvell: Well, you know, we'll see.
That's a bold bet, the bold that I'm not sure that that's the case for all of us and the gospel. We all hope that to be the case. Well, sorry. What I meant by that is like that when they see my life right, it's. Well, you didn't William did that. It's when they look back at my life, they say, wow, the presence of the Holy Spirit was evident. Yeah. Wow.
Look what Christ did through this. Look what Christ did. You know, we can always tell that story of I did it or Jesus did it right. I did it through my power. And you here with our guest. Right. I feel like God takes us to that, all of them to that humility place of, you know, I mean, look at I have nothing. Kwami Williams just said it right. I realized that if you have God and everything else, you have the same thing as if you have God.
Mhm. Right. Right. Like that's everything. That's the third time in twenty four hours that somebody brought up this concept of radiating God's glory, said that when somebody sees you they see God because you're radiating his glory, you know. Is Oswald Chambers. That was a daily devotional dealing with kids. And we also there's a nativity devotional that John Piper's got out that we're doing and then Kwami and then you just talking about that. What does it look like when people see me to your point? When people see me to they see Christ in me all too often? I'm afraid not. May that be better in twenty twenty one?
Rusty Rueff: Amen for all of us, for all of us, you know, for me, Henry, in the even years as the year that I read the Bible through all the way, I don't do it every year, but I do it in the even years. So it was clearly a pandemic year because I finished on November 30th instead of December 31st, like I normally do, screaming like you're just coming out of revelation.
Henry Kaestner: You could say anything right now.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, exactly. Well, and to that point, the way this reading plan, the navigators, that is who did it years ago, it ends up in that last month in Revelation, in the Book of John, and then with finishing up job and then the minor profits, you know, the profits at the end. So I'm always struck by that last sort of collection of those last 31 days. But this year I was struck even more and it helped with something that one of our guests, Ben Washer, said a few weeks ago with Lecrae about the importance of holiness. And that striving to be wholly. Which in my mind means striving to be obedient, just shows up there in these books at the end and especially at the end of the the Old Testament, because, you know, Jobe and all of the prophets and you know, what happened with the Israelites and all these other countries that, you know, would obey God and not obey God and obey God and not obey God.
And then when they didn't obey God, you know, they became unholy.
And it's really been on my heart that I should strive. For holiness, but I only get there if I strive for obedience and that what God is asking all of us and I'm feeling you ask me, is Rusty just be obedient? Just obey, you know what I want you to do, and I'll take care of the rest of it, you know, but just follow along, will you? You know, just be obedient to me. And that's I think, you know, maybe I can be filled with a little holiness. And to your point, maybe that can radiate.
Henry Kaestner: It's really good. It kind of makes me think of Matthew talking about him first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and you get all these other things, too. So if you're going to aim for holiness, starting with obedience is a good spot. And, you know, what does it look like for me to be obedient to what God is asking me to do? And part of me is, you know, there's some of the things that you would see in scripture. But I think that the call for obedience for all of us has faith driven entrepreneurs is to ask God, what does it look like today? Right. We've been talking recently to build job. We probably won't release this podcast before this one, but look for it. But just his ability to be in constant communication with God and God encourage him in one way or ask him to do something in a different direction. Sounds so sincere when he talked about it. And that gives you just that much more of a sense about what does it really look like to be obedient when you're listening for God's voice? And that's something that I'd like to see myself do a better job for me when I think about the question that William asks about what God speaking to in his word. You talked about the minor profits. If you put a gun to my head right now and said, name that minor prostate. I don't know, Amos, Obediah. I mean, maybe I get half of them and I don't spend a lot of time in the minor profits. I also traditionally and I spent a lot of time in a second chronicles, but I do spend some time in that because now it's the second time going through and reading the Bible with a bunch of friends. I've probably talked about this before on the program. I've got six other buddies and we go through a chapter a day and we've gone through the entire Bible once and are most away through a second time. When you do something like this with some friends, you start seeing some things in some of the books that we might not hear about a lot as a kid growing up or my case, I can if when I was twenty eight and it's in second chronicles, the biggest lessons that God has taught me through his word over this past year come from a book of the Bible that I knew very little about. Second Chronicles and the Second Chronicles starts off with these genealogies. They're very difficult to go through in a chapter and then in a group text to say what is something you know about guy that you didn't know about before, after having just listened to a genealogy? I guess some of my friends, Ghanian Tom Peterson, it's amazing what he can learn from these and extrapolate from these genealogies. I've got nothing there. But there are two things from Second Chronicles that I take away. One is in this year, twenty twenty. It's Second Chronicles 714 and for much of twenty twenty I had my alarm set to 714 every night because the Second Chronicles 714, it says if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
This felt like it was a year where our land needed to be healed and so incredible wasn't coming out of a book of the Bible that I hadn't been as familiar with as I probably should have.
And then the other thing that comes out of the second chronicles is it makes a real impact on me are the lessons from the good kings of Judah. All right. You got bad kings. You got good kings.
And the lessons I had, obviously, there's some bad kings. They did some really, really bad things. But it was the bad things the good kings did.
And they all did something where they did not listen to God. Every one of the good kings. Again, these are the good kings. But somewhere, whether it's a business deal and a trade deal, whether it's going off in a war, they ended up thinking that they had the wisdom they didn't need to see God.
And in each case, it didn't go well for them in that instance. And I think about the long obedience in the same direction and the faithfulness that we need to have and build jobs, admonition about listening to God, you can't take a day off, a week off, a month off. And to say, I got this, I don't need to ask God about this decision.
And I hesitate and I shudder when I think back about the many business decisions I've made in my career where I haven't really sought God and God wants to be sought. And I'm hoping that this is something as a pattern in my life that for all decisions, I'm going to be asked in real time. But that's the lesson from the good kings of Judah from second schools.
Rusty Rueff: Well, that's good. The other piece of second chronicles that I've always loved is, you know, those kings had a bigger responsibility. Like, you know, they talk about Joseph FDE. He was a good king, right.
Says he was a good king, but he never fully got rid of all of the pagan idols. Therefore, the people, not just him, the people, were not able to be fully committed to the Lord. So if you step back and look at that, you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, man, that's the responsibility of leadership. You know, those of us who have the privilege at any time in our careers to sit in a seat of leadership, you know, we are either allowing or denying those people who work for us to be totally fulfilled in our actions and, you know, in our obedience, you know, as Joseph, that he was good king, but not totally obedient.
William Norvell: Oh, so Rusty one of my favorite quotes of the year and I couldn't find exact one, but Patriquin Cioni on exact that he said I've often thought how much better of a dad my dad would have been if he'd have had a better boss. All right.
Wow, and that just stuck with me and I have just thought about that so often about I don't think my father's boss is going to be offended, but I thought about that my dad and the stress he lived under and just the way his business worked. And he was an amazing father. But just like, how much more could he have done if he wasn't under that anxiety and stress? And as we have people leading and thinking about the men and women who they are shepherding, to your point, Rusty creating that environment where they can go home and live in to their callings as part of the family and community.
Henry Kaestner: That's a profound gosh, I just get my money's worth from this episode, just from that one quote. That's incredible. I can't even imagine what how much better of a dad my dad would have been if he had a better boss. Wow. That puts a generational impact of what we as bosses do. That's staggering. Yes.
It's like take it seriously.
Rusty Rueff: You know, someone once said to me is that, you know, the people who work for you, who do you think they're sitting around talking about at the dinner table tonight? They're talking about you, right, and you're either being a good boss or a bad boss, but, you know, that's getting passed around to those kids. And yeah, I think there is a real generational thing there. It shapes how at 10 years old, you think about work and the fulfillment of work or the curse of work. You know, if that's what you hear every night at the dinner table.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. If you meet some of these kids and say, oh, you're the guy who's always late for the meetings, aren't you? Yeah.
Rusty Rueff: So, Henry, you're you're going to you're going to dove into some of this and a and a book that's going to come out soon. Right. Sometime next year. You want to talk about that?
Henry Kaestner: Well, yeah, I can, I can definitely.
That we over time, of course, through our collective history of being faith driven entrepreneurs and mine in particular with bandwidth and sovereigns and then hearing so many stories through what we've done here on the podcast, we've come to understand that there are eight marks on a Faith Driven Entrepreneur and it's not like it's the definitive be all end all conclusive list. But there are some marks of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur that really bind us together. It's identity Christ. It's being faithful rather than willful stewardship versus ownership excellence. All of these things are on the website. Of course they'll be in the book, but we try to do is to have a short type of treasure principal book that'll come out with Tindale next year that will get at the essence of what does it mean for me to be a Faith Driven Entrepreneur a great companion piece or maybe even just a better piece period is actually, as I look over your shoulder, I see the rule of life for Praxis just really, really, really good. I want to encourage our audience to go to the Praxis Labs ERG website and get that. But we're coming up with a version of ours that gets into some of these things like excellence and ministry and word in ministry, indeed, and having a heart for missions. One of the other things that I think that we're going to be leaning into next year, though, we got a little bit of a start this year, is the partnership we did with right now media and the video series that explores these marks. And it was just a really wonderful time to get together with a guy who's going to be one of my coauthors. This is a book that Faith Driven Entrepreneur will be coauthored, is coauthored with JD Greer, president of Southern Baptist, and then Chip Ingram, two great friends of mine for a long, long time, and both of whom care deeply about Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Yep, we did this great video series. I think it's great. Maybe I shouldn't be so boastful, but I really enjoyed doing it. Eight part video series with teaching from JD set up by these really, really powerful videos from Seattle Pacific and their Faith and Company series. And one of the great joys of my life over the course of the last year has been going through a virtual study series with cohorts of entrepreneurs from around the world. We just did on a trial basis two different cohorts, entrepreneurs from nine or 10 different countries and just processing it together, watching the video story, hearing from JD and his teaching, which is 12 to 15 minutes each time, and then just processing it. And there's something incredibly powerful and hearing different entrepreneurs across different countries, different industries, different stages, just sharing experience about how God is working with them. And I'll tell you, at the end of it, it was almost tearful. It was like, what do we do next? You know, when are we going to get together again? And we had shared life together in a way that was super powerful. So we're going to be doing a bunch of those next year. There's sign ups on our website, and our hope is also to be able to get some scale to it, find some folks that have gotten some great experience and be in a Faith Driven Entrepreneur who feel called to help mentor and coach and to lead to be a virtual cohosts or virtual host and coach for a group of 12 to 15 international entrepreneurs, probably half from the states, half from overseas. And so that's another initiative that really fired up about.
Rusty Rueff: And that's exciting. I think it's going to be great. You know, it also makes me think back for a moment to twenty twenty. You know, it wasn't just about the pandemic this year. It was also a lot about social unrest as it relates to, you know, racial justice. And I was really pleased with the guests that we were able to bring on, you know, entrepreneurs or venture capitalists who are investing or working inside of, you know, some of the areas that typically would not get attention in the minority population, minority companies or disadvantaged areas. And I hope we lean more into that. I think that there was some real, really, really, really rich conversations that we had this year about people who are very, very committed and are making a difference. And some things that I know you really care about, Henry, around transfer of, you know, generational wealth and, you know, things that we can all do better as a society. But we did have some very rich guests this year that really, you know, meant something to me.
William Norvell: And it was your family was just a Joburg Solomon on the. Podcast just on, I think she is just an incredible her and her co-founders incredible concept around investing, right. That doesn't fit within the normal construct of private equity venture capital. It is a private equity vehicle. But exactly along your lines, Rusty, they really went to the whiteboard and said, well, what a black entrepreneurs and business leaders need. They actually probably need more of a revenue share model because of the size of the businesses that they typically own. And I just thought it was a really innovative episode on the investing side to think through. How could you get at some of these problems in an innovative way with the life experience that God's blessed you with?
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, and I will tell you that, you know, the guests that we have, I mean, the cool work that's happening in Atlanta, you know, I mean, every time we turn around, we're running into something that's really exciting in Atlanta. And when we get past the pandemic and we can all get back out on the road again, that would be a place that I would love to see us go and record some podcasts and a video podcast in Atlanta.
William Norvell: If it wasn't for the pandemic, I might still live there. That's true. So that would have been easier.
Henry Kaestner: So I want to I want to close out our time together with a prayer. And I'd love for us to pray together. And I hope that as you're listening to this on a run or a commute, that you'll join us and you'll pray with us. And I believe that God will hear this prayer. So please join with me. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the ministry that you've given us, each of us, each of the listeners to this podcast that you've placed us in the marketplace to lead, to create, to innovate, to know you more fully. And with that knowledge, return to our work out of gratitude, with a hopeful expectancy of you using us in a way that will allow us to know you and experience your joy more fully and in our own personal lives and those of our families. But as we love on our partners or vendors or customers, our employees help us to do that faithfully. And as Rusty was talking about obediently. Dear Lord, as we come to the end of the year, we reflect on the great many blessings that you have provided us in this misery, I thank you for just informing our executive director and the producer of this podcast. I thank you for Johnny Wills, who leads content Faith Driven Entrepreneur. I thank you for Richard Bahle, who's our audio engineer. I thank you for Janelle and Dora and Nicole and Anna for their work in helping to organize the different podcasts we have in the show notes and in our outreach. Dear Lord, I ask that you would give each one of the listeners to this podcast a special blessing and a sense that they are loved, that their identity would be in you, and that they would have a life and a joy. That would radiate your glory, as William and Rusty were talking about before, that they would not see the entrepreneur, but they'd see Jesus, they see Christ in us. I pray for the protection of each one of the listeners to this podcast, pray for a successful twenty twenty one a favor and protection and joy and a feeling that we are experiencing your pleasure as we go about our work. Pray for all of these things in Jesus name. Amen.