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

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

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

clarified what your purpose is.

Um,

In a world where leadership often feels chaotic and directionless,

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

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

keynote speaker, and thought leader who has seamlessly blended business

excellence with biblical principles throughout his impressive career.

From founding Solomon Software to creating Lead First, Gary has

demonstrated a profound commitment to developing effective leadership habits.

Rooted in spiritual truths.

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

Yourself and Others, offers a timely manual for navigating the

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

Thank you,

Tim.

I'm looking forward

to this.

I am.

I'm looking forward to this too.

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

got the black uniforms on here.

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

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

That's, that's it.

glad you're here.

We're going to have fun with this conversation.

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

and we'll just have fun discussions.

But before I get too much farther.

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

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

what you do, what do you tell them?

Well, have you ever seen the movie The Hobbit?

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

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

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

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

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

growing and they're on this journey.

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

And I was on that journey.

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

And it was an amazing, exciting, scary journey.

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

businesses that are growing rapidly.

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

kingdom impact at the same time.

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

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

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

Peter Jackson, and haven't seen it.

In a while.

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

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

it with me, but I watched through those.

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

some biblical things and all that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think I want to start.

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

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

It's my wife got onto me one time.

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

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

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

You'll probably tell it.

How old are you?

You can tell us your age.

Yeah, I'm 73 soon to be 74.

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

think about work and retirement.

It, that changed for me a long time ago.

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

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

Arizona where people are wintering and everyone is retired playing pickleball

and all that, which is awesome.

But in some ways it's discouraging to me.

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

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

when I bring up that we have large.

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

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

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

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

to explain how I think about it.

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

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

the God calls us to purpose.

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

I'm an engineer.

You know, engineers are like hammers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

supposed to be a victim of this world.

You're supposed to have an impact on it.

And, so the idea of retiring.

really doesn't enter my thinking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it retirement is not a term I use.

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

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

is your pace different than it once was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

question I want to ask for the listener.

I want you to address this.

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

thirties and they've just popped in.

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

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

chaos and leadership and business.

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

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

to us for the next 45 minutes to an hour?

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

we're going to discuss here?

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

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

that I might present a heart of wisdom.

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

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

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

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

term consequences of short term decisions.

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

the consequences of our decisions.

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

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

and when we see its consequences.

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

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

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

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

older.

Yeah.

I was thinking earlier when we were talking about pace.

When I was much younger, I would have been definitely

categorized as a hustle and grind.

I'm an engineer too, by the way.

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

would be my, I guess, my field.

And I've always been systems.

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

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

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

I still have roughly the same hours.

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

You're nodding.

Would you agree with that?

I totally

agree with you.

I, I would call it this franticness now.

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

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

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

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

you could operate at a different?

I don't want to call it pace.

It's not ours.

You mentioned time.

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

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

just going through our minds.

I think the word uses the word anxiety.

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

I have anxiousness.

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

all these things are rolling in my head.

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

that to take up as much space.

Does that make any sense?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm, I'm done.

I'm, I'm empty.

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

be who I am unless I went through that.

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

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

but they actually are good for you.

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

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

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

our age, you start to see some of the.

Upside of the things you went through.

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

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

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

are the things that have molded us?

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

we would define as definitely not good.

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

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

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

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

That issue.

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

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

now for over 10 years.

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

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

was part of the plan and the purpose.

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

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

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

been through a lot of stuff season.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That, that locked in on purpose.

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

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

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

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

And I, I just felt.

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

And I didn't really know what that meant.

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

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

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

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

think, Oh yeah, I should do this.

But it was more of a surface level thing.

But one morning I still remember it.

I woke up with this deep inner sense.

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

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

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

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

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

that says, I called you to this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

promised to make the thing successful.

He never, that was not part of the piece.

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

And, that surety really was helpful.

So that's a, an upside story.

Now there are definitely downside stories.

I want one time I'm a stubborn guy.

My dad would came out of the depression.

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

never defeated if you don't give up.

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

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

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

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

I need you to increase sales.

That was my idea of a.

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

percent or 25 percent suddenly and unexpectedly that same February.

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

need to get rid of that project.

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

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

We were 175 people at the time.

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

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

And, it was.

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

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

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

So those things really shape you.

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

a way, nothing else will do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that's not an easy thing to do.

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

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

He said, who's your daddy?

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

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

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

How.

How have we gotten skewed in our definition of success?

I think that's one of the foundational places.

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

I think that many times what people do is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Success and maybe how you go about defining success now

at this Stage of your life.

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

wherever you want to hit it Yeah, I

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

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

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

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

what it meant to be a Christ follower.

And, and there's biblical reason for that.

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

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

truth that God makes us different.

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

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

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

things than Gary Harpst in the year 2000.

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

is a masterpiece of uniqueness.

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

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

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

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

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

It is a form of idolatry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And quit worrying about everybody else.

And, so that success boils down to that.

Having such a close relationship with God that you get comfortable

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

In, I don't know, relax.

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

strive to do the best you can.

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

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

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

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

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

yourself and walking in his path.

I,

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

you are too a, a quick decision maker.

Mm-Hmm.

that decides something.

I have a fair degree of confidence in my decision.

Mm-Hmm.

sometimes that gets me in trouble sometimes.

It's helpful in certain situations.

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

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

in waiting for the Lord.

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

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

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

which is typical, right?

Yeah.

That's typical kingdom of God stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

A little bit of the Holy grail in businesses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

listen to God and do what he tells us.

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

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

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

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

gone through a few iterations.

I think you were once it was the six disciplines.

Now it's lead first.

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

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

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

things you're talking about now.

Well, this is,

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

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

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

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

broken into about, in 20 year periods.

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

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

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

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

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

a 20 year period where that was painful.

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

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

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

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

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

which is what lead first is, lead.

First 20 years taught me about growth in business.

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

a lot applied to the first 20 years.

And managed better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, we sold the business.

It was growing at a rate that.

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

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

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

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

a business besides its balance sheet.

It's the relationships of all the people.

And the values that those people hold collectively.

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

that is going to be destroyed.

Third part.

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

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

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

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

to really run a good business.

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

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

All those things are incredibly difficult.

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

profits, which I'm in favor of profits.

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

the resources God has given you.

And, you should be generous with it.

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

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

and loves on people the way God says.

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

It is a human relationship asset.

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

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

I just.

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

sales and those sorts of things.

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

I'm sorry for that, but

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

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

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

to this, but I, I love it.

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

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

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

the spreadsheets that's important.

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

of God, which is different.

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

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

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

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

I have been around business most of my life.

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

of how I came to be the way I am.

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

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

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

Yeah, I agree.

And then I've been over on ministry circles.

I've been to Bible school.

We have a family foundation and things like that.

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

of the business principles in.

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

hyper, and that's not entirely bad.

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

here the intersection of those two.

Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

with employees, with people.

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

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

Gary, why people can't do it easily?

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

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

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

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

They don't.

Why?

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

And I thought a lot

about that.

Do we need to go lighter?

Do we need to go lighter questions?

Do we need to go light?

No, I

love them.

And I thought a lot about this particular one.

And the term that comes to my mind is integration.

Balance.

versus integration.

God designed an integrated universe, not a balanced universe.

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

I'll give God some of this on Sunday.

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

I'll give my work some time here.

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

how do I weave my spirituality?

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

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

That's an integrated view.

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

that we don't do that very well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and in the base layer is what is it that.

people want from a business.

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

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

So it's going to be around next year.

My job's going to be last.

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

have new opportunities later on.

They'd like management that they can trust.

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

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

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

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

awareness growing right now.

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

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

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

They, and, it, everybody agrees with that.

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

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

The question is whether you care.

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

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

layers are important to me.

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

accountable to doing these things.

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

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

Is that threatening to you?

And it shouldn't be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

hospital, but I can't heal your past.

I can't give you a new identity.

I can't give you eternal life.

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

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

I believe that this layer is available.

If you don't, that's fine.

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

it and to just be open about it.

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

Well, the good

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

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

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

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

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

people are not doing some of those base.

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

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

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

interacting with their neighbor.

Either totally agree.

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

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

chaos and we're gonna discuss chaos here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the effectiveness of doing the third.

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

young CEOs or leaders of.

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

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

your ability to build the kingdom.

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

You have to put the nuts on the bolts.

If you, if you're going to build.

Cars, you better build quality cars.

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

and train them and hold them accountable.

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

Well, no, it's not business stuff.

It's life stuff.

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

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

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

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

The truth is they need the competency of each other.

Many churches.

Are so heavenly minded.

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

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

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

bit.

So no, I love that.

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

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

last two or three years is listening.

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

It's about 15 minutes.

It's a great quiet time.

And it's different than reading it, Gary.

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

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

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

not like their scribes and teachers.

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

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

We need to show love.

We need to do those things where commanded.

Otherwise, we don't have the authority.

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

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

And so very, very, very good.

All right.

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

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

listening in, which is very odd.

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

just, first of all, set the stage.

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

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

We can do it.

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

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

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

talking about how chaotic the world is.

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

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

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

could go into why do we need to beat it?

Sure.

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

of chaos in three categories.

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

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

to it caused by humankind directly.

That's one.

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

husband and wife, children and spouse.

Parents, neighbors, nations, you name it.

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

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

and not at all sociologically?

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

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

and, the evidence is.

Still true.

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

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

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

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

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

God reveals something about our design.

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

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

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

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

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

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

he did tell us something about us.

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

heart is what drives our thinking.

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

humans, heart, mind, which is reason.

Heart is desire.

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

Oh, that's a good idea.

Nope, that's not a good idea.

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

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

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

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

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

not alignment among those.

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

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

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

You see what I mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and he's beginning to feel jealous.

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

Inside of it.

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

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

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

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

And he said, you must master it.

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

God says he created us to overcome.

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

but it's a deep, deep topic.

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

24th or 5th verse of Genesis.

He says, he's talking to himself.

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

He says, you know, let us.

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

and rule and he has to multiply.

There's a lot wrapped into about two sentences.

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

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

And all we know is the previous 25 verses.

That's all that's recorded in Genesis.

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

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

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

And most people will say.

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

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

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

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

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

But what did he do with the chaos?

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

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

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

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

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

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

use my grandmother as an example.

She would create these feasts for Thanksgiving.

That's bringing order out of chaos.

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

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

them into a recipe and make something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long answer.

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

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

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

I don't like that.

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

that might be their, their style.

I don't want to go down that path.

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

yourself a problem solver.

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

see something, we want to fix it.

We see something that's out of order.

We want to create order from it.

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

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

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

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

And I think in many ways that's good.

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

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

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

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

Well, just take that and run with it briefly.

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

And imagination and action.

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

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

fulfilled now, the desire could be wrong.

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

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

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

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

Well, God created us to have dominion.

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

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

That is hungry to have dominion.

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

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

designed us to have dominion.

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

power and all of those things that.

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

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

them in alignment with his purposes.

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

into us and run wild with it.

In our own desires.

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

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

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

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

will quit reacting to the symptom.

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

inclination is to sharpen back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that's where the problem lies.

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

There's something wrong in our genetics with.

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

about, giving us a new heart.

Yeah, correcting those things that were wrong.

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

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

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

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

allowing things to get chaotic again.

And sometimes those are two different skill sets.

Is there a difference between them?

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

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

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

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

and they create some chaos.

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

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

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

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

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

we've created than it did to create it.

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

It's not easy to raise a baby.

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

here 40 years ago, 30 years ago.

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

Roofing it, painting it, landscaping it.

And to your point, some people are initiators.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that's not uncommon, uncommon.

I'm just like you.

It's not uncommon, right?

Yeah.

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

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

I like the cover.

I like that.

I like that.

That's a very chaotic drawing there.

Biblical wisdom for leading yourself.

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

get out to the world with this book?

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

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

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

clarified what your purpose is.

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

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

I'm just completely lost.

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

and all the tree, everything's so rich.

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

So that's my message.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you also obviously practical business and interaction skills,

but then also you bring in some.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to get serious about integrating their faith and their business.

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

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

You cannot separate them.

Doing quality work, building a product is spiritual.

Yeah.

I think the thing I love.

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

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

everything I can see a great job of it.

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

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

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

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

all these deep conversations that we've.

Yeah, we certainly go to the website because all

of our resources are there.

Leadfirst.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping track of goals, all that plumbing that it takes

to manage a growing business.

we have some tools for that too.

Very good.

Gary, I appreciate all that.

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

I've been researching and I, I love.

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

I really appreciate it, Gary.

We are seek, go create those three words.

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

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

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

And why?

Yeah.

Create is the one that comes to mind.

We are create Ted.

And we were created to create.

And so I love that word, create involves purpose.

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

skills to do it, wisdom and knowledge.

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

Very good, Gary, thank you for this conversation.

Boy, I loved it.

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

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

just check out all that he's doing.

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

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

God together in, in, in whatever.

Whatever you're doing.

We're SeekGoCreate.

We release new episodes every Monday.

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