Sheer Hard Work // Living Your Dreams, Part 4

It’s one thing to have a big dream for our lives.  It’s quite another to make it happen.  In today’s program I’m joined once more by a special guest – Peter Irvine the former Managing Director of Gloria Jeans Coffees.

For the best part of the last three weeks, we've been looking at the subject of living out the dream that God puts on our hearts. It's so important. Life is not a dress rehearsal. I think it would be so sad to look back and think, “Oh, I missed my chance.” You know, over 80 percent of people, the surveys say, are dissatisfied in their jobs. That's an awful statistic. We're joined this week by Peter Irvine, the Managing Director of Gloria Jeans Coffees; a man who, I guess, took the risks and stepped out of his comfort zone to live his dream. Peter, welcome.

Peter Irvine: Thank you.

Berni Dymet: Are you glad that you did?

Peter Irvine: I'm always glad. I never live in regret. I never look back and say, "I only wish I'd done something else. Yet, there might be decisions I made; and I've thought, Oh, I could have made that decision better. But I believe I'm always moving in God's direction because I'm listening, spending time with Him; and I hear Him speaking to me through speakers, through His Word, through many other ways that He speaks to me. That helps me in my journey.

Berni Dymet: Do you find these days that people look at Gloria Jeans and go, "Well, these guys are really successful now. Peter's made it. Peter is there. Peter must be on 'easy street.'"

Peter Irvine: Yes, I get that quite frequently. And we always wish it was true. But it depends on what people mean by "easy street."

Berni Dymet: Well, what does Peter's easy street look like?

Peter Irvine: I'm not sure our lives were ever planned for us to look back with our feet up and do nothing because I find that actually unfulfilling. So there is always a plan. God has a plan, a destiny, a future. And it's always out there creating and making things happen.

Berni Dymet: So, with 260-some stores now and with the global brand now of Gloria Jeans, I guess there are issues; I guess there are times now you find yourself working really, really hard.

Peter Irvine: That's right. I think I work just as many long hours as I did when I was in advertising. But we have a plan that we are working. We are putting on new people, senior people. And that will continue to grow and slowly take the load from us, it's finding the right people, that is crucial to that. And we are looking for people who have been where we are going, who have the experience, who have the family values of the company. And they are crucial for us to be able to hand things across. It's easy to become about burden and keep doing everything and want to be a control freak. But there's a point where you cannot do that. So, you've got to develop that balance in your life.

And often people think, you know, it's God first, family second and the job third. I'm not sure that's right. I think it's all equal, and God plays the key role in all of that as a balance. And my family, I'm involved with the work, you know, they understand it. Some of them work with us. You know, they need to be part of that as does our faith it's seven days, 24 hours a day. It's not just two hours on Sunday and say, "The rest of it's mine." That faith plays a role in decision making, in time I spend with family, at work, church; it's just all one bag, if you like, to me.

Berni Dymet: Do you run into people who think, well, this is a faith-based business. God's in it, therefore; I can come along and it's a going to be a fairly easy ride for me. I don't have to work hard. God's going to do the hard work?

Peter Irvine: Well, we've certainly had some of that; fortunately only to a limited extent. If you get people who have been successful in their jobs, they certainly don't come with that attitude. But we have had a few, particularly Bible college students, who have worked for us in parts of our business in the stores whose minds are elsewhere so they don't actually give a good representation of Christians in the workplace, their commitment, their loyalty is somewhere else; and therefore, they are very difficult to manage.

Berni Dymet: How do you deal with stress and tension? You are big business. You must have stresses and strains and tensions in your life. How do you deal with that?

Peter Irvine: I think there are a number of ways. One is constantly handing over situations back to the Lord and say, "Look, here it is. I have taken it over again and I'm trying to run it myself. But here it is. I'm listening. Let's move forward."

The second thing is it's important to have time away from work