March 27, 2025 • 31 mins
In this conversation, Vona welcomes Brandon West to Courageous Retirement, where they discuss the paths of faith and career and how we can use our work as a ministry.
Touching on themes of legacy, purpose, and the true definition of success and failure, Brandon shares a lesson on taking risks he learned from David Green, the CEO of Hobby Lobby, and a heartfelt discussion about the struggles of positioning his business as a ministry.
Sharing impactful stories and quotes, they explore the concept of success as being faithful rather than outcome-based and the eternal significance of our daily actions. Brandon provides insights on how to live authentically as a Christian in all areas of life, emphasizing the impactful intersection of broken heart, opportunity, and skill.
This episode comforts us by reminding us of God's plans and the crucial role of faith and integrity in our lives. It reassures us that we're not alone in this journey and that our faith can guide us through the uncertainties of retirement.
00:00 Introduction and Divine Encounters
02:24 Resonating with Brandon's Work
04:00 Understanding Legacy and Identity
06:12 Purpose and Passion in Business
08:34 Personal Faith Journeys
12:16 Redefining Success and Failure
26:00 Facing Fear and Embracing Courage
28:13 Final Thoughts and Farewell
Quotes from the show:
"We spend half of our lives trying to understand our identity, our gifts, and," she said, "we spend the other half of our life, surrendering it." Brandon, quoting his counselor.
"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." Mark Twain quote shared by Brandon
"Purpose is found at the intersection of a broken heart opportunity and skill." Brandon West
"In business, we take risks every single day. Why would we not take a risk for something that could have an internal impact?" Brandon quoting David Green
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - Franklin D. Roosevelt quote referenced by Vona from the book, 'Becoming Madam Secretary' by Stephanie Dray
Scriptures Referenced:
“I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Gardener. He lops off every branch that doesn’t produce. And he prunes those branches that bear fruit for even larger crops. He has already tended you by pruning you back for greater strength and usefulness by means of the commands I gave you. Take care to live in me, and let me live in you. For a branch can’t produce fruit when severed from the vine. Nor can you be fruitful apart from me." John 15: 1-4
"Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for ten days. But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life."
Revelation 2:10
Learn more about Brandon at https://brandonmichaelwest.com or www.PHOScreative.com
Purchase Brandon's book: https://amzn.to/3FAEM9A
I'd love to hear from you! Send me a text message!
Thank you for stopping by today! Remember to Engage Your Faith and Live Your More as you reap the benefits of Courageous Retirement!
To watch the video, check out my YouTube Channel!
Learn more about the show, author Vona Johnson, and more at CourageousRetirement.com!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Do you think of your work as aministry?
(00:03):
Whether you are near retirementor already retired, today's
conversation is going to giveyou a different perspective on
the work that you do.
My guest, Brandon West, has abeautiful philosophy about
success and failure, and willgive you all kinds of tips on
how you can live your life anddo the work that God's called
(00:25):
you to for ultimate success.
Be sure and stick around to thevery end where Brandon shares
his favorite scripture and whyhe uses that scripture to lead
him and his business andindustry.
I hope you'll join us for thisreally amazing conversation.
Vona Johnson (00:44):
Do you fear?
What lies beyond retirement?
What if it's a gateway to a lifefilled with purpose, meaning,
and adventure rather than anend?
Discover peace and fulfillmentas you boldly enter this new
chapter in CourageousRetirement, a Christian podcast.
I'm your host, author, and coachVona Johnson.
Let's get started.
I resonate so much with the workthat you're doing, Brandon, and
(01:06):
wanted to have you come and, andtalk to us here at Courageous
Retirement about how retirement.
We all think about the end gameand all the things that we're
gonna do or maybe not gonna dowhen we get there.
But I think that there's areally a crucial step before we
walk out that door of thatcareer that we've been working
at our lives.
(01:28):
That we, we leave our legacyright where we are.
And honestly, if God's involvedin the discussion, we may not
leave as early as we think we dobecause we'll realize that we
have a lot more work to dobefore we leave.
So I just, everything you weretalking about that day really
resonated with me.
So I just am so grateful thatyou are here and spending this
(01:50):
time with us, and I'm excitedto, to see where he is gonna
lead this conversation.
So welcome Brandon.
How are you?
Yeah.
Brandon West (01:57):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Really excited to, to be withyou.
It was a joy and a delight tomeet you at the conference, and,
uh, excited to explore some ofthose things in a, in a very new
way, even for me.
And so I look forward to my.
My older self, 20 years from nowwatching this same video and
going, what has been eternallytrue in my convictions
(02:19):
throughout life?
Like, what is still true?
So this is a blast and uh, it'sgonna be a joy for my future
self to review as well.
I.
Oh, I love that idea of what, ofyour future self listening to
this someday.
And you know, when we talk aboutlegacy, we get so wrapped up in
the idea of what are we gonnaleave our children?
And I literally, the most recentepisode of this show.
(02:43):
I had a conversation with agentleman who, wants to, he gave
all kinds of really great adviceon people on how to write down
their story.
So even if, even if it's neverpublished, the family gets the
opportunity to hear our voice.
After we're gone and, and beable to smile about those
stories.
But he just has techniques onhow to pull those out.
(03:05):
And, and, and that's important,but I don't think we often think
about our workplace, the placethat God has placed us for the
better part of our lives and howwe, how we can make an impact.
And, and I will tell you thething that probably rung.
so true to me.
The most about what you weretalking about, and you have a
book about this, I believe, butis that our business isn't
(03:27):
really our business.
And I don't know that those areexactly your words, but that was
such an eyeopening statement forme, because we do make our
business all about us and all ofthe success that we're gonna
have in life and success inGod's economy is entirely
different.
Right.
(03:48):
Yeah.
That is so good.
Yeah, I think that that is thetruth that we spend most of our
lives trying to truly unraveland embrace.
Uh, I was hanging out with my,my counselor back in in
December, and she gave me thisgreat line.
She said, we spend half of ourlives trying to understand our
(04:10):
identity, our gifts, and shesaid, we spend the other half.
Of our life, surrendering it.
It's like we chase so hard, likewho am I?
Who have I been created to belike, what are my gifts?
What are my passion?
What's my, and then we actuallyspend the rest of just releasing
that, going, actually, I amsomething so much more than
that.
Like I am, I'm, I'm a son, I'm adaughter, I'm a disciple, I'm an
(04:33):
evangelist, I'm a minister, andI can bring that to every
context of my life.
Like you mentioned with legacy.
My, my big passion in life ishelping businesses, business
leaders, to embrace this ideathat, uh, we don't have to waste
our business just on business.
When we spend all of our energyand resources on profit and loss
(04:55):
statements and graphs that go upinto the right and like all of
those things just become adistraction actually to this one
thing of, of.
Ministry in the marketplace andpeople wanna ask about what does
it look like to be a Christianand be a leader, and how do I do
those two things like.
Well, actually we're justliving, authentically from our
(05:15):
identity, that's what it lookslike to be a Christian at
business.
That's what it looks like to bea Christian at church.
Also, like it looks, looks liketo be a Christian at Publix,
like, like in the marketplace,like wherever.
We're just living outta thatidentity and going like, God,
just use me in those places.
And you do such a good job of,of like focusing and helping
people understand like you'vebeen uniquely crafted and
created for this specificmission and.
(05:39):
It's so fun for people to justgo, like, I, I think it was Mark
Twain who said that there's twomost important days in a man's
life, the day that they wereborn, and the day they figure
out why the day they were born,and the day they figure out why,
why were you created?
What, what were you created for?
One of my favorite frameworks,one author writes and says that
purpose is found at theintersection of a broken heart,
(06:01):
opportunity, and skill.
Purpose is found at theintersection of a broken heart
opportunity and skill.
And so he just asks, what breaksyour heart?
Like what brokenness in theworld makes you go, I wish that
I could have an impact on this.
Where's their opportunity?
You look around and you seethose things, and then where's
their skill?
Where you're like, well,actually.
I think I, I, I love this.
(06:22):
I'm passionate about this.
What if I brought this to thisproblem and to this brokenness?
And right in the middle of thosethings is a purpose that all of
them have been created for.
And all of us are so differentin that that's what's so
beautiful about it.
And then the, the whole church,the Bride of Christ holds those
things with open hands, walkstowards brokenness and the
gospel goes forth.
(06:43):
Oh gosh.
There's a lot of good stuff inthe, what you just went through
there.
My mind's just like.
I gotta see if we can unravelsome of that.
No, that is so good.
And you know, as you weretalking, I was thinking about,
um, I grew up in the church andthen wandered away.
(07:06):
It's all in the book.
We're not gonna go into all thatnow, but I wandered away and
ended up.
A single college studentexpecting a baby.
And that was the most amazinggift that God could have given
me at that mm-hmm.
Era of my life.
I needed that.
And I've often said my husbandwould've never married me had he
known the girl I was before Ihad that baby.
(07:28):
Um, but the point of that isthat.
When we, when we met and I cameback to the church in our
relationship and started, youknow, bible studies and, and
just strengthening faith.
I didn't, you know, it's likeI've always believed, but it
didn't have the relationship.
(07:49):
And what I love is that God wasusing me in the workplace.
Before I was aware that that'show he did things.
You know, I mean, we can talkabout intentionally being there
and, and being that voice ofcalm or that comfort or
leadership or whatever, and wecan do all of that out of who we
(08:12):
are and whose we are withoutconsciously even realizing that
that's what he's doing.
And, and that's a gift, right?
Oh, that's so good.
Yeah.
Who we are.
And who's we are.
That's, that's fantastic.
Two great words there, just topoint to identity.
Yeah.
And I, you know, it's because I,I talk about in my book too, my
(08:34):
identity and, and I wrapped itup in how I needed to be, right.
I needed to be that person thatcould help people.
But being right was reallyimportant to me, and it still
is.
I struggle with that.
When you started out talkingabout surrender, one of the
things that I had to surrenderwas not just being right.
(08:56):
I.
But making sure that you knewthat I was right.
Um, well, I, I think there's somany things that we tie our
identity to, and when we tie ouridentity to anything that we can
potentially lose, we will livein constant fear because.
I if I don't have this thingI've tied my day to, and I, if I
(09:19):
lose it, I'm, I'm nobody.
And so the book, the book that Iwrote a year ago was called,
it's Not Your Business toSucceed, it Is Not Your Business
To Succeed.
Yeah.
And it's stolen from a quote,uh, from CS Lewis' letters to
Malcolm, in which he writes hisfriend and he says.
It is not your business tosucceed only to do what is right
and then to entrust the resultsto a faithful God for each of
(09:42):
us.
Like we love to tie ouridentity, sense of worth to
things outside of us.
I love to tie that to when I winan award, when folks wins an
award, when we reach newmilestones, when graphs, uh,
are, are projecting all kinds oftop line growth.
And profit and all those, andI'm like, I'm a great leader.
I'm, you know, look at, youknow, and then when those things
(10:03):
are, I'm like, who am I?
I am so broken, I'm such aloser.
You know?
And it's like we just constantlygo on this rollercoaster and,
and if we could just like grabonto who God says we are, what,
what God says, a definition ofsuccess is maybe we, we would
take that sine wave with thesehuge amplitudes and just re
reduce it for a minute and livemore in this constant state of
like, I know I'm a nobody.
(10:23):
That's okay.
I embrace that like.
God makes me something.
And when I'm faithful to theLord, like he, he's with me
regardless of what my, my graphssay about my results in life.
And if we can move away fromthat outcome-based mindset, man,
does that put us in a betterplace to embrace the words we're
all chasing, which is well done,good and faithful servant.
(10:46):
Enter into the joy of yourmaster.
Yeah.
You know, um he had to teach methat lesson in a really hard
way.
Mm-hmm.
Because when I retired.
Eight years ago, man, I was, Iwas gonna be, you know, this
amazing author million bookssold, I was gonna be a million
dollar coach, and I was gonnachange everybody's life by just
(11:09):
spending time with them andshowing them how they first,
just how they could be healthy.
Then I realized that nobodyreally, really wanted that
because if they, you know.
They would've already done it ifthey were going to.
So one more drop in that bucketwasn't going anywhere.
And I love, we won't go into allthe details, but I love how God
showed me that what he reallywanted me to help people with
(11:30):
was to live out their faith.
Mm-hmm.
So I, I shifted and I starteddoing all these things and I,
you know, I, I've hired so manycoaches and I've invested in so
many programs and I've tried somany things and none of it has
taken off.
And it wasn't until I was afailure and I turned to God and
(11:51):
pleaded with him and just toreinto the word and just soaked it
up That he helped me realizethat he had to take me.
He has to take me,'cause I'm notthrough the other side yet, but
I don't even care.
I've done what you've said.
I've let go of that outcomebecause I know that he has
provided everything I need.
I can get outta bed everymorning and I don't have to do
(12:12):
anything.
I get to do what he asked me todo that day.
This day.
Yeah.
And, and that is more pricelessthan the million books I could
have sold or the million dollarsI could have made as a coach or
anything.
I don't know that when we hangup this, I might get a phone
(12:32):
call that somebody says, I wannahire you for a million dollars
to go do this.
I don't know that that's notgonna happen.
And then I don't, it doesn'tmatter.
I don't, I don't need to thinkabout that anymore.
I just need to think about whatam I gonna do today that.
Will touch somebody's life thatwill make a difference in the
person that he brings to me.
I don't even have to go lookingfor him anymore, which is a huge
(12:55):
relief because he, you know, Imean, not that I can stay home
all the time, which would bekind of cool, but, right.
Well, this, this is what's sofun about a podcast like this
about courageous retirement.
I don't know that stage of lifeyet, but I think prior to
whatever form of retirement wetake in life, we suffer from
(13:17):
this outcome-based mindset.
But I remember when I read ablog post by Faith Driven
Entrepreneur and it was entitledthe Day after I Sold My
Business, and I just, I rememberreading through this and going.
What do you do the morning afteryou sell your business?
Like, who are you?
Like, has that changed at all?
(13:38):
Like, what do you do in life?
Like, you're not the C, you'renot the owner, you're not the,
and I think it began to check inme this, this later stage life
question of not, not just how dowe define success?
But an additional question oflike, how do we define failure?
Yeah, because you, you, you saidlike you had to hit this place
(14:00):
where you're like, you know, Ifeel like a failure.
I wonder like I.
How the Lord would ever use thatterm.
Like how would, to whom wouldJesus apply that term?
And I think about the psalmist,like there, the psalmist had
fear of failure, but not like,man, that I would, I failed to
defeat this army.
I'm a failure, I fail.
(14:21):
It was, it was this fear overmoral and character failure.
So like, what if, what if ourdefinition of success wasn't
just about outcomes, it wasabout faithfulness.
I am successful if I'm justfaithful regardless of whether
or not my outcomes produce whatI want.
That's the definition ofsuccess.
But then how would we definefailure?
Failure is not, I failed to getthis outcome.
(14:43):
I failed to do this thing.
I failed to produce this thing,but instead, I, I, I failed to,
to be something like that's whatthe psalmist was concerned
about.
God protect my integrity.
Keep my mouth from lying lips.
Like if I could just walk inintegrity and character, then
(15:03):
maybe the Lord would say over mylife, regardless of what my
results for how many books wesold, how many stages we got on,
like well done, good andfaithful servant.
That's just a whole differentdefinition.
Not only success, but a failure.
You know, I'm going to walkthrough this doorway.
This is something that the Lordhas.
Been just bringing me throughand I'm not on completely on the
(15:27):
other side, but I literally laidin bed this morning thinking
about this and I.
All of the, the conversations,and I don't even know if we can
call'em conversations anymore,but the discussion about, you
know, who, which politicalparty's right?
Who you know who, which one'sthe Nazi?
I, I dunno.
(15:48):
You know, and I mean just all ofthis bickering back and forth
and the just oozing with hatredand.
Just, ah, and I said to mydaughter-in-law last night, um,
I was like, oh, did you watch,did you should, you know, listen
to this or whatever.
And she's like, you know what?
We haven't had any politics inour house all week.
(16:09):
And I said, you know, for me,it's almost like a car accident.
I can't look away.
And I'm, I'm the person whodoesn't watch the news, but I
just can't look away from itall.
And it occurred to me.
I watched a movie, the LastRifleman recently, and it was a
story about a man who was atNormandy.
(16:30):
He was an Irishman who fought inthe British army and had always
intended to go back to Normandyevery year on D-Day and never
made it.
Well, his wife had just recentlypassed.
Have you seen this before?
I explain it all his wife hadrecently passed and so he
decided this, this is the yearI'm gonna do it and I won't give
it all away, but there was aline in that movie that just
(16:52):
blew me away.
He was on the bus and he wastalking to a man from Germany.
He didn't wanna like this guybecause he knew that this guy,
he, he fought for the Ss and theguy told about, you know, how he
was a young man and he wasinscripted into the army and all
of these things.
(17:13):
And I don't remember exactlywhat was said, before, but the,
the German said, you know, itwas really shocking when I found
out that we lost the war.
And it was even more shockingwhen I found out I was on the
wrong side.
And someday, either me orsomeone I love is gonna come to
(17:34):
that awareness.
And the crazy thing about it isboth of us could be sitting side
by side in church thinking thatthe other one is on the wrong
side.
We're forgetting that the onlyside to be on is God.
God wins.
When it's all done, he wins.
But what if this is a test?
To see if we walk in integrity.
(17:57):
If we can live out our lives asgood Christians and be kind to
one another, whether we agree ornot, whether we see the issues
of the world today from the sameperspective or not, what if it's
just a test to see if we canjust love that other person
anyway?
That's so good.
(18:17):
That's, I think, I think you'rehitting it right on the head
because I think that there's alot of people in today's world
that.
The news, Google social mediawould label a great success, and
yet the the father will say overthem, depart from me, you,
worker of lawlessness.
I never knew you.
(18:38):
And it's like, am I a success inlife if I go and sell my company
tomorrow for like a 10 x ebitda?
Uh, and then I walk home thatnight and yell at my wife?
Am I a success in life when I,when I walk away with the, like,
number one in the world trophy,but I failed to disciple my sons
that night.
Like, what is success?
(19:00):
Like, I wanna be found on, onthe side of what the psalmist
would say, like, yeah,faithfulness.
A righteousness that comes fromoutside of me.
A, a life submitted to the Lord.
I am so far, I think about, uh,John Newton.
He says, I, I'm not the man thatI wish that I was.
(19:23):
I'm not the man that I hope tobe, and yet by God's grace, I am
not what I once was.
And it's like, that's just ajourney, you know?
Right.
It's just like.
Hey, God, how I'm gonna befaithful in that journey?
'cause you, you keep me, youkeep me, Lord, I don't even keep
myself, you, you keep me and youkeep him whose heart is fixed on
you.
Like I, that's all I wanna do.
Just help me say fixed on you.
(19:43):
Help me do, abide in you.
So I was on a, I was on apodcast the other day and the
first question they asked mewas, um, who, who are you?
I was like, oh gosh, here we go.
You know?
And, and I, I gave the bestanswer I could and after reading
my book, she goes, I thoughtwhat you were gonna say was, I'm
just a branch.
And I decided in that moment,that's how I'm gonna answer
(20:03):
that.
For no one, who are you?
I'm just a branch.
I, we are, we are just brancheslike John 15 hanging onto a
vine, hanging onto a vine, thevine dresser, doing its work
like and just abiding in thisvine.
I'm just a branch.
Staying right there and askingGod, do something fruitful.
With the least fruitful person.
I, I, I know.
(20:24):
And, and do something far beyondever could.
I'm just gonna be faithful tostay.
Well, and, and the other, thenext part of that though, I
mean, I, all of that is true,but the, the part of it is when,
when the judgment day comes, I'mnot gonna be accountable for
what you've said or did.
I'm only gonna be accountablefor what I said or did.
And the beautiful thing is itdoesn't matter.
(20:46):
I can, I can do all of thosethings you listed that would
take me away from the Lord.
And all I really have to do isearnestly ask him to forgive me
and he will.
But he, not only will he forgiveme, but he's gonna forgive that
person that's sitting beside mein the church.
That might be on the, the wrongside if they just, but ask.
(21:06):
But if we don't show them.
Him if we don't introduce themto that real relationship and
that real opportunity for mercy.
Have we done our job?
Not that we need.
Not that we have to, but don'twe want to?
That's so good.
That's so good.
(21:26):
And that.
Can we not ask the same questionin business as well?
I was on a call with DavidGreen, the CEO of, hobby Lobby.
Cool.
And describing, and I'm talkingto a guy who talked to David
Green.
Wow.
I'm just, I'm just like one ofmany people on this podcast
going, like, raising my hand.
Hope I can ask him a question.
Cool.
And, and we were talking about,Like risks in business and
(21:50):
business as a ministry.
And what about the risk thatprovides to the company?
And he told a story about a timewhere one of his C-suite
executives on the risk side cameinto his office.
I.
And said, you know, Hey, I justheard about this thing that
we're doing.
How could we do this?
Like, what a risk you arepresenting to this business.
(22:11):
Oh my good.
Why are we doing this?
And David had turned and said,let me, lemme tell you a story.
And he talked about a woman whorecently was Hindu, Buddhist,
something like that.
And she had dietary restrictionsand so they're catering for
hundreds of people, but they,they brought in an extra catered
lunch just for this woman.
Like, Hey, we wanna honor you.
Thank you so much for being onour team.
And every lunch, they would justbring in a new one just for her,
(22:32):
just just for her each time.
And he said that after months ofjust being shown this kind of
love and care, this woman windsup converting, accepting Christ,
surrendering her life to Jesus.
And as he's telling this storyto this executive in his office,
the executive is like weeping.
And, and David just said, look.
(22:54):
In business, we take risks everysingle day.
Why would we not take a risk?
For something that could have aninternal impact.
Would we be willing to take allthese business risks over here,
but not be willing to take arisk over here on something that
that could actually changesomeone's life for the gospel
and eternity?
And with tears in his eyes?
(23:14):
This executive left his officeand he said he never walked back
in my office ever again.
That's so powerful.
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
But, but we, we can be afraid.
Right?
I'm listening to, uh, an amazingbook and we won't go into all of
that, but it reminded me that,,all we have to fear, I mean,
(23:38):
first of all, the Bible tells usfear not 365 times.
That's not a coincidence.
But really all we have to fearis fear itself, right.
We should not be afraid.
When God gives us that nudge andHe, he tells us to go talk to
that person or to go take thatnew job or whatever it is, or go
retire.
(24:00):
We have nothing to fear becausewe know that he's gonna take
care of us.
So, yeah.
Yeah, I, yeah.
Fear is such a real thing.
It is.
I remember when we went throughour first.
Like real big, pushback in thepublic about our positioning as
business as a ministry.
And, this woman posting videoson the internet.
(24:22):
Lying about us, our positioncalling the mayor, the president
of the Chamber of Commerce, allthese different things.
And it was this question for me,will I remain faithful to our
commitment to business as aministry given that we're
getting pushback in the public?
Like, I'm fearful.
I'm wondering like, am I aboutto wake up and get like.
You know, court order summonsevery single morning, struggling
(24:44):
with anxiety, you know, 8:00 AMin my Bible, praying, feeling
peace, not, uh, 10:00 AM sittinghere at my desk having anxiety
attacks and struggling tobreathe and, and every day just
this roller coaster of trustingin God and struggling with this,
and fear being so real.
And I just thought, here are myoptions.
Here are my options.
(25:05):
Shut my mouth and don't sayanything for the gospel.
Or keep opening my mouth, remainfaithful and come what may?
And I was like, well, the firstone's actually not an option.
Like I.
The, it's not an option for usto just remain silent and, and
not say anything and like bringChrist into our conversations,
(25:26):
into our relationships, into themarketplace, like in, into our
family.
Like it's not an option.
Like we're, we're called to openour mouth and so it was this
season of learning to surrenderover and over and say, Hey, God,
like over overcome my, my fearand help me be courageous.
Yeah.
Every, every day, my prayer is,Lord, give me wisdom, give me
(25:49):
discernment, and give me thecourage to do what you're asking
me to do today.
So that might be a, a nice placeto ease into, wrapping this
conversation up.
And, and I would like to do thatby giving you the opportunity,
first of all, if there's someonelistening today, they're like,
you know, I kind of like thisdude how can I learn more?
(26:12):
How, how could somebody find youif they wanted to hear more
about you or read your book or,or whatever.
What's the best path?
Yeah, I'd love to connect onLinkedIn.
Brandon, Michael West onLinkedIn.
I post a lot of content theretalking about leadership,
talking about.
Culture purpose, how we leadfrom that place.
But I've also got my ownwebsite, Brandon Michael
(26:33):
west.com.
BrandonMichaelwest.com, and thenmy agency that, that we, that we
have, that I get to run and gota team of 24 people in
Gainesville helping businesses.
It's called PHOS Creative, PHOS,PHOS Creative.
PHOS is the Greek word forlight.
And, uh, our website isPHOScreative.com.
So maybe three different optionsthere for, for connecting.
(26:55):
I will put those in the shownotes.
Thank you for that.
So we've talked about a lot ofthings.
We've kind of covered a lot ofdifferent bases today.
Is there anything that youthink, like when we, when we
talk about this success what'sthe last message?
If, if somebody only got thisfrom you, what would that be?
(27:17):
What would you want them to be?
Yeah.
Revelation 2:10 is one of myfavorite verses.
It ends with this beautiful callthat for those who are faithful
unto death, this is Jesus'promise.
To those who are faithful untodeath, I will give you a crown
(27:38):
of life.
Front of my book has a crown onit, and people are like, I, it's
kind of faded in the background.
I can't really see it all thatwell.
Why is this there?
It's not your business tosucceed.
There's a crown.
And I was like, well, yeah,actually what, what we're doing
as we surrender, it's not mybusiness to succeed.
We're chasing something verydifferent in which it's a crown,
not in this world.
(28:00):
It's a crown in the next one tocome and to the faithful person
who's chasing that out.
They take every moment ofsuccess in this world to try and
turn it into a gospelopportunity.
I win an award, great.
I get to be on stage.
I get to share about Christ,Hey, I just got this, this cool
nominate.
I get to go hang out with thesepeople and tell them about Jesus
and, and when people ask melike, Hey Brandon, how can I
(28:23):
pray for you?
I'm just like, help.
Would you just pray that inevery place that I am, I could
be faithful to share the messageof Christ and I.
I think for us, we're, we'redoing that because we know that
that verse in revelation is truefor those who are are faithful
unto death.
I'll give you a crown of life,and what's so beautiful is all
(28:43):
these different crowns thatwe'll receive from Christ at the
end of our life, we'll actuallyjust as soon as we put'em on our
head.
It says that we'll actually justtake him back off and we'll lay
them at the foot of, of Jesus,our Savior, and we'll crown him,
king of all kings.
And so that's, that's what I'mtrying to live for.
And in the middle of all that I.
(29:04):
Trying to live with as muchhumility as possible and just
go, I am, I am not who I havebeen called to be.
Um, but by the grace of God, I,I'm not who I once was and I'm
just gonna keep walking downthat line as faithfully as
possible.
Knowing that it life's gonna bea rollercoaster, but trying to
say, Hey, God, if I justsurrender this, this pursuit of
(29:24):
success and outcomes and resultsand just go, it's about
faithfulness.
Then maybe by your grace youcould help me live there on a
daily basis.
Oh, that's, that's verybeautiful and I feel like you
are living that out really well.
What you're reminding me of isboth the verse in Daniel as well
(29:45):
as the song, and that is, evenif.
Even if all of the dreams anddesires he has put on my heart
don't come true.
If the healing that I think myhusband should have or the, you
know, whatever.
I mean all the things that wethink we want, even if that
doesn't come to be, I'm going totrust him and I'm going to know
(30:07):
I'm gonna be there at the end.
Right.
So Beautiful.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Well, you know, I could do thisfor a long, long time, but we
may have to, we may have toconnect again sometime.
Thank you so much for having meon.
It's been a blast.
Thank you
that was really a great session,wasn't it?
It's just a beautiful reminderthat God can use us wherever we
(30:31):
are, whether we're still in theworkplace or not.
When we hit this season, what Icall the best season, God can
use us and it's not about theidentity we create for ourselves
around our workplace.
It's about leaning into God.
Trusting him and finding successin being who he wants us to be.
(30:52):
Stepping into the calling thathe has for us in this beautiful
season.
God can use us right where weare, I pray that you will keep
that in mind and use the giftsand talents that he's given you
to serve him well.
Come back in two weeks.
I'm gonna have a solo episodeagain.
It's been a while since I'verecorded one of those and I'm
just wanna share with you somethoughts and ideas that have
(31:13):
been really on my heart lately.
Kind of some reminders about howwe can really make an impact in
this season of life, and I thinkthat's really one of the things
that God's calling us to.
So I look forward to seeing youback here then.
Until then, I pray that as youstep boldly into this season of
retirement, that you engage yourfaith and you live your more,
(31:35):
because retirement is not theend.
It's a beginning of a beautifulnew relationship with God.
Look forward to seeing you in acouple weeks.
God bless.
Do you think of your work as aministry?
(00:03):
Whether you are near retirementor already retired, today's
conversation is going to giveyou a different perspective on
the work that you do.
My guest, Brandon West, has abeautiful philosophy about
success and failure, and willgive you all kinds of tips on
how you can live your life anddo the work that God's called
(00:25):
you to for ultimate success.
Be sure and stick around to thevery end where Brandon shares
his favorite scripture and whyhe uses that scripture to lead
him and his business andindustry.
I hope you'll join us for thisreally amazing conversation.
Vona Johnson (00:44):
Do you fear?
What lies beyond retirement?
What if it's a gateway to a lifefilled with purpose, meaning,
and adventure rather than anend?
Discover peace and fulfillmentas you boldly enter this new
chapter in CourageousRetirement, a Christian podcast.
I'm your host, author, and coachVona Johnson.
Let's get started.
I resonate so much with the workthat you're doing, Brandon, and
(01:06):
wanted to have you come and, andtalk to us here at Courageous
Retirement about how retirement.
We all think about the end gameand all the things that we're
gonna do or maybe not gonna dowhen we get there.
But I think that there's areally a crucial step before we
walk out that door of thatcareer that we've been working
at our lives.
(01:28):
That we, we leave our legacyright where we are.
And honestly, if God's involvedin the discussion, we may not
leave as early as we think we dobecause we'll realize that we
have a lot more work to dobefore we leave.
So I just, everything you weretalking about that day really
resonated with me.
So I just am so grateful thatyou are here and spending this
(01:50):
time with us, and I'm excitedto, to see where he is gonna
lead this conversation.
So welcome Brandon.
How are you?
Yeah.
Brandon West (01:57):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Really excited to, to be withyou.
It was a joy and a delight tomeet you at the conference, and,
uh, excited to explore some ofthose things in a, in a very new
way, even for me.
And so I look forward to my.
My older self, 20 years from nowwatching this same video and
going, what has been eternallytrue in my convictions
(02:19):
throughout life?
Like, what is still true?
So this is a blast and uh, it'sgonna be a joy for my future
self to review as well.
I.
Oh, I love that idea of what, ofyour future self listening to
this someday.
And you know, when we talk aboutlegacy, we get so wrapped up in
the idea of what are we gonnaleave our children?
And I literally, the most recentepisode of this show.
(02:43):
I had a conversation with agentleman who, wants to, he gave
all kinds of really great adviceon people on how to write down
their story.
So even if, even if it's neverpublished, the family gets the
opportunity to hear our voice.
After we're gone and, and beable to smile about those
stories.
But he just has techniques onhow to pull those out.
(03:05):
And, and, and that's important,but I don't think we often think
about our workplace, the placethat God has placed us for the
better part of our lives and howwe, how we can make an impact.
And, and I will tell you thething that probably rung.
so true to me.
The most about what you weretalking about, and you have a
book about this, I believe, butis that our business isn't
(03:27):
really our business.
And I don't know that those areexactly your words, but that was
such an eyeopening statement forme, because we do make our
business all about us and all ofthe success that we're gonna
have in life and success inGod's economy is entirely
different.
Right.
(03:48):
Yeah.
That is so good.
Yeah, I think that that is thetruth that we spend most of our
lives trying to truly unraveland embrace.
Uh, I was hanging out with my,my counselor back in in
December, and she gave me thisgreat line.
She said, we spend half of ourlives trying to understand our
(04:10):
identity, our gifts, and shesaid, we spend the other half.
Of our life, surrendering it.
It's like we chase so hard, likewho am I?
Who have I been created to belike, what are my gifts?
What are my passion?
What's my, and then we actuallyspend the rest of just releasing
that, going, actually, I amsomething so much more than
that.
Like I am, I'm, I'm a son, I'm adaughter, I'm a disciple, I'm an
(04:33):
evangelist, I'm a minister, andI can bring that to every
context of my life.
Like you mentioned with legacy.
My, my big passion in life ishelping businesses, business
leaders, to embrace this ideathat, uh, we don't have to waste
our business just on business.
When we spend all of our energyand resources on profit and loss
(04:55):
statements and graphs that go upinto the right and like all of
those things just become adistraction actually to this one
thing of, of.
Ministry in the marketplace andpeople wanna ask about what does
it look like to be a Christianand be a leader, and how do I do
those two things like.
Well, actually we're justliving, authentically from our
(05:15):
identity, that's what it lookslike to be a Christian at
business.
That's what it looks like to bea Christian at church.
Also, like it looks, looks liketo be a Christian at Publix,
like, like in the marketplace,like wherever.
We're just living outta thatidentity and going like, God,
just use me in those places.
And you do such a good job of,of like focusing and helping
people understand like you'vebeen uniquely crafted and
created for this specificmission and.
(05:39):
It's so fun for people to justgo, like, I, I think it was Mark
Twain who said that there's twomost important days in a man's
life, the day that they wereborn, and the day they figure
out why the day they were born,and the day they figure out why,
why were you created?
What, what were you created for?
One of my favorite frameworks,one author writes and says that
purpose is found at theintersection of a broken heart,
(06:01):
opportunity, and skill.
Purpose is found at theintersection of a broken heart
opportunity and skill.
And so he just asks, what breaksyour heart?
Like what brokenness in theworld makes you go, I wish that
I could have an impact on this.
Where's their opportunity?
You look around and you seethose things, and then where's
their skill?
Where you're like, well,actually.
I think I, I, I love this.
(06:22):
I'm passionate about this.
What if I brought this to thisproblem and to this brokenness?
And right in the middle of thosethings is a purpose that all of
them have been created for.
And all of us are so differentin that that's what's so
beautiful about it.
And then the, the whole church,the Bride of Christ holds those
things with open hands, walkstowards brokenness and the
gospel goes forth.
(06:43):
Oh gosh.
There's a lot of good stuff inthe, what you just went through
there.
My mind's just like.
I gotta see if we can unravelsome of that.
No, that is so good.
And you know, as you weretalking, I was thinking about,
um, I grew up in the church andthen wandered away.
(07:06):
It's all in the book.
We're not gonna go into all thatnow, but I wandered away and
ended up.
A single college studentexpecting a baby.
And that was the most amazinggift that God could have given
me at that mm-hmm.
Era of my life.
I needed that.
And I've often said my husbandwould've never married me had he
known the girl I was before Ihad that baby.
(07:28):
Um, but the point of that isthat.
When we, when we met and I cameback to the church in our
relationship and started, youknow, bible studies and, and
just strengthening faith.
I didn't, you know, it's likeI've always believed, but it
didn't have the relationship.
(07:49):
And what I love is that God wasusing me in the workplace.
Before I was aware that that'show he did things.
You know, I mean, we can talkabout intentionally being there
and, and being that voice ofcalm or that comfort or
leadership or whatever, and wecan do all of that out of who we
(08:12):
are and whose we are withoutconsciously even realizing that
that's what he's doing.
And, and that's a gift, right?
Oh, that's so good.
Yeah.
Who we are.
And who's we are.
That's, that's fantastic.
Two great words there, just topoint to identity.
Yeah.
And I, you know, it's because I,I talk about in my book too, my
(08:34):
identity and, and I wrapped itup in how I needed to be, right.
I needed to be that person thatcould help people.
But being right was reallyimportant to me, and it still
is.
I struggle with that.
When you started out talkingabout surrender, one of the
things that I had to surrenderwas not just being right.
(08:56):
I.
But making sure that you knewthat I was right.
Um, well, I, I think there's somany things that we tie our
identity to, and when we tie ouridentity to anything that we can
potentially lose, we will livein constant fear because.
I if I don't have this thingI've tied my day to, and I, if I
(09:19):
lose it, I'm, I'm nobody.
And so the book, the book that Iwrote a year ago was called,
it's Not Your Business toSucceed, it Is Not Your Business
To Succeed.
Yeah.
And it's stolen from a quote,uh, from CS Lewis' letters to
Malcolm, in which he writes hisfriend and he says.
It is not your business tosucceed only to do what is right
and then to entrust the resultsto a faithful God for each of
(09:42):
us.
Like we love to tie ouridentity, sense of worth to
things outside of us.
I love to tie that to when I winan award, when folks wins an
award, when we reach newmilestones, when graphs, uh,
are, are projecting all kinds oftop line growth.
And profit and all those, andI'm like, I'm a great leader.
I'm, you know, look at, youknow, and then when those things
(10:03):
are, I'm like, who am I?
I am so broken, I'm such aloser.
You know?
And it's like we just constantlygo on this rollercoaster and,
and if we could just like grabonto who God says we are, what,
what God says, a definition ofsuccess is maybe we, we would
take that sine wave with thesehuge amplitudes and just re
reduce it for a minute and livemore in this constant state of
like, I know I'm a nobody.
(10:23):
That's okay.
I embrace that like.
God makes me something.
And when I'm faithful to theLord, like he, he's with me
regardless of what my, my graphssay about my results in life.
And if we can move away fromthat outcome-based mindset, man,
does that put us in a betterplace to embrace the words we're
all chasing, which is well done,good and faithful servant.
(10:46):
Enter into the joy of yourmaster.
Yeah.
You know, um he had to teach methat lesson in a really hard
way.
Mm-hmm.
Because when I retired.
Eight years ago, man, I was, Iwas gonna be, you know, this
amazing author million bookssold, I was gonna be a million
dollar coach, and I was gonnachange everybody's life by just
(11:09):
spending time with them andshowing them how they first,
just how they could be healthy.
Then I realized that nobodyreally, really wanted that
because if they, you know.
They would've already done it ifthey were going to.
So one more drop in that bucketwasn't going anywhere.
And I love, we won't go into allthe details, but I love how God
showed me that what he reallywanted me to help people with
(11:30):
was to live out their faith.
Mm-hmm.
So I, I shifted and I starteddoing all these things and I,
you know, I, I've hired so manycoaches and I've invested in so
many programs and I've tried somany things and none of it has
taken off.
And it wasn't until I was afailure and I turned to God and
(11:51):
pleaded with him and just toreinto the word and just soaked it
up That he helped me realizethat he had to take me.
He has to take me,'cause I'm notthrough the other side yet, but
I don't even care.
I've done what you've said.
I've let go of that outcomebecause I know that he has
provided everything I need.
I can get outta bed everymorning and I don't have to do
(12:12):
anything.
I get to do what he asked me todo that day.
This day.
Yeah.
And, and that is more pricelessthan the million books I could
have sold or the million dollarsI could have made as a coach or
anything.
I don't know that when we hangup this, I might get a phone
(12:32):
call that somebody says, I wannahire you for a million dollars
to go do this.
I don't know that that's notgonna happen.
And then I don't, it doesn'tmatter.
I don't, I don't need to thinkabout that anymore.
I just need to think about whatam I gonna do today that.
Will touch somebody's life thatwill make a difference in the
person that he brings to me.
I don't even have to go lookingfor him anymore, which is a huge
(12:55):
relief because he, you know, Imean, not that I can stay home
all the time, which would bekind of cool, but, right.
Well, this, this is what's sofun about a podcast like this
about courageous retirement.
I don't know that stage of lifeyet, but I think prior to
whatever form of retirement wetake in life, we suffer from
(13:17):
this outcome-based mindset.
But I remember when I read ablog post by Faith Driven
Entrepreneur and it was entitledthe Day after I Sold My
Business, and I just, I rememberreading through this and going.
What do you do the morning afteryou sell your business?
Like, who are you?
Like, has that changed at all?
(13:38):
Like, what do you do in life?
Like, you're not the C, you'renot the owner, you're not the,
and I think it began to check inme this, this later stage life
question of not, not just how dowe define success?
But an additional question oflike, how do we define failure?
Yeah, because you, you, you saidlike you had to hit this place
(14:00):
where you're like, you know, Ifeel like a failure.
I wonder like I.
How the Lord would ever use thatterm.
Like how would, to whom wouldJesus apply that term?
And I think about the psalmist,like there, the psalmist had
fear of failure, but not like,man, that I would, I failed to
defeat this army.
I'm a failure, I fail.
(14:21):
It was, it was this fear overmoral and character failure.
So like, what if, what if ourdefinition of success wasn't
just about outcomes, it wasabout faithfulness.
I am successful if I'm justfaithful regardless of whether
or not my outcomes produce whatI want.
That's the definition ofsuccess.
But then how would we definefailure?
Failure is not, I failed to getthis outcome.
(14:43):
I failed to do this thing.
I failed to produce this thing,but instead, I, I, I failed to,
to be something like that's whatthe psalmist was concerned
about.
God protect my integrity.
Keep my mouth from lying lips.
Like if I could just walk inintegrity and character, then
(15:03):
maybe the Lord would say over mylife, regardless of what my
results for how many books wesold, how many stages we got on,
like well done, good andfaithful servant.
That's just a whole differentdefinition.
Not only success, but a failure.
You know, I'm going to walkthrough this doorway.
This is something that the Lordhas.
Been just bringing me throughand I'm not on completely on the
(15:27):
other side, but I literally laidin bed this morning thinking
about this and I.
All of the, the conversations,and I don't even know if we can
call'em conversations anymore,but the discussion about, you
know, who, which politicalparty's right?
Who you know who, which one'sthe Nazi?
I, I dunno.
(15:48):
You know, and I mean just all ofthis bickering back and forth
and the just oozing with hatredand.
Just, ah, and I said to mydaughter-in-law last night, um,
I was like, oh, did you watch,did you should, you know, listen
to this or whatever.
And she's like, you know what?
We haven't had any politics inour house all week.
(16:09):
And I said, you know, for me,it's almost like a car accident.
I can't look away.
And I'm, I'm the person whodoesn't watch the news, but I
just can't look away from itall.
And it occurred to me.
I watched a movie, the LastRifleman recently, and it was a
story about a man who was atNormandy.
(16:30):
He was an Irishman who fought inthe British army and had always
intended to go back to Normandyevery year on D-Day and never
made it.
Well, his wife had just recentlypassed.
Have you seen this before?
I explain it all his wife hadrecently passed and so he
decided this, this is the yearI'm gonna do it and I won't give
it all away, but there was aline in that movie that just
(16:52):
blew me away.
He was on the bus and he wastalking to a man from Germany.
He didn't wanna like this guybecause he knew that this guy,
he, he fought for the Ss and theguy told about, you know, how he
was a young man and he wasinscripted into the army and all
of these things.
(17:13):
And I don't remember exactlywhat was said, before, but the,
the German said, you know, itwas really shocking when I found
out that we lost the war.
And it was even more shockingwhen I found out I was on the
wrong side.
And someday, either me orsomeone I love is gonna come to
(17:34):
that awareness.
And the crazy thing about it isboth of us could be sitting side
by side in church thinking thatthe other one is on the wrong
side.
We're forgetting that the onlyside to be on is God.
God wins.
When it's all done, he wins.
But what if this is a test?
To see if we walk in integrity.
(17:57):
If we can live out our lives asgood Christians and be kind to
one another, whether we agree ornot, whether we see the issues
of the world today from the sameperspective or not, what if it's
just a test to see if we canjust love that other person
anyway?
That's so good.
(18:17):
That's, I think, I think you'rehitting it right on the head
because I think that there's alot of people in today's world
that.
The news, Google social mediawould label a great success, and
yet the the father will say overthem, depart from me, you,
worker of lawlessness.
I never knew you.
(18:38):
And it's like, am I a success inlife if I go and sell my company
tomorrow for like a 10 x ebitda?
Uh, and then I walk home thatnight and yell at my wife?
Am I a success in life when I,when I walk away with the, like,
number one in the world trophy,but I failed to disciple my sons
that night.
Like, what is success?
(19:00):
Like, I wanna be found on, onthe side of what the psalmist
would say, like, yeah,faithfulness.
A righteousness that comes fromoutside of me.
A, a life submitted to the Lord.
I am so far, I think about, uh,John Newton.
He says, I, I'm not the man thatI wish that I was.
(19:23):
I'm not the man that I hope tobe, and yet by God's grace, I am
not what I once was.
And it's like, that's just ajourney, you know?
Right.
It's just like.
Hey, God, how I'm gonna befaithful in that journey?
'cause you, you keep me, youkeep me, Lord, I don't even keep
myself, you, you keep me and youkeep him whose heart is fixed on
you.
Like I, that's all I wanna do.
Just help me say fixed on you.
(19:43):
Help me do, abide in you.
So I was on a, I was on apodcast the other day and the
first question they asked mewas, um, who, who are you?
I was like, oh gosh, here we go.
You know?
And, and I, I gave the bestanswer I could and after reading
my book, she goes, I thoughtwhat you were gonna say was, I'm
just a branch.
And I decided in that moment,that's how I'm gonna answer
(20:03):
that.
For no one, who are you?
I'm just a branch.
I, we are, we are just brancheslike John 15 hanging onto a
vine, hanging onto a vine, thevine dresser, doing its work
like and just abiding in thisvine.
I'm just a branch.
Staying right there and askingGod, do something fruitful.
With the least fruitful person.
I, I, I know.
(20:24):
And, and do something far beyondever could.
I'm just gonna be faithful tostay.
Well, and, and the other, thenext part of that though, I
mean, I, all of that is true,but the, the part of it is when,
when the judgment day comes, I'mnot gonna be accountable for
what you've said or did.
I'm only gonna be accountablefor what I said or did.
And the beautiful thing is itdoesn't matter.
(20:46):
I can, I can do all of thosethings you listed that would
take me away from the Lord.
And all I really have to do isearnestly ask him to forgive me
and he will.
But he, not only will he forgiveme, but he's gonna forgive that
person that's sitting beside mein the church.
That might be on the, the wrongside if they just, but ask.
(21:06):
But if we don't show them.
Him if we don't introduce themto that real relationship and
that real opportunity for mercy.
Have we done our job?
Not that we need.
Not that we have to, but don'twe want to?
That's so good.
That's so good.
(21:26):
And that.
Can we not ask the same questionin business as well?
I was on a call with DavidGreen, the CEO of, hobby Lobby.
Cool.
And describing, and I'm talkingto a guy who talked to David
Green.
Wow.
I'm just, I'm just like one ofmany people on this podcast
going, like, raising my hand.
Hope I can ask him a question.
Cool.
And, and we were talking about,Like risks in business and
(21:50):
business as a ministry.
And what about the risk thatprovides to the company?
And he told a story about a timewhere one of his C-suite
executives on the risk side cameinto his office.
I.
And said, you know, Hey, I justheard about this thing that
we're doing.
How could we do this?
Like, what a risk you arepresenting to this business.
(22:11):
Oh my good.
Why are we doing this?
And David had turned and said,let me, lemme tell you a story.
And he talked about a woman whorecently was Hindu, Buddhist,
something like that.
And she had dietary restrictionsand so they're catering for
hundreds of people, but they,they brought in an extra catered
lunch just for this woman.
Like, Hey, we wanna honor you.
Thank you so much for being onour team.
And every lunch, they would justbring in a new one just for her,
(22:32):
just just for her each time.
And he said that after months ofjust being shown this kind of
love and care, this woman windsup converting, accepting Christ,
surrendering her life to Jesus.
And as he's telling this storyto this executive in his office,
the executive is like weeping.
And, and David just said, look.
(22:54):
In business, we take risks everysingle day.
Why would we not take a risk?
For something that could have aninternal impact.
Would we be willing to take allthese business risks over here,
but not be willing to take arisk over here on something that
that could actually changesomeone's life for the gospel
and eternity?
And with tears in his eyes?
(23:14):
This executive left his officeand he said he never walked back
in my office ever again.
That's so powerful.
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
But, but we, we can be afraid.
Right?
I'm listening to, uh, an amazingbook and we won't go into all of
that, but it reminded me that,,all we have to fear, I mean,
(23:38):
first of all, the Bible tells usfear not 365 times.
That's not a coincidence.
But really all we have to fearis fear itself, right.
We should not be afraid.
When God gives us that nudge andHe, he tells us to go talk to
that person or to go take thatnew job or whatever it is, or go
retire.
(24:00):
We have nothing to fear becausewe know that he's gonna take
care of us.
So, yeah.
Yeah, I, yeah.
Fear is such a real thing.
It is.
I remember when we went throughour first.
Like real big, pushback in thepublic about our positioning as
business as a ministry.
And, this woman posting videoson the internet.
(24:22):
Lying about us, our positioncalling the mayor, the president
of the Chamber of Commerce, allthese different things.
And it was this question for me,will I remain faithful to our
commitment to business as aministry given that we're
getting pushback in the public?
Like, I'm fearful.
I'm wondering like, am I aboutto wake up and get like.
You know, court order summonsevery single morning, struggling
(24:44):
with anxiety, you know, 8:00 AMin my Bible, praying, feeling
peace, not, uh, 10:00 AM sittinghere at my desk having anxiety
attacks and struggling tobreathe and, and every day just
this roller coaster of trustingin God and struggling with this,
and fear being so real.
And I just thought, here are myoptions.
Here are my options.
(25:05):
Shut my mouth and don't sayanything for the gospel.
Or keep opening my mouth, remainfaithful and come what may?
And I was like, well, the firstone's actually not an option.
Like I.
The, it's not an option for usto just remain silent and, and
not say anything and like bringChrist into our conversations,
(25:26):
into our relationships, into themarketplace, like in, into our
family.
Like it's not an option.
Like we're, we're called to openour mouth and so it was this
season of learning to surrenderover and over and say, Hey, God,
like over overcome my, my fearand help me be courageous.
Yeah.
Every, every day, my prayer is,Lord, give me wisdom, give me
(25:49):
discernment, and give me thecourage to do what you're asking
me to do today.
So that might be a, a nice placeto ease into, wrapping this
conversation up.
And, and I would like to do thatby giving you the opportunity,
first of all, if there's someonelistening today, they're like,
you know, I kind of like thisdude how can I learn more?
(26:12):
How, how could somebody find youif they wanted to hear more
about you or read your book or,or whatever.
What's the best path?
Yeah, I'd love to connect onLinkedIn.
Brandon, Michael West onLinkedIn.
I post a lot of content theretalking about leadership,
talking about.
Culture purpose, how we leadfrom that place.
But I've also got my ownwebsite, Brandon Michael
(26:33):
west.com.
BrandonMichaelwest.com, and thenmy agency that, that we, that we
have, that I get to run and gota team of 24 people in
Gainesville helping businesses.
It's called PHOS Creative, PHOS,PHOS Creative.
PHOS is the Greek word forlight.
And, uh, our website isPHOScreative.com.
So maybe three different optionsthere for, for connecting.
(26:55):
I will put those in the shownotes.
Thank you for that.
So we've talked about a lot ofthings.
We've kind of covered a lot ofdifferent bases today.
Is there anything that youthink, like when we, when we
talk about this success what'sthe last message?
If, if somebody only got thisfrom you, what would that be?
(27:17):
What would you want them to be?
Yeah.
Revelation 2:10 is one of myfavorite verses.
It ends with this beautiful callthat for those who are faithful
unto death, this is Jesus'promise.
To those who are faithful untodeath, I will give you a crown
(27:38):
of life.
Front of my book has a crown onit, and people are like, I, it's
kind of faded in the background.
I can't really see it all thatwell.
Why is this there?
It's not your business tosucceed.
There's a crown.
And I was like, well, yeah,actually what, what we're doing
as we surrender, it's not mybusiness to succeed.
We're chasing something verydifferent in which it's a crown,
not in this world.
(28:00):
It's a crown in the next one tocome and to the faithful person
who's chasing that out.
They take every moment ofsuccess in this world to try and
turn it into a gospelopportunity.
I win an award, great.
I get to be on stage.
I get to share about Christ,Hey, I just got this, this cool
nominate.
I get to go hang out with thesepeople and tell them about Jesus
and, and when people ask melike, Hey Brandon, how can I
(28:23):
pray for you?
I'm just like, help.
Would you just pray that inevery place that I am, I could
be faithful to share the messageof Christ and I.
I think for us, we're, we'redoing that because we know that
that verse in revelation is truefor those who are are faithful
unto death.
I'll give you a crown of life,and what's so beautiful is all
(28:43):
these different crowns thatwe'll receive from Christ at the
end of our life, we'll actuallyjust as soon as we put'em on our
head.
It says that we'll actually justtake him back off and we'll lay
them at the foot of, of Jesus,our Savior, and we'll crown him,
king of all kings.
And so that's, that's what I'mtrying to live for.
And in the middle of all that I.
(29:04):
Trying to live with as muchhumility as possible and just
go, I am, I am not who I havebeen called to be.
Um, but by the grace of God, I,I'm not who I once was and I'm
just gonna keep walking downthat line as faithfully as
possible.
Knowing that it life's gonna bea rollercoaster, but trying to
say, Hey, God, if I justsurrender this, this pursuit of
(29:24):
success and outcomes and resultsand just go, it's about
faithfulness.
Then maybe by your grace youcould help me live there on a
daily basis.
Oh, that's, that's verybeautiful and I feel like you
are living that out really well.
What you're reminding me of isboth the verse in Daniel as well
(29:45):
as the song, and that is, evenif.
Even if all of the dreams anddesires he has put on my heart
don't come true.
If the healing that I think myhusband should have or the, you
know, whatever.
I mean all the things that wethink we want, even if that
doesn't come to be, I'm going totrust him and I'm going to know
(30:07):
I'm gonna be there at the end.
Right.
So Beautiful.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Well, you know, I could do thisfor a long, long time, but we
may have to, we may have toconnect again sometime.
Thank you so much for having meon.
It's been a blast.
Thank you
that was really a great session,wasn't it?
It's just a beautiful reminderthat God can use us wherever we
(30:31):
are, whether we're still in theworkplace or not.
When we hit this season, what Icall the best season, God can
use us and it's not about theidentity we create for ourselves
around our workplace.
It's about leaning into God.
Trusting him and finding successin being who he wants us to be.
(30:52):
Stepping into the calling thathe has for us in this beautiful
season.
God can use us right where weare, I pray that you will keep
that in mind and use the giftsand talents that he's given you
to serve him well.
Come back in two weeks.
I'm gonna have a solo episodeagain.
It's been a while since I'verecorded one of those and I'm
just wanna share with you somethoughts and ideas that have
(31:13):
been really on my heart lately.
Kind of some reminders about howwe can really make an impact in
this season of life, and I thinkthat's really one of the things
that God's calling us to.
So I look forward to seeing youback here then.
Until then, I pray that as youstep boldly into this season of
retirement, that you engage yourfaith and you live your more,
(31:35):
because retirement is not theend.
It's a beginning of a beautifulnew relationship with God.
Look forward to seeing you in acouple weeks.
God bless.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.