The Stewardship Mindset: Ken Gosnell's Guide to Hearing 'Well Done'

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Seek, go create the leadership journey,inspiring Christian entrepreneurs and

(00:03):
leaders to integrate faith and business.
Join me, Tim Winders, forconversations that will transform
your life and your work.
What does it truly mean to lead a lifeand business that earns the words?

(00:26):
Well done.
Join us as we welcome Ken Gosnell, authorand founder of CEO Experience whose life
mission is to guide faith-driven CEOstoward achieving both kingdom impact
and business success.
Ken, drawing on timeless biblicalprinciples and his own father's
legacy of hard work and integrity
helps leaders create a meaningful legacy.

(00:48):
We'll discuss how you can alignyour professional achievements
with your spiritual calling
for an eternally rewarding
journey.
Ken, welcome to Seat.
Go create.
Go Create.
Hey, thank you Tim.
I'm glad to be here.
I am glad you're here too, man.
We are fighting through somegood technical issues, but us
two bright and mature smart guys.
We can figure it out, I'm sure.

(01:09):
So,
hey Ken, let's jump in here.
We're gonna have a great conversation.
We've got a lot of good things todiscuss, but I wanna start off, wanna
give you a choice between two questions,answering the questions, what do you do
or who are you?
Pick the question and goahead and start answering.
I believe who is always bigger thanwhat And, so, who I am is a strong,

(01:30):
faith driven entrepreneur and CEO thathas been called to work with Christian
leaders to help them grow their business.
but to do so, to hear the wordswell done by having kingdom impact.
I believe in Ephesians two 10 thatsays we're God's workmanship and that
we've been created to do good worksthat God has prepared in advance.
many years ago I was working withthe non-Christian businesses and

(01:53):
helping them grow their business Oneday God kind of convicted me to say,
what am I doing for his kingdom?
And I thought, after a period oftime, that'd be nice to work with
Christian businesses and help them togrow their business, but also to have
a longer term impact, for eternity.
And so that's where CEOexperience was birthed.
And now we've been doingit for almost 20 years.

(02:14):
so you worked with what we'llcall heathens, I guess, is that
what, can we use that term?
I prefer that they weren't cthey were, not Christian yet.
yet
phrasing.
But yes.
They, you
the Gentiles of the world, youwent out to the bars and all that?
No, no.
I'm,
no.
and I think though.
Ken isn't, isn't that the journeythat a lot of people go on?

(02:37):
You know, you probably had a faith,I'm guessing it sounds like you
grew up with that and have had that.
You went out, you were
were.
pursuing your riches.
That sounds bad, but you know what I mean.
And then, and then over timethat journey transformed.
Tell me a little bit about whatit was like when you were out
in the, the non-Christian space.

(02:59):
'cause I'm gonna, I'm gonna diginto the things you have done within
the space you're in now, but I'dlike to get a, before GI gimme
a glimpse of what that was like.
Absolutely.
You know, I was trained to work hard.
You mentioned my father.
My father taught us the importanceof discipline and hard work and.
And, so I was raised to work in many waysand believed that work was one of the

(03:20):
most valuable things that we could do.
I also had a faith and my faith journey,you know, had its own different stops
or, or ups and downs along the way.
So I'm not, claiming that I was agreat Christian all the time, 'cause
I made my share of mistakes as well.
But I knew that I was, really created forbusiness and I wanted to grow businesses.

(03:40):
I wanted to grow my own business.
And so, my desire and drive wasto help businesses to succeed.
but through that process I alsobelieved in wisdom and understanding.
I read a lot of great business books,had a lot of great experiences,
myself, all those types of things.
But the best wisdom that I hadfound was really found in the Bible.
And so what I found myself doing wasteaching a lot of these secular business.

(04:05):
Individuals businessprinciples that were good.
They made a lot of businesssense, but they were also
really founded in scripture.
I just didn't tell themthat, if that makes sense.
You know, so like the idea of alwaystaking the second step, going a little
bit further than what's expected oranticipated, every business will agree
that that's a good concept or a goodidea, and to really try to practice

(04:29):
that not only in their customerexperience, but maybe in how you treat
employees or how you treat vendorsor a variety of different topics.
But what I found is that all of asudden God kind of challenged me
to say, Hey, why don't you tellpeople where this wisdom comes from?
And what I found in my own personaljourney is I could go a day or a

(04:50):
week, or maybe even a month, and I wasthinking about business and everything
business, and I was thinking about thebusinesses that we were working in but
I wasn't necessarily thinking about God.
Or what God was asking me to dowith that particular business owner.
And I'll never forget, I was working witha business owner and he was out in Ohio

(05:10):
and, he was building his business andgrowing it and dynamically growing it.
I worked for him for a few years and,I noticed that there was some cracks
and not in the business, but in himpersonally and in his relationship with
his spouse and all these kinds of things.
And you know, I mentioned itto him and I said, Hey, you
might want to shore that up.

(05:31):
It looks like there's some, there'ssome, you know, 'cause we had
developed a friendship or relationship.
I was a trusted advisor,if you will, to him.
And he's like, no, Ken, I got it.
It's all good.
It's all good.
You know, no worries.
So anyway, we got the business upand it was really highly functioning.
Finished my contractual relationshipwith him, and I remember about six
months later, he called me in the middleof the night, and, which was a shock.

(05:54):
I wasn't sure what was happening,but of course, he answered the phone
when he get a call in the middleof the night and he, he started the
message with, everything's gone.
And I said, what, you know, whatare you, what are you talking about?
He said, I came home tonight andmy wife and my three kids and
everything in my house has beenpacked up and gone, and she's left.

(06:16):
And the only note that she left me was,don't contact me, I'll contact you.
It's over.
And then he said something I'll neverforget, which is pretty powerful.
He said, I've done it all for nothing.
Right?
He had built this great businessand there's a story in the Bible,
by the way about that, right?
There's a story about a guy that all ofa sudden has this great surplus and he

(06:38):
built these bigger barns and God says.
You know, you fool, I'm gonnatake your life from you tonight.
And he says that that'll be theway you fool for everybody that
builds great bars for themselves,but is not rich towards God.
I was living life, I was enjoying it.
It was good.
I mean, I was having good success.

(06:59):
I was, you know, traveling a lot, helpinga lot of businesses that were growing.
So it wasn't a terrible life.
But when that challenge came andI had to discern was I really rich
towards God and was I helping otherguys not just get rich, but was I
helping them to get rich towards God?
That was a real defining moment for me.
Hmm, that's, it is fascinating And

(07:23):
unfortunately that's a story.
story.
it, it's a very specific story foryou, but it's also a story that's
not uncommon, and I know thatyou've probably heard it before.
I'm curious, Ken, I don't know whatage you were at or when that was
in your life, but prior to that,
would you say that your faithand your work life were sort of

(07:45):
segmented or were you just a little
silent about it?
Did you keep it under a bushel?
I mean, what,
how would you describe how your faithwas prior to that or how it sounds like
you were living it, it's just you weren't
you weren't
sharing it as much.
It was still segmented though,because, you know, it didn't

(08:06):
really bleed over necessarily intomy business life unless I saw.
Lets it like a plank that hit mein the face, if that makes sense.
Right.
so something that was soeasy to blend it over.
And, so, you know, but I was kind oftaught you go to work, to do your work.
And even when I talked to my, a pastorat my church when I told him I wanted

(08:27):
to start a business, I said, well,how do I do this according to God?
And he said, well, you know,just go be successful and then
you can give to the church.
Right.
And you know, so even in that philosophy,it's a little bit of separation.
And I'm not downplaying that, that'cause that's an important part to do.
But I believe in integration.
It doesn't have to be separate.

(08:47):
And one of the things that I found andwhere God challenged me was, I'm better
when it's not compartmentalized, whenit is fully on display, when it's fully
interacted with, when it's fully, I'mconsidering myself a steward of the
business, not an owner of the business.
And I'm really asking God, what doeshe want me to do with this business and

(09:09):
what decision does he wanna make, evenwhen it doesn't make sense to me or maybe
to my team or the rest of the world.
So, yeah, that's really good.
You mentioned segmentedand I recognized that I
was that way also, and for me, it was
the two by four to thehead that got my attention.

(09:30):
I mean, I would've said Iwas a man of faith and people
might've known it had they been around me,
but I probably kept some of it separate.
And the problem is it allowsyou to justify things.
I believe.
I think you can compromiseand justify and all.
And there's anotherthing that came to mind.
mind.

(09:50):
I believe it's more stressful,
It is.
What are your thoughts?
thoughts?
Oh, absolutely.
'cause you're living twoor three lives, right?
There was the business kin, then therewas the spiritual kin, then there's
the personal kin, then there's the,you know, friend, friendship kin.
And you know, it's kind of hard tokeep all those lives in order, right?

(10:11):
Because you're, you're having toshow up one way in the business and
then you're having to show up oneway at church and then you're showing
up one way in your neighborhood.
You're showing up thesedifferent ways, and that's not
what God's calling us to do.
He's saying, Hey, there's one you.
Right.
That's why I love that Ephesians two10 passage, you're god's workmanship.
So the spiritual can can bejust as spiritual at work
as he is at church, right?

(10:32):
And the work can be just as good atchurch as he was in, in the work world,
or with my friends and my neighbors.
And when I don't have to compartmentalizeany longer, when I don't have to try
to figure out who I am, and I canjust be the who that God's called me
to be, man, then it's all of a suddenmy energy gets elevated, my passions
get ignited, my vision gets clearer.

(10:54):
That was my story.
What happened to me and what'swhat I've worked with business
leaders for now the last 20 years.
What's happened to them as well, right?
All of a sudden, their confidencegoes up, their vision gets better.
Their, passions get stronger,their convictions get deeper, and
it's just an amazing experiencethat begins to take place.
Right.
you bring up often that youlearned lessons from your father

(11:17):
and that he had a big impact.
tell me more about that.
Tell me more about some of the lessons youlearned from the father, where'd you grow
up, and just some things about, you know,
Ken, the early years isthe way I like to word
So one of the things about who,so if you go on my LinkedIn page,
I have a, instead of what I do,I have a little bit of who I am.
And, I tell a story of when I was 10years old, my father was an alcoholic

(11:41):
and was the oldest of six children.
And his father, my grandfather waskilled when my dad was 15 years old.
And so my dad quit school, highschool back in the 1950s, went to
work to provide for the family.
And so he became a surrogate fatherfor his brothers and sisters.
So he had a pretty roughjourney throughout his life.
And in the middle of that journey, hecame to know Jesus as his personal savior.

(12:06):
And so the story I tell on, on, whenI tell people about who I am is that
when my dad, when I was 10 years old,I saw my dad take two things to work.
He eventually went to workat a Christian company.
after he got fired for his alcoholism,got started to have a transformational
experience, and his sponsor actuallyworked for a Christian company and
got my dad hired on the night shift,to go work at this clay refining

(12:28):
factory outside of San Louis, Missouri.
Christie Mineral, still a greatcompany, great Christian company,
and, but that they had everyreason not to hire my dad, right?
he brought nothing, didn'thave a high school education.
Here's an alcoholic, you know, allthe, all these kinds of things.
And yet they showed grace andgave a guy a second chance, and
it changed his life forever.

(12:48):
And it changed my life forever.
But he'd always take twothings to work every day.
He'd take his hard hat andhe would take his Bible.
And so the hard hat I understood,it's like you're going to a rec
factory, you know, it's dangerous.
You gotta have your hard hat on.
It's part of safety protocolsand all those kinds of things.
But I was like, you know, and wedidn't grow up in church at the
time, so I was like, dad, why areyou taking your Bible to work?

(13:11):
That didn't make any sense.
And he said, son, I read it duringmy breaks because it makes me better.
And I say, if you know that story,you know, the two things that
really have evolved in my life.
I believe in business.
I believe in hard work.
I believe in understandinghow business works.
And I also believe in the spiritualside that the Bible makes us better.
And so, that's really about who I am.

(13:32):
And that's one of the lessonsthat my, father, taught me.
obviously I, he believed inself-improvement and continuing to
improve himself, and he continuedto do so all throughout his life.
Eventually overcame alcoholism, becamea leader in one of our churches.
actually went on to preach somesermons and, and do some great
work in that aspect as well.
never had a drink again when hestarted at, Christie Minerals.

(13:55):
So he spent the last 35 years of hislife sober and, overcoming a difficulty
or a demon that was hard to overcome.
And, but yet that's self-improvement.
So I was the first in my family togo to college, and then I went on
and get a, went on to get my master'sdegrees and so on and so forth.
So my father, I say, if I couldbecome half the man that he was,
then I, then I'm doing okay.

(14:16):
And, that's really what I strive to beand who I strive to be a model after.
You mentioned, I guess the addictionand things like that, but also there's a
work ethic that people from, we call it aMidwest work ethic or something like that.
So you probably had that Youmentioned that business is your thing,

(14:37):
but was there an entrepreneurialor business owner, or
what was the seed that ledyou to eventually work with
not just regular businesses, but CEOsof larger companies and all that?
Did you see that early on inlife, or did that develop later?
Well, the entrepreneurial seedwas early on, I believe, back to

(14:57):
the Ephesians, two 10 workmanship.
So there was an entrepreneurialseed that was planted in me.
I, started my own businesses in highschool, you know, in college and, had,
you know, moderate success on those lines.
thanks to my father though.
And the idea of mentorship and personaldevelopment and leadership, I was also
very much attracted to, men that hadmen and women that had businesses.

(15:21):
And so I would often askthem about their business.
And so from even, you know, an early agein teenage years, I got to know several
business owners and business leaders andbegan to understand the value of business.
And that really is wherekind of that got started.
So I didn't know that I was gonnawork with, business owners and CEOs.

(15:41):
my goal originally was just tobuild a good business and to,
you know, get outta poverty andkind of, develop, decent living.
And then God began to reveal to methat it's not just about you, right?
It's sometimes it's aboutwho you mentor, who you help.
And there was a lot of greatmentors that I had along the way.
So God challenged me to takeanother step than to surround

(16:03):
myself and to kind of work together.
With groups of CEOs or business ownersto help them to grow their business.
So it's been a story along the way.
And you know, that's, that's all back tothat first principle that I talk about,
just always taking the next step, right?
So I took one step and Godrevealed another opportunity,
and then I took another stepand then revealed another one.
and that led us to where we are today,

(16:24):
That kind of fits in with our,
part of our title, the Leadership Journey.
That's just the journey that we're all on.
Did I see somewhere that you did somework with Dale Carnegie and that?
Tell me more about that.
'cause that was a impactfulbook for me and probably
probably

(16:45):
a ton of people.
And so what'd you do with them?
Yeah, so my father had a couplebooks that he encouraged me to read
because he had a hard time learningand growing and reading, but he
had gotten hold of some books, thathe thought was really important.
one of those books was DaleCarnegie's, how to Win Friends.
And influenced people.
Dale Carnegie, many people don't know,was from Missouri and had a big vision

(17:08):
and a dream to go be an actor in New York.
So he left Missouri, went toNew York, but his acting failed.
But in that process, he learnedself-improvement, self-help, and
that's where the, how the Wind friendsand influence people came to be.
my dad encouraged me to read Bookert Washington's book called Up From
Slavery, which is a tremendous book.
And then PT Barnum's book that wasactually written back in the 1870s called,

(17:33):
40 Years of Struggles and Triumphs.
And so those were three books that were onmy dad's bookshelf that he encouraged me.
So as I started to grow in my,education, I also wanted to
grow in my skills and attitudes.
And so I read the book How to WinFriends and Influence People, but
I was able to make friends with,A business owner that owned one of
the Dale Carnegie franchises, there.

(17:55):
And so, that led to me going throughthe courses that Dale Carnegie had,
and then eventually going to workfor Dale Carnegie becoming a master
trainer for them, so that I couldtrain on all their courses as well.
So that was a great experience becausejust those principles, are, and
again, Dale Carnegie was a Christian.
They were rooted and grounded inscripture, but they're common sense

(18:17):
principles that everybody could, practice.
So I still talk about the,Dale Carnegie principles.
I'll tell you this real quick story.
So when I went to work with DaleCarnegie, I was a big fan, But
the first day that I was there,they handed us a 12 page script.
they said, your first week onthe job, your job is to memorize
the script word for word.
at the end of the week, you'regonna give a presentation and you're

(18:39):
gonna say that script for memory.
And if you don't, you won'tbe here the next week.
that was their onboarding process, Ithought, I can go memorize 12 pages.
I've never memorized 12 pages before,but if that's what I've gotta do and I've
got a week to do it, I'm gonna do it.
You know?
so anyway, we get up to the endto get to the end of that week.
it's all about DaleCarnegie and his background.
It's about the 30 humanrelations principles.

(19:00):
It's about, what business ownersneeded to understand to grow
their teams and grow themselves.
And it's just a wonderful, script.
I mean, they'd spent years working on it.
Dale Carnegie, by the way, is the largesttraining organization in the world.
It's been in existencealmost a hundred years.
Trains all around the world, so they knowwhat they're doing, And, so we get to the
end of the week and there's five of us.

(19:21):
Well, only two of us wentthrough the entire script.
The other guys, they wouldmess up here or there.
They just didn't memorize it.
And they were polite about it, but theyjust said, thank you for attempting,
and, we're not gonna be continuing on.
So the two of us, they got doneand they said, welcome to the Dale
Carnegie team, and, here's youroffice and we're gonna get you trained

(19:41):
on what's next, and go on to that.
And then they said somethingreally interesting, which
I thought was very funny.
They said, now we know that you spentan entire week memorizing that script,
and we're proud of you for doing so.
Now, here's the secret.
You'll probably neversay those 12 pages again.
Direct word for word ever again,for as long as you work for
the Dale Carnegie Organization.
But for as long as you live, you'llremember parts of this script from now on.

(20:05):
And they will help you whereveryou go and whatever you do.
And I could still quote you partsthat script though, that was,
almost 30 years ago, but I couldalmost quote you, word for word for
some of the script that's there.
I became a master trainer forDale Carnegie could train on their
leadership courses and sales coursesand then, work to grow, companies
using the Dale Carnegie program.

(20:26):
I, I'm a firm believer that alongthe way we do things that we don't
truly understand the impactthey'll have till many years later.
I just was thinking about that book,
how to Win Friends and Influence People.
We're gonna put a link down in thenotes, because I believe there's
possibly an entire generation that

(20:47):
needs to grab that book and read it.
I think it's still popular.
I know it is.
I still see it out there.
However, I'm not sure it isto the level it needs to be.
And to do agree, like you said earlier,
there were Christian principles,biblical principles throughout, but
I'm not sure that he called them that.
not like you do in your book Well done.
Where you basically, you will saythat they're biblical principles, but

(21:09):
Mm-hmm.
What are you still using dailythat you can trace back to
that time with Dale Carnegie?
Carnegie?
Well, the principles, I thinkthe principles are evergreen.
They're everlasting.
And that was actually one ofthe inspirations that I had
when I went to write my book.
'cause we talk about 12 principles.
I didn't talk about 30 humanrelations principles, but the
principles serve as arbiters.

(21:30):
They serve as, compasses tohelp us to make our decisions.
So like principle number one.
Is never criticize, condemn, or complain.
Right?
And Dale Carne would say, nevercriticize, condemn, or complain.
Any fool can criticize,condemn and complain.
And most fools do.
We would describe that, right?
another principle is praisethe slightest improvement if

(21:50):
you want it repeated, right?
So these principles that areprofound, we know that they work.
And they work in every generation.
They worked a hundred years ago.
They'll work today, they'll work ahundred years from now in business.
That's what made, Dale Carnegie,how to Win Friends and Influence
People book So Profound.
I actually like his secondbook even better than that.
It's How To Stop Worrying and StartLiving, which is a profound book to, and

(22:15):
he does talk a little bit more about hisfaith in that book because, the Bible
talks about how to overcome anxietyand he references some of those things.
But what Dale Carney that experience,what it did for me is it made me consider
and think about the principles thatshould guide every decision that you're
making in relation to somebody else.
Right.
should I consider, should I condemnthem or should I praise them or,

(22:38):
whatever the other principles might thatmight apply at that particular time.
Right.
And the question I had to really wrestlewith for, almost, five or six years was
what were the principles that shouldguide every Christian business person
as they make decisions in their business
In Dale Carnegie's case, it was,if you make decisions according
to these principles, you'regonna have better relationships.

(23:01):
So in my philosophy, it waswhat were those principles that
if you made decisions by theseprinciples, you would have more of
a kingdom impact for your business.
And that's where then I began, asearch reading other, Christian
CEOs, back into the 18 hundreds, butalso, in the 19 hundreds as well.
But any book that I could find that waswritten by a Christian CEO that talked

(23:24):
about the principles that helped guidethem, make decisions, and, guys like
JC Penney, who started his store in1902 out in Wyoming called the Golden
Rule Store and became the largestdepartment store in America, right?
still in existence today,120 some years later.
Or true Kathy, who has built,Chick-fil-A and I could go on and on.

(23:45):
There's, I reference over,200 books in my book.
Well done.
And that's because I want toshow that these principles
worked, worked, in the past.
They worked today.
They'll work in the future, andthey work in small businesses.
They work in large businesses.
they worked 200 years ago.
They worked today.
They'll work 200 years from now.

(24:06):
It's principles that can guideyour thinking as you try to
build your business to honor God.
Right.
Yeah, they're
definitely timeless.
Principles
and,
I want to, we're going to,
we're going to,
we're gonna do a deep dive in just a fewminutes on the term well done, because
I think it's good to understand that.
But there are a few terms thatyou use that I want us to define

(24:30):
and talk about a little bit more,
bit more,
because I think sometimes in the businessworld, I remember funny, when I went
first, went to work at Bell South,
they had all these acronyms and terms,and they literally had it all in a book.
And I said, it sounds like you'respeaking a different language.
And I think at times we can do that
as Christians, as Christianbusiness owners, et cetera.

(24:52):
And I, I kinda like to pickapart some of these terms.
So
the first term that I wanna
discuss is kingdom driven.
And I think we used the term kingdomdriven leader, kingdom driven, CEO.
Tell me more about what that means toyou and I, and we may go back and forth
on this 'cause I love the word kingdom,

(25:13):
but I'm concerned at times when we useit, people don't know exactly what that
what that means.
Absolutely.
And actually in my book, I have aglossary of different terms because
to your point, sometimes these termscan be, as I define them, or what I
would challenge leaders to think about,because, you know, sometimes it can mean
different things to different people.

(25:34):
When I talk about a kingdom drivenleader, what I'm talking about is somebody
that really wants to make a differencefor the kingdom of God, that they
have it in their heart and their mind.
That it's not just about.
Themselves or their business, thatthey recognize that part of their
success in life is partnering with God,welcoming God into the conversation

(25:56):
of their life, and that they want todo something, that God would look at
them and say, the words well done.
I'm proud of what you've done.
You've done something for my kingdomas much as you've done it for yourself.
And so that's how I defineKingdom Driven leader.
I love, there's a book that's popularright now in a lot of Christian service
called Faith Driven Leader, and I hadthat word kingdom driven long before

(26:19):
faith driven leader ever came out.
But, I think there'sa distinct difference.
I don't call it this in the book 'causeFaith Driven was written after my book
was released, but, faith-driven leaderjust basically means that, you want to
incorporate your faith into your business.
I think that's okay.
And that's definitely a firststep along the process, right?
But a kingdom leader, kingdomdriven leader says, yeah, I'm

(26:40):
already taking that for granted.
I'm a Christian, so my faithis really critical to who I am.
And it's critical to the identity,but it's not good enough.
And let me give you one example of thisreal quick 'cause I wanna illustrate this.
So I went to talk withA-C-C-E-O years ago.
He called me up and he said, HeyKen, I'd love to talk to you.
I understand you're workingwith Christian CEOs.
I said, yes, I am.
He said, I'd love to find out more.

(27:00):
So I go in and talk to him.
He tells me he's a thirdgeneration business owner.
His grandfather had startedthe business, right?
His father then read it.
Then they had a presidentthat became there.
And then he ended uptaking it a few years ago.
in the DNA of that business.
They had that faith was important to them.
one of our core values is faith.

(27:22):
Faith, family, you know, it's,it's really critical to who we are.
And so they weren't shy abouttheir faith necessarily.
so they had moments where theyshared their faith with it.
he says to me in the meeting, we talk alittle bit and he said, Hey, you know,
our company's been in existence 80 years.
We've been a good faith driven company.
We've been, you know, we try to,you know, testify and we try to show

(27:42):
people that, you know, our valuesand, and all these kinds of things.
and so he asked me the question actually.
He said, so why would I want tobe a part of what you're doing?
He said, aren't I doing enough?
And I said to him, well, I'm proudof what you've done, and I'm proud
of where your company has been.
But let me ask you a question.
I said, so you've been inthe bus business 80 years?

(28:04):
And he said, yeah.
And I said, and you've had hundredsof thousands of employees throughout
the 80 years of your existence.
He said, yeah, we have absolutely.
And I said, well, how many of thoseemployees have ever come to know, have a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
And he said, what?
And I said, well, if you've been inbusiness 80 years and you've been

(28:26):
talking about your faith and you'vebeen doing all these great things
for God's kingdom, then don't youthink you should have some results?
Like when you get to heaven, you know,God's not gonna say, oh, great job.
You've been in business 80 years.
But where's the results?
Don't you think that in theparable of the talents, when the
leader went away, he didn't justcome back and say, oh, good job.

(28:46):
you told everybody, youwere a good servant.
he said, how many talents did I give you?
And how many talents did you deliver?
And not that it's all results oriented.
Sometimes it's about obedience.
But what I suggest to businessowners and business leaders is we
ought to have something to show thatwe're impacting the kingdom of God.
you care about if your bankaccount's impacted, you're

(29:07):
looking at profitability, right?
You're looking at products.
You care if your products are being used.
You care if there's results there.
So why in the world have we boughtoff on this philosophy as Christian
leaders and CEOs that we can justgive lip service to God without
any results and think it's okay?
Well, needless to say he was convicted.

(29:29):
He said, again, I'm all in.
I'm ready to go.
And so one of the things we did justto end that story, I said, well,
let's talk about your first result.
What do you want your first result to be?
And he said, well, you challengedme to have somebody come to
know Christ through our company.
And so, you know, maybe my firststep should be that I want one of my
employees to come this year to askme about my faith and so that I could

(29:49):
lead them to a personal relationship.
I said, well done.
I said, what a goal, what a vision.
Now I believe in supersizing goals.
So I said, how about insteadof one, we put three, right?
Three of your employees in thefirst 12 months that you're here,
let's strategically go afterthese results for God's kingdom.
That's a kingdom driven company.
That's a kingdom driven C.Well, let's end up happening.

(30:11):
And sure enough, at the endof the first year, he kept
calling me throughout the year.
He is like, Ken, guess what?
I said, what?
He said, I just had a guy come in and askme about my faith for the very first time.
I said, well done.
I said, that's fantastic.
So we get to the end of the year.
Sure enough, the third guy comes.
He said he wants to, and thisCEO was able to lead him on
his part of a faith journey.
Matter of fact, he started goingto church with the CEO, right?

(30:34):
The business owner, whichwas, was just profound.
And so he calls me upand says, Ken, I get it.
I did it.
I got number three, I got number three.
I said, fantastic.
Great.
Now we need to startthinking about next year.
I said, you know, the only regret Ihave is instead of three, we should
have said five, or we should've said 10.
Right.
Because we could have done so much more.
Right.
And, he laughed at that.
And of course, we've beencontinuing to set up bigger goals

(30:56):
and doing more and more things.
And I could tell you stories, stories,if we had the time, today's, like we were
talking about where I could tell you astory after story of somebody that was
in business for 20 years or 30 years or40 years, that they were faith driven.
They, they gave lip service,but they weren't kingdom driven.
They weren't results oriented to bringabout the results that they needed for

(31:19):
their company or for God's kingdom.
So that's, a long story
no, it's good.
It's, it's good because it leads tothe next thing I wanted to address,
which is this issue of results, whichto me, I think is related to impact.
You used the word impactquite a, quite a bit.
Interestingly enough, just last week,
we had a.
conversation with Justin Eklund whohad written a book Brand for Impact.

(31:41):
And it was a lot of the same topicswe're talking about here, but
specifically related to marketing andbranding, which was really kind of cool.
And how for-profit and non-profitbusinesses can create brand.
And so if, if someone's listeningin here, this is gonna be a great
conversation to match up with that one.
But
let's talk about results and impact,because many people, I wouldn't say

(32:04):
all, but most people I think that gointo business, there are ways to measure
measure
results and then alsothat leads into impact.
And we use words like growth and scaleand how many employees do we have and
what is our year over year growth andEBITDA and all these things that we use.
How

(32:24):
How
should CEOs.
That are kingdom driven, kingdomimpacting CEOs, how should they be
considering results and thinking aboutthe numbers and KPIs and things like
that?
things like that?
Mm-hmm.
I say it's the same thing aseverything else in business.

(32:44):
So, here's one of the thingsthat I think is unique about
CEO experience and what we do.
So when I went to business school,people that go through their MBA
program are usually trained insix key areas of business, right?
Strategy and vision, accounting andfinance, sales and marketing, operational
excellence, customer competitiveadvantage, and human resources.

(33:04):
So your MBA programs arebuilt on those six things.
As you learn in school, or if you don'thave your MBA program, any business
owner will know that you can developmetrics, KPIs on all six of those things.
So what is our strategic plan?
Do we have it written?
do we have it marked out?
What's our top priorities thatwe're trying to accomplish?
What's our accounting and finance metric?
What's our ebitda?

(33:25):
What's our, net gross margin?
what's our profitability?
what's our cost, to ourproducts and service?
You know, what's our, customer service?
What's our NPR or net promoter score?
how do our customers re relate us?
How do we have referralsand so on and so forth.
So there's numbers to eachone of those key areas.
Now, what I found is that that wasstill lacking, and for most businesses

(33:47):
that I had experienced, or I had beenmyself, there's actually three more that
I think aren't talked about in businessschools or businesses that need to be.
One is personal leadership, right?
That goes back to Ephesianstwo 10, where we're at.
God, a lot of times will growa company by growing a leader.
Enron was one of the greatest companies,you know, from a profitability
standpoint, they weren't brought downbecause of their bad human resources.

(34:10):
They weren't brought down because of abad customer experience or bad operations.
They were brought down because oflack of integrity of a couple key
individuals in the organizations thatdidn't have personal responsibility
or develop as a personal leader.
I separate, human resources outfrom team culture and development.
I noticed as Jesus started in thevery first thing that he did when he.

(34:32):
Started his ministry was,he called his disciples.
So could you call that human resources?
Yes.
But really what he was doingwas he's developing his team
and he's building a culture.
The great Peter Drucker said that,culture will eat strategy for lunch.
So having the idea of culture and teamculture and how do we develop our team
and an organization, and even for smallbusinesses, that team culture can bleed

(34:54):
over into your, vendor relationships.
It can blend over to subcontractors,all these types of things.
But too few leaders reallythink about the cultures that
they're really trying to build.
And I think that we canhave a kingdom culture now.
I think kingdom principles andbiblical business principles can,
can be in every one of those aspects.

(35:14):
So like principle number one,taking the second step, that's just
not a customer service principle.
That's an accounting principle.
that's a strategy and vision principle.
That's a sales and marketing principle.
You know, that goes intoevery aspect of your business.
But here's what I do.
I elevate the ninth area, which Iactually, it's number seven on my list.
It's no number nine, but I'llsay it's number nine today is

(35:36):
what I call kingdom impact.
So kingdom impact is just asimportant as accounting and finance.
It's just as important as human resources.
there's a Christian organization outthere today that works with CEOs and
business owners, and they have the mantraor the statement, no margin, no mission.
So basically what they're communicatingto Christian business owners is that if

(35:57):
you're not successful in your business,that you can't have a kingdom impact.
You've gotta have successas a business in order to do
something for the kingdom of God.
I think it's just the opposite.
I think if you don't start outyour business with kingdom impact.
So, you know, the reality is mostbusinesses aren't profitable in the first
three years that they're in business.
Right?
We gotta get up, but you ought to bekingdom impacting on day one if I don't go

(36:20):
out there and elevate my kingdom impact.
And you know what?
Sometimes God uses the best kingdomimpact when I don't have much, right?
And he shows us that in theBible over and over again.
Daniel had his greatest impact whenhe is in the lions den, not when
he is sitting up in the palace.
Noah's got his greatest impactwhen he is in the ark, or he is
building the ark when he has nothing.

(36:41):
You know, he has nothing left and nobody,but he's doing something for God, even
when it doesn't seem to be necessarilyprofitable from the world's perspective.
Moses, I mean, I could go leaderafter leader after leader on this.
So what I would say is you needto have a metric, you need to have
a performance result that you'redriving for in your kingdom impact.
I'll give you another example, right?

(37:03):
So I had a business in Washington DCthat, he came to me and he said, Hey Ken,
I've been in this business for 30 years.
I'm the only Christian in the business.
I don't know anybody else, but Ihear you work with Christian leaders
and I wanna sell my business in afew years, and it's in a bad shape.
I don't have a lot of money.
I put everything in the past 30 yearsinto the business, but you know, I

(37:24):
wanna do it, I wanna finish well, andI wanna do it the way that God would
have me to do it, whatever that means.
And I said, okay, let's goon that journey together.
And so, yes, we built, we beginto build his business, right?
But I told him that just what Itold you, I said, your kingdom
impact needs to be important.
I said, you've been inbusiness for 30 years.
What have you done for the kingdom of God?
What results do you have?

(37:44):
And he said, Ken, I haven't doneanything for the kingdom of God.
And I said, well, let'schange that, right?
whether you sell your business ornot, that you know, that's important,
don't get me wrong, but what Godsays to you eternity for eternity,
that's gonna be more important thanhow much you sold your business for.
And so I challenged him to prayabout it and think about it.
I said, let's developa number and a result.

(38:05):
And so a few days later, he callsme up and he says, Ken, I got it.
I got it.
And I said, what?
And he said, here's what I wanna do.
He said, I've got this beautifulshowroom, Washington, dc it was
a finishing type of a business.
He said, I've got this beautiful showroom.
He said, I think I oughta giveBibles away in my showroom.
He said, there's a pop.
There's a lot of people thatcome through my showroom, you

(38:25):
know, all throughout the day.
And so maybe I should put someBibles out and I can track that.
I can track how manyBibles that I gave away.
I said, fantastic.
I said, welcome to Kingdom Impact.
You've created a number that youcan track, that you can now, you
know, tell people here's part ofwhat you're doing for the kingdom.
The kingdom of God, right?

(38:45):
And so he finish that story.
So he goes out, I said, whenare you gonna go get the Bibles?
'cause you know accountability'simportant right along on this journey.
And he said, well, I'llgo out during lunchtime.
I said, where are you gonna get 'em from?
He said, there's a Christianbookstore not too far down the street.
So he goes down, he didn't tell me howmany Bibles he's gonna give, but we
didn't have that kind of a conversation.
I probably should havegone deeper with him.
But anyway, he goes down thestreet, picks up five Schofield

(39:07):
study Bibles, these big gigantic.
He goes into the Christian bookstore, hesays, tell me the best Bible you have.
They point him to this go field studyBible, nice leather, you know, the whole
thing, like $75 a piece, whatever, right?
He says, how many you have?
They said five.
He buys all five, right?
Brings it back to his showroom, puts'em down on the table, gets a piece
of paper with permanent marker,writes on top of the permanent mark
or free Bible, sticks it on top of theBibles and walks back to his office.

(39:30):
He calls me, he said, can I just did it?
And I said, fantastic.
And he said, it's okay.
You know, and he's, he's,you know, he's being honest.
He's like, Hey, you know, if I giveaway one Bible, that's more than I've
done in 30 years of business, right?
And that's okay.
That's a number I can track, right?
I said, just wait.
I said, you'll neverknow what God's gonna do.
Principle number seven, by the way,is believe in asking the impossible.

(39:51):
Start believing that God can do somethingin your life that you don't believe
that you can do on your own, and you'llwelcome where God into your life, right?
So anyway, he waits about 30 minutes,walks back out into the showroom,
and all five Bibles are gone.
But the piece of paper'sstill on the table, right?
And he looks at his guythat's in the showroom.
He said, Hey, where'd those bibles go?
And the guy says, his name is Ju, hesays, geo says, I don't, I don't know.

(40:14):
I didn't take 'em.
You know, he thought he wasbeing accused of doing something.
He said, man, I was working the showroom.
I don't know where, Idon't know where they went.
I guess the customers took 'em,or the, you know, the employee
took em or whatever it was.
And, so he, anyway, he, he goesback into his office and he calls
me, he says, Ken, guess what?
I said, what?
He said, all five Bibles are gone.

(40:35):
I said, I said,congratulations, well done.
I said, can you imagine?
I said, you gave away five bibles in amatter of 30 minutes, and after 30 years
you finally did something for the kid.
Oh, that was an indictment.
That was an encouragement.
Right.
That was, Hey, wow, you just,you just stepped into something
different and now you can track it.

(40:56):
Well, today he's given away over3000 Bibles out of that showroom.
And so he had regular Bible.
Now, he didn't go get Schofield studyBibles, but you know, he had, he has
a stack of Bibles in that showroom.
And then he waited about a few monthsand he said, Hey, you know what, I've got
some people that English isn't their firstlanguage in Washington DC so I probably
need some Spanish Bibles in the showroom.

(41:17):
And then he thought about it a fewmonths later and he said, Hey, I
need to have some kids' Bibles.
'cause probably some of the peoplethat come in, they have children and
we can, and so he can track each oneof those metrics now that he can see
how many Bibles a year he's givingaway, how many Bibles are impacting.
And I could tell you storyafter story after that.
And I tell him that's one of, and he wouldeven tell me, he said, that's one of the

(41:38):
most important numbers in my business now.
It is not about thenumber of sales we have.
It's not, I mean, thosenumbers are important too.
Those are critical numbers.
The bank wants to see those numbers,you know, those are critical.
But I said, and he knows, he says,but God wants to see this number.
And so we treat it equally.
We treat it as the same as allthese other areas of your business.

(42:01):
that's phenomenal.
And you know, the cool thing is, is that
he probably had some of his employeesthat were picking up those Bibles, you
know, that he had never had communicationswith, and so it opens up the door to
have some of those communications.
The reason I love whatyou're saying is it's.
I believe he was probablyhaving impact on the kingdom.
There was just no measurement.

(42:21):
he wasn't sure.
He didn't know, and he questioned it.
and I do think a lot of leadersin business have this thought
that the pastor down at the localchurch, he's doing things, but
I'm just out here doing business.
And you mentioned it earlier,sometimes even the preachers will say,
you go out and make moneyand just send us a check.

(42:43):
I don't like that mindset, by the way.
I, I think that the marketplace inmany ways is a much more fruitful,
fruitful area than some of our churches.
I, I was saved in a business setting
because my personality was probablythat I was never gonna probably
go into a church setting much.
So

(43:03):
we could go into that.
You use the term
well done often.
And I've got your book right here.
Well done.
So before we go into the book and afew things here before we, finish up,
tell me,
tell me about the term well done.
Well done.
Yeah, so well done was the, you know,when I read that business parable

(43:26):
about the, the leader that goes awayand he leaves the servant and then
he comes back and he says, well done,good and faithful servant, you know,
enter into your master's happiness.
Right?
And, you know, the well done resonateddeep within my spirit and was like,
that's, that's what life is all about.
That's really what I want to hear.
I want people to tell me,Hey, that's a good product.

(43:47):
You did a good job.
That's a good company you've built,you know, it's built on integrity, all
these different types of things, but Ialso want to hear it in eternity, right?
And so when I began to reallyunderstand that, and then when I'd
start talking to other business ownersand I said, Hey, what are you really
trying to accomplish in your world?
And what do you, what's themost significant thing to you?

(44:08):
And what I found was almost everysingle business owner that I
talked to over a period, like Isaid, about five or six years.
Every one of them saidthe exact same thing.
They said, well done.
I want to hear the words.
Well done.
And so, you know, that's really,I call it a well done mission.
That what that means, thoseare the two words I said.
Life is too short.

(44:29):
Business is too hard, and eternity's toolong not to hear the words well done all
throughout this life and for all eternity.
And so we're on a well donemission to build great businesses.
We wanna do that.
Build great products, build greatservices, build a great life, Have
our children love us, have ourfamilies really appreciate us.
Connect to that, but also havean impact on the kingdom of God.

(44:51):
And well done to me signifies notjust in one area, but all those
critical areas being successful.
And I think that's the well done mission.
And so that's why I use thosewords and, and that's really
what well done really means.
We talk about these 12 biblicalbusiness principles, but
they're life principles as well.
They're spiritual principles as well.
They'll help you make everydecision from this point forward.

(45:13):
If you read the book and you gothrough the, and I didn't create
the principles, I've just kind ofelevated them and highlighted them,
and like you mentioned, I mentionedspecifically where they come from.
But they will change every singledecision you'll make from this point
forward because you'll do it in a waythat you'll wanna have breakthroughs
in your business and in your life.

(45:34):
I love the term, and I recallyears ago, man, this was in a house
that we had probably 25 years ago.
My wife and I had this plaqueor a picture that we had made.
that basically you walked throughour front door and I don't even
know what happened to this picture.

(45:54):
We.
I've been through a lot of stuff.
I live in an RV now, so Idon't have a lot of wall space,
but you know, we had it, it wassomething to the effect of that verse.
It was, you know, our family motto.
Our family goal is to hear the wordswell done and good and faithful servant.
You know, when we are finished with thislife, when we move on to the next realm.
I, one of the things that's cool to me,

(46:15):
12 biblical principles for leaders togrow their business with kingdom impact
is, you have pulled thisfrom the book of Matthew.
I'm reading in Matthew right now.
I spend a lot of time in Matthew
and often I will listento the Sermon on the Mount
as an audible.
It's about 15 minutes.
It's a great quiet meditation forthose that want a good tip there.

(46:37):
tip there.
Why Matthew?
Why?
Why did you choose Matthew?
I know why I would and I love it, but why?
the book of Matthew?
of Matthew.
Yeah.
So really I found the principles allthroughout the Bible, but I found
that Matthew did the best job ofarticulating these 12 principles.
And when I thought about it andstarted really analyzing, that
made sense because Matthew wasreally the business guy, right?

(47:00):
He was the accountant,he was the tax collector.
He was the one that was reallyofficially running a business.
And so that's really why we resonatedwith Matthew and the way that he
articulates, the 12 principlesas he outlines them in his book.
You.
You know what's interesting about that?
I was study, I'm doing a deep studyright now on the timeframe between

(47:22):
80 30 and up into the firstcentury, you know, 80, 70,
and I was doing some study on Iranswho was a disciple of Polycarp,
which was a disciple of John,
and I had never thought of this.
They said one of the things thatthe early church had to consider.
With four gospels floating around

(47:44):
was that there's some people that onlywanted one and there was a popular
one, and that at the time, Matthew
Matthew
was the most popular.
Now
it's sort of my most popular too.
I actually, I love Luke, I love thetiming of Luke and things like that.
And
yeah, mark and John that they, you know,John is like a whole different thing.
But

(48:05):
anyway, it's awesome.
There's one principle that I wanna discussa little bit more before we finish up,
and to me it's foundational.
I don't know if it's foundational to otherCEOs, and I think you had it as fifth,
and it is make the movefrom owner to overseer.
And I like to use the word steward

(48:25):
right?
for my business, for my business,when I've been successful for my
business, when I believe I have failed,
failed,
when
I
act like an owner.
Things start unraveling.
unraveling.
But when I remember that I am just acaretaker, things just seem to go well.

(48:47):
That's for me.
How foundational is the ownershipversus overseer as you word it?
Here
I'm looking on page 80.
You can see I've got it highlighted.
highlighted it here.
Um,
Well
how, how critical, how critical to being,
to hearing the words well done, is it
to not be an owner and to be an overseer.

(49:07):
to be an overseer?
Right.
It's actually the first kind of,the first real critical principle.
We outlined the book kindof in three buckets, right?
So four principles tied to proclamationsthat Jesus made, or statements
that he made, like go the secondmile, the second set of four, talk
about parables that Jesus told.
And so that principle comes out ofthe parable of the talents, right?

(49:29):
That they didn't own it.
They were just stewards of whatthe owner had given to them.
And then the last four principles reallytalk about practices of Jesus and the
way that he, did his, did his ministry.
But that move from that, I own it all.
It's my business that I created it, Idesigned it, it's all mine versus it's

(49:50):
all god's and God's asking me to be asteward of it, I think is really critical.
And again, I think we've done somedamage, quite honestly, because
we talk a lot about, in Christiancircles about servant leadership.
And servant leadership's really critical.
Obviously it comes from Jesus serving hisdisciples and serving others, and Robert
Greenleaf wrote a book, great book, backin the 1970s about servant leadership.

(50:14):
But I believe what Jesuscalls us to and what Matthew
illustrates is steward leadership.
And if you do steward leadership,that'll include servant leadership
because now you extra, youunderstand it's not all about you.
You're not the boss, you're notthe one that owns everything.
You're a steward of whatGod has given to you.
I'm actually getting ready to releasethis year, later this year, another book

(50:36):
called The First CEO, and the first CEOis about seven choices that'll either
break or break through your business.
And I talk about Adamand Eve in the garden.
As the first CEO.
They were the first business owners.
They had a little landscape business.
they had a little petting zoo thatthey were in charge of, right?
But what's interesting about thatmodel that Jesus later illustrates

(50:57):
that Matthew talks about is Adamand Eve never owned the garden.
It was God's garden, right?
God is the one that developed it.
He's the one that designed it.
And until we wrestle with thatand relate it to our business,
I don't own CEO experience.
I steward CEO experience.
God owns it.
if I wanted to continue it, Ibetter have it as a steward.

(51:21):
Because Ken's not alwaysgonna be around, right?
Adam and Eve's not gonna be around.
Even Jesus himself wasn't gonna be around.
Jesus treated hisministry as a stewardship.
He started it.
He was the founder.
He created it, but he was readyto hand it over so that it could
flourish in the next generation.
And I find that this is really critical.

(51:42):
So we really start there with everysingle leader because every one of us,
in some ways, we have a responsibilitygene or an ownership gene, where we feel
like as owners, if it's gonna get done,I gotta do it right, or I need to take
charge of this, or I need to make thisdecision, or I'm responsible for this, or
I'm responsible for that, eventually thatownership mentality will break us down

(52:05):
because it is gonna change our philosophy.
I mean, and I could tell you storyafter story in the Bible and story
after story in real life, right?
where when, when the leader moved toownership, it changed their behavior.
When they moved to stewardship,it changes their eternity.
Right.
And so that's, that's why I love thatprinciple of making, I call it making

(52:26):
the move from owner to overseer.
Because you're really making themove from, I'm not the owner of
this business any longer, Godis to now I'm a steward of it.
And I just use the word overseeras a, make it for, from a sentence,
a re reminder of a principle.
Hey, I need the, I'm, am I owningthis or am I overseeing it?
Am I stewarding it?
And I better, I betterthink in stewardship terms,

(52:46):
it's a fundamental principle.
it, it is absolute.
And the way I keep myself in check.
is that a steward, overseer,caretaker, trustee, there's a lot
of words we could put in there,
has a responsibility as acaretaker to return something in
a better condition than when they
received it.
and if you think in that way,there is more of an eternal

(53:08):
versus an owner, you're really
sucking everything out for your benefit.
I'm right now working with a clientthat we're talking about an exit
and we're talking aboutwhat to do to build towards
how we structure things.
And this is a principlethat's so important.
I also love Ken, Iappreciate you bringing up
the servant leadershipbecause I have seen servant.

(53:32):
Leadership abused more than Ihave seen it working out well,
especially in church circles,
but it spilled over intothe business world too,
in that it just, it basicallyhas been abused and people says,
well, hey, you're here to serve,
do this, don't do that.
Whatever.
and so
I believe that that's fairly unhealthy.
Tell me about, there's so manythings we could talk about.

(53:54):
You and I could go for hours, but
tell me about CEO experience and whatthat looks like and give some information
Yeah, so when God called me to makethat transition into the, you know,
working with Christian CEOs and businessowners, I went as God as the owner of it.
I wanted to see what the framework shouldbe and what I found in the marketplace

(54:15):
at the time was there was a lot ofone trick ponies or one product types
of organizations that they said, Hey,we'll work with the Christian business
owner, but you know, they have to doexecutive coaching or they have to do.
Round tables or forums or whatever itis that they might, or prayer groups
or whatever it is that they want.
And what I found was that Jesusactually taught his disciples,

(54:39):
in seven different ways.
And so part of our philosophy is wewanna start with the CEO rather than
start with our products and services.
And so Philippians four, two foursays, consider others be, have the
same attitude of Christ Jesus toconsider others more than yourself.
So our philosophy is a little bit likeDavid and Nathan, that Nathan was part of
David's circle, all of David's kingdom.

(55:02):
So he was there duringDavid's high points.
He was there during David's lowpoints, and then obviously he was
there during the critical momentswhen David needed him to speak.
And he was able to talkto David in such a way.
So as I noticed these seven kind of modelsthat Jesus established, what it does is
it allows CEOs and business owners tostay with us for a long period of time.

(55:23):
Maybe in different productsor services, if you will.
So we have executive coaching.
so our goal is to help CEOs hear thewords well done through hosting retreats.
We use the word retreat, and theretreat serves as seven different
ways that we can have retreats.
So we have private retreats, whichis our executive coaching model.
We have peer retreats where we bring CEOstogether in groups of 15 for mastermind

(55:47):
purposes and to have a day to hear God'svoice and to challenge each other and for
accountability We have personnel retreatswhere we go on side and work with their
team just as Jesus would give with thisteam in the upper room, or have moments
in the garden or have time where he wasdeep diving deep in his, with his teams.
We have perspective retreats where wehelp their more strategic vision and

(56:09):
their once a quarter where we work with,companies or the CEO to develop vision
for themselves and For their company.
We have prayer retreats where weget together for spiritual purposes.
We have a prayer team that prays overthe needs of others, and that's a free
retreat that we offer at no charge.
Obviously, these other retreats havedifferent price points, but what we find

(56:29):
is as business owners go through life,all of a sudden, instead of just going
on one product, they can stay with us.
And our goal, one of our goals, isto work with a CEO for a lifetime.
And because we want to help themto hear the words well done.
And so we don't sign, have anybodysign any long-term contracts,
any of those kinds of things.
But somebody might start in a peer retreatas an example, and then all of a sudden

(56:50):
they might go through a business sale likeyou're talking about, and maybe they sell
their business and so they don't have abusiness any longer, but they still want
that private executive coaching pieceor maybe they're in a startup phase,
they wanna restart another business.
And so they want that.
And then all of a sudden they bring a teamalong and they want the team to understand
some values and some principles.
So we talk business, we can train.

(57:12):
With the team, we still train back.
Like in my old world where I cantalk about a business foundation,
you'll notice the 12 principles.
They're all really writtenin business language.
They're not necessarilywritten in spiritual language.
But what I do in the book is I'm notafraid to share the foundation of
where those principles come from.
you can find out more about our, weusually talk about three retreats

(57:33):
as a place for people to start.
You can find that on ourwebsite@atceoexperience.com.
If you're interested in ourpeer retreats, which a lot of
people start with that as well.
We have another sitecalled CEO retreat day.com.
CEO retreat day.com.
But that's a lot about whatwe do at CEO experience.
We have other coaches that areusing our products and services

(57:54):
as well all over the country.
So we're not a big organization right now.
We have about 10, chiefexperience officers that lead
those different retreats.
and it's not necessarily just relatedto states because it's really around,
related to Where their influences areand where people call us to go to.
So I just got, back from the Westcoast, not too long ago 'cause I

(58:14):
was hosting a retreat out there.
I was, talking to a CEO earlierthis week about a retreat that
we're gonna be hosting up in Canada.
So, you know, we kind of go indifferent places based on what
the CEO needs and what's in thebest interest of their business.
Thanks for sharing that and we'llmake sure we include the links
and also the links for the book.
Well done.

(58:34):
That, is excellent.
I'm sure people can get thaton Amazon and everywhere.
I think when I foundout we were talking, I
had my assistant say, Hey, canyou get me a copy of a handful
of days before the session?
And I was able to get a real copy of it.
I didn't even read this one on my Kindle,so well done with the book, by the way.
Let me just tell you that Ken.
Hey, one thing I want you to doright before we finish up here,

(58:56):
let's assume we've got some leaders,small business CEOs, maybe even
ministry leaders can, and theyjust need a word of encouragement.
Let's just say that they.
they
Have listened in, they've heard all thesegreat things that you've had to say, but
give a word of encouragement for leadersout there that are attempting to impact

(59:17):
the kingdom with what they're doing.
with what they're doing.
Oh, absolutely.
you know, I know it can be hard attimes, but the encouragement that
I have is that you're not alone.
That God has a big vision for you.
God has a big, ability to do greatthings in your life and in your business.
And my encouragement is just to try todraw close to him, to listen to his voice,
and he'll lead you to the next step.

(59:39):
And that next step can be one of themost significant steps in your life.
one of the principles isknow your yeses and nos.
And I noticed that Peter said yes.
And I love that story in the Bible, right?
Where he's out just on a regularday fishing, doing his job, and
all of a sudden it tells us thatday he didn't catch any fish.
And so he is on the seashorewashing out his nuts.

(01:00:00):
Can you imagine how frustrating that is?
Right?
the entire night out fishing, throwingthose nuts in and out, in and out, in
and out, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Right?
I'm sure he was ready to give up andhe definitely wanted to probably get
home and have breakfast that morning.
And all of a sudden this guy comesalong the seashore and he says, Hey,
can I borrow your boat for a minute?
Peter had every reasonto say no to that guy.

(01:00:21):
He had every reason to say no.
I'm done.
I just washed out my nuts.
My wife's waiting for me.
Breakfast is ready.
I'm tired, I'm sleepy.
And yet Jesus calls him to go a littlebit further and Peter said, yes.
He says, yeah, you can have my boat.
He doesn't even ask howlong the sermon's gonna be.
he didn't say, are you a Pentecostalpreacher or are you a Baptist preacher?
He just says, Hey, you know, Jesus,if you need my boat, I know I'm
gonna have to wash out my net again,but I just wanna say yes to you.

(01:00:44):
Right?
And he gets back into the boat, and thenJesus tells him to after he preaches his
sermon, and he says, throw down the nets.
And Peter says, well, you know,Jesus, now's not the right time.
And Peter wasn't, he was wise.
He'd been fishing for years.
He knew what time the fish were biting.
And yet Jesus says, throw it on your nets.
And he doesn't.
He just says, now's not the right time.

(01:01:06):
Jesus doesn't even respondin that, which I just love.
And probably just, Jesus looks at Peterwith such eyes and such an intensity.
And Peter says, okay, you know,I wanna say yes to you, Jesus.
And so he throws down the nets, andof course the story is he catches the
biggest catch that he's ever caught.
So much so that his boat starts to sink.

(01:01:27):
And then they get on the seashorethat day and Jesus says, follow me.
You know, I wanna make youfishers of fisher of men.
And Peter said, yes.
And so what I've learned inmy life in difficult times and
hard situations, it doesn't meanthat it's not hard, it's real.
That was a real hard story for, for Peter.
He had to wash out his nuts.

(01:01:49):
He had to take the boat back out.
Obviously he got a big catch up that day.
But that was still a lotof work to be done too.
But I find a lot of encouragement ifI just find my yes right and I say
yes to Jesus, I think that's the most.
So every day when I get up, and especiallyin difficult times, and I would encourage
every business owner, just start sayingyes, Jesus, you want me to do something?
I'm gonna say yes to you.

(01:02:10):
I'm gonna forget about the restof the world and what they're
telling me to do or not do.
I want to hear your voice and I justwanna take it the next step to whatever
you ask me to, and I know if I dothat, I'll find my way through it.
That's so good.
Ken Gosnell.
Thank you.
It also shows how just one encounter.
With the son of God, withJesus Christ can change

(01:02:31):
everything.
So amen and hallelujah there.
I appreciate,
Ken, you doing what you do.
I appreciate you working with theleaders that you're working with.
I am.
have no doubt that this having impact.
I appreciate you writing the book.
Well done.
Well done.
12 Biblical principles for Leadersto Grow their business with Kingdom
Impact.
Get a copy of that if you're listening in.

(01:02:53):
This has been a great conversation.
If you've been listeningin here at Seek go Create.
We have new episodes every Monday.
just like this greatconversation talking about how
we can make an impact.
So thank you for listening in.
Make sure you're liking and subscribingand commenting over on YouTube
and all the places and we will seeyou next week on Seek Go create.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Stewardship Mindset: Ken Gosnell's Guide to Hearing 'Well Done'