Finding God’s Purpose and Love in Work

I grew up in a very strong as you said Christian family in Minnesota and so I was called by God you know follow me at a very young age you know like a church camp you know we'd go every summer and it's a beautiful place but when you get call that's really just an invitation to go deeper and get to know God and I don't think I really knew God until kind of my late 20s early 30s when I was in the early part of my career and I realized my faith wasn't as deep as it should be and I had to understand more so I went through a period where I found a great church you know Le Anderson got to know leth he was a great teacher and then I went through Bible Study Fellowship which was a 5-year program to read the whole Bible and through that you know my faith really the root of my faith came to life but that led to the question I've been called what should my calling be and your calling is a different thing that's what's your purpose and I said because I'm working and I love to work I just have to love people through work that's my calling that's really simple that's really simple really simple. [00:28:00]

When we did the Apple Stores I remember for Shing Ste because there was two of us for a long time I had hired employ he says so what are you going to do I said well I'm going to um love our customers and he said Ron what does that mean I said no I said we're gonna we're going to secure their good because youi think about Apple Apple had always been in the relationship business you know Apple created these products that truly made people better people that changed their lives and it's hard to live without an Apple product so the stores had to extend that to a relationship and so so we figured what the store has to do is we want to find new customers okay that's when we launch relationships we want to deepen relationships we do that for variety of programs and we created those and when the product doesn't work which really broken as your relationship with apple how do you restore the relationship that was at the Genius bar so the heart of the Apple Store we Ed two words the mission of the stores was to enrich lives that's it simple as that so every employee had to learn how to enrich a life through a store experience if a new customer walked in and was to Welcome to the Apple Store make sure you had a great conversation you understood what they're trying to do and you got their hands on the product it wasn't about selling the product we just get them plant a seed with a product right and and that led people to kind of love the store and a lot of people started to buy those products and then we invite them back and we had programs like one toone personal training which was only $99 a year we had theaters where we taught classes we'd throw summer camps for kids who'd come in get a t-shirt spend five days in the camp in the store and then at the end the parents would come and watch what they learn to do we have field trips for classes Any teacher could call up and say I want to bring my class no kidding anytime you want you know but we did all that because that was securing the good of somebody and we figured if we created a place that you know was filled with love customers would want to belong and over time the stores became the highest traffic stores in the world we were seeing 50 million customers year that's a lot of people love but that helped build I think this following for Apple that is so deep right but if you go back to it it wasn't really a business strategy it was a response to a call from God which is what you're calling Ron to love people through work how do you do that and then everyone at Apple work together to deliver on that promise to Rich lives you know so that's kind of it reminds me I remember reading about John Wooden the old basketball coach at UCLA and several players that played for him said a really striking thing about his coaching is he never said to the team we gotta win this next game uh he would always say the contest is can you be your best self can you bring a 100% to this contest and if you can uh walk off the floor with your head high but player after player would say every other coach I ever had they would just be screaming about we gotta win when I think of stores I often think of or retail or Marketplace in general we got to make money how much money we make and we got to figure out and it sounds kind of similar where like for wooden winning was kind of a byproduct and the real contest was to bring yourself and what we're saying is I assume you still have to pay attention to profits and finances you do but it is J I think most great Business Leaders realize profit is the outcome of great customer experience a great product it's not the input and I grew up you know uh there were a lot of department stores when I grew up and The Dayton Family owned the Minneapolis one Dayton that actually created Target but you know George Draper would say profit is our reward for serving the customer well right but all that goes back when you really think about it John that goes back to what you wrote a great book years ago on the impact of Jesus how the great impact he had and he taught a way of life that was all about loving other people and you did and the reason the church exploded it wasn't Christianity or even salvation it was who are these people and what are they doing you know and that's out of that whole basis came healthare and schools and all these things today that we take for granted had their roots in a way of life that was really about securing the good of other people yeah no it's interesting to think about Jesus working as a carpenter all those years and to think he wasn't just shadding water or you know biting his time he was actually expressing Love by whatever he was making uh during those years for the people that he would give it to great I agree I was thinking as you were talking about working with Steve Jobs um uh there's somebody else we know I will not tell the story but he had a really difficult encounter with Steve and U Steve was just one of those kind of iconic figures where uh his genius for design and innovation has you know marked the world in ways that we're all grateful for admired deeply you know when he would do those presentations with the black turtleneck and the blue jeans and here's what's coming next like it was like a movie coming out so that was amazing but then at the other on the other hand um uh one of the top complaints that people have one of the difficulties people have at work is just difficult people and I know at least some people would have experienced moments like that with Steve how did you find God uh working with folks when somebody was difficult how did you feel like you were learning from God as you were learning from Steve because I know you learned a ton from him where did is God and kind of working with people and working with difficult people that's a really interesting question John I've never you know it's interesting Steve was pretty private and he spent time with a handful of people and he had people he was really close to and he had a huge heart Steve was a Seeker he just had a big heart for those who he loved but like yeah all of us were imperfect and Steve's biggest challenge was he was a perfectionist his standards were so high that if you didn't meet those standards he didn't know how to handle that so over time was very clear Steve hired people that could be his interface to the rest of apple and people that had the self-esteem the self-confidence to work with him in a very direct relationship where you wear your opinions on your sleeves you know I told this story many times when I uh started at Apple uh Lizzie and will my kids were two and four or three and five very young and Steve said what time did they go to bed I said about 8 o' and he said can I call you and I said sure and then he followed up with every night and I said okay and uh but what Steve wanted to do he he had this belief that he said Ron if we get to know each other perfectly really well every aspect of your life our families our interests work Apple whatever uh you will learn how I think and I will know how you think and then you will be free as a butterfly to just go lead and do the Apple Stores and only come to me when you're not sure what I'd think and so he had great trust great faith and we had a very good relationship through that so the point is when you find difficult people at work and Steve could be difficult you got to look at every individual and say you know what they're not perfect and I'm not perfect either and you realize that God's in the world to help imperfect people and so you end up spending more time praying about them or thinking about how can I help them with their challenge you know and and that's what you that's kind of the lens you look at it from a person of faith if you're trying to love people to work that's not love the nice people to work that's love everybody through work and so you got to just kind of you just accept people more I think so that's how I find that John I believe that as a opportunity not as a challenge if you will what would you say Ron I'm thinking about somebody who's watching right now and they're doing a job they don't like uh you know they're um doing menial Labor uh they're doing data entry they're doing something that isolates them something that feels like a bad fit they they look at you and they think well sure you know Mr tar in front of the Apple Store you know you just got to do these great wonderful glab things of course he's gonna love his work um have you ever had the experience of being frustrated or anxious absolutely yeah that work can well let me answer that let me answer this two ways John I'm sorry interrupted you but we're friends so I can do that my wife does it all the time it's her primary love language so I'm very no that's what I get told all the time Ron listen to me quit thinking about what you're to say you know um but if you have a choice and most people early in their life have a choice in their career I really encourage figure out where your gifts are you know what is your giftedness that you've been given because we tend to flourish when we do things we're naturally uh created to do or where we have passion unfortunately a lot of people don't have a choice and they're working to provide income right but I go back to it you know uh it may not be the best but you can find meaning in everything you do yeah and you got to find a way to find meaning in life and uh you and I talked about brother Lawrence you know and people like that you know you just got to find meaning in the little day today things and that led to what I thought you'd ask me that I kind of thought about which was you know how do you find God's where do you find God's presence in the world right because where you see God's presence you tend to find a little more joy and a little more meaning right and what I was going to talk about if I could take a second is I read a great book by Timothy Keller recently the reason for God and he spent a lot of time on what's pretty intellectual concept that isn't talked about a lot it's the Trinity you know but what's unique about the Christian faith is the idea that God is three persons it was God the Creator as we all know there's Jesus who was his son who lived amongst us taught us the way of life saved us and then when he left that the Holy Spirit kind of is embedded within us well through that lens it's not how do you find God it's how do you not see God in the world because God is everywhere so the Creator I mean I'm sitting here Outdoors today the Sun the garden the trees the ocean here in California the mountains it's hard to not see God's presence as a Creator but as Dallas said you know he created us in his image so we all can create so every object that we use or look at yeah yeah a beautiful home the the iPhone was created by someone because God gave us the ability to imagine so I see God in every object I see right but then Jesus we talked about it's a way of life he taught us how to love and it's very simple the command love your neighbor who's your neighbor it's anybody you walk into for me it was customers at the Apple Store was employees it's my family it's you and from that perspective when you just look around love is everywhere you're at a restaurant you see people at a table celebrating a holiday and laughing that's love you see a parent Dro their kid off at school or picked them up that's love you see a mom walking in a stroller you see a nurse yeah love is everywhere that's God because he taught us that and then the spirit you know we all know I I been well R inv to Stanford for years and I've asked the question the medical team there well tell me what do you know about the soul what have you discovered about conscience because we all agree that there's this nudge inside of us that guides our behavior that encourages as we make decisions all day long you've got something inside that you don't even think about that kind of guides your behavior well to me that's the spirit right science Stanford can't find that but we know it exists right so that's but that's the triun God you got a Creator which is objects the world you got Jesus which is love and then you got the spirit which you feel every day so if someone says I can't find God I think you got to pay attention in a different way and that's what I'd say to someone who's in a really tough job you know or in a difficult situation yeah God is there you just got to work harder to find the presence I love that and I love um that notion of the Trinity can sometimes feel pretty abstract to people so to make it as real and concrete is work and I was thinking as you were talking reading about how uh the first time the spirit is uh talked about as being given to somebody in the Bible is actually not to a prophet or a preacher or a saint it's a Craftsman bezel uh working on the temple and the text says that God gave him a spirit of craftsmanship and the ability to work with design and then to help other people do that I love that idea that not just when I look at a leaf in nature but when I look at an object that has been made when I look at an iol or when I feel like I'm able to begin to do something to write something or cook something or make something or invent something we're seeing God all the time even though we don't often connect it dos I agree and what's interesting is uh most objects are like the world it's pretty amazing how it all works together you know so which pretty impressive and it becomes very simple to use the world you know to live in the world when you think about like even a copy like apple that I was so blessed to work at everything Johnny and Steve and the teams did was to make things easy simple to create order to enable people to become their best well it's interesting that these designed objects really have the same philosophy as God has for the world you know and that all those things lead me to believe that the light of God Burns inside of everybody they might not have been called yet they might for their upbringing be brought up in a different Faith or be agnostic but that doesn't mean that God isn't having an impact on them and that kind of goes back to why it's easy to love a difficult person because you know you just see it in everybody that God Burns inside of people whether they're ready to acknowledge it they ever acknowledge it you know it's just interesting to me let me ask you this you are on the bell curve of life I think something of an outlier in terms of somebody that just has a terrifically optimistic attitude I've been told that before yeah Embraces the moment um Embraces work uh I think you would bring that to work every day and you know we all uh emotions are so contagious the spirit in US is is so contagious and when I'm around somebody that's negative that's just a draining thing when I'm around somebody that's hopeful optimistic that Ines life inside me and I walk away thinking I can grow I can do this I I can do better and you seem to bring that naturally is that something you've had to work at were you just genetically wired up in some weirdly optimistic way um do do you do you consciously try to cultivate that in yourself oh yeah I'd say two things John I I think I I think it is my nature there's no doubt I feel happiest when I'm optimistic I think I grew up in the most secure loving family neighborhood Town system that cultivated that ability to be optimistic what I've learned in life though that you can't control the circumstances you can control your approach to the circumstances and to choose a positive approach how do I solve this I can get through this always produces a better result than to choose a negative approach you know because eventually we get through things and it takes a lot of help and a lot of time and it takes a lot of love and support from people but I think choosing a positive approach will always create a better outcome because I've gone through some really tough times as you know John you know careerwise uh you know my last work has been very difficult but I still have always chosen to try to put the best face in and do the best I can and you know and if it doesn't work out that's okay but at least I chose good I chose to try I chose you know to to be optimistic and I think it's a better way to live you life this will sound like a question that only has one right answer especially coming from somebody that worked as a pastor but I genuinely don't mean it that way because I think our minds um can do good under lots of conditions do you would you find yourself praying a lot talking to God consciously overtly you know inwardly when you were working or not so much more focused on people and the work that you're doing would you find ideas creativity feeling like they were coming to you from the outside what what was that inner uh wi one for me uh what I would do pretty regularly you know is you know this Don I would get to zero inbox every day you know I wanted to be caught up in any work that people were waiting on me for every phone call returned every email text answered so I could be available to people in the moment to encourage and guide and help and create joy and motivate and Inspire but I had to get might work out of the way to be avilable to people but the second thing I did is and I still do this like when I swim that you know every length I think about a different person in my life you know it's about caring my wife then it's about Lizzy or will and I give them each a length which for me is a long time to think because I'm not a fast swimmer but I I'm kind of intentional about what's going on in their life today if I talk to them what is it they need what can I do to make their life a little better and I just do that with work you know because as a leader you're trying to secure the good and help your team you got to be very intentional about it so that in effect that's prayer you know that's prayer it's it's you start with you you maybe start with the Lord's Prayer but then you you kind of go through okay who are the people in my life that I'm supposed to love and remember love is not emotional it's secure and they're good or it's Agape how do you do that and that's very intentional so then when I'd see those people today I go here's what I want to do for Jerry here's what I need to provide to Denise here's what I need for Lizzie and I think naturally because I had thought it through I was pretty intentional about how to do that so but it I had to create the time and space that I could be liberated or free to be my best self and be available to other people so many thoughts in there there's an ancient monastic order and their their motto is three Latin words but it's work and pray uh and to find how do you make your work a form of prayer and how do you make your prayer a form of work and that's basically what you're saying yeah I mean prayer isn't a big start with dear God and end with amen it can be yeah oh there's someone in need how can I help them that's a prayer yeah that's a prayer I want to come back to one other thing because this is so much good stuff I remember reading I think the guy's name was Paul Allen some guy that does a lot of research in the word Fe a lot of Consulting and he said what what kills us what Withers our Spirits is not so much that we have a lot of work to do it's when we have tasks uh that are not yet done and we're not certain that they're going to get done where we don't have a system to make sure that will get taken care of and that just drains the willow when you were talking about I want to get down this zero kind of inbox where there's a sense of Freedom uh that resonates a lot with what he were saying but obviously your list of things to do was huge did you have anything that helped to get to that zero Freedom point I think it's like any anyone who a leader you can always hire more people now I didn't hire people I most of my life I I didn't rely on my assistant a lot I would just do things I'd make my own plane flights I it was easier um but I think the most important thing is you have to have the confidence in other people to delegate that's the big issue you got to trust the other people in your life to help and I think that people that tend to have real long list tend to want to do everything themselves because ultimately they don't trust others or they're aiming for a level of perfection that you can't do and so I would encourage people just try let go let go you know if you got stuff to do who can I who else can do it what on my list is really not even necessary to do just let it go you know because if you don't find space for yourself and the ability to build these relationships in your life you're never going to experience Joy so if you want joy you need space right if you want space you have to let go if you want to let go you have to trust so what do you trust ultimately it's hopefully it's God you know it kind of all works back to that and as you know we are you know Eternal Spiritual Beings living in Eternal Destiny you know ultimately we're a spiritual being what happens here doesn't matter it's that Eternal destiny that matters and so I think if you're too busy you got to let go I think of uh a bowling all you ever watch people bowl and U I have after they I used to go for the gold pins remember the gold pins yeah oh yeah weren't those great when we grew up yep you when that pin was on the front everyone would look at you and you had to get a strike and you get a free game but when people go bowling very often they've let go of the ball but they contort their body in all different directions to try to influence the ball to make and so really the secret to good work is like the secret of good bowling uh when you let it go let it go I saw you do that on the golf course the other day John yeah little two much go Ron This Been fabulous somebody should offer this as a course somewhere thank you for doing this for everybody out there watching um the word for today is work and pray um uh ask God to be with you as you're working let your mind be fully devoted to the task let that Spirit of creativity be at work in you and then as names come to your mind pray for God to bless Ron thank you very much for doing this thank you John hey if you like that video go ahead and subscribe to our channel so that you don't miss any future episodes in this series finding God in your world where John will sit down with a different guest each episode asking him that simple question where are you finding God in your world if you want more resources head on over to becom new.com subscribe where you can let us know if you'd like to receive the emails that go along with each video with extra content and information or if you want to sign up for the text reminders whenever we drop a new video also if you've got 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