Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RGW Dunham College of Business at Houston Christian University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. And on this episode, we're joined by Shane Reeves. Shane is CEO of Twelve Stone Health Partners, which is Nashville, Tennessee's regional leader in delivering pharmaceutical and medical equipment to post-acute patients. Founded in 2016, 12 Stone is the third iteration of pharmacy organizations founded by Shane and the Reeves family. Their mission is to honor God, care well for patients, develop their team, and generate profit. And Shane holds a doctorate of pharmacy from the University of Tennessee and also serves as a state senator representing the 14th District of Tennessee. Shane, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Hey, brother, appreciate you having me on the show. Yes, sir. Listen to that bio. It reminds me how much I've got going on. But uh I appreciate you having me, brother.
SPEAKER_00Yes. You do have it going on, brother. Shane, when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work and business?
SPEAKER_01I've I've always been a person of faith over the course of my I'm 55 years old today. Uh and even as a pharmacist, and I'm I'm a fourth-generation independent pharmacist in Tennessee. So my family's been in pharmacy since 1900 in Middle Tennessee. So many different iterations of the company. Um but I sold a business. I sold a retail pharmacy business in 2015. It's literally January 2016. And uh Darren, it was the hardest year professionally I've ever had in my life. It it really was looking back on it. I mean, uh it was it was one of those seasons that everywhere I would go, people were like, what is this crazy stone thing you're doing, Shane? And uh it was a challenging year financially. It was a challenging year with my with well, I had employees that had been with me for decades that had left. I had customer problems, I had technology problems. I mean, I just everything you can imagine. And it was a season of my life where every single week um I would come in and you're asking yourself, okay, what's gonna happen this week? Um, and I I distinctly remember I had a lot of reflux, I wasn't sleeping well. I mean, God always gets my attention at three o'clock in the morning, my brain's just flying, I'm trying to solve everything. Um, and I got about four or five months into that, and I had a dear friend and mentor come alongside me and say, Shane, don't miss this painful gift. Don't miss it. So in May of 2016, I remember distinctly, this guy and I had lunch, and he said, Tomorrow morning I want you to wake up and I want you to get yourself a brand new journal. I've never been much of a journaler, but uh but get yourself a brand new journal, get yourself a Bible that has a daily reading, and tomorrow morning all I want you to do is to get up and I want you to write the date, which was May 1st, and then write day number one. And then all I want you to do is to write one word. Well, during that season of my life, the words were sad or scared or um uh you know, just confused. Occasionally the word was hopeful. Um, and he said, as you progress, start writing more in the journal and spend some time with God. And this morning, which you know, we're like middle of December 2023, was day number 2511. That morning practice really has changed my life. So I've always been a person of faith. The 12-stone story is really after the 12 stones in the Bible uh of Joshua leading the people of Israel. But I'm just convinced looking back on all that, until that period of time, God didn't have me. He got me then. He really got me and said, You got to make time for me. And since that period of time, I mean clearly, I've had my share of issues. Anybody that's got business knows you're gonna have ups and downs and all kinds of problems. But but uh he he got me, got my attention, and we've been blessed since then. So um the company is is very much about honoring God with our staff and with our customers and our employees and our patients and our referral sources and our messaging, uh, how we do, and God has indeed blessed us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, that is such wisdom uh from your friend about starting with one word. You know, I think journaling, I know for me is I I don't have a uh this sort of stream of consciousness writing style. I'm very very methodical. I've gotta I've gotta just outline everything first. And and so to just pour out my heart like that is is really challenging to me. But I I love that idea of just start with one word, and then as you get the one word, you continue to expand. And you're now on day 2500.
SPEAKER_01511. I mean, I've got eleven. I've got like 11 journals I filled up at this point in time. You know what's interesting is I've shared this with business people over the last few years. Um, some of the most successful people I know, and I'm not talking, I'm talking about in ministry and business and politics and education, the most successful people I know, they journal. They really do. They journal, they read and they journal. They they find time for that morning, um, that morning time. I I joke around and I don't know where I heard this, but I kind of call it my three-headed dragon. If I can slay the head of three dragons before I go to work in the morning, it's gonna be a good day. Uh, number one is I need to slay the spiritual head by finding that that quiet time. Number two, I want to slay the physical head, finding something to do physical, exercise, whatever it's gonna be. And then number three, slaying the intellectual head. I listen to a number of podcasts that are business podcasts, political podcasts, spiritual podcasts. So if I can slay the head of those three things between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. when I go to work, I'm a better man. And I'm filled up, and it's so routinely that I'm able to pour into the people from those areas. But uh, that's a practice that's blessed blessed me, um, and I think it's helped others as well.
SPEAKER_00I love that. So my understanding of when you sell a business is this is supposed to be a happy time. This is, you know, you're getting uh a nice payday, you're gonna go take a nice vacation. Like it sounds like maybe you did some of that, but what was it that made it such a dark time?
SPEAKER_01Well, there's a couple things going on. Number one, I did sell a business, but you know, I I still had three fairly young kids at home when that happened, and um I needed to continue to work. Um, I wanted my kids to see dad working. That would that was important to me. Um, and I I I I actually enjoy being a pharmacist. I mean, I there's part of that that you know, I I don't want to um you know, I'm not gonna be that guy that's gonna sit around and watch Wheel of Fortune all day long. That's that's never gonna be me. And I'll tell you from the short the short window that I had off, the truth is, especially if you're kind of a hard-driving, achieving kind of person, it doesn't take long till your Mondays feel like Thursdays and your Tuesdays feel like Saturdays and your Sundays feel like Wednesdays. I mean, you just it's this groundhog day going on. So you need to feel productive. And um, you know, I I wanted to I had a when I saw my first business in 2015, again I had another um friend of mine who was a Christian said, you know, Shane, if you start another business, it sure would be great if somebody walked through your business and you weren't even there, that they would know within five minutes of walking through your business that it had a Christian influence. And and if you if somebody can walk around my company, they don't really even know that faith's important to you, you need to fix that. So we've been very intentional about that. We have scriptures on the walls, and um we have uh every Monday I send out a Monday's message. That's that's uh stuff going on within the company, but there's also a spiritual component to it. Um something else that I've done and and and again, forgive me, Darren. I know I'm kind of going down some different trails with you here. Um when I started this company, I decided that I really wanted to have an opportunity to intentionally pour into a few people at a time. So I started a program called the Iron Team, Proverbs, Iron Sharpens Iron, and it's 12 sessions because we're 12 stones, and I meet with four people at a time for 12 sessions. And uh there's a so there's a professional development side, there's a spiritual side, there's a testing side, and I've done that now 10 times. I've graduated 10 people from the iron team program over the course since 2016. And at the end of the program, they get a sword. I give them a sword with their name engraved on it uh for graduating the Iron Team program. So uh we just had our Iron Team Christmas breakfast last week, and I probably had 35 people, many who don't work for them anymore, came back to that. So that's that's been a real blessing. But just you know, every company's gonna stand for something. Yeah, why why not stand for God? You know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And were the these people all born-again, fired up Christians when they came to work there?
SPEAKER_01Oh man, though. All over the place, you know. Yeah, just clearly. I mean, we we we are we're very overtly people know that faith is an important part of us. I mean, you you said it earlier. Our our purpose statement is about honoring God, taking care of patients, really sick people in my business, um, developing a team of people, excellent team players, and generating profit. That's really who we are. So people that come to work for us, they're not confused. I mean, they they know who they're coming to work for, but they're all along the continuum of faith. I mean, we have a full-time chaplain that I've hired to come work for us now. Um, I felt it was important enough to have somebody internally who for our staff and for our for our patients and customers. But they're all along the continuum. So by the time they finished the iron team program, you know, I've moved the dot a little bit. Some is very reaffirming, and some have just opened their eyes to new ways of thinking about things. But that's been a real blessing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So with that program and the you've shared some of your personal habits as a leader to stay Christ-centered in your life and your approach to business. What are some of the habits, or let's start with one habit that that you've really instilled across your company corporately to help the entire company reflect God's character? Like your friend said, uh, you should be able to tell when you walk into a company within the first couple minutes that this is a company that is devoted to the Lord. What's one of the habits across the board that that somebody might begin to observe as they come to work there?
SPEAKER_01We pray before every meeting. That's a simple thing. We I'm I'm not hitting people over the head with the Bible, but I whether it's an all-staff meeting, I mean, I have 350 employees now, by the way. So it it's uh it's a there's a lot of people working here, at least in my world, that's a lot of folks. Yeah. Uh, and we're in four different states. So people are zooming in, they're calling in uh to be part of it. We we pray before every meeting. Um just every single time I do a new employee orientation, I mean, I have a process that I go through with every single new employee, and and I share with them my faith and why it matters, and I tell them, you need to know what you're signing up for here. You know, this is who we are, this is what we believe, this is where we're going, and this impacts how we uh how we treat each other and how we treat our patients. I I'm a big believer in being honest and being kind. Because I think you can do both. You know, we're we don't have to necessarily always agree with each other, but uh life life is too short to work with jerks. It just is. It's just too short to work with jerks. And if you're gonna be a jerk, you know, find another job. You know, that's just not how we act around here. So we're very much about being honest and kind and excellent and gracious and loving each other and loving our patients. And as I said, across the whole continuum, there's a different level of faith commitment. But um, you know, just praying a little bit with people. A simple prayer before meetings goes a long way. Um, and you know, you you don't necessarily have to have a chaplain, but if you had access to a chaplain of somewhere that if it was a smaller company, if somebody had a need, that that goes a long way. Um, I think the blessing from people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How about in the operations of the company? Is there a particular story you could tell about when you you really saw a big biblical value come to the surface and the way that your you and your team handled a particular situation?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Sure. Um, we were approached uh earlier this year. Um we were approached earlier this year with a fairly significant opportunity for our company to start providing medications to multiple states um to to actually be the company that mixes the medications um for uh uh I'm trying to think of the right way to put it. It's um you know, with somebody's uh capital murder or it's gonna be death sentence, and it's the to mix of medications that the but ultimately in the day the lethal injection. Yeah, you got like life sentence, it's it's lethal injections. Um, and looked at it and and it was a no-brainer, man. We're we're we're we're not going to do that. That that to me is just something that just does not make sense, regardless of where you are on life, and regardless of how you feel about lethal injections, that just was not something that that made a lot of sense for us.
SPEAKER_00That's crazy. I never it never occurred to me that that that a company would be the one knowingly manufacturing that those types of drugs. Um that they would have to do that with that on their conscience.
SPEAKER_01And it's been it's been many, many years ago, really, that when early on when the company got called on it, I mean it never even got the surface around here. We I thought I got a call on it and I said, no, no, we're not doing that. So I don't know if that's a good example or not, but there are opportunities, I guess, that come our way. And you really just have to ask yourself. And that's an example of one I could probably give you more. But the opportunities have come our way, and you just really have got to ask yourself, but that's who you want to be. Is that really where you want to put your energy as an organization moving forward? Because I think that sends a message to your team that what's important to you, if you're turning down clear opportunities in the marketplace that can make you more money, be more successful, and again, I could give you more. Um that and you say no to it, it kind of sends a message, all right, well, we want to make money, but we want to make money in such a way that at least we are we're proud of what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Especially if your mission is to honor God, care well for patients. Uh, you know, it's hard to look your team in the eye and say, this is truly our mission to care well for patients when your patients are uh going to die uh from the what you're what you're giving to them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well that that's right. And again, this is uh you know capital punishment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. That's a separate, separate issue.
SPEAKER_01It is, and that's that's it's a very, very small one, but time that made a difference, made a difference in my life along the way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. What's another could you tell a story of maybe a time when you saw God's hand at work in your company?
SPEAKER_01Sure. I think I gave you one a couple of minutes ago when when um uh as far as when I was 2016 and things were so challenging.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I went away um in the fall of that year um as I was trying to work through things and hire some hire some new people. And uh I distinctly remember being at the beach in the fall of 2016, really praying for clarity. You know, I said, Lord, Lord, we don't have to do this. I can go to work for Kroger, I can find something else to do out there, but really, really playing praying for clarity. And it was about that period of time that I had a uh a friend uh that I've known for years again kind of come alongside me and said, Have you ever thought about maybe trying to bring some private equity to try to help invest in the company to help you give you support? And um the name of the company is Claritas. So the whole idea around clarity, but it was Claritas that came to the table. And I really felt like that was God saying, Okay, I hear you. We're gonna give you some clarity and some claritas uh to really kind of give you a shot in the arm. And um that that was a real blessing for me at the time. You know, there there have been so many cases as well, Darren, that I could give you individual situations. I uh we had COVID, COVID was hard on everybody, every I'm sure all your businesses my my business um thrived through COVID because again, we're doing infusions for people in these infusion centers. And if you walk into one of our infusion centers, by the way, they feel like a spa but they're very there's scripture everywhere, there's a lot of faith component to it. Um but COVID really, really uh accelerated that. But we also had uh situations through COVID that people were losing their moms and they were losing their dads. I had one individual who um who lost his young wife um and uh with his two children, and just the way our company rallied around him for for a year and a half, two years to really help pull him back to a better place um was a was a real blessing just to be there for each other. Again, I kind of come back to the whole concept of you know, it's uh life's too short to work with jerks, take care of each other. You know, it's it's it's silly not to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow, great stories. So Shane, I'm wondering as a state senator, uh, what are some of the ways that that you've that you really feel that you've been able to help the marketplace reflect God's character and God's justice and God's righteousness and just just God's God's will for people?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's that's a good question. So I ran for Senate uh in 2017. It's kind of a long story, but I ran for Senate in 2017 and slipped up and accidentally won. So um I got elected in March of 2018. So I've been a senator for a little over five years. Um I love the service component. I met a lot of wonderful people. Um the true political side, social media side of things is nasty. Um and I don't I don't enjoy that. But I decided early on um that every single person in Nashville, which is where I'm at primarily, you know, is gonna put their faith in something. They just are. You've got some people that have got their faith in power, some have got their faith in money, some have got their faith in the family, some got their faith in the Tennessee Titans. Um, but uh they're gonna get their faith, and their worldview is gonna come from something. And so I decided to make it clear that I got my faith in God in Christ. That's that's where it comes from. That's what shapes my worldview. And so I decided to run for chaplain of the Senate and won. So that gave me, has given me the opportunity to to pray uh in the Senate chambers. It's given the opportunity to pray with individual senators and to kind of be an individual that um, you know, people know it it's important to me. Um I will routinely tell young people uh that come to meet with me in the Senate uh and just ask overall about how I got to where I are, where I am. I will say you can um if I can spend one month with you and really pay attention to where you spend your time, where you spend your mind, where you spend your money, and who are your key relationships with, I can tell what's important to you. I I can get a sense of what you where you're getting your power and your faith from. I mean, that it's not it's not really hard to see. And at the end of the day, those things and the habits you build around supporting those things, that determines your future. It it really does. I mean, nobody's gonna control their future, but you can control your habits where you spend your your time, your mind, your money, your relationships. And that in turn will dictate your future. And so that's that's a mantra that I talk about real often. Legislatively, I'm a healthcare guy. I'm a healthcare background. So so much of what I've done in Nashville is around addressing healthcare-related issues. Um Tennessee has got a lot of work to do in healthcare. We're at the 47 out of 50 states in life expectancy. We're at the bottom in heart disease and diabetes and cancer and stroke. We're doing a lot of things very well in Tennessee financially, but we've got a lot of work to do in healthcare. So sometimes it's easy to talk about health, mental health, spiritual health, physical health all intertwined. So of the 100 plus bills I've passed since I've been in Nashville, I would say two-thirds of those are in the are somewhere in the health space. Um I've passed a couple of bills that really um have been very significant in our state around Alzheimer's. I've passed bills in our state to directly address our opiate problem in Tennessee, which is to just claim the life of so many people needlessly. I've passed uh bills in our state to to address uh specifically around diabetes and around cancer and around obesity. So like I said, everybody's gonna put their faith in something. And you know, and I'm not doing this job forever. I mean, I've I've been doing it for five years and I enjoy it. I'm actually running again next year, but I'm not doing it forever. And at some point in time, I'm not gonna be in the seat anymore. So I might as well leverage it while I'm there and try to make a difference, uh make a difference for things I care about and make sure I'm making God proud of me with my decisions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, what a great opportunity to not only be a state center, but to be the chaplain to where I mean they they expect you to talk about, I mean, if you're not talking about Jesus, you're not doing your job, um, right? And and you're not really taking time out to to have those those really deep conversations with the people that are looking to you for leadership, then you're not doing your job. And they they expect you to um, you know, there's great organizations. It just makes me think about marketplace chaplains and corporate chaplains of America, and just the the opportunity. If somebody is looking to pastor in the marketplace, um, certainly you can do that as a leader in a company, um, or just a coworker. I mean, your co-workers need pastoral care. Um, actually, uh spiritual gifts assessment that we put out um found that encouragement was the highest rated, most consistently used gift. Um, and a lot of the pastoral care type gifts were at the very top. Um, so those gifts are available among God's people in the marketplace. It's just a question of will we have the the boldness to step out and use it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. I love that. I when I when I speak, uh when I speak to young people, I mentioned a minute ago about managing where they're managing their time, mind, money. Uh, but I also when I I'll routinely get a question, so I'll raise their hand and say, Yeah, so Senator Reeves, what do you consider to be the the single greatest trait of a leader? Yeah, that's a pretty big question. You know, is it grit, is it persistence, is it hard work? My answer to that is they're self-aware. You're you're really truly self-aware. You know what your giftedness is. You know, you've you've done the strength finders and the Myers Briggs and the Colby's and the disc. I mean, you really have decided, okay, okay, this is what I'm good at, and this is where I can make a difference. And these are the things I'm just incompetent at. And and quit spending your time on things you're terrible at. But if you recognize, like you said, from a gifting perspective, if you if you've got some natural encouragement abilities, lean into that. Uh, if you're not a natural encourager, but maybe you're a really analytical, well, just be a great accountant. And and and you can still use those things for for God. Uh, but but becoming self-aware, digging into that, and just leveraging it, leveraging it, leveraging it uh for for kingdom work. Um uh you you can make a make a world of difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a that's a great point. I mean, a a great biblical example of that is when Jesus is saying you you can't take the speck out of your brother's eye until you take the log out of your own eye. And I mean, that is in in some ways what leadership is is trying to help take the speck out of people's eyes that's that's hurting them, that's not it's not allowing them to see correctly. Um but if you've got those blind spots in your own eye, then you're not gonna be able to help anybody, right?
SPEAKER_01That's right. And I'll tell you, uh, especially this day and time, today's modern workplace humility is a superpower. Kindness is a superpower. Self-control and um uh contentment, those are superpowers. When you find a way to take those four or five things and really let it be part of your part of who you are and maybe study it it um people want to know what you're up to. Yeah um it so those things are such such a big deal. And and in genuine, genuine humility and kindness and contentment. That's just such a peaceful way to live, you know. Yes. And don't get me wrong, I got plenty of plenty of ups and downs, brother, for your listeners. Plenty of things going on. Um, so it it's not that everything's smooth all the all the time. Um but I think I've learned after my 55 years of life that you know, very seldom are you is everything you got going on in the mountaintop and everything's in the valley. You've always got one wheel on both tracks. You got some good things going on, some bad things going on at any given time, and it's your job just to react in an appropriate way to both of those.
SPEAKER_00Yes, quite right. 12stonehealth.com is the website that's the number 12stonehealth.com, um, which of course refers back to Joshua and the Israelites. Um, anything else you want to say, Shane, about how people can hear more from you, um, get connected if they're in one of your areas that 12 Stone Health is serving.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I'd I'd be interested being a resource to anyone out there in your audience that's a business owner that's trying to find their way uh and to be a little more kingdom-minded. I mean, just calling my company 12 stone, and I give a stone that you take a tour of my business, I give you a stone. And like you said, it it's forced people to say, what is this stone doing? It's like you said, it's a story of Joshua leading millions of people across the Jordan River, and which was a flood stage miraculously. And what I routinely say is we want to be the company that gets out of the deep part of the river. I mean the deepest part of the river and help the sickest of the sickest people in our four states with chronic, complex, and rare diseases make their own crossing to their own promised lands and find better places of peace and hope and happiness. So just the name itself has given me the opportunity to just share my faith a little bit. And um there's lots of ways to do that and not be so much in your face. Um I would encourage people to think about that. Yeah, yeah, have them call me. I'd I'd love to help in any way I can.
SPEAKER_00Okay. That that's a great point about you don't have to be in their face, but if you can show the practical application of your faith and how it can benefit that person, I mean, who's not gonna benefit from love and from service and kindness? I mean, all of those things are rooted in God. And and so we we need to be more proud of who our sources for those things that the culture really does value deep down. Um, we don't we don't know, it doesn't always look like it, but that's it's the truth. Um again, what's yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Now I say what's funny is you know, you're talking about kindness and love and and generosity and gratitude, you know. If if people are being you've got a business owner out there and people are being critical of you for doing those things, I can promise you when they need it, they're all about you being kind to them. Yes, loving to them and generous and thoughtful and understanding of them. So, you know, use that muscle. Yes, lean into that, lean into that muscle. Yes, you won't you won't go wrong.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And um, you know, to be able to minister to people in their in the deepest part of the water when they're when they're sick and you know potentially potentially dying. I mean, this is how the church grew. Um, there's the rise of the rise of Christianity, but Rodney's Rodney Stark, he talks a lot about this and the way that the pagans would during the the um the the plagues and the just the pandemics, they would leave the cities and go out to the country. Uh and that's the priests, the doctors, everybody would just leave, but the Christians would stay. And the Christians, and that's how that's one of the main factors uh from a sociological perspective of why the church grew. Um, so yet another open door for you to connect with people for Christ.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I I love that. You know, Jesus definitely definitely knew the big picture, but he he took the time to invest in individuals too. You know, the the woman at the well, Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, the leper. I mean, he he made sure to do that. He loved all, but he really discipled a few. Um, and he he he clearly had that had that figured out. We can learn a lot from him there.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And we've learned a lot from you today, Shane. Thank you for taking the time out for our listeners and sharing what's been what God's been doing through Twelve Stone Health and Um and also in the the Tennessee State Assembly. Um, really appreciate you sharing your your time and thank you for the example you're setting for us marketplace Christians out there.
SPEAKER_01Glad to do it, brother. Appreciate you. Merry Christmas to everybody and a blessed new year.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you'd leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business Podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HCU's Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.