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. On today's episode, we're joined by Barry Rowan. Barry has served as a division general manager, led two private companies as CEO and president, and has been CFO for four public companies, including Flute Corporation, Nextdale Partners, Vonage, and Gogo. And that's the Gogo in-Flight internet that everybody would be very familiar with. Barry has served as a trustee for Seattle Pacific University, where he was also the founding chair for the Center for Integrity and Business and Gordon College, the board of advisors for the Honors Program and Entrepreneurial Leadership at Gonzaga University, and is president of Bellevue Christian School. He served on the National Board of Intervarsity and chairs the board of the Harvard Business School Christian Fellowship and Alumni Association. And he's the author of the new book, The Spiritual Art of Business: Connecting the Daily with the Divine. Barry, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thanks very much, Jaron. It's great to be here with you and all of your listeners.
SPEAKER_00Yes, sir. When did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work in the marketplace?
SPEAKER_01Well, my questions really had the seed sown during my undergraduate years when I was trying to figure out what to do for a major. And I was didn't know whether God was really a part of that question or not, but I just knew that I wanted to do something that would be a way of contributing to society. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, decided to go into business because I became really enamored with this idea of leverage or multiplication, that our contribution is multiplied by the number of folks we have working together with us on those goals. And so that that was the original kind of questioning, I guess, and the seeds that were sown there. But it it came to a head in the form of a really a crisis of meaning and work. When I was in my late 20s and I uh had joined a startup company after business school, um and was it grew really fast, uh, went from eight employees to about 200 employees, and and yet I just wondered why am I alive and why am I working so hard? And as I described in the book, I got invited to uh a young life camp in Colorado at the base of Mount Trisp uh Princeton. And I climbed up to on a rock above the camp and and just started weeping. And I thought, what is this about? And it was the juxtaposition of the serenity of that environment stood in such contrast to this turmoil within me. I was just sick and tired of living a divided life. And I uh I didn't even know if God was part of the question, let alone part of the answer. But in his infinite wisdom, he had to kind of provide a context for purpose in life in order to um really provide a framework to understand the question of meaning and work. And out of that, I stopped going to church because I thought it was hypocritical to worship a God. I wasn't sure any any longer that he existed. And um, but then ultimately concluded, based as the lawyers would say, on the preponderance of the evidence, I think it's more likely than not that God exists. And and then, well, what about Jesus? And out of that came uh uh really a surrender of my life to Christ. And then would spend the next eight years uh writing 350 pages to myself, mostly in the middle of the night, trying to understand uh God's perspective of our work. So it was a in retrospect, a 17-year struggle. I went from my college days to my late 30s, but out of that came a completely transformed perspective of work that has animated my career for these last 25 plus years. And that's really why I wrote the book, is because I I wrestled with it, I know others wrestle with that question, and and there is hope because there is joy that can come out of living our our lives for God in the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So could you just give us maybe a story or an example of this is kind of how I approached work before uh this revelation. And then this is how this is sort of the the before and after of on the other side of that revelation.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, I the way I would describe it is God just had to take me through what I would call a succession of paradigm shifts. I was just looking at work all wrong and probably two dozen fundamental ways. And I just had it so wrong for so long, and that he had to really transform my perspective of work and of life. At its most fundamental level, I was really trying to live life from the outside in instead of the inside out. I thought, you know, if I just get the right job, somehow I'll be filled up and then I will not have this aching, empty feeling uh of anguish really within me. Um and um, of course, that is backwards, you know, that really the way to live our lives is from the inside out, out of Colossians, that mystery that's been hidden throughout the ages, Christ in us, the hope of glory. And when we begin to see it that way, we see everything as an expression of Christ in us, whether it's um loving my wife in Lenin. I've been married for 42 years, loving our two sons, uh leading businesses, serving on boards, whatever that is, are all expressions of this Christ in us. And so uh the corollary to that in my work was that I was trying to derive meaning from my work instead of bringing meaning to the work. I uh and it's really God's perspective of the work that brings meaning to it. And when I began to see it through that lens, I realized, oh, the onus is on us, particularly working in a profession like business, where there's less what you could call intrinsic value in the work, uh to the onus is on us to bring the meaning to the work. And and that was a big part of the challenge and the learning for me. And and uh a working job definition emerged literally through the fog for me as I was coming from an engineering conference up in northern Washington through the fog and on one morning. And the job definition for me was um to contribute to a better society is seen through the eyes of God. And as I began to really uh let that seep into my soul, I then began to ask the question well, if I'm called to God who's led me to business, what is the role of business in society? And and business has some real distinctives about how it contributes to a better society, like responsible value creation and serving customers and creating an environment for all of our employees that enable us all to grow into the full expression of ourselves and being a good corporate citizen. And when I began to see my work through that lens from this really transformed perspective, it came alive. And I could now make the connection between what I'm doing in this moment and my purpose in life. And I often use the silly little example of you have somebody working on a formula and an Excel spreadsheet, say for a strategic plan, how does that connect to my purpose in life? Well, now I could do that because we that person would want to get the formula right so that the business plan would be right, so that the business could fulfill its potential. And by doing that, it will contribute to society in ways that are the distinctives of how business serves in that capacity. So I began to see that really the fundamental role of business is to serve. And as that happens, then uh it really aligns with our perspective of of life and in work, and it leads to this congruent life, which for me is the source of great joy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It sounds like Barry, you even before this revelation that God wanted to be involved in your work and that and that it was about serving him and serving others, it sounds like you were still a pretty good guy, right? Before that, obviously very, very smart, summa cum lad from uh Harvard Business School. Um, but so was it it was more of just sort of uh that that smoldering discontent as it's been referred to, and just not really having a the sense of the why behind what you were doing. Like you still had all of the the ability and the talent uh to do to do well in your in your career, but it was just more of that um that that constantly questioning why am I doing all of this?
SPEAKER_01Um well, let me respond to that a little bit. I suppose on the outside, people would say, yeah, Barry is a nice guy and have been, and was very focused on serving others, and that was a big part of our own family's upbringing. Uh I have a severely handicapped sister, for example. And Peggy taught us a lot about um what it means to uh live our lives for others, and I think uh an appreciation for all that we'd be given, a desire to achieve our potential and kind of a lack of judgmentalism, which I'm all I'm grateful for. So I prayed for a decade that God would heal my sister Peggy, and I realized when I got to about my 40s that God was using her to heal me. Um but having said that, you know, each of us is comprised of the divine nature and the sinful nature. And uh that's certainly true of me. And uh, so for me, we want to make sure we starve the one and feed the other. Um so so yes, there, but there was this um uh kind of juxtaposition within me of my two selves. One was a really a longing for God, and the other was uh really a driven achievement orientation. And I realized ultimately that those were fundamentally incompatible with one another, that God was asking me, as Jesus said, uh, any of you who does not give up everything you have cannot be my disciple. And so for me, really the starting point for the fulfilling life is surrender. And as paradoxical as it is, I think surrender is the gateway to freedom. Because as we surrender our lives to Jesus, it gives him permission to do his work in our lives. And then as John the Baptist says, we become less so that he can become more. And as we are filled with him, it is Jesus who who is the only source of goodness who fills us with that goodness and and with that sense of joy that he longs to bring to us. So I think it's it's not a matter of being a good person, it's a matter of who are we living our lives for, God or for ourselves. And then ultimately uh God literally uh changes the substance of our being. He replaces our selfishness with selflessness more and more, and replaces ourselves with himself. And and we're like this pipe, you know, we're like this pipe that uh uh where God comes into us and a 90-degree turn and then it flows from us out into the world. And in my case, God had to just chip the mud off the inside of the pipe so he could flow more freely into me and into the world. And as we do that, we literally get into this flow of the Spirit of God, and then our work becomes an expression of who we are meant to be. And it just goes completely counter to the way the world describes it, you know, our identity in particular. The world just screams at us, you know, we are what we do, but the deeper truth is that what we do is an expression of who we are. And as we come, and in my case, came into living in that way, it just led to this sense of freedom. Um that that uh really is not possible, I don't think, without God.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I guess the sort of the next chapter in that story that people would tend to expect once you've had this recognition that you know it's all it's all about God is well, I'm gonna leave business and I'm gonna go, you know, live in a monastery or I'm gonna go to seminary and um you know go do some quote unquote real ministry, but you go on to uh be you know CEO, president, CFO of some of the largest companies in the world, I mean, obviously very demanding taxing roles that you were uh that that you had been assigned to. Um, I mean, was so there there wasn't necessarily like a a throttling back, right? I mean, you still continued down that path in in business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's a great question, Darren, one that we all wrestle with. And anybody who takes their lives seriously and who wants to live a life that matters will ultimately confront that. And, you know, I literally spent the first 10 years of my career wrestling with what I should do for my career. You know, I I I really had such a hard time reconciling that. And I wanted to give myself completely to something. And uh, you know, as Paul says, it's fine to be zealous as provided the purpose is good. And I wanted to be zealous, and ultimately my zealousness is for Christ. And as that got oriented, then it was well, how how do how does that find expression in what I do? And I think in my case, that God just wanted to hold my feet to the fire to just stay in the tension of that until I really came to this understanding of a completely transformed perspective of work. And the way I describe it is I changed jobs without changing business cards. After these eight years of wrestling with this question, I was still at the same desk. I was doing similar work, but I was doing it for a very different set of reasons and with a sense of clarity and congruence between now I understood what I'm doing in this moment and the connection to purpose in life. And and what really came out of that for me was uh an appreciation for the intrinsic value of the work that we do when we see it through the eyes of God. And particularly for something like business. You know, I'm I of course grew a bar chart of a range of uh jobs from call it a pastor at one end or a doctor or a teacher, where there are there's very high degree of intrinsic value in that work. We know why we're doing what we're doing. If you're a doctor, I'm doing this work so people can overcome their sickness so they can live into the fullness of life. But at business, in business at the other end of the spectrum, it has a very little of what you could call an intrinsic sense of value. Is it really to make money? Is that the and create shareholder value? I'm sorry, but that just does not get me out of bed in the morning and and didn't as I was wrestling with these questions. Um, but as this transformed perspective emerged for me, what happened is that now there's no so that to why I work. I don't work so that I can make a pile of money and give it away, or so that I can retire and then someday do something that really matters to God. No, I think the deeper truth is that every moment can be lived fully for God, even in the context of a work like business. And and as we really get a hold of that, I mean, really, really deeply get a hold of that and see how it applies to our lives. And it's not just a business life, it's um uh being uh at any level in business. It can be a musician, it can be a, it can be someone who's a stay-at-home parent, it can be a gig worker, it could be somebody who's on an assembly line. If we can develop a life-giving perspective of our work as seen through the eyes of God, it will again bring meaning to the work because we don't derive meaning from the work. It brings meaning to the work and it just animates our work life. So, so for me, yes, I think it was God's call to me to kind of stay on the potter's wheel and to let those strong thumbs of the potter make me into a shape that seems best to him, which is which is a carrier of his grace, and right in the place where I have called, where I've been called. So, so I think there's great hope in that because uh apart from making chemical weapons or pornography or something that clearly is on the wrong side of morality, I think we can bring a life-giving perspective of virtually any job.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and Paul, the Apostle Paul essentially said as much when he said, remain in the same state in which you were called. And so, you know, it's it's the exception when, and sometimes, yes, the Lord will call somebody out of a particular uh career field and go into into government or go into church ministry, for example. But for most of us, it's he's wanting to do the work in us in the in the state in which he called us. In your case, that was to be a great businessman for Christ.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and there's a great temptation, you know, when we get into this place of confusion, uh, to back away or to do something different, or to not, frankly, do the hard work of staying in the place of confusion or pain. And um, you know, one of the things that I've learned is that when things get black, our temptation is to kind of back up and skirt around the edges and to make the black a little bit gray. And I literally spent five years kind of looking for a different job when I was wrestling with this. And it's because it was just so painful, right? And but now I've realized that the way through the blackness is to allow the black to go blacker than black, you know, and to walk right through the heart of the darkness and that God will meet us in and through that darkness. And, you know, I often would pray, Lord, deliver me from these circumstances, you know, because it's so painful. But what's really happened in my life is that God doesn't deliver me from my circumstances, he delivers me through my circumstances. And it's by walking through those circumstances that I come into uh more fullness of life. So in my case, writing these 350 pages in my journal, mostly in the middle of the night, between two and four in the morning. And I gotta tell you, it was painful, right? And it was like, it was so confusing and hard and difficult. And yet, to have stayed in that place uh and to allow God to do his work in us and to really transform me. A big part of the reason I couldn't find meaning in my work was because I was wired wrong. I was thinking about work wrong. And so I just encourage people to stay with the questions because the questions will lead to the truth in whatever form that is expressed, and that truth will set us free. So I just encourage people to just stay with the questions and pursue them to the end.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. I just finished reading through the book of Psalms, and uh, I think it's in Psalm chapter 148, where it it talks about the mountains praise God and the and the rivers and the the sea beasts and the beasts of the of the land praise God. And I was just thinking about like, well, uh how do they turn on worship music, you know, to to praise God? Like, how do they what is their what is the church that they go to where they that this is the place and time when they praise God? And yet the Bible just makes it very clear that praising God is not bound to a particular form, but it's it's being it's being more of who God made you to be, right? If that's a mountain, you the fact that you're that, I mean, I just you're you're there in the Denver area. I just came from there, I got to see the Rockies um this past weekend. I mean, those mountains are praising God and just being what they were they they were made to be, right?
SPEAKER_01So that's yeah, no, I think that's exactly right, Aaron. And uh it's a profound thought, really, to me. And uh, you know, the trees will clap their hands, as the scripture says. And and I I think that one of the things that is a uh temptation is to become someone who we are not, and uh, and I think as um Thomas Merton is accredited with saying, he said that to become holy is to become ourselves. And I think that what that really to come into the fullness of life is to become who we are designed to be. And I love nature, as you can imagine. We live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and I go hiking up in the Zirkel wilderness area. And one of the reasons I love nature is the harmony of nature reveals the disharmony in me. And there's total obedience in nature, just as you're saying that um if the the streams follow the tilt of the valley and obey the laws of gravity, there's no disobedience in the water. And trees grow up to be trees, and the little flowers don't wish they were trees, they fulfill their calling as little flowers, and the great the gracious pine trees are the same. And the have you ever thought about the humility of the mountains? You the mountains are willing to just subject themselves to the uh the erosive qualities of nature that grind them down and shape them, or the Grand Canyon, you know, it's a it's a scar basically. It's beautiful because but it is a scar made by the river that goes through it. And and so that is really for me the uh our call is uh is that nature reveal reveals our nature, and our nature is to live in complete submission to God. And we can call it obedience, I call it, which is true. I think sometimes a better word is congruence. It's living in congruence with the divine design, not being outside of the divine design, but uh letting the word become flesh in us literally, and and that as that happens, God rewrites the software of our souls, and so that we then think and act uh in the ways that we're designed to, which are more and more in conformance with the character of Christ. And as we come into that place, there is this um there's this living into who we are designed to become that that uh is completely fulfilling.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's well said. What's an example? Could you take us to a particular situation that you faced in your career? Maybe one of those those dark times where you really saw God's hand at work in a in a very specific situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. I mean, I spent 40 years helping. To build or turn around technology-driven companies. So I was involved with um building or turning around eight businesses over 40 years. Six of them were successful, two were not. I often talk about the ones that were not because I think it's important to realize that God is in the midst of those. And one of those was the biggest failure of my life, which was a telecom company that we started based on winning the license to compete with the incumbent phone company in Brazil. So we won the license by uh committing to build out service in 80 cities in two years. Uh, we raised two and a half billion dollars, hired 4,000 people in two years through this consortium, and the company just took off like a rocket. I mean, it was the fastest growing company of its kind in the world. We put on 500,000 customers in the first 10 months, the stock price tripled, we filed to go public, and everything looked amazing. And then uh the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, uh unfolded and the capital markets crashed. We saw some uh cracks show up in the operations. I got recruited to be the CEO of the business. And when I got there and moved to Brazil, it was much worse than we expected. And it turned out 200,000 of the 500,000 customers couldn't pay their bills. Uh, one of our partners uh decided not to fund the next crunch of capital, which was $100 million, which left a wee little hole in the business plan. And uh, so it was incredibly painful. We had to lay off 1,500 out of the 4,000 employees to save the business. Uh, by the way, we didn't have a single lawsuit, not that's why you do it, but we went out of our way to provide outplacement services and to treat people right in the midst of all of that. And and we ultimately sold the business, but it was for dimes on the dollar, and including our family who lost money on that, uh, because we invested in it. One is I believed in it, and two is I felt ethically that if we were going to raise this much money, I wanted our family to be welded at the hip with these investors. And so we sold it, but the the business failure just paled in comparison to the spiritual anguish that I went through. And and uh the result of that, uh you know, reading Job on the beaches outside of Rio de Janeiro, I had a bodyguard and a bulletproof car, and he would be, he would take me and I'd go to just sit on the beach and read Job over and over. And and uh it was just so painful. And but what and this is about staying uh in the darkness, right? Letting the black become blacker than black, as we talked about, that I realized through that that I had made achievement my God. It wasn't until uh the achievement went away that I realized a big part of my God went with it. I'd never really failed at anything, and certainly nothing of any scale. And it just God used that to uh provide a mirror to my soul and to show me that that was the case. And it really became a second conversion, and uh the second part of that was God inverted my perspective of time instead of plan your work, work your plan, start with the end in mind. It was, are you willing to live fully in the present moment and let me unfold the pattern of your life as I see fit? And I said, No, Lord, that's too scary for me. And but ultimately, or a number of months, I said yes. And then a really surprising thing happened, which was after I said yes to that, really that second invitation to Jesus to that any of you does not give up everything he has, can't be my disciple. And the next part of everything for me, and that's a great question for anybody to ask, Lord, is what is the next part of everything you're asking me to give up? The next part of everything for me was any claim on my own future. Am I willing, Lord, to put it completely in your hands? And as I did that, I came into this place of freedom that I never knew was possible because I had just really relinquished control to the creator of the universe in a way that I had not prior to then. And and that uh fundamentally changed the way I have lived my life since, which is seeing every moment as a sacrament and seeing God's will and his word is embedded in every moment. And if we begin to think about it that way and see it that way, our lives become lives lived on purpose, which is for God in every moment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So how did your habits change, or maybe an example of uh a new habit that was formed after that revelation?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, one of the things was that um my to-do list I began to see as my call, uh, and in a very real way, that uh as I you know entered the day with prayer and I I uh try to pray for an hour a day and did all the time I had a you know, not all the time, but since the time I was in my uh early 40s, but during the time I had a full-time executive where I really felt like it was so important to take that hour today to pray. And as I would, then I would kind of make the list of the things to do. You know, I do an annual list of priorities. I don't call them goals, I call them priorities. Here's where I think God is wanting me to spend my time and then uh for the week and then for the day. And then when I do it for the day, I'd say, Lord, just show me your sense of what you would have me do today. And this is my best guess of what my best sense of what you'd have me do today and your call. And of course, God is free to rip it up at any time. You know, if somebody comes in our office and says, My spouse has just been diagnosed with cancer, that is now the priority, of course. Um, but it means it it just helps me to see that wow, it just brings tangibility to the call because uh um it's here's my best sense, Lord, of what you'd have me do today. And it really reorganized my perspective of to-do lists, by the way, it's a very tangible way. Uh, you know, have any of our listeners ever gotten everything done on your to-do list? Probably no, right? And I realize it's kind of an aha for me that the goal is not to get everything down on the to-do list. The goal is at the end of a day or a week or a lifetime to feel like I have spent my time the way God would have wanted me to spend my time. And that is uh a sense of liberation, because is there anything better than feeling like we have been used as an instrument of the will of the creator of the universe uh in the daily tasks that he's asking us to perform? And so when Jesus says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, that doing his will as manifest in the little things we do in every moment is literally the source of our sustenance. It's uh what it's what keeps us alive. And uh it's not an obligation, it's food.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's transformed the way I look at the dainess of life.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's powerful. I'm curious, Barry, since you've worked at for these very, very large in the C-suite of very large companies. What is the spiritual or what has been the spiritual climate um in those uh in those companies that you've you're you've been uh you've earned the title the corporate mystic? Um did that did that was that sort of uh something that came from your coworkers, like, oh Barry's our, you know, he's our he's our chaplain, he's our corporate mystic. Like how what is the spirit, what has been the spiritual climate like uh in your experience?
SPEAKER_01Well, just to comment on the corporate mystic of that moniker was given to me by a CEO of a very large nonprofit I was on the board of, and he described me that way. My wife calls me her married monk in a business suit. So I guess she's glad for the married part since we've been married for 42 years. But uh um I think of what they've really meant by that is a couple of things. One is just the importance of taking time in solitude with God. So I, as I mentioned, I pray an hour a day. I um have done did my first eight-day silent retreat in 20, 2008, and I've done eight or 10 of them since then. And then when I retired from corporate life in March of this year, I did the one thing literally on my bucket list, which was to do a month-long silent retreat, because I wanted to lay this next uh season on the right cornerstone in Christ. And so, so there's certainly that uh mystical dimension to my spirituality and then seeing God in all things, which is really how I'm wearing. And for me, it's contemplation in action. It's not just contemplation, but it's what comes out of my time alone with God finds expression in the in the dailiness of life. And so, so to get directly at your question of the spiritual climate, um I would answer it, Darren, at two levels. One is the spiritual climate starts with the spiritual climate in us. And so if I can be right with God, it's gonna be help me to be right with the world. And I can bring that sense of unity, of peace, of joy, of um steadiness in the midst of challenge. And you know, it's really a requirement in the midst of turning around a business, uh, as I've had, as I've been called to do. So that's what would be my first thought is just the climate starts with us, and we can we can affect the climate. We can change the weather in an office very, very uh explicitly. And the climate in these businesses varied. You know, I would say I have uh I've not been in businesses that are explicitly Christian, and I love that. I mean, I actually tried to have five different times our own business. And after the fifth time, I kind of realized, Lord, maybe you're trying to say something to me here. And again, there's nothing right or wrong about this, it's just about whether it would be right or wrong, as my sense of God's call for me. And the reason I think God didn't want me to have our own business and we were going to do it in a way that would um found a business and operate it on God's principles was it would be too easy that I would have been able to be in control of a big part of that world. Um, where God wanted me to be was to be in a world that was completely outside of my control, uh, including these turnaround businesses. So when I turned 50, we sold one company uh for $10 billion. So it obviously was a big home run. Um, and I didn't know if I would go back to work. And I uh Lynn and I took what we called a purposeful pause. And after a couple of years, I went back to work. We looked at each other and said, you know, I think I should go back to work. And the reason was just what we're talking about here is I felt so strongly about the power of business to contribute to society. Uh, and I took uh I talked to 115 people and I took a job with this complete turnaround. And uh it was a financial, operational, strategic, and reputational turnaround. And it was the company had gone public at 17, the stock skidded to 42 cents a share, they had over $200 million of debt, get this at 16 to 20% interest rates, and uh we were losing $50 million a year. And the reason I took that job was because I wanted to see if these principles, or maybe more appropriately, Jesus uh himself could stand up to the heat of the kitchen. Uh that would Christ in me stand up to that, to those challenges, and and he did, and uh and I'm grateful. And at the end of that time, nine different people came up to me in some fashion, asked the same question, which was, would you just tell us what makes you tick? We since you have a you know really you bring a lot of energy to this work, you care about employees, you have a sense of calmness in the midst of all these tremendous challenges. And what is going on underneath the hood? And I would just say, Well, what level would you like to have this conversation? And you know, inevitably they would all say, Oh, let's have it at the deepest level. I want to talk about the things that matter. And so, but but but people see something, right? And I my kind of um guideline is comes from Francis Assisi, who is attributed to saying, you know, preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words. So for me, it's how does it look different? Um, does it look like you know, setting high standards and treating people with dignity and respect, uh, having a broad measure of success, not just a financial success and those kinds of things. So it really does matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, you're a you're a great example, you know, because uh often folks like yourself that that um are in extremely strong leaders, strong Christian leaders, the the tendency is to go kind of do your own thing. And um, and there are great examples of really Christ-centered family-owned uh private companies, but it's very rare uh as as I study this this landscape of faith and business to find um leaders such as as yourself who have really been able to step out and make an impact on the culture and and a lot of these larger publicly traded companies. Um to what extent do you feel like um you've been able to make an impact for Christ in um in these companies and really sh in terms of the overall culture of the companies? Because from uh from outsiders' perspective, um, I think a lot of us are just very skeptical about what's going on in these in these boardrooms and and just the uh the agendas seeming to be uh very anti-God. Um what what difference do you feel like you've been able to make?
SPEAKER_01I think I've been able to make a big difference. And uh um, you know, the light shines brightest in the darkness. And so for me, it's not having our faith as a club. It's the words of Jesus for me that are are so poignant in this is just raise me up that all will be drawn to me. If we raise Jesus up, he is attractive to people. Um, and people see that. And so for me, that is the way to do it. It's to light a candle in the darkness, it's to be that. It's it's not to use it as a club in any way, but it's be willing to give a reason for the uh the hope that is in us, as Peter just asks us to do. And so, so I think I, you know, I hopefully have been able to make a difference, and particularly in these incredibly demanding situations where you're in the midst of a turnaround and you have to make some really hard decisions, like uh eliminating jobs in order to save the rest of the jobs. And and so it, for example, that has changed my understanding of compassion. That early in my career, I had too narrow a view of compassion. I had a uh somebody we'd hired who was very, very difficult to work with. And and we worked it for a long, long time and finally had to ask this person to leave. And after they did, uh, everybody who worked on our team to a person basically said, Thank you, Mary. You need to know how contorted we were and having to work around this individual. And it was just such a deep lesson for me that I and being compassionate to that individual was being uncompassionate to the rest of the organization. And so having those kinds of understandings really affects the way we go about our work. And particularly at senior levels, I mean, that's the reason I enjoy the leadership role is you can have a big impact in creating an environment for people. Um, but everybody can have that impact with our coworkers. And sometimes people don't think that's the case. But the way we show up, you know, Monday morning at 10 o'clock makes a big difference. You know, we do we bring God's joy into the place? Do we have a sense of selflessness that makes us trustworthy? Because people see we're focused on doing the right job. That's what's the right thing for me as an individual, for example. Um so anybody can do that. And the culture is just the cumulative expression of all the individual characteristics of the people. And so as we each do that, uh it will change the change the nature of an organization. Not to say that it's easy, it is not easy, um, but it's both an opportunity and a responsibility to be the light of Christ, I think, wherever we are.
SPEAKER_00Well, the book is the spiritual art of business connecting the daily with the divine. And it's really a contemplative playbook on how to just order your your um the matters of your heart as it relates to your work. Um, what do you want to say to people about what this book is is can do for them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I don't actually think of it as a book. I think of it as an invitation into a conversation with God. And the hope is that through these 40 days of guided meditations and questions, that people would develop a life-giving perspective of their work as seen through God's eyes. And that is really my hope. And because as we do and as we see our work through that lens, uh, it makes our work life come alive. And, you know, if God can do it in somebody like me, he can do it in anybody. And I I just know the profound impact it's had on me personally for the last 25 years, and and would be grateful if other people could get a glimpse of that same sense of freedom and joy and energy that can come from looking at our work through the right lens.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. Well, again, the book is The Spiritual Art of Business, Connecting the Daily with the Divine. And you can check that out at Barry L. Rowan, R-O-W-A-N.com. Um, and that's Barry B-A-R-R-Y. And aside from getting the book, visiting the website, Barry, what would what's one action that you would like our listeners to take as a result of what they've heard on this episode?
SPEAKER_01Well, if you get the book, we also have a free downloadable discussion guide that you can get on the website. And it's designed to for people to go through five group conversations. And the last one is to really integrate this uh and do what does it mean for me? So to me, that's really what this is about. It's not an academic exercise, it's about how does this change the way we live and work Monday morning at 10 o'clock. So I think if people really got a hold of it and it changed our behavior, and if we think about the cumulative effect of people living for God in the world fully, it would, it'll make the world a much better place. So thank you all for uh taking on that challenge.
SPEAKER_00Yes, sir. Well, you as I mentioned earlier, we it we have many examples of how to live for Christ and how to um cultivate a Christ-centered company and more of a private family-owned environment that we have more control over as Christians. And and I do get I do hear from our listeners, you know, how do I do this when I'm working in a public company or in a company where the the owners are are not Christian? Well, here's a a great resource, the spiritual art of business by Barry Rowan. Go check it out, everybody. Um, Barry, thank you so much for um the work that you're doing in this, as you said, the encore, your encore career. Um, and thank you for helping our listeners grow today. I know I'm better for it.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much, Karen. It was an absolute privilege, and thank you for your great questions.
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 Podcasts 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.