Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RGW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shearer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Mike Rome. And in all the episodes we've done, this is the first time you're going to actually hear from one of the co-founders of the Center for Christianity and Business. Mike is a senior partner and co-leads the board, CEO and private equity practices at Allen Austin, which is a consulting and retained search and leadership advisory firm. Prior to joining Alan Austin, he was CEO and principal at Chilton Capital Management and CEO at Texan Capital. He is also a managing partner in a private equity firm, Memorial Capital Partners. So if you haven't figured it out by now, uh Mike is an entrepreneur. Mike is uh involved in a lot of different things and in very, very effective and impactful ways. And he's also the author of the new book, Mastering Your Pain: 18 Strategies to Perform Effectively Despite Your Physical Pain. Mike, welcome to the show, my friend.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me, Darren. I look forward to our visit.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's about time we got you on the show. Mike, what led to your decision to help found the CCB or the Center for Christianity and Business?
SPEAKER_02Darren, it goes back uh to my time at uh at an investment management firm by the name of Bridgway Capital Management. Bridgway gives away 50% of their net profit to charity. And I spent 12 years there. During that time, we were uh always looking at higher education and trying to figure out ways that we could make a difference in the higher education arena. HBU uh having being a school of interest in Houston, Texas, where I'm based, was always on my radar to figure out how could we really spend some of our um our gifting and and helping HBU. And at that time, the uh Center for Christianity was being formed, and and they were looking for uh an area of or they were looking for someone to come in and help them pay for at that time the and gift the uh a it was really bringing in a speaker of uh faith that could make a difference in the business world. And so we helped fund that. And you could call it a conference if you want, but it was really more like a summit where you just kind of had business leaders and and everybody come together, and it turned out really well and had a great time doing it. And in the end, it uh I mean it was really in the big picture, it was a small amount of money, but it help, it helped catapult the center and and really uh make it kind of put it on the map because because people put people in the business world, at least in this in the Christian business world, were paying attention, and it was a lot of fun to do. So that's where the basis of of the center uh funding came about. And since that time, it's evolved in a number of different ways to the point where uh you and I both know um we serve in a capacity on the from a board and advising and and continuing to help the center uh figure out who what's best to offer, what offering can we have that serves the business community in the best possible manner?
SPEAKER_01Well, we're so grateful for your your generosity and all the hard work that has gone into uh making the center what it is. I know our audience is grateful to be able to listen to this podcast. And and if it wasn't for um for you and the others that that helped to get this thing off the ground, this podcast wouldn't exist. Uh so thank you for that. And so there's so many things that we could talk about, Mike. I mean, you're you're an incredible leader, an incredible entrepreneur, businessman. Uh, one of the unique uh things that the conversations that you have spoken into is this issue of pain as it relates to just the the everyday working person. And and I know a lot of that comes from your experience playing competitive sports. You were uh a quarterback, the University of Kansas, and uh a baseball player, and and so you've you've gone through a lot of injuries, uh, and and and then you different things, nagging things that have kind of affected you in your your professional life. Well tell our listeners, why did you write this book, Mastering Your Pain? And and the subtitle is 18 Strategies to Perform Effectively Despite Your Physical Pain.
SPEAKER_02If you don't mind, before I answer that question directly, I'd like to qualify something you said. I started out as a quarterback at the University of Kansas and through uh uh numerous situations of pain, of getting hurt, uh, ended up as uh uh as what they would call a defensive back or a safety. And uh so uh my career was really spent on the defensive side of the ball in college after uh after going there as a quarterback. That's not uncommon, by the way, in college athletics. So uh so let's get back to the uh real question. I just wanted to qualify that so that uh uh if someone asks you, you could say, well, Mike did qualify it. And uh integrity is extremely important, right?
SPEAKER_01Indeed.
SPEAKER_02So the reason for the book uh and the thought behind the book, uh I had been thinking about it for quite a while. Uh you know, it's one of those things where God uh I always felt like God gave me a uh uh an abundance of athletic ability. He gave me a very good mind. Uh He gave me a purpose in life uh to be better and to be a to be part of his kingdom. And and so I wanted to take that opportunity to share it with others. I know that there are three kinds of pains in life. Uh there's physical, mental, and social. And when people uh have to deal with pain, we each have a mentality or makeup that and how we how we deal with that pain is different. And it's kind of ironic that we're in this pandemic now because I can only imagine what what people are feeling, particularly from a social standpoint. But so let's get back to the physical side of it. Um what what typically happens for an athlete is that uh that they have this ability and they're very good, but but they don't have control. And God control controls that. What what's gonna happen in your in our lives. But what he but what I do know is that the control part that we have is how we act after we have some kind of um debilitating pain or or injury of some sort. And typically what happens is that pain tends to uh affect us mentally and not only physically. And so when it starts to happen and affect our mental aspect, then then it really really boils over into our daily life in such a way that we can't we can't really be the good person that we are. And and so my thought was is that uh I when when I when I wrote the book, Darren, it was it was not about trying to make a bestseller. It was about if we can, if we could, or if I could save one life because of the book, because it gave people hope and it told and it taught them or gave them an idea how they could deal with the pain. That's where the 18 strategies came from. It's not a scientific number. The book is not scientific, it's very practical, it's very practical in a way that tells you, okay, this is so this this particular situation happened. Here's a possible solution for you. It may work, it may not. And then we tried to really make it so that it gave people ideas on how to have conversation and how to communicate about the pain that they're feeling. So that that one of the things we do in life is we tend to hold things in because we don't want to pain whenever we have physical pain or social pain or mental pain, we don't want people to know about it because it makes us look weak. And and so what I wanted people to know is that it's okay. Everybody, everybody has some kind of pain in one of those categories, and it's okay to share with others. I got a quick little story here. I was at a board meeting for the city one oh a few months ago, and I was sitting next to a young lady and asked her how she was doing, and she said that uh she's doing okay now. And I said, Well, what does that mean? And she she said, Well, I I just came back from spending a week of of kind of healing my pain, and I thought, holy cow, how in the world would somebody sitting next to me be put in my midst, and I just finished writing this book about mastering your pain. And so I proceeded to ask her a number of questions, and it allowed her to open up. The next thing you know, Darren, is everybody in the board meeting started talking about pain and what they were feeling, and it was the most incredible conversation, and and I know what came of it, it was a lot of healing to be able to get it out, to be able to talk about it, to let people know that we were all that we weren't gonna judge them. We weren't going to think they were weak because they had a pain. We weren't gonna think that they were a bad person, because we've we related it to ourselves individually, and and it was just an incredible sight to see, which is exactly what the book was supposed to accomplish. And um, so that's the premise.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And because everybody's dealing with with some sort of pain, and and I think for some the pain is more chronic and and sharp and and acute than others, and and it it affects us so much in our in our professional life. I've I've been reading a lot of um or listening to the audiobooks on a lot of presidential biographies, and it's almost without exception, every one of them had some form of pain, you know. Like JFK had just this excruciating chronic back pain um that I never knew about, but apparently it affected him in a significant way. And George Washington, his mouth was always hurting because he had just really bad teeth, and and just so everybody's got some sort of uh a nagging, whether it's uh an injury or something that's it is affecting us in our in our work. Um what what is the the right response for for those of us who are dealing with things like that?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the first thing to do is make sure you have support. Be able to to to to to have somebody there to listen because that can give you feedback. You you're not looking for uh someone to necessarily feel sorry for you. What you're looking for is yeah, I gotta talk this out. I've I've got to get this out of me. Again, relating it back to what's going on with the pandemic, when you feel pent up as an individual, as a human being, you you you you tend to just it it really affects you mentally and and it and it really it really brings you down. And and so what getting it out there gives you the chance to keep that spirit, to keep that that that goal of having a great day, and to being better today than I was yesterday. And and and it's it's all about it's it's all about trusting that who you are is is what care people care about. They don't care about all the all the uh uh details of of the pain so much because they're going through it too, but they want somebody to share it with. And so you know, just being able to open up to me is the key. Uh and and I know psychologically, and we're not talking from you know, we clinically, this is not what this book is about, but I do know there's a lot of studies on this, and so uh I just think that from a practicality standpoint, you you have to have the ability to talk things out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that that's so good. Uh what are what's another kind of practical strategy that you would recommend for those? And maybe a way that you because you dealt with some things as well, and and maybe even you're experiencing now. Um, what what has helped you to to confront some of those things?
SPEAKER_02It's interesting. We don't think of it this way, but sleep is good in so many ways. It's good because it it relaxes the body, it's good because it allows the body to to gain um uh you know, get rest. Something that we don't think of very often is that it also allows the mind to relax. And we have a tendency to be in motion all the time. So much is going on, and so our minds are uh are constantly in motion, and and so when you have a chance to let your mind rest and think about and and and and calm down, it really gives you an insight into how to deal with something that you're dealing with. And if that's a physical pain, then you want to be you want to be in that state where you can figure out or get help to figure out how to get better. And life is if you think about it, if we always put it out there to ourselves that we're trying to work to get better. And I think I've always believed this that having a faith and having a belief in God, God wants you to be better. He gave you a talent, he gave you, he gave everybody on earth something. So figuring out what that something is, and when you're at peace, and typically at night, even when you have pain, there your mind still has a chance to create that peace, it gives us that opportunity to figure out how we're going to get better the next day, and that may be that taking care of that physical pain. How am I going to make that physical pain or that mental pain better? And I'm sure that if you go and you read different passages in the Bible, there are multiple scenarios where whether it be Paul or whomever that that dealt with physical pain, and they had their own way of dealing with it. And one of them is prayer. And I'm a I'm a huge believer in prayer. Uh I don't tend to ask for things in prayer. I tend to ask for uh to be better and and to have that uh have that inner faith to to to push forward. And and so uh so I think prayer is has been a big and an abundant uh thing for me in making my my personal pain uh be be a lot easier to handle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think prayer and relaxation really go hand in hand because if if if it all depends on us, we're probably not praying. Because if we pray, we would realize that God is saying, cast your your cares on me because I care for you. And that's what his word, this is what his word tells us. And I was as you're talking about the need for rest and and just to relax, especially when you're going through some kind of chronic pain, whether it's physical or social, emotional, uh, just thinking about um, you know, my wife going through uh child uh childbirth, and and you know what they teach the the women going through childbirth is to relax and breathe. And and yet in the middle of that, it seems like you would be doing just the opposite, you know, it's labor. So why why would you be telling me to relax and breathe calmly when I'm having to work so hard and I'm in so much pain? You know, I should just kind of you know grit my teeth and and just you know just be um just be uptight. And and and I think the same probably applies, right, for our for our professional life. I mean, the the workplace can be very stressful, and and if we're going into it without rest, we're going into it with a reactive mode, and we're gonna we're gonna make that pain even worse. Uh wouldn't you say so?
SPEAKER_02I would tell you that that if if I'm an I have been typically a Very intense person in my life. And um and what I can tell you is that the intensity tends to affect me in a different way, so much so that I do things that I normally wouldn't do. And when you do things that you normally wouldn't do, that puts that puts yourself, your person out of balance. And if people are used to you a certain way and you're in balance and they see that happen, but yet they don't know what's going on behind that because you haven't shared it or you've kept it to yourself and you don't want to look weak, and like I said earlier, and things like that, then there's some negativity that comes out of that. And so if when you think about um uh building um you know a mountain out of a of an anthill, that would be a great example, is that you know, holding things in um and and not relaxing and and get it just tends to make you more and more intense all the time. And and so uh, you know, people don't people don't really think about stopping to ask somebody very often about what's behind what they're saying. You mean and part of that is is because we feel like we gotta hold that in because we can again, you know, whatever it is, we want our our persona to look a certain way. And and I think that um uh I think that the pandemic has sh will probably have a uh a positive effect from that standpoint because because every one of us has gone through this now, and we know what pains are coming out of it. So I believe, uh I'm a believer right now that the pandemic will create better communication and it'll create better scenarios for people to share their pain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And Mike, as we wrap it up here, um, well, first I want to ask you people can certainly go buy the book on Amazon. Uh, they can go buy it at hybridgebooks.com. Mastering your pain, 18 strategies to perform effectively despite your physical pain. Anything else you want to tell people about what you're working on right now or how they can get involved?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think uh I think that right now one of the one of the things about being at Allen Austin um is the opportunity to be uh to be purpose-driven. And and so what does that mean? Uh that means that I get to work on things that can make a difference in people's lives. And and I'm very honored right now to be working on a project uh at uh at HBU uh in the uh uh entrepreneurship program for the McNair Center. And and what what I'm finding the the students at uh the students at at HBU are just fabulous. I mean, they're just they're just a wonderful group of people to work with. And you say, okay, well, how's that different? You know, why is that the case? And and I'm not just saying it because I'm doing an HBU podcast, I'm saying it because it's from my heart. And I speak to the the business school um to them in the mentor program, and it's just such an incredible sight to see that these kids they feel like hey, I got somebody talking to me that cares, and they're not entitled, they are eager to learn, they've they've they've had to uh work their way through very difficult situations in a number of cases, and whether that's being moving here from another country or or living in a in a not so great neighborhood, whatever it may be. But what I find about the students that that they they want better. And so it's wonderful to be around. And and I'm getting to I'm getting to work on a project right now uh for the McNair Foundation at the university that is uh very very much in the category of uh trying to find out how we can continue to put uh put the um proper teaching methods and the proper um and the proper learning and entrepreneurship uh and make that available for the students. And so it's it's a it's a wonderful and a great uh a great opportunity to be a part of what this the university is doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And people can just google McNair Center HBU and you'll find the the pages for the McNair Center. And and Mike is obviously involved with the Center for Christianity and Business as well. You know that link, everybody. Christianityandbusiness.com is the website to get there. Um, Mike, thank you so much for uh sharing your time. No you're a busy guy and high demand. Um, they actually call Mike the Mayor uh because he uh he's so well connected here in in Houston and helps so many people. And um we sure appreciate you, brother.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, man. I appreciate it, Darren. You're a great guy. Glad to glad to join you.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.