Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast with host Darren Scheer, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business, and sign up to receive free access to all visions of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_02On this episode, we're joined by Seth Buckley, CEO of Cathedral Consulting, author of Ambition, Weading with Gratitude, and host of the Business Done Right Podcast, of which I am an avid listener and fan. Seth's become a good friend. And prior to Cathedral Consulting, he was the president of Solid USA and led the company to annual sales of nearly 60 million before selling the firm to a venture partner. Solid's technology delivered cellular and public safety radio coverage to some of the most recognized venues in America, including the Empire State Building, the New York Subway, the Moscow is Moscone Center. Is that right? That's it. That sounds familiar. And the Daytona International Speedway. Seth Buweckley.com is the website, and you can spell his last name B-U-E-C-H-L-E-Y dot com. Seth, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Darren, for the uh warm welcome. And I have been looking forward to being on the Christianity and Business Podcast for quite some time. So thanks for the invite and excited to have a vibrant conversation with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I always enjoy talking to you, whether recorded or not. One thing I didn't mention in the bio was that you grew up in a commune. What kind of a commune did you grow up in back in the 1960s?
SPEAKER_01So my smart aleck personality wants to say, well, how many kinds are there, Darren? But there are quite a few different kinds, I suppose. Um, so it was a um a group of people that got together in a valley in the middle of the woods of southern Oregon. And it was kind of birthed out of the hippie movement slash Jesus movement in the 60s and 70s. And my parents um kind of were looking for fatherly guidance and found that in the form of a commune in southern Oregon. It started out, I think, really well. I think there was a lot of good things, and then like most human institutions, it degenerated pretty quickly and it kind of became a personality cult in in many ways. And so I have mixed memories from there, uh, you know, many good ones and many um frustrating ones.
SPEAKER_02So was it uh, I mean, was there a certain kind of denomination? Because when I say uh what type of commune, I mean, I'm thinking I wasn't around back in the 60s, but I know they had like hippie communes and you know, is it like non-religious communes, but this one was like a religious cult, right? I mean, is is that how you would describe it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I describe it as a as a cult. I think it started out as a Christian commune. And then what happened over time is less focus on, you know, this is what the Bible teaches, less uh input from outside um voices and more direction from the leader around, well, this is what I think it means and this is where we're going. And so it basically became a personality cult. And I say that because some of the um characteristics of our cult, for instance, is you know, people are elevated in one moment and then they're brought down in the next moment. So you never really know where you stand. And I and I saw that kind of behavior. And I tell people, I saw a lot of leadership done badly. Yeah. And I think that motivated me to think about what leadership done the right way looks like.
SPEAKER_02And what age were you when you got out of there?
SPEAKER_01I was uh 16 years old, maybe 17. And um we left the commune. We so we we lived in a commune, but we went to public schools in a small town nearby. And then we left the commune and I stayed in the in the area for a year before moving for my final year of high school at a nearby town.
SPEAKER_02So was there anything positive that you walked away from that experience with in terms of your theology of business and just how you approach the marketplace?
SPEAKER_01Actually, yes. Um. So, yes, in that they were very, very hardworking. They're they're actually pretty entrepreneurial inside of the commune. And so they had several businesses, a construction company that traveled all over the West. Um, my dad started a business trimming the trees under power lines, um, the large kind of cross-country power lines, high tension, you know, high voltage power lines. And so when he left the commune, he actually bought that business back to and then and then kind of launched. And so I saw this attitude of, hey, we can do anything. Now, when you have free labor, it's a little easier to build businesses, but that's another story. But the the hardworking ethic definitely was present.
SPEAKER_02So did he did he kind of was he already an entreprene prior to that, would you say, or did that commune experience kind of bring that into the family DNA?
SPEAKER_01I think he was a contrarian and a leader, maybe more than he was an entrepreneur. I don't think he liked necessarily business. In fact, in my early partnership with my dad, you know, I always would tell people, I'm kind of like the pooper scooper at the back of the parade, even though that's not my natural wiring to be administrative or managerial, even. But it that's what was needed because he was such a strong visionary and pretty unorthodox in his approach to things. And so I think the commune um probably uh accelerated that belief that he had that you know you can you can go anywhere and do anything if you'll commit and put in the work.
SPEAKER_02And did your dad did he teach you uh kind of what the Bible said about business and help shape a theology of business for you?
SPEAKER_01I think he did it um somewhat accidentally. I mean, my dad was a believer, um, but I don't remember him talking specifically about the biblical principles of business. It was more around life and around this idea that um, you know, you can trust an institution and wear a white coat and think that that's going to give you credibility and value and success, or you can go out and create something and do something. And you know, that was he was very much a uh a guy that just believed in taking initiative, praying, and you know, and then going for it rather than planning things to the nth degree in thinking you've got your plan perfect and then starting. He didn't believe that. He he was very strong, you know, now that I'm thinking about my answer, definitely big on faith. He was very, very big on faith, meaning this isn't so much about the theology of work, it's about God calling us into areas that only he can bail us out of. And our job is to start and to pray and to see him working, but it starts with the starting, you know. Yeah, that was kind of his his theory. So I think as an entrepreneur, that sounds very much like how as an entrepreneur thinks, right? I'm gonna start, and then he used to teach me, you know, I like to say, you can't know until you go, and he would call it pushing into problems. So you start, you push into it, and then based on the feedback you're experiencing, you adjust course and then eventually you're you're successful, but it's not because you had a perfect plan, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I just I remember I was looking at this picture of you sitting at the table signing the papers to uh I guess you guys were acquiring a company, right? And when you were just a really young guy, and which company was that?
SPEAKER_01Actually, we were selling. You were selling a company.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we were in Philadelphia and we were in the law offices of the firm that was buying us. And um, you know, that when it was amazing because that was like 10 years after he left the commune, we're in this boardroom signing papers for you know millions of dollars. And I couldn't help, and he and he felt this way as well, couldn't help but just believe in my core that all those years he spent in the commune where he wasn't taking a paycheck, everything was put back in the common pool. Yeah, that the Lord had rewarded him financially for that effort. And, you know, I I I listened to my dad talk about, I remember one time he was driving somewhere and we were talking, and he says, you know, I felt like the Lord spoke to me. And I'm like, okay. He said, Yeah, I felt like the Lord was saying that it's gonna be much more difficult for me to handle the wealth than to gain the wealth. And this is in the middle of like a crisis when everything wasn't going well. And I just remember that conversation. And now I can look back on it and I can say that was true, because he had not come from a wealthy background. He had sold, you know, he sold his company for more money than he ever thought you know he'd earn. And he had to learn this what does that do to my identity? You know, what are how do I deal with being wise and my giving, right? What do I do next? I watched all that stuff happen and and I can look back at that experience and say, what he felt like the Lord was saying to him proved to be true for him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, those are such powerful conversations to have with your dad, you know, an entrepreneur. And lately I've been, as I look at my three sons who are ages four and under, and I think about years down the road, what I what I might be able to teach them about business, you know, when they start to hit that age 16 and really ages 16 through say 22 or so, where I mean, this is such a transitional stage. I know it was for me when I was kind of in that prodigal son stage, but in Jewish culture, there was an expectation on the father to teach the son a trade, right? And and I I feel like there's a lot of that has kind of been stripped out of our modern culture, uh, at least here in the US, in my experience, and I don't really hear about it in the faith and work conversation either. The the importance of fathers teaching their children uh about business. And, you know, there's a lot of talk about the value of homeschooling and things like that. But but even with homeschooled children, when it comes time for their first job, they're probably going to go work at, you know, like a restaurant or you know, the food service industry or something like that, like I did, where you get around a bunch of lost people that are going to teach you what relationships are about and money is about and what career is about. When it seems like the biblical model is to learn that from your own father, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, you just said a lot there. And uh I I I really think that that's an underexplored theme that is is is powerful. I think I think somebody, probably you, should write a book on this. Um but so on the on the idea of Jewish uh culture. So it turns out I'm Jewish by blood. I am I'm a Christian. Um and frankly, because I grew up in a commune in the woods, I didn't spend much time thinking about Jewish roots. Uh, I will I will tell you, and whoever listens to this, that actually the commune was a little bit anti-Semitic. So that complicated that a bit as well. But my younger brother is now attending a messianic Jewish uh congregation. And so he's very much learning about this culture. And and I I saw something from his rabbi not long ago, and there's a name for little boys that they they call them in in I guess Yiddish, maybe Hebrew, not certain. It shows my ignorance here, but it essentially is little father. That's what the name means. It's a it's a it's a word, and I'll give it to you, and you can put it in the show notes. But it's that idea of from the very beginning that those young boys are replicating what they see in their fathers, and that they're hearing it in their own ears from the time they're young. You are a little father, and you, you know, so they're walking in that identity. I was fortunate. My dad spent a lot of time on those kind of issues, and he didn't really beat around the bush on his views. He was pretty unorthodox, and so you know, I skipped college. Now, this is a podcast, you know, for Houston Baptist University and your Christianity and business. You know, but I had a dad who his dad was a professor at Cal Berkeley. My dad almost finished college but didn't find a lot of value in it, and basically told me, you don't need to go. And so it's an interesting, you know, people will say, well, how did you achieve these things without college? I say, well, listen, it's not a the normal path or even a recommended path, frankly. But I had an intentional mentor in my dad who had businesses that he'd started that provided me opportunity to work alongside of him. So that was the advantage was having an intentional mentor and a chance to work alongside somebody and make mistakes and talk it through.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I I know we had a different theme going into this interview, but I also know that mentorship is is one of your hot topics. And, you know, I just wonder how much of it goes back to this experience of having a father that uh was was not only a a Christian man, but who was was uh intentional about at least imparting his convictions to you about uh about business, about um I mean, so to be able to work with your with your father, I mean, I that just seems like uh some something that we ought to get back to as a culture. And it might not be your your blood father, yeah. It might be like you said, um, a mentor that that you connect with in in the business world. But as Christians, what would you say in terms of our role as disciple makers uh uh in the in the workplace, specifically for those younger, uh, those younger people?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that for many of us, and I think our culture in general has lost has lost its way on this topic. And that the the why of business is disconnected from kind of the how of business. And we're a very individualistic um, some people would even say that our economic model is now based on conspicuous consumption. It's how do I achieve my goals so that I can have stuff so that I can feel a certain way when I buy it, and people will think about me a certain way. And as much as I hate to say that, I actually think that that's that's true. Um and so the why of business, you seeing business as a platform to do God's work, to see business as a canvas to create and express ourselves, seeing business as something we are stewards of to be responsible for the Great Commission and to do with excellence. Um, you know, that's that's all an ethos that I don't see it's not coming from the culture. I don't think it's coming from most colleges. And I think our kids hear so much about get good grades, go to college, that's how you're gonna make your difference in the world. Um, if they were hearing, you know, learn the basic principles of capitalism and Christian business, because that's how you're gonna serve the most people here and abroad at an earlier age. I think that they might believe it, especially if there was such a framework and mentoring environments and uh internship environments where they got some practical experience. That would be great. I did notice that you guys have an annual mentoring conference at the university, and I just I just think that's brilliant. I think it's it's necessary and I'd love to learn more about it and see more of those happening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, we'll definitely talk about that. And I I love this idea of the little fathers uh in in Jewish culture. And I mean, the reality is if you're if you're a young, impressionable person going into uh you know into the workplace, you are a little father. It's but it's really a question of who's your daddy? Like, is it somebody who is walking in the in the ways of God, or is it the culture? And what culture is that? I mean, because I have seen some companies where they are very deliberate about bringing that kingdom culture into their into their workplace. Uh, but my experience of from ages say 16 and to until I came into the Air Force, uh, of working from you know one restaurant to the other, different service jobs, and and yeah, there's there's a lot of value and importance and just the virtue of I'm not gonna rely on my parents for you know funding my lifestyle, but uh but going into and to make the money for to buy whatever it is that I want to buy. I I think a lot of parents though stop there, right? It's like that's enough advice for me about as far as you concerning the marketplace is uh don't be dependent on handouts. Go right work for what you want in this world. And and then they they you know it's easy to kind of pat yourself on the back. Like I've done my duty in terms of teaching my kids about business, but there's so much more.
SPEAKER_01Yes, um, I agree. I'm gonna cough here a second. Give me a second. So I think that part of what you just said, um, I think the churches don't exactly know how to engage with business people. Some do. Um and I think that um business owners aren't sure any longer how much they can wave the Christian flag or how much they should. And and I think some people are clear on that, but I think that there's a huge chunk of society that are faith uh friendly, maybe even want to be faith forward, and they don't exactly know how to do it. I I I find that podcasts like this, other people that are out there um talking about these things, give people some footholds to express their faith in the workplace and to be a little bit more vocal about it. But you also see some backlash when people stand up for what they think are, you know, their values and there's public shaming that happens and it ends up consuming their lives, sometimes with lawsuits. And so it's it's a complicated world. Um, I think part of that is counting the cost, which is if you truly believe God has called you to do something and you're convicted about it, you got to move forward as a matter of obedience and you got to let the chips fall where they may. It's easier said than done, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well, I wanna obviously we need to talk about this more. And and I know that uh speaking of books on this subject, uh, aren't you writing uh a book about mentorship?
SPEAKER_01I am. Uh with a mentor of mine, a guy named Aaron Walker, and um the book will be called Where's My Mentor? Um, Knowing Who to Trust with Life's Most Important Decisions. And the the the theme is, you know, we the word mentoring is kicked around a lot, but what do you look for? What are the characteristics you look for a mentor and how do you engage them? And and ultimately how do we become the mentor that we wish we had? And so uh it's gonna be a fun project. Uh next year is a year where I intend to be uh putting pen to paper, so to speak, and getting after it. So um I'm excited.
SPEAKER_02Well, we'll have you back for part two of this conversation on mentorship. Uh, but the book that you have already written and published is ambition, leading with gratitude. So is it possible to be ambitious and content at the same time?
SPEAKER_01I think it's a struggle. Um, I do think it's possible. Um the contentment part is you know what the definition of content is, right? Is the definition I am so satisfied that I'm never that I'm not going to work hard or that I'm not going to strive. Um and so I don't think that's the kind of contentment that makes people happy. I think that makes people unhappy is when you have everything. In fact, I can say this because I won't name names. I have a friend who's very wealthy, doesn't Doesn't actually work in his business much at all, doesn't even live in the same state as his business. Um, and some of the conversations we have is he's got so much free time and he's or he's organized his life just the way he wants it, that is like, what now? Right. And so I I think that we're always um, I think we're made to have visions and dreams and goals to go after. But I think ambition left unbridled can be very destructive.
SPEAKER_02And I mean, this this does kind of go back to the mentorship part. I mean, whatever we have seen modeled for us, whether it's uh I remember um, you know, hearing Henry Kasner on the Faith-Driven Entrepreneur podcast, how he talks about how he wanted to be like you know, the guy's industry. Right. Yeah. I mean, uh that and that's the reality. He was he was that little fat that little father of Bud Fox, or you know, whoever you're you look up to, whoever your hero is, and so how they handle uh, you know, if they're content, there's a there's a much higher likelihood that you're gonna be content, right? If if all you've seen modeled for you is a father parent just striving after the wind, I mean, that's gonna get passed on, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's it is endless. And and and I will tell you, with my dad, uh, he loved the chase. He liked to buy land and start things, but he hated the administrative part. And so we had conversations about that, about how do you how do you rein that in? And that frankly, part of the reason I I wrote the book was I had seen enough really driven people go completely sideways in their life because they got consumed by their own ambition. They wanted more, they wanted it faster, they wanted shortcuts. And um, you know, when you crash as an entrepreneur or an ambitious leader, you don't crash alone. The consequences to your family are massive and to those people that put their trust in you, particularly if you're somebody who says, Hey, I'm a I'm a Christian. Um, you know, I've seen that uh up close and personal. People that named the name of Christ and, you know, kind of left a scorched earth behind them. And, you know, we don't want to be that guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and so you you shared in this book that gratitude is the antidote to this kind of lifestyle that just drives people into this rat race of no fulfillment, no peace, no joy in life, just constant striving. And and then you give us a practical thing to do, which is the gratitude adjustment. Practically speaking, how can someone make what you call the gratitude adjustment?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So what I observe is that ambitious people um really struggle to find a sense of satisfaction for two reasons. Um number one is we don't fully, we don't stop and we don't look ahead, look back where we've come from, right? So we're we're always trying to fix the next thing that we don't actually see how far we've come. And then we don't like literally stop and count our blessings and enumerate the things that are going really well in our life and express thanks for those. We just don't do it because that doesn't need fixing, quote unquote. The things ahead of us need fixing. So that's that's one major reason I find that ambitious people don't have a sense of satisfaction. The second is I think that they've they've fallen into believing a myth that our culture just perpetuates, which is that satisfaction is found through achievement. And um, that's not true. I I have my experience is satisfaction comes on the other side of gratitude, not on the other side of achievement. And and so gratitude, I think is very unique. I think the re I don't think the research suggests gratitude is very, very unique, and then it has a huge effect on people that had been the least grateful. And so I think there are personality types, we know that there are, that are driven towards accomplishment, achievement. You know, they're always the the leader, the you know, tied up in their identity is very tied up in their work. And I think those personality types, like mine, gratitude has a very, very powerful effect. And so for me, the fundamental thing that happens after a gratitude adjustment is my work is is really a response to things that are already true. Whereas in my natural state, it's about I need to accomplish this, I need to fix this, I need to whatever. It's all these things that are ahead of me that I have anxiety about because they're not resolved yet. Or maybe they're even selfish desires that aren't being fulfilled, and everything is forward looking, all this angst and anxiety and pressure is around all these things that I want to fix or change, whereas gratitude forces me to stop. Where have I come from? What have I already been giving? And then what are the spiritual truths? What are the spiritual realities around what Christ has done for me, what's true in the future, what he's called me to, you know, as and so as I orient around what is true by using gratitude as this lens, now I'm like, okay, now I'm centered in what's real, even though it's not necessarily always things I can see, but it's still more real than the things I can see.
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SPEAKER_01And now I'm motivated as a response to what God's already done. And I'm confident because he's already done these things that he'll do the things that he promises he'll do in advance. And it's just flat out a different way of living and a different way of leading.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, and as foundational as stewardship is for honoring God, being faithful with what we've been given, gratitude is even a step is even foundational to that because unless you're grateful for what you have, you won't even really recognize what you have that God has entrusted to you, right? Sure. So, like in business, you can see this play out where there's just this incessant desire for more and more business and more clients. And God is saying, why don't you first of all be thankful for what those who have already brought to you and focus on serving them better?
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, there's uh two thoughts here. Um, I'll get to the second one. The first one is so this idea of gratitude and and the revelation, and I use that word intentionally, that I wasn't grateful. You know, I sold a company to a public company when I was in my late 20s, and my dad and I were partners. And so I'm on the board of a public company, I'm driving the sports car, the whole thing. And then life got really hard for me. And I write about that in the book, where I made a bunch of investments that were dumb and other compromises that, you know, challenged me. And I was just crying out, all right, Lord, I've made a mess of this. And I remember having this vision in my head of like an onion and just saying, I need you to unpeel these layers of this onion to fix this. And the Lord led me to a scripture, it's a few places in the Bible, one of them is in Hebrews where it says, you know, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. And I remember going, Wow, when God says, I have hated something or someone, that's a big deal. And, you know, I zero in on that story, and and the premise there is that Esau traded his entire birthright for a temporal fix of his hunger. And the conviction that I came under is that I hadn't been grateful. I hadn't appreciated the birthright and all the things I've been given, family, opportunity, wealth, and I was out chasing, you know, whatever was going to satisfy me, quote unquote. And it wasn't working. And the conviction for me was I hadn't been grateful. And so then I started wrestling with how do I take this word and really try to live it? And that's where the concept of a gratitude adjustment came from. And I can talk a little bit about what that is for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, as we wrap it up, that'll give us uh something practical to take away with. Uh, what how does somebody go about doing a gratitude adjustment? And how do you do it?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So um I tell people I literally often will do this in the shower because nobody will distract. Um, but I would often think, all right, I'm stressed, I'm anxious, I'm ticked off at something. How do I gain perspective? And I would think about God and I would think about what Christ had done for me, and then I would think about all the areas that I get the privilege of serving. And I was doing that for a while, and then I it just dawned on me one day that that's actually how John 3.16 is laid out. So the first thing I think about is, you know, God's love. So God so loved the world, right? God's love. And then I would think about Christ's sacrifice, you know, that he gave his only son. And so I'd literally think about, all right, Christ willingly came to the cross, he paid, he paid it all. You know, nobody took his life, but he yielded it up for us. And then I would personalize it. All right, so I've personally been saved. Not just that he came to save the world, I've personally been saved. And then John 3.16 says that whoever believes in him would not perish. It's right there, personally saved, but would have everlasting life. And so I believe that that everlasting life, theologically, doesn't start in heaven, it starts now. And so I would count through what I call my domains. What are the areas where God has given me unique influence to touch the people that I'm called to serve? And so going through that, it's God's love, Christ's sacrifice, my forgiveness, and then my domains. And I use John 3.16 to kind of remind me of that is the gospel that God's love sent Christ to save me and empower me to live an eternal life right here, right now. And so as I think through those domains that I've been given, I mean, when I get it, when I'm done with that process, I'm like, okay, now we've reset reality. How do I go as a response to what's true and lead and serve differently? And um, to that second point I told you I'd get to, is sometimes I'm we as driven entrepreneurs are so worried about reaching those people out there, especially with things like media, we overlook the people that we've been given where we can truly have the most impact. And so I say instead of focusing on those people out there, focus on these people right here that you're actually in a relationship with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Wow. It makes me think of when Trua Cathy said, uh, gentlemen, we don't need to get bigger. We need to get better. And when we get better, our customers will demand that we get bigger. And I mean, because that gratitude just changes, changes everything. And ambition leading with gratitude is the book. I know you can get it at Sethbueckley.com, S-E-T-H, B-U-E-C-H-L-E-Y.com, and on Amazon. Anything else you want to say about the book, Seth?
SPEAKER_01That it really is a manifesto for uh leadership and that people that are driven, I've literally had it's very humbling. I've had people come up to me and say, this book changed my life, and they felt like it was kind of written about them. And I think that this ambition, ambitious personality type will find a lot of value in it, and I hope they do.
SPEAKER_02And the business done right is the name of the podcast. You can go subscribe to that. Uh, I know on Google, iTunes, wherever you can get podcasts. And uh, and so Sethbuckley.com, you can link up to that in the show notes. Seth, thanks. We appreciate you, brother. Appreciate your time and uh this valuable insight you've shared with us. And uh may God continue to bless everything uh that you're putting your heart into.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks again for the invitation, Darren. I look forward to seeing uh the success of the program and seeing your work continue.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, brother.
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.