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SPEAKER_01On this episode, we're joined by Dr. Bruce Cook. Bruce is the co-founder of Eighth Mountain, which is a building a global community of idea leaders whose God-breathed, God-sized ideas are solving perplexing problems. And he has a passion that's you're going to hear in this interview, he's got a passion for transforming culture and the centers of influence in our world, not just in on your Sunday morning service, but out in the culture and media and arts, entertainment, and business, as we're going to talk about specifically today, but government and all other facets of society. And he's got several organizations, he's really a connector that I've noticed, and has built just a pretty incredible network of other Christian believers that are after this quest to fulfill the Great Commission mandate to go and make disciples of all nations. Bruce, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Darren. It's a real pleasure and honor to be here with you today on the show.
SPEAKER_01Well, before we dive into some uh questions here, I want you to give us a little uh overview, just kind of a quick snapshot uh of what you have going on right now.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I'll I'll uh try to.
SPEAKER_01Because I know I know it's a lot. I know it's gonna be tough to really distill it down, but just maybe 30, 60 seconds or so.
SPEAKER_02Sure. I uh I'm a connector in the body of Christ, like you said, and it's one of my assignments from Jesus is to uh be a bridge builder and connector of his people. And uh uh so it's a great joy to always meet new people and especially uh kingdom-minded people that want to build uh his kingdom here on the earth. Uh yeah, so I uh been in business now for a few years, uh almost 40 years, and uh I've been involved in uh my career's been over several industries and several decades. So I've been involved in banking and higher education, administration and teaching. Um been involved as a marketing director for uh a number of uh organizations, and last 20 years I've been a uh uh angel investor and uh a financial and business consultant. Uh, and then the last 10 years I've also been a publisher and uh uh books and things like that for uh Christian authors. So uh I'm a board board chair of several Christian nonprofit organizations, uh co-founder of the Eight Mountain Initiative, and uh uh so and then chairman of uh my consulting firm Venture Advisors, Inc. So that's uh a little bit about my background.
SPEAKER_01So there's so many things that you're involved in. How do you maybe in just a sentence or two, how do you kind of wrap all that and and see the common thread and all of these different things that you are uniquely called and gifted to do?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh good question, Darren. I I think the common thread is just uh is um uh connect, you know, being a connector. Um and uh I I call it the phrase I use is interlocking assignments. So when I meet people uh and and look at my friendships and relationships and relational capital, I'm always looking to see where there's synergy and where there's interlocking assignments with other people. That way you can uh uh you can collaborate and you can cooperate uh with each other and complete, uh help complete each other's assignments without being in competition. And so that's kind of the model that I found works really well with other Christian leaders and business and government. Uh I'm part of the POTUS Shield as well that prays for President Trump, uh a number of Christian leaders uh in the U.S. and even uh internationally uh are part of that, uh, giving prayer coverage for both Vice President Pence and President Trump and their families. But uh yeah, so that's a good first start, maybe.
SPEAKER_01You know, I've come across your name and uh and and some of the clients that I work with, and you've endorsed some of our books uh that we published, and and it and the way that you reached out to me was you saw that I was an endorser in another book, and then you you said you just sent an email to me, which is very kind of you, uh, that you know, looks like we've got some friends in common here, and you just kind of made that, you just introduced yourself. You know, I think that's just such a great practical uh technique for connecting with other other like-minded people. What have been some of the other ways that you go about doing that? And and you know, why is that so important to carry out uh the Great Commission?
SPEAKER_02Well, great question, Darren. Um I I do that by uh, you know, uh everything in the in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God here on earth, it's from the inside out, and it's and it's organically. So everything from the world system uh is from the outside in, but everything from God's system and his kingdom is from the inside out. And and so relationships are work the same way. And there's a saying in business that you can do business at the speed of trust, and so that's really a big part of it, is uh when uh um when we have um convergences and um commonalities in our friendships and relationships, it speeds up the um, first of all, the openness, uh the trust level, and the uh acceptance factor in creating new relationships and new friendships. And so as you do that, you can get more done with less effort, less money, and less time, and get uh better results. You you get to use leverage and synergy, and then you get into the multiplication dimension instead of just the addition uh dimension, you can even get into exponential increase instead of just incremental increase.
SPEAKER_01I love the term that you use. I noticed it in your Skype profile. You and I don't even know, I know a lot of people haven't seen their Skype profile in a long time, but the word relationer. That's that's a term that that's there. Uh I can you unpack that term for us? I mean, is that something that you really run with? I think that's a a useful way to think about it when you combine relationship and engineering for a specific purpose.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So yeah, I'm combining relationships and vision, uh, you know, visioneering and engineering, uh, all that uh kind of summed up in the word relationering. This is just something, a phrase that the Holy Spirit kind of popped in my uh in my heart one day. Uh and so I uh made that my um Skype uh kind of ID. Uh yeah, so to me, um uh when you're relationering, what that means is you're engineering relationships and you're also um visioneering. I mean, you're you're casting vision and you're connecting with people at the heart level, not just the head level. So I look for strategic relationships, and that's part of uh relationering, is that your relationships are strategic, not just casual, not just acquaintances, but it's uh it's like I said, it's it's strategic in the sense that it's an interlocking assignment, or it's a there's some common commonality or common point of reference uh that may lead to uh big doors opening or massive influence um or access coming through the relationship uh that can touch millions of other people. And and that's always God's heart is to reach the masses, reach them more. That's how we disciple the nations. And there's different theories of how you do that. You know, a lot of missionaries and missions organizations try to disciple nations from the bottom up, and and there's certainly merit in that, and there's certainly fruit and benefit from that approach. But um, when you relationer, um you then have the opportunity to connect with uh political leaders, government leaders, business leaders at the tops of these uh spheres of influence and culture, and you can then disciple on influence from the top down. And uh often it can be faster that way. Uh, but they you know, there's there's uh I think we need both approaches. Uh I just liked uh you know working with other leaders to get things done faster, cheaper, and uh with more fruit.
SPEAKER_01And you mentioned discipling nations. And in order to really understand the and and really step out and connect with people in that that strategic way, not just in a manipulative way or just what can I get for myself, but when you have a big vision, like the Great Commission, I mean, what's bigger than that, discipling nations, you have to have help from uh you know all the entire body of Christ in order to fulfill that mandate. And and so when we talk about discipling nations, uh we first of all have to disciple the different components of what it makes up a nation. One of those clearly is the business world. How do you disciple the business world?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question. I think you disciple, from my perspective and my experience of 40 years in business, uh, I think one of the ways you disciple uh the business world is through organizational culture. So if you are either the CEO, the chairman of the board, or you are uh a member of the senior management team, then you have the opportunity uh to uh influence the cultural uh values and um uh you know uh the the uh the cultural um sort of uh infrastructure and and um organization of the you know whatever company or business you're working with. And and so that's really an important part right there, is that you uh can influence uh the core values and the uh the business ethics of the organization um by being part of leadership. Uh now whatever role or level you happen to be at in business, even if you're the janitor or you're the the uh you know uh chauffeur or the nurse or the attorney or whatever uh role you're playing, uh engineer, accountant, you can still influence uh the culture by your personal example. And um, you know, where appropriate, uh your personal witness. I know there are some rules in certain organizations regarding what you can and can't say about faith in uh some business settings, but uh uh we still have our personal witness, and I mean our personal example of how we do our jobs, of how we treat other people and fellow employees, and uh whether we're on time or not, whether we're um honoring to authority and those types of things. So I think that's a big part of how we influence uh Ed Disciple, the business culture, is we're basically honest. I mean, corruption is so widespread, and it's one of the, you know, besides sex trafficking and human trafficking and other social justice issues like that, uh, maybe drug drugs and things like that, um you know, it's just business ethics uh by itself is a huge way to disciple uh the business world because corruption is so rampant and widespread uh throughout many nations and many uh industries. And so I think uh just uh doing business God's way uh sets you apart right from the beginning in most businesses.
SPEAKER_01One of the concepts that you've introduced, and you actually wrote a book about this, is the eighth mountain. What does the eighth mountain have to do with discipling the business world?
SPEAKER_02Well, the the eighth mountain is uh a term that I coined uh uh to describe heaven, uh or basically the mountain of the Lord, which is mentioned in Scripture uh primarily in uh Micah chapter four and Isaiah chapter two, um, where it says that the mountain of the Lord uh shall be the chief mountain over all the other hills and mountains. And so uh, you know, I wrote about in my book, The Eighth Mountain, how that through our relationship with God, with Jesus, and with the Holy Spirit, that we can receive uh empowerment, uh, intimacy, uh, spiritual gifting, wisdom, revelation, um, and uh discernment and even favor uh to set us apart and to make us, like in Daniel chapter 1, 10 times better than all the other people at the king's court. And uh so I think it's that unfair competitive advantage we can have as Christians in business to uh access the not only to have the mind of Christ, as it talks about in Romans chapter uh 12, verse 2, but uh also to have the spirit of the living God live on the inside of us, and uh then to be able to uh have our character be uh mature and uh solid so that God can trust us because scripture says whoever is faithful and little shall be ruler over much. So the eighth mountain, the mountain of the Lord or heaven, uh is something we can access today. We don't just have to wait until we die to enjoy heaven, because Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, he has set eternity God has set eternity in the hearts of men.
SPEAKER_01And some of our listeners might not be familiar with what the first seven mountains are. So could you just kind of unpack that a little bit?
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. Uh yeah, the uh the there's uh what happened was in 1975, actually August 1975, so really about 43 years ago, uh several Christian leaders received uh uh independent visions separately, uh, but during uh the same time period, around the same week or at least within the same uh month. Um those were Bill Bright with uh Campus Crusade and also Lauren Cunningham with uh Youth with the Mission, and then Francis Schaefer uh with um La Braye uh Institute in Switzerland. So um these three Christian leaders back in the uh 1970s all received uh a similar revelation from God around the same time, uh, and it was called the Seven Mountain Mandate. Basically, it was a uh a vision they received, a picture uh from God uh of these seven uh cultural mind molders that influence or shape culture, and those would be um religion, um also which includes the churches, of course, and then uh also family uh and government, business, education, uh, arts and entertainment, and media. Uh, and these are called the uh the seven mountains of culture.
SPEAKER_01And so the eighth mountain, uh the mountain of the Lord transcends all seven of those mountains, and that that's really what we ought to be focusing on is spending time in the presence of the Lord through prayer, through worship, through scripture, uh fellowshipping with his people, and and that as we do that, that's as you said, you brought the example of Daniel and being that much, you know, so much smarter and and stronger than all of the other uh uh uh all of the other competition, basically. And and that that's what can happen as we because if you just kind of focus on uh trying to be a uh you know a world changer, transformational leader, um you know, you're just gonna shake things up for God and and be this revolutionary, but you're not getting, you're not allowing the Holy Spirit to pour into you. There's nothing to give, right? Is that basically the point?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you got it. Uh so that was a good summary, uh, Darren. I I may need to appoint you as an ambassador for the eighth melt. Uh but uh yeah, so basically the idea is that everyone who in scripture uh and in history who has come into the presence of God, everyone who's had any kind of encounter with God, or even sometimes the his angels have all been changed. So basically, it's impossible to come into the presence of God and not be changed. Uh, we saw that with Abraham, we saw it with Moses, we saw it with Daniel, uh, we saw it with Mary, uh, the mother of Jesus. Uh, we just saw it, you know, we see it with Gideon, uh, with Joshua, you know, with with many of the great uh heroes of faith and and leaders in the Bible uh throughout uh throughout uh history. And so it's the same thing. I mean, nothing's changed. I mean, it's the same uh today for us. And so uh we can all try to work harder, try to work smarter, uh, try to go to more conferences, try to go to more uh trainings and and uh you know best practices for our industry and for our occupation or profession. And that has some merit, it has some benefit, but it's got a limited, finite uh benefit, you know. Um but whereas God, what you receive from God is unlimited. And so when you want to break the ceiling of wherever you're operating currently, uh, you don't necessarily go back to school and get another degree, or you don't necessarily go to Harvard and go to their executive management program, although those are all good things to do. Really, uh as a Christian, what you do is you go spend time with the Lord. Uh, and as you said, it could be through a variety of ways, through reading his word, uh, through prayer, through fasting, uh, through uh, you know, doing a short-term missions trip somewhere uh over a weekend, over a week, or or you know, summer break or whatever, uh, or uh any um, you know, any other uh of many varieties of ways that uh uh you, you know, a lot of the ways that you grow spiritually is you forgive people, you show mercy uh, you know, to your your enemies, you pray for your enemies. And as your character builds, as you mature in your faith and in your uh character, where you can uh function more like Jesus and uh be a be an an example for others in the marketplace, then God's gonna trust you with more.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna continually be promoted uh throughout your um you know your your time and business and um uh you're gonna be on a destiny track not just a career track see if we're doing it in our own strength in our own will in our own uh skill set we're gonna get um human results when we do it in God's you know wisdom and in God's uh giftings we're gonna get God sized results so um you know it just it pays to uh spend time with God and um God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him as it says in Hebrews and you mentioned how the eighth mountain is a global community of idea leaders and so within the and and that are uh using God breathed god-sized ideas to solve perplexing problems uh what's one of your favorite examples of somebody within the community who it has is doing this living out this eighth mountain lifestyle sure well one of our uh eighth mountain uh members and leaders is a gentleman named David Hodgson from um uh Australia and David is the chairman of a group of 32 companies uh called Peloton Corporation uh they're they're doing uh close to a billion dollars a year in revenue uh collectively and so uh you know Dave has a mission of uh making Australia the first modern sheep nation you know where it talks and Jesus talks in Matthew 25 about in uh the day of judgment the peoples will be divided into sheep and goat nations and so he's really uh has a burden on his heart to uh help transform uh his country of Australia uh and so he's spending uh his own money um every year to hire a uh lobbying group to monitor and advocate for uh Christian laws christian um uh legislation in their uh parliament and legislature and uh uh you know righteous uh leaders in government and uh you know he um has uh every time he's acquired a business he has uh just treated it ethically he's paid off any existing debt he's uh taken good care of the uh employees he's inherited and uh and I mean God is just prospering him tremendously uh he uh he's just working now with a uh uh uh a new software company that uh he acquired several years ago and they've just launched a uh uh a new software product this year uh in a number of markets in different nations that potentially uh is very disruptive and will likely replace uh three or four uh leading uh software companies in different categories but I I won't mention those names just out of courtesy here.
SPEAKER_02Wow I love that so how can people get involved with the community and uh the other things that you have going on specifically with the Eighth Mountain well go to our website eighthmountain.com it's just a number eight with th after it and then the word mountain so eighthmountain.com uh we have an annual uh uh summit uh which is coming up well it'd be August 16th through 18th in Calgary Canada this year it's usually in the US but this is our first international summit um and also we uh you can sign up for membership uh receive uh newsletters from us uh connect with other members uh in the 8th mountain tribe and then we also have a a category of membership which is uh it's a freemium model so uh some of what we have is free and you can just sign up and be part of the community we also have a probably the um the best uh library of Christian business content that I'm aware of uh that was created we created this about two years ago we um one of our members owns a film studio in California uh it's a ministry and so we partner with them and we recorded um high def uh broadcast uh quality video uh interviews teachings from 62 Christian CEOs and government leaders in 22 nations and uh so we have all that content on um on the eighth mountain uh that's available for premium membership and we can access that and it's a whole library from and about half of these uh half of the uh uh CEOs uh in those videos are billionaires uh I think there's about seven billionaires from even from the UK that are part of that and uh some from Asia and then some from the US Canada and many other Africa many other places that's exciting eighth mountain the number eight th mountain.com is a website for everybody to go and check out uh Bruce as we wrap it up here what would be a parting piece of advice you would leave with our Christian business professionals today I would encourage you in business first of all to uh you know I want to congratulate you for being in business for hearing God for having courage and being obedient to either start a business or to work in a business and be in the marketplace where about 98% of all Christians uh draw their income from and uh I would say that a piece of advice parting is pray for the gift of discernment uh in 1 Corinthians 12 one of the spiritual gifts mentioned there is the uh gift of discerning of spirits and I found in my business practice over many years that uh being able to see into the heart of people that you're talking to in business and get a by the spirit and get a discernment or an inner witness uh in your own heart about their motives and their character uh you know before you sign contracts is just invaluable. So I just want to encourage you all to uh pray pray and ask the Lord for the gift of discernment uh for your business adventures.
SPEAKER_01Again 8Mountain.com is the website Bruce thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today may God continue to bless your community of the Eighth Mountain and everything you're putting your heart into brother thank you Darren you know Jesus is the chief chirp of so we say come on up and join us I love it.
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 in business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity in business at Christianitybusiness.com thanks for listening and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your