Theology of Business, episode 35. Five Biblical Entrepreneurship Principles to Teach Your Kids. Welcome back to the Theology of Business Podcast. Show that up as Marketplace Christians department with God in Business to transform the marketplace and make an impact in turn. I'm your host, Darren Sheer, founder of Hybrid Books, which publishes books written by inspiring leaders. If you're interested in publishing a book to help people work, head over to hybridbooks.com forward slash course. Sign up for a free free video author training course. Feel free to email me at Darren at hybridbooks.com to get a conversation going about your book. And now, on to today's episode. On today's episode, we're going to be discussing the topic of biblical entrepreneurship principles to teach your kids. And we're joined by Ken Carfagno and his 11-year-old son, Kenny. So this is the first father and son interview we've had. I've had the privilege of working with Ken on his book Arctic Land, which is published through my publishing company Hybridge Books. And Ken, has it been two years? I think we've been working together for at least two years on this project.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it has, Darren. Incredibly enough. It's been two amazing years.
SPEAKER_03It's been an absolute pleasure working with Ken and just uh and and actually got to meet Kenny on some of those Skype calls that we've had over the course of this of this process. But I can tell you that Ken has a passion for helping his kids to become like Jesus, and he sees business as a perfect context for this discipleship process to happen. And I'll let Ken talk a little bit more about his organization that he started to help fathers to connect with their kids. And he's also going to be speaking to uh not just fathers today, but mothers and parents in general and talking about the opportunity that we have as parents. I mean, I have two kids, they're both under the age of two, so we're not quite at that stage yet where we can talk about uh business, but but there's I'm looking forward to this opportunity to just impart some of these things that Ken has imparted into uh his kids. Uh, he's got three boys, right, Ken?
SPEAKER_02I do, and one princess.
SPEAKER_03And one princess. And and just being able to soak up some of this uh inspiration and knowledge uh to pass on uh to my kids. So I know that uh especially those of you who are parents are really gonna enjoy this uh this episode and are gonna benefit a lot from it today. Ken also owns and operates uh cleaning business uh for the past 10 years up in the Capitol District of New York State. Uh, it's called Carfagno Cleaning. And uh Ken is an entrepreneur, just an incredible father, has just really challenged me uh to just, I mean, you know, we talk about uh work-life balance, but and and just balancing out time with business and with family, but Kenny spends a ton of time with his kids and just doing incredible, like wacky, crazy fun activities with him. You can see some of the videos at dynamics.com. I mean, where he's you know doing uh cart races through the through the the uh grocery store to get away from alligators and just all kinds of uh fun stuff that he's doing, but um, but you're gonna really just benefit from this interview today. So, Ken and Kenny, welcome to the Theology of Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thank you very much, Darren. We're we're blessed to be here.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Kenny, have you ever been on the radio before?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Well, this is your this is your radio debut, I'm sure, of many more interviews to come. Well, Ken, uh, tell us uh bit more about yourself and dynamics and why parents should teach business principles to their kids. And they don't want Kenny to introduce himself and tell us about what he's learning in business.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Dan, for for bringing me on the show, and thank you for giving me a chance to uh bring my son on. This has been this has been an amazing last couple weeks, ever since he turned eleven. That was back on December 13th. So I'll just say this up front about me. I'm a goofball dad. Actually, I've always been a goofball, and when I became a dad, it gave me like it gave me like actual permission to be a goofball and get away with it. And actually on my uh on some of my uh social media profiles I actually put them basically the main character from the movie Big from the 80s, which is which is where the kid um wished to be big, but he he stayed as a kid, even though he was an adult's body. So that's kind of me in many situations. And I think carrying that kind of joy and that kind of fun into everything benefits you. And this is what sparked the idea, the concept of dynamics, and it happened along the path of writing my first book. Um, but I I'll try and keep this brief, but basically I realized that all the silly and goofy and creative and adventurous things that I I do with my kids, like you mentioned the alligator races. I've got about forty different things that I have now actually recorded on my phone that are going up on YouTube and on my blog. And these are just things that I was already doing to be goofy and uh and to just connect and bond with my kids in a very creative kind of way. And what I see what I saw happening from these experiences and these connections and this has become sort of a tagline for dad dynamics. The the the high level tagline is dynamics infusing creativity, adventure, and silliness into dad time. But the but the underlying tagline, which I'm coming to see more and more, the Lord's opened my eyes to see this. And I'd love to share a quick example if you if you allow me. But the underlying tagline is great connection leads to great conversation. And that's what I want to share with you uh and your audience here today. Because, yes, we're gonna talk about biblical entrepreneurship and and my son learning his first business and starting it, and the confidence and the money he's got in his hand and achieving goals, all these awesome things. But starting your own business, that was a conversation of a thousand conversations that a parent can have with a child. And I and I totally believe that great connection leads to those conversations. And if you'd allow me to share about a 60-second example, I think it'll really benefit and add a lot of value to your to your audience. Would that be okay?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, please do.
SPEAKER_02Please do. On Saturday night, I'm sorry, on Saturday, my my daughter turned to eight years old. And you know, so this is uh away from the three boys. This is an example of my daughter. And she's just the happiest little girl, and she's just a joy, and she's a m she's our princess. So we wanted to have some one-on-one bonding time with her. So mom, so my wife's name is Teresa. So Teresa and I took her out ice skating. She loves ice skating. She's only been twice now, and she's just a natural on on blades. And we had a great time. So about uh halfway into the you know, public skating where there's about a hundred fifty to a hundred people skating around in a circle, I said, Christiana, come here. And I pulled her into the center of the ice. Of course, everyone's watching, and that's what Dadynamics is all about. It's stretching yourself, overcoming fears, because that's a lot of it, that's a big part of the uh the connection, is doing something that you know is different and and silly. So I pull her out in the middle of the ice and I start singing a song that we do at home. We dance to a song at home, um, the the the Cinderella song, and I start singing it on the middle of the ice, and we start dancing on on our ice skates, right in the middle of the ice, and it was really bad. It was absolutely without any form, and it didn't look great, but you know what? I think it really um impacted people because people were staring at us. Well, people always stare at me. I'm used to that now. But this was different, and my daughter was loving it, and that was part one. Then after that, we took her to lunch, um, we had a great bonding time. We went after that to an arcade. This is all for her birthday. We want you know, she's one of four. We wanted her to have special time for her birthday. We took her to an arcade where we did like, you know, the skee ball deal and all that stuff, and you get tickets. And one thing that I've I learned from uh I'm the oldest of five, I learned this a as a younger, you know, adult to always find keepsakes, to always find things to to to cement a memory. And and when we finished off um this arcade thing, we had like 400 points and we we bought some, you know, corny little gifts, but she wanted to make sure that we got gifts that were two different colors of the same thing so that we could share we could keep them forever. And she's seen me do this with my younger sisters. My sister, my one sister's 21 years old. She still has this purple alien that that I had like she had gotten uh when she was eight years old when I took her out for her birthday. So she reminded my daughter remembered that. So here's the point of the story. We had some amazing connection time and she felt loved. We went home, we had a great night. We go into we go into bed to tuck her in. It's just me and my daughter, and I I pray over her. I do this thing called uh which I now I now have a title for it. It's called the Daddy Loves You survey that I do with my kids. I wasn't gonna get into that too much, but after doing this, and after all this time together with her, I just about to tuck her in. As soon as I finish praying, my daughter starts sobbing. Out of nowhere, uncontrollable sobbing. Now my son actually hasn't heard this yet. Um, so it's new to him too. So I'm not gonna share the details of what came out, but I'll just say this. She basically looked with tears streaming down her face. She said, Dad, I've been keeping a secret from you and mommy. And it blew it rocked me. It blew my mind, like, wow. So my first instinct was to be to listen, to be patient, to not go crazy here, not to overreact, but just to listen and say, Well, what do you mean? I just talked start talking to her. So this was an amazing conversation that ended up being an hour long, bringing mom into it, and then after that, I was so empowered by the by the situation, I wrote a blog about it. And I'm gonna be publishing that soon. But the point here is I walk away from that night so impacted, saying, Wow, is it possible that if we had not have been the parents that we are, if we had not been connecting with our daughter for all these years, and if we hadn't done, you know, that special time with her today, and if I hadn't done that silly little ice dance, all these things that made her feel special and loved and and to remember what we did, would that conversation ever come out? Would that confession ever happen that night? So I I preface everything with with that's what dadnamics is about. And now I think you want to probably move over into the area of you know, my son and his business. So I hope that didn't take up too much time and I and I hope it benefits.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and well, Ken, I wanted to hear and that's a powerful story. So how so it's the the conversations that you have, and that's really what it's about when it comes to connecting with our kids, is just it's just keeping that conversation going. And and so it it happens on ice skating rink. It can happen in uh maybe not just doing a family outing, but even just taking time at home to bring the conversation into the realm of business, which is where so many of us spend the majority of our waking hours. And so using business as a context for those qu for those questions, for those conversations to happen. Uh, Kenny, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and uh what you're learning about business?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm in fifth grade and I've started my own business, and it's really fun.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. So, what are you learning in the process? I mean, because starting a business isn't isn't easy. I mean, what are some of the challenges that you're facing and what are some of the things that you're learning?
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the first challenges was going to knock on the people's doors, trying to get customers. It was really hard for like the first couple doors, but then I got kind of used to it, and it was pretty easy for the other sixteen that we did it.
SPEAKER_03So did your so your dad was like, um Kenny, you need to you need to get out there and start knocking on some doors. Like, what was that conversation like?
SPEAKER_00Well, it was kinda like it wasn't really that hard.
SPEAKER_02Did I tell you I was gonna throw you into the wolves and I was gonna drop you off in the neighborhood? Did I tell you go here's houses, go have fun, or did we do anything before that?
SPEAKER_00We planned it all out over a few days, we got printing um flyers and business cards and we got all ourselves all ready to go.
SPEAKER_03Was it was it fun or did it feel like work? I mean, did it feel hard? Did it feel you know, was it did it feel challenging? What did it feel like?
SPEAKER_00It was more like fun.
SPEAKER_03What was the what was the funnest part about it?
SPEAKER_00When I got my first yes.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. How many how many no's did you have to get before you got that yes?
SPEAKER_00About ten.
SPEAKER_03Um how did you how did you deal with getting those no's?
SPEAKER_00Well earlier, well, earlier, um, my dad taught me that I have to get no's before I can get a yes, and it made it a lot easier.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So man, I'm I bet you guys were just on cloud nine celebrating when you got that yes, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03And what and what type of business is it? What type of services are you providing, Kenny?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm actually taking people's trash cans, like the big one, all the way to the curb and back every week.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. How did you decide to do that? Besides I mean, because when I was about your age, I was I was mowing lawns and you know, I was go I was kind of doing the door-to-door thing. Uh I didn't it didn't even occur to me to do the trash. I could I might have been able to make more money doing that. How did you decide on uh helping out with the trash cans?
SPEAKER_00Well, I came up with like a whole bunch of ideas, and then I thought like, what do you do this? Like, nah, not really. And then the trash ideas sound like great. I was like, yeah, let's do that.
SPEAKER_03So, Ken, from your perspective, uh what are some of the underlying biblical principles that you've been trying to teach and instill in in Kenny during this process?
SPEAKER_02Well, that that's it that's a great question. I'll start it off by saying that the underlying theme to everything is have fun. Who wants to do any business that is like a job? I used to have a job um before I was an entrepreneur, and sitting in an office, it just wasn't that fun for me. And I don't want to teach my kids that doing a business is like I'd rather them think that doing a business is fun and then, oh by the way, there's work involved, versus it's work and oh by the way, there's fun involved. I think it's if you flip the script on that a little bit, it changes the mindset. So that that's where my uh platform of dynamics comes in. Along every step of this process, I've been looking for ways to infuse creativity, adventure, and silliness into the teaching and the the growing of a business. So uh I think a couple steps, a couple practical steps that I took um and and how I infused my my branding into it. The first was okay, you know, y you want to have a business, that's great, son. Why do you want a business? And I've always learned that that you'll never you'll never do something, you know, because you know how to do it. You have to know why you want to do it, and then you'll go figure out the how. And so what we did was I knew he wanted to start a business, and on his 11th birthday, I presented him with like this rite of passage journal, and I and I I was very secretive about it. And I brought him in to the room and I uh I I started saying, Okay, here's your birthday present. I started inscribing things in his notebook, and I made him like, you know, not really have a chance to see what I was actually writing. And eventually I finished it, and I said I gave it to him, and it basically said, Congratulations. Now that you're 11, I am starting entrepreneur training with you today. And I went through what I would be doing with him, but I made this a really, a really fun experience, like making it like he's getting some password to some secret door, you know. Right. And that was special and also special time with dad. So we went immediately into our first lesson. And the first lesson isn't about business cards or flyers or how to knock on a door, it's about okay, dude, what do you want? If you had money, what do you want to buy? We went on Amazon, we went on Google, uh, we were looking through his room, and overwhelmingly the kid keeps coming up with the same answer, and this good this cuts across America in the uh 10, 11-year-old um range. What did you want, Kenny?
SPEAKER_00Legos.
SPEAKER_02Legos. But not just any Lego. Uh I have to read it. The Lego Mindstorms EV3. It's like a $350, like electronic, robotic, like, Lego deal. Dude, it's not like our Legos when you know we were kids, Darren. This is like serious Legos. This is like Legos meet science fiction. So it's $350. He's he he's already been doing chores around the house and making money, and he's been saving up some th some money too. But he still needed about a hundred dollars. And when he saw that, wow, I can make a hundred dollars in my own business, and wow, I could get that Lego EV3 a lot faster. So we started like, okay, well, here's some things that you really want, this Lego, and there's a few other things he wrote down on the list, and we started to plan out well, what is that going to take and how many customers. And the print the biblical principle behind this is that uh I go to uh Habakkuk 2.2. Then the Lord replied, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets that you that a hurl may run with it. Basically, is when you get a vision, a dream, a goal, you gotta write it down and then go after it. And that's the first thing we we did. Um now there's a few other steps I went into. I didn't know if you had a question about that particular one or if I should just keep going.
SPEAKER_03Well, I love that, and it's so powerful and such an important principle for uh I mean at 11 years old to learn that because I mean a lot of people go their whole life and never learn that. That you have to, if you want something, you need to you need to make it clear, write it down, and and put a plan of action together to go after it and not expect it. I mean, of course, you know, there are times where you know you you buy things uh for Kenny, I'm sure, but when it comes to something like this, you wanted him to understand. I mean, Kenny, would you appreciate those Legos that Lego mindstorms EV3 if more if you bought it or if your dad bought it for you? Do you think you would have more uh have have a greater appreciation for it?
SPEAKER_00I think I would if I bought it with my own money.
SPEAKER_03Wow. That's powerful right there. And and I love the the other principle that you were alluding to earlier, and just having fun in business that I think a lot of people grow up in business is basically just sort of a chore. It's just sort of something that it's it's like a necessary evil so that we can um make money and then do the things that we enjoy. And yet, and and I love it. I should mention that uh to our listeners that Ken has written an incredible article about the things that we're talking about today. You can go and check it out at theology of business.com and and it'll pop right up at the top of the page, and definitely leave a comment there, and and Ken will be sure to respond to any questions or comments that you have. But one of the principles there that Ken's been talking about is to have fun and business. And Ecclesiastes 224 says a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. So I love what what you guys are modeling that that work and doing business should be something that's fun, not something that is just miserable.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. Definitely.
SPEAKER_03So what what are what are some of the other things that you're learning in business, Kenny?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm learning that before I need to s before I can start a business, I should probably have goals that'll keep me running. Otherwise I might just like not want to do it anymore. I just want to stop. Might not be any fun anymore.
SPEAKER_03It's fun to go after goals, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What's a goal you're working on now?
SPEAKER_00Right now I'm going my goal is to get that robot.
SPEAKER_03How long do you think it's gonna take you to get that?
SPEAKER_00Well I'm pretty I think I'm gonna get it like really soon.
SPEAKER_03Beautiful, beautiful. What's something else that you've been learning?
SPEAKER_01Did we do anything before we started? Can you just show up in someone's house and say here I am?
SPEAKER_00Well no, I can't.
SPEAKER_01What do you learn? What'd you learn about that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, we had to I also I also had to plan to do it. I'd uh print out business cards and flyers.
SPEAKER_03And you mean you you didn't just wander out there and just hope something would happen, you actually put a plan together?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Why not?
SPEAKER_03Of course.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this this goes right to I mean, this goes right to the heart of it. I think there's three Well, there's there's there's five points I put together in the article I wrote. But this second point here, I mean, how often do we overlook this? How many of us have that model of of shoot and then aim versus aim then shoot? I look at this, okay, Luke 14, 28. Suppose one of you builds a tower. Now, and that probably a lot of your listeners have heard this verse a thousand times. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? So, I mean, how prosperous would this business be if we're building a tower slash building a business and we have no idea the resources it's really gonna take? The amount of time, the amount of money, the amount of people, and in this case in this case, we needed to have some promotional materials. He needed to know some basic skills of dealing with people. Eye contact, confident a confident look, a smile, a firm handshake. These are things that taught him. Uh uh having a good script, how to de how to answer uh a no, how to deal with a yes. What if what if a uh a child answers the door? What do you say then? All these different scenarios and role-playing. And and on top of all that is like, well, what about the um you know, which houses do we go to? So we also had to scope out which ones we wanted to do. So we actually scoped out which houses had the delivery, had the pickup date of the trash can company the day that Kenny wanted to actually do his business. So we chose Wednesday night, Thursday afternoon, you know, would be the would be the night that we'd uh we'd look for. So we went out on a Wednesday night and and found which houses actually had trash cans out the curb. And we wrote down those addresses. We compiled a list of 25 houses on the first pass, and that was our initial list. And that kind of takes us into okay, um now how do we define success? And this is, I think, this is pretty important because this is the fear element, Darren. Like, all right, it's all good, fine, well and good to say we got these goals, we wrote them down, we're gonna get this great Lego robot $350 deal, and and we're gonna do this to prepare for it. Uh, but there's one more piece of preparation that I think people might overlook is that there's fear involved in this. I mean, I as much as you don't want to admit it, I mean, especially for a 11-year-old boy going to someone's house, he doesn't know, and saying, Hello, my name is Kenny Carfagno, and how do you say it? And I live nearby and I just started my first business. Isn't that what you said?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's okay.
SPEAKER_02Right, and people were like, Wow, that's great. So, how do we overcome that fear? So I I like this verse from Judges 7-7. The Lord said to Gideon, and this is about defining success, with the 300 men that lacked, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home. So I I picked this Bible verse out, and I was sharing this with Kenny earlier, that you know, there was a list, so to speak, of thousands of men at Gideon's disposal that he could choose from. But God whittled those thousands of down to just three hundred, and with those three hundred, destroyed the Midi Knights. So I said, I say, Kenny, there's thousands of houses in our area. Okay? We don't need 300 to destroy the Midi Knights right now, but we do need about five, it looks like, to hit your goals. So here's the philosophy, son. Getting a no is a good thing. Getting a yes is what everyone thinks is a success. You get a yes, of course you think you're succeeding. If you get a no, most people quit after a no. So I taught him that in my own business, and I gave him this example. Now I I'd love to tell this example, it's a quick one from my cleaning company. When I first started Darren, um, first year in my cleaning company, I was just out of my engineering job, we had no money, and we had to find a way to get some business. I went door to door, literally, with information packs about my company, to 300 offices over a span of a few different months. I think it took about 30 days or so to do this. And I got the word no said to me 298 out of the 300 times. It was a very difficult thing to process when you need you need money to keep food in the table. I th this is a tough time in our life. Um, Kenny at this time was was about a year and a half old. And um, so we had one yes that was kind of a weak yes where I got a couple, you know, jobs out of it that you know paid, you know, a couple hundred dollars maybe. And it was okay, that that's great. But there's this one example. On one of the very last days, I went to tw I went to 19 businesses over the course of the day. And I, you know, I I presented myself, talked to each person, and everyone said no to me. And it wasn't like, you know, no, get out of my office. It was just no, it's not the right time or come back. But it they were no's. And this is very discouraging. And I'm like, okay, I'll just keep going. And you know what? Something inside of me spoke out. I'm like, you know, I need to go to one more. Just try one more. 19 is not not an even number. I need to get to 20. And I and I got I went to the next one on the list. Okay, I'm just gonna go. I prayed a little prayer. Lord, guide me in this. I walked in, met the receptionist, and now it's 10 years later, that one customer, I've earned over $60,000 in my cleaning business because of that one yes. And I and I taught my son this lesson. I said, Kenny, all you need is one yes. And if I could just share how this went down, I'm sure Kenny would say it. Because the the first part, and Kenny's over here jabbing me by the way. He's like, tell him the funny story, tell him the funny story. And I promise, okay, I'll tell the funny story. He thinks it's funny because we did role-playing. I have to tell, oh, this is silly. So, okay, I'm like, okay, Kenny, I'm in the kitchen. It was after dinner. Now let's do some examples of what not to do when someone says yes or no to you at the door. And this is very important, remember this, son. And when they said, when I said, okay, okay, so would you would you give me an opportunity to serve your family in my in business? And if the if the family said said no, then I said, Kenny, here's what you don't do. You don't go, no, I can't believe you said no. And you start crying, you put your hand in your face.
SPEAKER_01Why are you rejecting me? Mama!
SPEAKER_02So I was and I was being dramatic and everyone's cracking up. This is an example of being fun having fun and injecting energy. And then I said, okay, let's talk about the wrong way to get a yes, because getting a yes is great. So let's say the family says, Yes, I would like to hire you. Here's what you don't say, right, Kenny? Yes, I knew you would! You're amazing! I'm gonna be the best ever! And you do this big high five with a customer, you give them a hug. So I explained that the certain there's a certain monkey game. And the monkey kids, yeah. And I we do this in the kitchen. This is part of the role playing the fun that we had. So the point of this lesson is pretty obvious, is to have fun. That was number one, but to also teach that yes or no, you want to kind of have a balanced answer, like, okay, thank you very much for your time. And you let them direct, you know, as I was teaching them, teaching, teaching Kenny how to properly respond. So Kenny forced me to tell you that because he was over here cracking up. All right.
SPEAKER_03The last part of this is um, and this is the Well, let's say let's save that for the for the article, because I want I want people to go to the website to read Ken's article. So if you want to get the rest of the the principles here, um definitely go on to the website at theology of business.com and uh and and read Ken's article. You can read more of the details about how he's teaching biblical business and entrepreneurship principles uh to his son. And you can take those principles and do likewise. Uh, Ken, as we're wrapping it down here, um tell us about your book Arctic Land and uh where people can buy it, and then um just kind of leave us with some parting advice for parents uh who want to teach biblical business and entrepreneurship principles to their kids.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you for that opportunity. All right, well, first let me answer the second question first. I just wanted to stress this. Why would parents want to teach this to their kids, to teach, to have the conversation of business? And my wife and I, Teresa, we just felt that the job market is very uncertain as it is today. What's it gonna be like in the year 2026? And I just believe that there's timeless principles that business is always has always been prosperous through the you know through the millennia. You know, but jobs hasn't really been around that long. So I'd rather prepare we'd rather prepare our kids to have business skills while they're young so that they would be prepared for the you know for the economy of of 10 years from now. And that was kind of our behind the scenes, like this is why we want to do it. And the fact that they took to it so so great was is just a it's it's it's awesome. So so this is that that's the underlying thing. And also I I think it's important that doing a business is a great way to teach, to show kids that you can set and achieve your own goals. Even as a nine, ten, eleven-year-old boy, a girl. My daughter already wants to start when she's eight. So that's the first thing. And then I'll I'll come back to the parting advice. Now, my book, Arctic Land, this has been the probably the funnest journey of my life. Articland began with just an idea of me and Kenny when he was five years old making up a bedtime story. That bedtime story, through encouragement, through recording them over night after night, has turned into an actual book, uh, which is it's mind-blowing to know that, you know, where God can take an idea. But Arctic Land, the scope of this has gone from an interactive from from just a book that was kind of like a Narnia kind of Indiana Jones kind of adventure, to how cool would it be if the father and son did it together? Hey, the how cool would it be if the father actually read the son's name into the book as the main character, and that was dynamics in reading. So taking dynamics and taking it into the world of reading. And that was, you know, my my initial my initial concept. And then it stretched even further into how can I make this more interactive? And I created 37 different activities throughout the book, and the son actually gets a um, you know, you get free download f free downloadable maps, interactive maps, and and this thing called a GAD log book, which is like this really cool adventure book you can print it out or you can pull it up on your phone or your device, and you can read all as you read along the book, there's these logos that you would hit in the book. And every time you see a logo, the father and son know that oh, we have to go do an activity, and they're guided at you know they're guided as to where to go and do those. Some of them might be in the house with with some uh art supplies, and some might be you know putting, you know, tapping a tree to get water out of it, or how to survive a polar bear attack, or or how to survive a volcano, and like all these fun things. So it's designed, the whole thing's designed to become an experience, uh, and a reading experience. And behind the whole cold, this is a this is a tool. I want fathers um engaged to create more connectivity through a great habit, through reading. And if and if if boys and girls too, girls are welcome too. But if girls and boys would would think would would read more because dad thinks it's cool because he's doing it with them, and because there's so much interaction involved, books have become cool. And I've watched my son since the age of five, his you know, Kenny, who's been on the interview, he reads a ton. He loves reading, and this is because how much reading we do and how much interaction we do around books. So that right there is what Articland is about. The book itself uh is called Arctic Land. It can be found, you can go right to my website at uh www.dadnamics.com backslash Arcticland. That's dadnamics d-a-d-n-a-m-i-c-s. And there's also it also links you over to the Amazon page.
SPEAKER_03So beautiful. Well, it's an incredible book. I definitely want to encourage everybody to go uh check it out. Uh again, Amazon will have the links to it in the at the bottom of the article. If you go to theologybusiness.com, pull up Ken's article, uh, it'll be there. Um Kenny, would you do us a favor and just kind of talk to the parents out there that are maybe uh thinking about uh about about helping their kids understand uh biblical principles of business and just how to be an entrepreneur. What would you say to encourage those parents?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's a lot of fun, and I think a lot of kids would like doing it.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. It's a lot of fun. I think that's the key right there. The key takeaway from this interview today is that is that spending time with your kids and learning business. I mean, business is such a it's fun. It should be fun. And to be able to combine that with the discipleship of your kids and just spending time with your kids and just letting them know that you want to be a part of their life and just helping them to learn maybe some of the things that you didn't get to learn until much later on, and just giving them a head start. Uh, I think what Ken and Kenny are doing is just an incredible example to us all. It's definitely an example that I'm seeking to emulate as I'm uh as my kids are getting older. Um, right now, you know, they're both under the age of two, but um, but you're definitely gonna be hearing more from Ken and Kenny about uh about how you as a parent can do this uh with your kids. Ken, any uh anything you wanted to say before we sign off here?
SPEAKER_02I think it's critical that we as parents not only teach this stuff, but we model it. I mean, we have to do what we're teaching. And I mean, we're talking to an audience mostly, I think, made up of entrepreneurs. So, I mean, if you're doing a business, have fun with have fun with your own business. I mean, how can you teach having fun to your son if you can't have fun yourself? So start with you. Have fun. And, you know, your s your son, I think my son has has witnessed me having fun with my business for as long as he can remember. So my parting advice is still centered around the same topic. Have fun, but have fun with what you're doing too. And if you're not having fun, I love to reference people to to Dan Miller, who has a great concept called the sweet spot. He talks about that you're gonna be in a sweet spot in your life and you'll have fun if your gifts and your talents and match up with your purpose and your calling, and there's also money involved that you can prosper from. And if those three things line up and you can have a lot of fun with it, well, you're gonna have a lot of fun with it, and you're gonna have a um an amazing life. And that's the kind of thing I strive for as a as a husband, a father, and an entrepreneur, and I just hope to teach that to my own kids.
SPEAKER_03Well said. Well, Ken and Kenny, thank you so much for taking the time to come on to the Theology of Business podcast and just sharing your your expertise and just the the fun that you're having in business. Thanks for the example that you're setting, and uh go forward and do great things.
SPEAKER_02Thank you very much, Darren. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03I hope you've enjoyed this episode and uh like to hear your feedback on this episode at theology of business.com. You can check out Ken's article and also get more information about Marketplace Ministry, spiritual gifts, marketplace, marketing ideas, and right center leadership. If you're interested in publishing a book, hybrid video author training email me at hybrid.