He Stopped Waiting for Open Doors and Built a Multi Million Dollar Company

In this powerful conversation, entrepreneur Eric Knopf shares the mindset, faith, and strategy behind building a company valued in the nine figures. From growing up with parents who never crushed his dreams, to surviving COVID wiping out revenue overnight, Eric unpacks what it truly takes to build something lasting. He challenges the idea of waiting for open doors, arguing instead that every breakthrough in his life came from pounding on closed ones. Eric dives into the relationship between faith and entrepreneurship, why peace should be the reward of bold action rather than the prerequisite, and how separating identity from outcomes unlocks the freedom to take real risks. He also shares how Web Connects turned a crisis into record-breaking growth by finding an untapped market no one else saw. Whether you are just starting out or scaling a team, this conversation is packed with honest insight on fear, culture, calling, and what it means to build a business that genuinely transforms people's lives. #Talents

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Nine out of ten businesses fail. All I need to do is to start ten businesses.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

You've built uh a company that is hundreds of employees, tens of millions in revenue.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

So many times we are afraid to jump in because we have this full picture dream, but there actually is an infant stage that we need to go through. Look at Matthew 7, 7, and 8. Knock, and the door will be opened. Our brains went to, I need to walk through open doors, but we forget that the instruction is to knock on closed doors. People will hijack their life in ways that God never designed because they were attracted to an open door. The principle is that we will accept the least resistance as a sign of, oh, God doesn't have racing. But I don't think we should ever walk through a door we wouldn't pound on. Every great thing of my life, every single thing, every breakthrough of my life has been pounded on my doors. I want to enter the kingdom of God and have the bloodiest knuckles. Where do you think that came from?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

I'm here with Eric Knopf, who is uh a really good friend, an entrepreneur, a future best friend. We kind of have a running joke that we're gonna be future best friends because maybe someday we'll live in the same city. Um that's the only thing that keeps us from being best friends, is the fact that we don't live in the same city. Um, but Eric is an entrepreneur, uh, he's a businessman, he's a creative, he's a strategist, he is an operator in a lot of ways. Um he's the guy I call when I'm like trying to work through a brainstorm idea. Uh he's the guy that when I go on his Instagram stories, he's got some sort of crazy adventure like experiment going on where you're you're whether you're hiking up some mountain or you're uh building some app overnight or doing an adventure with your kids. Um but thanks for being with us today, man. It's it's really an honor to have you here. Um we're gonna go, we're gonna talk about a lot of different aspects of entrepreneurship, building a business, priorities, values, fear. Um we're gonna get into a lot of things, but I I think it's worth just noting uh for those of you who don't know who Eric is, you have built your your current status, if you will, is you've built uh a company um that is hundreds of employees at this point, uh tens of millions uh in revenue um evaluation that is somewhere between a billion dollars and a hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, that's a good range. Yeah. More than a hundred dollars, less than a billion, we'll go with that.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Not quite a trillion, but yeah. One billion dollars. Um but it's uh it's safe to say you're probably in the nine-figure range at at this point, which is uh nothing to cough at. Uh it's it's pretty insane. So uh all that to say, you've got some experience now at this point in your life behind your belt, and you've seen some successes. Um you are in my mind, you're the you're that entrepreneur that really inspires me, and that entrepreneur that I really I really want to glean from. And um truthfully, all of this is really just my way of getting my friends together than people that I love so that we can have conversations and learn the the secrets, if you will, and the strategies of of of what you've learned through the years and what you're going through. But um, as an entrepreneur, when uh you have a you have a saying, entrepreneurs are not born, they're made. That's right. So talk to us about how you were made into an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

You know, when did that start for you and what is what is what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So sometimes people think about entrepreneurs coming from other entrepreneurial parents, and that was not my case. Uh my father was a physician, and my mother was a homemaker and a musician. Okay. And so my father being a physician, you know, medical school, prestigious doctor, right? You had uh I think that a father has these grand aspirations for his son of like, you know, following into the trade and making something of education and college and graduate school and those things. My earliest memory of any career I wanted was probably around five or six years old. And I wanted to be the man who held the slow and stop sign at a construction zone. And so my father, you know, hearing his son's dream, pulled his hand button. No, no. My parents were like, that's awesome. And they got me this construction vest. They got me the yellow helmet and took me out to construction.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Rather than saying, son, that's not a great career. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Right. He had every right to be like, that is a minimum wage job, requires no training. How dare you bring shame upon our house. Wow. You know? And he just got behind it. My mom and dad both just like all about it. Took me to construction. I loved the smell of asphalt, by the way. I was like, oh, that smells so good. Um fanned the flame uh of that passion. And I would draw tractors. And one day I made like a children's, like I drew a book, like an illustration book of how to build roads called Road Construction. My dad got me like a microphone. He'd made an audiobook version of it. Oh, come on. They bound it. I'm like six, seven years old, something like that. Wow. Um then I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot. I named my son Maverick, just so you know how into Top Gun I was at the time. Um then I wanted to be a cartoonist. I got a drafting table. I wanted to be a fly fisherman. I learned to tie flies. Um I wanted to go pro basketball. They bought me like the jump shoes to like try to increase my vert, you know. Um and so really the the gift that my parents gave me and they're raising me to be an entrepreneur by accident, I think. And I think what we we do on accident, we can learn to do on purpose later. Wow. Um was really to never get crushed by an unfulfilled dream and by changing my mind. And I think so many people bring their ideas and they put so much consequence on it that they can never change, they can never pivot. And so for me, I went through all of these different stages of ideas and dreams. And if I change my mind, great, I'm gonna do something else. And so I think from an entrepreneurial perspective, you need that. You need to be able to change direction and not put so much consequence and uh stakes on it that you can move and adapt. And so I think I was raised accidentally to be an entrepreneur based on having this support and this drive of like, all right, you're gonna change your mind, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And I just always looked at it as this well, I'm gonna try this, and if that doesn't work, I'm gonna try that. If that doesn't work, I'm gonna try something else. And so uh trying to raise my kids in that same way, and I think so many people when I talked to them about being an entrepreneur, they weren't raised that way. Uh they had so much staked on what are you going to do. And there's so much intensity, and it's like, who are you gonna become? And what they did is they tied identity into your vocation. What you do. And so that becomes especially consequential if you become an entrepreneur. Yeah. If it doesn't work, it's not just that your idea doesn't work, you don't work. You as a human fail, not your business fails. And the stakes of being an entrepreneur in a world where your identity has been staked upon the thing that you do, if the thing you do fails, then you fail as a person. Wow. And that keeps so many people back from wanting to start things because it's too consequential, because it's it's inextricably tied to who they are. And so my parents, I'm so thankful for them.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Did did you did you did they know what they were doing? U No. Like I think that's like the They're like, wow, this is incredible. I would actually say the other side of what you said of parents going, what are you gonna do? It it actually comes from a right heart. Correct. The heart of a parent is I want my kids to be successful, therefore, you know, I'm attentive in this way. What are you gonna do? And it comes from a it comes from a the right heart. Right. But it it seeds something different than that. So your parents did sort of the opposite, but to to know to do that or be intentional, that's pretty profound to me. I mean that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I think the instrumental thing for us to learn is that as parents, I don't know if you guys, you know, have kids out there, but um we get to be so careful that we don't squash our children. And our attempt to be constructive and imaginative with them is that we hold this position where we think we're just being helpful, you know, and we think we're we're helping them think through things, but actually we run the risk of squashing a very small dream and a very small spark that should blossom. Yeah. And you should not be worrying about what your third grader wants to do. Like you should be awesome, go do that. Um my daughter wanted to, she's really into horses, pray for me. We've got two horses. Um anybody wants to flirt with bankruptcy, just get into horses. Horses are not very expensive. Horse is if you ever want your bicycle to make terrible decisions, get horses. Um, but one of my daughter's earlier ambitions is she wanted to do a nonprofit to teach people horseback riding. You know, and like I could be there like, well, how's it gonna make money? And how's this? And you know, these are like really poor ideas for economics, and you need to make some, you know, I would have all the potential to squash her dream and utterly crush it. Great, honey, go do it. And I think the gift that my parents gave me is they never try to rationalize my dreams out of me. Oh and that's so powerful. From a parental perspective, we want the best for our kids, but we should not be stressed about what your five, six, seven, ten, twelve, thirteen, fifteen-year-old is doing. Like you want them to have the magicary uh way to explore their dreams and ambitions, and they're gonna figure it out. But the worst thing you can do is make them so stressed about making the wrong decision. And so many people will make no decision at all versus trying something and pivoting.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Aaron Powell Did your parents see entrepreneurism on you? Or were they it was just more about letting you learn?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Well, the funny thing is the reason I firmly believe my parents raised us to be entrepreneurs, my sister's an entrepreneur, and my brother is too. My brother's in music, and he writes music for TV shows, and he's a traveling artist. My sister was a professional volleyball player, started her own uh coaching business and tutoring business. And so we both like all three of us have like this kind of drive, and it was this insatiable support from parents. And uh and so they really got behind us on those things. And and we can talk about downsides to that too, because there are some downsides, but larger, I think as I look to my siblings and see how all of us are self-starters, were taking care of ourselves in our own endeavors, that it really was how we were raised, because we had you know no real uh forces around us to say, hey, you want you should be an entrepreneur one day.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah. I think what you said about our what we do being tied to our identity and and not having it tied to our identity, because then if it it it it releases you to be free to fail and be okay with who you are. I think that's great kid advice. I think that's even better adult advice. Like I I think so often, so many of the entrepreneurs that I talk with, or you know, as as an entrepreneur, you know, we know the the the the fear, we know the and we don't necessarily articulate articulate it that way. So how how did your childhood in that that's such a gift? I mean that's so beautiful. I like want to go meet your parents because they they sound like legends. And um how did that manifest itself into your adult life as an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I think they set the momentum of you have an idea, let's go explore it. Uh, my son, you know, he's uh his name's Maverick and he's living up to the name being so unique, you know. And so he we've we've tried different things and trying to find what is his sweet spot. And I've just been like going after different things. He's really into uh cards right now, like Pokemon cards and training cards. And so I bought tickets to go to the Collecticon in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. And like, let's go into that. And like he's all into the valuations and he's really into Minecraft and he's into these different things. Uh and two nights ago, um, I just sat down with him and I I feel like I need to find like what is the thing that's gonna like bring you to where you can't stop thinking about it and find that area because I always kind of had an idea and I get really obsessive over it, and my parents just like gave me support around it. And so the other night we sat down and uh there's a tool called Replit, if you guys ever heard of that. I was like, buddy, let's let's like make a video game together. And uh so we first tried like this kind of virtual hide-and-seek thing, and it worked okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Replit is essentially like it it can build any app or game or correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

And so two nights ago, uh we're playing with that, and it's like, what if we did like a fighter jet game? And so we started writing down like a little prompt, and uh so we we've like been slowly building this fighter jet dog fighting game, and the thing is so cool. And he's like, you know, he's added all these controls for controlling speed and barrel rolls, we made all the physics and dynamics with it work, and he's just like obsessed about it now. Wow. And so who knows where it will go? It doesn't matter where it goes. Yeah. But I think the idea to fulfillment, an idea to exploration, like closing that gap and doing it as a child is so powerful to have something that's in my mind. I go and try it and I explore and I taste it. That it's so powerful. And so through my teen years and into college, I just like walked into like have an idea. I'm gonna try it. It doesn't matter if I abandon it, you know, in six months. I need to go try it. So um, everything from the fly fishing to graphic design, like I wanted to get into t-shirt design. So my parents bought me Photoshop and you know, so I'd like to learn how to make designs and like all the things, like the role of the parent to help you realize that idea and to taste it and to test it uh and to stop that uh no man's land of anguish and angst over what happens if, and theorizing it, it's just so much better to get into exploring into exploring it. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

So you're you know, 20, 21, you become an adult, you know, what is what is that it not to say that those all felt like experiments, but in a lot of ways it's discovering who you are, it's discovering your giftings and how you're wired and what makes you come alive and what you get excited about. How did that manifest itself into your adult life?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I would say I had a an encounter in my college years uh where I guess to back up, I grew up in a Christian home and uh I went into college feeling like I don't know if this faith is mine. And I was plugged into the college groups and the high school groups, but I really didn't know like my faith being my own. And um so the other parallel story here is that my brother's a a genius. I'm I'm certain he's like clinical genius, you know, um valedictorian, science student of the year, went to Ivy League school. Never seen anything besides an A on his report card, you know. My sister, also a genius, she's super smart. Uh, but then she's like this incredible athlete. So she was like varsity three sports all four years of high school, like the only athlete to do it in Oregon, goes to D1 college playing volleyball, you know, and you wake up in the morning and your sister's on the newspaper and it's awesome. You know, ESPN's coming out to high school. Wow. But then there's Eric and he likes dirt bikes, and you know, it I don't have the brains of the athletics. And um I think in college that all converged into I don't know who I am because I wasn't athletic and I wasn't really that smart, and I just had like this identity crisis in college and really like struggled in some scary ways. And so um I was part of a a church and helping them with worship, and uh the pastor was very prophetic, and so he would do these kind of um this kind of prophetic time, and I wasn't really exposed to any of that stuff. I just was like picking up a college job and playing piano for the the worship pastor. Oh wow, and um I become the object of his prophetic ministry, and he calls out the paint colors of this very incredible experience I was having with like wrestling with value of self and wrestling with my identity, and he calls out the exact lies that I was saying over myself and describing the rooms, and it was like something like of this other world. I like what was that, you know? Wow. So I had this unbelievable encounter with Holy Spirit in this way that's like, hey, you've lived a life that's trying to match behaviors of Christianity, and you've missed the Spirit of God who wants a relationship with you. And it just was like this knock, hello, you know, and uh I was like, whatever that is, I want more of that. Wow. And so my life just got totally transformed halfway through college. And so God on fire for Jesus. And the problem with that is that when you catch fire with Jesus, you also then have this career crisis. And you're like, well, if I really love God, I go into ministry. And if I don't really love God, I go pay for everybody else to go into ministry. Really love God. Yeah, yeah. It's like, well, I guess I don't love God enough. And so um I encountered this this crossroad where I'm on fire for the Lord, but I don't, it's like I don't like Lord, I don't want to live in a hut in Africa, you know? It's like it's my prayer. It's like there's more I love you, but I don't love you that much, maybe, you know. And there was that the church offered no place for business people. And if you're in business, like go hand out the offering plate and maybe we'll put you on a finance committee, you know. And church did not really comprehend place for the business minds. And so I had this divergence of like paths, and so I was like, well, I just I cannot shake this entrepreneurial drive, and so I chose business. It's like, okay, I'll just be the guy at church that you know has a business and donates, you know. And so um that kind of set me on this trajectory where I had this dichotomy and chose business and graduated college, went full-time into my very first business, got married straight out of college, and so continued to pursue there. But what happened later is then I had this encounter here in Sacramento where a man walked up to me, he's like, Hey, introduced himself, and he's like, I want you to know you've got an anointing for ministry in your life. And I had said goodbye to ministry you know, seven years prior. And it was almost like this dormant seed that had fresh water placed on it, and it awakened this seed. And I got this invitation to start to do ministry on Thursday nights, and as a volunteer and just to show up and teach and preach. And so what it did is it it awakened this thing that was in me that I had shut off. And so, in that process, I re-entered ministry as kind of doing a volunteer teaching and preaching on Thursdays and finding this convergence of both business and ministry together, and in the process found my identity in it and found that I am more important than the thing I do. I'm I am much more than the business I start. And that also then brought me to a journey where can I express kingdom and business too? Because business and ministry were always, you know, separate, you know. Leave church at church and leave work at work. And so the journey through Web Connects really formed what does it mean to try to live in such a way that expresses the kingdom of God in my business and in entrepreneurship.

unknown 20:46

Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

That is so cool. That is it's that's so real. And I don't know if that's just the era we're about the same age that we grew up in, but it it felt like a version of success for a believer is you're in ministry, and that that is it. So so for you to kind of find that fine line of both truthfully, that's like that's where you and I are very similar, is we've both have carried one foot in business and one foot in ministry for a long for a long time. I mean, it's it's I I'm coming up on 20 years of doing both. And I think there's something so important though about what you just said and people understanding that the work that you do can be your ministry, that it it's you you're not you're not less valuable in the sight of God or impactful. I actually would argue that in some ways you're more impactful when you actually understand oh no, what I'm doing is is is reaching people, it's having impact, you know, in a way that I might never be able to inside the church walls. Yeah. Um did you feel? Like well, tell me this. You you have this statement. Uh you gotta, I'm gonna butcher this, so you have to give us all the context. I think it was when you got married, but you've told you've told me before, like nine out of ten businesses will fail.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

I'll tell you, yeah. Okay. So first off, I married way out of my league. Like the grocery clerk guy will put like the plastic divider between our groceries. You know, that's how far out of my league I married, you know. Um and so my wife came from uh a very well-to-do family, uh top surgeon, and and they're a family that you know has a lot of professionals in them. So my sister or my wife's sister is a lawyer, her brother's a doctor, her other brother's guy's MBA, you know. So uh entering into the family that had you know prestige and and career uh was this kind of outlier when she was dating me, and she's like, Oh, um, I'm dating this guy named Eric, and they're asking, as any parent would, what would you know, what does he want to do when he grows up? Because we were dating in college, and uh, what does he want to do for a profession? And she's like, Oh, he he wants to be an entrepreneur. And be an entrepreneur today. Yeah, yeah, it's different back then. Today, it's like, oh, cool, you know. Back then it's like that's just the name for someone who does not have a job. That's somebody who's weird. Right, right. So it was a big challenge, I think, from her perspective, to take a risk when her family, you know, grad school and my wife became a veterinarian, you know, and so they eliminate risk by the profession, and so um to have a be married to a person who's gonna be an entrepreneur with a lot of risk. And so I thought that I was being very clever with my wife. I was like, all right, I've done the math. Nine out of ten businesses fail. All I need to do is to start 10 businesses. And it was just like this very like matter-of-fact thing. It's like, all I need to do is start 10 businesses, and mathematically, we're gonna have a winner. And I wish I could tell you I beat the odds. I mean, I probably have four or five strikeouts, a couple base hits, a triple, and then one grand slam. And so uh, but that was that entrepreneurial drive for me like trying and exploring and abandoning, trying, exploring, abandoning, and uh, you know, that that whole journey. But, you know, interestingly, in our 20s, I told my wife, hey, I need my 20s to risk it all and to lose it all. And when I turned 30, if I don't have a stable venture going, I can go work at Taco Bell and I can I can make a burrito and provide for the family. And so that was our agreement. We both love Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

That's establish that.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

So I spent my 20s risking it all. Um we lost our house in the process. I mean, we've got a lot of uh challenging seasons. Uh we went through a lot of different things, but when I turned 30 uh right afterwards, we went out to dinner at Ella here in downtown Sacramento and uh upgraded her wedding ring and just thanked her because it finally had the traction uh to sustain us. And so I asked, like, hey, can I keep doing this? Oh my gosh. Um, but yeah, it's uh the entrepreneurial pursuit, it's it's it's not for the faint of heart.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

You had some failures there is getting that getting to your tenth. I just love that philosophy. Like, let me just the ability to say that and to to take risks. I think we all are inspired by that, but I think the truth is that that's really hard. Like that like there's so many things that keep us in the way. Number one probably being fear. Yep. Um, how did you just face that?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

How did you deal with that? I think we think of what's the worst thing that can happen, and we think of all these bad outcomes. And the truth of it is is unless you're boarding a rocket ship, you know, your worst case scenario is going back to what you're doing now. Meaning your current life already is the worst case scenario. Wow. And so for me, when I thought about taking risks, and when I thought about taking uh this venture, that venture, and what holds me back, it really comes down to the fear of man. It comes down to what are people gonna think about me if this thing doesn't fail.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

It's like you are surrendering your destiny and all the potential that God has for you and everything that you can imagine for yourself. You are surrendering all of that under to the opinions of people who don't know you and like you, maybe. Wow. And you're doing it all for, well, if I launch an Instagram account and I talk about this journey that doesn't work, what are they gonna think of me? And you're surrendering your entire destiny to strangers. Wow. And so, yeah, for me, it's like I'm if I say no to this, I'm saying no to it for really terrible reasons. But what could go right if I do it? Wow. So I think the fear of like what is actually holding me back, and I'm not saying I'm not encouraging anybody to mortgage their house and you know go all on Bitcoin or things like that. Um, but I do think that when we think of things that hold people back, they're doing two things. One is they're they're afraid of other people's opinions of them. Yeah. And two, they're trying to make the perfect version. And they think that they need to have this entire thing worked out. I mean once I'm up with somebody and they want to do something in education. And they're like, well, I need a building, I need a property. And they came up with this like $50 million business plan. And that was what they needed to start. I was like, how about you just like teach someone on Zoom? How about you like teach someone in your living room, in a coffee shop, you know, like bootstrap. Just do something. And so so many times we are afraid to jump in because we have this full picture dream, and that is like the full maturity of it. But there actually is an infant stage that we need to go through. And there's a smaller version of it that is okay. And so Web Connects was like this like basic thing, you know, and starting it from like this like basic thing and slowly evolving it. But so many people is they create these like master plans and these business plans, and it's got this all these details and specifics, and they say that is the only version I'm willing to do. And they hold their destiny hostage because they will not tolerate any smaller version of that when in fact you should just start small and grow into it. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

That's so profound. I there's like four one-liners there that I'm just like, that is so it's so insightful. Um, you have uh uh one of the most uh unique perspectives on uh pushing on closed doors. And let's get into some of your opinions. How about we do that? You got some opinions. Uh Buckle up. You guys, yeah, you got some opinions. Uh I I think we share similar similar opinions on some of these these topics, but uh I think I run into people a lot where the language that they use is like, well, I'm just being patient, or the language that they use is I'm just waiting on God. Yep or the language that they use is well, I'm just waiting on God to open that door. And I do think that there's a place for that it in in in you know, depending on the season of life you're in. But I will say that I think the majority of people that say that to me, that's really the cop-out of what's really going on internally. Um, you have you have some pretty good good perspective on this that I I appreciate. Can you walk us through that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, I think a lot of Christians they organize their feature in the destiny according to open doors. And when you talk about major life decisions, oh, this door opened, this door opened, this door opened, and the accumulation of their life is all of these things that happen to them. And if you look at Matthew 7, 7, and 8, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened. Now our brains went to, I need to walk through open doors, but we forget that the instruction is to knock on closed doors. And so people are looking for every open door rather than pounding on the locked doors of their destiny. So I could tear tell you guys stories forever, but the way my wife and I start our first date is I asked her out, and she starts the first date saying, um, hey, I don't want to date anybody. Like in the truck, it's in. This is how we start the date.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

I don't know if you've ever started a date that way. That's not how you want to start a date. Awesome. Where do we go from here? Me neither. And I could have allowed myself to be crushed, but I then purposed in my heart that says, okay, she doesn't want to date anybody, and I'm on a date right now trying to date her. I can either be crushed and run away, or I can show her such a great time that I can pound on this closed door to see if her heart would open to me. And so we had a great time on the first date. I asked her out again and again and again. And I purposed in my heart that if I cannot win her, I'm gonna ruin it for any other guy that comes after me. I want her to be comparing my dates to any other schmuck that comes after me. Come on. And in that, I just said, like, I'm gonna show her the best time. And it was like pursuing her for like four or five months, which felt like 40 years. I bet. And had no indication, like she kept on, you know, saying yes and going out. It's like, all right, so I've you know don't have a restraining order on me yet, so I guess that's a good sign. And uh, anyways, we're we've been married almost 22 years now. Come on. Um and so knocking on that that that closed door, um the house we bought in Lake Tahoe was wildly out of our budget. And I go, we we we tour it, the realtor's like, get out of here, you know, you self-employed, stated income buffoon, you know. And I had like this loan cap, you know, and I was like just like an underwriting mess, you know. And but this was the house I wanted. Um and so the house gets delisted because it becomes wintertime and houses go off the market in in wintertime. I go online, I buy the owner's information for like $9. And uh and all the agents that just get out of here, the the we've got multiples on this, get out of here, you know, you you're not gonna qualify and all these things. So I buy the owner's information, I just email him. The guy's name is Bruce, love Bruce. Bruce, hey, I'm gonna offer you like 20% less than what you're asking for on this house. And here's why I want you to sell it to me. I gave him like pictures of my family, and he's like, get out of here. I email him for like every other week. What about this? What about this? What if I do this? What if you do this? And I'm just like giving him ideas and he's shooting me down for five months straight. May 1st, he's like, You've got 30 days. Wow. And I just like scramble, and May 31st, we closed in the house. I've had buildings in old Sacramento. We were exploring to buy a building, going back and forth. It gets bought out from under us. And people are like, move on. And Ashley and I are COO, we just like felt something special about this building. And our team, we would like walk around the building and put hands on it. I would see it off of J Street. I'd point to it. I'm like, come back, you know. Wow. And we had this agent who's like, hey, I I happen to know the buyers of this building. I was like, see if they would meet with us. And so we sat across from this restaurant and was like, so you don't know me, but can you sell me back the building? Wow. And they're like, sure. And so we like went and have zone. So again, the principle is that we will accept the least resistance as a sign of, oh, God doesn't have grace on it. And we will tolerate a curvature of our life that wanders to the path of least resistance. Yeah. And look for open doors. And and I've just found every great thing of my life, every single thing, every breakthrough of my life has been pounding on the doors. Yeah. Um and it's like this incredible journey by faith. It's like, God, someone here's the idiot. Am I the idiot? You know, like the house was, you know, the owner doesn't want to sell it to me, the woman doesn't want to date me, the building got resold, you know. Yeah. And I've got more of these stories, but um like I want to enter the kingdom of God and have the bloodiest knuckles. Yeah. And there are so many things of just pursuing of like, God, I'm gonna pound this door until it opens. And so every great thing in my life has been on the on the heels of just being relentless. Knocking. On knocking. And if you think about it too, um people will hijack their life in ways that God never designed or ever wanted because they were attracted to an open door. And they were thought, well, clearly this is this is something that God would want because it's open. And I'm not saying that God doesn't open doors, but I don't think we should ever walk through a door we wouldn't pound on to have opened. And if that's really the case, if our lives are the accumulation of convenient opportunities, all the devil needs to do to take you off your destiny is to cause a coincidence and to create something that has, you know, favorable outcomes and self-interest. And that's all that needs to happen to take you wildly off course of what God wants. And I feel like God has really called me in my life to just live the most outrageous life possible. And man, I've found it on the heels of chasing every closed door and pounding in on it. Man, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah, I I think that there's so much that there's so much to unpack in what you just said, but I I think at the core of it, I I would rather live my life having God try to slow me down. You know? Can we talk about waiting on God? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

I mean, where do we get this idea that we are faster than God? Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And the there's like a patience part of it. Um the one that's attached to this is feeling peace. Um can we talk about peace?

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Oh, I I I yeah. In my in a lot of the business I have, that's the that's like the buzzword that I hear. Like, well, we're just praying for the peace. And sometimes I I just look at people, I'm like, no, you're not. But okay. Like that's that's not what this is about. But go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah, so give it to you. The Apostle Paul talks about working out our faith with fear and trembling. And I feel like that we should be living a courageous life of faith where what we are doing is scaring us. That it feels intimidating. Like I'm living a life right now that I'm like, I, God, I feel so over my skis. I feel like that feeling like you're running downhill and like your torso is going faster than your legs. It's how I feel like all the time it feels like now. But Paul talks about working out your faith with fear and trembling, meaning that we should be pursuing and contending for things that are intimidating, things that are bigger than us. I think that one of the only ways that God gets the glory is if we do something that actually outmeasures our own ability and capacity. But this often thing that people will use as this kind of gate to their life is peace. Well, I didn't feel peace about this. Or I oftentimes will see people will make terrible decisions and talk about, well, I felt at peace about it. Um, when you think about the greatest decision ever made, which is Jesus going to the cross. The night before he goes to the cross, he is sweating as drops of blood as it's described in the Bible. Doesn't sound like a lot of peace, you know? And he says, not my will, but your will. And that is so instructional for us because peace shouldn't be the gatekeeper, it should be the reward on the other end of bold, courageous action. And that is where a lot of Christians get held up, is they won't act because they're intimidated by it. I think we should look at the intimidation and run through it. And on the other end, is peace is the reward for bold and courageous action. And in James 2.17, faith in itself without action is dead. And so we should have our faith be this driver for all this courage and all this action. But we let peace be this thing like until I feel peace, baloney, you know, do the things that scare you. Do the things that feel too big for you, and on the other end of your courageous action, then you'll have the reward of peace. Peace was never designed to be this precursor to every decision you make. Doesn't mean we don't have wisdom, but we should not look for this feeling as this kind of gate in this authenticator of the life we live. Yeah. Where do you think that came from? Um I mean you find peace throughout the Bible. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Um, we're supposed to have peace that surpasses understanding. So we will read the text, and peace is a good thing, but think about the peace that surpasses understanding. It means that you should be doing things that defy the peace that you have. If you're to look at my life right now, you're like the peace that surpasses. Dang, you know, you've got peace, and all this is in your life, that's the peace that surpasses understanding. If you're living a very comfortable life and everything is de-risked, everything's very contained, and you've got peace, oh good job. Right. You know? Right. That's not impressive to anybody. The mark of the peace, of the Prince of Peace, is that we're living a life that is intimidating, that's courageous, and yet we have peace. So peace should be this thing that breaks people's mind. And our Christian life is actually living down to such a safe existence for peace rather than living an outrageous life that is accompanied with peace.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

How do you approach risk?

unknown 40:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Whether it's in business or life or I approach risk with what's the worst that can happen? And also I feel like when God looks to Joshua and he's standing in front of the promised land, and he says, Every place that you place your foot, I will give you the land. Meaning, I'm not going to give you any place that you won't wander. And I feel like there's something about our life that God is willing to give us so much if we would wander and we adventure and we take risk. So I look at risk as the partnership with God to explore what's possible in my life. It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Oh. As the young kids say, that's a bar right there. That's a bar.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Is that a new term?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Yeah, that's what the kids say. I got five teenagers, so that's a bar? That's a bar. That is totally bar. Isn't that a good, isn't that um?

SPEAKER_00 41:51

So I think of like I want everything that God has available for me in my life. I'm also keenly aware that God will not prohibit me from living a mediocre life. Yeah. He's not gonna stop me, he's not gonna be like, whoa, you're phoning it in, you're coasting. You know, like we need to get you on a five-step plan to live in an amazing life. If we decide to live a mediocre life, God will not stop us. And I think that gives me this courage of like, I want everything. Yeah, I want everything. Come on. When I reach heaven, God is like, whoa, you like you went for it. And so I approach risk in this trade-off with God of like exploring what's possible on my life and in me.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

I got to just as your friend, I got to watch you live this out when COVID happened. Oh man. Because, and I want to talk about this. We um I remember talking to you, and I just felt like in that season that I I just felt an urgency to just like be a friend, you know, like and I I don't know, I think you might have thought, like, why are you keep calling me? But I just I had a heart for you. I felt like God was like, this is a season that that Eric's gonna go through something really hard, but he's gonna learn through. I I don't know what it was, but I just felt I felt called to move towards you. So that's that's what I did. And I remember you telling me, like, this is the first, like before COVID got politicized, and you know, when it's the 14 days to flatten the curve, and we're all we're all hunkering down to try to flatten this curve together. Um I called you, I said, How are you doing? And you said, Well, we uh we sell about $66,000 a day in in ticket sale fees $66,000 a day, and that just went to zero. Like pretty much overnight with COVID. So just for context, full context here, one of the things that WebConnect does is has a is a tick ticket spice, a ticketing service. Yep. Um like a ticket master or something similar to that. So there's there's they do the ticketing for all these different events. Uh am I butchering this? No, yeah. Okay. Um you're like, we don't do that at all, Cody. Um like good. But they uh you know that you you provide ticketing services for concerts and venues, and um, so those fees all of a sudden dry up overnight.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yep. Um we make a dollar roughly for every single time someone buys a ticket or registers for an event. And so when events get outlawed, revenue goes to zero. Yeah. And that was bad enough. So March 13th, 2020, remember the day because it was the day that all public gatherings in California were canceled. So revenue goes to absolute zero. Now the problem is when we make a dollar, when everybody buys a ticket, what happens when people refund tickets? Oh. So we were like, oh man, revenue went to zero. That's pretty bad. Woke up the next day and like sixty thousand dollars is gone. And we'd like, what happened? You know, every single morning, there's some banking law that prohibits the maximum we can draw from our bank account, but every single morning, all these mass refunds were clawing back all of our revenue. So in the span of about 10 days, we had about five months of revenue clawed back out to where we were left with about 30 days of cash left. So at the time we had 40 employees, and this is where it's really important for wisdom and revelation. So Ephesians talks about that we have the spirit of wisdom and revelation. This came through in a huge way because wisdom was to say lay everybody off. And that's what all of our competitors did. Eventbrite laid off 60% of all their staff. Um, if you're an event business, you just like, all right, we need to conserve cash. Gotta go lean. Yeah. We called an advisor. What do we do? We had no investors. It was just my co-founder and I, we've always shouldered the cash needs of the business. And he's like, cut hard, cut deep, cut fast. And he's like, the loving thing to do is to get everybody else onto their new jobs. He's like, you have to have the business survive. There's nothing for them to come back to if you drive this into the cliff. So we're like, I mean, these are people we recruited, people who are pregnant, people who are lifelong friends that are there. So 40 employees, and we kind of modeled that we would have to get down to 10 employees to make it through. And we studied pandemics and pandemics left last three years. So there's no really good quick solution. And so we're like just facing this dire situation. And so we were facing, man, we have to do this huge gut-retching layoff. And we found jobs for people at Zoom and call other customer service roles and customers, and we found landing spots for people. And uh we'd also heard that there's this possibility of this PPP loan, this payroll protection program. Right. Uh, but only lasts for like one month at a time, two months eventually. Right. Doesn't help you for three years. You still are serving in an outlawed industry. Yeah. And so we have this Zoom that is forever an infamy in our our our culture, and we just kind of wept with our team. I mean, not kind of, like we just ugly cried in front of our team.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

I I I have friends that were on that Zoom. Oh my gosh. And they were like, dude, your friend Eric is bawling. Like you were It was awful. Yeah. It was awful.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah. I I can't like talk about that, you know, crying each time about it, but um we said, if you can go get a job, go get a job. We've lined things up for a lot of you. This is a sinking ship. So if you can go find work, go find work. Uh and here's what we have lined up for you. And uh one of our staff members chimed in on this Zoom. He's like, There's no sinking ship I'd rather be on. And every single employee decided to stay. He's like, you guys are idiots. You know? And we said, like, if you're gonna stay, we still might crash into the cliff, but we're gonna fight like mad.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

And so why why was that that zoom so emotional for you?

SPEAKER_00 48:35

I think it's because I mean, going back to like the identity of almost failing. These are people like, hey, come join us. Yeah, this is gonna be awesome. Like, I felt like people took a chance on me and took a chance on the company and all the people we have here. And feeling like as an employer, there's so many things we can talk about. One of the greatest privileges as an entrepreneur is to provide for people's families. Like in that Zoom, I'm thinking about everybody's wives and spouses and kids. I'm thinking about their lives. Like everybody's life right now is hinging on the company. And they're looking to me and John and our senior team to provide for them. And this thing is not working, this thing is going down. And so the human weight of all of it was just so crushing. But just like weeping in front of people, like we are totally powerless. This is not because we've mismanaged things, this is like it's totally happened to the world. Yeah. Um and so they all decided to stay, and we cut up the credit cards, and we did, you know, 40% decreased, like I went forbearance on my house, everything. Evasive maneuvers. And so we built virtual events like in a weekend. Um, and revelation and wisdom, going back to that wisdom said lay everybody off. Revelation was like, God, could you create a breakthrough here? And we had so many incredible prophetic words about this journey. But one of them was about David stepping on the field against Goliath. Do you remember how many stones he had?

unknown 50:09

Five.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

He had five. Yeah. And it was this kind of revelation of like, interesting. We only remember the one stone. But he had four others. And so we were just like, wow, like this is interesting. We're stepping on the battlefield against this huge Goliath. And we knew that virtual events, one stone, we just didn't feel like it was going to be the single thing to win. So we knew, like, we're going to cast a lot of seed. And anytime like the Bible talks about seed, it's casting a lot of seed.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

So a lot of stones, a lot of seed. Wow. And then also casting your net on the other side of the boat. Uh, and Isaac sowing in a famine, and like all these different prophetic words, and we're like stitching them together, and we're just oppressing in God, you have to show us something that nobody else has seen. I remember talking to Banning, and he prayed for me on this too. He's like, that he would see something that nobody else has seen. And we just like pressed into that, still managing wisdom throughout the entire thing. And what we did is we found that a few markets and industries besides virtual events for helping people resume events and particularly outdoor markets, because that's where everybody moved to. They moved to outdoors. So everything indoors was canceled. And so we repurposed our software for people staging and gaining people going to outdoor experiences. So pumpkin patches, corn mazes, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Places that would have never had a ticketing service before.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Precisely. Nobody had saw had imagined it or was it.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

It was a completely untapped market until that moment.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

100%.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Good Lord.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

And it was like finding gold in hills, and you're the only person with a pickaxe. Wow. And so we went from just barely scraping by, you know, doing everything we could to all of a sudden in July and August, suddenly these markets are starting to show. Ashley, our COO, she stood up the whole entire team to help onboard all these markets. So September of 2020, we set the record revenue month for the the entire company ever in September of 2020. A record revenue month. October, the very next month, we double that number. And then we matched the number in November. We, to the glory of God, ended 2020 as an event business up nine percent. Oh my gosh. Saved every job, brought people back, and then we just like went for it.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

And then so you go from 66 grand a day in ticket fees. I just remember that number because we were talking, and you're like, well, I'm like, well, how bad is it? And you're like, well, this is what we normally do. We're at zero, plus we're getting refunds, you know, put in. So it's it's this double negative. Yeah. So that's March. You get this revelation, you start moving towards these new markets that have never been tapped into record-breaking month. Then you double it the next month. Then COVID starts to slow down, events start to come back. So now you have the previous business that existed, plus this new market that you guys have tapped.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Well, those markets stayed. Yeah. And then it unlocked, you know, all these cash-based businesses that used to be there, they all had to move to cash lists, all the credit card. And so then it became the challenge of how do we help them grow more because of technology. So they never go back. So those markets actually stayed. And then as regular conferences and concerts came back, you know, it was great.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

You I love that story so much. But I I think that what is so important that we get from that story is in hard times, it's super easy to go put your head in the sand and go, my house is in forbearance, we're cutting staff, I'm depressed, life is over. Heads are falling off. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

That's exactly how it was. Yeah. Um, how do they know who we are? But here's the interesting thing. And and I would encourage you guys back to identity. Um I remember the phone calls we had, and they were so encouraging. And you were the better phone calls. The other phone calls and the other text messages were hey, I want to give you some encouragement to develop muscles for this, or I want to give you this. And here's the thing is that trials and tribulations and hardships never come on schedule and don't come pre-announced.

unknown 54:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

And what I was doing in my inner world around identity and making sure that I love Web Connects. I hope it it continues to grow. And I but it doesn't make me a success or failure either. Wow. And so I think from preparing when we were crushing it. So 2019, before all this happened, like we took our company on a whole company trip, as we do every year, we rented a private island in Belize and had this like huge celebration. And we were like on the top of the world, you know, like unstoppable. And even in the great success, always maintaining your personal relationship with the Lord and building the muscles for you of like my next challenge is not going to come announced, and I need to be ready. And I need to be ready for the good and the bad. And I'm not gonna hinge my faith on everything going well. I need to be exactly me, whether we're printing money and making millions of dollars or whether it's all going down in flames. It shouldn't actually affect my life. Yeah. And so my private life and my prayer life and my personal study, when COVID hit, revenue went to zero, and all the money got clawed back, my morning routine didn't look any different. And people were all talking about, oh, prepare. And I just felt like the Lord, when all this at the worst moment is staring like, I'm gonna lose it all. I'm gonna lose my house, I'm gonna lose my business, can lose my employees, can I lose whatever? And I feel like God had said, You've been preparing for this all along. You just didn't know when the battle is gonna come.

unknown 56:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

And feeling like oddly prepared for the greatest challenge of my life, and had been almost like practicing to run a marathon every day. And then you wake up one day and like today's the day for the race. Wow. And being oddly prepared for it. Wow. And so from everything from my identity to what my faith, like, I wasn't questioning my theology, God, why this, why that? I'd already answered all those questions. All right, we got a storm. Let's roll. Doesn't change my faith. I'm not gonna pray any different. I'm not gonna question my purpose, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be reactive because everybody is reactive. And the unprepared Christian has a theology rise and fall based on the circumstances of their life. Wow. And they wander into all this introspection. And I was like, all right, God, I'm called more than a conqueror. Here we go. Like I didn't have to go through any of that stuff. And so uh feeling oddly prepared for it and still trying to live that every single day of this side of it, be like, God, I'm so thankful. Um, and I need to be ready every day. I have no idea the day of my next challenge in battle, but I gotta be ready in the good times.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Yeah. Have you ever been motivated by money? For sure. It's because everything you're saying, I'm like, Eric is like the perfect person in my brain. I'm like, you're just amazing. Like every like, if I need perspective, I just call Eric. I'm like, you know, I was on a think retreat last year by myself trying to get some perspective on some stuff and just seeking God. And I just there was one thing I was stuck on, and I just called Eric because I was like, dude, what do you think about this? And just your advice was so good. But I I think that I ask you like about money because I think that a lot of times we feel like money will solve our problems.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

And we have an uber reliance on God moving into that season, and then when we experience the abundance or success or whatever that may look like financially, um we tend to kind of get we we start feeling ourselves a little bit, and and that that dependence and that reliance on God kind of goes down. And I feel like you've you've carried such a good balance throughout your your career and all this. So talk to me about money.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Man, it's amazing how much God answers our prayers when it comes to like, hey, should I do this? This might make me a lot of money. God said yes. And I've been burned twice by this. Once was freshly married, I had like $800 to my name, sold my dirt bike to pay for a honeymoon. I am broke. This guy comes along. Hey, I want to pay you six figures to join me. Let me pray about it. Oh, God said yes. Amazing. I get burned, I lose all my money, uh, it doesn't work out. Uh the 2008 market collapse, I had all these home builders I was doing consulting and building web projects for. And that was rock and rolling, successful. You know, I had all these home builders paid me $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 a month to build software for them. I mean, just like high on life. You can see like this repeating rhythm to my life. 2008, the market collapses, all the home builders go out of business. I find myself in $60,000 in debt, uh, have an adjustable rate mortgage on my house that I should never have been able to buy. Uh, one interest rate is 11% on the house, the other one's like seven. And the house is underwater by like half. Another successful businessman, everything he touches gold. He had multiple exits for $50, $60 million. He's like, hey, we should all collaborate, we should do something together. Let me pray about it. God said yes. Jump into it, it goes nowhere. So I think I've disciplined myself, hopefully, and I I continually try to check myself because it is such this alluring thing that we will find God says yes to all of our selfish ambitions and all of our self-interested things. And it's burned me a lot in those two times. And so you have to discipline it out of your life. You have to know, like, I am the flesh wants this, wants these shortcuts, wants these things. And I've just I've I've seen it too many times now. Yeah. But yeah, you you have to daily crucify the flesh in those ways.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

Yeah. I want to talk about um one of the things that you are known for within Web Connects is the community and the culture that you guys have built. And you, you know, we kind of went through the era. Do you guys remember when like Google was like trying to make a cool environment? And that what's that movie? Uh uh, the intern movie, um, where it's all about like cool environment and ping pong tables. Yep. Um, and it was there was a there was a season where it's like, oh, as long as you create this really cool environment, people just kind of start. Ping pong tables and beer on tapping. Yeah, all that. Um you've done something similar in terms of intentionality to create community and culture, uh, but you've done it a little differently. Will you talk to us about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

Yeah, I think God is doing something in the business world and in work that I think is something new, and that He is advancing people's lives because of the jobs they work at. So we think about the kingdom being, I go to church, I minister to my neighbor, I serve the poor, the homeless. I don't think anybody is thinking about where people are spending 60% of their adult lives, which is work. And somebody once observed to me, I don't know who it is, but they're like, we we employ 140 people. And someone observed to me, you probably have more impact on someone's daily life than any pastor. And I was like, wow, I had not connected those dots. And you think of that work has 60% of your adult life. So mathematically, the things that are going to stress you out, to rob your sleep, that are going to steal your joy mathematically are probably going to happen at work. The work you do, who you do it with, and the responsibilities and stress you carry. And then work also controls health insurance, vacation, income, where you go to school, what kind of vacations you have. And work felt like this very unredeemed place. That it's this divide between kingdom and non-kingdom. And so Ashley and our senior team, we just kind of looked at it as like, man, what if work was a place that your life got advanced? That not just provided for a good income, but like your health got better, your marriage got better, your personal fitness got better, your finances got better, what if everything in your life got better because you had this particular job? And so we identified that who you work with and the work you do are the huge unlocks to your happiness. And if you redeem work in that way, work is the first domino that falls in all these other things in your life for positive or negative. So let's make work this destination where you cannot wait to see the people you work with. You cannot wait for the work that you do. It's fulfilling, it's challenging, um, and that you have a great time. What would happen in your life if you just like looked at this thing that normally is drudgery and it's this thing that was life-giving? What would happen in your life? And so we're on this, you know, probably now 12, 10-year journey of this thesis. And we want to have our place to be the most empowering, fun, celebratory, and joyful place ever. Wow. And so that manifests itself in a whole bunch of different ways, but also around we want your life to get better. So we'll do like a $1,200 counseling credit, marriage issues, kids' issues, identity issues, health, whatever you want. We want your life to get better. We give a $750 credit for people to go have fun with other employees, go drive trophy trucks, go rent mountain bikes, go on a surf excursion, do something that's amazing that we pay for. We do a company trip where we take not just our top sales executives, uh, not just the sales executives and their wives, we take every employee, all their spouses, all their kids. We pay for it all. And we actually charter a 737 from Sacramento to take half our staff. Which to charter 737 is just fun in general. Yeah. That's a very cheap one. You'd think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um but like this general thesis of like hold on though.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

You just said something that like you just brushed over. You take your entire staff, 140, plus spouses, plus kids, plus kids, on an all-expense paid trip. Out of country. Out of country. Yep. Okay. It costs a fortune. That's insane. That's insane. Tell me uh what did this year look like?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

What was that? So we go at the end of June. Uh we've been going to Cabo the past couple years, so we'll go to Cabo again this year. It's between 250 and 300 people each year. Um, which taking that many people out of the country is logistically unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

Yeah. Um that feels like a full-time role.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

We've got a couple great people who work on it. Yeah, I mean, that's it's a huge, it's a huge effort. Uh the reason we do it um is because most jobs only care about you as an employer. What can I get from you? And people would say, Well, your marriage problems aren't my problem if you work for me. Leave home at home. You know, leave it at the door. Baloney. Everything about you as a human that happens outside of work, you bring into work.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

So yeah, your marriage problems are my problem. You know, your challenges with your kids are my problem. And not that I have to solve for them, but I actually have to be aware of that and make room for it. And when work and bend to accommodate you for thriving in life, whether it's marriage or family or finances or whatever it is, you unlock their life to flourish as a human and they reward you in work. But for the company trip, it pierces into your family. Yeah. Because when our wives get to know each other, when our kids get to know each other, when people get to spend time playing volleyball or playing golf or going surfing, they get to learn new skills, all of a sudden your family looks at your job and says, Wow, you really care about us as a family. And so when servers go down, client issues come up, and sorry, honey, you know, I got this client issue, the family's like, yeah, go for it. Because we're investing into them as a family and trying to create for them an experience for them that loves them as a family. Wow. My favorite thing to hear is that because we go all out on like this trip, and people are like, this is the nicest vacation I've ever had.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

Oh, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:18

And it's like such a joyful thing, like kids come up to you and like thanking you and like you're welcome. Like our family's never been like the number of people who you get passports for the first time is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

Oh, that's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

And so it's deeply rewarding, but having work bless a family, care about a family, and sacrifice in a generous way for a family is this incredible impact. It's hard to quantify, it's hard to describe. It doesn't show up on a line item, but when people's lives and families get better, everything about work and the work they do gets better. Yeah. And I wish more people in business would value that because it feels like the kingdom of God. I'm not in ministry formally in terms of a pulpit in a church, but I feel what we're doing from a company perspective is the kingdom of God, and it's trying to bless and advance people and be generous. Yeah. So we're trying to see how far we can take generosity on a company level, and it's a wild journey. That is insane.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:14

I feel like the only next right question for me to ask is if you have any job openings that I could apply for. I got five kids, so I'll add seven. I know I'm paid things. I was like, hey, come on now. I love that, man. That is, if that doesn't inspire anybody listening to this, um, I don't know what else would. I mean, that is uh for entrepreneurs to pick up all the gold nuggets that you've given us today, but I just think there's something so it's so much deeper than just creating a fun place. Yeah. It's truly ministry. What a what a reward to be able to do that. What a reward to be able to employ people that get to provide for you're helping them provide for their families, and that's I was talking to Ashley recently about this too, uh, who's our COO.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

And as an employer, you actually are partnering with God in the advancement, the destiny, and the promotion of someone's life. You as an employer hold the keys to new responsibilities they're gonna have, to more income they're gonna make, to new ways that God wants to imagine for their life. And I feel like this reverence that I'm gonna stand before God and He's gonna be like, I gave you 140 employees. How did you do? Wow. And then have him saying, Hey, that person, I imagined all these things for him. And you know what stood in the way? Was you, Eric. Wow. It's like I imagined Billy to have all these things. I put in him all these giftings. And the only reason that he didn't accomplish it is because he had a terrible leader who didn't believe in him and see his destiny. And so from the perspective of an employer, man, like we wrestle with this of like fit and imagining promotion, and we want to give people chances because I revere this thing of that that I'm in partnership with God about people's destiny and the responsibilities they have, and what responsibility leads to another one, which leads to another one, which leads to something else. Yeah. And it's this I've never heard anybody talk about this. That we get to create jobs, we get to employ people that bless families, but also partner with God in the imaginative work that He's doing for people's own lives and where they want to go and where God wants to take them. Yeah. And that can play a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Incredible. That is absolutely incredible. Eric, I like to um ask this question uh at the end of all of these interviews. Um, what is what is your talent?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

My talent is bringing ideas to life. Is I see it in 4K. I drive my team nuts. Like drive them so nuts because I am like, let me steamroll you with all my vision and ideas. Um and I think your greatest weakness is your greatest strength overemphasized. So my talent is also my Achilles heel. And I can suck the oxygen out of any room, and I can steamroll people, and I can um rob them of their contributions. I can I can do all these awful things with it. Um I think that's like a a big growth area that I always like try to like like I need to be okay not getting my way. Um and I I'm not that good at not getting my own way. But I think what I bring to the team is I bring the ability to see things and have an insatiable desire to bring it to life. Wow. I'm gonna go knock on that door, I'm gonna pound through that, I'm gonna break that wall, and I'm gonna try to build it and make it happen. And it may succeed, it may not. Wow, but we'll try again. Wow. Any parting words for this group of beautiful people? You guys are awesome. Thank you guys for being here. Um I would say I'll go back to because I know there's gray leaders, entrepreneurs, small businesses here. Um, and I think I'd go back to that statement of that God's not going to prohibit you from living a mediocre life. Uh, and to have reverence for that we have this one life, and I think God has placed in you guys incredible dreams, incredible ambitions, and abilities. And asking yourself, what stands in the way between you realizing those things? Is it fear of man? Is it fear of competency? I am so dumb I can't even describe to you guys how dumb I am. Um but I think my idiocy and my stupidity helps me not know what I don't know and try things. And so uh living a courageous life that that takes hold of opportunities and risks. Um, and to do it with some wisdom, but knowing that the perfect time is never going to arrive. There'll never be a perfect time to start that thing, the conditions will not just be perfect. Uh you you you keep on delaying your feature and your destiny because you're waiting for everything to coalesce into perfect timing, and the timing's never going to come. You have to make your timing, you have to forge ahead and decide today's the day I'm gonna do it. If it doesn't work, try again. Try something else. And so, yeah, I just I think that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:36

Yeah, thank you so much, man. Appreciate you. Would you would you do me a quick favor? Would you um would you pray over this group? For sure. If you're in the room and you're uh you're trying to build something right now, can you just raise your hand? Okay. Um I just feel like there's a release today of uh my hope for this room is not that you just hear these things and go, oh, that was kind of encouraging, but my prayer that when we do these gatherings is that this creates an environment where you you have actionable takeaways that you can implement immediately into whatever it is you're building, whatever it is you're doing. And um I think that what I'm sensing is um I think there's a lot of conviction in the room and challenge of like, well, I sometimes we can be in our own way. I feel like today's one of those days where I'm like, okay, let me get out of my my own way. So I just um I want to just pray, have you pray a blessing over this group in especially the builders in the room, but specifically that they wouldn't just be hears but doers, that there would be a just a release to to go to go build. Absolutely cool. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

God, I thank you that you stake your name and reputation as being a creator. And all the creators here, whether you're creating a job, creating a business, creating a product, a service, creating a culture, we are made in your image. God, bring glory to yourself through our creative efforts. God, thank you that we have an unfair advantage against everything else in the world. We have your Holy Spirit in us. Thank you, God, for 1 Corinthians 2.16. We've got the mind of Christ. That you live in us and through us. I pray for every dream and ambition here that it would come to life, and every single thing that stands in its way, God, that you just would dismantle. God, I just declare the fear of man to be broken, the fear of failure, the fear of impressing people, the fear of what will people think, the fear of destruction, and God, we just replace that with an incredible imagination for what could be. God, thank you that you came to give life and life more abundantly. That's right. I pray that every single person here would have a newfound vision and passion to live at the full capacity of what's possible in each one's life, uh, of their lives. I also just sense that there are people here who have had their dreams squashed. We break every critical word, every discouragement, every judgmental thought, every comparison, yeah, every tormenting and harassing thought that has ever come against you. We also just cancel every negative self-talk and self-sabotaging thought. And God, we just plead the mind of Christ over our thoughts that we would have a clear and positive and encouraging future about ourselves, our ability, and our future. Thank you, love, that you love to cooperate with us. Yeah. God, we just invite you into every single venture, every business, every dream, every single thing. We just invite you that you would co-create with us, that you would co-create with us and seeing it through. God, we just pray for the spiritual formation of every person here that they would be drawn into relationship with you in the pursuit of their dreams as well. That they would find you in your collaboration with them and your creativity with them in it. Yeah. That pursuing their dreams would be an expression of their faith with you. Wow. There's no such thing as kingdom and non-kingdom. It's all for you, Lord. Everything we do. That's right. So I anoint every single hand to be an expression of discovering you more and how you are so intimately passionate about every detail of our lives and to create. God, we just pray for unmerited favor. We pray for things that shouldn't work to start working. We pray for phone calls and we pray for new revelations. I declare dreams to wake you up in the middle of the night. Um, and that people just spring forth with new ambition. I also pray for resiliency and patience. We don't reap and sow in the same day or even the same season. So those who work on things, God, just give them long obedience in the same direction and the ability to pivot and to change, but to keep moving forward. I just declare motion and wandering feet to move forward courageously and boldly, and that you would see through God to them that there would be a multiplication for all their efforts. Yeah. We love you. We invite you into this world, into our business world, into our leadership world, into our organization world. For those who employ people, God, may you just awaken every single person here that has a soul that's attached to their business and their venture. Yeah. That they would weaponize their business and organization for the flourishing of people. That you would convert the things of this world, a business and a service for the advancement of your people. That blessings would flow through these hands and into other people because of the success of these businesses and ventures. Thank you, Lord, for this time and for our community here to share. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.