Henry Kaestner: Rob, it’s awesome to have you on the show, thank you for joining us, Henry, so glad to be with you. This is super cool for me because, you know, you’ve done and to be clear, we haven’t done very many of these across Faith Driven Entrepreneur and feature an investor, but it’s infrequent that I find somebody who is a guess who’s done infinitely more of these than we have. And you’re a radio guy and you’ve done this a long time. And I got to tell you, it’s a little intimidating to talk to a guy who’s actually a radio host and interviewing him.

Rob West: Well, with podcasting these days, just about everyone is doing this kind of thing. So you’re right, though. I do host a radio program every afternoon, but I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation and so excited about the work of faith driven investor.

Henry Kaestner: Well, thank you for joining us. So I know a lot of our listeners and we’ve heard this feedback already. A lot of our listeners are financial advisors. A lot of our listeners are their clients, but a lot of people who have as a profession to help people understand how to steward the wealth that’s been entrusted to them. So this is a big deal for us to hear from you today. But to start talk to us about this program that you’ve got and the platform that you have. And what is Kingdome Advisors?

Rob West: Yeah, well, I appreciate that question, Henry, and, you know, I would start by saying King of Advisors is really leading what we call an industry of Christian financial advice. We have the privilege of serving about thirty one hundred Christian financial advisors in the U.S. and Canada. Really one of the main objectives there is to provide advocacy for these advisors who we like to say are specialists in bringing biblical wisdom to bear alongside competent financial advice.

We also issue a designation, as you know, Henry certified Kingdome advisor, which is really positioned in the market as the gold standard for biblically wise financial advice among believers and those who want to align their faith with their financial decisions at a professional level. We also provide community for these financial advisors through more than 250 study groups that meet in the US and Canada. These are small groups of advisors and right now they are happening virtually, even though typically they would be mainly in-person meetings. We do an annual conference every year, which we say is the industry gathering. And we could talk about that a little later in our time together today. And then, of course, we offer training and tools where we deliver a step by step process for advisors who want to be confident in bringing this biblical financial advice to their clients. And then to your earlier mention of the radio program, we also have another ministry under Kingdome Advisors called Money Wise and Money Wise. Media is really our ministry where we share these principles with the public through our nationally syndicated radio programs. We’re reaching about a million Christians a week and then many more through the podcast.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so I want to ask a lot of that, but I want to start with the Origin story. So Kingdome Advisors has obviously been around for a while. If you’ve got thirty one hundred people coming to that annual event, by the way, I’ve been at some of your events there worldclass. Tell us about how it all got started.

Rob West: Yeah, well, so we’d have to go back to nineteen ninety seven, Larry Birkhead, the late Larry Birkhead, who’s most well known for the books that he wrote, he had a radio program that was probably one of the first in the space of about a thousand radio outlets. And Larry brought together 16 Christian financial professionals and they formed what was called the Christian Financial Planning Institute with a commitment to delivering biblically wise financial advice. Well, fast forward a number of years and really they expanded their vision to create a new organization that would really be responsible for taking the lead and reaching the Christian financial professional community. So at the time, they reached out to Ron Blue, who’s a friend of yours and mine. And Ron, of course, an author, was the founder and is the founder of Rodell Blue and Company. Ron had built what is today still the largest Christian financial planning and wealth management firm anywhere, and with about 90 advisors at the time, the certainly larger now they were helping Henry. Many Christian families steward their resources. But what was fascinating was their clients were giving away tens of millions of dollars annually to Kingdome causes. And I think the reason really was that these advisors had a real sense of calling the Praxis was their ministry. They saw it that way. There was tremendous cultural reinforcement, if you will, within the organization. And they demonstrated that biblical financial wisdom worked at a professional level. And of course, it would, because it comes right out of God’s word. Well, Larry, and these 16 advisors approached Ron and asked him to take over as CEO of what would later become Kingdome Advisors with this expanded vision. And really the rest is history. We now have these 30, 100 advisors that we serve and the organization is really growing significantly.

Henry Kaestner: Salamat understand the difference. So you’re your customer.

You’re somebody who’s been entrusted with wealth at any level that’s listening to this and you’re trying to figure out what does a Christian financial advisor give me their second wouldn’t. So presumably a secular financial advisor wants to help you plan for retirement and college planning and things. You might need a medical emergency. How is that different from a Christian perspective?

Rob West: Yeah, and we serve really financial professionals in one of five disciplines, if you will. So the financial planners, the investment professionals, but also CPAs and accountants, also insurance folks and then finally estate planning attorneys. But you would expect from every adviser, of course, experience, integrity, competence, and we measure all of those for our designation. We have an experience requirement and they have to abide by a code of ethics and the statement of faith. And we require pastor and client references and regulatory review and the like. But really, to your question, you know, I think I can read the difference from their secular counterpart is in the ability to bring advice that aligns with the values and priorities of Christians know there are real planning differentiators.

When you lay a biblical worldview on top of financial decision making, it changes how you approach accumulation and lifestyle and legacy and wealth transfer and generosity. And to our conversation today, investing as well.

So an advisor who understands the heart of God related to money through the more than 2000 verses on the subject, in God’s word. Well, he or she can ask different questions and really assist the client in being a faithful steward of all that God has entrusted to them. You know, I think the other difference, though, Henry, is that a certified Kingdome adviser, somebody who’s really a specialist in this area, understands that money issues are ultimately heart issues. We talked about, Larry Briquette really founding the Christian Financial Planning Institute, which later became CSPI. Larry used to say that the way we handle money is the clearest indicator into what’s going on in our lives spiritually. It says where we placed our trust, it says what we value. And if something is going to dethrone God from first position in our lives, it’s most often going to be money. So I believe the Christian advisor really can help clients hold what they have loosely understand that their financial journey in many ways shapes their spiritual journey and really underscore Henry the importance of giving generously.

Henry Kaestner: So you mentioned something along the way I thought is really important in the 2000 verses to talk about money and investing in the Bible. And I would imagine that one of the greatest challenges that any financial advisor has is in working with a couple, a husband and a wife who may have different views of money. And if you’re just looking at a secular perspective with kind of a, you know, a relative truth perspective, it may be very difficult to be able to bring a couple together around how to think about how to steward money or how to think about generosity, et cetera. But it’s got to be really helpful for that financial adviser to say, listen, you know, one of. This brings us together is this belief that there’s a God who loves us and that he has this handbook, if you will, handbook is not the right way to probably talk about the word of God. But nonetheless, there’s this great scriptural reference to help you as a couple to process through things like generosity and wealth over the generations, et cetera. To that extent, I suppose maybe it’s easier for Christian financial advisor to help people.

Rob West: Yes, well, I think you’re exactly right, and especially right now, through the times in which we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, I think advisors and clients alike want to know that they’re receiving advice. They’re delivering advice that’s rooted in something transcendent, that it’s bigger than them. And as Ron Blue likes to say, you know, biblical wisdom is always right. It’s always relevant. It’s never going to change. And we know that’s true. But you bring up a really key point here. And that is as to the couple, you know, this is really critical. We’re big fans of the work of Jeff and Shante Feldheim, who just completed a three year long study on men, women and money and wrote a book about it. And we just I interviewed Shauntay a couple of weeks ago on it. And, you know, she was uncovering this idea that 70 percent of married couples have real difficulty communicating about money. And one of the top reasons for it is there’s a misalignment or a misunderstanding of how their values connect to their money. And so this is really the opportunity for the advisor. And I would say even more so for the Christian advisor to be able to lean into that and say, let’s work together, husband and wife, on uncovering your values. What’s important to you? And how can money as a tool be used as an expression of those values? And that brings them together instead of driving a wedge in the relationship?

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it’s powerful. I’m completely with you, especially in the context of giving how much is enough? What’s our finish line starting with that? And then, of course, from then so many other things come in tax planning and succession planning and how much to for the kids, etc.. Let’s get back to you. Talked about Ron being a key part of picking up the mantle from Larry Birkhead. We’re huge fans around here. You mentioned he’s a friend. He’s been a great adviser to us for the last dozen or so years. And pretty much anything that I’ve done and I know continues to be integral in the work that you guys do, a kind of advisers. How is his influence affected you? And just, you know, perspective a guy that’s been doing this for 50 plus years, the larger faith driven investor movement, and it doesn’t sound like he’s slowing down.

Rob West: No, no, it’s it’s amazing. He’s actually busier than ever, doing really important work through the round words do, but still very heavily involved in Kingdome advisors and the work that we do and as a monthly contributor to money wise and money wise radio programs as well. I don’t know how he does what he does to his influence on me personally, Henry. I would just say he’s been one of the most significant mentors in my life. So Howard Dayton is another giant of the faith. And Ron Blue, it’s just been incredible that the Lord has allowed them to speak into my life in the ways that they have. Ron’s an amazing visionary. I’ve learned so much from him on that. I think probably the most significant thing that has stood out to me about his life is just the integrity with which he has conducted himself and his ministry over the decades. He is who he says he is, and he’s the same guy, whether he’s on the stage or he’s at home with his wife, Judy. So he is just an amazing man, that God is used in significant ways and continues to. But his influence on this space has been enormous. He, I would say, is the founder of Christian Financial Planning. You know, his work to pioneer the delivery of biblical financial advice at the professional level is really the foundation for all of the training we do today. Kingdome Advisors. Although Ron’s work was really focused in the planning areas, he was really clear from the very beginning that this idea of faith based investing was really a conviction or a conscience matter that Christians needed to wrestle with. And I really think that as the faith driven investment space matures with now so many world class investment solutions being created that are uniquely designed for the Christian advisor and ultimately investor, there’s a true industry of Christian financial advice for these investments to live within. That is a direct result of Ron and his work ethic.

Henry Kaestner: So tell me more about the you mentioned in industry. So it’s much more than just a conference. There’s actually there’s many aspects to it. You talked before about five different kind of professionals that come in from attorneys all the way through. Tell us more about this growing industry.

Rob West: Yeah, well, it’s really one of the most exciting things that has come out of our work at Kingdome Advisors in the last five years. Henry, we’re just thrilled that there now exists today a true industry of Christian financial advice. And you would think about it, as you could call it, a specialty. But we really refer to it as an industry because there’s so many different pieces and parts of it. Of course, it’s a subset of the larger financial services industry and some of the components we’ve now got. Fifteen hundred certified Kingdome advisors. So we’ve got these thirty, thirty, one hundred members of Kingdome Advisors we serve more than fifteen hundred have earned the designation to be held out to the public last year. Forty eight. And Christians searched for a local certified kingdom adviser to connect with in their community, and so there’s a growing demand on the part of Christians for this, datelined advice and investment solutions. Fifty firms have now approved certified kingdom adviser. And if you know anything about what’s happening in designations in the financial services industry, there’s less and less of them that are being recognized. And so the fact that 50 firms, including some of the biggest firms up and down Wall Street, having approved for use and some of those major firms even approving Scriptura to be used in financial plans by these advisors is just a huge step forward.

You know, we’re seeing significant coverage of the Christian financial industry in the financial media. So we’ve been featured in The Wall Street Journal and Financial Planning magazine and FDE magazine. I mean, it’s Yahoo! Finance. You know, there’s a real interest in what’s happening across this space.

One of the most exciting pieces of this industry, Henry, that’s taken off in the last several years because of the work at not only Kingdome Advisors, but the ROMBA Institute is the number of Christian universities that are now bringing this training into their financial planning degree programs so they can train up and graduate future financial advisors that are ready to enter this business as a specialist and then biblically wise financial advice. And so we’re thrilled about that. And then I could point to many more evidences. But the last one I’ll mention is just, I think, directly related to our conversation today. And that is just the incredible number of investment solutions that are being created, uniquely suited for the Christian advisor in this whole faith driven investing space that are just such high quality investments and the growing number of them, even just in the last couple of years. I think it’s just real evidence of what’s taking off in front of us.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us a little bit more about some of the things that you’ve seen. What are some of the new funds that are out there, the new vehicles?

Rob West: Well, you know, one of the things that’s been helpful for us is to really think about these faith based investments in three categories. And so there would be, of course, the investments where we embrace certain things. So we’re screening in companies that have either a social or Kingdome impact. Perhaps you can call it a triple bottom line in some cases where, you know, looking through the investments and options out there and these, you know, investments are then bringing in companies that really are making a difference in the world. And, you know, there’s a growing number of those in both ETFs and, you know, private equity and mutual fund and obviously individual investments as well. Then in the second category of avoid, obviously, the growth in this area of the screening tools that are available and the number of growing solutions that are available to advisors who their clients really want to make sure that they leave out those companies that would in some way conflict with their values and priorities. And then this whole idea of shareholder engagement engages that third category. And it’s really been fun to see just a growing number of investments and firms that are really helping their clients, who are owners in companies, engage companies around their values and let their values be known and to see some of the differences that are being made as a result of that. And then just the quality of these investments that are winning industry awards and being recognized for not only just being high quality, but having stellar performance. You know, we didn’t see the number of investments, certainly not the quality of the investments that exist today, even just a couple of years ago. And so I think it’s really a new day for advisors who want to lean into the space with their clients.

Henry Kaestner: So I know it’s probably awkward for you because you represent this larger industry to single out any particular mutual funds or mutual fund families. And so I’m not going to put you on the spot for that. But I know of several. And and this is absolutely something for somebody to listen to his podcast to be able to talk through with their financial professional. It doesn’t take much research to find some of the ones that are great tortas about. You mentioned private equity. Traditionally, we think about some of the brokers that I used to back in the early 90s, worked at Merrill Lynch. So some of the wire houses are able to offer certain products that may be different than some of the independent financial planners and some of the independent financial planners may have access to be able to present some things with a little bit more latitude and maybe some wire houses. Like, for instance, I’m thinking now about some of the new investment opportunities that are going on in Eastern Europe, where there is investment in things that are bringing about God’s kingdom in Eastern Europe or in Africa. I think maybe about a couple that might come back from a missions trip to Rwanda and having encountered just really compelling entrepreneur, that’s got a great opportunity for agricultural investing. Tell us about the nuance or the different levels of the industry and where some advisers can get involved in some things and maybe some other ones can.

Rob West: Well, you’re exactly right. It really is going to depend on what type of firm they have, how they’re registered, what firm they work for, or whether they are truly independent as a registered investment advisor. So obviously, those that work at firehouses are going to have certain constraints as to the types of investments that are approved for use with their clients. Obviously still a plethora of solutions, all that they need to serve their clients well, including in this area of faith based investing among the big firms. And that’s one of the things that we’re so excited about as this industry continues to grow, is the number of really household name warehouses that are proving C.K. and allowing these faith based investment solutions to exist on their platform. But when you get into some of these private equity deals and you get into investments that are unregistered or require you to be accredited, you know, obviously those are going to be reserved in most cases for an independent advisor, either who has a broker dealer who’s willing to allow these solutions to be used or whether they’re truly just an RIAA making their own decisions, using a custodian, but ultimately able to then, you know, use and have access to a greater variety of unregistered securities, of course, for the right type of investor that meets a certain minimum net worth and so forth. So depending upon where the advisor is in this industry, he or she may or may not have access to the types of investments that you’re talking about. But clearly, there is a trend toward independent in the industry, which would mean simply that a growing number of advisors would have access even to the type of exciting things that you’re describing.

Henry Kaestner: So a couple of things come up for that. But first of all, I ask is on the SEC side, you’ve got 1500 now. Presumably there’s a place on the King of Advisors website where you can go and you can find out how you can find somebody.

Rob West: Absolutely. Both that kingdom advisors, dotcom and money wise, ERG. Like I said, just shy of 50000 Christians search for a certified Kingdome adviser in their city last year, and we’re seeing similar numbers this year.

Henry Kaestner: OK. And on that site, you’ve got a section that’s dedicated to biblically based response to market turmoil. Titus, through that a little bit, it’s been a crazy time. And what are some of the things that somebody might find on that section?

Rob West: Yeah, we are really excited to be able to put that together in response to covid-19. We just knew that it was a unique season for advisors and the clients that they serve. And so they went through kind of this triage phase, as so many advisors did in the early days of that with the incredible market gyrations, just needing to contact advisors or clients. And, you know, one of the real challenges of this particular crisis was that in other times of crisis, you know, we would come together in community to process it. Know, I remember right after 9/11 going over to my parents house and meeting my siblings there, and we just kind of all sat around and debriefed. And, you know, one of the real challenges here in the early days of covid and now to some degree still today was that people were isolated. And so it just created, you know, the fear really led to a rational thinking and behavior. And so much of that, you know, was realized in the form of irrational decision making in their finances. So these advisors were just really trying to come alongside their clients and triage the situation. And now they’ve kind of settled into a new normal, if you will, you know, with lots of meetings and just reacting and responding to what’s going on around them. But we created this resource that king of advisors, Dotcom’s covid-19, where we wanted to offer just spiritual encouragement to these advisors. That’s a big part of what we do for this community that we serve to bring industry thought leaders to the table. That could just be a real source of trusted counsel and insights. And then really in this third area, help them navigate client conversations as they really bring to bear this time tested wisdom into the conversation and help them lean into this role in which they serve as counselor or coach, you might say.

Henry Kaestner: So what’s it like for a Christian financial advisor in a time like this? covid is meaning that you can’t get together and look at a bunch of charts together with your clients. I imagine that some part of that makes it more efficient, but some part of that makes it less relational. What are you hearing from the folks you serve?

Rob West: Yeah, a couple of things. I mean, just from a real practical sense, obviously, as in just about every other industry, there’s just a lot happening virtually through video conference. And so, you know, we’ve heard from some advisors that are building Zoome studios in their offices and thinking about how do we create a unique experience, everything from the audio quality to the lighting to, you know, how do we engage?

Because that’s probably one of these. Changes that’s going to stick where there’s some segment of the client base that is going to want to choose that option to meet, you know, moving forward and a greater percentage. And so that’s just one of the practical sides of it, obviously just managing through it as they have a remote workforce and just all the implications related to that. But then I think, Henry, as it relates to just the way in which they serve their clients, you know, we talk at King and Advisors about the four roles of an adviser, that of adviser, of course, that of leader, that of counselor, coach, and then finally disciple maker. And I think there are unique opportunities in each of those during this season. I mean, certainly as an advisor, I think one of the greatest things they can bring is just perspective, reminding them that God is in control and that he cares for them and that he is their provider and just kind of putting all of this uncertainty and unrest in a proper perspective, I think in the area of leader just bringing that biblical financial truth, that transcendent wisdom that transcends time and tax codes and markets and all of it, and really just reminding them of those bedrock principles, if you will, in the area of Councilor Koch. I think there’s a unique opportunity for these Kingdome advisors to listen, to acknowledge the feelings of their clients, to help them process the fear that they have. And I think, you know, for many of their clients to replace that with faith and really just lean in to that unique opportunity. And then finally, the opportunity for disciple maker just to really kind of help them process this on their own spiritual journey. So there’s a unique opportunity, I think, here. And so many of our advisors are encouraged just really about the doors that the Lord is opening, even just in the area of prayer, just as they find this as a season where they can pray more regularly with their clients, perhaps, than they have previously now.

Henry Kaestner: So you guys are known for an incredible gathering. I mentioned it before. It happens in Orlando each year. And you’ve got a number of other gatherings, some of which I’ve been to one in Nashville last year was outstanding. You introduced me to the world of Matamoras music and saw forever be grateful. I was outstanding. What does it look like for you all this year as you’re doing gatherings, or are you also moving to them? What are you going to do in Orlando?

Rob West: Yeah, so great question. And we obviously are doing a lot of things virtually. We have a remote workforce right now. So our team at Kingdome Advisors and money wise are all working from home with the exception of just the daily radio broadcast and a team of producers and coast graders and engineers that make that happen. But everybody else is working from home.

And so there’s just a real practical reality of how we’re working as a team, but it affects how we serve our members as well. Fortunately, the certified Kingdome advisor educational program that we offer, which is the training prerequisite for the Kingdom Advisor designation, which is a 50 hour program, is an online program offered through Liberty University, Indiana Wesleyan University. So those cohorts continue to go on on a self-paced basis and are instructional mentors, are working with them remotely, as they always have. I mentioned these 250 study groups that we offer around the U.S. and Canada. These are small groups of advisors that come together every month around original content that we produce in our studio and send out or stream. And they usually meet in person and around a 90 minute meeting to watch and discuss the material. Well, that’s all happening virtually. So that’s obviously a big change. And then, yes, this big annual gathering we do we were expecting between 1800 and 2000 Christian financial advisors in Orlando next February. And because of covid and the social distancing, we had to make the decision this summer. And we’ve just actually recently announced this publicly, that we’re actually moving to a virtual event this coming February. So our 20 21 conference will be an online experience, but it’s going to be anything other than perhaps what you have in your mind when you think of an online conference. It’s going to be the best of what Kingdome Advisors brings to the table. And this really is one of our unique competencies to create remarkable moments and really to deliver a world class conference. It’s going to be the best of what we deliver, but in the most accessible format ever. And so we’re actually really excited about it. We’re going to be planning for every bit of eight months. We’re going to be the best speaker lineup we’ve ever had. There’s going to be ways for this growing number and we think will be between three and four thousand advisors that will participate in it to search on a very granular basis for other advisors that have similar interests or practice types and connect with them. It’ll have the largest virtual exhibit hall we’ve ever had. There will be interaction with all the breakout speakers live. There’ll be a real engagement opportunities and a variety of other areas worship. So it’s going to be great. And I think, Henry, as much as we love to be together each year and we. Can’t wait to be back together in person in the future with the industry. Christian advice, we think this is a unique season for 20 21 to actually through this virtual conference to expose many, many more advisers to this industry than we ever have before, because there’s a certain number that just have never taken the trip to Orlando. And once they get there and experience it, they always come back. But until they experience it, it’s really hard to describe it. So I think we could really exponentially grow this community this year through this virtual gathering that’ll happen February 17th through the 19th of 2021 was that it comes up we want to do our part, making sure people know about it.

Henry Kaestner: Rob, one of the things we like to ask any one of our guests on any one of our programs is what you’re hearing from God personally and his word. Maybe it’s in a study group. Maybe it’s with your wife, maybe this morning. But what’s something that you’re hearing from God speak to you about from the Bible?

Rob West: Yeah, I appreciate you asking. You know, I’ve been studying recently the book of Mark and the Gospel of Mark. And, you know, this particular thing that just jumped off the page to me recently, Henry, I think relates directly to what we’re talking about here today. And it won’t be unfamiliar to you. It’s Mark four and it’s the parable of the solar. And what’s fascinating to me is just, you know, when the disciples are questioning Jesus around really the implications of this story that he’s just told about this parable of the sower, and they wanted to know what these various soils represented. And, you know, when he describes what choked out the word from burying a 30 60 hundredfold return in the soldiers lives, he says that it’s the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. And I think that’s just so fascinating, because if you go back to what I was saying earlier at the kind of the beginning of our time together is that, you know, the love of money has the potential to be one of the most common things that will dethrone God from first position in our lives. And I think that’s exactly what this passage in Parable is speaking to, is that the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things, which probably is going to in many cases be material possessions, that has the potential to choke out the word from bearing fruit in our lives. And so God has just really been impressing upon me the unique opportunity we have to think differently about what God has entrusted to us. And I think that really underscores, if you will, the opportunity of the Christian advisor as well.

Henry Kaestner: That’s a great word and a great one to end on. Rob, thank you very much for joining the program, looking for the next time we get together. And it sounds like we’ll have an opportunity to participate virtually in February and hopefully will connect before then. Thank you for being on the program.

Rob West: It was a joy. Henry, I appreciate the invitation and I’ll look forward to be back with you again real soon.

Intro [00:00:00] You’re listening to Faith Driven Investor, a podcast that highlights voices from a growing movement of Christ-following investors who believe that God owns it all and cares deeply about the heart posture behind our stewardship. Thanks for listening. 

Intro [00:00:17] Hey, everyone, all opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. And this podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization. Thanks for listening. 

Richard Cunningham [00:00:44] Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Faith Driven Investor Podcast. Awesome to have you with us. It is the beginning of April. It has been a wild start to the year in the markets, to say the least. Just a little bit of volatility and uncertainty. We’ll use the T word today, which is tariffs, I’m sure, many times. And we’ll get into that. It’s been long overdue for us to do just a proper kind of macro look at the markets and the economy. And because of that, we have brought in the big guns of market commentary to join us. So we are joined by the one and only Bob Doll from CrossMark. John Coleman, it’s great to have you back in the co-host seat, as I know it’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had you in the FDI podcast co- host seat. And so gentlemen, welcome onto the pod. Great to have your guys with us. John, we’ll start with you as a quick hello and then we’ll go over to Bob. 

John Coleman [00:01:28] Yeah, Richard, so great to see you. It is such an interesting and fun time in markets. And I’ll tell you, it’s always fun when I get to appear alongside Bob Dahl. Bob is obviously a hero of mine in the industry. I think he’s a hero, a lot of other people, someone I admire so deeply, one of the smartest guys in investments today, always a great communicator. So I just feel privileged to be here. You said the big guns, and I’m viewing that as like, there’s one really small gun, and then Bob has enough big guns for all of us. So. I’m super excited to hear what he has to say today. 

Bob Doll [00:01:59] Well, my privilege to be part of this as well, gents. It’s a crazy world we live in. Thankfully, we have a God on the throne who knows all the answers. And we take a stab at it, and sometimes we get it right, and oftentimes we get wrong, but we have fun in the process. 

Richard Cunningham [00:02:16] Amen to that. Well, Bob, it’s great to have you. Hey, the last time we had you was almost this time last year on the Faiths of an Investor podcast and you graciously unpacked your kind of 2024 expectations and predictions as at that time we were one quarter into the year. Here we are one quarter into 2025. It’s maybe that’s a great place to start is if you go back in the time machine a little bit and just kind of reflect on 24. I mean, you had another solid year of kind of predictions as that dovetails in and sets the stage for what we have seen kind of. here in Q1 of 2025. They’re recording this for everyone’s context on April 1st. I know April 2nd is quite a big day, quote unquote liberation day, as we kind of find out what Trump’s tariff policy will be. So we’re missing that by roughly 24 hours. But Bob, let’s go back and look at 24 as we kinda set the stage for what’s happened here in q1 of 25. 

Bob Doll [00:03:05] Sure. It seems like forever ago that we came out with our 24 predictions. I guess I’d sum up. First of all, our outside grader gave us a seven out of 10. So not a bad year. Nice. Having said that to be a bit and appropriately self-critical, we were too cautious as many people were both about the economy and risk asset stocks in particular, the economy chugged along. I think the underestimation on many of our parts. was how much power there was in the money. That is to say, post COVID, the excess savings that high end consumers had accumulated because they didn’t spend money during COVID and lower end consumers receiving multiple checks from the government and spending that over time. The tail on that lasted through much of 2024, gave us a good economy and a second year row of stocks going up 25%, Pretty amazing. 

John Coleman [00:04:04] Yeah, and I would just add, like Bob, I probably approached 2024 too conservatively and across asset classes, some in fact behaved a little more conservatively than others, certainly public markets did not behave very conservatively in 2024. And particularly the Magnificent 7 had a run that would have been difficult to predict, I think at the beginning of the year, just a historic run, so to speak. And as we head into 2025, Bob and I were chuckling about this before we started. You know, one of the themes I’m paying attention to, and perhaps he is, is just volatility and uncertainty. And it’s a constellation of things for me that are coming together. And I know this isn’t an exhaustive list, but right now we’re sitting on the precipice of some world-changing technologies. And so we’ve got this unpredictable, rapidly evolving technological landscape that includes artificial intelligence, but isn’t restricted to that. And those technologies are gonna be quite disruptive. We’re sitting, and I know we’ll dig into this, at a uniquely disruptive political moment. I think the Trump administration was intended to be disruptive as a political movement. The speed at which they’ve operated and the number of things they’ve taken on is probably faster than almost any of us predicted, and so more disrupted, for better or worse, than we might have predicted. And then there’s all this movement in the underlying economy and financial assets, right? where we did have a pretty heated market in 2024. Valuations are reasonably aggressive, at least in parts of the market right now. Housing prices actually kind of stayed up despite the fact that interest rates were going up and there was a slowdown in the market. And so there’s this continued threat of inflation in the background that I think people are still continue to worry about, but also this interesting situation where, depending on what part of markets you’re looking at, there is still pretty rich valuations in parts to those markets and how those will react. to the underlying economy, to technological disruption, to all this political disruption. You know, you add those things together on top of other things that may occur, and I think it’s gonna be quite an interesting year. 

Bob Doll [00:06:05] Yeah, I add to that or amplify some of it, John, one of our predictions this year is increased volatility. You know, we had no idea coming into the year it would be this volatile, the VIX comfortably averaging over 20, which most people know that’s a pretty high number for a full three month period. We’ll see if it lasts. And the cause is uncertainty. Risk assets, stocks, hate uncertainty. And we’ve served up, the administration has served up a bunch of it. I would argue it’s not just we don’t know what the tariffs are going to look like. It’s the volatility of the commentary. I’m going to do a tariff today, I might not do it tomorrow. It’s 5% on Tuesday, it’s 10% on Thursday, and this constant churn creates uncertainty. And when people have uncertainty, they pull their horns in. If you’re a business, you think about not hiring a person or two, you might be thinking of hiring. that new project, you say, let’s just pause on that. And if you’re an individual, you say, you know, maybe we should not plan that big vacation we were dreaming about for this summer. Maybe we need to just cut back a bit till we know the lay of the land. And you’re right, John, it’s mainly about tariffs. But it’s also about inflation, the tax cut, are we going to get it, a whole raft of things. Geopolitics, we haven’t even talked about that yet. So this uncertainty… is creating economic weakness. And if we don’t curtail the uncertainty, we’ll end up in a recession. And look, I say, observing them over many years, businesses can deal with bad news. What they can’t deal with is uncertainty. They just don’t know how to plan. So we’re stuck in that. One more comment on the good things you said of the Magnificent Seven and AI. You know, we’ve, in my view, hit a watershed moment. AI stocks, the Magnificent 7, just cleaning up on everything until a few months ago. And what’s changed? The answer is their earnings growth is slowing to still good levels, but more importantly, their cash flow is definitively decelerating. As they spend, I mean, the top three companies in AI declared in January, they’re going spend an incremental $200 billion on AI. and that just takes money out of their cash flow, and cash flow moves stocks even more than earnings do. So I think the broader theme here is equal weighted portfolios be cap weighted portfolials, mega cap stocks lag. I mean, I saw a stat, it’s an estimate so far that about 80% of managers beat their benchmark in the first quarter. When the mega cap stock are running the table, it’s really hard to beat the benchmark. When they’re lagging, you have a much better chance as most asset managers are more equally weighted in a probe. So a couple of PS’s to your becoming. 

Richard Cunningham [00:09:04] Yeah, so let’s maybe let’s go markets, Bob, and kind of start there and double click on all that we’ve been seeing. So I mean, you highlighted in this great paper that your team put out, crossroads or crosshairs, just kind of addressing head-on the uncertainty, the tariffs, everything that’s been going down right now that this has been the fifth fastest correction since World War II that we’re seeing in Q1. So maybe kind of double click into the magnitude of the correction we’ve seen. I mean S&P 500 kind of to date where we’re recording this is down, you know, just over 4% year to date. The Russell 2000, so kind of your small cap index is down almost 10% year to date. Kind of global, like macro look at the markets, Russell 3000 down 5% as well. Where are we kind of from a market footing standpoint as we deal with all the uncertainty and just the correction that’s taken place? Are we at the bottom? I know we’re not here to predict markets entirely, but what’s kind of your general sentiment right now? 

Bob Doll [00:09:54] So the rude awakening is, as you probably know, six weeks ago, the US stock market was at an all-time high. It is hard to believe. Wasn’t long ago. No, it wasn’t. I mean, enthusiasm and hope that came in when President Trump started pulling ahead in the polls in October, that started risk assets, equities in particular, moving higher, and that continued at various paces until February 17th, from which we had the pullback that you just cited. You gave them the year-to-date numbers. more stark to talk about what happened from that high to the recent lows. S&P down a little more than 10%. NASDAQ down well over 15%. The Magnificent 7 down 20%. Tesla down 40%. NVIDIA down 25%. These are big hits. Yes, the stocks were a bit overvalued, but it’s more about that slowdown and cash flow. And look, my view, John hinted at this earlier about valuations, the stock market was selling at its high at 22.5 PE. And you know, we don’t see that very often. When it’s selling like that, it’s assuming the world’s going to be nearly perfect, which it rarely is. So we get this pullback, and now we’re at 20.5PE, which is still not cheap. And I don’t believe the E. I think the earnings estimates are too high, and we’ll to come down as the economy slows. So, to your question, where do we go from here? So we had the pullback from 62, 6,300 to 55, 55, 50. Then we had a 5% run up. That was the oversold rally. Didn’t last very long and it wasn’t big, from which we are now testing. So back to those 55,50 lows, I think we’ve got a probe lower, 54, 53, 52. And if we don’t have recession, that could mark the low for the year. Doesn’t mean we’re growing straight up. I think we’re going to have a choppy year, but if we are going to have a recession and we have more visibility that we might have one, I think the S and P 500 will sport a handle of four, which won’t be very pretty and it’ll still not be cheap. I don’t want to sound like a bear, but there’s a risk out there. 

John Coleman [00:12:10] Yeah, and I would say I’m not that active on X, but I keep posting a chart every now and then as people freak out just of the five-year returns of the S&P. And it’s a little unfair now because we’re deep into COVID during 2020. Right now, set a trough. But the S & P is up 126.35% today from five years ago. It’s up 172.5% from this day 10 years ago It’s up 37% from this day two years ago. And so if you think the long-term returns in markets are linked to GDP and that it’s typically around 7% or 8%, we have been blowing through that number. I mean, high double-digit returns now for a long period of time. I mean this has been an incredible bull run since effectively the 2008 period, since the recovery from the great financial crisis with a blip during COVID. And I actually think some form of correction in the price of stocks in the valuation of these assets is healthy given the run-up that we’ve seen. I do think inflation and the amount of money in circulation in the economy obviously leads asset prices higher, but I also encourage a lot of folks that I’m talking to to just keep calm and carry on, right? If you look beyond the last quarter, we are living through one of the most remarkable public market cycles in history really in a lot of ways. And like Bob, I actually think there’s room for another, and I’m not predicting anything, but I would not be surprised to see 15 or 20% come out if we had a recession. I don’t actually think we’d be that far from appropriate valuations if that happened, just given how hot the markets have been. And while I think that would obviously be a dramatic move, it would impact people, it wouldn’t be unhealthy in terms of the long-term returns or even the midterm returns that people are getting. And so, In my mind, this year being a bit volatile, maybe a bit flat or even a bit down, wouldn’t be terribly unhealthy given the run up that we’ve had in some of these stocks and the valuations particularly amongst the large caps right now. I think small caps and mid caps tend to be valued a little bit better right now, but particularly towards the upper end of the market with the Magnificent 7, with even large cap stocks generally, the price to earnings multiples are at historic highs in a lot of ways. And so I would not be surprised that those retract a little bit, especially if there’s negative economic news. And I don’t think that’s actually a harbinger of long-term problems given the highs from which we’re retracting. If you just look at a one-year or two-year, I think even over the one year we’re up 9% right now, right, which would be a little above your long- term averages. And so investors should just be prepared that this could be a part of a normal cycle where financial assets return. to some level of normalcy after an incredible bull run, at least in my experience. 

Bob Doll [00:15:01] At the risk of piling on, John, there are only two ways to get the stock market or an individual stock to go up, you know. First is earnings better than expected. They come in as expected, the stock tends to go nowhere. So better than expect in earnings or to higher valuations. So let’s take them one at a time. Earnings are near an all time high. Profit margins, more importantly, are at all time highs. I can’t look at you guys and say, and the profit margin is going to go higher from here. I think it probably contracts some, which means earnings growth is less than normal. And we already talked about P’s being extended. So you put those two things together, the risk reward at the moment is not great. Let me add to that by saying if you look historically, when the P-E ratio of the five and ten year returns of averaged 4 or 5% including dividends. So when somebody says, you know, Bob, what do you think is going to happen to the stock market in the next 5 to 10 years? I say it’s going to be volatile. It’s going go up, but the total returns probably going to about 5% per annum. They look at me like, why are you so bearish? I’m not. I’m with you, John. You know, it’s still a good place to be. If you’re a good stock picker, you can do better than 5, but if 5 is what the S&P 500 gives you, value stocks will do better. maybe international stocks are better. maybe down cap will do better. We’ve just had such a wonderful, wonderful multi-year period. 

Richard Cunningham [00:16:30] So let’s get in some of the why. Bob, I hear you kind of getting into the fundamentals and the earnings and everything like that with the valuation, but there’s also this other why, which is kind of the broader economic side of things, the administration change and the regime change and kind of, the volatility that’s come out of Washington. Curious how to phrase this question. When you guys see what the Trump administration is looking to accomplish, they want to balance the budget. We’re bringing in 4 trillion, spending 6 trillion. So we’ve got a $2 trillion budget deficit. Elon has been tasked with. cutting out a trillion of that. Lutnik has been tasked with bringing in an additional trillion in revenue. So the theory of the plan makes a lot of sense in what they’re going after. It’s, hey, we wanna balance this budget. Is a lot the why for what we’re experiencing in the markets also a part of what the regime is looking to do and are they just willing to kind of deal with some of this blowback they’re gonna feel in the economy and the markets? What would you guys say to that? 

Bob Doll [00:17:24] There’s that question. Let’s look at the correction we’ve had over the last six, seven weeks. What’s caused it? Well, we’ve both used the word uncertainty. That’s, in my view, number one. Number two, and related, is tariffs. And number three is valuation. But valuation is a poor short-term indicator for future returns. It’s a great long-term indicated, but poor short term. You need a catalyst to unlock under or overvaluation. And the catalysts we got are uncertainty and tariffs. So that’s one way to answer your good question. I think another way is to say, unlike Trump 1.0, here at 2.0 I think they’re taking the pain, the tough news up front, and hopefully will live long enough to see the gain on the other side, which will come from tax cuts and deregulation and implied in that of course is some smaller budget deficits. But we got to get from here to there. And it’s not that simple as the stock market is showing us today. So I think that’s their plan. I hope that’s there plan because the alternative is not a whole lot of fun. So I that’s the why. And I come back to please, Mr. Trump, reduce the amount of uncertainty out there, you know, give us the bad news and let us live with it. Let us figure it out. Don’t give us good news on Monday and bad news on Tuesday and vice versa. 

John Coleman [00:18:51] Yeah, and maybe I’ll tee up a couple of topics I’d love to hear Bob weigh in on as well, just on the policy front. So let’s come back to technology and things like that later and fundamental productivity growth, et cetera. I think on the public policy front, my read is that the Trump administration is very much trying to be very aggressive in the first six to 12 months of their term. I think they understand that that’s their best opportunity to take dramatic action. I think they’ve learned from the example in Argentina, where Javier Mele took dramatic action up front. Now, Argentina was in a much more precarious financial situation than the United States, but Mele came in and he took dramatic action that many people criticize right away, but they’re already experiencing a dramatic recovery as a result of that dramatic action. And so if I just chunk the things that the Trump administration is trying to take on right now. You know, one certainly is to reduce the deficits and long-term debt of the United States, and they do want to eliminate this $2 trillion annual deficit that we’re running where costs are exceeding revenues dramatically now. And we’re piling up an unsustainable long- term debt in my view. They do want achieve that through a mixture of cuts coming from Doge. I think they legitimately believe they can get close to a trillion dollars by reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. Staffing levels and some of the government agencies that they view as unproductive, those will have negative implications in the short term because they will cause some unemployment. They will certainly reduce some government money in circulation. And there’s this whole discussion about whether government spending or parts of government spending should even be accounted for in GDP because they’re not productive spending, which we could get into. But that Doge effort is certainly targeted towards trying to reduce federal spending without fundamentally changing federal programs like Social Security, education, expending, etc. So attacking waste, fraud and abuse. The second is obviously that they’re trying to come up with new revenue sources that would support us expanding tax cuts for individuals. And their primary focus seems to be tariffs. If people want to get what I think has been the best explanation for What is likely the true posture of the Trump administration. The All In podcast had a good two hour interview with Letnik last week. I think it was where Letnik laid out systematically their position on tariffs, which is the U S for too long has allowed tariffs from other countries on us goods without any sort of parallel tariffs on our side. They fundamentally believe that that’s unfair, that it was an explicit policy choice to the United States following World War II to build up foreign countries so that they could regain footing. and they believe the time for that is over and that the United States should be operating more as a peer given that we’re the greatest consumer in the world and that U.S. taxpayers should not be supporting other countries with one-sided tariffs. And so when you see this tariff regime, many of those are retaliatory rather than aggressive, meaning they’re considering tariffs that would be on par with those already levied against the United States from places like India, from places, like China, even from places like Canada, which has been missed, Canada imposes. tariffs and restrictions on U.S. operating businesses right now that the Trump administration is mirroring, which is kind of part of his playbook. They also believe that that can be a significant revenue source. They look back to the pre-1910s, when the vast majority of U. S. tax revenues came from tariffs. And so they think they can raise a trillion dollars in revenue from tariffs in a way that not only puts us more in peripasoo with other countries, but re-onshores critical American jobs. You’ve got to remember now. There has been a remarkable electoral realignment in the U.S. where the Trump Republican Party in particular is now the party of the working class. If you look at polling data, et cetera, even unions supporting President Trump, they are dedicated to trying to bring working class jobs back to America through manufacturing, et cetera, not only because of a fundamental belief, but because of political motivation. as well. And so I think the terrorists are intended to punish certain behaviors, like they definitely want to use them on Mexico to reduce border crossings, fentanyl imports, etc. But they have a real economic belief that they can raise revenue with these and that they can restore fairness and that can re-onshore critical industries, right? And so, I think the terrorists, are likely actually not to be a short-term political negotiating lever, but actually a long-term policy of the United States. And that’s just starting to sink in. I think with people and then the final components of that, that Bob started to touch on, that could be helpful to the economy if we get through this pain. And I also think their political motivation is to get the worst stuff done this year so we can grow headed into the midterms, which is a political reality for them. They want to extend tax cuts. They’re very serious about trying to cut income tax on anyone under $150,000 a year in income. They want extend those, no tax on tips, et cetera, so they have to have revenue from somewhere else. They want to deregulate aggressively as a second round of Doge, which could be good for economic growth in the United States. And so I do think the tariffs and the cost cutting are kind of the bad news that the economy absorbing right now. And if they can get through those, their hope is that domestic job growth. tax cuts and deregulation can provide an economic jolt on the back end of that, that overwhelms any negative impact of those tariffs and of the cost cutting that they’re doing. And so I think their hope is they can thread the needle like Millet did, where they take the pain up front. But then by the time we head into the midterms next year, there’s a lot of good news for individuals and fundamental economic growth apart from government spending is restored in a positive way. 

Bob Doll [00:24:24] I agree with everything you said. I would emphasize the timeframe perspective. While Donald Trump did win the seven swing states, he did win the popular vote, which not too many Republicans do. He only beat Harris by one and a half points. It was not a landslide. A lot of people are talking that way, acting that way. And the way you see that is the margin of Republicans over Democrats in the House and the Senate. It’s like very narrow. And so getting things done is not gonna be simple. And you’re right, a year from now, the focus is gonna be on the midterm elections. And it’s very rare that the president in power doesn’t lose seats. So chances are high one or both chambers will revert to Democrats. So for Trump to get stuff done, he’s gotta do it now. And I hope you’re that we’re fine tuning, threading the needle. You know, two years is a short amount of time to get a lot done. So, uh, we just have to watch this real carefully guys. 

Richard Cunningham [00:25:29] And so I want to double click into tariffs, because I think that’s a key one that kind of is a microcosm into what’s going on here and what the Trump administration is trying to do. Bob, you put out a great stat in that paper that we mentioned earlier that Trump’s tariff plan, John, you mentioned a trillion dollars of revenue possibly, but like, you know, let’s go real conservative here. Let’s say it’s $250 billion in revenue to the U.S. That would, in other words, offset moving the corporate tax rate back from 35% to 21% from a revenue standpoint. So. This exercise of tariffs, I mean, there is negative near-term implications that we’ve spoken to in an already inflationary environment. Tariffs layer on another addition of kind of cost increase. Bob, you’ve mentioned the word recession a couple times now. What has to happen from a threading of the needle standpoint for this to work well and for this actually play out well? Because at what point does the Trump administration just say, hey, we need to take the exit ramp because midterms are coming and this is actually not playing out as we expected. Costs got out of control. we’re leaning in the recession. 

Bob Doll [00:26:29] Yeah, right set of questions, both politically and economically. So first of all, recession. If you know nothing, which most days I feel I know nothing. The probability of recession is 15%. Why? Because that’s about how much time we spend in recession. So if you know, nothing, somebody asked you 15%. Our view was at the start of the year, the probability was higher than that. Call it 25. And now it’s moved up to at least 35, probably 40%. So still less than half. But each passing day, and this starts to answer your good question, Richard. Each passing day economic weakness becomes more obvious. Uncertainty doesn’t go away. And that probability of recession just keeps going up. So we’ve got to reduce the uncertainty very fast. Tariffs. So John’s already talked about this to some degree, but let me amplify. The way I would like to look at tariffs. which I think could actually be positive, even though tariffs slow growth and create inflation. So the general are not good. If all we do is reciprocal tariffs, you know, the outcome can be not so bad. So let’s suppose John is putting a 3% tariff on my stuff. And I say, John, if you insist on that, we’re gonna do reciprocal, we’re going to do 3% on you. And John says, oh, hang on a minute. If I drop that and go to zero, will you stay at zero with me? And yeah, we come to an agreement and guess what? Tariffs just went down. Now that’s a little idealistic on my point to make that comment, but I’m hoping there’s going to be some of that and that would increase the competitive position of the United States significantly increase our growth rate and you know, bring more and more tax revenue in reduce the deficit, et cetera, et Cetera. So that’s another way out of this mess that we find ourselves in. But I come back to as you were connecting pieces of your question, we gotta get on with it. We can’t go another two months with all this uncertainty. We’ll be in a recession. 

John Coleman [00:28:39] And I think they’re trying to achieve what Bob is talking about. We’ll see how it plays out. But my read so far as they are hoping to get other countries to back down their tariffs, to increase the amount that we can export to other countries. And they’d be quite happy with that outcome. The one exception I might highlight is I do think there are punitive tariffs that might occur for non-economic reasons on certain countries, whether that be Mexico. If for example, they’re not happy with management of the cartels. I think China… I think there are a lot of non-economic considerations that will go into the tariffs on China, which make them a bit more difficult to predict. I think that’s to some extent warranted. And then there are certain product categories where I do think their focus is on re-onsuring, even if they’re short-term economic pain, and they’re trying to come up with other ways to offset those. I think COVID made everyone aware that our medical devices and pharmaceuticals, we were too at risk of foreign production of those and too at-risk of those things. defense technology, chips, which is a huge focus now, and what, again, they’re threading the needle. What they’re trying to do is get companies to announce huge investments in the U.S. to re-onshore chips. I think Nvidia just announced $100 billion to reonshoring. There have been some similar investments that have been announced. So if they can thread the needle where they have sustainable tariffs that try and re-inshore production of what they view as critical industries for U. S. national security and competitiveness. they can do so simultaneous with huge foreign investment in the United States to accomplish that, whether that be through SoftBank, through Saudi Arabia, through companies like Nvidia. I think their hope is that if they can get those things to hang together, they could actually achieve this goal of a painful process of re-onshoring but with enough foreign investment and capital inflows to actually support U.S. production in a more rapid way. The question is whether, on that last part, that will actually materialize in the way that they and over what time frame. Right? Because even when you say, I’m going to put $100 billion into re-onsuring chip manufacturing, you don’t turn on that 100 billion right away, right? That takes some time to filter in. And so I do think most of this is an economic tit for tat where they’re trying to raise revenue but also restore equilibrium on tariffs with various areas like the EU or countries like India. There are some punitive ones, and then there are industries that they’re really focused on trying to rebuild in the United States that they feel are a competitiveness and national security threat. 

Richard Cunningham [00:31:06] Good comments, guys. Thank you all. John, you said a couple of things that spurred two thoughts and we’re going to go to both of them. First, maybe while we’re talking tariffs and international relations, what about just what would you guys double click on as you look at the geopolitical landscape? Because I know that’s another factor and lever here that could just always throw a bomb in all of these plans of something kind of ignited in the wrong way. But as we think about Russia, Ukraine, what’s going on with Iran and the Middle East. Is there anything you have a particular eye on, Bob? 

Bob Doll [00:31:31] Yeah, so Donald Trump is desperate for a Nobel Peace Prize. And so don’t lose sight of that in what might happen. I know he said in the campaign trail, he can solve Russia, Ukraine in a day. Well, it’s taken a little longer than a day, but I do believe we will get some positive news there and we’ll stop shooting each other. You know, how much is that gonna cost? What happens to Zelensky in the process? How does Trump get there? But I think there’s gonna be calm there before too much longer. Same for the Middle East. I think… The U.S. has said to Israel, here’s a blank check. Go eliminate all the nasty boys. And when you’re getting close to finish, let’s talk about dismantling the nuclear power of Iran. I think there could be regime change forced by the West in Iran. And you know, do you do those couple of things and boy, things calm down. Doesn’t solve all the problems, but for a period of time. So I’m more than optimistic. I’m hopeful on both of those sets of conflicts. China’s a much more difficult one. I think personally that China has real economic problems. Too many 100-story buildings with nobody living in them, all financed on debt. Consumption, it’s getting a little better, but struggling. I don’t think President Xi is gonna last all that long. They have a massive demographic problem because the one birth policy, which is no longer policy became a way of life. And if you study the Chinese population, you know, fewer get married when they do it’s later in life. And if they have any kids, it’s one, if you have two, you have a big family. Their population demographers say will be half of what it is today by the end of this century. That’s a big problem. You cannot grow your economy if your population shrinking that fast. So. I don’t know what happens there. So you still have, you know, Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran. How do you solve that one? But on the first two, they’re a lot smaller and a lot simpler. Neither is simple. You get it. 

John Coleman [00:33:46] Yeah, Bob, those comments are awesome. And I think you’ve touched on all the right things. I actually am modestly confident that the Ukraine, Russia, we’ve seen the worst of it now and that it will calm down. I think there will be a negotiated settlement there. I think Russia’s tired of the war. I think Ukraine as a whole is tired of war and Europe is tired the war The key that Europe will focus on is not giving Putin a win in this to set a long-term precedent that’s bad. I think everyone agrees Crimea is probably a part of Russia or a disputed territory indefinitely moving out here. We’re not going to get that back for Ukraine, but then the negotiation turns into how long do they agree not to join NATO, what other territories remain with Russia, et cetera. But that’s kind of a prolonged diplomatic negotiation that I think is unlikely to flare up because I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest right now for that to flare up further. Putin is facing his own pressures. I think China is much frailer than we think they are. I think they’re spying in the U S is actually a huge problem. That’s a political problem, but their population’s declining. Their financial system is in trouble. Their fundamental economy is in. Terrorists will hurt them worse than us, right? Because they don’t have a sustainable in economy. Long term, that makes me bullish on the fact that the United States can outcompete China and that China will have to face some sort of reforms at some point or decline. Short term, there’s always a big risk when a powerful country is at a frail point in its history that things could go wrong quickly and the best way to unify people when there are domestic problems is to create a foreign adversary. And so I think we have to be. appropriately cautious in the short term about what type of an instability there could be in China. And then the Iran question to me is a big one. I do think that Iran is at the heart of everything that’s happening in the Middle East right now. I think they’re probably weaker now than almost any time since the 70s. I personally believe that the U.S. is waiting for a good moment to let Israel strike Iran’s nuclear reactors and potentially do even more. I think Iran is much more of a loose cannon than China or Russia at this point. And if that spirals out of control, that could cause significant disruptions, particularly in certain markets, oil and natural gas, et cetera, but also even in shipping and things like that. So if I were to focus on one foreign conflict that I thought had the opportunity to spin out of the control in the near term, it would likely be the Middle Eastern conflict, just depending on if Israel gets the green light and if they hit Iran in their country. and then what Iran’s response to that is. And that’s quite difficult to predict. I think that’s an unsolvable area of uncertainty right now. But I do think China and Russia are not in as strong a position as sometimes they are painted to be. 

Bob Doll [00:36:28] You’re largely on the same page, and don’t forget that Nobel Peace Prize. 

John Coleman [00:36:32] and the Nobel Prize. I don’t know that they’re gonna give it to him, Bobby, even if he brings it out of peace. Thanks. 

Richard Cunningham [00:36:40] especially in light of all those tariffs. But hey, John, the second point you brought up when it was the geopolitical side of things and also from unpacking tariffs and whatnot and on-shoring, one of the potential long-term benefits is the on-shoring that could come to the US, also under this thought of less regulation and just the guardrails of business maybe being freed up a little bit. And on the backs of less regulations, possibly more M&A activity. And so that’s where I wanted to go next with you guys was, hey, we saw Core Weave IPO last week. We saw Google Alphabet have an enormous acquisition, $32 billion of whiz. Even though it’s been a really tough kind of stock market in Q1 since 2022, one of the lowest ever, you’re starting to see some rumblings of, hey, Q1 2025 was an incredible time for deal activity on the private markets in smaller time, kind of one of bigger upticks since 2021. So what are you guys watching as it relates to M&A and maybe IPO markets starting to heat up a little bit? 

Bob Doll [00:37:33] Surprised or I would have expected a whole lot more than we’re seeing you are right to point out some of the things you’re talking About but I think it’s I’ve used the word so many times It’s uncertainty that’s causing guys and gals that might otherwise do a deal to just step back But if we can get past this back to we take our pain and then we go to the game I think we could see a raft of deals that the administration will allow to happen and maybe even encourage to happen but we gotta get past the uncertainty first. 

John Coleman [00:38:03] And this is where I’m probably most bullish on long-term economic prospects or even midterm economic prospects for the United States. We have an almost insurmountable lead at the moment that is unlikely to go away in the next four years in technological innovation and business innovation. Europe has basically regulated itself into stagnation. Japan is in no position at the moment to innovate in the way that they did in the 80s. Korea has the most heavy collapsing demographic crisis in the world right now. South Korea does, at least in the major developed countries. And there are areas where there’s growth in innovation, Africa, parts of Latin America, et cetera, but nowhere that has the business base that the United States does. And we are right at the pointy end of the sphere on all the most important technological innovations right now, the best AI companies, we hear about threats from China, but they are in the United states. the best automation companies are in the United States. Many of the best robotics companies are in United States, and particularly if we have an era of deregulation that allows them to continue to innovate and build businesses. If it’s true that the immigration policy is gonna turn to recruitment on a meritocratic basis, which is part of this Trump gold card that they’re launching, they think they’re gonna get a million people to pay $5 million to get a green card for the US. Many entrepreneurs wanting to start businesses, for example. I think we could create an economic environment where we stay at the forefront of these massive long-term technological trends, and that would make me extremely bullish on the fundamental growth of the U.S. economy because the companies are able to start here that I think could be great for the U S. I’m with Bob. I thought we’d see a little more activity early on because the FTC certainly has a I think that’s still going to kick in, because I think there’s a lot of pent-up demand for that. It may just take some time. And so I’m a little bit bullish on the fundamental economy, particularly in the technology sector and in the innovation sector, so the hard technology and software, where we have a huge lead right now, and there’s really no global competitor other than China. And there are many reasons great entrepreneurs aren’t moving to China, right, and that they’re likely to come here rather than stay in Europe or stay in other parts of Have a great day. And if that’s the case, and if we can recruit them here, and if can maintain our lead in those various innovation areas, there’s some short-term labor problems that may happen to AI. I think that’s going to be transformational. But at the very least, our companies will continue to be successful, and our startup ecosystem will continue be successful. 

Bob Doll [00:40:33] John, you just outlined the reasons why the United States stock market has a premium valuation over every other in the world. Yeah, we’re having some difficulties at the moment. International is outperforming. But we’re not going to go to parity on a PE basis anyway, shape or form for the very reasons you said. 

Richard Cunningham [00:40:52] Well, hey, let’s pivot now to, I know a topic the three of us are all very passionate about. You two both lead faith-based or faith-driven investment firms. Love to hear about maybe that kind of one problem, one thing top of mind for you, Bob and your work at Crossmark and John and your lead in Sovereign Capital that you’re just really ruminating on as it relates to the faith- driven and kind of faith- based investing ecosystem. 

Bob Doll [00:41:13] You know, I would say, and I’m sure John’s going to agree with us and have more things to say, I’m now four years at Crossmark, the amount of time I have spent educating people, close my mind. So what I’m trying to say is, come on, let’s get on with it. A lot of people have not heard about what we all do for a living every day. Oh, I didn’t know that exists. Tell me more. And that’s whether it’s a financial advisor, a faith based institution. a faith-based individual investor and we’re all working overtime to get the word out and educate and uh you know i get frustrated richard the people that don’t see in the light bulb doesn’t come on and they don’t just 

John Coleman [00:41:56] Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with Bob, so I’ll take it a different direction, which is one of the things that motivates me as a faith-driven investor is I think people like Bob, people like the folks that work with us, we have a real optimism about the future because of our faith. We know where this all ends up, short-term or long-term, you know? But we also have a commitment to love of neighbor and to seeing people flourish. And one of worrying trends of the last… 20 years, 30 years, has been this consistent decline in flourishing despite increased prosperity, right? People are lonelier, they’re less happy. There’s a lot of fragmentation. There’s lot of social problems that have built up even though we’re richer than we used to be, you know, with some exceptions. And I think what I would love to see as faith-based investors continue to take the lead on how can we as investors, as partners to those who are building companies. try and solve not only the economic problems, we have to perform with excellence. That’s what we’re called to do. But in some small measure, contribute to trying to solve this giant macro problem, particularly in the developed world of this crisis of purpose and meaning of the loneliness and isolation that people feel of the way in which people are not engaged at work. How can we be contributors to creating workplaces that make people’s lives better, not worse, and reverse some of these trends that we’ve seen? I think there are some small green shoots on that front. I mean, Bible sales are up 25%. The Hallow app has exploded and there are tens of millions of people doing daily devotionals. We’ve even seen a ton of articles recently about Christianity suddenly making an appearance in Silicon Valley. I remember the HBO show, Silicon Valley, where people came out as Christian. It was like, you know, the worst thing that they can do. And now, you now, there are leaders in that space. And that’s important because the faith we share, but also because I think. That series of positions and beliefs and the tenets of that faith unlock something that can make people’s lives better and more fulfilling and happier, make families stronger. And my hope is that if we can get people off the sidelines, Bob, and if we get them to start thinking of their values as a part of their capital allocation, and if can use that capital to really transform the way that companies and real estate developments work. in a way that’s aligned with creating love of neighbor and human flourishing in the various things in which we’re investing, that we can unlock not only economic prosperity, but a deeper prosperity of the soul that I feel is lacking right now in so many parts of our world. 

Bob Doll [00:44:26] Amen. You’ve just described reforming capitalism. That’s what we need to do. There’s so many good aspects of it. And yet, for capitalism to work, it needs Judeo-Christian principles. And we can’t separate the two. We need to encourage a flourishing world underneath the rubric of, you know, we will love the Lord our God and all he stands for. 

Richard Cunningham [00:44:50] Well guys, this has been an awesome episode and Bob, we’re gonna do this. I mean, what a privilege to have you on the podcast. Take us home with some wisdom. What’s the Lord been teaching you lately in and through his word? 

Bob Doll [00:44:59] Yeah, I almost use the word answer to one of the last questions. Patience. I’m an impatient guy. I want to get it done yesterday when I quote know what the right answer is. So whether that’s personally or professionally, uh, professionally, it’s, you know, we already articulated it. How many years are we going to have to educate before people do it? You know, and look, people have to be convinced in one over in time to think I respect all that. And personally, it is the same thing. You know. When I do things at Crossmark, I think, how come we don’t have the answer now? How come we’re not moving the ball faster? So patience. God has a long-term time horizon and I gotta fit into it by relaxing and letting God be God and not forcing myself to try to be God. 

John Coleman [00:45:45] And this will be moderately self-serving. Patience is not a virtue that I’m blessed with, Bob. So I’m 100% with you on that. When you figure it out, give me a call. It’s not what I’m naturally blessed with. I’ll tell you, this is one promotional thing I’ll say is I’ve been watching House of David every week when it comes out. I think everybody should be watching House Of David. I think the change in culture is huge and it’s just so cool to see biblical stories come to life at a Hollywood level of quality. But it’s also made me reflect much more deeply on Samuel and Kings and on the story of David. And one of these themes is just how cautious we need to be to maintain humility and faithfulness, particularly as we’re successful. What brought down King Saul was, there’s a great line in the first episode where Samuel says, when you were small in your own eyes, God made you great. And now that you’re great in your eyes, you’ve fallen away from God. and the story of David and even Jonathan is really about keeping their heads on straight that they are servants of the living God. And that gives them both a confidence, but also a humility, a confidence that if they’re living into that mission, they can do anything and a humility that it’s not by their own strength, but God’s strength, right? Which can be hard sometimes. I mean, anytime someone’s successful, they start to get in their own head about being responsible for that success. And that’s always the seed of downfall, as it even was for David and Solomon, you know, later in those stories. And just watching House of David, that brings it to life so much for me, like, Bob, I’m so encouraged that someone like you is in the faith-driven investing ecosystem because you’re the best at what you do. You are a remarkable person in markets. You’re incredibly intelligent. You bring a professionalism to this industry that is desperately needed. But I also know you’re humble. And so… My hope is, for myself, that even as we begin to make strides, even as we’re able to accomplish great things, that we appropriately attribute that success to the one who gave it to us, and that we really just faithfully try and dedicate ourselves to his service and to the mission that he would lay before us, rather than kind of getting high on our own supply and starting to believe our own story or narrative and put ourselves at the center. So true. 

Bob Doll [00:47:52] I sometimes talk about when it’s money, well, it’s not our money, it God’s money. And one guy said to me recently, a believer, but I worked hard for that. And who gave you the brain power to be able to do the work hard? It’s all his. And the sooner we figure that out, the sooner can move the humility and away from the pride. 

Richard Cunningham [00:48:11] What is it? James 117. Every good and perfect gift comes from above. It starts there. Amen. Man, Bob Doll, John Coleman. What a great episode. We covered a lot of ground. I know it’s been a full and volatile Q1, but what a privilege to bring you guys in for some timely remarks and then some timeless wisdom as our friend Luke Rausch likes to say it there at the end. So friends for John Coleman, Bob doll, this is Richard Cunningham. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the FDI Podcast and we will catch you next time. 

Speaker 5 [00:48:36] We are grateful for the opportunity to serve this community and see listeners come in from more than 100 countries. Faith-driven investing can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. The best way to stay connected is to join a group study with other investors looking to get the same answers of questions you have and find great community as they do so. There’s no cost, no catch. In person or online, you can meet an hour a week with other peers from your backyard or the other side of the world. You can also stay connected by signing up for a monthly newsletter at faithdriveninvesting.org. This podcast wouldn’t be possible without the help of many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman, intro mixed and arranged by Summer Draggs, audio and editing by Richard Barley. Our theme song is Sweet Ever After by Ellie Holcomb. 

Brent Beshore: It’s impossible to make good long term decisions if you’re short term in nature and use short term capital. And again, this kind of goes down to the structure, you know, when your time horizon is stretched to eternity. It does fundamentally change the way that you think about the day to day and the things that previously were anxiety filled. Frustrating not to say that I’m never frustrated or anxiety filled. That’s not true at all. But certainly a lot of that stuff has faded away. And I find myself a lot more comfortable that I worship a living God, that sovereign.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast, Brant, be sure. In the House, Brant, welcome.

Brent Beshore: Thank you so much.

Henry Kaestner: One of the things that we do, many of our listening audience may not know this, but we do a couple of different things before we actually go live with you. One is that we do our infamous three to one clap to sync up our audio tracks, which sometimes works out really well and sometimes doesn’t. But the other one is more materially is that we pray. We pray for you, the listener. We pray for the technology, and we just pray generally for the guest in our time together. And in the prayer today, William had mentioned something that I thought was really interesting, alluded the fact that at one point in time he cold called our guest today. Brant and I had known that. And so, William, what was that all about?

William Norvell: Absolutely. You know, I have been following Brett’s career and sort of what he was doing, permanent equity when we were getting started with the lower middle market side of sovereigns and had run into a couple of roadblocks. Honestly, just that I thought he could understand from what I had read, from what I had heard. We’re going to find out later. I think Brant is a brilliant communicator, both with his writings and with what he talks. No pressure.

Brent Beshore: Brant, can we lower the bar of expectation?

William Norvell: Nope, nope, nope. We’re sick of a brilliant or signaler brilliant his writings and what he gives away and the thoughts and the way he catalyzes those are just really, really well done. And I said, you know what? I think this guy is going to be able to help with this problem. I have. And I forgot how I found your number or whatever, but I got your note and you were gracious to get on and spend to get half an hour with me walking through it. It was super helpful for what I was doing. And from then we found out we had a shared faith and we’ve been able to connect on other things. And gosh, I want to say it’s like three years from now. Now we find ourselves on this podcast and with tons of mutual friends. And as I was praying, it’s just like I am just always amazed at the plan God is writing that we don’t know, that we have no clue what God is up to. And we find ourselves here collaborating in a deeper friendship and in a friendship with more people. It’s just fun. It’s just fun. Indeed.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed. And I’ve been looking forward to this. You know, it’s infrequent that we have guests on the podcast out of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast or the Faith Driven Investor podcast that, like me, our adult converts who came to faith later in life. And so Brant and I share that. And I think we can get into a little bit. In fact, maybe we’ll even to start there and just bring us up to speed with who you are, where you come from, your early days. Growing up, you’re wrestling with faith the time before you became an investor.

Brent Beshore: Yeah, well, again, thank you for having me on the show. I don’t think is particularly interesting for me to tell people about my background growing up in Joplin, Missouri. But, yeah, I grew up in Joplin, Missouri, southwest corner of the state. My dad worked for the same company for a long time. My mom was a college professor and we attended most of the time, attended a Presbyterian church in Joplin growing up as a PC USA church. And it just never clicked for me. I mean, I can remember when I was a real young kid, you know, I’ve always felt a pretty significant battle with pride. I didn’t realize at the time it was a battle with pride. But I can remember being six or seven years old, sitting in vacation, Bible school. And, you know, they kept talking about all this stuff. And I was like, this all seems very far fetched. And I don’t know why they keep talking about. But they had great sex, you know, and that’s what really mattered to me. And, you know, the fat kid, as long as you can just feed me snacks and I’ll pretty much go along with anything. So, you know, but I can just remember from a young timelike, just I just wasn’t a believer. Like I didn’t believe. I thought it was made up. And I didn’t see a lot of people who centered their life on it. It felt very much like religion. And now that I’m finding I mean, I think there’s a huge split. And I certainly have gone through this phase. And I think in my faith journey, is it not really being about God and being about me and it being about my religious performance. And so, you know, kind of continued on. I remember I asked my mom to drive me to the church when I was fourteen, probably. And anyway, I just had a lot of questions. I had a lot of questions about why God was who he claimed God was and why I couldn’t have faith. And I pretty much made up my mind at that point that I was an atheist. But, you know, this guy was an amazing human beings names Bill Christmas since passed an incredible teacher, kind, loving, gentle man who spent an hour with a punk, prideful fourteen year old kid who was pounding him with all kinds of questions, which I thought were incredibly novel. And come to find out, we’re like the little baby steps that you first start thinking about when you’re thinking about faith. I walked out of there and I was just convinced that there was no God and I was convinced that, you know, I’d kind of go along with whatever society wanted me to, but I wasn’t going to have any faith. I went to college, a school in the East Coast. All my professors were pretty much atheist. I mean, maybe some of them had some a little bit of faith here and there, but not much took religion classes from people who made fun of Abraham and, you know, said that it was all just a ruse to control people. And so, you know, became more and more hardened and got into new atheism. It was a very attractive, you know, the Dawkins of the world and the Hitchens of the world and got into sort of a really condescending view of faith. And that was really my life until kind of mid to late twenties. I mean, I woke up when I was. Twenty seven, twenty eight, I had gotten lucky a few times, and I really say lucky, I mean, obviously now I would say providential, but truly I couldn’t explain why I had been successful. I mean, I look back and point to a few things in hindsight, but I woke up with a beautiful wife who loved me. We didn’t have any kids yet, but I had more money than I needed. And a career which was seemingly on a really great trajectory. And I just felt empty and hollow inside. And I just thought there had to be something more than this. I was just kind of at the point where I was like, what is going on? And around that same time, I met some people who just acted very differently and who loved in a way that I didn’t know was possible and who didn’t have egos and who just were delight to be around and had fun and just lived free. And I was so attracted to me and I kept getting to know these people. And I said, what is it about you? What do you know? They say, oh, well, I mean, we’re followers of Jesus. And I was like, Oh, come on, please, seriously, that’s the thing, you know? And they took me under their wing and fed me lots of books and fed me meals. And it was a long, slow, painful journey to faith. Like God just wouldn’t let go is how I would describe it. And so yeah.

Henry Kaestner: So yeah, OK. So I completely identify with that. Twenty it was my age and and there’s some wrestling involved too. One of the things that’s impacted me recently is spending some time in jail packers knowing God. And yesterday I’ve been struggling a little bit with some of the Genesis stories. I mean there’s a lot to just be curious about, you know, in the tent and some of these between Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they’re not always exemplars. Right. And I was particularly struggling with the Jacob story and and Jay Packers’, knowing God, he did a great job of talking about the wrestling with God story, which I had not fully understood, and putting the hip out of place. And one of the things that helped me about that lesson was just understand that Jacob just went and grabbed God, wanted to get out of there. You know, as the story goes, God said, let me go. And Jacob wouldn’t let him go until he got the blessing. And I thought, wow, that’s really interesting. As sinful as far as I am, there’s some precedent here that is messed up, as Jacob was. I mean, he was a deceiver. I mean, that’s his name. It just really kind of messed up in his dealings. But he wanted God. He wanted a guy. He wrestled with God. But in wrestling with God, he knew enough to know that he really wanted to hold on to him, and he did until God got his blessing. And do you see parts of that wrestling with God in your own life?

Brent Beshore: Yeah, I mean, this was a huge I think when I was a hardcore atheist, I looked at myself as being smart and capable and competent. I could I could do things. I didn’t need anybody. I didn’t I certainly didn’t need God. And then, you know, I was reading the Bible. Everyone’s an idiot in the Bible pretty much, right. Everyone but Jesus pretty much an idiot. And thankfully, because I’m an idiot, too, it gives me a lot of hope that God to work through me. I mean, literally, if you look at all the biggest figures in the Bible, I mean, they were all messed up in their own ways and God redeems them. Right. And I think that’s where the story for me of wrestling with God is really wrestling with who am I and wrestling with the deep seated sense that I have in my life. And the more that God brings them to the surface, the more that I wrestle with God with them. It’s amazing. It’s a I mean, it’s what a gift. I see things that have had a grip on my life for my whole life. And I still, by the way, so much, very much an idiot. So but it’s amazing to see those things lose grip. And for me to change my heart, to actually change towards people and to truly love and care for people in a way that I didn’t even know was possible.

Henry Kaestner: Very interesting. OK, so it looks going to take us to a conversation about permanent equity. You have a day job. Your faith informs a day job and will impact that a little bit, too. But you are the first person that we’ve had on the Faith Driven Investor podcast that is auditing seminary classes. So you’re serious about building out your knowledge? How do you have time and what brings you to it? Because you’ve been doing this for a little while, too, right?

Brent Beshore: Yeah. Yeah, I started let’s see, this is my third or fourth semester now of adding seminary classes. I mean, just a great opportunity. There’s a cohort at my local church that was going through Covenant seminaries classes, and I was lucky enough to be brought along. And it’s a great group of people and just trying to learn and explore. And I mean, how do I find time? I don’t know. God sort of I think makes time for it. And I love it. I mean, I’m a huge nerd and I love to read and learn. And I think if anything, if I’m being honest, it’s a lot easier for me to learn about God than to be in a relationship with God. And I think that’s actually something that I’ve been struggling with in seminaries. I’m very drawn to the intellectual side, the knowledge and the sort of apologetics and the defense of the faith and being thoughtful and logical about why I believe what I believe, which I think is a bad thing at all. I think that you can have a right doctrine and have a horrible, sinful heart that has turned away from God. And I think that’s something that I’ve actually been struggling with. As you know, I would say anybody listening who I don’t want them to find it intimidating like the Amen, amen. An area like I don’t want to be like this is somehow impressive, like for me, honestly, the more that I focus on my relationship with God and the less that I care about knowing more than everyone else. And I think that’s the comparative side of me. The prideful side of me, I think is it comes through in that the more I just want to focus on God, the better it is. And so I would say is being a seminary or reading, you know, you’re obviously a huge reader, Henry, as well. And, you know, I think that’s great. I think, though, that I’m learning the more I mature in my faith, the more I’m just really trying to focus on who got it and being relationship.

Henry Kaestner: You know, I think that’s really interesting. And I think that a lot of investors probably aren’t in the same spot. I know that I am as an investor, you do want to know a lot. You want to know about your industry. You want to know about your model. You want to know about deal structures. And so I think that we have a propensity in our relationship with God, with three thousand plus pages in a Bible to know as much of the text as we can to know systematic theology, to know the writings of what field or Spurgeon are and just gone. But the deep personal relationship where God is our father, ABBA is really hard for us. So that’s a great encouragement. You hit on something personal for me and likely for others as well.

Luke Roush: How do you think know. So just as somebody who’s an adult convert to faith, a lot of times that actually kind of changes everything about how you think about family, how you think about fatherhood, being a husband in an investor, maybe to speak a little bit to when you had this awakening, you’d had some success already as an investor, how did your coming of faith impact how you thought about shepherding capital? And maybe that dovetails into, you know, what I perceived to be a fairly novel structure in your fund with an evergreen structure. So you had any comments on that?

Brent Beshore: Yeah. I mean, the short version is it changed everything. I mean, I think that the things that hasn’t changed or the things that I’m still holding on to, that I haven’t surrendered to God and that somehow I want to go and wallow in my blood in that area in my life, that I’m learning more and more to have a distaste for. I mean, I still have those areas of my life that I haven’t. And I think that know in the business world looking at is everyone’s job around me to serve me. I mean, which is really as the boss, as the CEO. I mean, I had a mentality that was look like I don’t know how to say it. It was all about me. Right. And it was about we are going to work for me. I’m going to make money for me. Everything was around me. And that’s the exact opposite of the gospel, right? I mean, we worship a savior who willingly gave his life and who gave up everything for us. And, you know, what is the purpose of life? I mean, I think prior to becoming a believer, it was to amass as much. I mean, it was it was gain and it was to try to make as much as I possibly could and get as much as I possibly could and experience as much as I possibly could. And, you know, a lot of those tastes have changed in the more that I’m able to love people. I mean, that’s really comes down to. Right. And what does it mean to love somebody? It means not to love them in the way that you want to be loved. It’s to love them in the way that they want to be loved and that they should be loved. And so what does it look like in a business deal? You know, I saw am wrestling with a lot of this. I mean, to be completely frank, the challenge I have is it’s easy for a deal to look Zero-Sum. And I don’t think it ever is right. And I think there’s always an opportunity to collaborate with people and to make more. And that’s what God wants us to do, right? God wants us to love one another through the structured business, to grow the garden, to grow the cities, to encourage human flourishing. And I think that, you know, capitalism is an amazing, amazing vehicle, a gift from God to be able to do that. And so I don’t see conflict with that except for I see conflict with my own sinful nature, how I frankly, I want to be smarter than other people. I want to get a good deal. And I think that oftentimes when I feel that pull of wanting to do better in a comparative way, I think that’s where I’m in danger of harming the deal. I’m in danger of, you know, setting things up poorly and suffering the consequences down the road. And so when it comes down to it, the biggest thing, which is we’re in the investment business, we’re in the negotiation business, we’re buying companies or at least buying majority stakes in companies. We want to do it in a way that honors the people that we’re working with. And we want to work with them after the closing. And we want to have them feel good about it. We want to have them excited about the future. And oftentimes my son screws that up. You know, if I’m just being honest, like we’re all messy. I explained some of the other day, like, how can you be a believer? I say, well, look, the Bible explains a world that I see around me, the history that I experienced and predicts the future better than any other system I’ve ever been aware of by a mile. And one of the core doctrines is the doctrine of sin, right. Paired with the doctrine, the Imago day. And when you pair those two things together, it says that, look, we all have this incredible darkness in us that wants to come out, that’s comparative, that’s sinful, and we want to use it everywhere. And by the way, were made in the image of God. And if we fully appreciated each other, we’d be tempted to worship each other. Right. I mean, that’s how beautiful it is. I think in the ideal world that comes through. Right. I mean, you get this incredible excitement around a deal about the possibility of it. And it feels like the Imago day, right? It feels like we’re going to come together to build something more. And then you got everyone sending everyone’s messing this kind of junk all over, right, and you’ve got the lawyers are junk and we’re junk and we’ve got all this junk together. And it’s just it causes a mess. And so I think most of my job these days is trying to weed through the mess and look at my own self and my messiness and say, OK, how can I minimize the mess that I’m going to be putting into this transaction and really just try to figure out how I can give grace to people and how I can love people despite them, maybe not always having the best intentions like, oh my, perhaps I don’t either. You know, I should never be surprised by it.

Luke Roush: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe any kind of quick thoughts on things that got easier when you became aware of your faith and how you executed as an investor and then things that got harder as you became aware of that.

Brent Beshore: Yeah. So I mean, I would say the thing that became easier so it’s impossible to make good long term decisions if you’re short term in nature and you’ve short term capital. And again, this kind of goes back to the structure. You know, when your time horizon is stretched to eternity, it does fundamentally change the way that you think about the day to day and the things that previously were anxiety filled. Frustrating not to say that I’m never frustrated or anxiety filled. That’s not true at all. But certainly a lot of this stuff has faded away. And I find myself a lot more comfortable that I worship a living God, that sovereign. And that has I mean, there you go, Sovereign’s Capital. It’s almost like it’s intentional, you know, well played, well played. Except I’m just trying to plug in there for you. You’re welcome. 20 bucks. Anyway, when you stretch your time horizon to eternity, it changes the way that you can look at individual short term issues and allows you to think, frankly, much more clearly about what’s really important, what’s not. And for me, that has enabled a lot better relationships and frankly, it’s enabled a lot better transactions. What has gotten harder? Man, I used to love to get a good deal, like a good deal, like I used to love to be able to be like, look, I’m smarter. This is how I arrange things. So I did. And oftentimes I was doing it in a zero sum sort of fashion. And even though I still have the tendency to want to go there, I think trying to create win win win scenarios, you know, sort of if you think about all the stakeholder groups, because oftentimes we just think about the seller and the buyer. There’s a lot of other stakeholder groups than those two parties. Right? Certainly the seller, the buyer. You have the investors behind us. Right, that are our clients as well. You have the employee base. You have a leadership team. You have the vendors who most people don’t think about. You have the communities in which they sit. And of course, then you have the clients. How do you create a scenario where you’re encouraging flourishing among all those groups? And yes, you are sitting at the Nexus Point, right. That’s the beauty of capitalism. And you’re able to share in the flourishing. But that’s when things are really exciting, is when you get to do that. That’s where you should make money. You should make money because you’ve enabled a unique form of flourishing and you get to share in the benefits of that. You should not make money and you should not try to screw somebody over right out, do somebody in negotiation. And so I think that’s where that’s become a lot more difficult. And like I said, I’m still struggling with the day to day.

Luke Roush: So maybe just for some of our listeners who may not understand permanent equity, permanent capital or evergreen models, maybe to share a little bit about how that works and how it differs from what most people would be familiar with in a closed end time.

Brent Beshore: Yes, a traditional private equity. So we are a private equity in the sense that we are buying private securities, private equities, the equity side of the debt or equity. We’re on the equity side and we’re buying them from private companies, small private companies. And so how traditional private equity works, though, sort of beyond just the name itself, is you’re typically going to buy something you’re in levered up to a lot of debt on it. You’re going to try to optimize it within a short window of time, typically two to five years, and then you’re going to sell it to somebody else because their investors expect their money back. And in the process of that, you’re going to kind of do whatever it takes, right? I mean, like I said, it’s impossible, make good long term decisions with short term capital. If your time horizons two to five years, you’re going to make decisions that are going to benefit the company and going to show up in that time horizon. So what we do is in many ways the exact opposite of that. So we buy with no intention of selling the business. We are typically not using debt in our transactions. We are partnering with the leadership team that’s already there, certainly helping augment skill sets. We want to be helpful in how we do that. We are not coming in and clearcutting the leadership team, and then we’re really trying to encourage them to reinvest back in the business and treat people well and like I said, encourage flourishing. And so it just looks very, very different in practice. Right. I mean, how we’re able to structure our deals, how we’re able to operate the companies post close, it feels very different. And then, of course, we are not putting the company through another traumatic sort of sale scenario within a fairly short period of time. We’re able to do that because the capital raise. So the model that we created, which I think is unique, at least we haven’t or anybody else who’s done it this way, is we basically run funds that are very long dated so that our investors give us their capital for the better part of. Three decades and then there’s some options to renew if we want to continue forward, but it’s functionally indefinite capital writing three decades is a long time and so we’re able to come in and certainly generate a good return. That’s a focus of ours. In fact, we want to be world leading in the returns that we’re generating, but we’re generating in a very different way. So instead of levering up the company and hoping to get a big pop on the exit, we are trying to run these companies extremely well and create a flourishing within the companies that then we can share in on the way up, as opposed to trying to set out, negotiate and then sell it to somebody else who can work it out, negotiate them as well.

Henry Kaestner: So the better part of three decades feels like a long time. And maybe I say that just because I know that some of our investors have told us, you know, with our 12 year fund, that feels like a very long time. And and I think that it does. Do you offer liquidity along the way in the event that somebody is like, gosh, I love what you’re doing, but, you know, it’s been 10 years and you get some things they got to do.

Brent Beshore: Yeah. So there’s no guarantee liquidity along the way. What we’re used to doing is a lot of the businesses that we’re getting involved in have excess cash that’s coming out of them beyond what’s required or even what can be reasonably responsibly reinvested back into the companies. And so that cash flow stream that is aggregated and then goes out to the investors about once every six months to a year, depending on the situation. So there is a sort of a distribution stream that’s coming out of these companies. And of course, there’s always secondary liquidity. Somebody could sell their stake and we have a process for that internally. Thankfully, we really never had to. I mean, I think one time somebody, because they were funding a startup, had to balance some small position for them. Other than that, there’s a lot of trust. And I think that’s one of the things that’s beautiful is that, you know, our investors have given us a tremendous amount of leeway and trust and we don’t take that lightly. I mean, we know we have the best investors in the world with the best capital structure we think in the world, and that allows us to do things other people can’t do. It allows us to put trust into people that other people can’t put trust in and allows us to invest in industries that other people can invest in and situations that would be impossible. And so we consider that to be our core advantages, that we have better capital than everyone else. And then, of course, post close. We want to treat people kindly and generously, but also with a high expectation for excellence. So oftentimes those two things seem in conflict and we don’t think there’s any conflict between those two. God calls us to excellence. Do unto the Lord. Right. Whatever your hands find, do unto the Lord. Like we want people to pursue excellence and excellence both in their job and their career, but also excellence beyond what is the product look like? What is the service customer service look like now? Are we falling way, way short all the time? One hundred percent. We live in a fallen, broken thistles and thorns world. Totally get that. But we certainly want to aspire to be excellent. And so that’s where we drive our returns from.

Luke Roush: How does that approach just around time frame? How does that influence kind of where you hunt for the right kind of partnership opportunities, recognizing that not every company is conducive to generating Alpha over a thirty year run? How do you think about focus and concentration?

Brent Beshore: Yeah, that’s a great question. So one of the first filters we put it through is do we think this company is going to be around and the demand for this product is going to be around in twenty, thirty years? Spot on. Right. And if we don’t think it’s something that’s going to be around for a really long time, we won’t get involved in that. Like for us is nice because it weeds out a tremendous amount of fabs, a tremendous amount of we call them Hustle’s right. These are maybe the companies doing great media companies grown a lot, but we just don’t have a high degree of confidence that it’s going to continue on, at least in a shape or form that we can predict. And so it gets us into a lot of things that are what we call Main Street businesses. Right. So if you look at our current portfolio, right, we’re in construction. We think that the world will continue to build things. I think construction’s been going on for a while and probably will continue for a while. Right. And, you know, subsegments of that, like we’re partners in the nation’s largest swimming pool builder as an example. Right. One of our jokes that we say in our offices that people have been dipping their bodies in water for pleasure for, you know, millennia. And we think that will continue. And so we’re not concerned about the new app that’s going to make you feel like you’re swimming in a swimming pool. I think there’s just a tactile experience and a a shared familial experience. There’s a community experience, too. Swimming is a

Henry Kaestner: global warming play.

Brent Beshore: You know, we build in Arizona and it’s an oven already and getting hotter. And so we think that that’s probably pretty good for pool sales as well. But yeah, anyway, we try to be involved in things that we think are enduring and that are going to last for quite a while.

Henry Kaestner: Brant does not shy away from talking publicly on podcasts about different verticals that are interesting and beyond construction swimming pools. I remember hearing the story where you’re talking about how pet crematoriums were a very interesting high margin play. I think maybe since said that maybe that played out a little bit. But tell us more about some of the verticals that you’ve seen and are interested in.

Brent Beshore: I mean, I think one of my favorite parts of my job is to get to see all these unusual little missions that you never would have expected otherwise. Right? I mean, there’s behind every wine bottles exampled. There’s the things that you never think about, which is where does the sand come that forms the glass, right? How do you develop new molds for the punting at the end of the bottle? How do you develop the foil? Right. How do you do the ink that goes on the foil? What are all the different chemicals that are used and what are all the different methodologies and equipment that’s used to harvest? And how do you think about the storage of those things? I mean, we’ve literally looked at them using the wine business as an example of sort of interesting angles, like I would never buy a winery. Right. I shouldn’t say that. As soon as I say never got an interesting way of humbling me and I end up doing the things I say I never will, which I guess if I’m being honest, if I somehow stumble on a great wine investment, that’s probably a good thing. So I guess I’m happy to eat my work. But if you look at the wine business, I mean, owning a vineyard, there’s a lot of non-economic reasons why people own wineries. And so any time you have non-economic reasons for participation in an industry, you’re going to see a dramatic decrease in the return set. And so whenever we look at an industry, one of the first things we look at is we call it the sexiness factor of how sexy is the industry, how much interest is there other than economics to participate in the industry. And so this is where you get into really weird economics around things like wine and movies and restaurants even, and anything that’s sort of a consumer ish thing that people would pick up and look at. But beneath the surface of those industries, there’s all these little niches and interesting things that you can see. And so I just love seeing all the different business models. I mean, I would say, yeah, there’s certain areas like crematoriums. I joke that all you need is a storefront oven, which is kind of crude, but it’s true. And there’s a lot of emotional reasons why you don’t want to just put Fluffy in the backyard, that you want to have a proper burial and all of those things that come along with that, I would say that any more. What’s interesting to me is not trying to formulate my own interesting things that I want to go pursue. And I’m just fascinated by all the things that come to us that I just never even knew existed as using example in the wine business. I mean, we’ve looked at everything from machinery to new genetic techniques for grafting grapes to different vine and all these different things that you would never imagine that you look at. And that kind of goes for every single industry. And so I just love the variety and all the different ways that you can serve a customer. And I think that the best job in the world,

William Norvell: you’ve been thoughtful. You spent a lot of time coming up with this vehicle and everybody’s really interested in brands vehicle. He’s always super open handed. You’ve written extensively on your twenty seven year vehicle. You’ve written extensively on how it kind of works. The question I want to ask is we’ve got an audience of Faith Driven Investor do you fundamentally and I don’t know if I know the answer to this, do you fundamentally believe the 10 year, 12 year fund is broken? Do you think tonnes of Faith Driven Investor should be using the permanent equity model? Do you think it’s another tool in the tool chest and there’s a great number of tools, or do you see the market going? What encouragement would you have for other Faith Driven Investor to maybe starting a fund? How would you encourage them to think about what might be the right fit for them and what God might be calling them to?

Brent Beshore: That’s a great question. And look, I want to be clear. There’s been a lot of people who served a lot of companies and a lot of investors by using a traditional two and twenty ten year, 12 year, whatever the shorter term vehicle it would be. And I’m not going to sit here and say I know more than them. What I would say is that logically, when you think about first principles, the more optionality that you can have, the value of an option is in being able to make a decision down the road. And if you talk to any private equity investor has been doing it for very long and you ask him what’s the most painful company experience in their career, most of the time it’s not the one that went to zero. That’s actually not the thing that they’re most upset about. The one that they’re most upset about is the one that they just had a tiger by the tail. They knew that the thing was going to grow for decades. And they just I mean, the thing was a bonanza and they had to go and sell it. And they knew that the guy who they were going to sell it to or the woman they were going to sell to was going to experience an unbelievable ride up. And then they were going have to sell it to somebody else. Right. And so you get these really weird situations where it doesn’t make economic sense, it doesn’t make cultural sense to have to sell something, but you have to sell it. And I think the longer you can stretch that time horizon, it doesn’t mean you have to hold everything. I mean, this is something that’s very different than I think people would assume. Sometimes sellers will say it us. OK, so you’re pledging to never sell our business and we say absolutely not. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I think there are good reasons to sell and bad reasons to sell. Do you think there’s anything wrong with selling? And they’ll say, well, yeah, I mean, if you’re going to sell my business, then why wouldn’t I just sell it to traditional private equity? I said, you’re selling the business so there can’t be anything inherently wrong with selling. Right. It’s what are you selling for the right reasons or the wrong reasons? And I think a really, really bad reason to sell is the time clock stopped. Right. And you’re being forced to there are good reasons to sell, which is somebody would be a better owner of that asset than you are. Somebody would be able to encourage flourishing in that asset more than you can. They would be able to bring a skill set. They would bring as I’m going to slip into consultancy gear and going to use that word synergy. Right. They can bring synergy the table more than we can. So I would just say is from a fund structure standpoint, I encourage people to think about this as look optimally, it would be an indefinite sort of holdco structure. I think there are even problems with that. And Henry touched on it earlier with liquidity. And, you know, how do you make sure you get the right mix of investors? And, look, everything’s going to be complicated, but I think the longer you can stretch your time horizon, the better. Would it actually show up and returns? Would it actually show up in the value of the company? I think it depends on the company. It depends on the people. It depends on their mentality. But it never hurts to gain optionality. And I think that in this case, for where private equity is today, I think there’s a lot of people waking up, both CPAs and LPs. Right. I mean, there’s on both sides of the ledger saying I think it’s better to go longer as long as we have some checks in place and that we can be responsible for it. The other thing is just I mean, frankly, I’m thirty eight when we raise the first fund, I was thirty five. Thirty four. I mean, I’ve done it on my own with my own capital since my mid 20s. We first raised our capital as my early to mid 30s. If you’re going to have a long time horizon, you also got to have a long time horizon. That makes sense. So I mean, most people who get into private equity didn’t follow my path. Like, I joke that I’m the Forrest Gump of private equity for a reason. I kind of fell backwards into it. And so most people are spinning out in their forties and you’re just probably not going to have a 30 year time horizon in your 40s as a GP. And so I think there’s some very good reasons potentially in that situation to not have a longer time horizon.

William Norvell: Superville, that’s great. Says I think about moving towards our clothes. And Luke and Henry, jump in here. Just kind of you know, if you had one or two pieces of advice or investors on the other side of this podcast, they’re out there. They may be looking for venture capital companies. They may be looking for long term hold companies. They may be looking at the public markets. What do you think Jesus has taught you about how you look at investing? What would be one or two pieces of advice or thoughts that you would say, you know, this is something I’ve just been really thinking over as an investor that I think Jesus has shown me.

Brent Beshore: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the lessons that I repeatedly learned that I think is just cause God wants us on our knees, God wants our whole heart, God wants our whole self. And I don’t think that you should take investing and put it off to the side. And O’Henry is really passionate about this, too. And I applaud a lot of the things that he said and talked about. This is going to bring your whole self in your whole life and put it in God’s hands. And so when it comes to investing, you know, I would say having the humility to say, God, I don’t know, lead me and guide me, you give me wisdom. Don’t sort of move investing off to the side and have it be something where your analytical over here and your hard nosed and met people who it’s almost like they’re Christians on Sundays and maybe Christians on Mondays and Tuesdays. But when they talk to GPS on Wednesdays and Thursdays, they’re definitely not believers. Right. And I think that that compartmentalization is really detrimental to both their life and their returns probably over time as well, as well as it’s really detrimental to the people who are trying to invest. And so practically, what does that look like? It means that try to be kind and gentle and understanding and trying to figure out what is the thing that that investor, if you’re going to put your capital with an investor, what are they really trying to achieve and why are they trying to achieve it? And what makes you confident that the thing that that has created success in the past is going to be sustained? I think there’s a lot of people rushing into different areas. And I mean, certainly right now there’s a huge rush of people into what I call lower middle market private equity and pursuing all kinds different structures, which is wonderful. Right. And there’s a tremendous amount of need. And I’m not discouraging that in any way. But I would say is I’ve seen people who with no track record and with very little expertize in the space, raise money from people just because they say, hey, there’s this idea that I have. And the reality of it is, William, as you know, I mean, I’m preaching to the choir here. It’s brutally difficult. One of the things I want to make sure people get from my comments is, you know, I’m not being flippant when I say that I’ve gotten on my knees every single time after we close the transaction and prayed to God would rescue me. That’s literally true every single time we’ve ever made an investment. I’ve had a moment after close where I thought I shouldn’t have done this. This was a mistake. And look, God has rescued us. And I think that the area, the market people can look at and see, OK, you’re paying half of the multiples that you’re paying in the public markets. That’s really attractive. Look at the yields you can get. The reason why it’s cheap is because it’s really, really, really hard and it’s really fraught with risk. And these companies can go to zero very quickly. And so I would just say is, if you’re an investor thinking about entering into small business, private investing, take it slow work with somebody who’s done it for a while, learn the ropes. A lot more things sound good than are actually true. And I say that comes back down to humility. And God wants us humble and dependent and follow that from the Bible.

Henry Kaestner: It is it is all in the Bible

William Norvell: brand, I think said it so well. Like, one of the best ways that God lives with us is to pour his word into us and let us pour over his word with him. And so we do, as you know, love to ask, just like is there a verse is there a story that is helping bring some of those things you just articulated to life during this season? Right. I mean, God’s word just moves with us through the seasons of life and just wondering if there is something God’s been using in your life to help bring some of these thoughts to mind.

Brent Beshore: Yeah, first of all, it’s a great question. I’ll tell you, there’s no one verse or no one story. And I think you can see this repeated in the Bible. And this has taken me a long time and only recently has been a somewhat of a revelation to me is that I, for most of my life, have focused on the content of what I say and not how I say it. I focused on being correct in my logic and being thoughtful in how I would write something out. Right. Like that’s how I think is how I would write. And oftentimes what it does is it causes me relational issues because I don’t say things with a loving heart and with a goal of helping somebody understand. And this is just my own pride in my junk’s sort of coming through. But when I think about Jesus at the well, with woman at the well. Right. I mean, it’s the most beautiful story of love and acceptance while also not shying away from truth. There’s a lot of ways you can say truth without hurting the other person in the process. And I think that recently, you know, when I think about the story of the prodigal son. Right. And like just how the father was so loving and accepting of him coming back and loving and kind towards the older brother who I identify with a lot as well. Right. And I identify, unfortunately, both brothers in different ways. And I think that the whole point is the content of our conversations, the content of our interactions with others. It might only be 20 percent of really what people hear. And I think so often it’s the other big chunk is how you say it with the right tone, with the right kindness and love wrapped around it. So not to. Shy away from truth, I think you can get squishy and, you know, if you don’t have any truth in it, just all grace. And I think that that’s not loving actually either as well. But I just need to focus way more on that. And that’s something that recently I’ve tried to focus on more and stumbling my way through it. But I think just really trying to be thoughtful of who is the other person, what do they need and what is a way in which I can communicate with them in a way that shows them I care and that I’m for them. And even when I’m saying things that maybe are opposed to what they would hope, I would say

William Norvell: I mean, I’m in

Henry Kaestner: front. I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful for you taking the time for you, sharing what you’re doing. I think a bunch of different approaches, I think are really, really important. And I think that it’s particularly helpful for me. My big one takeaway, I mean, there are lots of different things about the model I think are important. Lots of different approaches to working with entrepreneurs and investments. And how we think about that that are unique and interesting would even get into the fact that you’ve got this really unique advantage of being in the center of the country and being able to take a look at some of these businesses that might otherwise be overlooked. And you had a really, really, really interesting. But the one thing that I’m going to take away from this is what we talked about before, which is that as an investor endeavors to know God and enjoy him forever, we have to be conscious of our propensity towards having both knowledge and academic knowledge at the expense of a close, intimate relationship with the founder and the owner of the universe. And that remains probably my greatest challenge. And you helped put some words to that, that I think that resonate with me and I hopefully a lot of our listeners. So thank you for that. Thank you for your time.

Brent Beshore: Yeah. I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much. And it’s a pleasure. Keep up the great work.

Dallas Jenkins: I reached a point in my career shortly before the chosen, where I was genuinely OK with never making another movie because my movie failed. The movie that I had done, I had finally gotten to this place where Hollywood wanted to make movies with me, financed my movie, produced my movie The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, released in theaters. Everything was great. They wanted to make multiple movies with me over the next ten years. I was a director with a very bright future, and then my movie completely bombed. And in my lowest moment, confused wondering why God allowed this to happen, wondering where my future was. I genuinely got to a place where I didn’t feel responsible to feed the 5000. I only felt responsible to provide the loaves and fish.

Rusty Rueff: If you’re listening today to our podcast that you haven’t yet watched the chosen, well, we would highly recommend putting it at the top of your to binge list. It’s an amazing narrative of the life of Jesus that has seen increased popularity recently, and today we’re talking to the man behind the show. That’s right. Dallas Jenkins is the creator, director and co-writer of The Chosen, which, in addition to being the first multi season series about the life of Christ, is also the most successful media crowdfund of all time. Let’s hear from Dallas and let him explain how all of this has come to be.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and at Faith Driven Investor podcasts were really fired up about today’s guest. I mean, any time we have a crossover podcast when we’re talking to Faith driven entrepreneurs and Faith Driven Investor, it’s kind of a big deal around here and it’s a big deal for me as a father of three teenage boys. It is definitely a big deal for William. If you’re not seeing this on video and this is an audio podcast, so we’ll do some video snippets. We put up on the website. William is sporting a t shirt today. What is the t shirt say? Get used to different, get used to different. And I think that if there’s something that you are more of a fanboy about other than Alabama, everything, it may be the chosen.

William Norvell: It very well could be. This is one of the highlights. This is definitely the first time I’ve ever worn a podcast t shirt to his interview and not really being ashamed about it. Like, you know, there’s certain times where you’re like, You know, I know I’m doing it and it’s going to be weird, but it has had such a profound impact on my life. I am so grateful for the work the Dallas has done and is a slogan get used to it. I ordered so many things with us because it it motivates me every day as as so many things throughout the series is done and just change my family’s life, the conversations we have and my walk of Christ profound way. So yes, I am wildly excited about today’s episode.

Henry Kaestner: So Dallas, thank you. Everybody now knows who our special guest is. It’s Dallas Jenkins, creator of the chosen Dallas. Thank you very much for being on the program.

Dallas Jenkins: Oh, I appreciate that and you look great. I know the listener can’t see it, but get used to different t shirt. Looks great, and that is based on episode seven of season one, when Jesus says that to Simon Peter, so get used to different. And that phrase really has become, I think, a calling card and a call to action for the show and for people who watch the show because I think it applies to Jesus, his ministry. I think it applies to everything that we’ve done with this show from day one. Everything about it has been different. So I feel like it’s something we say to the audience. It’s something Jesus says to us, and it’s something we say to ourselves. So I love that you’re that you’re bringing that T-shirt onto the podcast. I think it’s actually appropriate.

Henry Kaestner: MIT indeed. Indeed. OK, we like to do this with every podcast guest that is to understand a bit of your background, who you are, where you come from, the things that led you up until your creative career. Just give us five. Or please.

Dallas Jenkins: Well, my father is Jerry Jenkins. She’s the author of the left behind books, and even before the left behind books exploded in popularity, sold 70 million copies by the time I was getting out of college. He had written well over 100 books before that as well. So I grew up in a storytelling family. I grew up in a very strong conservative, fundamentalist Christian home, and I was actually sheltered a little bit from movies. Even my dad happened to be a big movie buff, but when I was growing up, they kept a pretty tight rein on things. I wanted to kind of protect my innocence until I got to about middle school when my dad started introducing me to some of the great movies of all time. So the storytelling side of me was developed from a young age, but the movie side of me didn’t come until I was in high school when I was growing up the

Henry Kaestner: set of those movies. I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a number of parents are listening to this and say, Oh my goodness, Jerry Jenkins Dallas Jenkins the inspiration in his he’s holding up dad. I want to see these movies, and then all of a sudden there’s like 12 that he’s kind of held back. And now, Son, I’m going to sit you down and we’re going to watch it. And maybe no one’s not the godfather. Where are they?

Dallas Jenkins: No one was The Godfather. Actually, I was actually literally going to say, Well, the first one was The Godfather, and that was when I was about eighth or ninth grade, and my dad started to say he basically started telling me, I’m a big movie buff. I watch all the movies just, you know, and I’d seen some as well. It’s not like my parents had me for movies and they were pretty. They’re pretty strict about what I watched. And then it became movies like The Godfather, and

Henry Kaestner: that makes me feel so much better about that being my number one. This is like, this is cathartic for me, so thank you. But he wanted

Dallas Jenkins: to introduce me to some of the great movies of all time. And I remember when I was a freshman in high school, I saw the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and that movie is what changed my life. It was there’s a scene in One of the Cuckoo’s Nest where Jack Nicholson is denied the opportunity to watch the World Series. And so he’s so angry about it. He goes over to a TV and just stares at the blank screen and starts broadcasting his own made up World Series game, and all of the other patients at the mental institution start getting into it and cheering and going crazy. And that scene, I was so emotionally engaged and I was so inspired watching it. I thought, whatever that is, I want to do that. I want to arouse in audiences the same kind of response that this scene is getting in me. And I thought in all the faith based movies or shows that I’ve ever seen, that never happens. I’m almost never moved emotionally. I’m almost never inspired. Sometimes I enjoy them. Sometimes I don’t. But I’m never emotionally engaged in biblical projects in Faith-Based projects, and there weren’t actually all that many back when I was growing up. So that’s when I turned from being an athlete, which was always kind of my goal and maybe a sports broadcaster to, OK, I want to make movies. I want to tell stories. And that’s when everything kind of changed in my life. And then when the left behind books exploded, when I was in college, I had the opportunity to work for the company that was going to make them into movies, just a small production company out of Louisville. And they were the ones who got the rights and were developing. And I went to work for them as a low level secretary, and I was just like an entry level, almost like I was like a paid internship. But over the first three and a half years or so, I worked my way up to help them with a lot of the things I really just decided while I was working there. I’m going to make myself valuable. I’m going to make myself irreplaceable. And so I’m going to try to find the things that they don’t understand or don’t know or need help with in the business, and I’m going to learn those things. And then by the time that they were ready to make the first left behind movie, I actually and my dad realized this movie isn’t actually going to be what we were hoping it was going to be. And maybe let’s do our own thing. So my dad and I started Jenkins Entertainment, which by that point he had the financial means to do something like that because of the success of the books. And so we decided to make our own movies. And that was the thing that we noticed really quickly. While we were kind of getting involved in the Hollywood scene was in the independent world at least. There were lots of people who were talking about making movies and developing movies, but there weren’t a lot of people actually making them. So we figured we could set ourselves apart by just going ahead and making one. So I was twenty five years old and we went ahead and produced my very first film. Hometown Legend High School faith based football movie before high school, faith based football movies were cool. We were a little bit ahead of our time and the movie didn’t do extremely well, but it got picked up by Warner Brothers, which when you’re an independent filmmaker, 10 percent of movies get picked up. I mean, most of them, don’t we? Right out of the gate got picked up by major studio, which is really cool, and that kind of began the last 20. I’m forty five now since twenty years ago that all that happened. So but that was that was the beginning that was kind of the Reader’s Digest version of how this all got started.

Henry Kaestner: What was it that you saw back then in just every action was about trying to solve a problem and lean into an opportunity? And just like the guys in the Cuckoo’s Nest are just trying to create their own experience and trying to to make something happen. There must have been something that you looked out there and just saw. Gosh, nobody’s doing things this way. We need to tell stories that do this with this type of quality to tell this type of story. What was it that drove you to that? What was it that you didn’t see with a company that was trying to do that with left behind? What was it that fueled you into this entrepreneurial space?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, yeah, it just seemed to be all or nothing. I mean, it was either movies coming from Hollywood that had a completely agnostic, atheistic secular. I don’t like to use the term secular too often, but when I would watch movies or television shows, I never saw myself represented, I never saw faith represented. It didn’t reflect the world that was. Not only did it not reflect my world, I don’t think it reflected the world at large. Art is supposed to reflect society in some way. And when you know, half the country, maybe a little bit less of the country are Christians, or at least have some sort of faith journey. And then the world of art and popular culture have none of that represented, just like 99 percent coming from one political, socioeconomic and religious worldview or lack of religious worldview. I just thought there needs to be more in that. There needs to be something involved in the pop culture conversation that includes faith or it includes my experience when it does happen, when it did happen, usually in the independent world, because the gatekeepers on the large scale pop culture world just had no interest in it, nor should they ever it wasn’t. I don’t expect them to necessarily care about a world that they don’t really participate in. But it was always really low quality or it was cheesy, or it was so Christian that it didn’t really connect. And I just thought there has to be room for a movie or movies that feel like normal movies. They just happen to have people of faith or happen to have a spiritual journey in some way that’s accurately presented. And so that was the hole that I was willing or eager to fill. Now the problem was, I don’t think I was good enough when I first started to make a movie that could truly compete on the pop culture level. So when I made this movie, Amen legend and Warner Brothers picked it up and I’m like, Oh great, a big, major studio. Well, the first thing who they wanted to do was try to appeal to a niche market, one that they didn’t understand, which was the faith based market or faith based market that hadn’t really evolved yet. The Passion of the Christ hadn’t come out yet. Left behind was popular, but that was on the book side of things. No one had really cracked the code. And so my movie was fine. It was good, but it wasn’t good enough to really break out into kind of the mainstream. So anyway, I ended up for the first, you know, kind of 15 years of my career operating in the faith based space and just coming to the conclusion that, all right, maybe I’m not going to reach kind of the pop culture mainstream, and that’s OK, but I’m going to at least do my very best to make the faith based media world as good as it can be, or at least what I can do to make it as good as it can be. So that was that was part of my journey and those were the holes I was trying to fill in. They tended to change over a couple of years. I think my calling shifted a little bit. At least my understanding of what I wanted to do shifted a little bit until probably twenty six or seven when I really felt God calling me to not try to shift any of my content. I’m just going to be unashamed and, you know, do content that brings people closer to Christ that isn’t trying to be cute or nuanced. While nuanced. I shouldn’t say that I’m trying to be nuanced, but I’m saying it’s not trying to apologize for its faith. Content is going to be unabashedly Faith-Based.

Henry Kaestner: So it’s clear that you’ve got a creative drive, and we did talk a little bit later about this on the podcast on a focus on excellence, but I’m intrigued by the relationship that you have with your father. It’s not often that an entrepreneur with a lot of vision and a passion gets started in a business with their dad, particularly one that’s a creative one like yours is. What was that like? There must have been a view that he had of what society needed in the stories it needed to be told, and you must have had the same or the same general concept. But what was it like starting a business with your dad when your dad had already been creative and maybe you wanted to taking a different direction? And, you know, left behind has a stern view on some aspects of theology. And one of the things that comes through now through the work that you’ve done is a more holistic view by, of course, examining the Gospels with so much more that’s in there. But what did that look like starting a business with your dad? And I shouldn’t ask a leading question as to presume that there are differences because maybe there weren’t but talked to us through that process.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, I wouldn’t say there were strong differences much. I mean, I didn’t have the same passion. I mean, left behind. We really wanted it to be a big movie that could really compete in the mainstream. We knew that it wasn’t necessarily going to be a movie for nonbelievers too much, but we really wanted it to kind of really be out there and be high quality, and we thought that that wasn’t going to happen. I think both of us had the same passion just to create something that felt like the kind of movie we would want to go see in theaters. And we didn’t get there initially. I mean, we didn’t. I don’t think we accomplished that for a little while, but I think we had the same passion. I mean, my dad is a genuine movie buff. He sees almost everything. And we had the same taste, for the most part. But he recognized that he was hands off when it came to the content for the most part, I mean, he would speak into the storytelling, but he recognized that there’s a big difference between writing books and making movies. And so that was really the only difference. Otherwise, he’s always been extremely supportive and has always been on my page when it came to the kinds of movies that we wanted to make. So my dad and I have been very, very close. As long as I can remember, I mean, I think he was always my dad, of course. But when I got into college is when we became friends as well. And we’ve just always kind of had the same passion, the same desire to impact the world. We love the same Jesus. We read the same Bible and want to make Jesus known. In the most fascinating thing is the journey that I’ve been on, that he’s been a part of and been able to watch in many ways to watch what has happening with the Chosen Today and how the left behind series came out 25 years ago. And to see it kind of follow a similar track, you know, to get out into pop culture relevance and to do that, it was not at all trying to be pop culture relevant. It was solely focused on like the left behind books were just solely focused on telling the story of the gospel in an interesting way, and that’s what the chosen is trying to do. So that may be a scattered answer to your question, but I don’t think we’ve ever really been in opposition to what our goals are, what our mission is.

Henry Kaestner: So as you look at taking on the gospel and you start off with some more general storytelling and then you get into like the greatest story ever told, I think about a staff meeting we had the other day. And William, who’s about to come on here in a second, was talking about how powerful one of the episodes was that he’s watching in season two. And one of the people that was on our staff, me said, Don’t tell me what happens. And then he realized, actually, I know what happened, right? Because we all know the story. And yet the way that you’re able to bring that out is done so well. And so it’s a question of like, how do you do it? And you know, is there going to be something that’s so memorable that creates this new shirt like, you know what we’ve got with season one, episode seven? Talk to us about that initial process, though, as you go ahead and say, we’re going to take on the gospel. Was that like, super intimidating?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, that’s a really good question. Yeah, I guess I have a bit of a superpower in that I don’t really care about the response to my work other than I want to have impact. I want to impact people’s hearts. And when I say I don’t care, of course, I don’t mean that in the arrogant sons. It just means that if I believe I’m doing the right thing, if I believe that God has called me to do something, and at that point, the train has left the station, so I’m not intimidated by it. I get excited by it. And I reached a point in my career shortly before the chosen, where I was genuinely OK with never making another movie because my movie failed. The movie that I had done, I had finally gotten to this place where Hollywood wanted to make movies with me, financed my movie, produced my movie The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, released in theaters. Everything was great. They wanted to make multiple movies with me over the next ten years. I was a director with a very bright future, and then my movie completely bombed. And in my lowest moment, confused wondering why God had allowed this to happen, wondering where my future was. I genuinely got to a place where I didn’t feel responsible to feed the 5000. I only felt responsible to provide the loaves and fish. And so all I cared about was making my five loaves and two fish is good and healthy as they could be. And when I really got to that place mentally, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, all of that and I genuinely believed that all I cared about was that if I handed my loaves and fish to God and he deemed them worthy of acceptance, the transaction was over and I was comfortable with that. So. I wasn’t intimidated by doing this because I was like, what have I got to lose? I mean, it’s all gravy from here. I didn’t expect any of this to work. I mean, I did a short film for my church’s Christmas Eve service about the birth of Christ. From the perspective of the shepherds who was only going to be seen by my church. I shot it on my friend’s farm in Illinois, 20 minutes from my house, and there was no pressure. And while I was making it, I had this idea for the show. And so then when the opportunity came to release the short film to the world and to ask if people wanted to crowdfund season one of a show about Jesus, I figured we’d raise, you know, fifteen hundred dollars. And when we ended up shattering the all time crowdfunding record and raising over $10 million from 19000 people. I’m like, What the heck is going on here? Like, OK, fine. Sure. All right, let’s keep going. I haven’t had time to be in Tim Keller. I’ve had time to stop and think about it. And every time I sit down at a blank screen, the blank screen for season three, which we’re writing right now, doesn’t give a crap about how successful season one was or how much people love season two or anything. I just haven’t had time to care about those things. All I have time to do is make sure that what I’m doing is as good as it can be and as pleasing to God as it can be. So I’m not intimidated by the critiques that I’ve gotten. I don’t. Every day I’m called a heretic or blasphemer or a cult leader, and then that doesn’t bother me. And then every day, I’m also called by some people, the greatest filmmaker who ever lived in making the show that’s changed their lives. And that doesn’t impact me either, other than to just make me really humbled and grateful that I’m part of something that God is doing. So I hope I’m coming across OK because I don’t mean to sound arrogant and I don’t mean to sound condescending. It really just is a I feel like I’m playing with house money here. I know maybe a worldly gambling term isn’t great for a spiritual experience like this, but I just don’t like how I’m intimidated. I don’t know this God’s doing so many cool things. I just think it’s really exciting and fun. So that’s really what’s been part of it for me.

William Norvell: I think that’s amazing and that amazing perspective. I love how you said just like, yeah, it’s just about offering the loaves and fishes and what God does with it. And that’s every entrepreneur’s journey, right? If you don’t get to that point, if you don’t find your identity there, you’re going to find it and everything else, and that’s always going to ultimately disappoint. And so I think,

Dallas Jenkins: Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Go ahead. I’m reading a book right now called Billion Dollar Loser. It’s about the rise and fall of WeWork, which was, you know, this unicorn company. And then it completely collapsed. And the founder, you know, collapsed and all that. And I’m early in the book, but I read a lot of books like that, you know, books about the rise or the rise and fall of certain entrepreneurs. And it strikes me that so many people seem to build companies with the goal in mind of, you know, changing the world. And I think we do that ministry to I think faith based ministries or faith based entrepreneurs tend to have the same kind of goal. And it’s a good goal because you’re thinking, what’s wrong with wanting to change the world for Christ? The problem becomes when you are thinking about the result and when you are thinking about the number of people who are going to be impacted instead of thinking about the very first step that you’re taking and make sure that it’s grounded in what God wants from you. And I’ve read all about, you know, be bags, and I’ve read all about the five year plan and all of that. And you know, Sylvester’s book me, myself and Bob, which is one of the top five books I’ve ever read. And for any entrepreneur, any business leader, any ministry person, anybody, I mean, I think it’s great book for anybody. But if you want a book on a blow by blow account of what it looks like to rise and fall and rise and fall and be steered and go your own way and all this stuff, I mean, it is an extraordinary book. Phil Fisher, the creator of VeggieTales and he’s the one who said Where you’re at and five years is none of your business. And that is in the same universe as it’s not your job to feed the 5000. It’s only provide the loaves and fish. And when you truly get to that place and it’s hard to get there, and sometimes you may have to fail to get there, but when you truly get to that place, I’m telling you it is life altering and freeing and exciting and not intimidating, and it makes the journey exciting and fun, regardless of whether you have success or not. I have been preaching the same message for the last three years, including before the chosen even existed. I was telling people I found joy, I found this freedom and that it’s not my job to feed. The five thousand is only provide the lowest dish. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but I’m telling you I’m in a better place than I’ve ever been in my whole career, and I’m at my lowest point in my career. And that was before the chosen even existed

William Norvell: at this school. How did that play with your family, with your friends? So I’m hearing that and I’m inspired. I’m interested. I’m listening to entrepreneurs out there. Is that something that they heard and said, Yes, Amen. Or did they fight that? How did that message eventually take root? What was that? An encouragement discouragement? How did you walk that journey?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, that is a great question, and my family’s involvement in this is really cool because there’s an episode in. Season one of the chosen where Simon is home. Seven Peter and his wife, Eden, who’s not explicitly discussed in scripture other than to say that Simon had a mother in law, but she is really upset at Simon because she can tell that he is straying from his faith. He’s trying to do things his own way. He’s trying to solve his own problems, and he ends up staying up all night, trying to solve his own problems, fishing all night and he can’t catch a fish. And the next morning he encounters Jesus and Jesus. You know, does the miracle of the fish. It’s a famous story in the Bible, and it fills two boats full of fish, and all Simon’s problems are solved from a fishing standpoint, and then Jesus asks them to give up everything and follow him. So Simon comes home to his wife, and he has to explain to her why he’s literally giving up everything and to follow Jesus and their earthly possessions might be in trouble because he doesn’t have a source of income anymore, and he expects her to be really upset and she starts crying and he’s like, Why are you upset? She’s like, I’m not upset. This is the man that I married, and she gets emotional and she’s like, This is what I wanted from you all along. And for my wife, Amanda, I wouldn’t say she was necessarily. Wanting for me all along to not have a future in this business, she was just as crushed as I was. But when we were sitting there crying together. It’s not a negative memory, but I get emotional thinking about it because we were home alone and just so confused and so broken, and God was pushing us to read the story of the feeding of the 5000, it was my wife who we pushed to read that story. And we were trying to figure out what he had for us in that story. At four o’clock in the morning when I was writing a 15 page memo on everything that had gone wrong and everything that I had done wrong and every choice that I had made that was wrong. And how could I avoid doing this again? You know, the mortem that most of us do after a success or failure and a man across the world who was in Romania, God laid it on his heart. Kal Dallas, it’s not your job to feed the 5000. It’s only to provide the loaves and fish, and he’s like, really, god, that’s what you want me to tell them. And it’s like, Yes. And he told me that at four o’clock in the morning, just out of the blue, I put out a Facebook message and I. For a moment, I wondered if my computer had been recording what my wife and I had been talking about all day long is the feeling at five thousand. Yeah, exactly. Bill Gates has been tracking us all along. So then he says, Yeah, it wasn’t me. God just wanted me to tell you that. So my wife was completely on this track of we don’t know the future, but we just want to be in God’s will. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. And then I resigned from my job for lots of different reasons. I was working at this church and there was a scandal and it was all a big deal. And so I resigned from my job and didn’t have income, didn’t have benefits, just had this hope that the chosen would in fact crowdfund millions of dollars so that we could make a multi-season show about Jesus based on a short film I did on my friend’s farm. None of it made sense, but my kids were certainly confused and a little nervous, and we sat them down and we said, Here’s what God we feel is leading us to do, and we are not going to have benefits. And yes, a month into our not having benefits, we had gotten this Christian Health Care Ministry. We had applied for that. This called Samaritan Ministries. And I’m not trying to do a plug for them, but it’s one of those ministries where you, you know, everything is self-pay and and it’s not official health insurance. And that’s what we were doing us all we had and that’s what we were able to afford. And I didn’t have I didn’t have a job, so I wasn’t on a health plan. And within the first couple of months, we had more health problems than we’d had in the previous 20 years combined literally $100000 worth of things from like me having a appendectomy to my daughter shattering her collarbone. I mean, everything went crazy and I didn’t have a job, and we just sat our kids out here like we believe that the church is going to provide. We believe God is going to come through and let’s just walk through this together. And it’s been so cool to watch my kids get a front row seat to not only God showing up for our own family, you know, and through this amazing Christian Health Care Ministry taking care of everything. But to see the chosen do what it’s doing and every now and then when I’m able to read to them someone saying my entire family has been transformed because of this show or someone in Iran saying, because you’ve done this show and because you guys have made it free and because you know, you’ve put it on an app, I mean, a country hostile to Christianity, and I was able to download it and save my soul. I’m able to read that to the kids and go to remember three years ago, it was just three years ago when we were sitting at the table and had no idea what our future holds. I encourage people to when they are in God’s will or when they are following a spiritual path as opposed to just doing it on their own. I encourage them to include your children in that process so that when God provides that, it may not be financial, it may not be physical. But when he shows up and you see the consequences and the results by consequences, I mean, in a good way of surrendering to God and not caring about earthly success, it can be a really beautiful thing for your family to experience.

William Norvell: Hmm. Hey, man, thank you for sharing that. I imagine lots of entrepreneurs that have felt similar feelings and been in that moment because as we know, this is not a journey where everything works. You know, obviously, I don’t think we have time to go into the whole story, but you mentioned pieces of it. I’ve heard you talk before. I think people could look at the success that you get. Wow, viral hit. You know, he did it. And you know, really, your story’s more of a 15 20 year overnight success of a long obedience to the same direction. And I think you even met Jonathan Rumi. Wasn’t he one of the thieves in your short video? Yeah, you had met him years before even God was sort of riding that path.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah. So Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in the chosen play Jesus for me eight years ago when I was doing short films and vignettes for my church, I was doing it for Good Friday services. And I did one about the crucifixion of Christ to the eyes of the two thieves on the cross. Jonathan played Jesus. He was only on screen for about five minutes and I thought, My goodness, this is the best depiction of Christ they’ve ever seen. Like his performance, I just loved it. And then we started doing it each year for Good Friday. And so when I had the opportunity to make the show, he was obviously the first person cast. But yeah, I’m telling you, sometimes it’s easy for people to go well, yeah. Viral hit. It’s easy for you to say now that you just trusted God, you just submit to do as well. And then, look, now you’ve got this international success and everything seems to be going well. I’m just telling you, I was giving the same message when I had no job. I mean, I remember I gave a speech to a Christian film festival and I was speaking to 750 people and was sharing the story of how God had worked in my failure. And I got up and I said, Look, I can’t give you much advice on filmmaking right now because I coming off of my biggest career failure. And the only thing I just did a couple of weeks ago was a short film for my church. But the. Birth of Christ. So all I’m just telling you is I have more joy than I’ve ever had, and I understand how God works more than I ever have. And you know, I feel like my whole career I’ve been seeking the wrong thing. I think I’ve been trying to be approved by Hollywood. I’ve been trying to be successful. I’ve been trying to be impactful. I’ve been thinking about the results and now I’m in this place where I don’t. I just I don’t care about that anymore as long as I’m going to God what he wants from me. And I think it’s two years later, I came back to that same festival. And it’s like, funny story since I talked to you last time, look at what’s happened. And they were they had already known they’d seen it, they’d seen the results. It was just so cool for the people at that festival, for my family, for friends to see this journey and to see what it looks like to be broken by God and to be surrendered to him and to not care anymore what your results look like. And then the cool thing to see what happens next and it won’t happen for everybody, you know, at least in terms of the results financial of the results being successful. But I do believe that there’s freedom and joy in that.

William Norvell: It’s amazing. And I want to switch to one thing we haven’t touched on much. You had the greatest crowdfunding campaign in history. Talk us through a little bit of that. Why did you do crowdfunding? Why was that the decision? Right? I mean, there were lots of different ways to fund this operation. You’ve been making movies. You had tons of connections. Why? Why did you go this direction and kind of what have been the results of it?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, I didn’t have tons of connections at the time because the movie that I’d made it failed. So all the companies had wanted to make future movies with me, you know, backed out, and I didn’t have much of a future. So the crowdfunding idea certainly wasn’t my idea. I thought it was ridiculous and I didn’t think it would work. You know, typically, the all time crowdfunding record was $5.7 million from projects like Mystery Science Theater. 3000, which had big crowds already behind them, had a big fan base, and I was coming off of a career failure, and our Facebook page that we started for the show had a couple of hundred people and it just friends and family. And it was Angel Studios, the company that saw my short film were blown away by it, heard my idea for the show really wanted to do it. And they said, We want to raise the money through crowdfunding, and I was like, Oh, that’s ridiculous. Now, crowdfunding doesn’t work. You usually see it on social media. People are trying to raise money for some small project or some little thing that they’re doing for their friends. And you never see the bar get all the way to the end because they never quite raise enough money. And I’m like, We need a few million to do a show like this to do it right. And the all time record is 5.7 million. When the world are, we think it’s going to happen. But I was in this loaves and fishes state where I’m like, Well, it’s not my job to worry about. That’s not my job to feed the 5000 that bringing my loaves and fish, my loaves and fish happened to be a short film on my friend’s farm in Illinois. So, you know, we’ll see what happens. And then I think what happened was, you know, because people have asked me, Well, how did you do it? You know? What’s the secret sauce? And I think the secret sauce is you do have to have, you know what we would call a proof of concept. And now our proof of concept, for whatever reason, was guttural, impacting people. I mean, the people, the 19000 people who invested, some of whom I mean the minimum was $100. And some people said, and I’ve never done this before. They don’t even have hundred dollars typically to put into something like this. But when they watch the short film, something about it compelled them. They just felt like when they watched it, something happened. Something supernatural happened, probably. And they just thought I had to contribute. I had to be involved in this. God was just like hitting me with a sledgehammer. And I don’t know why that is. You know, I don’t think I’m someone special who I don’t think I’m capable of doing something transcendent. And I think God had something to say. You know, I hesitate to say things like that because I don’t want to claim spiritual authority, but it sure does feel like God is doing something. And the proof is in the fact that through the show, people are reading their Bibles more than ever. People are praying more than ever. We’re just hearing that over and over again. And I think, OK, that seems to be the proof text that God has something to say and want something to happen as opposed to just doing it on my own, if that makes sense.

Henry Kaestner: At the outset, you talked about the fact that there are 19000 or there were 19000 that were involved in the crowdfunding, and there’s something really powerful about that and it hits home for me because we’ve run a ministry called Faith Driven Investor and Faith Driven Investor. So much of what we do there tends to be focused on the qualified purchaser or the accredited investor. And yet we know that it was the what owner might that really had the gift that really mattered to God. And what crowdfunding means to me is that faith driven investing doesn’t need to just be the purview of the rich young ruler. It’s something that can now be democratized as somebody that received money investment money from 19000 people. Can you just speak to that? A little bit more about what that means for you as you get out there and you rally the crew together and you focus on, let’s go ahead and let’s produce some more. What does it mean for you to have that many people rooting for you with real skin in the game?

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, that’s such a great point. Yeah, I’ve talked about in that first round that we did for season one out of the 19000 people. There was one who invested $300000. There were a few others who did 100000, several who did 50000. The ones that meant the most to us and that were the most humbling. Like, we got one investment of two hundred and fifty two dollars. You know, clearly that woman she was from the Midwest, that was kind of the last of her disposable income for the month, you know, because it was such a specific figure. That meant as much or more than the gentleman who gave $300000. We think about that often, you know, we think about the people who are paying our salaries. I think there’s something really special about that. And when we got investors, you started to approach us and say, you know, we think we can get $30 million for you to do the next couple seasons and not have to worry about raising money all the time because it doesn’t stop there. Once we start doing season one, if we want to do future seasons, we have to continue to crowdfund. And this is a whole nother story of our decision to make the show totally free. But when we made the show totally free and now have to rely on people choosing to pay it forward if they want to, you know they don’t have to. We don’t force them. The show is totally free, but to keep the show going, they need to pay it forward if they so choose. And so we still have to pitch if for lack of a better term, our future seasons. And so yet when people came forward and said we want to invest, we just didn’t feel right about it. We didn’t want to diminish the share value of the nineteen thousand. It’s what keeps us up at night is making sure that we are honoring their faith in us. I mean, and they did that based on this short film that I did. They didn’t know if the show was going to be any good. They didn’t know it was going to be what it is. And I would say every single one that I’ve met has said, I don’t care about the return. I don’t care about the financial gain of it. If there is any, I’ll probably just put it back into the show and now their investment. I mean, we have done a valuation, a hardcore valuation, but their investment is probably worth five to ten times what they put in. The widow’s mite is going to return to them in a significant way. And there’s just something really beautiful about it, like you said, and it does remind me every day, you know, gosh, this is just something that we can never take for granted that our financiers are people who are not the kind of people who you’d normally expect. There’s a few of them, of course, but that’s not why they did. It is to make money. And that’s just so cool.

William Norvell: I mean, yeah, we are some version of that family. Our listeners may know I’m living with my in-laws right now, and we have lots of DVDs of the shows in here, and I’m not sure we have a DVD player. It is in the pay it forward mentality of my father in law just keeps buying them because he so wants to hand it to other people to let them know the story that you’re telling. And yes, this is not a promotional, but I’m going to promote it. The story of the disciples. I’ll let you tell it. Tell us a little bit. Give us a couple of minutes as we come to a close on why you chose to tell, like so intricate stories of the disciples and kind of their interactions with Jesus.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, I believe that if you can see Jesus through the eyes of those who actually met him, you can be changed and impacted in the same way that they were. If you can truly connect with one or more of our main characters, whether it’s Simon, Peter and his desperate attempts to provide for his family while being oppressed by the Romans and overtaxed and financially struggling. Matthew, the tax collector or someone who we portray as being on the autism spectrum and who is an outcast because he’s hated by the Jews for being a tax collector and disrespected by the Romans for being Jewish. Mary Magdalene, who’s oppressed by demons, has vices, has addictions, has fallen away completely from her faith. Nicodemus, a lifelong religious believer and leader, even someone who knows the scriptures and who is now coming face to face with something and someone who is turning his world upside down and wants a personal relationship with him, something he’s never had. If you can identify with their struggles, if you can identify with their questions, then you can hopefully identify with the answers to their questions and the solution to their struggles. And that’s why we take the time that we do. I mean, the first episode of season one, if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s been confusing for a lot of people, especially Christians. Non-Christians seem to have no problem with it. Because they watch it like they do any other show. Christians are like, wait a minute, what versus this based on? I don’t recognize this Bible verse. Who’s that guy? Where’s Jesus? I thought this was a Jesus show because we take the time to show you who these people are before they encounter Jesus. We take the time to establish their personal lives or personalities, their struggles, their story arc. And I think that’s what makes the show unique. And I think that’s what makes season by season shows unique multi-season shows as the characters. You really want to fall in love with these people so that you can engage with them over the course of multiple seasons. And so I just think that’s good television. I think that when you just take the time to really develop a story arc and a character arc and a journey for all of these people, it’s just that much more engaging than if you’re just strictly plot driven. Or in the case of the Jesus show, you’re just going verse to verse Bible, verse, the Bible, verse, miracle to miracle, and you don’t get a chance to understand or know anybody who is the recipient of these miracles. So there’s really no emotional connection. There’s not much you can learn from it. You’re just basically watching a reenactment of something you’ve already read. And I think that’s what sets our show apart and can sometimes be uncomfortable for people. You know, sometimes people are like, Wait a minute, that’s not in the Bible. You’re not supposed to add to the Bible, what are you doing? And we just have to remind people, this isn’t the Bible. Your Bible hasn’t changed since the show came out. This is a historical drama based on the people of first century Galilee, with using the Bible as their primary source of truth. And I think that that has been what has unlocked for people. So many of these stories and we hear constantly the Bible once one person said something we really loved. I felt like the Bible was in black and white, and now it feels like it’s in color. And it’s not because we’ve changed anything. It’s just because they’ve now, for some reason are understanding it better and being able to picture it now so that when they do read the Bible, it feels more alive than they did before they they understood it like they are now. So that’s a long answer to your question. I’m sorry, most of my answers have been long, but but that’s the why. That’s the reason is we want people to be more engaged when they read scripture Amen.

William Norvell: Now it’s a perfect answer. And you know, I can think of so many scenes from the wedding scene that I now see differently to the unbelievably dramatic conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus to the latest episode five where my brother texted me it got real. You got to watch it now. And, you know, unfortunately, we have to come to a close here, which means we may have to beg you for before

Henry Kaestner: we do that for you, I

William Norvell: might get a producer come in. We’re not. No, I’m

Henry Kaestner: not the executive producer. But I have a question that I love yet. It’s really very clearly it’s not all of it’s not scripture. Anybody who’s read scripture in the Gospels knows that some of the dialog you have is not part of the canon, right? And yet, because this is a tool that helps people to understand the God who loves them so much, you have decided to broaden these characters out so that people now watching it might be able to identify with them. But that’s some pretty heavy stuff, right? To be able to actually think about who this, you know, upon this rock, I’m going to build my church. I mean, this is Peter. I mean, he’s not supernatural and self, but I mean, he’s a pretty major historical figure, an incredible figure in the early church. And you’re endeavoring to understand what he look like, how he dressed and just the things that he wrestled with. What’s the process? You go by to just pray about that, to think about that, and then you’re the guy now who’s, you know, kind of defining for a lot of people what these Bible characters look like. How do you stay humble and all that? And that’s two questions the first good podcast host. I want to ask two questions all at once, but I’m trying to squeeze them in at the end. I’d love for you to go on a little mini recession on that, if you can.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, that is the scariest part. But I remember several years ago I was in Israel doing the research for the show, and I was in Magdalen, which is the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, and I was at a synagogue that had been on Earth. You know, just two decades earlier, they had found this synagogue under the Earth that had existed for 20 years. And I felt God laying it on my heart, and I don’t say that lightly. I say that with actually trepidation because, you know, how do you ever know fully that it’s God and not your own brain? And I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I felt God laying it on my heart that in several years, when people picture these disciples and Christ followers that the chosen is going to be what they have in their mind. And there hasn’t been up until now a definitive portrayal of these people like I didn’t have before the chosen, I didn’t have a picture in my mind of anybody other than Jesus, occasionally from a few movies. And you know, at the time when I felt, God blame it on my heart, I don’t know, you know, of course, at the time, I wasn’t sure if that was really God or just kind of my own thoughts. And I just thought, Wow, that’s really weighty, and I feel the weight of that and the pressure of that. But I felt also God kind of letting me know I’m not going to let you screw this up. This is going to be this is too important. And flash forward to now, and I hear every day someone will post on social media or send a note or something that says, this is who I picture when I picture the followers of Christ. And that is extraordinarily humbling because it makes you on one hand, you go along, that’s really cool. On the other hand, you go, Oh my goodness, I really need to be cautious. And we try to be cautious. But you mentioned episode five just now. You know, someone said it’s got real. Well, we made the choice to portray Mary Magdalen, who’s been delivered from demon possession. We made the choice of her to to backslide, to show her getting triggered by multiple things and backsliding and relapsing, basically. And if you haven’t seen episode five yet, I guess that’s a spoiler, but we give hints of it in the trailer and all that stuff. The Mary struggling. And for a lot of people, not the majority, but a lot of people really uncomfortable to really upset by it. Some people offended enough to claim they’re not going to watch the show anymore. And that decision took place on the front end. That’s where the prayer comes in. That’s where the consulting with our Bible experts and my pastor and, you know, our cultural and historical experts and biblical experts to go. Are we because we’re doing something that’s not in scripture, which is most of the show, really, if you think about it, if you just do the math. Ninety five percent of the show is probably not directly from scripture, because every time we show someone saying hello, it’s not from scripture, because scripture didn’t have anyone saying hello. So we’re always walking a fine line. We’re always having to be really cautious in making sure that we never violate the intentions or character of Jesus or the Gospels. So it is a lot of work on the front end to make sure that we’re staying within certain boundaries and making sure we’re not violating the character intentions. But then once we do it, I mean, there’s really no turning back. So the criticism is kind of what we expect anyway. We know it’s going to happen at some point from somebody. I’m sure even you as a fan of the show, if you haven’t already, you will have moments where you go. I would have done it that way or that doesn’t feel like the Jesus or the Peter or the Mary or whatever that I’ve read in the Gospels. I’m sure that’s going to happen, but hopefully. We just look at this as a this is a show that is attempting to be plausible, but it’s not a documentary he doesn’t claim to be scripture where is doing the best we can to portray plausibly an authentic version of what would have happened in these people’s lives during this time. So, yeah, it is a great weight and responsibility, but it’s also really fun, to be honest with you.

William Norvell: Am I allowed to go to the close now? Let me think about it. Yeah, I’m just going to close. I’m just waiting. I’m just waiting. You know, we’re we’re still in more Dallas this time, and that’s Crowd-Funding time. You know, he’s got things to do. Dallas will

Henry Kaestner: make it up to him then and make sure that you alluded the fact that he’s still doing crowd funding for season three, making it while

William Norvell: he is I, you know, and you can buy hats, you can buy shirts. I’ve got the hat on now you can buy DVDs or you can just give money and not profit off of it like I did, and I’m sure that that would probably go further. That’s probably his preference. But we are so grateful for your time. The number one thing we like to do at the end is try to bridge our audience and our guest and through the word of God. And so we love to ask at the end, you know, if you wouldn’t mind sharing something that God has taken you through, you’ve told us so much. But just maybe it could be something you came out today could be something you’ve been meditating on for a while. Just just where does God have you in his word today?

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah. I’ve already shared, I think, quite a lot of what God has shown me through this project, and I think that number one thing is the whole story of the feeding of the 5000. I want to read a verse that has become my life verse over the last five or six years, and it’s Psalm. Thirty four five. And it says those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. And I think that’s just so much in that verse. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. I can think of all the time that I’ve been ashamed in my life, and it’s never been what I’ve been looking at. God. It’s always been because I’ve been looking at myself. I’ve been inward focused. I’ve been lusting. I’ve been seeking fleshly desires. But when I look to God. And of course, now being in the presence of God can shame you in the sense that you feel human and you feel sinful. But when you’re really looking to God for your guidance, when you’re looking to him for your fulfillment, when you’re looking to him for your identity. And that’s the path that you are taking. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall not be ashamed. That’s where we need to be on a day to day basis are looking to him. That’s where we’re going to find radiance. And that’s what we’re going to find that lack of shame because shame comes from being alone and doing things that you wouldn’t be doing if you were looking to him. So that’s been, I think, a life first for me for a while now.

William Norvell: I met a man, well, I don’t think we cannot thank you enough for joining us here today and sharing the story and for just all the work you do and how faithfully you go about it and just grateful for your team and everybody tune in if you haven’t.

Henry Kaestner: That was. Thank you.

Dallas Jenkins: Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

Richard Cunningham: Jon, we are so grateful you’re here. I’m actually going to start reason for having me because it’s so impressive. And then we’ll have you fill in some of the gaps, though. All right. Here’s some of the Jon Erwin story. Jon Erwin began his career as a teenager working for ESPN as a camera operator in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. In 2002, he founded a production company with his brother, Andrew, the brother were directing videos and producing concerts and television programs for platinum recording artists such as Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Casting Crowns, Switchfoot, Skillet and others. They received 11 GLAAD Award nominations and three wins for Music Video of the Year. In 2010, Jon and Andrew began exclusively developing dramatic feature films. The features of all opened in the top 10 box office on opening weekend, and they received the coveted A-plus CinemaScore twice. Some of those titles are October Baby, Moms Night Out and Woodlawn. Additionally, the list also includes the surprise hit ‘I can only imagine’ which became the number one independent film of twenty eighteen, earning over eighty three million at the box office. In 2019, Jon and Andrew launched the Kingdom Story Company alongside their partners Kevin Downs and Tony Young, and the production company just released the new feature film American Underdog. Based on True, an inspiring story of Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Kurt Warner and his wife, Brenda. So if you don’t have plans this weekend, you’re going to watch American underdog. There’s a lot of your Bible Belt, man. Let’s start with the basics. Who are you? Fill it in. Then what has God done in your life to bring you here today?

Jon Erwin: Well, I mean, my name name’s Jon. I appreciate you guys having me. You know, I think I’m a living testament that God can use anyone. And we all have unique gifts. I had to do what’s done in the bios. I had to do kindergarten twice because I was an ADHD disturbance to the class. It was more everyone else’s grades than it was mine, but it was like I was that much of a disruption. And you know, you can’t grow up further away from L.A. or from Hollywood than Birmingham, Alabama. So I just think, you know, as the Bible says, God uses the weaklings of the world to confound the wise. And he’s given us all gifts and there’s nothing more fun and fulfilling vocationally than when you can really find, you know, there’s a lot of things that we can do. There’s only a few that that we can uniquely do, and I think even fewer that we’re sort of called to do. And if you live in your calling and your unique ability and you do it for God’s glory and for reasons beyond yourself, vocationally life does not get more fulfilling than that. So I’m one of those lucky people that gets to, I say, the coolest job in the world. And, you know, we say that, you know, we work for the fans. Everything we do is is about the people sitting in the seats and the experience they’re having with the movies. And I’m very grateful to have the job I have, you know, and to tell stories for a living. And so we say we’re storytellers serving the greatest storyteller of all time. And you know, it’s interesting. God is really, really on the move in Hollywood in ways that are really cool to be a small part of.

Katherine Trout: Thanks for sharing that, Jon. I know one question I’m sure you get a lot is how did you get to where you are today and where you just see the hands of a in that? And he started you in a surprising place on the sidelines, operating guys.

Jon Erwin: Yeah, yeah. I can’t recommend this story, but I can tell you what happened. It’s I mean, first of all, desperation is a powerful motivator. And so sometimes it’s like when your only option is to figure it out, you keep going. I’ve heard it said success is long obedience in the same direction. And, you know, the Bible echoes that that, you know, in due season will reap. If we don’t lose heart, we don’t quit. Which was really the theme of the Kurt Warner movie American Underdog, which we wanted to do that film. But for me, I started working at a cable station when I was 12. My dad helped show there and he was a radio show. And then when I was 15, I had apprenticed for a cameraman from my church. You know, I think you get big opportunities when you do small things, well, you know? And so I had just carried around Australia and helped them out, and I was super curious, you know, as a kid and try to maintain that. I think if there is a nitroglycerin to success at any level, I’ve found it’s sort of the the two most valuable elements, I think would be just a level of resilience and a level of curiosity, like if you just watch those people that has a high pain tolerance and won’t quit. But you also love to learn and love to stay curious. Eventually, you’ll figure it out. And so when I was 15, that cameraman was on a University of Alabama football game. I should say roll tide and somebody got sick randomly a cameraman about three hours before the kick off. I lived an hour away, and so this guy, my mentor Mike, called me and said, Get over here right now. Don’t tell anybody how old you are. Just don’t say anything. You know, lies a strong word, but you know, basically just neglect to inform anyone of the actual truth. And so I went over there and I had the time of my life. I just, you know, 15 year old homeschooled southern Baptist, you know, in the reddest of the states. And all of a sudden it was like joining the circus and I had just a blast and did the game. They pay me $300. We’d have any money. So I had never seen that much money at one time and accruing agent called me the next week and just said, I guess they looked at the list and said, Are you a freelance camera operator in Birmingham? Because it’s right in the middle of the assessee? So there’s lots of televised games. I didn’t know if that was three different jobs or a single job, you know? So I literally just said, yes, that’s what I do that that’s that’s me. And I did a game on Auburn and then just started doing games every week. My brother quickly followed my dad with money. He did not have helped me buy a camera when I was 16 and help me get a loan, which you should be 16 for $10000 for editing equipment. And we just were off to the races and my brother and I, we started making stuff and I like this. There’s a Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers that talks about the 10000 hour rule. And, you know, basically that anybody that’s really successful has been 10000 hours refining their craft. And that was sort of what it was for me. And we were just we had the good fortune of charging people a little bit of money, like a $500 wedding. We videotaped orthopedic trauma surgeries. You know, we did birthday parties. I mean, anything that you could possibly do just to make stuff and just to refine our craft. And that’s how the whole thing sort of began.

Richard Cunningham: I cannot tell you how much I love that story. That is a wild 15 year old sideline of Alabama football game. We have one of the co-hosts of the faith driven podcast William Norvell would be just jumping out of a seat to hear that story. He is a diehard Crimson Tide family. All right, so incredibly humble beginnings. So cool to hear about how your dad also gets involved and kind of help with this passion, this calling. Now it’s 2002. You’ve got this incredible experience, the camera. You’re talking about 10000 hours and you and your brother just mastering this craft. You guys decide to go out on your own producing music videos, working alongside a lot of these Christian artists. What was that like? Yeah, I like the fact that

Jon Erwin: sometimes you have to have in life, you know, the courage to leap. You know, my kids go to the school, behold. And you know, they say that in the Bible, it’s based on the version of what God says. Behold, I’m doing something new. You know, can you see it? And for me, when there’s nothing really left to learn, that’s where vocationally I’ve got to move somewhere. And so I love working for ESPN. It was a great sort of 10 years of my life, but in my early 20s, we were trying to start really get our production company off the ground. And sometimes you can’t serve two masters, as the Bible says. And so, like Cortez, had to burn his ships, you know, to motivate his men. And I just remember calling all of the crewing agents and say, this has been a wonderful season of life and I have this dream. At the time, it was to direct music videos and commercials and really going to go for it. And I think I just need to chase it fully, and if I fail, I’m going to call you and beg for a job. But I’m going to I’m going to try and, you know, I have never regretted those type decisions. You know, looking back where I have regretted hesitating, you know, and maybe being afraid of what God could do. And there’s been, you know, three or four of them in my life. And so jump to music videos and commercials and did a ton of music, a lot of Christian music videos, some country music videos. And really, that was great fun. I mean, that was really where we found our sort of visual style and voice, and we did some fun videos at the time. The label would submit a song and you would have to typically write a six eight page treatment with a bunch of nonsense and adjectives like amazing and nuanced, and the band’s going to look beautiful. And it’s, you know, all these words that I don’t even know. They mean, you know, just to try to get the video awarded. But we had gotten popular and we’d won via the year a few times. And I remember we did a video. It was a we did a video for Skillet, this Christian band and literally the whole treatment was the band is singing at night. Things start to blow up. Then it starts to rain. Then it rains and things blow up. Then everything blows up the end, you know, and that was just the type of things that were just great fun to just do stunts and explosions and car chases. And, you know, each music video was like this little mini movie. So again, it was a way for us to refine our craft. And then sometimes the questions can be the most powerful agents of change. And I went to direct second unit on a faith based film called Courageous that Sony was doing in this real Cinderella story. A church out of Georgia was making movies. And as luck would have it or whatever George Washington called the Divine Hand, you know Sony was trying to get into Faith-Based films after The Passion of the Christ. And so they acquired these films from this church, Sherwood and started releasing them, and the first one to ten million a football film called Face the Giants. The second one called Fireproof, did like 30, and it was this big sort of thing. And so they wanted to do a film called Courageous, but they were making their films primarily with church volunteers. So it’s an incredible story. And so I went into direct because it was a police drama and there were car chases and action sequences and foot chases. You never want to combine car chases with church volunteers. It’s like that’s where people can die. And so it

Richard Cunningham: was really massive red flag, right?

Jon Erwin: Yeah, yeah. So I had directed all these music videos like the skill at one. And so it was my job to come in with a smaller group of professionals and some people and go do those action sequences in that film. So nobody died. And you know, it’s a Southern Baptist church in Georgia. And so, you know, exaltation is a big thing. And I remember Alex, the director of that film, got right up in my face right away and basically said, You know, we don’t quite understand you like, what’s your purpose and the purpose of your work? And what is the question everyone should ask themselves like? It’s a great book. Simon Sinek wrote it called Start with Why and that great leaders and organizations don’t begin with what they they begin with why. And they sort of emanate from the wire, you know? And so when you join great companies like Apple, I still I love Southwest Airlines and I just fly. I still stay on that airline just because I love the spirit of the airline and I love the way of it. And so it’s a great question, but this question I can answer. And so I for a long time, while doing those sequences on that film, I thought about that question like, why do I do what I do? It all just happened. My career plan was like. Indiana Jones, where like, I don’t know, making this up as I go, like from age 15, it it all just sort of manifested and I had gotten opportunities that people that dream of being a filmmaker from like birth and then go to film school don’t ever get. I mean, it was unbelievable some of the breaks that I got and some of the sort of the providence involved. And so I really that was my moment where a career became a calling and I realized I could fuze this thing that I had sort of practice for a while with my faith and that, you know, we’re this rare generation of Christians, and I think this is why Faith Driven Investor is so important that could actually accomplish the great commission in our lifetime. You know, when Jesus says take the gospel to the whole world, I mean, he said, it’s a people that know this content we’re on would exist for like 400 years. And so we’re this first because of technology generation that can really get it done. They can get the gospel all around the world. And I think the way we would have to do it is really to to harness some of the mechanisms. I love it where Paul says of David and actually serve the purposes of God in his generation, like the gospel never changes. The true truth never changes. But the way you get it to people really does. And so I love that phrase in his generation. You got to sort of own your time in mass media is just a great way to tell stories, a great way to communicate. So I think that that was the turning point where a career became a calling. Functionally, we went from a service company where, you know, sort of like Han Solo. So I got this ship. You need to go somewhere. You pay me and I’m out. I’m done as a service company to an intellectual property company where we were actually developing. You know, that was the business of it all. And that was another huge jump, completely different business. And, you know, like the line where Mike Tyson said every boxer has a plan until he gets in the ring, gets punched in the face. So beginning to sort of raise money for our own films and whatnot. It was, you know, we just you have to just get in and figure it out. But it was definitely we embodied that line for sure.

Katherine Trout: In Twenty Eighteen, that’s when you produced the film. I can only imagine which has quickly become a household name and not just Christian films, but films in general. We’d love to hear you share a little bit more about specifically for financing that movie. What was the process like? What ActionScript had you actually taken to get that up and running?

Jon Erwin: Well, from a financial perspective, it was very interesting project. We had raised money. Every filmmaker should. There’s two classes of money that you have to pull together to release a feature film in theaters. Now, as we do this podcast, we’re at a moment of disruption. It’s so fascinating. I could I could talk you off about a very similar COVID is is reshaping the movie industry in a very similar way that Napster reshaped the music industry. It’s that sort of level of disruption is permanent behavioral change. It’s like ten years of change in 18 months, and it’s just so fascinating to be in this moment of rapid and rapid change. But typically, there’s two classes of money. There’s the equity that it takes to make a movie, and then there’s what’s called pay, which is printed advertising, which is the advertising budget. And what’s interesting is I actually think that failure is actually the great teacher. There’s a great book from I think he runs the largest hedge fund in the world radio. It’s called principles, and he talks about just the power of a process he calls looping, which is basically just learning incrementally from your failures. And so we had made films that all open in the top 10. All of them had made money. Nothing had broken out, made a ton of money. And then we got to this film called Woodlawn that we did before. I can only imagine. And they say a filmmaker finds their story and tells it over and over again. Woodlawn is where we found the power true stories. And you know, tens of thousands of young people got saved because that movie I remember watching 800 teenagers go forward at a screening of that movie, and it just I feel like a movie doesn’t do the work. The movie just sets the stage. It’s like, we call it setting a volleyball that other people spike. It’s called emotional instigation. And no wonder Jesus told emotional stories, you know, and then explain them. But we spent more on that movie than we ever had before, and then we raised some of the money, but not all of it to market it. And that was the first time we didn’t recover the entire investment. We recovered about two thirds of the investment. And film is definitely a high risk, high reward. It belongs in your alternative portfolio. And if you’re a filmmaker out there, one of the big moral things to do is just never take money people need. When you make money, you make a lot of money, but it’s a volatile game. And so you just have to structure it right. And I think being honest about that upfront is actually a better way to raise money. But it just wrecked me. I couldn’t I couldn’t sleep at night and I couldn’t stop. I just I am hyper competitive, and so I have this thing. I say, either I win or we play again, like, I’m OK losing, but just please, let’s just go again. And so we did a five month postmortem on that movie. And really, you know, what’s interesting is that I’m in an industry where there is a category of people, literally. Called critics like it’s their job to criticize, and you have to separate your identity from the work and understand that’s OK. But what’s interesting is we never really solicit criticism from people that really care about us and want us to succeed. And it’s one of the funny things about business at every level is like because so much of it is just solving problems. And I think we don’t ever take the time to say, I wonder what I can learn. And I think a lot of times it’s actually worse in faith based film because we sort of back up the finish line to the results achieved. And then what I say is we sort of throw the God card in the sense that we say, well, we got the gospel out. So and we sort of don’t ever admit to not accomplishing our goals, and we certainly did with that movie. And it was the first movie that had this sort of burst of evangelical sort of use, but it didn’t. We didn’t accomplish our financial goals, and so we just confronted that head on. And one of the best things ever on a piece of paper was, you know, Woodlawn failed, and it’s my fault, and let’s figure it out. And so that led to this sort of study and so much came out of that process of learning. And that led to the way we were able to spot the value of I can only imagine when no one else saw it because of the data and because of what we had learned about theatrical, moviegoing and brands and it being sort of a branded driven event business. And so many people know and love that song. And so we saw value where other people didn’t see value. And that’s, I think entrepreneurism in general. You have to be looking at the same thing everyone else is and see what no one else sees, and it enables to do that. And then a very innovative financial model came out of that that no one said would work in the status quo of our industry. And basically, it was that these two categories of money, you have this equity category of money and then you have advertising put on top of that, this pay, which is debt, it’s last in first out that in the way most people, if you know anybody that ever lost money in a feature film, they’ll typically what happens is if the film implodes and doesn’t get made well or when it gets released, all of that money that it took to release it sits on top of the equity in your equity. Investors end up buried at the bottom of this totem pole of inequality. And then also, you don’t have leverage to negotiate your deals. Like in my business, I’ve found and I think in any business, the two most important words are control and leverage. And so you have to build cases of leverage. And when you only have the movie but you don’t have any money or plan to get your product to a consumer, you don’t have a business plan and so that you get into this acquisitions world. In the studio system, these are a publicly traded, diversified companies that can just bleed you out and wait till you’re broke. And so the fees were way too high with wood line and distribution fees and a lot of the fees on top of that. And so what we did is we just said, why can’t we? We did two things. We said, Why can’t we just take this sort of, you know, vertical inequality thing and just turn it over and raise money into a blended vehicle where if you invest in it, 40 percent of your money is deployed. Equity 60 percent is deployed to advertising all your money making money. But it becomes this thing that nobody thought could be achieved, which it was a dollar one return to the first investor and which was not the status quo. And so we actually went out raising money based off informing people of why they would lose money in film deals or had or knew somebody that had. And so it was this sort of whistleblower pitch. And then what we were trying to do about it, and it’s funny that honesty is what raised the money. We raised it quicker than we had ever raised money before, and it created this scenario. The other thing we did is I remember sitting my pastor at the time when I lived in Birmingham was Chris Hodges, which I still love him, and he’s one of the smartest guys in the church. And I was sitting in church. And I think a lot of business people have this sort of attitude towards nonprofits or towards the church that the business practices aren’t. But the Church of the Highlands, which is his church based off just a few very shrewd principles, is one of the most well-run organizations I’ve ever seen and debt free like a hundred and fifty million dollars in cash and assets. And it’s incredible. And his basic principle is this principle of margin. He basically does an annualized budget that’s 90 percent of the previous year’s spending, even though they typically grow 20 percent year over year. So that leaves this 30 percent margin that they just put away in the bank. So they never do, you know, financial drives. Basically, he plans forward based off where he’s been in terms of budgeting, and that hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember that service. I’m like, you know, he’s right, and we were so aggressive in where we thought we could grow that we forgot about margin. And so I can only imagine was built based off that principle with this blended vehicle to break even financially break even right at Woodlands box office of 15 million. Well, we did that in two days, and so everything between 15 million and 86 was margin, and so everyone did really, really well, and it led to the Lionsgate deal that we’re still in. Joined today, and so I just think that the enduring sort of things to consider are, you know, really take the time to learn from your failures. You know, I love to win, but I’ve found I don’t learn near as much when I when I actually learn a lot more, when I so just learned to micro fail and learn and apply quickly and just ask, you know, just have this curiosity to ask people what they thought, you know, you could do better or what went wrong. And then there are some principles that I love. A friend of mine, Craig Rochelle, is a pastor. He said, When you get around, great people don’t learn what they do. Your pride in their business, but learn how they think. And sometimes these simple principles of how to think can be pretty life changing in business. And so that’s how we raise the money for that movie. And then it led to the landscape you.

Richard Cunningham: I just we got to stop and point out real quick. Just some of the quotes you’ve pulled in that you’ve got a book of acts to Mike Tyson is just,

Jon Erwin: I you know, I’ll tell you this if you ever want to give me a birthday gift I collect, I love quotes, I just collect quotes and I have like your notepad on my phone. Is this ever running list? I love a good quote, and it is no

Richard Cunningham: secret you’re a storyteller because it is just amazed where you’re pulling from. All right, so I can only imagine massive success. You talk about the margin that happened between eighty six and fifteen and just love your humility in the way you all approach that and just kind of thinking through, like, how can we strategize on the failure we had prior so powerful? So the Lord gives you this amazing windfall and this audience right now we’re talking to is Faith Driven Investor, as many of you are credited who have probably had a similar situation. An amazing windfall and an opportunity now to steward some success they’ve been given. We’d love to hear about you and Andrew’s kind of mindset. Once that took place post, I can only imagine and say, Hey, how can we use this position of influence capital and how almost maybe our pick of the litter of what we want to do next?

Jon Erwin: Yeah, a really interesting thing happened. Normally in our, you know, entertainment is driven by a power law in terms of economics. And there’s some, you know, biotech is like that. And you know, basically it means that it’s a winner. Take all game and I love it for this reason. It’s a hyper competitive industry. And once you succeed, you know, it’s an industry where most things fail. There’s this natural inclination to sort of want to guard what you’ve learned and guard your brain and be like back away and sort of, you know, because it’s just so competitive. But I began to think, OK, if the real goal is to really substantively reclaim the imagination of a generation with the gospel, I give the gospel to our generation, our time. You know, that is something to be a part of that’s bigger than any one initiative. And what I had learned is these things that these anomaly events in faith film that really tipped like I can only imagine or what’s happening now. The great friend Dallas Jenkins and his show that shows and if you hadn’t seen it, it’s amazing. What a Kellyway that is. You should have him on your show. But you know that or even, you know, Phil’s company, the idea that the VeggieTales or even maximale movie The Passion of the Christ, it’s like there were these anomaly moments or Divine Franklin’s films, the Kendrick’s films, but nothing coalesced in the sense that there was no sort of snowball effect. There was no combined effort, and I began thinking about that. And just, you know, normally when a filmmaker succeeds, it becomes all about you. And it’s like, What? What do I want to do next? And I just began to think of this question, really that I felt God spit. Some have it in my life where our son, who’s eight now and he’s great, but he had sort of these health things we couldn’t understand up having to have immediate sort of open heart surgery when he was three and I was in the middle we imposed on, I can only imagine and I was actually directing a documentary called Steve McQueen American Icon, and I was immediately sidelined. You know, as they say, the show must go on, and that documentary was slated for the actual release in September. And it was not finished and people were buying tickets to it. And all this happened in June, and I had to recruit and empower another filmmaker, which was not my style. Prior to that, really, you know, I created things myself or with my brother and that filmmaker Ben Smallbone, he did so well. I remember sitting in that premiere thinking he didn’t do as good as me. He actually did better, and he took the ideas deeper and I was actually more fulfilled, having helped equip and empower him than I was doing the work myself. And that’s the moment that it sort of clicked. I’m like, Oh my goodness, we could scale like we could scale our processes, you know, you could always scale a system, you know? And so I’m like, This is, I think there’s a scalable system here, and I think that we could actually incubate and empower other filmmakers. And so I began to look at models like where these singular events, these anomalies, like a movie like Star Wars, actually birthed a company like Lucasfilm or Toy Story, birthed Pixar. And we began to think, what if this was bigger than our name? Because up to that point, it was called Irwin Brothers, and we just kept coming to this name Kingdom. And that led to Kingdom Story Company, which the idea just became this orbiting question. What can we do together that none of us can do alone? And it’s a very powerful thing. There’s a documentary series that I can’t recommend, but it’s great, but it’s called especially for an entrepreneur. It’s called the defiant ones, which is this guy, Jimmy Levine, who did this company called Interscope and Dr. Dre. And they’re sort of Jimmy’s company. Interscope and RJ sort of rise through hip hop, and they do beats together and sell to Apple. It’s really entrepreneurism story. And one of the things that Jimmy Iovine says to Will.i.am and that has become my my season of life that I’m in now that I’m really enjoying, which is, he said to Will.i.am. He said, You’re talented enough. If you can just keep your seat at the table, you’ll be successful. He said, or become the table. And he walked away and will.i.am was like, What does that even mean? And then it really clicked for him. If you can become the place where the right people can gather. That is a very powerful thing. And so what I realized is because I sort of love the business and love the creativity, and I see the art in the business and the business in the art that I could be uniquely useful at serving the visions of other creatives and really seeing them shine. And that’s really what this season of life that I’m in now is I’m loving that more and more, and it is unbelievable when you get a conspiracy of friends together in a common ideal and objective what can be accomplished and God’s just moving all over Hollywood. I remember when we did the Lionsgate deal was very good deal, and they dumped a ton of money into our films, our brand. But I was with felt the CEO and I came out and one of the heads of the other divisions was like looking around and he’s like, Hey, get over here. And I’m like, what? He said, literally, like, he told me his name. He said, I’m a Christian

Richard Cunningham: and there’s a few of us. And I’m so glad you’re here.

Jon Erwin: I kind to go, you know, and I’m like, I think this is you can come out about it. Like, I came through the front door. They’re paying us to be here. And it’s just. But there’s a lot of Christians in the industry at all levels that God has placed, and there’s just a lot going on. And I’m I’m really happy to be a small part of it, and it’s fun to just pull those people together that have never really worked together before. We’ve been what we call competitive allies. You know, but now we’re getting to work together, and it’s just an exciting time and exciting thing to be a part of.

Katherine Trout: Wow, that’s such a powerful story. And it reflects what the body of Christ is really designed to look like is to be collaborative and to be as one rather than competing against the other. So especially in a place like Hollywood, where it feels really isolating to be a Christian there, having that community is so inspiring, Jon. I also wanted to ask you, of course, about your new movie that’s in theaters now. American underdog? Yes, St. Louis native myself. OK, art has been always has held a special place in my heart. I believe that was my first ever football jersey was Kurt Warner.

Jon Erwin: That’s amazing.

Katherine Trout: Very exciting.

Richard Cunningham: I did not know this over here. It hit the big screen.

Katherine Trout: So tell us a little bit about what made you decide to tell the story of Kurt.

Jon Erwin: Well, I mean, as a filmmaker, I think you have to realize that you’re the first viewer, you know? And so I think, you know, it has to be a story that moves me, that I can’t stop thinking about that. I then feel like, OK, this is our story to tell, and there has to be a cause behind the movie that I believe in giving time to. So like I remember with, I can only imagine. I remember asking him because we’re documentary filmmakers first. So we do these sort of interviews. And I remember asking Bart, you know, if I were to literally put a gun to your head and say, Is Jesus real? What would you say? And he said, yes, and I said, And how would you know? I’m just always curious to answer that question, he said. Because of the change I saw my dad, he said, I I watch this monster transform into the man I wanted to become and into my best friend. And you know, his faith is the only way to explain that. And so we all know the song I can only imagine is a song about heaven. Come to find out it’s a son singing for his father, and I thought it was a very powerful thing. And so the idea and I remember, you know, it’s cool. There’s actually been over 400000 of these type responses, but there was a woman watching. I can only imagine there’s another woman in her and her son leaving, and this woman didn’t get obviously couldn’t and said, Are you guys Christians? And they said, Yeah. And she said, I’m not. But whatever happened to Dennis Quaid in this movie, I need to happen to me. I need someone to explain it to me. And they they witness to it right there. And so that’s sort of why we do what we do. What I love about Kurt Warner is I love the idea of I wanted to make a film. And I think anything I did, especially in the times in which we live. Famous story, well known story, one of the great underdog sports stories. But to me, it was about the audience and making a film so that people could see it and say, You know what, if he can accomplish his calling in life and his dream, you know, maybe I can, too. And if they can stay together and love each other, maybe we can, too. And it’s just it. It’s just such a thing. You could not be further away from your dream than Kurt Warner was from his, and yet, you know, we all you bought his jersey, you know, and I think that that’s the amazing thing and it’s just so much of life and success and fulfilling a calling is just never, ever, ever giving up. And you just never know. Funny with I can only imagine my dad when he bought me a camera, a 16, he actually said, Hey, dream ball, dream. Big dream, the impossible. And then he says, if you give 20 years of your life to something, you’ll be successful. And it was almost 20 years exactly to the success of I can only imagine. And I think that there’s something to that. I think a lot of people give up at your 19 or you’re 17, which is where all the work is, you know, and they just don’t endure long enough. And you just never know when that breakthrough moment in life is right around the corner. And so I loved the story for that reason, and I also loved the idea that Kurt Warner became a champion off the field and then brought it onto the field. He had the arm of a champion. He had the talent of a champion but didn’t have the heart of a champion. He found that in his relationship with Brenda and her son and her kids and their son specifically, who’s disabled? You know, I understand that part of the story well, and it was actually him really her faith rubbing off on him and him falling in love with her and her kids and embracing a world that was bigger than he was finding his faith, becoming a Christian, becoming a father and all those things that he learned off the field. And it’s it creates as much of a love story as it is a sports story. And they really won together the entitled son of Vince Gill, and we got and seeing as love changes everything. And it really is true for this story. They really won together, but I loved all that he learned. He found his character off the field, and that’s what allowed him to become a champion on the field. And I just love that part of the story. And I just want to make a story that reinvigorates the dreams of the audience. You know, we’ve all had a really tough year and a half, and our dreams have never felt further away. So I wanted to tell a story about someone that was as far from his dream as you could ever be. And yet he still endured and accomplished it. And, you know, willing to give it a platform for Kurt and Brenda to talk about their life and their faith and their love story. And so that was sort of why we did the film, and I don’t know if this is like everyone’s going to come out, but it’s still in theaters and lovely to see it. And then I think it’s Super Bowl weekend is when it’s coming to pulmonary edema.

Richard Cunningham: Awesome. So fitting come and come to home Super Bowl week and I love that.

Jon Erwin: Yeah. Yeah, yes. Good timing.

Richard Cunningham: Love this. So practical. How can investors invest in a portfolio of faith based films most effectively would love to hear you just riff on that for a second, Jon?

Jon Erwin: Oh man, let me get back to you because it’s a, you know, we’re we’re dreaming about that right now. You know, I was very fortunate in God’s providence to get in business with the movie studio Lionsgate after I can only imagine because our next film came out, it was funny. I can only imagine that huge run, never one a minute film of 2018, but we were never number one at the box office. We just sort of like, we’re a little Honda Accord that got behind the tractor trailer semi-truck that was Black Panther, and we just glided behind it. But you know, the film we did after that, I still believe, actually is no. The only time we’ve been number one number one movie the night it opened on Friday, the one in America. But that was March 9th, 2020, and so not the best we can to release a film that, you know. And so everything was shut down and we had to go digital. And what’s interesting and you know, I think the thing for those raising money is just always believe fully in everything that you put in front of investors. And you know, what’s funny about that? And there’s a ton of opportunity in the disruption. But COVID has ended up reshaping behavior in an incredibly fundamental way that I think while it makes one form of getting a movie to people, which is a theatrical movie business much more difficult not only for faith films, reward films and, you know, musicals and Pixar and a lot of the box office. Because during COVID, you know, basically it was the streaming wars. And so for new streaming services were launched. Everybody sort of upgrade their technology very similar to in the music business when the album was pulled apart and you could buy your favorite song for 99 cents. That just reshaped an industry, the revenue still there. It’s in different places. So I would say as disruptive as that is to the economics of the moviegoing business in general and the studio business and everybody, it’s also opened up some incredible opportunities elsewhere in the home. And so that’s what we’re really researching right now and really building is I think that there’s enormous opportunity and I think there’s an extent that we have to no one go where people want the content. And also and I realize this is a very political answer, and I’m sorry. The point is we’re building a strategy that really believe in that. I’d love to get back to you on. But I think that when you look at the streaming wars and this mergers and acquisitions bloodbath, that is the entertainment business, the end of that is. Basically, everywhere you consume, content is going to be owned in these sort of super conglomerates, ultimately owned by one of the four tech giants. And I just don’t see that sort of Silicon Valley mindset and political worldview sort of allowing overt Christianity in that sort of downstream. So at least my home, I’m probably not the best for controlling my home, but the way I feel is screens have sort of overrun my home. And if I look at the future, I could see three or four years a situation where it would be very difficult to get content on those screens. If we don’t act now, we don’t act in a very big way. And so I think that that’s what I’m really diving into, and I love the moment that we’re in the moment in time in our industry because it’s that mass disruption that just accelerates change that we’ll be talking about for a very long time. And I think if you’re willing to let go of old ways of thinking and see where the value is, there’s enormous value, but you have to sort of embrace change and embrace change very quickly. So I would say that the current model for what has worked up to this point, that was very difficult for an independent film where all your eggs in one basket. The question is right. You have to sort of diversify risk and, you know, go with a whole portfolio mindset. And then I think there’s just a lot of work to do on the economics of how these things, you know, we make money, not off people consuming entertainment. We make money off how they consume entertainment. And so when the how changes abruptly and quickly, it just takes time. And it’s these enormous opportunities open up and then other things sort of change rapidly what we’re seeing now. You know, just over the last two months, especially after Spielberg’s movie, that people’s expectations of where they want the content and where they would most enjoy the content are permanently changed. It’s got nothing to do with safety. It’s now have it loops that have been built, and I could talk your ear off on those just fascinating. So I think that there is an answer to the question, but it’s in sort of re-engineering the value chain of where the content is. And I think I wish I could say we’re close to being able to say what I really do believe is next and where there is a lot of value for films. But it’s going to look all different. The theatrical window will survive, but it’ll only be for specific things, and there’s a lot of things that were theatrical prior to the pandemic or not. So that’s my vague political answer. We’ve got it. We’ve got to build a different engine to the car.

Richard Cunningham: Jon, thank you again. Let me ask you this. But again, we are grateful. Thank you for the way you have used the story of Jon Andrew Irwin and the many, many gifts you’ve given them to Steward and the positions you’ve given them steward. And finally got it. It is all about your son and may we make much of his name? And thank you for the way people like Jon are doing that in the ever changing kind of spiritual warfare landscape of media. And so we just ask that you would be with Jon and the many endeavors that are in front of him be with all those that are on this call today. Thank you so much for the privilege together. We love you, King Jesus Amen Amen.

Jon Erwin: Appreciate you guys. I wish I could stay. There’s so many questions in the chat that I wish I could answer, but maybe next time, but come

Richard Cunningham: back any time we’ll take you, we’ll take you any time. Thank you, everybody.

Katherine Trout: Thanks, Jon.