Transcript: From Overwhelm to Purpose: Barry Rowan's Guide to Spiritual Well-being // Barry Rowan

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“From Overwhelm to Purpose: Barry Rowan's Guide to Spiritual Well-being “

January 29, 2024

Barry L. Rowan

Intro: What difference does your faith life make in your day-to-day responsibilities that you face at work? What are some spiritual practices that will keep your faith vibrant and centered? Well, today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll focus on your spiritual life as a leader. Listen in and learn how you can continue to be transformed by God and how He can use you to transform the world.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, which is a finalist in the Christian Book Awards. I'm passionate about helping leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

I’m delighted to welcome Barry Rowan to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast today. Barry Rowan has a broad-based executive background and a strong track record of transforming rapid-growth companies. Barry's a committed follower of Jesus, and his view of work was transformed by his faith. He shares this perspective in his book The Spiritual Art of Business: Connecting the Daily with the Divine.

Throughout our conversation, you'll hear Barry talk about the four phases of a spiritual life, how to become better people in the workplace, understanding fear and how to deal with it, a positive way to manage time, and the importance of intergenerational relationships.

I think you're going to love this interview with Barry Rowan. But before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces Employee Engagement Survey. You can sign up today to discover the health of your organization's culture. Now is a wonderful time to listen to your employees, with our easy-to-administer online Engagement Survey by going to workplaces.org. And being a certified best Christian workplace improves your ability to attract more talented people and keep them longer.

Hello to our new listeners. We're so glad that you've joined us.

But let me tell you a little bit more about Barry Rowan. Barry has a broad-based executive background and a strong track record of transforming companies from a range of C-suite roles, particularly in the technology and communications space. Grounded in character-based approach to leadership, he served as a division manager. He's led two private companies as the CEO. He's been the CFO for four public companies, including Gogo, a company that provides Internet services in airplanes. Motivated by his desire to give back to the community and invest in the next generation of leaders, Barry has served as a trustee or board member for a school, several colleges, and campus ministries, including the Harvard Business School, Christian Fellowship, and Alumni Association. Barry and his family are committed to helping the poor locally and through bringing clean water to people in Central America. While Barry recently retired from his full-term executive role, he's not fully retired from life. He and his wife, Linda, completed a month-long silent retreat as they now consider pursuing an encore calling.

So here's my conversation with Barry Rowan.

Barry, it's great to have you on the podcast. I’ve really looked forward to us reconnecting after 13 years. I look forward to our conversation today.

Barry Rowan: Thanks so much, Al. We've long shared a passion for pursuing the deeper things in life, and it's just an absolute pleasure to be able to talk with you about them today. So, great to reconnect.

Al: Yeah, I feel the same, Barry. And early in your career, as I remember even our discussions years ago and now with your new book, you know, you experienced a crisis of meaning in work, and this led to a transformation in both your work and your faith life and even beyond. And you've also seen this struggle in other leaders that you've interacted with over your career. So these insights into faith and work have come together in your new book, The Spiritual Art of Business: Connecting the Daily and the Divine. I just love that title. So take us back to the turning point for you. Describe how it was that you knew that something needed to change in your life, and not just in your work perspective but also your faith. Tell us that story.

Barry: Sure. You know, in retrospect, I really spent about 17 years wrestling with this question of how to bring meaning to my work. And we want our lives to matter, including the 100,000 hours of work in our lifetime. That's a lot of hours to work and have some sense of meaning about it. And the stirrings in me really started when deciding on a major in college, and it would last until my late thirties. And when I was a few weeks shy of my 29th birthday, what I would describe as fissures deep within me were exposed in this dramatic fashion. I climbed up on this rock above Young Life Camp in Colorado and just started weeping. And the juxtaposition of the serenity of that environment stood in such contrast to this turmoil within me. And I was basically just sick and tired of living a divided life. And the questions began to haunt me about why am I alive? By what measure will I judge the success of my life? But what presented itself as a crisis of meaning in work, which it absolutely was, at a more fundamental level, it just raised the question of purpose in life.

And I would spend the next eight months reading 16 books. I stopped going to church for a while because I thought it was hypocritical to worship God I no longer knew existed. And God had to just take me down to bedrock.

And out of that, I concluded that, as the lawyers would say, based on the preponderance of the evidence, I think it's more likely than not that God does exist. But it was not, like, a 95/5 decision for me; it was maybe 80/20. But I said, “Okay. I'm going to just put all the chips of my life on that square that says, ‘I think, God, You really do exist.’” And then the question became, “Well, what about Jesus? And are you going to live your life for God and for Christ or yourself?” And His words of, “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” just haunted me. And so it really was an act of surrender on a run around the lake by our house, where I said, “I give up.” And there were heel marks in the sand and, as I describe it, just kind of came kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of heaven.

But it still didn't answer the question of meaning in work; it answered the question of purpose in life. But I would spend the next eight years writing 350 pages of myself in the journal, mostly between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning, to understand these things. And God just had to take me through what I would describe as a succession of paradigm shifts. And I had, you know, two dozen things fundamentally wrong. But at the heart of them, I was trying to derive meaning from my work instead of bringing meaning to the work. And it's God's perspective of the work that is the source of its ultimate meaning.

And after those pieces finally fell into place, I would just say, Al, that it's animated my work life for the past 25 years. And that's why I'm so enthusiastic about having these kinds of conversations is I struggled deeply myself. I’ve seen that there is a resolution, there is a way out of the woods, there is a path to light. And I also just see so many people wrestling with the same kinds of questions. So it's a privilege to be able to enter into this conversation that I hope will meet people where they are.

Al: Barry, that’s fascinating. You've come to the conclusion that you bring meaning to work; that we don't really look to work to get meaning from work, but actually we bring meaning to work. Wow.

Barry: Yeah. It’s just a fundamental difference, you know? I thought, “Well, if I just get the right job, somehow I’ll be filled up.” And I was really fundamentally living life from the outside in instead of the inside out. And as beginning to think about it from the inside out with Christ, and that’s the hope of glory, then everything becomes an opportunity for the expression of Christ in us, including our work or loving our wives. I've been married for 42 years and have two sons. So it just, it inverts everything. And for me, it now, then, becomes everything under the lordship of Christ. And so we can have this integrated life rather than this disintegrated life, Al, as it all flows from that relationship with God.

Al: You know, in your book, you go through four aspects of our faith journey, and starting with the surrender and ultimately being sent by God for a purpose. So give us a high-level framework of those four phases that you describe in our walk with Christ. How does this process of transformation by God result in a purposeful life as you've experienced it?

Barry: Yeah. It wasn't something that I said, “Okay. I'm going to write down on a sheet of paper how this all fits together.” It was more, “Here is my experience,” and as I’d listen to the stories of others, I think it captures the experience of others. But we call it the, really, the cycle of the spiritual art of business. And there are four phases. Let me just hit the phases and then double down on each of them.

So, it starts with surrender. As we surrender our lives to Christ, He transforms us. And as He does that, He makes us into new creations. And as we're made into these new creations, that new creation then goes into the world. And then there's a kind of overlay of the cycle of Isaiah, as we could describe it, as you're familiar with the verse, “As the rain and snow come down from heaven and don't return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish. So the word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty.” So you have this beautiful expression of God's love coming into the world, and we can see it at multiple levels with Jesus, of course, as being the Word made flesh, coming into the world and not returning to the Father without accomplishing what He desired and the Word becoming flesh in us.

And so the way it works is it starts with surrender, which really gives God permission to do His work in us. He's so gracious, He will never impose Himself on us. But He does stand at the door and knock. And so as we let Him in and invite Him in to be our King, then He will transform us. And as He does that, we’ll be made into new creations. And I for myself think about this as kind of BC to AD. You know, there's a before-Christ time for me and an after-Christ time, and I'm, gratefully, a very different person. The god of achievement has been largely crucified. It pops up every now and again. But I think God has inverted my perspective of time, because He did want me to live more fully in the present moment instead of in the future.

So He, then, has called us into the world to be His instruments in the world. And what’s interesting about this is that over time, we become less and God becomes more in us, as I’ve just described His relationship with Jesus. So it is no longer we who live, but Christ is living in us.

And then we have this privilege of being instruments of God's will in the world, really co-creators with God as His hands and feet. And, you know, when Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me,” we don't often think of it this way, but doing the will of God is the very source of our sustenance. It's what nourishes us. And could there be anything more inspiring than working with and for the Creator of the universe?

So for me as I’ve been taken through this cycle and continue to go through this cycle and found that God has brought just enormous meaning to the work where I had never had it before.

Al: Yeah. And I love your point there. We become instruments of God's will in the process. So the four phases: surrender, transformation, new creation in Christ, and then to go into the world. Is that—did I get those right?

Barry: Yeah. That's right. Again, the interesting part about that, it starts in the world and it ends in the world. We are generally people of the world who need to be drawn out of the world as we're emptied of ourselves, and then God leads us back into the world to transform it on His behalf.

Al: Mm-hmm. And then, as you say, we become less; Christ becomes more. And hopefully, that is true for all of us over time. Sometimes that goes back and forth, but let's become less.

So, yeah. Barry, when you talk about surrender, you share how this can make us better people at work. And, boy, I believe that in my bones. Whether we're working in a Christian workplace or a secular workplace, you know, it makes us better people. So you say, as we are set free to more fully experience God's love, we will more fully love those He has placed in our care. And here at Best Christian Workplaces, we're all about equipping leaders to care for their employees, to shepherd the flock that God has entrusted to them. And give us some more insights into this idea. How does surrendering to Christ make us better bosses, better leaders, even better employees? And how about a couple of examples.

Barry: Sure. As we surrender to Christ, God literally breathes His Spirit into us. And then the Spirit flows through us and into our work and onto others. And so it's a very practical thing to me as we are emptied of ourselves. You know, we come to our jobs, emptied of personal ambition or the need to be right and feed our innate craving for the applause of others, for example. As that happens, we're really set free to do the work to which we are called without having those other things get in the way. And I think it makes us better leaders because it becomes Christ who is actually doing the leading. And I can tell you that Jesus is a much better leader than I am.

One of the things I’ve really observed is that the best leaders are practiced followers. They're practiced followers of Jesus, and what might He be asking us to do in this moment? And so I think there's some really practical examples. I can rattle off a handful of them here.

As we're focused on doing what's right for the organization, rather than seeking our personal promotion, we become more trustworthy as leaders. People know that they're out to do what is right and what is best for the team and for the organization, not to do something that's going to put our name in lights. And when Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion on them. And as we become more like Christ, or maybe more accurately, as Christ becomes more alive in us, we will become more compassionate; we’ll treat people as people, not as units of economic production. And, you know, people pick up that vibe. They know how we really feel about them, whether they're being used as a tool or whether they're being viewed as complete human beings who bring their whole selves to the job.

Another one is, you know, as the peace of Christ enters us, we’ll absorb chaos and exude calm in challenging situations. And one company I was involved with, we had over $200 million worth of debt, get this, at 16 to 20% interest rates. It was like credit card debt. And it was owned by these hardboiled investors. And one board member said to me as we were about to enter this negotiation, said, “Barry, you just have to take as a starting point that these people have no soul.” Well, I wouldn't go quite that far, but I knew what he meant. And as we were going through that, the general counsel of the company I was with said, “Barry, how is it that you stay so calm through this?” And it, well, it was because of our faith. And “We're guiding an aviation company through the throes of COVID. And, you know, flights were only down 96% in the first month of the pandemic. And so how do you stay calm?” Well, it’s by, as a friend of mine said who eulogized another friend, he said, “Fixed as he was in the things of eternity, he could sit loosely in the things of time.” So as we find our anchor in Christ and knowing how this all turns out, I think we can be more stable.

I mean, another thing is, as you pointed out, we’ll recognize the noble and even the sacred opportunity we have to help people grow into the full expression of themselves through the work they've been given to do. And as leaders, I love that verse you quoted of Peter saying, “Be shepherds of the flock God has placed under our care.” It's our mandate as leaders.

And I would just give a question to our listeners here, actually, and say, make a list of five activities that you do in your role as a leader, and see how you can be an instrument of God's will or a channel of His love in each of those situations. And our kids have this little song when they were growing up called “My Way or Yahweh.” And in each situation, you know, we can do it for God, or we can do it for ourselves, and it looks very different. And I think that God's will is embedded in every moment if we look for it. So that's a fun little exercise to go through.

Al: “My Way or Yahweh.” Yeah. And I’m not going to ask you to hum a couple bars for us.

Barry: No. We’ll all be grateful that you didn't, believe me.

Al: That's fantastic. Yeah. We should come to work differently because of our relationship with Christ, and yeah, to do what’s right, not be seeking our own benefit, to be compassionate, to bring peace. Yeah, absolutely. And be shepherds of the flock. Yeah. We're on the same line there.

But let's talk about a feeling that many leaders have, and they might be reluctant to admit it out loud, and that is fear. Whether it's fear of feeling, insignificance, loss, or other fears, admitting and addressing those fears is a part of our transformation. And share how, especially as I think about Enneagram threes leader types, the issue they deal with is the fear of failure, and that's just one fear that leaders oftentimes have. So share with us how you've dealt with fear and grown through the process. What encouragement do you have for leaders who are experiencing strong feelings of fear?

Barry: Well, first, I would say, Al, it is just to acknowledge that fear is real. And in the book, I talk about some of my greatest hits, and you've laid out a few of them just in the litany that you just talked about. Fear of insignificance, for example, is a big one to me; fear of failing at my job; fear of being misunderstood. An odd one was a fear of failing to achieve my potential, and I say that as being odd because if you think about it as through the eyes of God, I mean, God created us, and He knows the gifts He’s given us, and why would He not want us to fulfill our deepest potential in this world?

But I would kind of make as a first point beyond acknowledging that fear is real is that fear is an emotion, and we can treat our emotions as information. I mean, there may be valid reasons for the emotion. I mean, sometimes we turn up the knob on the amplifier way more than we should. But fear is information. It keeps us running from bears that will eat us alive, or people that might eat us alive. So I think it's just important to acknowledge that that's the case.

But there's a practical reality of how perfect love drives out fear to me, even theologically. And that is based on what we were talking about, that as we become less and Jesus becomes more in us, we actually have less distance to fall because there's less ego and less to be bruised. We've taken ourselves down from the pedestal of our self-aggrandizement, and so there's just less distance to fall. And just as a practical matter, we're less prone to those fears in failure. And so as we become less, God becomes more in us, that is just a practical way, I think, that a perfect love drives out fear. And an imperfect love drives out God. And that's what happens to us, that's what happens to me, as I'm loving imperfectly is I allow myself to be filled with the desires of this world, whether it's the applause of mankind or whatever it might be that that drives God out.

And so how do we deal with the fears, as you've asked? I would offer two suggestions. The first one is to take them to God in prayer. And I've come to pray a prayer that I call immersion prayer. And I pray one to two hours a day, every morning, as you do. And this immersion is in three things. It's immersing ourselves in God; it's immersing ourselves in Scripture because the Scripture is alive, and it will meet us where we are; and thirdly, it’s just immersing us in our current circumstances. It's just coming to God buck naked, you know. I think when the Father says, “I am the great I am,” I realize the only place I can meet Him is just as I am, just as in the way I am feeling, right in the place that I am, even if the feelings are feelings I know I wish I wouldn't be feeling.

But what God does in that is He does an archeological dig on these feelings, and there's usually a spiritual infrastructure underlying these feelings, including our fears. I mean, for example, God has shown me that my fear of failure was rooted in pride. I was afraid to fail because it’d make me look bad.

Or the fear of failing to achieve my potential stems from a lack of trust in God. You know, if I’d really given my life over to me, to the One who made me and knows me, He's going to be the One that desires me to use the gifts more than anybody else, way more than me even.

Or the fear of business failing causes me to shift the locus of the measurement, shifts from just the outcomes to whether I've really fully applied myself, for example. And when Jesus said in the parable of the talents, “Well, then, my good and faithful servant,” the measures are goodness and faithfulness.

And so I've concluded, based on that, as God's kind of reoriented my perspective of failure, is there’re really only two ways to fail: to fail to try and to fail to learn. And for me, that has come from prayer and submitting myself to God in this immersion prayer.

The second thing I would say is, and this is just very practical, is write down the worst-case scenario and the consequences that would have. Paradoxically, this can be freeing because usually I'm not likely to die in this situation. And by the way, even if I do, that's a gateway to life, right? So worst-case scenario, we know we still end up at a good place.

And what's fascinating to me about this is that studies are showing more and more that people generally get happier as they get older. And I think it's particularly true of people of faith. And the reason is, you know, we've accumulated thousands of experiences of surviving difficult situation, and our trust in God deepens. And He is true to His word that “I will be with you always,” and that “in all things, I work for the good of those who love Me.” And so these failures can be a gateway to freedom and to deeper trust in God and way more intimacy with him.

So my advice is don't run from the blackness, but just immerse ourselves in the blackness and let the black grow blacker than black, because my prayer had long been that God would deliver me from my circumstances, and I think what's more typical is He delivers me through my circumstance. By embracing them, He’ll make us better people.

Al: Immerse yourself in prayer, and write it down, write down the worst-case scenario. I like that, Barry. You know, and I found—I've just gone through a little episode here myself in the last couple of weeks—journaling, writing it down in a journal helps you to understand it even more clearly. And as you say, even writing down your worst-case scenario. And then as you have, especially those of us that have been in the faith for a while, we've seen over and over again how God has dealt with these kinds of situations before, so we're able to move through them and get to a better place faster. Yeah.

I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: Welcome back to my conversation with Barry Rowan.

I want to remind our listeners that your experience is in marketplace businesses, and as you were thinking, you know, I know from your LinkedIn that you were working at Gogo and you're mentioned, oh yeah, you were working there during the pandemic, when nobody was flying. And so I'm sure all of those monthly subscriptions were kind of dropping off, and you were wondering, “Well, what’s going to happen now?”

But you're really talking about living fully as a follower of Jesus in the workplace. And I know that the division of the secular and the sacred may not be a helpful distinction, but living out our faith isn't just for leaders in Christian organizations; it's for all of us as followers of Jesus, as you've already pointed out. So as you've lived out your faith in senior leadership roles in various contexts, give us some examples about how your faith has been a positive influence in workplace interactions. You know, what's been surprising or encouraging about living out your Christian values in a corporate setting with those that may not even be or clearly might not be sharing your own values?

Barry: Sure. I mean, I first want to start out by just underscoring the point about the artificiality of the sacred/secular divide. It's just, in my view, a false dichotomy that's contrived in the minds of mankind. There's both a seamlessness and a sacredness to the work we do. And Jesus traveled seamlessly between the physical and the spiritual, and His work on the cross, I think, is probably the best example of that. It was the physical pain, but it released us spiritually to come into this deep and intimate relationship with God.

And the issue with having this artificial divide in our minds has very serious consequences. I mean, for example, it leaves people feeling like their work is outside the purpose of living their lives for God, and it depletes the intrinsic value of our work and diminishes it to the instrumental. It converts it to a “so that,” “my work is now,” “I work so that I can make a pile of money and give it away,” or “so that I can retire someday and do real work.” And I think that’s just a complete lie, and it causes us to live those 100,000 hours in ways that are anxious and distressful.

So what's been surprising to me, to your question, is I think the biggest surprise is that working in these kinds of challenging environments doesn't require us to compromise our faith; it's an opportunity for the expression of our faith. I mean, for me, five times, for example, I've tried to have my own business that would be founded and operated on God's principles. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But I realized, finally, after being beaten over the head at trying this five times, that it just wasn't God's call for me. And I thought, “Well, why is that, Lord?” And for me, at least, it was I was trying to control the world I was operating in rather than operating in a world that is completely outside of my control.

I worked flat out for 25 years, and then Linda and I took what we called a purposeful pause, and I didn't know if I would go back to work. I was on six boards. I had a list of 27 people, if they called, I'd have lunch or coffee with them to invest in their lives. And it ended up being three and a half years. But about two years into it, Linda and I looked at each other and I said, “I think I should go back to work.” And the reason was I felt so strongly about what we're talking about here, about the power of business to contribute to a better society as seen through the eyes of God. And I joined a company that was a public company, that was the biggest challenge I was confronted with. It was a financial, operational, strategic, and reputational turnaround. And this was a company that had over $200 million of debt, 16 to 20% interest rates. And the reason I took the job was that I wanted to see if these principles could stand up to the heat of the kitchen. And they have.

And you asked the question about giving some examples of how it's been a positive influence. For example, at the end of that time, nine different people, basically, came into the office, and we closed the door, and asked the same question, which was, “Barry, we see you seem to have a lot of energy for this work. You seem to really care about the people and treat us with dignity and respect. And I just want to know, would you just tell me what makes you tick?”

Al: Yeah. Right, absolutely.

Barry: And I said, “Well, at what level would you like to have this conversation? Let's go right to the deepest things that matter,” just like you and I talked about those things. And of course, they want to understand why. And these things matter. I mean, living our lives in a way for God and bringing them to our work really changes the way we show up and what it looks like to other people. And that changes the measures by which we judge the success of the businesses that we operate in.

Al: Great stories, Barry. Yeah. And I love the business’s mission: focus also, that door. We're seeing a lot of growth around the country, and a number of our listeners are participating in that. But yes, in the workplace as Christians, we can make a big difference in people's lives.

Well, let's talk about mastering our time. This is an area that's got both practical and spiritual dimensions. You call this section “Getting to No,” and that's not K-N-O-W; that’s N-O. So, what practical steps can you share with a leader who is having trouble mastering their time? You know, how can you go from being overwhelmed by the demands of our time and establishing a purposeful schedule? And you've already described, you know, in your purposeful pause, you had some specific things that you were doing and managing. But what are some boundaries that you'd suggest for someone who's struggling in this area of time?

Barry: Yeah. Well, first, let me just amplify on this idea of “getting to no,” and it's really built on a paraphrase of Stephen Covey, said that it's easier to say no when we have a stronger yes burning inside of us. I struggled deeply with this question. In fact, when I was coming home from work, and our first son was about six months old, I thought I was having a heart attack. And I get into the house, and I had these serious chest pains and broke out in hives in the space of 20 minutes. And Linda said, “Well, you better drive yourself to the hospital,” because she was home with the little one. And I did. And it turned out I wasn't having a heart attack. But what it was, was stress, and I'd never had my body kind of come to a head like that, as due to stress. And I’d lived under plenty of stress.

But what I realized was the source of the stress was I was spending my time not in ways that I wanted to be spending my time. And so when I sat down and said, “What is balance for us?” You know, I think about living the life of Christ in two dimensions: congruence, which is, how do we align everything in this moment to our purpose in life?, which we've been talking about; and horizontally is balance. You know, how do I balance how much time I will spend in various elements of my call? And so we wrote it down. And for us it was working 50 to 55 hours a week. It was being home for dinner every night when I was in town. It was traveling less than 30% of the time. I’ve always had jobs where I could, basically, travel 100%. It was exercising every day. It was praying every day. And it was only being on up to two civic boards at a time. And that helped me to say no, because when people would call to ask if I'd be on a board, I’d said, “You know, I have this silly little rule that I will only be on two boards at a time because I've said yes to my family and to doing my job well. And I’m going to get too diluted, and I won’t be able to do that.”

And, you know, we all have infinite jobs, basically, I think, the people around the podcast here. And so I would say decide what is balance for you, because if we don't, our jobs will define it for us. And really importantly, there's a master and sort of slave relationship to this in that we can either be mastered by the demands on our time or we can master them. And the important part of this is when Jesus says, “If any of you just not give up everything, he has can’t be My disciple,” we can't give away that which is not ours. And if we’ve been mastered by the demands on us, we aren’t free to give our whole lives to God. And so for me, that's why this was such an important thing, in retrospect, is that until I got a hold of that, until I inverted those, flipped those upside down, I wasn't free to give myself away to God.

Al: Yeah. Congruence and balance, and decide what's balanced for you, and write it down. As a recovering workaholic, I can say putting parameters around my time was the only way I could move into a positive recovery stage.

So Barry, I feel like you're a mentor for all of us in deepening our spiritual lives and faithfully following Jesus. In your book, you distinguish between the idea of mentoring and intergenerational friendships, and part of being sent by God is investing in other people. So tell us a little bit about why and how you invest in other people. What's the role of mentoring? How can we fully engage in intergenerational friendships, as you call them?

Barry: Well, you may describe me as a mentor, Al, but I would just consider myself as a fellow pilgrim, you know, fellow sojourner on this journey toward a deeper life in God. We all just have so much to learn from each other, and grateful for the fact that following Jesus is a team sport. And there are two reasons, by the way, I call them intergenerational friendships rather than mentoring, because, first, mentoring applies that we old geezers, and I am one of those now, actually have something to say, and it puts too much pressure on us. But the second reason is it implies that these are one-way relationships and they're not bi-directional. And I drive, I'm sure, at least as much out of the energy of meeting with young people and seeing their lives in front of them and the questions they ask. And I just find it very invigorating.

So how do we go about doing this, though, and what does it mean? So for me, there comes a point in our lives where there's a convergence between who we are and what we do. At some point, what we do is primarily just by being who we are. And my experience, the most important things really are caught, not taught. It comes from spending quality time together, having discussions about things that matter, just delving into the deepest and most important questions on people's minds. For me, it really comes out of hearing other people's stories.

I met with a spiritual director for 25 years in the various places that we’ve lived, and one said to me, “The role of a spiritual director is to help people hear themselves.” And that's kind of what I've discovered as well is that you get people talking and they do clarify what's on their mind.

And I would also say, you know, it sometimes takes some work—now I'm speaking maybe to the younger generation—to find mentors. And I would encourage you to actively pursue them. For example, when I was 35, just moved to Seattle, I heard a CEO of a public company speak, and I was just taken by his story. And I wrote him a three-page letter saying, “Would you be my spiritual mentor?” I also said, “I have no idea what that means, but would you be willing to do it?” And he said yes, and we had dinner a few times, and I think he didn't quite know what to do with me. And so we ended up, then, developing a men's group of older guys and younger guys. I was a younger guy at the time. I would not be now. But that was just very helpful.

And for the older generation, I'd say, you know, put yourselves in positions to interact with the next generation. I chair the board for the Harvard Business School Christian Fellowship Alumni Association, and lots of wonderful relationships have come out of that. I’ve served as a trustee for two colleges and sat on multiple college advisory boards and organizations focused on campuses like InterVarsity. And it keeps me young to be able to interact with those people.

And so I think for me, it's just very helpful at this stage of my life. And I have literally dozens of people, if they call, I'll say yes, and I call it holistic accompaniment, just walking together. And I read, actually, in the biography of Eugene Peterson recently, there was a pastor who he really respected and he told very good sermons, and he asked the pastor, “What is the most important thing you do to prepare for these sermons?” He said it was visiting the people in his congregation because it keeps him grounded. And for me, having these interactions with people, particularly of the next generation, to hear what they’re wrestling with and to hear their dreams and to be inspired by them is what keeps me grounded and keeps me coming back to Jesus in new and refreshing ways.

Al: Those are great examples, yeah. Pursue mentors. You caused me to think about a group I was in for a while. It was just really rich. We had a 60-year-old, a 50-year-old, a 40-year-old, a 30-year-old, and a 20-year-old. There's five of us. And just the diversity that we brought to the conversation, and it wasn't that the younger was there to learn from the older, but we all learn from each other in that process. That was a great experience, much like you're saying. Pursue those kinds of relationships, where you walk together. And things are caught, not taught, for sure.

Well, one of your spiritual practices, one of our spiritual practices, is taking retreats. And you've taken several silent retreats, and some of our listeners might be looking at their calendars right now and saying they don't have time for a silent retreat. Now, you know, Barry, I know you’ve taken a week-long retreat at different times. And recently, after your retirement, now a full month of a silent retreat. So share with our listeners how the practice of retreat and making space for silence is an important part of spiritual growth. And how can someone who hadn't really participated in this practice get started?

Barry: My time alone with God has been the single biggest contributor to my spiritual growth, I'd say. As I added up the math, and I'm a math guy, I've spent probably over 10,000 hours one on one with Jesus, and I've written over 10,000 pages in the journal. And for me, and I think probably for you, it's during these times of solitude that I realize I'm not alone. And as we talked about, God interprets my circumstances for me. He shows me how He's using them to make me into a shape that seems best to Him, as He told Jeremiah at the Potter's House. We talked about the purposeful pause, for example.

But I want to just say that it did not start this way for me. And this, I hope, will be a great encouragement to people. For me, it started 10 minutes a day after surrendering my life to Christ. I read The Upper Room, and it was literally 10 minutes a day. And the progression that I would describe myself as having gone through is it started as a discipline, it grew into a craving, and now it's a responsibility. So the 10 minutes a day were just a discipline, just sheer discipline. Do it because I think it's the right thing to do. And as we spend more time with God, we begin to fall in love with Him. And then it just grew into this craving, and to this day, I can’t get enough of God, and I just long to be with Him. And these times alone with God are just some of the richest times in my life. Now I describe it as a responsibility, because if I don't get this time with God, I know I'm out of whack with God. I'm out of whack with the world. I’m out of whack with Linda. I'm out of whack with the world. So it's life from the inside out. And so I really have a responsibility to do that, to make me a little bit easier to live with.

So it started with 10 minutes a day. I started praying for an hour a day when I was 40, and I was still in an intense executive role. My first eight-day silent retreat was when I was 51, and I've done about eight silent retreats of that length over the past 15 years, about one every other year. And then I just recently did this month-long retreat. And just to take the mystery out of it, I just turned 67. So it is a progression.

But I want to leave our folks with one other thought, too, particularly as you bring up the calendar question, and that is this, that consider every day, even every moment of your life is a retreat. God is with us always. It's like an airplane that is in the air, and the air is in the airplane, and God is with us and in us always. And when we begin to see every moment containing everything we need to fulfill our deepest purpose in life, we see God's will embedded in those moments. And as we talked about “My Way or Yahweh,” as we make a choice for God, at least the majority of the time, I kind of have this Y theory. You know, over the distance of our lives, if more often than not we choose for God rather than for ourselves or for the world, we drift closer to God. And I hope that's a great encouragement because I have a friend who has a really hard time taking silence and time away. And he said he realized, you know, “I'm a kinetic listener. I listen when I'm moving,” and it worked for him. So I would say just lean in to the kinds of people that God has made us to be and do it in a way that works for you.

Al: Yeah. You reference in the back of your book, Ruth Haley Barton, and she's been on our podcast and has written great books on this topic. But, yeah, as you say, having these kinds of times. I find, you know, having quarterly, day-long spiritual days, as I call them, you just need time to let the voices dissipate from our minds and so that we ultimately, you know, get down to the core of listening to God's voice. That's what I find, is that in our hectic world, we're listening to people's voices. We've got responsibilities or even hearing maybe our father or mother's voice in our head and our spouse's voice and maybe our children's voice and just having a chance to get away. And as you say, you're not alone. You're for the first time or certainly maybe not the first time, but you're in the company of God. That's great.

Well, Barry, this has just been a fascinating and tremendous conversation. I recommend everybody The Spiritual Art of Business. Take a look at this book. I find it to be just—I love the design of it. It's easy-to-read chapters. You can almost read a chapter as a daily devotional and get through the book that way.

But, yeah, I’ve loved our conversation. The four phases of life, you know, a spiritual life, particularly, where we surrender, we are transformed, we are new creations in Christ, we then are called to go into the world, and you've been an example of that. And we talked about fear and how I love the I John verse that you quoted, “Perfect love casts out fear.” And so we need to reflect on that. Taking these fears to God in prayer, to immerse ourselves in the presence of God, and then to write down the worst-case scenario because it puts all those fears in context, for sure. You know, we've talked about there is no sacred/secular divide, and let's just keep that in mind. And also, then, great thoughts on inter-generational friendships and the beauty of solitude.

So, Barry, considering the conversation, is there anything that you'd like to add that we've talked about?

Barry: Well, I’d just say, you ask great questions, and I really appreciated our conversation as well. And I guess if I were going to add one thing, I would just say to our listeners, God is beckoning you, and I just encourage you to respond to the invitation to intimacy with God. The journey with God is the greatest adventure this life has to offer, in my view. I've had the privilege of going to all 50 states and traveling to 50 countries through my business life and personal life, and the excitement of those just pales in comparison to the adventure with God. And so I would just say prioritize Jesus, allow yourself to fall in love with Him, and everything will flow from that fountainhead.

Al: Barry, thanks for your contributions today. Most of all, I appreciate your example of leadership based on a deep faith—we can all learn from that—and how you call others to lead from a place of transformation and purpose only found in Christ. Thanks for taking your time out today and spending time and investing time in so many of our listeners.

Barry: Thanks so much, Al. It was a true joy. And thank you for all you do to make the world a better place and make every place a better place to work. So I’ve appreciated what you've done for many years.

Al: Thanks, Barry.

And thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Barry, and I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did.

You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we discussed in the show notes and the transcript at workplaces.org/podcast. Including in that is the name of his book The Spiritual Art of Business.

And if you have any suggestions for me or want to talk about the podcast or have any questions about how to create a flourishing workplace, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And for leaders, if you want to improve your leadership and expand your organization's impact for good and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us achieve our goal to see more flourishing Christian-led workplaces. And to help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a project in your own organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: Next week, we're going to have the privilege of highlighting stories for some of 2023 certified best Christian workplaces. Join me with a couple of BCW’s consulting leaders as we discuss the reasons why some of our mission and ministry partners have become certified as best Christian workplaces. You won't want to miss it.