The future belongs to the curious Church
Jordan Raynor sits down with Ali Llewellyn & Nick Skytland, NASA Innovators, to talk about the two unique advantages the Church has for shaping the future of the world, how to cast vision based on future possibilities rather than the familiar past, and why interdependence is a key to mastery.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian who is pursuing world-class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how their faith influences their work.
Today, there are going to be two extraordinary innovators and strategists. Their names are Ali Llewellyn and Nick Skytland. Nick is the Deputy Chief of the Exploration Technology Office at NASA, where he's focused on helping NASA, you know, no big deal, return to the moon. Ali is the director of the 1958 co-working space at the Johnson Space Center. Ali and Nick are also co-founders of a consulting practice called Quite Uncommon, where they help organizations like Campus Crusade and AlJazeera innovate and shape the future. They also wrote a terrific new book that we talked a lot about called What Comes Next, which is a guide for Christian leaders to “shape the future in an ever-changing world”.
Ali and Nick and myself, we sat down recently, we talked about the two unique advantages the church has for shaping the future of the world. We talked about how to cast vision based on not the familiar past, but rather future possibilities. And we also talked about why interdependence is a critical key to mastering anything, vocationally. I think you're going to love this conversation with my new friends Ali and Nick.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:55] JR: Ali and Nick, thank you so much for being here. So, before we get to the meat of the conversation, I have to ask, the book is titled, What Comes Next, you have a chapter titled, Into the Unknown. Are these subtle nods to two of my favorite musicals? Hamilton and Frozen 2? What's the deal here, Ali?
[00:02:13] AL: Well, I'm a huge Hamilton fan and we love the Hamilton tie-ins. I've not actually seen Frozen 2. I think Nick may have. He has a young daughter, but I'll smile and nod at the Hamilton.
[00:02:26] JR: There you go. I was this intentional? This Hamilton or not, was it just a great title?
[00:02:31] AL: No, it was just a great title. And I mean, what's great is it ties in, so many people use it, right? And it makes sense in so many contexts and so we love that.
[00:02:40] JR: I love it. Hey, Nick, you and Ali both work at NASA. But you also work together as co-founders in this consulting practice, Quite Uncommon. Give us the 32nd elevator pitch of what you guys do through this practice.
[00:02:52] NS: Yeah, so we help people launch ideas, convene communities and think about innovation, think about strategy, think about what comes next. And so, all the work that we do is really centered around that thinking about the future and helping people navigate uncertainty and doing that intentionally and strategically.
[00:03:11] JR: Man 2020, what a year for you guys to be in business.
[00:03:15] NS: Yeah, I know. I mean, we could not have predicted what happened in 2020. And even the title of the book, What Comes Next, I mean, we came up with that prior to all of this. And so, God's timing is great.
[00:03:26] JR: Ali, what's the story that led you and Nick to team up on this consulting practice and this book?
[00:03:33] AL: Well, the story is we like to tell it actually is many years ago, we were both working at an event that was called Yuri's Night. And Yuri's Night is the world celebration of space exploration. And we're having an event locally here in Houston that Nick was running and my volunteer job was to be Cosmo, which is a 12-foot tall, inflatable astronaut costume.
[00:03:57] JR: That’s amazing.
[00:03:58] AL: And so, I walked around and took pictures with kids. And that's really how we connected. And as we continue to do work in kind of separate spheres, we realized we had a lot of common interests and that our gifts and talents really brought up the best and kind of drove a really great team together. We realized we had shared faith, and so many opportunities that seem to make so much sense, but it really started that night at Yuri's Night.
[00:04:24] JR: And Nick, I mentioned this before we started recording, I was really blown away by this book. It's one of the best books I've read on vision casting and innovation. And I was worried it wasn't going to be accessible given that you’re a bona fide rocket scientist, but it was it was very accessible book. And I think it was this Future’s Framework that made it really accessible. So, Nick, can you give us a brief overview of that framework?
[00:04:51] NS: Yeah, well, let me also first say that my wife also was really worried that the book would not be readable and accessible. So, the one of the first people we hadn't read the book was my wife. I said, “Just be honest with me. Just be honest. What do you think?” And she's like, “I did not think that I would like it because I thought it'd be way too technical and you work in NASA.” And at the end of the day, she's like, “This is really helpful for me. I can totally use this and I'm a teacher.” I said, “Okay, good, we know that.” Then we struck the right balance, because the Future’s Framework is very intentional, in that it's really well thought through, we put a ton of work behind it. But we also wanted it to be simple enough that anyone could pick up the book and really understand it.
So, just a really brief overview of the Future’s Framework, it includes the four forces and then eight intersection. So, the four forces are purpose, people, place, and technology, and we like to think about this as the invisible win that's wreaking havoc and destruction on us. And we can either react to these forces that are influencing our world, or we can respond well to them by understanding them better. And then at the intersection of those four forces are eight intersection points and this is really the core of the Future’s Framework. It's our identity, how we relate, how we belong, how we gather, what we design together, when we do gather, who we collaborate with, how we scale, ultimately, to have impact.
And so, the book walks you through Future’s thinking, the four forces, the eight intersections, and then once you understand where it is you're going, you have that clarity, the end of the book helps you think about a strategy to get there. And we give you next steps.
[00:06:30] JR: Yeah, I love it. And Ali, you made this point in the book that most of us tend to predict the future based on the familiar past rather than future possibilities. Of course, that limits our potential to what we already know what we've experienced in the past. How do we change that? How do we condition ourselves as leaders to cast vision in terms of what's possible rather than what's happened before?
[00:06:55] AL: You know, the thing that really happened in my life that flipped that switch was travel. And going to unusual places and seeing different realities, my first mission trip in the Ukraine, I met several women who had lived through the shared noble disaster, and they would never have children, because of the radiation poisoning and all these things. And it was so consequential to me in that moment to recognize certain assumptions I had growing up in America, about my future, were radically different than these women that I was meeting, who were my same age who looked just like me, but had a very different future, because they lived in a very different context.
And so, starting to recognize as I meet people, and get to know people, and put myself in the shoes of people whose reality is different, or their background is different. It really helps me realize that my world is not the world. My experience is not the one experience — helps broaden our perspective.
[00:07:58] JR: Yeah, travel is a terrific answer to that question. Nick, I want to pose the same question to you. How do we condition ourselves to cast vision in terms of what's possible, rather than what's happened in the past?
[00:08:08] NS: Yeah, we talked a lot about exploration and going on adventures in the book and be really likened it to that. We all kind of aspire to be able to travel and to go on adventures, but many of us get overcome by our fear, and all the uncertainty around us. So, we just stay home. We're afraid to open up the door. We're afraid to get on the plane. We're afraid to go to some other place that we've never been before. So, we talk a lot about going on an adventure and what that requires. It requires that we are brave, that we overcome our fears, that we permit ourselves to take that first step.
So, a big part of this book is literally just about giving you permission to participate in the future, to influence the future, to lead others into the unknown because it requires being an adventurer and being an explorer.
[00:08:53] JR: But to do that, you got to know what you want. I mentioned musicals before Hamilton, my favorite, Frozen 2. Every Broadway writer, Lindeman, Webber, whoever knows that, to have a great musical, you've got to have a great I want song, right? Ariel wanted more. Tony wanted, Maria. And I see a lot of content these days that helps people get what they want, but very little content that helps them decide what the heck they want, in the first place. Do you see the same thing in working with leaders, Nick? And if so, why do you think that's the case that we don't spend as much time thinking about what we want?
[00:09:29] NS: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I mean, that's why we wrote this book and it's why we get called all the time is we'll be working with an executive in an organization who, maybe it's a bigger organization, and they have some resources and they know that they need to change. They know that the world's changing around them. They have somebody who's willing to lead, but they don't know where to go, and they don't even know where to start. And so, we've written down hopefully a roadmap to give that leader somewhere to turn, to help them figure out what is it that they want. We work with a lot of organizations who have a mission statement on the wall. But the mission statement is something that maybe not everyone connects to or maybe it's just kind of poetic language, but it isn't really a tangible light to where they're going.
So, we really help people be more specific and what they want. Because with that, being specific, you have a clarity of where you're going to go. And I should caveat this, nobody knows what the future holds, right? None of us have a crystal ball. So, we're not fortune tellers. But what we can have is a little bit more clarity, understand our desire of where we want to go and use that to navigate us forward.
[00:10:39] JR: I think you're hitting on something that's really important kind of this difference between mission statements and really concrete vision. So, mission, I always think of mission statements and mission is like, why does this organization exist? That does not answer what do you want and we're I’m going, right? Talk a little bit more about that, Nick.
[00:11:01] NS: Yeah, I mean, you said it really well, the existing mission statement kind of drives the organization at a very high level, but it just isn't enough clarity to know what you want. It's more aspirational words on a piece of paper. You need to be more specific and sometimes people just don't want to do the work of being specific, or they don't know where to even start, what questions to even ask. And we actually talked a lot about asking good questions in the beginning of the book, because curiosity is what this is all about, being able to ask questions to kind of understand what our assumptions are, what our beliefs are, what's been encoded into the business model of our organizations, what traditions we're holding on to that we might need to let go of, in order to move forward. And so, all of that is kind of wrapped up in a mission statement. And really, we think that people just need to be a little bit more specific.
[00:11:52] JR: Ali, Nick mentioned curiosity, which I think is an essential quality for masterful innovators, which, obviously, based on your backgrounds, both you and Nick are. I'm curious how you personally, Ali, how do you cultivate curiosity on a regular basis?
[00:12:08] AL: Yeah. So, I read incessantly. I think that's the obvious answer, is reading learning new things. Lately, I'm into these master classes that you can follow and just going, “What's the new thing? What's the different idea? How can I learn from that?” I'm currently in grad school, which takes up a lot of my curiosity, at the moment, as we apply these kinds of questions to different spheres, different sectors, different industries. But it's really that diversity of getting out and learning new things.
Part of the joy of our day jobs, and some of the people we work with, is the experience of being around people who are technically very, very gifted. And so, part of my curiosity with them has been, what do you do? Why do you do it? What did you have to learn to get there? And asking those questions a lot to the people that I encountered day to day, and starting to see the patterns in their answers.
[00:13:04] JR: Ali, other than curiosity, what else do you think it takes to really master the craft of innovation and strategy. I know you said professionally, what are the other keys of that craft?
[00:13:15] AL: Yeah, so one of the keys, I think that really pulls the right thing out of people is interdependence. A lot of times we think mastery is a solo endeavor. We think that innovation is the person with the best ideas. But it's really that interdependence that we learn to trust each other. Back to the empathy thing, we learn to have empathy for each other, but we learn to trust each other's piece of the puzzle that they're putting on the table. And I think the times that I see the best strategies, is the people that are pressing into that connectedness, and that reliance on each other, because other people are going to reflect to me about myself and my ideas better than I ever will.
Together, we represent a more fuller image of God than any of us do individually. I always see that as an element. Another element I really see in mastery of innovation, would be persistence. It's that persistence, we talked about it in the book a lot, persistence in exploration, persistence in finding an answer. It's not necessarily the person with the most skill. It's the person who doesn't stop looking until they solve the problem that I think we see a lot of that distinction in.
[00:14:26] JR: I love that. So, part of mastering any craft is just good habits, good routines. We talked a little bit about that in the podcast. So, Nick, I'm curious for you, what does a typical day look like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed?
[00:14:38] NS: Yeah, a lot of people ask me this all the time, because so both Ali and I can be, I guess other people could see us as pretty active people. I do Ironman races –
[00:14:47] JR: Timeout, timeout. You've done 21 Ironman races. Active is quite an understatement, Nick.
[00:14:54] NS: Yeah, I have three kids. They are all young and require a lot have time and attention and energy. And anyway, so a lot of this really comes down to discipline, rhythm and habit, even when we were writing this book to find in create space in our schedules in our lives to do it to give it the attention it needed, we had to make it a habit. And as we all know, habits are really, really hard. And so, we actually loved writing this book together, because we can hold one another accountable, which, is a really big part of having a good habit is having someone else hold you accountable to it. And so, this is how we kind of live our lives and a lot about what we talked in the book is, innovation requires having a habit and setting a rhythm, because sometimes you just don't want to do it. And it's really just a matter of like Ali said, perseverance moving forward and being intentional and diligent about that.
[00:15:45] JR: I love that. So, Ali, speaking of routines, and daily habits, you mentioned in the book that one of our challenges to casting vision is just getting past the urgent day to day of our roles. I know a lot of people struggle with this. So, for you personally, Ali, how practically, do you ensure you've got enough room on your calendar for “important, non-urgent” work?
[00:16:10] AL: Like he was saying about accountability, we carve out a place usually every week, to touch base on those things, because your day tends to get swallowed by the urgent. But if every week, we're saying, “Where do we want to go next? What do we want to look into? How are we feeling about that? What did you read?” So, we have an annual rhythm of looking at a strategic plan. We probably about, once a month, do some intentional work toward that. But every week putting on the calendar for us, it's usually on Fridays. How's that going? Where do we need to go next? Is how we work toward that.
[00:16:46] JR: Nick, do you call each other out when there are things on that to do list that shouldn't be there? Because they're just not important or kind of tyranny of the urgent stuff?
[00:16:56] NS: Yeah, we really do. We do it annually, we do it monthly, and we do a weekly. Annually is actually a little bit easier for us to do that, because we can look back at the last year and say, “Okay, what took so much of our time and attention that really shouldn't have and help me hold myself accountable to not letting that happen again.” It's sometimes easier to step back and see that at the macro level than being in it, day to day and week to week. But that actually helps us then on the week to week and the month to month because we know what each other's goals and priorities are. We know what roles and responsibilities we are stepping into. We know the things that we're saying yes to and the things that we're saying no to. Trust requires permission from both parties. And so, we're able to give each other permission to hold each other accountable. And over time, we build that trust that, “You know what, Ali called me out but she's really right. I said I wanted to do this and she's just holding me accountable to it.”
[00:17:50] JR: Yeah, it's really critical. Years ago, I was running a business and my co-founder and I once a week would literally pull open our to-do lists. And we called it our stop-doing meeting. It's like, all right, we decided these are our goals. Here are our objectives and key results for the quarter. What on your to-do list isn't in line with that? And you had to really defend it, and just prepping for the meeting all week knowing somebody's going to call me out on this being aligned with my objectives and key results. That was super, super helpful.
So, I love that you guys do that on a weekly basis. Hey, Ali, I really appreciated that you guys wrote this book explicitly for the church. You weren't apologetic about that. It is a book for Christian leaders and there's such a strong theology of innovation and creativity and risk. And in the book, you talked about how Heaven is the ultimate preferred future for every Christ follower. So, how practically should that truth shape our work every day as leaders?
[00:18:51] AL: Yeah, I think it has to, right? Jesus taught his disciples how to pray. And he said, “Pray that we would see on earth as it is in heaven.” Now, we don't have all the specifics about heaven. So, practically speaking, that doesn't tell me what color to paint the streets necessarily, or how to build the house. But it tells me a lot of things that should influence day to day the decisions that I make. It talks about the nearness of God. It talks about Jesus is the light that they didn't need the sun to shine for Jesus, the Lamb of God was their light. It talks about how we'll all be there. We all have rooms in the house together. Gives us lots of pieces of the puzzle that I think help us frame the direction we want the future to go.
We've encountered so many Christians who go, “Well, we don't know what the future will be”, or they resigned themselves theologically to, “Well, we'll just take whatever future comes and call that trust.” God is good. We'll take whatever future comes. But really wanting to set out for people, no, God's given us a model of holding up a future destination, kind of a future vision in front of of us that we're going toward, and we're remaking the Earth, little by little as we go more in the image incrementally of that vision. And so, really trying to use that to help pastors and leaders, kind of understand the idea that we co create that future, that we're part of shaping it and not just passive spectators.
[00:20:23] JR: That's beautiful. So, I want to go a level deeper, Ali. And Nick, I'm going to ask you the same question. Ali, how did your work, move us incrementally closer to the kingdom, like your work at NASA, or your work through this consulting practice? How do you see that bringing us a little bit closer to the kingdom being on earth as it is in Heaven?
[00:20:42] AL: Yeah, so I consider my vocation to help people envision, understand, and create the future. And the biggest roadblock I see to that is people don't think they can. They see themselves as powerless, or they see other roadblocks in their way for whatever reason. And so, my work kind of across the board, and I've had a wide variety of career choices. I taught high school, I was a youth pastor for a long time, I do consulting now. All these things. What they have in common is helping people see their own power that they have in the image of God as a child of God, to do work in the world that matters. And so sometimes that's cheering for them, sometimes that's helping shape their vision.
I'm currently in graduate school, I'm doing a Master's in Futures, to look at how do you help people see that future, because a lot of people think, “Oh, well, I'm not wired that way. I'm very practical.” How do you help people that's their self-image, see that future? And so, that's really kind of the ministry call that I've taken up is, whether it's one on one or with teams or with organizations, helping them know that they can, and then helping launch them on that call and that trajectory, to see what God's called them to do in their context and in their future.
[00:22:04] JR: I love that. Nick, you've worked on some really cool projects at NASA, helped launch the NASA Twitter account, which we all love following so much. How does your work at NASA specifically bring us closer to the kingdom?
[00:22:16] NS: Yeah, so I think we have an opportunity no matter where we are, what our job is, what community we're working in, what organization we're in, to serve others well, and oftentimes, it's easy to serve others just by being the one that kind of asks great questions, that's present to be able to ask the questions when the timing is right. Oftentimes, I have the opportunity to also just be the one who casts vision and says, “Hey, you know, this is the way things always have been done. But what about this? What could it look like if we challenged some of our assumptions?” The harder work that Ali and I do is when we have the opportunity to call out assumptions and organizations, and we try to do that in a gentle way. But we say, “Hey, do you realize that one of the reasons that you're holding those so strongly to the past is because you just have a huge assumption that you're unwilling to let go off.”
And so, a lot of our work actually is kind of centered around the verse in Samuel, in chapter three, where he talks about now in those days, messages from the Lord were very rare and visions were quite uncommon. And we'd like to talk about that we live in a time when there's so much knowledge and so much information and so much going on. But yet, we as humans, were just nearsighted. We don't rely on God first, we don't put our faith in God, we don't trust in God first, and then we kind of trust in our own selves. And visions are quite uncommon. I’m not saying what God’s calling to us is not something that we maybe necessarily go to first, especially in secular organizations. So, just being a light in your vocation, wherever you might be, is how we like to think about the opportunities that we have to serve wherever we are.
[00:24:03] JR: I love that. Ali, I love that you guys quoted Proverbs 29:18 in the book, where there is no vision, the people perish. There's this biblical idea that vision is essential to human flourishing. Can you talk about that and how that fuels your ambition for your work?
[00:24:19] AL: Well, you know exactly how it does, building on what Nick just said, I think what has made us kind of cringe on the inside, is that people say, “Of course, you're good at seeing the future. You are from NASA.” That people would say, “Of course, NASA is like that.” And I think our heart cry has been of course, the church has to be like that. It's the church that has to stand out. It’s the church that should lead our progression into the future.
NASA is great for what it is and that's been a gift and that people all of a sudden go, “Oh, maybe you know something about vision.” But how much more should we as believers, as those created in the image of God be those people carry that forward? It's really kind of helping people grab onto that vision, where you get hopelessness. I mean, back to the idea of travel and seeing people in different contexts, hopelessness is we stop seeing a future that's possible. I think about the pandemic, and people who have been shut in at home and have gotten really frustrated and felt really trapped. It's because they can't see a life outside of the four walls. It feels dangerous or threatening out there. When we see organizations that feel like they're perpetuating a cycle and can't get past it, because all they're stuck in is today again, and again and again, appropriates talk about on Groundhog Day.
But again, and again, vision is part of how we're made, that we would see not just in ourselves, but in other people, what those possibilities are. And I think it's essential to our flourishing because it's essential to being an image of God. God sees those things rightly. And so, as we see those things rightly, we can live the way we were meant to.
[00:26:04] JR: I love that. And the church would be leading the design of the future number one, because we know the truth of what the ultimate preferred future is, the kingdom. But number two, also because as Ephesians 3:20 tells us, we're able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, not by our own strength, but, “according to His power”, that is at work within us. We have the Creator God dwelling in us, we are His image bearers to go shape the world to look more like the kingdom. So, how does that scripture for you Ali, how does that enable Christ followers to take bigger risks? To take bigger swings and set bigger goals?
[00:26:45] AL: Well, I know in my own life, and this is how I encourage people in that, it comes back to it's not about me. I'm not the limiting factor. When I can't take a risk is because I'm scared of the implications, but when others come alongside me, and we stand shoulder to shoulder, I'm like, “Okay, well, what I can't see, you can see and what you can't see, I can see.” We start to think beyond our own limitations, our own perspective. And so, I think it's very quickly we start to press into that. And it's not just other community, it's not just other brothers and sisters, it's God Himself, who's with us, and who calls us. So, how can we not? How can we hold back and leave it all on the field?
I mean, that's the opportunity of this life, is to try everything we can in our limited existence, in our limited time on Earth, that we would move the ball forward toward that kingdom, toward that destiny, toward that future.
[00:27:41] JR: It's the irony of what secular thinking tells us is the “biggest story of work”, right? The modern narrative of work, is work is about creating an identity for yourself, creating worth for yourself. But if it's all about me, it's actually incredibly limiting. It looks like a big story on the surface, because work is providing me with this sense of self that's obviously faulty. But it's actually a really small storyline, because we can only accomplish so much on our own. The bigger cosmic story is me getting lost, that's just one of billions of actors in this grand drama that God is orchestrating for the world. Right, Nick?
[00:28:18] NS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you so got it correctly. I was thinking about what you guys are just talking about, I mean, really, our nearsightedness is part of the human condition, right? None of us have that vision that God has for the future. So, we really have to work. We really have to work to be a farsighted leader. But we're called to do that and our work is all about that, which is why when we built the Future’s Framework, we start with identity. Because unless you get that right, the rest of the stuff doesn't really matter.
I mean, if you don't understand your identity in Christ, at the beginning of this, I mean, all the things you'll design and the people you collaborate with, and the technology you use to scale while you're doing, all of it is kind of in folly, right? And really, the first four parts of the framework are pretty important because we have identity and then in our identity, Christ builds us to be in relationship with others. So, then, their next thing is like, “Who are you in relationship with? And then what community do you belong to? And what does it mean to belong? And then where do you gather? And how do you gather? And what does that look like in the digital age, for example?”
What we've noticed in a lot of conversations with leaders over time is that a lot of those things kind of get muddied up together, especially in the work environment. Because oftentimes, our identity is so tied to who we are at work, and not who we are in Christ. So, what we try to do is just really unpack those to get started and form a good foundation, because then you have a lot more clarity about what comes next.
[00:29:49] JR: Yeah. Hey, Nick, so I've been thinking about this idea a lot over the last few months. This idea that there's always, always, always going to be a gap between our vision for our preferred future and the present reality, right? I think NASA is actually like best-case study for this. In the ‘60s, we said, “We're going to the moon.” It's like, “Okay, great.” But there's this huge physical gap in between vision and current reality. How does the gospel enable you personally, to be both ambitious for that preferred future, but also, I don't know if content is the right word, but content with whatever progress the Lord provides, even if you never attain that preferred future? Does that make sense or am I talking nonsense?
[00:30:34] NS: No, it totally makes sense. And the way I think about it, and the way we write about it in the book is the gospel is our lens that improves our nearsightedness so that we can see the farsighted vision that God has for us. We can see with more clarity and that will allow us to, in our current situations, be content with where we're at, but have a longing and a desire to move forward, and be unwilling to be the status quo and remain where we are knowing that God calls us for it. And so, we all need a corrective lens and the gospel is that. So, all the Future’s Framework is the gospel kind of thought about in a few different categories, right? We're just trying to get you to dig in to the gospel. Think about the future that God wants us to be part of, and then be bold enough and courageous enough to move forward.
[00:31:22] JR: Ali, anything you want to add on this topic of the gap between the vision for preferred future and the present reality?
[00:31:29] AL: Yeah, you know, it makes me think of one of my favorite scriptures, it's either the end of Hebrews 11, or in Hebrews 12, where they talk about, they look forward to the heavenly city, they believed in something, but they did not achieve it. But God counted it as faith and he blessed them, and I want to live in that gap, because that gap requires me to live in faith. We want to change the future, we want to build the reality, we want to do all those things, because that's the place that I'm relying on God. That's the place that I am not satisfied with my circumstances, but I'm looking forward. That's the place where I'm dependent on his power, and not just what I can manufacture for myself. And I think in scripture, that tells me that that's a place that God's going to bless with fruitfulness, and with hope.
[00:32:18] JR: And it's this recognition, you hit on it, that God is responsible for the outcomes and the results. He doesn't need me to do anything in this world. If I don't finish the job, he's going to finish it through somebody else. God doesn't need any of us to finish our to-do lists. We get to worshipfully participate, but he doesn't need me to do anything in this world, right?
[00:32:41] AL: Absolutely.
[00:32:43] JR: So, Ali, three questions we'd love to wrap up every conversation with. I'd love for both of you to answer these actually. Ali, which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others?
[00:32:54] AL: I hate to admit it, but my go to in this department, I grew up Anglican and reading all the old Anglican theologians. My go to in this department is either The Great Divorce or The Space Trilogy. Both by C.S. Lewis.
[00:33:10] JR: I love it. Of course. It has to be. That's a great answer.
[00:33:13] AL: It helps people see a different future. And it's great because he's so creative and he thinks so differently, but it points you toward the gospel where you can see the gospel by pushing your expectations way out there and those are two of my favorites in that.
[00:33:29] JR: I love it. Nick, which books do you recommend most?
[00:33:31] NS: I'm going to go back to the theme of habit, rhythm and discipline. Because I think that having vision, which is rooted in the past, deals with today's realities, and is focused on the future requires us to be willing to participate in that but also having the habit, building that muscle that we can do it day in, day out when things get hard, when our lives are messy, when we're yelling at our kids, when our neighbor’s bugging us, when our boss is mad. And so, I am going to recommend a book that Ali actually recently gave me for Christmas. It's called Every Moment Holy, and its liturgies for our daily life, and they're like modern liturgies, modern prayers that we can take time out of our day, no matter what it is, whether we're fighting with our wife or shopping and we're about to make a big purchase just to use the gospel as a lens to see the world rightly.
[00:34:31] JR: I love that answer. I have not heard of that but I just wrote it down for myself. Of course, read Great Divorce and The Space Trilogy, but you guys can find all those books as always at jordanraynor.com/bookshelf.
Okay, Ali, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel shapes the work that they do in the world?
[00:34:50] AL: So, I will say a guy that I just have recently been reading a lot of in my graduate work is a man named Kevin Kelly. And Kevin Kelly was, I believe, the founding editor of Wired.
[00:35:03] JR: Interesting. Wait a second, Kevin Kelly wrote the famous, I could be getting this wrong, but I'm pretty sure Kevin Kelley wrote the famous post on 1,000 super fans, or whatever way, way, way back.
[00:35:14] AL: I believe that that's true. What I just read was called What Technology Wants, but he's a believer. And he's so far out there in terms of AI and the singularity and the things that he sees coming in the technology world, which I think is a very rare place for people to talk about Christian faith. And so, I'm so intrigued since I've heard him talk more and more about his faith in Christ. I would love to hear him share more about how that frames his perspective, as he looks at technology, and as he looks at innovation, and invites other people to do the same.
[00:35:52] JR: That's an amazing answer. I really love that answer. We're going to track Kevin down. All right, Nick, same question to you. Who do you want to hear on the podcast talking about these topics?
[00:36:00] NS: All right, I got two people. First person is a good friend of ours. He's actually the guy who wrote the foreword to the book. You may have already had him on the podcast, I don't know, Will Mancini.
[00:36:09] AL: Incredible.
[00:36:10] JR: I know Will. I know Will. But we haven't had a bond yet.
[00:36:13] NS: Oh, man, you're missing out. Will is amazing in particular, when it comes to creating clarity and living a life of more meaningfulness. He's written a number of books himself, including God Dreams and Church Unique, Younique. He has a new book he just released. He's a huge mentor to us and we actually go to the same church and –
[00:36:33] JR: I was going to say, he’s in Houston, right?
[00:36:34] NS: Yeah, we're in the same community. So, I highly recommend Will. I'm also going to recommend somebody you've never heard of before. I'm just going to recommend somebody that is a kind of a risk. Oftentimes, in our space people always want the astronauts to speak, but I would love for you to hear from an astronaut wife about what it looks like to live this way. And we have a friend Stacy Morgan, her husband is Drew Morgan, he actually recently flew in the space. She's actually working on a book herself right now and she has a lot to say, and a really, really unique perspective.
[00:37:07] JR: That's a really good answer. I liked it a lot. All right, Ali, one piece of advice, you guys have given great advice already. But one piece of advice to leave this audience with, they come from a bunch of different vocations, what they share is a desire to do great work for the glory of God and the good of others. What do you want to leave them with, Ali?
[00:37:26] AL: I think the thing that changed my life into the current work I'm doing, it was really a conversation, Nick and I had where he said, “You're going to do this next.” And my immediate response was, “I can't do that.” But I did. And I did, because I let a trusted friend, really, I can point back to where I stood when we were having this conversation. I let a trusted friend push me out of my comfort zone and believe that I could do something that I couldn't see.
So, just encouraged people, what's the last place that somebody said, “try this or do this”, and you had the thought, “I can't do that”, or “I'm not adequate for that”, or “I don't know how”, and let them push you out of your comfort zone. Because that's the place you're going to discover that gap where you're going to learn where you can fly.
[00:38:14] JR: I love that. Nick, same question to you, one piece of advice to leave us with.
[00:38:19] NS: So, I would recommend that everybody reads Chapter 14 in our book. So, we know that the difference between a rocket that flies in space and a paper rocket is just the will to do it. And I want to be super clear about something that we've kind of skirted around, we haven't addressed directly in the podcast. And so, I just want to address it now. Your job is not to foresee the future. God has that under control. Your job is just to enable it. You’re part of God's plan. Your leadership matters. You can't be afraid of the future. So, you just have to get started. And the will to do something matters so much because you can read a book like this, you can listen to a podcast like this, you can turn it off, put the book on the shelf, and never think about it again.
So, the difference between those that are going to usher in that future that God has for us, and those that are going to sit on the sidelines, are the people who choose to do something about it.
[00:39:20] JR: I love the picture of the paper rocket. That's really good. Hey, Ali and Nick, I want to commend you and everyone listening to this episode for the kingdom building work we are doing every day. Thank you, guys, for serving NASA, the nation, your client’s wealth, the ministry of excellence. And thank you just for helping us imagine futures that are bigger and bolder and just closer to Jesus's picture of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Hey guys, the book is called What Comes Next and you can learn more about Ali and Nick's work at quiteuncommon.com. Ali and Nick, thank you so much for being here.
[00:39:55] AL: Thanks so much, Jordan.
[00:39:57] NS: Thank you, Jordan.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:39:58] JR: Man, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I did. Hey, listen, you guys know that I don't do this podcast alone, right? We got a big team behind this and every week at our all hands meetings, I actually read some podcast reviews, and book reviews and a bunch of other stuff to encourage my team and the work they're doing every day.
So, can you do me a favor? Can you take 30 seconds right now and go leave a review of the podcast on Apple podcasts for us and I would love to read some of those to encourage our team to keep doing the work that we're doing all weekend, week out. Hey, thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of The Call to Mastery. I'll see you next time.
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