Living out the gospel at Apple during the pandemic
Jordan Raynor sits down with Christeen Rico, Founder of Dream Bigger Ventures, to talk about how her faith influenced how she thought about re-opening Apple’s 400+ retail stores after the pandemic, three questions Christeen asks to find eternal purpose in her work, and daily, weekly, and annual rhythms for cultivating unhurried stillness that expands her imagination.
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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 their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian follower who is pursuing world-class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work.
Today's guest is Christeen Rico. She's the exceptional founder of Dream Bigger Ventures. Before that, Christeen led Apple's response to COVID-19 for their global retail locations. And before that, she had other high-level roles at Apple and PwC. She's an exceptional leader and executive, based in Silicon Valley.
Christeen and I recently sat down to talk about how her faith influenced how she thought about reopening Apple's 400 plus retail stores in the wake of the pandemic. We talked about the three questions that Christeen asks to find the eternal purpose in her work. And finally, we had a great conversation about Christeen’s daily, weekly, and annual rhythms for cultivating unhurried stillness that expands her vision for her work. You guys are going to love this conversation with my new friend, Christeen Rico.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:40] JR: Hey, Christeen, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:42] CR: Hey, Jordan, thank you for having me.
[00:01:44] JR: Oh, it's a joy to have you here. We're just talking. I can't believe we haven't met yet. We have like 100 mutual connections on LinkedIn. Finally, we're getting together. This is a good time to do it.
So, really eager to talk about your new company, Dream Bigger Ventures. But first, we got to spend some time digging into this remarkable experience that you just came off at Apple. And I want to start at the beginning of your tenure in Cupertino. What were you initially brought in to do at Apple?
[00:02:19] CR: Yeah, great question. And I mean, if I can kind of take a step back there, born in the Philippines, raised in the Bay Area, in the Filipino capital of America, Daly City. My family and I moved to America when I was three years old, and I'm the youngest of eight kids. While I did grow up in the US at home, and definitely in our church, and then in the city that I grew up in, it was still very culturally Filipino. And then from there, I went to New York for school, studied business, and then God called me back to California. There's a kind of a long story behind that. But ultimately, after graduation, I ended up working in Silicon Valley, started in management consulting in the tech industry, and that's where I got my first glimpse into the crazy world of software and technology and product –
[00:03:12] JR: Were you at PwC at the time?
[00:03:13] CR: I was. I started in their customer strategy and operations practice, helping primarily software companies, with their strategy operations and adopting Agile software development methodologies, et cetera.
[00:03:30] JR: We can spend an hour just talking about Agile software. If you want to get real nerdy.
[00:03:36] CR: Yeah. So that was a lot of fun. And after a few years of that, I had an opportunity to join Apple and I focused initially on international expansion for Apple Retail. And so, I joined Apple at the time when Apple had just gotten a new senior vice president of retail who was Angela Ahrendts, and she was the former CEO of Burberry. And Tim Cook hired her in to lead Apple Retail and online stores. So, from the outside looking in, I figured, something awesome must be happening in the Apple Retail organization. I had kind of followed Angela, through just articles and watching her TED Talks and other talks that she'd given that were publicly available online. I just thought she was a really dynamic and amazing leader.
So, when I got the opportunity to join Apple, she was about just a year, or less than a year into being senior vice president at the time, and there wasn't a lot of publicly available information yet on what exactly she was doing. But I figured, it would be an interesting time to join, and boy was I right. So, I got to join during the time where Apple Retail was expanding into new countries, about two to three new countries every year, and I got a chance to see that wave of new country openings and lead a number of them myself as well, including our expansion into Mexico, expansion into South Korea, expansion into Austria, and was leading due diligence for future markets, as well. So, that was a fun ride.
And then from there, I also joined our global store operations organization. So, after a few years of launching into new countries, I figured, “Hey, what does it take to keep these?”
[00:05:37] JR: Right. Not just to launch, but just to keep –
[00:05:41] CR: Yeah, what does it take to keep these 500 plus locations supporting over 60,000 employees in over 20 countries? What does that take to keep it going, and to keep a level of excellence in supporting our teams, and of course, our millions of customers that walk into our stores and online as well. The funny part was, when I joined store operations, COVID hit just a few months later. I was asked to serve in supporting COVID response for global operations at that time in March 2020, and I still remember that Monday, getting that call, and not really knowing what that meant. But, of course, I said, “Yes, happy to serve, happy to help.” Yeah, the next 18 months or so would be pretty consumed by supporting our teams and our customers in navigating COVID.
And then, just last August, I decided that it was time to move on and pursue a vision that I've had for a while for my home country, the Philippines. And it was a very difficult and long transition for me, but I knew it was the right time in my journey. So, I am founder and CEO of a new venture called Dream Bigger Ventures that specifically focused on, again, building on everything that Apple and Silicon Valley has taught me and really trying to expand that out to the Philippines and helping to energize this startup ecosystem out there.
[00:07:18] JR: That's awesome. I want to dig into how you made that decision, how you made that transition in a minute. But first, go back to March 2020, you've only been in this operational department for a few months. When was it that Apple made the decision that we're closing all the stores? This is going to be like the second week of March of 2020, something like that, right?
[00:07:40] CR: Correct. Yeah.
[00:07:42] JR: And you get a call – I heard the story somewhere, you get a call on a Friday, right? This is happening. And then by Monday, you're helping to lead the efforts to figure out when to reopen, right? That was basically the role that you were tasked with.
[00:07:58] CR: Yeah, initially, that was the charge because we didn't know as much as we know now about COVID. And so, it was like a late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, when Apple published a statement that we were going to be closing all of our stores outside of Greater China. So, just to put that into context, that's about over 450 stores in over 20 countries. So, quite a big announcement for us to shut down all those locations. And the initial announcement was for it to be two weeks. Again, we didn't know –
[00:08:40] JR: Nobody knew.
[00:08:42] CR: We know now, and Apple was actually one of the first major retailers to make that call. And then pretty soon after that, other brands started closing down as well. So, I still remember that Saturday, actually, getting a text message and being asked to support the closure piece of it. One of the things that we had to quickly mobilize on was equipping some of our retail store leaders with VPN access, so we could remain in contact with all of our teams during this closure and continue to make sure everyone was doing well and that we could be ready you know, as soon as it would be safe to reopen our stores.
So, that was a fun weekend endeavor, to equip our teams with the tools and the information and of course, the support that they needed for the closure. And then Monday, March 16, was that very quick call. It wasn't nothing fancy at all. I was just a phone call of, “Hey, we just closed our stores and we're going to need to reopen them at some point and we could use your help.” Of course, I said yes. I think, I was a, perhaps a natural candidate for that role, just given the years of experience that I had working on global, new country expansion. And so, I did have a familiarity with what it takes to open stores and kind of all the backend and front end work of doing that at a global scale and had a lot of relationships all across the organization, in each of the regions because of the work I had done in prior years.
So, at that point, it was muscle memory, right? Muscle memory kind of comes into play. But more importantly, beyond just the the operational part or the strategy and operations part of what that moment entailed, it was the character piece. I think, when I first joined Apple, one of my commitments to God was that I would pursue whole life integration. I wanted to be who God has designed me to be, no matter where I was.
I remember my first day at Apple, coming in and getting lunch with my team, one of the first things that I shared was that I hope you guys don't mind, I pray before I eat, and just got a couple of laughs or smiles or whatnot. But that for me, was just setting the tone for myself of, my commitment to God and not shying away from my faith and living that out authentically. Because when I first got out of university, in my first corporate role, I was a little bit more hesitant, I think, or just unsure. I think, I was a little unsure on what would be permissible, or what is a protocol, right? For living out my faith inside of a business environment, and I didn't really get trained on that in university and at church.
So, I was navigating that a little bit unsure of what that look like. So, when I had my second chance to join another organization, I wanted to make sure starting from day one that I would no longer be unsure, and I would remain committed to being who God has called me to be no matter who's around, or whether or not someone's looking, or whether they are or not looking that I would remain in do my best and be consistent and living according to Christ likeness.
I think that training, years prior to COVID, was the most important preparation that I would need to serve in this role, just given how much uncertainty and anxiety and stress there was around that time. I think that training of just loving, trying to love people, and working out of that spirit of peace and abundance was very needed in that moment. So, I'm grateful for that.
[00:13:15] JR: I think there are – it’s such a great example. “Hey, I hope you guys don't mind if I pray before lunch.” There are moments like that where it's such an easy layup, for us to identify ourselves as Christians. We're not shoving the gospel down people's throats. We're not street preachers in the office. We're just saying, “Hey, I'm a follower of Jesus.” And then I think there are bigger opportunities, where it's less explicit, but perhaps even more powerful. I heard you talk about one of these instances, in an interview recently, where you're talking about this insane time, post COVID. Everybody's freaking out, the world's freaking out. And you had a couple of coworkers come up to you and essentially say, “Christeen, how in the world are you staying so calm during this time?” I love how you responded to that. Can you share that with our listeners and kind of how that opportunity unfolded?
[00:14:16] CR: Absolutely. I responded by saying, “It's because of my faith in God and my faith in the people that I get to work with like you, which is a very real thing. Again, I feel so blessed to work at an organization like Apple. I really, yeah, work with some of the best people in the industry and who obsess about customer experience and I mean, talk about excellence and this idea of putting people at the center of everything.” I learned a lot of that working at Apple. But of course, my faith in God is first and foremost, and then faith in people and that of course, allowed for interesting follow up, follow up questions, follow up conversations as well.
[00:15:06] JR: Of course, but it's a great example of just living in the power of the gospel, but accessing the depths, the inexhaustible resources of the gospel, as we do our work, especially in crazy times, can make people curious, and ask questions. We got to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within us, as we're told at first Peter 3:15, and this is a great example of that. I'm curious, I'm sure you worked an absurd number of hours during this time, am I right? In making this assumption?
[00:15:43] CR: You're right.
[00:15:46] JR: There's this conversation happening today in the church, which I think is very much needed or return to this biblical idea of Sabbath, which I’m a huge fan of and this returned to an idea of rest, which I'm all on board with. But there's also something to be said for Paul's frequent admonition to work hard, right? So, I'm just curious, during this time, this crazy 18-month period, what God taught you about the value of both extremely hard work, and the value of rest. How have you been thinking about these things in wake of this experience?
[00:16:21] CR: Great question. I will start by sharing my personal definition of measure of success for my life. It is ultimately summarized in this. So, I define and measure success by daily pursuing growth in the likeness of Jesus, in character, community, and competency. When I think about character, I think of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I asked God, to allow for the fullness of the fruit of the Spirit to grow in my thoughts, to grow in my heart, in my desires, hopefully, in my words, hopefully, in my emails. But it starts from inside. And that takes a lot of intentionality as well, on a day to day basis to recognize perhaps when I am not so loving, or I'm not so peaceful, or I'm not so kind. I can be very impatient naturally.
So, I think meditating on these words, these passages of the fruit of the Spirit and praying daily, that God would allow for the fullness of the fruit of the Spirit to grow inside of me, is part of my daily process. And then of course, community, I think of love, at the center of all our relationships as Christ followers, whether it's with your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, neighbors, the person giving your coffee. Everyone is created in the image and likeness of God.
And I asked myself, can I honestly say today that I'm pursuing love for others, who are created in the image and likeness of God. I think a lot about first Corinthians 13, “And love is patient and kind, and does not envy or boast, not proud.” I think about first John 4, that “Perfect love casts out all fear.” And ultimately, God showed His love that He sent His one and only Son in the world that we might live through Him.
Even though people can't see God, when we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. And that's the kind of community, those are the kinds of relationships that I hope I'm able to cultivate throughout my days, throughout my life, throughout my work. And then of course, in competency, I think, at least for me, I'm a little bit more familiar with this area, just how do we pursue excellence in everything that we do, and how do we tap into God's creative genius. But I do think, for myself, I probably more naturally gravitate toward the competency piece, and trying to do stuff. So, cultivating character, Christ-like character and Christ-ike Community or Christ-like loving relationships, takes a lot more energy and intentionality for me.
[00:19:27] JR: Yeah, me too. So, I'm curious how practically do you do that, especially at work? That’s a very selfish question for me here.
[00:19:37] CR: Yeah. Happy to to answer. I wanted to share that because when it came to the moment of working a lot in terms of hours, at the end of the day, I don't measure myself based on like, the hours of, “Oh, I'm working this much or resting this much.” I think those are good indicators. But ultimately, if I can be honest with myself in sleeping at night, saying, “Okay, I intentionally was conscious of pursuing growth in the likeness of Jesus today, then it's a good day.” And the outcomes of that day from a business perspective may not always be what I would want it to be. But if I can just say there was an awareness in me that I'm trying to pursue the fruit of the Spirit, I'm trying to love this person who is really difficult to love. Anything of that sort for me, is success. Or maybe I'm rejecting anxiety or fear, right? I'm becoming more conscious of these moments throughout my day when I'm feeling a sense of fear, and if I'm able to, call that out and pray for faith instead of fear in that moment, then that's a successful day for me.
[00:20:59] JR: That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. I'm curious, your initial charge in this role was help us figure out when and how to reopen these stores. And you got lots of inputs there. You got, obviously scientific health concerns, right? You got business concerns. I'm curious, how the fruit of the Spirit rolling around in the back of your head, this other input influenced or did not influence how you personally addressed that problem.
[00:21:36] CR: Absolutely. I think you're right. I think from all those inputs, right, health and safety, top priority. Caring for people is the other thing. I was very blessed to have a lot of experts, and leaders and resources, as part of my arsenal, so to speak, to be able to deploy appropriate strategies and the flexibility to adjust and change as needed. And that's ultimately what COVID has taught all of us, is to always expect change. Even though you have a plan, always allow and plan for flexibility. Always. And it's okay to over prepare. And then if you don't have to use that plan that you had in your back pocket, then great, but at least you had it because you never want to be caught not having a plan in the moment when you need it.
So, all of those things, again, very blessed to have the right people and resources and et cetera. But the fruit of the Spirit, I think, again, God just allowed me to remember at the core of everything is to love people. And that doesn't mean accommodating potentially not right behavior, but it might mean speaking the truth when when someone's out of line or when there is a situation that is just not right, and we need to really lean into it and just give those people a call, and we need to fix it right now.
Again, might require what might seem harsh in the moment, but the motivation, ultimately, I think, with the fruit of the Spirit. It brings you back to love and kindness, and goodness, and then a recognition also that there's a bigger picture, there's a bigger picture. And I think that is a skill that my work throughout my career has taught me is yes, lean into the details when necessary. But don't ever lose sight of the big picture. And for us in COVID response, I mean, health and safety top priority, and then caring for people, caring for our teams, caring for our customers. So, you know, as long as you have the right North Stars, even though there's may be conflict or differences in personalities or approaches in the details. Let's stay focused on why we're really doing this, and that was always really helpful.
[00:24:06] JR: That's good. So, you left Apple in August of 2021 to start Dream Bigger Ventures. Tell us a little bit about this new organization, Christeen?
[00:24:18] CR: Absolutely. I have always had a desire to reconnect with the Philippines in some way. And throughout my adult years, I'd gone back to the Philippines a couple of times through short-term mission trips, and then most recently, before the pandemic in 2019. I was back for a global workplace forum. I don't know if maybe you were there. But it was the Lausanne Global Workplace Forum.
[00:24:42] JR: I was supposed to be there and had to cancel the last minute. This is an amazing event.
[00:24:47] CR: It was an amazing gathering of 900 or so Christian leaders from over 100 different countries and of all the places they decided to host this conference in, it was in Manila. And so, one, yes, it was a great event. But to because I was already traveling to the Philippines, I figured I might as well do something to give back to the community. And the idea that I had was a pitch competition for Filipino youth. Because, again, I'm very much recognized that I'm a beneficiary of a lot of decisions and choices that were made by my parents and those who came even before them. And I got to be a beneficiary of opportunities, to have an education, to study abroad, or just to dream. And without concern of my daily needs in terms of food and shelter, and all of that, and I'm always very grateful and I recognize again, that I'm a beneficiary of that.
So, my heart and desire with this project, in 2019, was to create a space for young people, young Filipino youth to dream. It was a very simple premise, Proverbs 11:10 is one of my favorite passages, “When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices. When the wicked perish, there shouts of joy.” And summarized in that is this idea that as God's people, we get to be the doers of justice and shalom and bring Heaven down here on Earth. So, I inspired by that vision, and that passage, this pitch competition invited youth to imagine they had access to the ultimate venture capitalist, which is God, and who would give them everything that they needed to succeed. And we invited them to dream big and to pitch a venture that they thought would radically transform Manila in their lifetime.
So, we invited them to pick a problem, that they saw in their community and pitched an idea. And we hosted an event in person at the time. And long story short, we had six finalist teams of youth join and 100 people come, and it was a very moving event for everyone there. And the young people just rose up to the challenge, we awarded scholarships, and it got me thinking, it validated, for me, what I had always felt that there's a lot of talent in the Philippines. But for some reason, there's just a lack of opportunity, or a lack of resources, perhaps to really cultivate that raw talent. And that event was just one of those moments where it was just so validating of that.
And then more entrepreneurs and adults started coming to me asking, if we could provide a similar type of opportunity for adults. We had age requirements for Dream Bigger Manila. We wanted to target youth, et cetera. And so, that event in July 2019, became a bit of that proof of concept for this ongoing work of supporting and empowering Filipino entrepreneurs. So, fast forward to the pandemic, I continued to stay in touch with Filipino entrepreneurs that I had met from 2019 and continued to try to help remotely as best as I could. And that continued on alongside the work that I was doing an Apple.
Of course, it was limited, right? Because my work at Apple is very, very demanding. But I did what I could at night, late at night, to try to connect with Filipino entrepreneurs remotely and, and continuing to energize the ecosystem in the Philippines by partnering with other nonprofit ministries, et cetera, to host events and things like that just to, again, empower more Christ followers to recognize their call to create and help them realize that that vision according to the Bible.
So, all that to say, it's been a vision kind of brewing in me for some time. And during the pandemic, God had just continued to put it more and more in the forefront of my mind, instead of in the back of my mind, right? There are always these dreams that we have, I think that are on the list. And it's like, someday maybe. So, this work in the Philippines is Dream Bigger Vision in the Philippines, had been there for sure since 2019, and it was a Sunday – yeah, I'm going to lean into that more and I just didn't expect that it would be 2021. But here we are. And so, like I said, it was a long transition. It was really, really difficult for me to transition out of Apple because I love my team. I do love the the work that I was able to do. But the timing was now. The timing is now. And it's a 30-year vision that we're pursuing to be part of radically transforming culture and communities in the Philippines through entrepreneurship.
So, Dream Bigger Ventures is committed to going broad in doing whatever we can to energize the faith driven ecosystem in the country, and forging Kingdom collaborations across sectors and collaborating with other existing organizations to inspire entrepreneurship at every level and region of the country. And then, the second part is that we go deep with select Filipino founders, investing in them, and providing tailored mentorship and training to really help them take their leadership and their venture to the next level. And we're ultimately a startup, right? We are a startup for startups, and we're continuing to test different models to help Filipino founders, with the vision, the 30-year vision of creating 10 million careers in the country in the next 30 years.
[00:31:16] JR: It's awesome. I love it so much. I was watching the video on your website, dreambiggerph.com, introducing the venture. I love, you hit on one of my favorite themes, just talking about how your faith is what enables you to dream bigger. So, my question is, how so? What's the connection between the Christian faith and this ability to dream bigger about work and bring in the kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven?
[00:31:47] CR: Absolutely. So ultimately, God has a big plan for the world that is revealed through His Word. And one of my favorite passages in the Bible that summarizes this while is Ephesians 1:9-10, the apostle Paul writes, that “God is making known to us the mystery of his will, according to His purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. And here it is, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” So, the mystery of God's will is being made known to us, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. That big picture plan is what fires me up. Okay, God has a plan, and I get to be a part of it.
So, we see the kind of redemptive story unfold from Genesis through Revelation of work in the beginning, that God is a God who works, mankind is created in the image of a God who works and work as a fundamental part of God designed for His creation, modeled by God and trusted by God. It's a form of service to God, and it's done in partnership with God and others. We see in Genesis 3, of course, that work, after the fall is broken, and God is serious about sin, and mankind rebelled against God, and so suffered its consequences, and we see that work becomes needed for survival, right? I mean, we see that in Genesis three, that wasn't really the case in Genesis 2, and it becomes more of an alienating activity between mankind and God. We know, of course, that the story doesn't end in Genesis 3. The story continues, and work is redeemed in Christ.
Again, I go back to Ephesians 2:1-10, and we see that God brings good news, out of His love, mercy and grace. It's by grace that we've been saved through faith, not by our own doing. It's a gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. However, it also says, “We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And so, while mankind is not saved by works, we are saved for good works through Jesus Christ and work gets transformed through Christ. It continues to be a fundamental part of God's plan for redeeming his creation and bringing about this big plan that He has for the world. Our work, is determined by God, and it's discovered in Christ and it's designed for community.
I love this word discovered in Christ, because I think our culture does promote this idea that you have to figure things out. And even if you're in the Christian community, “What do I want to do for God? What should I do for the kingdom?” It’s like, no, no, no, you're not doing – it’s not you. It's not about you. You're God's creation. You're created in Christ for good works. And so, you get to discover what you are actually designed to do as part of this big plan, which is already in motion, right?
[00:34:58] JR: And it’s getting lost in that grand narrative. I am one of the billions of actors, extras on this grand drama, right? I don't get to write the screenplay.
[00:35:09] CR: Exactly. I think we lose that. And so, I like to go back to the bookends. From Genesis through Revelation, and of course, we see in God's Word, the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, and the holy city coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. We know that God, will once again, make his dwelling among us. And then again, we see in the author of the Bible, the kingdom of God, characterized by those two features of justice, right and shalom. We don't have to sit around and wait for that. We get to be doers of that. For me, just again, as someone who claims to follow Jesus, and know God and love God, I believe in what the Word says, and try to live according to it.
Because of who God is, as the creator and master designer of the universe, He's the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and I am aware of this, because of what he says about himself through his word from Genesis through Revelation, God is the King of the universe. Also, through his word, he calls me his daughter, and he entrusts me to be a creator, along with him. So, I get to be Christeen Rico, daughter of the Most High King. And because of who he is, and who he says, I am, what I do matters, and it's that framing.
So, it's those three questions that I asked myself repeatedly, who is God? Who does God say I am? Why do I do what I do? So, why I do what I do is because of who God is, and who he says I am. And he has designed me for good works, which he prepared in advance for me to do, and I get to discover it with every step of obedience and faith that I take, or even every mistake that I make. It's part of me discovering, more and more and more, this big plan that God has set forth in motion that I get to be a part of. And that's how – I start from the big picture, and then kind of work my way down to then, how does this big picture reality connect with my identity? And then how do I live in alignment with this identity that I claim for myself, even though I may not always feel like it, right? Do I always feel like I'm of royalty? No. But the word of God says that I am. And so, because I trust the word of God, I choose to believe that.
[00:37:57] JR: I love it. Yeah, the big picture is the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And that's what expands our vision for our work. Work is no longer the vehicle for making a name for myself, of making my LinkedIn profile look as crazy. It's losing myself in that bigger narrative of restoring shalom to every square inch of creation, right? It's beautiful.
Hey, I'm curious, on a tactical level, day in, day out, when you're thinking about the vision for Dream Bigger Ventures, how do you expand your view of what's possible in your work over a 15, 30-year horizon? How do you expand the horizons of possibility for what you're doing Christeen?
[00:38:45] CR: Time with God. I think I could say a lot of different things. I like to read a lot listen to a lot of different thought leaders. I love all of those things. But for me, my imagination is fueled by stillness and time with God to just allow myself to hear from him. And then suddenly, dots connect for me in those moments of like stillness and unhurried – unhurriedness is a big thing. I'm a huge fan of that idea of eliminating hurriedness and being intentional in that, like through the years I've developed daily, weekly, monthly in annual practices that allow for me to have built in unhurried time with God.
[00:39:37] JR: Tell us about this.
[00:39:39] CR: Well, daily it's been a multiyear journey. I was never normally a morning person but waking up early hours before my first official work meeting is something I have grown to really value and having that unhurried time with God, with my coffee usually, and my journal, and my Bible, to talk to him if there is something on my mind, or sometimes it's just I sit there. I just sit and listen to music and just leave my mind open to whatever God wants me to hear in that day. But also caring for my – I recognize as well the connection between mind, body, soul, and spirit. And so, caring for my body like exercising regularly, eating much more intentionally, is also a big, daily ongoing practice for me.
Especially during COVID, I recognize, man, my work is very stressful, and it requires my mind to be sharp 24/7, and I double down on my eating, like eating better, eating more vegetables, eating more fruits, exercising more regularly, even if it's just 20 minutes, or 15 minutes of something to move my body. I knew that my physical wellbeing would have a direct correlation on my mental wellbeing, and my spiritual wellbeing. So, I really doubled down on that.
And so again, developing these daily practices choices, to stay holistically healthy is a big thing. And then weekly, usually, I try to have like an unhurried outdoor time with God, as best as I can. I'm grateful to live in California where that's possible, most days of the year. On an annual basis, I try to leave the country. This is a little bit more difficult because a COVID. But that has been a practice for me pre COVID, a more regular practice of just leaving the country not for a mission trip or a conference, right?
I mean, I work internationally too. So, I do leave the country quite a bit. But to just leave the country for just vacation or time with God, or whatever it is, where there's not so much of a strict agenda, that's been really helpful for me, because I want to know God more, and going to different places, and recognizing these people, this part of nature, was designed by God, it just opens my imagination, to who God is. Rather than staying in beautiful California all the time, like there's so much more out in this world. So, those are just some practices that I've grown to really value.
[00:42:27] JR: It's really good. And I can't stress this enough. I've written about this before, but the need for stillness in order to listen to the voice of God and connect what we're reading in the word to what the Holy Spirit is pointing us to around the world, around us, and expanding our vision in our imaginations for it's possible. None of that stuff can happen if we're constantly consuming noise, right? We've got to be still. We got to be quiet. Hey, Christeen. So, three questions we wrap up every conversation with. Number one, I'm curious, which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently?
[00:43:08] CR: It's a book called MasterLife: The Disciple’s Cross.
[00:43:13] JR: Hmm. I've never heard of this.
[00:43:16] CR: Yeah, it's a book that I went through for the first time when I was in college, with a woman who was mentoring me at the time. I mean, I'm someone that grew up in the church. And so, I had a lot of head knowledge of faith and the Word discipleship, but recognizing college matter, I don't know if I really know what being a disciple means. So, this book, MasterLife: The Disciple’s Cross Master is part of a discipleship series.
But I like it, simply because for me, it gave me a working definition of discipleship that allowed me then to consider, okay, what does this look like in my workplace? What does it look like in all of these other contexts of my life? And so, I like to gift it as a starting point for anyone who's just curious, how are you like this? Why are you so fired up about your faith or whatever? I get those kinds of questions a lot, and for me, it comes back to this personal and deeper understanding of what it really means to follow Jesus and living a lifelong obedient relationship with Jesus. This book was really impactful in that way.
[00:44:34] JR: Yeah. I love it. I'm putting that on my list. It's terrific. All right, Christeen, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith influences the work they do in the world?
[00:44:45] CR: I would love to hear from Tim Cook. Again, I don't know, 100%, where his faith background is or like faith journey is in this moment. But yeah, if I could just choose, I think he is remarkable and I think, again from my time in the company, I got a glimpse of his style, leadership, and influence. And I think, many people in the world could learn a lot from him.
[00:45:21] JR: That's a good word. So Christeen, you're talking to an audience of people who are in a lot of different vocations, but what they share is a love and an apprenticeship to Jesus. And number two, a belief that the work they do in this world matters. And so, they want to do it really well. What's one thing you want to leave that audience with before we sign off?
[00:45:45] CR: I would invite anyone who is curious wondering, how do I connect right, my faith, with what I do. I would invite you to pray a prayer. “God, am I being who you've designed me to be?” And continue to lean into that and keep praying and ask other people to pray for you in this area as well. “God, am I being who you've designed me to be, not who I think I'm supposed to be or who my pastor thinks I should be, but who God has designed you to be?” And be open to whatever God wants to reveal to you.
[00:46:27] JR: That's beautiful. Hey, Christeen, I just want to commend you for the exceptional, redemptive work you have done and are doing in the world. Thank you for being willing to be God's hand and feet at PwC, at Apple during a crazy time. And now, in the Philippines with the work you're doing today. Guys, if you want to learn more about Christeen and her work, you could find out more at dreambiggerph.com. Christeen, thank you so much for joining us on the Call to Mastery.
[00:46:55] Thank you, Jordan. God bless you.
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[00:46:58] JR: Man, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I did. Hey, if you're enjoying the Call to Mastery, do me a favor, go leave a review of the podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. You'd be shocked how helpful those reviews are in helping other people find this encouraging content. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in this week. I'll see you next time.
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