How Christians can think redemptively about layoffs
5 things Christian leaders can do to fire their neighbors as themselves, the spiritual and business benefits of investing in employees after you lay them off, and the sign I hung in my office to help me stop working like an orphan.
Links Mentioned:
0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as artists, oil rig workers, and concierges? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to my good friend, Jena Viviano Dunay. A brilliant former executive at Citi, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Muse, currently doing brilliant work through Recruit the Employer, helping companies fire their neighbors as themselves.
Jena and I went deep on five things Christian leaders can do to fire their neighbors as themselves. We talked about the spiritual and business benefits of investing in employees after you laid them off. We also talk about the sign that I recently hung in my podcast studio to help me stop working like an orphan, you’re not going to want to miss this episode, with my friend, Jena Viviano Dunay.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:18.3] JR: Jena, welcome back to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:21.4] JVD: Thank you for having me back. I know, it’s been quite a few years. I think I was one of the early, early guests, way back when, when you started this.
[0:01:28.3] JR: I think you are episode like, I don't know, number five or six. I remember –
[0:01:32.4] JVD: Yes.
[0:01:32.8] JR: Because I recorded that first batch in Franklin. We actually did your interview in Franklin in that cool little studio, you’re downtown. All right, so you’ve had a busy five years, you’re married, you got a daughter. How would you describe the last five years?
[0:01:47.0] JVD: Beautifully chaotic I would say. Yeah, I think when we first chatted, I had just met my husband I think.
[0:01:53.0] JR: Okay.
[0:01:53.5] JVD: And we were starting to date and yes, since then, we got married in 2020 which was like the worst year to get married, and we got remarried again in 2021 in front of everybody, and then we had a daughter in 2023, and I’m actually pregnant with our second. So, you know, nothing like, you know, a lot of things in a short period of time.
[0:02:08.9] JR: Yeah, I love it, which by the way, we’re not going to get into Jena’s backstory today and how she met Jesus on Wallstreet but you have to hear that story, listeners. So, go back and find it. I think it’s episode number six, something like that. We’ll try to put a link there in the show notes but all right, so hey, you actually put your business on hold for a couple of years, right? So, you’ve had this, Recruit the Employer brand for a while. You put it on pause, why? Take us inside of that decision.
[0:02:35.0] JVD: Yeah. So, it was 2020 and I was just tired, Jordan. I was really exhausted, you know, my business before, I was doing one-on-one career coaching. So, I was helping people navigate the job search journey. Traditionally, working with people that were doing strategic career moves. Well, everything blew up in 2020 and everyone was getting laid off and I think there was this combination of feeling very exposed online because my business was very much my face, me as the brand, and my identity was so wrapped up in the success or failure of a month, like, financially, and I was just tired.
I had been journaling, and I said, “Lord, I don’t think this is what I’m supposed to be doing long-term.” And so, I’ve been praying for something else, I never thought I would go in-house and work for somebody again but actually, it’s a crazy story. I was journaling in the summer and the words, “Generational wealth” Just like, came up on my page, and I was like, “That’s really weird, maybe the Lord’s going to bless me.” That’s what I thought.
[0:03:29.1] JR: Yeah, right-right-right-right-right. Maybe I’m getting some inheritance.
[0:03:33.1] JVD: Exactly, exactly.
[0:03:33.4] JR: That I wasn’t aware of, yeah.
[0:03:35.4] JVD: Yeah. Fast forward many months later, I was sitting with my mentor and her husband at dinner and he asked me how business was going and I made the joke, I said, “Uh, Steve, I’m just so sick of myself. I’m sick of being online, I’m sick of myself.” And he’s said, “Well, I know this gentleman, he owns a multi-family client office and they’re looking for someone that kind of has your weird set of skills that you have.”
So, I was like, “That’s fair.” And so, anyways, long story short, we have lots of conversations, me and this CEO of this multi-family office, which serves families around their wealth. They’re wealthy families and my job would be helping them manage their generational wealth in terms of the family dynamics. So I was tasked with helping to build out some programming for families as they think about, “How do I make sure this money doesn’t screw up my kids?” “How do we make sure that it doesn’t screw up our family?” And so, I was in charge of generational wellbeing, which was a super fascinating journey for about two and a half years that I was there.
[0:04:28.1] JR: Yeah. Bring us up to today, you’ve resurrected this brand, Recruit the Employer, but you're doing different work within it. So, tell us about this new work you’re doing, specifically, the work you’re doing around outplacement, which I absolutely love.
[0:04:41.6] JVD: Yeah. So, when I was doing career coaching, I would have a lot of clients that would come to me, I didn’t know much about outplacement, honestly. I would have clients that would come to me and said that they got company-sponsored career coaching that was not very good when they got laid off, and so they ended up spending money out of their own pocket to hire me, which was awesome for me.
But I kept thinking like, “That’s kind of weird, why are companies spending money on things that aren’t effective?” So, I did a little bit more research, and I realized that the outplacement industry is a two to three-billion-dollar industry that doesn’t have a lot of oversight because when companies lay off employees, they’re kind of just hoping, “Okay, they’re helped now. I’m just not going to worry about that, I have these other fish to fry.”
And so, these companies, while there are some good ones out there, most of them provide a very low quality of service, they’re not personal. It’s very impersonal, they don’t address the whole person who is going through this very kind of traumatic event with a lowercase T, I’d like to say, where you know, someone’s whole identity and like, have you ever been laid off, Jordan?
[0:05:38.9] JR: I, by God’s grace, have not.
[0:05:40.6] JVD: Okay, I have been laid off before, and I was planning to leave, and even in that situation, I felt mortified, kind of embarrassed. I felt like, “Wow, was I not good at my job?”, like, all these emotions that encompass who you are, how you show up at work, and then not to mention the financial aspect of it, and so when I was really thinking about going back out on my own and resurrecting this brand, I said, “You know, I don’t think I want to do the one-on-one career coaching, it’s too much Jena’s face.”
I’m not sure I want to do that but I really want to help serve this population and kind of make this industry something that it could be and should be is really about redeeming people’s work and I know, that’s a Christian word and then probably, you know, corporations will necessarily resonate with that but how do we make this really awful experience something really great for this individual who is going throng the layoff.
[0:06:27.9] JR: Yeah, it’s really, really good. By the way, I think we’ve picked up on this from context clues but for our listeners who have never heard this term outplacement before, how would you define this term and this industry?
[0:06:39.5] JVD: Yes, so, when a company lays off employees, they will hire an external, essentially a career coaching firm to help them get all of their marketing materials ready, right, their resume, LinkedIn, cover letter, and then, help them with interview prep and the things that are associated with getting and landing a new job.
[0:06:54.0] JR: Yeah. Is this common?
[0:06:56.6] JVD: You know, it’s becoming more common, unfortunately, because we’re also having more layoffs. So, it’s kind of a mixture of the two things but for large corporations, it is pretty common. I think smaller corporations are starting to understand the benefits of it beyond just it’s kind of the nice thing to do. There are a lot of benefits in terms of salvaging your employer brand, and honestly mitigation against lawsuits.
There’s a lot of actual business benefits to doing it but I would say – I would say, about like 50% of companies are probably doing it. I’d like to increase that, honestly, not just because it’s my business but because it is – especially as we see more layoffs and people that are going through this really hard, hard time, how do we support them in that transition?
[0:07:36.1] JR: Yeah, yeah. Well, and the trends are ever in your favor.
[0:07:39.4] JVD: Yeah, unfortunately.
[0:07:39.3] JR: With unfortunately as more layoffs are happening. All right, so, let’s make this a little bit more concrete before we talk about the spiritual element of this and why you’re doing this. How does Recruit the Employers’ outplacement service work? What practically are you doing for clients?
[0:07:55.1] JVD: Yeah, so, we have this system that I developed when I was working with, you know, a thousand plus people one-on-one. I got a lot of experience doing what works and what doesn’t work and that’s also interesting. Most outplacement firms are not run by practitioners, they’re run by individual coaches who aren’t paid very well so you don’t get – even attract the right, you know, the best of the best.
And so, when somebody you know, gets laid off, we actually meet with them and we you know, talk to them about what do they want to do next, what are they thinking about, and we walk them through five stages. We walk them through helping them rebuild confidence is the very first stage. We start doing that immediately through a mixture of content, coaching, group coaching, and resources, and so we do that.
The second thing we do is help them get clarity, right? A lot of people want to go, “Just fix my resume and I want to move on.” That’s just not the solution because if you are fixing your resume for a path that you’re not actually going to go down, it’s a problem. So, we help them with their clarity, and then the third step is actually giving them strategies to find a new opportunity and simplifying a very overwhelming experience.
The fourth step is marketing into the jobs, so getting those resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, all that stuff ready in a modern way, where a lot of firms that are out there aren’t exactly modern and they’re kind of antiquated and give antiquated strategies and so we really pride ourselves on having the most up to date resource on that, and then the last stage is landing the job. So, teaching people how to interview using their personal brand.
And ultimately, negotiating to land a higher salary or benefits. So, that’s kind of our process that we work through in that again, that mixture of content, coaching, group coaching, and resources.
[0:09:26.3] JR: Yeah, okay, and just to clarify, the person being laid off is not paying for this?
[0:09:31.0] JVD: Correct.
[0:09:31.7] JR: The employer has provided this as a benefit, as a part of their layoff, correct?
[0:09:35.7] JVD: That’s correct, yup.
[0:09:36.7] JR: I love this, I think it is so redemptive. I think this is such a beautiful picture of what it looks like to fire your neighbor as yourself.
[0:09:44.8] JVD: Yeah.
[0:09:44.9] JR: Right? Like, what was going on for you, you mentioned your own experience being laid off. Like, what was going on for you to discern that, “Man, this is broken, and this is what I feel God calling me to work to redeem and renew.”
[0:09:58.1] JVD: Yeah, I think I just saw the industry as a whole was very broken. Like, this is a service that is offered. So, one, that part of it was clear to me that there’s so much opportunity to do this so much better so that somebody goes through the experience of a layoff, and I say this kind of in my opening video to folks whenever they go through the program, you know, “I know you don’t want to be here and I kind of don’t want you to be here either.”
[0:10:20.1] JR: Yeah, yeah.
[0:10:20.2] JVD: “But if you’re here, my job is to make this the best thing that ever happened to you, this layoff, to be the best thing that ever happened to you.” And I’ve seen people who have gone through layoffs and gone through this program who have completely changed paths in a really great way or who have decided to go out on their own, or who have asked for more money and got it in their next opportunity.
So, I really look at it as an empowering thing that I think a lot of people in the job search space, it’s a very negative, where I want it to be really empowering. So, for me, it was this idea of, “I saw a huge problem in the industry, I knew I could solve that problem because I have solved it before, and how do I just marry those two things together?”
[0:10:57.3] JR: Yeah, it’s good. I was going through the website and honestly, I was a little surprised at how affordable your services are.
[0:11:05.0] JVD: Yeah.
[0:11:05.9] JR: For your clients but it’s not an insignificant investment, right?
[0:11:08.8] JVD: Correct.
[0:11:09.8] JR: I’m curious like, for Christian leaders, that’s who you’re talking to, right? What’s the key to them understanding the value of, as put on your home page, layoffs with dignity? I think the answer would be pretty obvious but I don't know, maybe you got something that’s not obvious to our listeners here.
[0:11:25.2] JVD: Yeah, I think the most obvious one is how do we send somebody off so they still become alums of your organization and not ex-employees. So, that’s like a very practical business piece. We want those employees to have had a good experience even if they got laid off that it sent them on their way to the next great opportunity. That’s really what a business leader – nobody wants to lay somebody off, right, Jordan?
Like, nobody actually wants to do that, if you are, you’re a sociopath and that’s a bigger issue, right? So, no one wants to blow up somebody’s life. So, when you're blowing up somebody’s life, I always say this to leaders, “You can never be too generous and it’s never going to come back to bite you in the butt when you’re too generous in that process.” So, there’s that piece of it, of sending somebody off with grace, I think for Christian leaders.
But then, there’s the business case for it. As I mentioned before, it preserves your employer brand. It actually helps morale for those that are left behind that like, kind of survivor syndrome that often happens. There’s a massive loss of productivity but, if they feel like their friends are actually having a really good experience in a program that’s getting them excited about their next opportunity, they’re going to feel better about, “Okay, if that happens to me, I know that I’m going to be in good hands.”
And then, not to mention, there’s obviously the litigation that can happen from different lawsuits that happen when layoffs occur and so, actually, outplacement firms can kind of help mitigate some of those risks that are very real and very expensive for companies and so, all of those things together, the moral part and then the business part, I think there are some things that companies should really consider and leaders should consider that you can’t just lay somebody off and hope the problem goes away.
It’s not going to go away and so the best way to handle it is to overcommunicate, and overdeliver on generosity as you're transitioning because it’s never going to be too much.
[0:13:06.1] JR: Make that case.
[0:13:06.6] JVD: Yeah.
[0:13:06.8] JR: I’m going to push back on that because I’m sure listeners are like, “Nah, I’ve seen generosity come back to bite me in the butt in terms of entitlement with team members who stay.” Make that case a little bit more as to why you can never be too generous in laying people off.
[0:13:21.4] JVD: I think for those that are being laid off, if you think about yourself, there are probably people that are in your leadership team that maybe you as maybe the founder have an experience to lay off but for those that have experienced a layoff, it’s a pretty jarring experience and when somebody is going through that experience, it is emotionally overwhelming, and when somebody is going through an identity shift, an emotional, overwhelming experience when you have support there on the other side, there’s only benefits from that.
I have not seen anybody that’s gone through an outplacement program that’s a good outplacement program have a negative feeling about the – they have a negative feeling about the company in terms of, “Oh my gosh, I got laid off, that was terrible.” But if they had a good experience in their outplacement program, they’re like, “Actually, that was a blessing in disguise.” And you want someone to have that feeling, and so that’s what I mean about not being too generous. I don’t think that providing support is being overly generous.
[0:14:11.0] JR: Yeah, yeah.
[0:14:11.4] JVD: I think it’s actually just the status quo.
[0:14:13.1] JR: Yeah, yeah, it should be. Yeah, and I think this is interesting. I think by God’s common grace, there’s probably going to be a lot of similarities to an outplacement policy within, I don't know, let’s say, you’re an HR at LinkedIn, right? There’s probably going to be some similarities between how a Christian at LinkedIn designs that outplacement policy, versus a non-Christian but there should be something that’s distinct, right?
Like, what do you think can be, should be, or in your experience, is different about how believers are thinking about layoffs and outplacements in comparison to their non-Christian counterparts?
[0:14:49.5] JVD: I would hope that the answer comes into the idea of, you’re not just trying to, you know, maximize profit or minimize loss. You're also trying to empower the people and bless the people that are a part of your organization. If you, I believe, as believers, we need to be looking at the people of our organizations and have people over profit. Profit’s important, hear me, I’m a business owner, I know it’s important.
But there should be parts of it that we recognize and honor as providing that dignity as somebody leaves and we don’t just look at them as a number. We look at them as a child of God and that we look at them as a whole person who has all this – this is going to have a ripple effect on their families. We can’t just look at them as the bottom line, we have to look at them also as the whole person.
[0:15:33.6] JR: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think the feature set of that outplacement policy might be really similar for the believer and the nonbeliever but the heart posture could be radically different, right?
[0:15:43.2] JVD: Well, I’ll give you an example. Can I give you an example on this? So, there’s a gentleman who, when I was doing some of my research — he was an HR leader in the healthcare space for years and years, and years, and years, and unfortunately, for his company, they didn’t offer outplacement but what he did instead was he made sure that he called up his competitors when they laid people off to say, “Hey, we have – we’re going through this awful thing right now.”
“I want to make sure this guy lands in a good place. Would you be interested in interviewing him?” He set up these, like, career fairs with their competitors. That’s what it looks like to be a Christian who is laying people off with dignity and making sure that they land on their feet and I can guarantee you, that that is not being overly generous. I can guarantee you, that person thought so highly of one, that individual, but also of the company that they would go out of their way to actually help literally land them the next job.
[0:16:36.4] JR: Okay, I love this. I love that we’re getting practical. Let’s build a list together here, we’ve already got one thing on the list of how Christian employers can handle layoffs differently, calling competitors, that’s super practical. Is there anything else you’d put on that list? You say, “Hey, here, two, three, four, five things that Christian employers should do distinctly when laying off people.”
[0:16:56.6] JVD: I think the – you know, you’d be surprised at how many companies actually don’t have a plan for when the worst day of your business happens, AKA, when you have to lay off people and honestly, I would say that you I know talk about excellence. Like, part of having an excellent HR program or just people program is to put as much time and intention into your offboarding as you do into your onboarding so that when it happens, you have a plan in place.
So, so many, I mean, so many companies do not have a plan, and then, they scramble at the end, and then it’s really bad. I’ve seen it go bad because the communication’s bad, everyone’s confused, nobody knows what’s going on and the whole process is just completely shoddy.
[0:17:36.2] JR: For the record, I’ve been guilty of this, just to you know, state that clearly and publically.
[0:17:40.8] JVD: Well, right, you don’t want to think about the crisis that will come but you know, a lot of business owners, especially in this economy, they will face some sort of challenge like that where they may have to make some uncomfortable decisions. So, why should you not plan ahead? So, I’d say that’s a very practical thing that you can do ahead of time is get it really clear communication plan.
And then, I would say the other practical thing as you are laying these people off with dignity, obviously, I’m going to say, practically, yes, call your competitors, hire an outplacement firm, obviously. Consider what severance might look like if you want to provide severance for your team, and then I would also say to think about those that are left behind and how you can practically come up with a plan to make sure that those people feel as safe and secure as is humanly possible when the company feels like it’s very rocky.
And so, you also have to create that plan, not just for offboarding those people but the after effects, if you will, of the earthquake that happened to your company and so, some things that I’ve seen some companies do is holding all hands where you’re having an open conversation, maybe it’s you’re providing opportunities to the team. It could even look like just having a gathering of mini teams together.
Like the sub-teams of an organization to just connect and make sure that people feel secure and get some feedback, those open lines of communication can really make a difference when a company is going through a hard time.
[0:19:01.5] JR: Yeah, that’s excellent. So, by my count, we’ve got five really practical things that believers could be doing.
[0:19:07.7] JVD: I got you.
[0:19:08.5] JR: To fire your neighbor as yourself, so number one, maybe this is my interpretation but spend as much time thinking about off-boarding as onboarding.
[0:19:16.0] JVD: Absolutely.
[0:19:16.9] JR: Be as intentional about excellence there.
[0:19:18.9] JVD: Yeah.
[0:19:19.2] JR: As you were about onboarding, number two, call your competitors on behalf of your team who is outgoing, right? I love that. Number three, hire an outplacement firm, which will help cultivate the strategy and solve points number one, two, and probably, you know, four and five. Number four, provide severance when possible. Number five, work to make the remaining team feel psychologically safe because yeah, there is danger there.
I have been in that scenario with our layoffs and you’re still there and everybody’s fearful of the second wave, and that could be really detrimental to a team.
[0:19:50.1] JVD: Yeah, the productivity loss that happens after that is pretty significant for an organization. I don’t have the stats up in front of me, I can send them to you probably later but they’re pretty significant for a team, so expect that. Create a space for that and then do as best as you can to rally because what often happens during a layoff is that the jobs that are gone, the people that are left behind have to fill in that work and that can be really stressful.
And so, making sure that you’re acknowledging that and being able to accommodate that for folks as they’re navigating the after-effects I think is really important as well.
[0:20:24.2] JR: It’s good, we’ve talked a lot about the business benefits of outplacement. I want to touch on the spiritual benefits of this, I’m curious if you know of a story where the way of a Christian leader layoffed a team member actually opened the door to a positive conversation about faith.
[0:20:45.6] JVD: Yeah, I actually don’t know of an example of that right now, I don’t know an example of that.
[0:20:50.9] JR: Well, listen, for the record I think that’s okay. I think there is still intrinsic value in making this type of investment because this is just a practical way to love your neighbor as yourself. I say this all the time, love your neighbor as yourself is a complete sentence. Jesus did not say, “Love your neighbor as yourself if in doing so, you’ll have a chance to tell them about me” right?
Love your neighbor as yourself is complete and if it opens the door to share the gospel, blessed be the name of the Lord but if not, that’s okay. We’re still being obedient to one of the two great commandments that Jesus gave us, amen?
[0:21:29.6] JVD: Yeah, amen, and I would say you know, even thinking about that HR leader that I gave the example of who called us competitors, I feel like his action’s 100% and he was very vocal about his faith in general in the workplace. People who were not believers got to see what it looked like to experience a believer who actually walked the walk and didn’t just talk the talk and I think that is a really powerful, powerful thing for leaders to acknowledge and to recognize as part of their legacy.
How you treat somebody and how you – how someone experiences you in kind of the worst times is really a testament to character over how they see you in the best of times.
[0:22:04.0] JR: Yeah, that’s really good, really good. Hey, Jena, it’s super clear how your faith is shaping what you’re doing in this season of your career, right?
[0:22:12.3] JVD: Yeah.
[0:22:12.8] JR: But I am curious like how the gospel is shaping how you were doing what you’re doing professionally, right? Maybe to put it in another way, like what’s one thing about how you’re building this business now that can only be fully explained by your commitment to Christ, maybe it can be partially explained by business benefits, whatever but can only be fully explained by walking in the ways of Jesus.
[0:22:35.8] JVD: Yeah, I actually kind of have two that are interconnected, and this could probably be a totally different podcast episode but for me, I feel like the Lord has really brought me in a journey around money and generosity. Over the past couple of years, I lived in a lot of scarcity, fear of not having enough, I didn’t really trust the Lord to be my provider, trusted myself, my own abilities.
I think probably a lot of leaders or entrepreneurs can relate to that in some way, shape, or form, and I was really convicted when I was relaunching this business that I wanted to operate differently in how I approached the work. So, there were two things that I’m doing differently that actually don’t make sense from a business case. If I look at my peers, my peers, I mentioned the coaching piece, they paid coaches USD 30 an hour.
Generally speaking, that’s not going to get the best quality of coaches, and I decided that I was okay with taking less of a profit to pay coaches three times what they are paid on the market for a couple of reasons. One, I was a coach and I know the value of what a coach can do and how it can impact a person. So, yeah, there’s a business case for that but really just respectful of people’s time and their expertise.
So, for me, I really wanted to make sure that I was being very strategic about how I was allocating my capital and that people were always first, and that the consumer at the end though, they’re not paying for it, which is an interesting business that I’m in right now, right? The end consumer isn’t actually paying for the product or the service that they are still getting the best quality of service, so that’s the first thing.
And then, I would say personally for my husband and I, my husband is in a role where he is kind of fully commissioned and obviously, I’m an entrepreneur, so essentially the same. We have been so diligent about our giving and our tithing, which has been a stretch for us emotionally. I mean, we’ve done it in the past and it was, I would say it was not as consistent, embarrassingly so, as it could have been.
And so, I think for us, we took that very, very seriously and I think about a lot, the Lord has really taken me on that journey and going above and beyond in a season that actually feels financially insecure, and as we’re both trying to build something. So, I’d say those two answers kind of go hand in hand with how we’re approaching money this time around.
[0:24:44.2] JR: Yeah, that’s good. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about just the most common goals for Americans and those in the West and I don’t think the most common goals are that different within the church and you know, one of those, maybe number one is financial security, financial independence, whatever you want to say, and when I look at the gospel, I’m like, “Man, Jesus’s goal seemed to be financial dependence.”
Like, when He’s giving this lesson about whether or not to pay Caesar, He doesn’t even have a denarius on His person. He didn’t have a quarter to His name, right? And I don’t even know what my question is here, more of a reflection. I just – we were at dinner with some friends a few weeks ago, and maybe a few months ago now, and we’re talking about, okay, clearly what our parents got wrong was like race.
That was like the big blind spot, right? What is it for us? And my answer was like really easy, I’m like, “I really think it’s money.” Like, it’s money, and I think we’re going to look back. I think our kids are going to be sitting around dinner tables 20 years from now like, “Man, how in the world did our parents get this so wrong?”
[0:25:50.5] JVD: Wow.
[0:25:51.1] JR: So wrong, so I don’t know, any thoughts on that rambling?
[0:25:54.1] JVD: No, I think that there is something to that. You know, I went to school, I got a finance degree, I ended up on Wall Street, so obviously the financial security piece is a huge part of my personal story and I don’t think I realized how much it had infiltrated my heart in a negative way until the past couple of years, and so I really want to operate and this is a scary thing to say out loud because you don’t know what happens on the other side of it.
But really, that the Lord is my provider, I am not my provider, and so I really want to operate out of that in how I operate in my work and how I look at generosity as a family individually and honestly, how we pay people in the organization. Those are all things that for me are really, really important to practice and not just talk about.
[0:26:40.3] JR: Yeah. You said a few minutes ago that at the genesis of this journey with money, you discovered that you were trusting in yourself, you used that language, right?
[0:26:48.6] JVD: Yeah.
[0:26:49.0] JR: I knew that I was trusting myself not God to provide. How did you diagnose that? Like, how did you come to that realization of like, “Okay, Lord, I have a heart problem here.”
[0:26:58.5] JVD: I think it was when I would start to have panic attacks that we weren’t going to have enough money, which was irrational actually. So, I was like, there’s something to that. I might have an identity issue and so I think it was that in combination with really recognizing that I was really not paying attention to what the Lord was doing but like kind of in the morning when I prayed, I’d be like, “Okay Lord, please bless whatever I want to happen” versus being like, “Lord, this is my life, it is yours, these are my finances, this is yours.”
I don’t think that was an area, I realize that was not an area of my life that I was as openhanded with for a variety of reasons that I won’t even get into, right? And so, I think for me it was the panic attacks, that started to help me realize that there is a heart issue here and just how I operated around money. I always lived in a lot of fear and scarcity and I was like, “There’s something wrong here.”
And so, after talking to my husband a lot and talking to you know, a licensed therapist, and just having great conversations with my mentor, I realized, “Oh gosh, you really have this striving and straining mentality, this orphan mentality, and you are really looking to yourself to be the provider because you look to yourself to you know, there is something to doing really good work, right? Because we’re not saying to opt out of doing good work.
But there is this level of if you’re doing not too much, you’re not depending on the Lord to actually guide your steps and I realize that was me and I was doing that.
[0:28:19.3] JR: How does that orphan mentality negatively impact the work?
[0:28:24.5] JVD: Oh, so much because I’m operating out of fear, so I am making decisions on a very short-term mentality. If I don’t believe that I have a provider and I have to, everything is up to me, I’m making really bad decisions in my business, and honestly looking back at the first iteration, there’s a lot of things that I did that I was like, “That was really dumb.” That was a really –
[0:28:45.4] JR: Which you did because you were afraid.
[0:28:46.5] JVD: Because I was afraid, right, this orphan mentality is that I’m fearful that I will not be taken care of and so therefore, I have to fix it but my fixing is very short-sighted and not actually very strategic or level-headed.
[0:28:58.9] JR: Yeah, that’s really, really good. I can relate to that.
[0:29:02.5] JVD: Yeah.
[0:29:02.9] JR: So, you’re working through this in real-time, right? How does your status as a perfectly secure adopted child of God shape the work?
[0:29:13.1] JVD: I think whenever I feel and really believe and internalize that to be true, I can be patient, which you have to be patient whenever you’re building a business, patient. I can actually have a more reasonable way that I’m looking at a strategy, I’m not just trying to get something in the drawer immediately. I can say, “That’s actually a bad investment of my time and my energy or my finances.”
We actually need to go in this direction and set like a market, like I’m deciding right now if I want to go with a certain lead generation firm or if I’m going to use some marketing research, right? Some like allocating my capital in a way but if I’m operating from a spirit of, “I’m not an orphan, the Lord is going to provide” I can pray through that, feel like I’m getting the Lord’s guidance on that, and then make a choice.
And know that even if it ends up being the wrong choice, the Lord is still with me along the way so it allows me to make better decisions. I think the decision-making is the key to all of this, it’s just better decision-making.
[0:30:11.4] JR: That’s right, Tim Keller says for the believer, there is no plan B but I don’t think you can believe that in your bones unless you see yourself as an adoptive child of God, right?
[0:30:22.9] JVD: Absolutely.
[0:30:23.2] JR: Because if I am fighting for legitimacy, if I am fighting for the right to be loved, there is fear in every decision. If I choose path A instead of path B and path A fails, I fail, right? There is a total connection between results and my identity, right? Does that make sense?
[0:30:40.5] JVD: One hundred percent. I very much resonate with that and I think too, whenever I’m living in that not-an-orphan mentality, a very much a beloved child of God, I also try things that I am not scared of that failure as you had mentioned and to be perfectly honest, never the thing, if I look back on my career, it was the never the things that I perfectly planned out that ever came to fruition that ever ended up being the most awesome things that have ever happened in my career.
It was always the things where I walked in open-handedly, tried something new, and the Lord either blessed it or didn’t bless it and in instances where He blessed it, those were the coolest stories that I had nothing to do with. So, I remind myself of that when I have moments because we all do, where I start to get back to that old habit I remind myself that the Lord has always provided and I actually have written down examples of financial provision and just like opportunity provision that He has given to me in my life.
And honestly, we mentioned this in the very beginning but when we were first talking, you know, 2019, I was just newly got into a relationship for the first time after a decade and I’ve been praying for so many years to meet my husband. So, my family alone, I get choked up about it but like, they are an example of God’s provision, and so if I remember that, why would He not also show up in this business area? Because He cares much more for these things than He even does for the business. So, anyways.
[0:31:59.2] JR: That’s good, it’s really good. Yeah, we’ve got to constantly be meditating on how God has already been good to us and our status as beloved children of God. So, my office is super minimalistic, right? Like I have two objects on my desk, right now I have my remarkable tablet I’m taking notes on and I have my cup of water, like that’s it, right? I hate clutter but I just hung a sign in my office. It’s like, one of two things on the wall now, and I wanted a carbon copy of this sign that hung in Mr. Rogers’ office.
[0:32:33.3] JVD: Oh, I love that.
[0:32:34.6] JR: For 30 years, and it was a Hebrew printing of Song of Solomon 2:16, “My beloved in mine and I am His.” And I wanted it because I think my heroes, the people who did the most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others, the people who displayed otherworldly kindness to others, God’s loving-kindness, God’s Kessid love to others, like Fred, took a lot of time to meditate on their belovedness, right?
And the love that the father had for them and so, I want the same for me and that’s why that’s in my office, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about. That’s the key to going from orphan to adopted child of God.
[0:33:18.0] JVD: Yeah. I love that you have that up and you have to send me the link to one of those.
[0:33:21.4] JR: I would, I had it custom-made. Actually, that’s a lie, I don’t know I got it made. I just sent a picture to my assistant. I was like, “Figure this out.” And she figured it out but it looks like it’s custom-made. It’s like a handmade piece of wood, it’s beautiful, it’s really simple, but really beautiful, and I don't know, I’m kind of all in on this idea of like, stealing as much as I possibly can from my heroes, like word for word, picture for picture, wall frame by wall frame, I love them. All right, Jena.
[0:33:51.3] JVD: I love that Mr. Rogers is one of your heroes, that makes me so happy. Being a girl from Pittsburg, that makes me incredibly happy.
[0:33:56.3] JR: I love that you love it, my wife hates it. She like, loathes my Fred Rogers obsession. She’s like, “Please stop talking about Mr. Rogers. Everybody’s tired of it like you have to stop.” So, thank you for that, Jena. All right, hey, four questions we wrap up every show with. Number one, what job would you love for God to give you on the new earth?
[0:34:17.0] JVD: I’d love to be a hostess. Welcoming people into the pearly gates.
[0:34:20.8] JR: That’s a great answer.
[0:34:22.0] JVD: Yeah.
[0:34:22.5] JR: I like that answer. Okay, great.
[0:34:23.1] JVD: Yeah.
[0:34:24.0] JR: All right. Hey, if we opened your Amazon order history, what book would we see you purchasing the most to give away to friends?
[0:34:31.0] JVD: Paul David Tripp’s, New Morning Mercies. Yeah.
[0:34:33.9] JR: Ooh, so good.
[0:34:35.0] JVD: My husband and I both read it separately in the mornings but I have gifted that to so many, my dad, I’ve gifted it to so many people. I think it’s such a great way to start your day.
[0:34:45.3] JR: It’s a really, really great book. Who would you most want to hear in this podcast talking about how the gospel shapes the work that Mere Christians do in the world? And by the way, you’ve emailed me so many great guest recommendations, which I greatly appreciate but if you had to pick one, who do you want to hear most?
[0:34:58.2] JVD: Yeah. You know, I actually think, this person would be really interesting. I don’t know if he would come on but he’s my old boss at the family office that I worked for. He’s a really strong believer, his name is Ken Polk and while it wasn’t a Christian-based company that I worked for, he very much was faith-forward, and he just gave me a picture of what it looks like to be a faith-based leader that doesn’t have a fully faith-based company base.
And I just thought he did just a phenomenal job of showcasing what it means to be a great leader, and he was also very vocal about his faith but not in a pushy way, and I just so admire it, the way that he has navigated that, and I think it’s really what has allowed the company to be as successful as it has been. So, I think he’d be super fascinating.
[0:35:41.0] JR: That’s good, good tip. All right, Jena, you’re talking to this audience of Mere Christians, very diverse vocationally, a lot of them employers, a lot of them not what they share is a deep commitment to doing their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. What’s one final thing you’d like to say or reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?
[0:36:03.1] JVD: It’s two, sorry, because of the two audiences. If you are somebody who has gone through a layoff, just know that it’s not who you are. The layoff does not define that you do not do good work for the kingdom and for companies. So, that’s the first thing I think I would say. The second thing that I would empower employers to think about is what does your offboarding plan look like, at the very least.
At the very most, if you have a layoff coming in the future, consider how you would do that gracefully and how you would lay off those people with dignity.
[0:36:32.1] JR: So good. Jena, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do for the glory of God and the good of others, for choosing to put it in language for my friends in practice, a redemptive quest for this chapter of your career in helping leaders love their neighbors as themselves even through layoffs.
Friends, if you want to learn more and work with Jena, you can find out more about her work at RecruitTheEmployer.com. Jena, thanks for hanging out with us.
[0:36:59.2] JVD: Thanks for having me.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:37:00.3] JR: Hey, if you’re enjoying the Mere Christians Podcast. Do me a huge favor and go leave a review to show on Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now. Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in, I’ll see you next week.
[END]