How to dream big with God while remaining content
Jordan Raynor sits down with Sadie and Eric Hess, Owners of Compass, to talk about the best definition of “worship” he's ever heard, how to dream big while remaining content, and symptoms that you’ve forgotten that all you have is from God.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, everybody. 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, who are not religious professionals, but we work as security guards, and surveyors, and entrepreneurs. That's the question we explore every week. Today, I'm posing it to Sadie and Eric Hess, owners of Compass, which helps adults with developmental disabilities live independently in their homes.
Sadie, Eric, and I recently sat down and had a great conversation in which we talked about the best definition of worship I've ever heard and what it means for your work. We talked about how to dream big for our work and cast big vision, while also remaining content. And we talked about some of the symptoms that we have forgotten that all we have been given, is from God. I think you guys are going to love this episode with Sadie and Eric Hess.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:10] JR: Sadie and Eric, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:13] EH: Thank you. We're excited to be here.
[00:01:15] SH: Yeah. Thanks for having us.
[00:01:16] JR: So, Sadie, I know you've been listening for a while.
[00:01:20] SH: Yes. I think, pretty much since the beginning.
[00:01:23] EH: Yeah. Longtime listener, first time caller.
[00:01:25] JR: Firs time caller, those are my favorite guests. Oh, God, this is my favorite guest. Actually, I totally missed the third anniversary of the podcast. It was this Sunday, which we observe as Sabbath. And so, I totally missed it. But we celebrated.
[00:01:37] EH: Oh, congratulations.
[00:01:38] JR: Thanks. Sadie, any memorable episodes?
[00:01:42] SH: Oh, my goodness. Well, a lot, actually. The individual – so, this is where you're going to put me on the spot and I'm going to be bad with names. But the individual that does water.
[00:01:53] JR: Yeah. Scott Harrison.
[00:01:55] SH: Scott Harrison, yes. And then I definitely have picked up quite a few books from different authors that were on your show.
[00:02:03] JR: If only we were getting affiliate revenue from all the books being offered some of the costs of this podcast. Hey, so Eric, let's just set the table for a minute. What is Compass?
[00:02:16] EH: Compass is a business here in Northern California that serves adults with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome, those sorts of things. And we provide staff and social work oversight, so that they can live in their own home, and have a community life and a free life just like you and I do, as opposed to living in some sort of congregate housing or a facility.
[00:02:38] JR: Got it. Where in Northern California are you guys?
[00:02:41] SH: Well, we're based in Redding, California, but we have 12 offices. So, we “go all the way down” to San Jose, and all the way up to the Oregon border.
[00:02:51] JR: Oh, my gosh, yeah, that's a big area. And Sadie what's the founding story of Compass.
[00:02:57] SH: So, I love my story, because I was able to find what God called me to do at a really young age. Actually, I was in college, and I had the opportunity to do internship, and I wanted it to be paid. So, there weren't a lot of options. I looked at this little three by five card that said, “Get paid, work with people with disabilities.” And I started working with a woman named Cindy, and I was her caregiver. So, I did all the caregiving things. But what I learned right away is that Cindy had a lot more to teach me than I had to teach Cindy, and I was forever changed by that relationship.
And so, then I went right into there and started doing social work and worked in this field exactly, working with people with disabilities. And then when the opportunity came up when I was 23 to start my own company, I did that. I took a leap of faith with a friend and a business partner at the time named Joanne and we just follow the path that God called us to, and it's been an incredible journey. So now, I've been doing this over 25 years. I've had my company for 25 years.
[00:04:03] JR: That's amazing. So, the story I've read online is like way crazier. So, you correct my gaps of the story. What I understood was, you were working for this other nonprofit, right at the time, who decided that providing services to the disabled, this kind of wing of their business was no longer financially viable.
[00:04:29] SH: That is correct. No, that's exactly right.
[00:04:32] JR: And you at the age of 23, decided to build a whole business around this thing that was financially unviable.
[00:04:40] SH: That's exactly true.
[00:04:43] EH: Basically, yeah, Sadie’s an eight on the Enneagram, and she just chomped on down to the challenge. She said, “No way. No way.”
[00:04:50] SH: I had been doing this line of work now for a year as a social worker for this organization, and I knew they didn't see the hidden treasures and the gems that were the people with disabilities. And I also had seen firsthand the ways that we could actually make it run more efficiently and save a few dollars to make it all pencil. And so, yeah, at the age of 23, I decided, let me do this thing and took it on as a challenge.
[00:05:14] JR: I mean, but massive risk, massive risk.
[00:05:18] SH: Yes, I think I didn't realize how big a risk at the time. You're in the moment and you see what God's up to and you just take that leap of faith, and then you kind of look down and go, “Whoa, that's a big chasm there.”
[00:05:30] JR: Ignorance is bliss. What did God teach you, Sadie, immediately over the years about taking what in retrospect, was such a significant risk?
[00:05:42] SH: Really, I think one of my biggest lessons is that if God tells you something, multiple times, maybe through His word, maybe through conversations with friends, maybe from a sermon. The more He says it, the more it will cost you. Sometimes we get very excited, like, “Oh, I read this in the Scripture. I know God's saying to do this.” But I think the more times you hear it, the more He's underlying that as something that's important, the more that you should be ready, because it is going to cost you. I say that what I do has cost me everything. And I would willingly and completely pay it again every day.
[00:06:19] JR: Well, Eric, you're the financial guy. What is she talking about? What have been the costs to you guys of building this business and following God's lead?
[00:06:29] EH: Having our lives mortgaged to the hilt various times. But honestly, that hasn't been the biggest cost. I think the biggest cost has been a lifestyle challenge we've had to balance because we're married, we do this together, we have three children. But if you ask all of them, they'll say that our first child was Compass and we've had to work really – and they say that with a smile on their face, and just a little twinge of much like how that felt. So, we've had to work really hard and be super intentional to make sure they were priorities, and that that we would die for them. We've done that by taking time off and spending quality time with them and celebrating all their things.
We're going to be going to one of our daughter's volleyball games just this afternoon to celebrate her. But that's probably been one of the biggest costs. The other cost has been just a lot of time praying and asking God to be our covering, be our protection. And then finding out that a lot of my prayers came from fear not from faith. And so, that's been a big growing experience for us as well. It's definitely been a journey and that faith journey dealing with fear, dealing with God, where are the people going to come from. Right now, we're dealing with an unprecedented hiring shortage, the whole country is, but we're really feeling it. How do we continue to support our people with that kind of shortage? It just takes tons of faith, even when you don't feel like you're super faithful.
[00:07:48] SH: Right. And I mean, we also, we deal with – we have over 500 employees, and we serve over 600 clients. So, the other costs is people are messy. People are really messy. And there's a lot of opportunity to humble yourself and look them in the eye, ask good questions. Try to figure out what they really need in conversations. So, that's been another cost, is just kind of the wounding that can come from leading a lot of people.
[00:08:18] EH: It's a real cost to your pride. You have to daily lay your pride down, because so many times you can say to yourself in this conflict, I'm right. But if we're going to move on together, I just got to let my right-ness go and forgive and let's just move on together. And that's – oh, talking about dying yourself.
[00:08:34] JR: Yeah, that's tough in such people in heavy business. Eric, I'm curious to learn a little bit more about your background. So, Sadie founded this thing. You were in full-time pastoral ministry, before joining Sadie at Compass, right?
[00:08:50] EH: Yeah. I went to school to be a Biblical Studies major. When I was 17, I got a radical call from God to be a missionary, and I was intimidated and excited about it. So, I said, “Okay, I'm going to Bible school and I'm going to eventually wear the pith helmet and have a machete.” That classic illustration of, image of being a missionary. And I did wound up being a youth pastor and worship leader for six years off and on and every time it seemed like I would be heading towards more expansion in vocational ministry, that door would close and I couldn't quite understand it.
A friend of mine has a line, “Just follow your favor. Wherever the favor of God is on your life, follow that because that's likely an indication of direction what you take.” Well, I didn't really have favor in the church as a vocational minister, and I never could figure it out. And honestly, it was a real struggle for me because I would see other men or women who didn't appear as talented or as anointed as me. This is kind of my pride, repentance journey, getting favor, and I struggled with that. And so, I kind of let go of that dream and wound up going into – we got married and I went into business for myself as a financial advisor ,selling and marketing insurance and retirement planning products, that type of deal. And it didn't quite feel right either. It was good service. I believed in what we did, but it didn't really feel like me, if that makes sense.
[00:10:02] JR: Yeah.
[00:10:03] EH: When our two oldest children were two years and eight weeks. I joined Sadie at a conference that she had been invited to, she and Joanna, former partner. We were presenting Compass at a conference down in Santa Clara, where they were – or we were the four white skin folks in this room of 5,000 people of Indian descent. We were definitely the fish out of water and it was super cool. And while we were there, the Lord tapped me on the shoulders metaphorically and said, “Hey, Eric, how come you think you have to leave America to be a missionary?”
[00:10:33] JR: Amen. Amen.
[00:10:35] EH: That kind of rattled my cage a lot. And I had a long conversation with God that day, as I was basically holding my eight-week-old son and manning this booth and having people walk up to me and go, “Well, if we invested $50 million in your company, what would we do?” And I was not prepared to ask the question. I didn't feel like I had the right to, because I didn't work at Compass. I was just kind of my way –
[00:10:52] JR: I’m just here to watch the kids, yeah.
[00:10:54] EH: I’m just the babysitter. Literally, the guy said, “What would you do with a $50 million investment?” I said, “I don't know what we would do with a $50,000 investment.” Which I've since come to learn as the absolute wrong answer to get capital market. But that was really where I was at the time. And by the end of the day, my wife and I had a conversation, I said, “Honey, I think the Lord's telling me that I'm supposed to do this with you.” And her eyes get really big. And I said, “But I'll only do it if we can do it together. I won't be your employee.” And 34-year-old Eric was dumb enough to say that and slightly younger than that, Sadie, was dumb enough to say, “Okay.”
So, that's kind of how we got here and it has absolutely been church. Our business really is our church. We look at Compass like the people we pastor. We pastor at church of about 1,200 people, and if you want to go one step removed to their immediate families, it's a couple of thousand people, more than that, probably. And that's really how we feel about the business. We're not just trying to make money and prosper economically. Of course, that is an intention. It really is our ministry.
[00:11:57] JR: Did you guys have to wrestle? I mean, Eric, you felt this call to move overseas, to be a donor support missionary. And now here you are running this for-profit business in the States. Was there a tension there? Did you have to do some soul work to really view this as ministry?
[00:12:16] EH: Yeah, a ton.
[00:12:19] SH: We're giving away one of our answers, but we found a book called Anointed for Business by Ed Silvoso.
[00:12:24] JR: It’s an old book, yeah.
[00:12:26] SH: Oldie but a goodie.
[00:12:26] JR: Oldie but a goodie.
[00:12:28] SH: It’s a first book. It's a cornerstone book for us. It was the first book that we, I mean, I wept reading because all of a sudden, both of us had felt on the outside of ministry, because we weren't getting a paycheck from the church. And to read this and go, “Okay, we're actually on the inside of God's will”, was transformative for us.
[00:12:49] EH: We had an experience where our attorney who was working in kind of as a coach to us at the time, took us to an investment forum, Angel Investment Forum. We were just guests, because he wanted us to experience this in the hopes that we would pitch Compass. We declined to do so eventually. But the experience was powerful for me. Because we were sitting in this room, where the minimum liquid net worth to be a part of the forum was $15 million. You had to be able to write a $15 million check just to join.
Obviously, it was a lot of cash that could be splashed around and I wouldn't have – I think we had probably $30,000 liquid net worth at the time in our life, maybe. I just had such a revelation from the Lord about how all of those men and women were actually really hurting. They had so much yet they would think –I could just see their insecurity. I could just see their pursuit of –
[00:13:40] SH: Their need for Jesus.
[00:13:41] EH: Yeah, there were pursuing wealth, in the hopes that it would really give them what their heart required, and it didn’t. And the Lord said to me, “Eric, I've called you, you know I've called to the poor. I'm also calling you to the wealthy.” I later on, pursued an MBA, and I had the same experience being in school with all these men and women who were really high performers and high executers, and they were hurting too. So, my wife and I really do look at our business as an avenue to serve all people, wherever their economic spectrum is.
[00:14:09] JR: It reminds me of in Acts, chapter 16. Paul, in the middle of the night has a vision of this man from Macedonia, begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” What's interesting about this is the Macedonians were the social elite. They were the rich, they were the powerful, right? And here's this rich, powerful man from the outside, appearing very strong, appearing to pull on this vision is very weak, and saying, “Come and help us.” I mean, that's exactly what you experienced in that room that day.
Hey, Sadie, talk a little bit more, go a layer deeper on viewing the business as church, right? I don't know that I've heard that terminology used before. People talk about the business ministry but unpack this and what this looks like for you guys.
[00:15:01] SH: Well, I mean, the church being the big C, is it's Jesus inhabiting us. It's the Holy Spirit inhabiting us. When he came, he died. And essentially, then we know that he wrote on our hearts. He now is in us, and we get to be the church, where the large C, church. And so, wherever we go gets to be an opportunity to worship, to direct people to Christ.
So, when we started this organization, Eric, and I, actually have, we have a tradition, we have an annual tradition where we go away for a week and we get before the Lord. We do devotions together. We soak in His presence and just in music. And then we think about what we're going to accomplish. And in that process, over the years, we've begun to realize that we have an opportunity in our business to create the culture where people get to see Jesus. They get to see – and so our values, one being faith, another one being generosity, another one being honor, they get this opportunity to experience Jesus, even in our culture.
I get this opportunity to talk to different people and I'm always saying, “We were so blessed as people who have the connection to Jesus, to power, to love, to all the good things”, and we get to then represent that to everyone around us. And then when we have the opportunity as we do to own our business, we get to actually have an entire culture represent that.
So, our big C, church is for us to come to work every day and represent Jesus and let our work be worship.
[00:16:35] JR: Eric, how do you think you represent Christ most vividly within the business?
[00:16:40] EH: Wow, that is a good question. It depends how I'm feeling. How can I answer that question? Because some days, I feel like it representing Jesus pretty well. Some days, I feel like I am not. Work is worship. That's really how we approach it. And so, when I'm sitting there typing on a spreadsheet, as a CFO, or I'm meeting with a team, or yesterday, I was doing a training with some of our new managers. I am worshiping God as I'm doing it. I'm doing it to the best of my ability, and to give him glory, even if I never mentioned it.
So, some of it is about a mindset, knowing that wherever I am God is too, and if I'm his kid, and he lives in me, then he's got a plan for every place that he sends me. It's easy to forget that though, especially when I'm under stress, when I'm worried about a problem, then suddenly, I forget, and I feel alone. So, one of the things I try to do is to try every day just saying, “Holy Spirit, come heal me, be with me, and let me represent you with all of my relations and all of my decisions.” Like I said, it kind of depends on the circumstances because I'm still learning how to walk in that.
[00:17:43] JR: No, it's good. I love that you're pointing out that every stroke of the keyboard can be worship. It's a really beautiful thought. I find a lot of people who struggle with that idea, though. I don't understand what that means. And I think it's because you use these churchy words like glorify, like worship, so much that they've largely lost their meaning. I was rereading The Purpose Driven Life, recently by Warren and I disagree with Rick Warren on a number of things. But one thing I love is his definition of worship. He says that to worship God is to simply bring God pleasure. Anything you do to bring God pleasure, that is worship. And I'm like, “That's so concrete.” Because we know what pleases God. We have His word. We know what's on His heart. And so, we know that if we go to work tomorrow, do our work heartily, as unto the Lord. That's obeying His command. We're bringing him pleasure. We know if we go to work tomorrow and love our neighbor as ourselves, at the most fundamental, simple level, that's worship, because that's bringing pleasure to God. Amen.
[00:18:46] EH: And what I love about that quote that you mentioned is that, I'm a dad, and God’s my dad. This morning, my oldest daughter is doing a recital at her school, at her college as a music student. And I am just so proud of her and I get so much pleasure, watching the video. Watching her shine in what looks like a natural activity, but it’s her gifting, and is just beautiful. That brings me pleasure. When I apply that same rubric to my relationship with God, anything that I do, that is productive and positive, of course, that I do unto my best brings him pleasure, and therefore it's worship.
[00:19:23] JR: Yeah. I keep quoting this verse on the podcast. I've been talking about so much over the last six months. Psalm 37:23, says that, “God delights in every detail of the lives of the godly.” Every detail, not just when we're explicitly sharing the gospel, not just when we're praying, every detail that we do. I think in accordance with His commands, I think that brings him great pleasure. So, Sadie, for you, what are some of those commands that you see this business kind of embodying in the most significant way? I say it another way, what's the most significant way in which God's word shapes how you run this business?
[00:20:02] SH: I love that question. The first words that came to my mind were unconditional love and that is the greatest commandment and it can be the most difficult. Like I said earlier, sometimes the things you hear over and over again, you hear them over and over again from the Lord, because they are that challenging to do. We absolutely are creating an environment, are doing our best with God's help to create an environment where people get to feel the unconditional love of God, that individuals that have likely not have felt overlooked unseen, are given the opportunity to be seen to be known and to be loved. And that is not just my clients, that is my staff as well. Those individuals that come to us to do caregiving often are coming – and this wasn't their first choice of a career. They're coming here from a place of brokenness, a place of pain, maybe a loss of a marriage.
So, they're grasping at straws trying to find their place and make a paycheck, and they find this line of work. And we get to show them how serving others is just one of our greatest joys, one of the best things we can do is serve others. And so, we get this opportunity to see people step into their identity, because many of these people really were, they were caregivers by birth. That's how God created them. And so, they get to come here and they get to see how that identity, it's not a negative identity. It's actually a God given beautiful part of their identity.
We were just actually out to lunch with an employee. She was just saying, “Do you know how many people you keep off the streets?” She's like, “Do you know how many people would be homeless if it weren't for your organization?” And she's like, “And I'm not just talking about clients. I'm talking about your staff, too.” It was just a phenomenal reminder and it felt so good to just go, “Okay, thank you, God. I give this back to you, too. This isn't for me to hang on to, not my victory. I give this back to you.” Just even the the thought that this employee sees how we've made a difference for her and even the way she sees herself.
[00:22:00] JR: Yeah, you're serving your team by helping them see the goodness and inherent dignity in this very difficult job. I also noticed, I was clicking through the website before today's conversation and all throughout the website, you guys talk a lot about dreaming. Client’s dream, but also helping your staff dream big. Why is this so important to you guys?
[00:22:24] EH: Sadie, go.
[00:22:25] SH: Well, there's a great book by Matthew Kelly on this topic of how important it is to dream and how it's actually an electric current throughout. It's like, it actually gives us strength, it gives us power to have these dreams. And we’ve gone on this journey for a long time now, and we've discovered that encouraging and giving people permission to dream has just powerful consequences in our community. So, we actually, right today, as we speak, we have individuals, both clients and staff on dream retreats. We send our team on dream retreats, and they get that opportunity to just take some time away and think and if they pray, pray about what more is possible for them.
And it's a beautiful, beautiful aspect of our culture to see individuals, both staff and clients say, “Okay, you know what, I, for years laid down that I wanted to go back to school, but I really do and what's possible.” And then the community that can come around them when they declare their dream is also another just kind of fun, powerful part of what we're trying to do here is they get the opportunity to say, “This is what I want”, and then watch, when people walk alongside of them, help them, and they make it that that experience of belonging that I think so many people are desperate for and yet so few people get.
[00:23:44] EH: Yeah, it’s something we're really proud of in our community because we have seen so many people, both staff and clients do things they never thought we would do. Sitting here at my desk, present for one of our employees, I’m thinking of her because when she came to work for us, she was afraid to do a lot of things. She had never left the state of California because she was afraid to. And she embarked on her own dream journey at one of these events that we do, and she’s now traveled internationally. She's taken vacations with friends and family. She has the process of saying, “If I'm going to dream, I should really dream”, and what scares me, “Oh, no, that scares me”, and going for it has been transformative in her life.
We have many people like Sadie mentioned who have gone back to college, even got master's degrees while working for us. It's so cool to see people recognize something that they haven't stepped into, aspired to it, and then achieve it and you feel so connected to them afterwards. It’s just super cool.
[00:24:36] JR: I'm thinking of – you guys are talking. I think it's Proverbs 29:18. I may be getting the reference wrong. But it says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
[00:24:46] EH: Yup.
[00:24:47] JR: So, it’s like when we stop dreaming, we stop casting vision, we die inside, right? I don't know that that's speaking of literal death, but internally, yeah, that rings true. What were you going to say, Sadie?
[00:25:01] SH: I was going to say, individuals with disabilities, most have not even ever been given permission to dream. They are very much given permission to stay in their lane, eat when you tell them to eat and do what you tell them to do. Actually, we end up with the individuals that said, “No, thank you” to that. We end up with individuals that kind of bucked the system and say, “I don't want to eat when you tell me to eat. I kind of want to eat when I want to eat.” And that deems them challenging. So, then we end up with them in our program and I love that. We always do, because the team, some of our favorites are the ones that are “very challenging” to the system. Because they keep saying, “You know what, I kind of like to do my life my way.”
So, when we started embarking on the idea of our clients having the permission to dream. I started recognizing right away, our staff didn't have permission to dream. And I told them, I don't want you to be hypocrites. I don't want you to encourage clients and give them permission, and yet you don't feel permission to dream. So, I think we're going to have to make this our entire company culture that we're all going after dreaming together.
[00:26:04] EH: And then we put that on a t-shirt. We do a lot of t-shirts, one of the t-shirts’ taglines, “You can't give away what you don't have.” It was meant to encourage and challenge our staff or managers and staff to start dreaming in their own way. Because if you're going to be encouraging our clients declare and go after their dreams, you better be doing something about your own.
[00:26:23] JR: How do you guys dream, in a way for your business for your family? Where God is a central part of that process of dreaming and vision casting and planning? How do you seek His will and discern His will as your casting vision for your lives and work?
[00:26:43] EH: That is a really good question. Someday, I'll probably have a really good answer for it.
[00:26:47] SH: Yeah, but for today, we'll just –
[00:26:49] EH: For today, we'll make one up.
[00:26:50] SH: We’ll bumble along and hope we come up with a good answer.
[00:26:53] EH: It starts with, honestly, the presupposition that this isn't our business. It's God's. I don't say that to sound spiritual, but I really operate that way. In fact, whenever we face challenges, whether they were employment problems, lawsuits, what have you, I go, “Lord, this is your company. So, I'm trusting you.”
[00:27:08] SH: I've gone to this symbolic act of writing out a deed to my company and giving it to God. That's how much we –
[00:27:16] JR: That’s interesting.
[00:27:17] SH: I mean, I really believe in sometimes doing something physical to say, “Okay, God, this is really my heart.” So, there have been a couple of different times actually, over the years where “I feel” like I take it back. It's mine. It's mine. It's my –
[00:27:30] EH: And it never works out great.
[00:27:31] SH: It works out terribly. And so, we've had these moments where we're like, “Okay, no. Nope, it's yours.” So, even physically written out two deeds over my 25 years of doing this.
[00:27:41] JR: Okay, hang on. I got to ask Eric. Yeah, let's finish this, how do you bring God into that process of dreaming? But then Sadie, don't let me forget. I want to come to you. This is fascinating. But Eric, go ahead.
[00:27:53] EH: Yeah, so it starts from just knowing that it all belongs to God and being yielded about it, and saying that I'm not fighting for what's mine, I'm contending for your kingdom, God. When you start in that point, then you actually are starting from a point where you can presume, based on faith that God's going to show up, and God's going to give you ideas, God’s going to give you direction, God's going to give the resources that you need. And so, when we started that place, then when we go for these annual retreats, and you mentioned it before. We call our annual marriage retreat, because we work together.
[00:28:26] SH: We tell the kids, it's marriage glue.
[00:28:28] EH: Exactly. “Why can't we go with you to Cancun?” “Well, because it's marriage glue, kids. You’re welcome.” Anyway, so we do that, but it's a company thing. It's a business thing, just the two of us and we spend time together, enjoy our marriage, but also focus on long term vision, dreaming about the business. We’ll spend time in prayer. “Lord, what is on your heart for our community? What's on your heart for our state? What's on your heart for people with disabilities?” And then when we start getting revelations, we talk about it, and we just try to explore that way.
[00:29:01] JR: Yeah. I'm always interested in the tension between dreaming and setting big goals and casting big vision, and contentment. Like God's designed us to be creative, right? He's designed us to dream and plan, whatever. But we're also called to be content with what's already in our hands. How do you guys think about holding that tension well?
[00:29:26] EH: Oh, that's a fun story.
[00:29:28] SH: Well, I'm not sure if you're going to share about. I'll say it. One of the things, I think, that I love is God teaches us so much through nature. And there are seasons, there are seasons of winter, there are seasons of spring, and to really continually pray into what season you're in has been a really important part of the process for me. We're not always meant to be striving and working. We're meant to rest. We're meant to have a season where things even go dormant. So, one of the things I remind myself of regularly is, what season are you in? And then just pressing whatever season that is.
[00:30:02] JR: Sadie, go back to the deed for a minute, I want to close the loop there. This is super interesting to me, literally writing a deed to God with the business. What are the symptoms that you forgot in that document? How do you know that like, “Oh, I've slipped into believing this is my business, not God's?”
[00:30:22] SH: First and foremost is when anxiousness creeps in. I know that I'm trying to lean on my own strength. I'm not leaning on Him, because when I find myself worrying more than praying, that's always a really good indicator that I'm trying to take it back to myself. Also, just my personality and the way God's designed me, I always think working a little harder is the answer. So, whenever I find myself leaning on working a little harder, that's become a little warning light on my dashboard that says, “Hmm, maybe if you're leaning into working a little harder, you're not leading into God. You're leaning into your own strength, leaning into what you're capable of.”
And so, then, I have to pull back. I have to do some reflection. I have to do some journaling. And I have to go, “Okay, did I stop hanging on to your hand God, and start fighting my own battles?” Those are always some really good warning lights that I'm taking it back and going to take responsibility, and even maybe the recognition for this thing that I know, is all his.
[00:31:27] JR: Yeah, it's good. That worrying more than praying, that's a pretty good symptom. I'm writing that one down. That's a good one to journal. I was thinking about you guys the other day. I was reading Dane Ortlund’s book, Gentle and Lowly. Have you guys read this?
[00:31:41] SH: No.
[00:31:43] JR: It's great. It's terrific.
[00:31:43] SH: I'm writing it down.
[00:31:45] JR: And he points out that the only time Jesus explains the nature of his heart, core of his being, is when he says that I am gentle, and lowly in heart, right? It's this bent towards mercy and compassion. And thus, Dane Ortlund goes on to expound upon this idea that naturally would follow that we feel closest to God, when we, ourselves, are extending mercy and compassion to others. I was thinking about you guys, obviously, because you're in this business where, even though it didn't seem profitable at the onset of this thing, you felt compelled to minister and show mercy and compassion to people who are probably hard to show mercy and compassion to you. I'm just curious, either of you to just talk about, have you guys experienced that you have felt closer to God as you are closer to your clients?
[00:32:39] EH: Oh, my goodness, yes.
[00:32:40] SH: Yes, absolutely.
[00:32:41] EH: Yeah. Our population is my opinion, one of the most overlooked populations in the United States. And I don't think that's because Americans are evil. I think it's just because most people don't know how to relate at a –
[00:32:56] SH: Yeah. They see an individual that's clearly has a disability in a wheelchair, and instead, because they don't want to be unkind, they just look away.
[00:33:03] JR: Well, yeah, they don't know – I mean, I'll raise my hand. I'm not sure how to engage.
[00:33:09] EH: Exactly. And so, people don't know how to engage, so they choose not to engage, just to avoid the awkward moment that can embarrass the other person, and also possibly embarrass themselves, not realizing that they are perpetuating the rejection that that person already feels. It's actually very sad, accidental thing. So, Jesus says, whoever you love, these are my brothers, you’re loving me. And I get chills whenever I even tell this to people that I feel closer to my Lord, when I'm saying hi for 10 seconds to one of my clients.
[00:33:40] SH: And we've also – I've already mentioned, I'm so privileged to do what I've done for 25 years. I actually have some clients from the very beginning. So, I have individuals that I've been working with for over 25 years. And two of the ones I'm thinking about right now do happen have a relationship with Jesus, not all of our clients do, of course. But to watch to their faith, I have one individual, she's experienced a lot of trauma in her life, but part of her disability is she has no filter. And so, she just really tells you how it is, both how her life used to be and now how it is with God. I'll sit and just marvel when I listen to her talk and I'm just like, “This is the heart of Jesus right here and she's my sister in Christ as much as she is someone that I work alongside of.” It reminds me of the transformative power of God and transformative love that He has for each and every one of his children. It's humbling, and it's a phenomenal reminder to me.
[00:34:41] JR: So, hang on a second, I want to make sure I'm getting this straight. You're CEO of this company that has 600 employees, and you're still personally spending time with clients?
[00:34:51] SH: Yes, I do. It's my guilty pleasure. No, I'm kidding. So, one of our values is community. So, we do a lot of community events. I've mentioned, we do these dream retreats. We actually have 13 of them this year. And what we do is, we have a luncheon here at our office before people head up to the retreat. I've actually made my team put it on my calendar because I go down, and I just hang out with our clients and have lunch with them. And they all did some art. So, we have a whole room full of their art. So, I'll go around and ask them, what their piece of art was, and we’ll talk about their piece of art and why they did that piece of art. It's my favorite part of those days.
So, I do those. I have that time with clients. But I have a few clients, I have a rule that anyone in my organization who asked to have a meeting with me, is granted a meeting with me. I don't want to remove myself from my team. So, that's my role. If you ask for a meeting with me, I will have a meeting with you. Some of my clients that have known me for a long time over the years will ask for meeting with me, and we'll spend 45 minutes, an hour, and we'll chat about whatever they want to chat about. Usually, they want to tell me a new idea and what I should do at Compass and how we can do it better and different, and I love it. It's a great time.
[00:36:07] JR: All right, I got to draw out a couple of things here. Number one, you guys have no idea that this is happening right now. But right before I got on the phone with you guys, I talked with Deb Liu, who is the CEO of Ancestry.com. And Deb has the exact same policy that I have never heard of before today, with any organization at any time, but not anytime, there are certain times you get our calendar. So, I just want to highlight that for our listeners. You're going to hear this on this episode. You're going to hear it next week with Deb. Maybe the Lord is speaking to you listener, about doing the same thing.
Secondly, I got to call this out. I'm not surprised that you're still personally spending time with your clients, Sadie. Yeah, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately. My friend Jack Alexander wrote a phenomenal book called The God Impulse, which basically makes the argument that we outsource compassion and mercy today. Right? We donate money to nonprofits, even you, Sadie, in your position. You can outsource compassion to your team. That's their job. It's our little job to help clients. But there's a lot of value in personally doing mercy. So, our work matters deeply to God, but so does taking the time to stop and show mercy to others, even if it's not our “job”. Not just outsource compassion, but do it ourselves. Would you agree with that, Sadie?
[00:37:39] SH: Absolutely. Well, I think like I said early on, learn this at 23 and keep learning it all the time. And that's that we have something to learn from everyone. But I think we especially have something to learn when we really look at individuals that we think we're helping. When we think we're helping them, likely, that's an awesome opportunity for God to get in there and teach us something. I've learned – I could go on and on and on about all the different things I've learned by just being with individuals with disabilities, all types of disabilities, both physical and mental disabilities, and to learn from them on a frequent daily basis is just one of my greatest joys.
But then also, I think there is – back to when we do something physical, when we take the moment to do something practical and physical as an act of worship or love for God, I think those can be really powerful moments where tangibly we feel the love of God. We feel it in for ourselves, we feel it for the individual we're helping, and then that's transformative right then and there for both of us. Not just for me, but for them as well.
[00:38:45] JR: Yeah, I think that's exactly right and that's what Jack is arguing in this book. And you guys know me, I love focus. I think God has called us to very important work that we get to be focused on, but not at the expense of personally doing mercy in our place of work and in our communities. All right, guys, you know we wrap up every podcast with the same three questions. Sadie, which books do you recommend or gift most frequently?
[00:39:13] SH: I spent some time thinking about this. I actually had so many – I really have, I think even today, I was listening to your podcast and Unwrapping the Name of Jesus.
[00:39:24] JR: Yeah, so good.
[00:39:25] SH: I wrote it down. I'm going to do it during Advent this year. I'm super excited about it. So, you've had some great people with some really great ideas. So, I tried to come up with something a little different. We actually have a good friend. His name is Danny Silk. He wrote the book, Loving Our Kids on Purpose. We've used that. Our oldest is now 19. I think it really helped us figure out how to be powerful parents, raising powerful kids. And then he has another book called Unpunishable that we really enjoyed. But yeah, he’s a friend but he's an author and he writes some really good things and it's actually been very foundational in our own way, we've built our family as well as the way we've built our company culture.
[00:40:06] JR: I love it. That's great. Eric, how about you? What books do you recommend others?
[00:40:10] EH: Well, she stole that one. I was going to say, Loving Our Kids on Purpose is probably my most recommended book. But a book that honestly, that I've been studying recently, and practicing has been Atomic Habits, which I know you know. That's been really good for me and I love the notion of little bitty change, that you walk up over a length of time will lead to transformative change, because I can wrap my brain around that. So, that's been a –
[00:40:31] JR: Long obedience in the same direction, right?
[00:40:34] SH: Yes.
[00:40:35] JR: Sadie, who do you most want to hear on this podcast?
[00:40:37] SH: Again, we were talking, Eric and I actually worked hard on this one, because we have a lot of –
[00:40:43] JR: List these people down. So, I'm glad you wrote that.
[00:40:45] SH: We have a lot of friends that are in ministry, and I know that's not quite the focus of this. And then we have friends in social work, but we were like, “Okay, what would be” – and we have a friend named Bob Hassan. He actually owns a painting company.
[00:40:59] EH: Commercial painting company.
[00:41:00] SH: Commercial painting company, which most –
[00:41:02] EH: He paints airports. So, he painted the [inaudible 00:41:03].
[00:41:04] JR: Wow.
[00:41:05] SH: And he's just a really great guy, just super down to earth. I mean, kind of a man's man, and that he owns a construction company, but he also loves Jesus, and has incorporated that into his organization. So, we really like him.
[00:41:18] JR: That's a great answer. Eric, are you co-signing that answer?
[00:41:21] EH: Oh, absolutely. He's written a couple of books that are you and your listeners will really enjoy. So, I think you would have a lot of fun talking to him.
[00:41:29] JR: Good. Eric, what's one thing from our conversation today, you want to reiterate to our listeners, before we sign off?
[00:41:33] EH: Oh, I guess what I would reiterate is that anything you do in life, any job you have, any career you have, if you have a business, it's all God's. I was just reading this this morning, God built the garden and then said, “Hey, Adam, Eve, take care of it for me.” It all started there. It's all the words. But he gives us really cool places. He puts us in really cool places and give us really cool things. And if we just don't try to then take ownership of it by accident, we really get to have a lot more joy in it, even when their struggles. But that to me is the rough. When I start getting stressed out, my fear kicks in and then I try to feel like I have to do it. But that's not true. It's all his anyway.
[00:42:11] JR: Yeah, it's good. Sadie, last Word. What's one thing you want to tell this audience of mere Christians before we leave?
[00:42:17] SH: I think just make sure that you're paying attention to your heart, make sure that you're not being head led, you're being heart Led. And I think that is spending time in the word. One of the things that, one of your books recommended that I've taken on as a practice is praying over your schedule for the day. Just really offering every part of your day over to the Lord. So, I do that every morning now. I sit down. I get my little iPhone out, and I pray, and I pray through each and every meeting. And it's been amazing and powerful to see how God wants to show up in every minute of our day. And when we commit it to him, how much better we hear him throughout the day.
[00:42:55] JR: I love it. Guys, I want to commend you for the extraordinary work you guys do every day for the glory of God and the good of others, for being the hands and feet of Christ, to the clients and the team that you serve, and for reminding us of the need to dream. I really enjoyed hear you guys talk about that, and the need for vision and stepping out in faith.
Guys, if you want to learn more about Sadie and Eric, you can do so at compasscares.com. It’s just a guess, but I bet you guys are hiring like crazy.
[00:43:26] SH: Always.
[00:43:27] JR: Northern California. Please go do so. Sadie and Eric, thank you so much for hanging out with us.
[00:43:31] SH: Thank you.
[00:43:32] EH: God bless.
[OUTRO]
[00:43:34] JR: I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. If you did, please leave a review the podcast wherever you listen to the show. Thank you guys so much for listening. I'll see you next week.
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