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Episode 8: Finding an Audience When Anyone Can Publish - with Justin Taylor
166 Plays8 years ago
Keeping your financial and vocational goals in line with your faith – this is a very important aspect of living and working for many of us.
In this episode of the Uncommon Life Project podcast we talk with Justin Taylor about his career path, his work in the publishing world, and how his faith informs vocational and financial decisions.
Justin Taylor got his Doctorate from Southern Seminary. He serves as executive vice president of Book Publishing and Book Publisher at Crossway in Wheaton, Illinois. Prior to that he worked at Desiring God in Minneapolis. He and his wife, Leah, have five beautiful children. He has two blogs, Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History, both hosted by the Gospel Coalition.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- The role faith can play in vocational decision-making
- Understanding your vocational gifts and strengths as you decide on a career path
- How spiritual gifts and natural inclinations intersect
- Establishing partnerships with people of integrity
- How book royalties can be a great source of residual income
- Understanding the three-legged stool of communication: message, messenger and audience
- What it takes to be a compelling messenger
- Learning your capacity to do or not do things – even things you enjoy and are good at – during different stages of life
- Balancing the desire to succeed with other aspects of living a fulfilling life
- Being authentic as a parent, spouse and in business
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Uncommon Life Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey.
Meet Justin Taylor
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi, everyone. My name is Philip Ramsey with the Uncommon Life Project. And I'm Brian Dewhurst. Thank you, Francine, for the wonderful introduction. So nice to have her. Just so nice.
00:00:43
Speaker
Guys, we have a great, great show for you today. We have Justin Taylor, just a close friend of mine and now Brian. In full disclosure, he's actually a family member of mine, which couldn't be more blessed to have him. So Justin, we're excited to have you on the show.
Justin's Background and Career
00:01:00
Speaker
Let's give him a bio and come from there. I hope we get some real Phillips stories today too that we've never heard before.
00:01:06
Speaker
So Justin Taylor got his doctorate from Southern Seminary as the executive vice president of book publishing and book publisher at Crossway in Wheaton, Illinois. Prior to that, he worked at Desiring God in Minneapolis. He and his wife, Leah, have five beautiful children. He has two blogs between Two Worlds and Evangelical History.
00:01:25
Speaker
both hosted by the Gospel Coalition. He served as the managing director, editor of the award-winning ESB Study Bible. Thank you, Justin, for coming. Welcome to the show. Thanks. Good to be with you guys. Yeah. Let's just jump right into it because we got so much to cover, as we always do on these shows. But let's talk about, for the first start, let's talk about just your career path and how have you gotten to Crossway and where you're at currently.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, let's see, I grew up in Iowa, in Sioux City, Iowa, where I met my wife. And fast forward to college, I went to University of Northern Iowa and was a study of religion major, which was exciting and life changing and difficult all at once.
00:02:12
Speaker
I graduated a few years later and then moved up to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I started an apprenticeship program, started kind of graduate level coursework at a church called Bethlehem Baptist Church up in Minneapolis. And after that, I was going to go on to seminary.
00:02:32
Speaker
And I think I actually even got a scholarship, got the moving van lined up. And the guy who was working for the pastor of the church as an editor, he was stepping down to take another position. And they asked me if I'd fill in for one year. Well, they took some time to find somebody longer. They knew I kind of wanted to go on.
00:02:55
Speaker
to do graduate work. And that year, when that was up, I was planning again to go to seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. And they asked me, would you consider maybe staying on for a few more years and making this a longer term thing? And that was really a big decision for us as a couple. We didn't have children yet, trying to figure out life path and thinking, if I stay with this job, which I like,
00:03:21
Speaker
Am I really kind of giving up on going to school and furthering my academic work? And long story short, I ended up staying there for several more years and enjoying the work very much. It's one of those things I couldn't have planned it out in advance, but I feel like the Lord directed me in that path. And so I had some very happy and productive years working there.
00:03:51
Speaker
And then I guess it was about 12 or 13 years ago now that Crossway as a publisher, I knew them, they knew me, and they asked if I'd want to come along and manage a big, massive Study Bible project. I think at first they were thinking of it as sort of a residual income opportunity for me where I could work full-time for the ministry up there and do this kind of as a side gig.
00:04:14
Speaker
But it quickly became evident that this would be virtually a full-time job for the next couple of years. So we moved down here after praying about it and thinking about it and getting wise counsel. And I've been at Crossway ever since.
Navigating Career Paths and Callings
00:04:28
Speaker
Nice. So Justin, you're obviously a Christian author. At what point in your career path did you realize that you wanted to pursue something for your vocation?
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure you know the exact date when that would have happened, but I've always enjoyed being a behind the scenes guy. I can do some public speaking, I can do some writing, but
00:05:00
Speaker
ever since college I realized like other guys are better at getting up and speaking than I am but they come to me and they might ask like what do you think about this or what if I say that and I'm kind of help them out and maybe can take something that's good and make it better so I think even in college I realized that that's a gifting I have you know I can I can speak
00:05:19
Speaker
And I can write, but it seemed like I was kind of being direct along the lines of partnering with other people to help them extend their platform and refine their message. And so I think that was kind of the planting of the seeds for really the further work that I ended up doing, whether that was
00:05:43
Speaker
Working at first with John Piper and helping him and now working with other authors and working for a publisher Mm-hmm. We got a lot there. I want to die First first he's kind of talked about, you know, the Lord helps you in the decision to continue to stay on as opposed to pursuing the seminary Can you walk our listeners through what that looks like to really? You know hear from God you're young, you know, you newly married I take it probably
00:06:12
Speaker
in your 20s, what does that look like to kind of call out to God and hear his voice in that? Yeah, well that was really a big existential life moment for me of what do I want to do with my career because as everybody knows, as you guys know, as I know, everybody listening knows what you end up doing for a living for a vocation ends up being so significant in terms of the people that you interact with
00:06:38
Speaker
Whether you're in a job that you enjoy whether you're in a job that you're gifted for And I really enjoyed the work that I was doing at desiring God But it became clear to me kind of just trying to figure out what's going on internally inside of me You know a big question I think was is this a job where I could advance within the company? and I had a pretty significant position and there wasn't really a
00:07:06
Speaker
away from me to advance up. I would not be a good, I'm not entrepreneurially driven. I wouldn't have been a good executive director. So I was kind of at the place where I would go within the company. And I asked myself, is this where I want to be, you know, when I'm 65 years old? Do I want to stay here for decades, you know, from my 20s to my, through my 60s? And I knew pretty intuitively like this, this is not the right fit for me for years and years. Great kind of launch to my career and vocation.
00:07:36
Speaker
So then the question becomes like, what do I do next? Do I just stick it out? Do I wait to hear some voice from God? Do I wait, you know, do I hire somebody as a coach consultant to tell me this is what you need to do with your life? So even circumstantially, I had to consider
00:07:55
Speaker
the sort of giftings that I had and limitations that I have because my wife and I have talked about this, you know, once a year or two, it seems like once a year or every other year, she might mention moving back to Iowa. Why can't we just move back to Iowa because we're, you know, an eight hour drive away from our family. But the problem is, given my training,
00:08:17
Speaker
in gifting and interest. I can't just move anywhere. I could. I think I would. I could do freelance, but my income would go down and opportunities would go down if I'm not working for a company. So it's not like an accountant or a financial consultant or a school teacher or a fireman. I mean,
00:08:39
Speaker
If you're a fireman, you can conceivably move any place in the country where they need to put out flyers. You'll teach her if there's kids that need learning, you know, theoretically you can move there. If you're kind of a book nerd, theologian, editor, like they don't need those in Sioux City, those in Des Moines, they might need them in Chicago or Nashville or Orlando or Colorado Springs. So that just automatically limited my vocations.
00:09:07
Speaker
I'm probably giving you guys a longer answer than you want. No, these are great, great answers. Yeah. I was thinking in terms of how I'm gifted and what my limitations are and what my interests are that really only two career paths were open for me realistically. I could get further training and become a pastor or I could get further training, namely a PhD and become a professor. Like those are the two P's, pastor or professor. I can't think of anything else to do.
00:09:36
Speaker
And I think through the kind providence of God, the idea of a third P, publishing, came along. I was not necessarily looking for it, but when it came to me, I realized, as I was talking about earlier, going back to college days, I'm actually pretty good at helping people behind the scenes. I like words and writing and editing. I'm not the big upfront guy. I'm not going to ever write a bestselling book, probably.
00:10:04
Speaker
never going to headline a big conference. This actually takes kind of both of those worlds of the academic world and the pastoral world and creates kind of a third path. So the the short answer I think is that I think the internal
00:10:23
Speaker
feelings and desires are an important part of discerning God's will, especially in terms of vocation. But I think a neglected part of it is also keeping your eyes open to your circumstances, knowing yourself, what you're good at, what you're not good at, and then also listening to and seeking out wise counsel of what are other people observing in me, what do they think are opportunities that would work for me.
00:10:50
Speaker
And then there's no mathematical formula. You stir those all together as a Christian, try to be prayerful and obedient and humble.
00:11:00
Speaker
and not to rush things. I think if I had tried to plan out a career in publishing, it probably would not have worked or gone as well as it has. So just cultivating those virtues of patience, prayerfulness, humility, and seeking of wise counsel.
Inside the Christian Publishing Industry
00:11:23
Speaker
I think the Lord directs those ways.
00:11:25
Speaker
I think you're right. So let's talk about the wise counsel. Let's talk about the mentors in your life and how have they helped you kind of steer you down the path that you're at.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, I can think of a lot of mentors from my parents in a younger phase of my life to ministry leaders from professors. My most influential professor, again, is a confessional evangelical Christian, was a professor at the university who didn't believe what I believed and challenged me regularly.
00:11:59
Speaker
I think that was an important part of being mentored as somebody who can challenge you and say that's not careful thinking, that needs to be articulated more carefully. To others who believe very much what I believe and kind of one step ahead of me can help me and teach me, take me under their wing.
00:12:16
Speaker
That's been just a crucial part of my development. I feel badly for people who think that the way to discern God's will and the way to figure out a vocation is to kind of just go off in a corner and get quiet and wait to hear a voice or something like that. I think God's designed us to be in community and to have people who we can influence.
00:12:45
Speaker
and who can influence us. And so that's a big part of my pathway, I think. Yeah, I think you're right. Very cool. So one other thing, the other word that you've mentioned, there's two more I have, but you mentioned giftings. And are you specifically talking about the spiritual gifts or kind of walk us through your thought process there?
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's overlap between what we could call natural gifting and spiritual gifting. There are certain things where we all just have skills, we have inclinations, we have things that
00:13:23
Speaker
we're good at and some things that we're not so good at, some things that seem to come easily and are more intuitive. Maybe I'd call those something like natural gifting and then as Christians thinking there's a spiritual component to that too that the Holy Spirit works through us and guides us and usually
00:13:41
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of overlap between the natural and the spiritual gifting. So I think of it as a way that's just, we're wired. We're naturally inclined. It's the sort of things when you do them, it feels right. It feels like a fit. It doesn't feel like you're always trying to put a square into a round hole. You know, you're just trying to force it and it's just not working.
00:14:07
Speaker
I say this recognizing not everybody feels that great sense of I'm exactly where I want to be vocationally and some people are in jobs where they just need to make it to the finish line. And I think there's a blessing and a nobility in that.
00:14:24
Speaker
But in an ideal world, I think we want what we do, our calling. You know, the word vocation is from a Latin word of vocatio, which means calling. And I think that there's an internal sense of that.
00:14:40
Speaker
this career path, this opportunity, this way of relating to the world that lines up with the way in which I've been designed. And when that works and you're fulfilling your calling, I think that's just, it's a wonderful place to be. And I assume everybody listening wants to be in their proper vocation and operating, kind of firing on all cylinders. Absolutely. That's neat.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah, so the other word I kind of keyed in on was partnering. So you kind of mentioned taking like, you like kind of the behind the scenes work. And, you know, given everything that's been going on in the headlines, what's it been like as a Christian to kind of put your character and your name on these books and partner with people? And like, what's that process like of evaluating the people you're going to work with and co-author with? And how do you navigate that?
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really difficult part of our job because as a publisher and as a Christian publisher, just putting the name of the publisher on the spine of the book, there's integrity there. And if we put out something that's untrue or harmful
00:15:50
Speaker
or lead people astray, that comes back on us. Because there may be some publishing programs that say, we just want to do a smorgasbord approach. And if you find it helpful, great. If you find it rotten, just move on and grab another entree. We take a different approach. We really want to endorse everything that
00:16:17
Speaker
that we're publishing. So there's, I guess, two different aspects to that in the endorsement of ideas. I don't want to believe wrong things or convey wrong things. Just like for you guys in the financial world, you don't want to be passing along advice that would trip people up or get them in trouble or, you know, be some sort of booby trap.
00:16:38
Speaker
For them financially the same would be true in terms of publishing. We don't want to publish bad or misleading stuff the other part of it then is The people behind it the authors and there you can actually we shouldn't make a strong separation but you can actually distinguish between the message and the messenger and
00:17:00
Speaker
So, for example, there is a pastor in the UK. We can multiply examples in the US too that wrote very good books and delivered very good sermons and you can go and listen to them today and think, that is really helpful. That's true. That's illuminating. That's enlightening. And he left his marriage and he made shipwreck of his faith. And, you know, it's really a sad story, but you can distinguish between the two. Like, that was a good message.
00:17:29
Speaker
And the messenger proved to be unreliable. So in the ideal world, we do everything we can to try to bring those two together so that it's a faithful message. And we're partnering with people of strong character who can vouch for what they've written and the sort of people we can trust.
00:17:51
Speaker
Wow. That's a great answer. This obviously is a financial podcast, so let's go there.
Financial Planning and Family Goals
00:17:57
Speaker
Dig into it. We really are high on seven sources of residual income to help people start gaining traction in financial freedom. Whatever that time period is, it depends on the person and how aggressive they want to fight through that. How have you and your wife
00:18:15
Speaker
I guess thought through this as you are now an author, we would say that you have one with royalties of the seven sources of residual income. You probably have another one 401K and you probably have an affiliate income somehow because of the blogs that you write and all the subscribers that are going through that. So could you talk to me a little bit about how you have organized that for your plan?
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, I really commend you guys and Commonwealth for making that a point of emphasis of thinking through residual income in creative ways apart from the nine to five job for some people and for others who may not have a full-time employer, bringing in extra income that can, you know,
00:19:03
Speaker
pay for things that you would otherwise be able to afford or to add to savings and add to security.
00:19:10
Speaker
So yeah, in the book publishing world, especially in the Christian publishing world, there's very few people that are making a living off of it. I mean, almost none. And I think that's probably true for the secular world too. So 98% of people who are writing books aren't, that's not their primary source of income. So almost all
00:19:36
Speaker
People who are involved in book publishing are receiving royalty, and that can even be through self-publishing or working through a traditional publisher, but it all ends up going into that category of residual income. And for us, that's been helpful. In particular, when our kids became of school age and we were thinking about private school,
00:20:03
Speaker
as we looked at our income from my job and my wife's a stay-at-home mom, so we're a single income family, and then looked at the cost of private school, which just seemed like there's really no way that we can make this happen. But then some opportunities with residual income came along that we're able then to be funneled directly towards that kind of earmarked for private school education.
00:20:31
Speaker
Really thankful for those opportunities. And along with you guys, you guys are better advocates of it than I am. But it's something all of us probably in different stations of life and to different degrees, depending upon needs and wants, can utilize that in a really helpful way. And you live in Chicago and they have tolls. And so those tolls add up.
00:20:57
Speaker
I just hate him. I hate him. Are you the kind of guy that would drive out of your way? He is that guy. I've been in the car with that guy. So yeah. All
From Idea to Publication
00:21:12
Speaker
right. So let's break this down even one degree further, I think, because so many people, I mean, the book world is just exploding. Everybody's writing a book.
00:21:21
Speaker
And I think you made a great point. They aren't living off of those books, but it is a supplement to the main source of income. And from a branding perspective, it probably helps promote speaking engagements, online courses, that type of thing. What would you give the listener who's like, there's a deep burning desire inside of me. I want to write something. I want to get this out.
00:21:46
Speaker
What's that process like to get from nothing an idea to a self-publishing type platform or even working with an organization like yourself? Yeah, that's a great question and I think about it all the time. And I tend to think this is not some brilliant analogy, but what usually comes to my mind is almost like a three-legged stool when it comes to publishing.
00:22:14
Speaker
of the message, the messenger, and the audience. And I think that really all three of those need to be there or, you know, try and sit on a two-legged stool or a one-legged stool or a no-legged stool. Not gonna work very well. So I think it has to be
00:22:35
Speaker
as a potential author thinks through potential projects, is this a compelling message? Or does it already exist? So if it already exists, why are you going to do it? That's not the end of the conversation because maybe there's a great reason. Maybe there's a really good resource out there, but it's 10 years old and it's kind of out of date now.
00:23:02
Speaker
Maybe there's a great resource out there, but it's really pitched for males who are married and who are Anglo and live in the Midwest, and you can write it for a different demographic. There's all sorts of reasons there, but I think it all starts with a message. Is this a compelling message?
00:23:24
Speaker
So that's question number one. Number two, are you a compelling messenger? Do you have the training to write on this? Do you have the passion to write on it? I think as somebody who sees like a lot of projects,
00:23:41
Speaker
Some of the worst projects are somebody's got a good message. There's maybe even a need for it, but they're not passionate about it. It's not burning within them to get it out. They can do it because they're skilled or they've got the training, but they're not living, breathing, like feel this burden of I've got to write it even if nobody reads it. So the author's passion and skill, you know, again, they might have the passion and skill, but not have
00:24:10
Speaker
quite the right message, but I think when those two come together, and then the third leg of the stool, I think, is the audience.
00:24:22
Speaker
is there a way for the audience, number one, to know you exist? Number two, do they need something on this right now? And because you can be really skilled on a topic, I kind of dabble in the academic world, so, and I'm not an academician, but there's all sorts of topics that people write dissertations on that are really fascinating, but they're such a narrow slice of the world that they're an expert, they're passionate about it. They may even be the,
00:24:51
Speaker
the best expert in the world, but nobody wants to read it. For four people. Four people. Right. And you may need to write that for the four people who are going to give you a doctorate, but you're also probably not going to be able to publish a book on it because you can't.
00:25:06
Speaker
is a self-proprietary you're not gonna get a return on your investment and no publisher is gonna want to invest in it so those are some of the different factors that go into thinking about publishing but it really is an interesting world now if we were having this conversation 50 years ago we wouldn't be podcasting obviously
00:25:27
Speaker
You know, what would your options be? Your options would be write it in a journal if you've got some message you're excited about but nobody's gonna read it. Or you can write it and try to get a publisher and you might get turned down by 20 different publishers. But if you guys wanted to write a book, you guys could have a book published next month if you wanted to. So the opportunities are sort of endless in terms of writing because there's no longer the barriers
00:25:55
Speaker
to getting your book out there. Literally anybody can write a book if they have the capital to invest and the time to invest. But I think we want to make sure that we're doing the best possible job, that it meets audience's needs, that we're skilled and we're equipped to do it. And that's where it's helpful, I think, to have people in your life who are honest and can be candid with you.
00:26:19
Speaker
Years ago,
Balancing Ambition and Family
00:26:20
Speaker
I had a guy sit down in my office and say, this is before I worked at publishing, and he just said, I really want to be teaching and speaking and go into conferences. And he was really socially awkward, which is not a sin to be socially awkward. But it's probably a sin if you can't teach. And so I could tell that this guy could not teach his way probably out of a paper bag.
00:26:48
Speaker
But I didn't tell them that. I just said, why don't you go and ask people what they think of your teaching. If you get an opportunity at your trios Sunday school class, and then if people are asking you to come back, that's a good sign. If they're not, that may be one of the ways the Lord's showing you.
00:27:09
Speaker
this may not be your calling in your direction and again there's nothing wrong with that the vast majority of us won't be public speakers and won't be published authors that's that's fine but it's trying to find your lane and and we need people to help us think through that because we're not always the best at discerning it ourselves I don't
00:27:28
Speaker
I totally agree. And just to compliment that story, an analogy is the American Idol. You know, when those people get up and they just belt it out and you're like, Oh, do you not have anybody in your life to tell you, you might not want to do that. You know? Yeah. And the funny thing about that is that they're usually the ones saying, well, people have told me my whole life, like I'm a singer.
00:27:53
Speaker
Sometimes your family is not your friends. Let's talk about the sacrifices that you and Leah have had to make to get to where you're at today. Yeah, that's a great question.
00:28:08
Speaker
I don't know how to answer it entirely because one of the things that I've wanted to be conscious of not sacrificing my family on the altar of success. I don't know that I've always gotten that balance right. And I think there are times when I load up too much on my plate or it gets discouraging for them. But I was really struck a few years ago by
00:28:37
Speaker
a guy named Larry Osborne, whom I don't know personally. He's a pastor and author. And he writes books all the time now. I'm probably a book a year. But he said when he was young, he just made this commitment that he was going to go to all of his kids' sports games. He was going to be home in the evenings as much as he could. And it just didn't work for him to write books in that season of life when his kids were little.
00:29:03
Speaker
And he said, you know, now my kids are grown. They all love Jesus. I have a lot of time to write and I wouldn't change anything. So I'm not answering your question directly. Maybe because I feel a little weird saying like, oh, I've made all these sacrifices or something like that. I do think there's a lot of hard work that needs to go into crying to be the best that you can be. But I think especially for people
00:29:31
Speaker
um in their 20s and 30s sometimes that desire to succeed and to be ambitious can overwhelm other things in life and um you know so again it's a balancing act but um yeah sometimes it means staying up later sometimes it means getting up
00:29:52
Speaker
earlier. Sometimes it means trying to squeeze stuff in the cracks. Sometimes it just means saying no to not every, not saying yes to every good opportunity that comes along. That can be one of the hardest things, especially for somebody like me who tends to be a little bit more of a people pleaser.
00:30:13
Speaker
Don't want to disappoint people don't want to let them down. So I say yes to everybody Except the people who are closest to me. Yeah and end up frustrating them and taking advantage of them I think that's two back to your point is one. How do you define success? Yeah, right There's the first thing and then two
00:30:32
Speaker
Let's, getting around people who will challenge that and saying, yeah, you might be a bazillionaire, but are you going to have the things that are most important to you? Your family, your kids, where are they going to be at? Or are they just going to be just by the wayside while you pursue your dreams?
00:30:51
Speaker
It's a great point. So tell me this, how do you parent in this day and age in Chicago with all the stuff going on? How do you and Leah parent well in pointing people, in pointing your children to the Christ?
00:31:06
Speaker
Well, I think any honest parent feels like he or she is regularly failing and not doing enough. So that would be the first thing to say is, you know, I don't want to assume from your question, like I don't necessarily want to grant the premise. Yes, you're right. I am doing it.
00:31:27
Speaker
Thank you for noticing. You know, going back to something I said earlier, I think I'm kind of on a kick lately, I guess, on anti-individualism because I think our whole American culture is very oriented toward
00:31:47
Speaker
Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps. You have all the resources that you need within yourself to succeed. And again, I don't think God has created us that way. So even with parenting, I would not want to parent my children apart from the community of the church that we have, where there are other brothers and sisters who can pour into our children, encourage them, pray for them, correct them.
00:32:14
Speaker
As parents, we need help. We are discouraged or confused or perplexed about certain things and need others to lean on. I think modeling for our children what it looks like to be a Christian is an important value for us.
00:32:38
Speaker
There's a teaching aspect to parenting. Kids are immature. They're doing stuff wrong. There's a lot of stuff they don't know. So I'm gonna teach them A, B, and C. You should stop doing X, Y, and Z. You start doing A, B, C. I think that's an important part of parenting, but even more foundational to that is just being a Christian.
00:33:03
Speaker
And part of that means recognizing that you're a sinner and you sin against your children and you sin against your spouse and you need to confess your sin and you need to humble yourself and you need to be transparent and authentic. And I think that if our kids see us as perfect, like my parents don't sin or I never see them sin or I never hear them confess sin,
00:33:30
Speaker
Number one, you're probably not being an authentic person. And then number two, you're not really modeling the Christian life, which is a continual process of confessing and repenting and seeking the Lord together. So we try as best as we can to point our kids to Christ and to model what that looks like to be a Christian.
00:33:54
Speaker
That's great. So one of the big questions, and Phil and I talk about this a lot, we call passing away graduation. But when we started to talk to people about their legacy, and we talk about retirement, you know, retirement's really like a hundred year old experiment. What's kind of your take on the biblical view of retirement? And then like, how do you practically approach that as a Christ follower with like your own vocation and
00:34:22
Speaker
you know, wealth building practices so that you can, yeah, kind of achieve time freedom, if you will. Yeah, I think, so let's see, how old am I now? 41, I'll be 42 this summer. So, you know, it feels, retirement feels a long way off to me. But in other sense, I know all of life is like, it's going to be here before you know it.
00:34:45
Speaker
Just trying from a practical standpoint to be regularly investing in retirement so that when that time and age comes, that doesn't need to be a source of great angst or anxiety or wealth acquisition at that stage, but it's been kind of a slow build over the years. From a Christian standpoint,
00:35:09
Speaker
You mentioned that being a 100-year experiment, and if you go looking in the Bible for the concept of retirement, it's not there, which doesn't mean that it's unbiblical or certainly not sinful.
00:35:25
Speaker
But I think that probably too many people think of it as a coasting. If I get to this point, I get to finally take my foot off of the gas and I'm going to coast to the finish line. Anecdotally, it seems like people who
00:35:44
Speaker
who don't have things to do, who don't feel like they're making meaningful contributions anymore, actually end up dying more quickly and being unhappy in their retirement. So I think of retirement, obviously there needs to be some slowing down.
00:36:04
Speaker
But I think there's another sense in which maybe we can think of some aspects of life as slowing down and other aspects of life as accelerating. So just as I envision myself as a 70-year-old,
00:36:20
Speaker
not having to go in to do an eight to five job anymore. What a wonderful opportunity to be mentoring people in our community, people who have similar gifting and vocation that I have, younger people in our church. Now I'm freed up not to take half a dozen cruises a year necessarily.
00:36:43
Speaker
But, you know, maybe I do take a cruise and then maybe I redouble my efforts to really pour myself into the next generation. So, I think as a Christian, we don't want to think of
00:36:58
Speaker
retirement as merely kind of the accumulation of all these goodies. And now I just get to sit back and enjoy it and coast. But John Piper has a little booklet, Don't Waste Your Retirement.
00:37:15
Speaker
You're freed up. You don't have young kids at home anymore. You've got cash flow coming in. You have cash flow if you've done your planning and you don't have to be kind of, you know, burning midnight oil to try to accumulate wealth. If you've set yourself up in such a way that now you can serve,
00:37:37
Speaker
Rather than thinking of retirement as just, oh, now I can finally be served. Now I can receive. That's an important part of life. But what if the idea of giving, helping others who are financially strapped, helping others who need to
00:37:56
Speaker
to think through how to manage this crazy world that we're in, thinking of retirement as an opportunity rather than just kind of the time for coasting and being served. That's the kind of perspective I want to try to have on it. Absolutely. And that's what we kind of talked to our clients about is like, really, you should never retire. You should change your vocation or what you're really passionate about. But so we just had a podcast that we talked to Adam Carroll and he talked about
00:38:23
Speaker
The reason why you want to have financial freedom is then you can have time freedom to do what you're passionate about. When you have time freedom, then you can have relationship freedom. And when you have relationship freedom, then you can have service freedom. And kind of walking back through that is whatever you're trying to do, whatever that goal is, you still should be passionate about serving other people. And you should do that now. And you should be passionate about all the other things, relationships,
00:38:51
Speaker
and time freedom, you should be trying to push towards that goal and not lose focus. Because what I think, we've seen this a lot, is we'll talk to an individual that'll be really passionate about something, but they're waiting until another time.
00:39:09
Speaker
or when I retire, it's going to be like this or that. And you know, honestly, it never seems to come to fruition for them because they've been ingrained for so long. You should really be starting those things that you're passionate about, what God's gifted you in earlier.
00:39:26
Speaker
then retirement, right? You should try to figure out ways to serve other people that you're excited about and passionate about earlier. So that's really in line with the way that we talk to our clients.
Rethinking Retirement
00:39:38
Speaker
And when people are told that or we kind of talk about that, introduce that concept, it seems like it fires up even more. And I think about my aunt who is a newer believer
00:39:49
Speaker
and she's retired and I don't think I've ever seen anybody work as hard and she would say she's never worked as hard in her life as she has now but she's passionate about it and it's bringing life into her and she might start a company in Africa like and she's seven you know and like she wouldn't she would say like this is the best work she's ever done because it's fulfillment and it's passion it's desire all this stuff that she felt that God has called her her whole life
00:40:15
Speaker
She just now she would say that she wish she would have done this way earlier, but sometimes it's not the case Yeah, one thing I really appreciated Philip that you mentioned is the terminology of changing vocations and that's something that I think is is often misunderstood and is subtle but it's really important that a lot of times we take vocation and
00:40:39
Speaker
and we make an equal sign with our primary source of income. Let's call it our eight to five job. Your vocation is your calling, and there's not just one vocation. So when I retire, Lord willing, from Crossway when I'm 70 years old, I will never say like, I don't have a vocation. I will have a new vocation. Yes.
00:41:03
Speaker
And no, family is vocation. So I was single up until I was 22 years old, and that was my vocations. I was a single man, and then I got married. And so I added the vocation of husband to, as one of many vocations, but I didn't have children. So I wasn't a father, and then I added fatherhood vocation. So all those sort of things, those are all callings that have unique responsibilities, obligations,
00:41:31
Speaker
certain joys and certain sorrows attached to it, but I just, sorry to go off on that little hobby horse there, but I appreciate that terminology of changing vocations, not, I'll be done with my vocation and then what do I do? I think that's a crucial thing to remember.
00:41:49
Speaker
Yeah, so here's the question that Brian and I wrestle with from time to time, and it's been this age-old question. Are you pursuing worldly passions or are you pursuing like godly desires or worldly desires or godly passions? So how do you and how do people, and I would say Brian and I help
00:42:11
Speaker
facilitate and draw people to a conclusion where we know like, yeah, this is something that is laid on your heart and it's not just you chasing after money. Yeah. So the question is, how do you discern the difference between the two of those?
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that. Well, I mean, that's a fantastic question. I don't think there's a quick and easy answer other than there's some things that are just obvious. Um, you know, if, if you're thinking about like contemplating prostitution, but no, there's not really a debate. That's an immoral of passions and wealth and money that solves our problem right now, Brian. Like,
00:42:55
Speaker
So if you finally answer, right? Evidently. So then I think there are other things that are not immoral in and of themselves, but you're trying to discern, am I doing this for my own glory?
Conclusion and Reflections
00:43:10
Speaker
Or am I doing this for God's glory? Am I doing this merely to build myself up, to build up my bank account? Or am I doing it so that I can be of service to other people and to provide for other people?
00:43:24
Speaker
to encourage other people. And I think in some ways it needs to be sort of a case-by-case basis.
00:43:32
Speaker
One of the things that the Bible teaches us is that our hearts are self-deceitful, that people commit all sorts of gross, immoral sin and convince themselves that it's okay, or tell themselves that they're doing things for noble purposes when that's not
00:43:56
Speaker
So, go back to having the right people in your life who can be candid with you. As a Christian, I think you need an objective standard that goes beyond just your subjective feelings that say this is what is true and this is what is false.
00:44:12
Speaker
this is what is worth pursuing, this is what is worth fleeing from, and then to try to make as much discernment as possible. It's always helpful for me to remember that
00:44:27
Speaker
It seems like the wealthiest people in the world can often be more unsatisfied than people who are living in such a way that they're meeting all of their needs. So that's just a reminder to me that
00:44:44
Speaker
that I'm always tempted to think if I just have a little bit more, if I just get to that point of if my income bracket just hits this level, that's what I'm going to not feel anxiety. That's what I'm going to feel satisfied. That's just it never comes. And you know, people who are earning 10 times the amount of money that I'm earning still end up feeling that same way, sometimes even more anxiety. All those things are kind of helpful for me to keep in the back of my mind.
00:45:12
Speaker
That's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you for this interview. I have a feeling we're probably going to want you on more and again in many times. So Justin, thank you for your time. So tell me if our listeners want to hear more about you or find out how did they get in contact with you?
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think probably the easiest way is just to Google my name, Justin Taylor, maybe TGC, which stands for the gospel coalition and find the sort of things that I log about that interests me and what I tweet about. So not saying it's for everybody, but if they never wanted to hear more, they could.
00:45:54
Speaker
you are actually very accessible on Google. I would echo that. So as we prep for this interview, I was like, Oh, wow, he's right there. Number one. So yeah, echo that. So yeah, thank you so much again, Justin, for just sharing all that and yeah, relating and I think in such a
00:46:13
Speaker
It's just an easy way. I think sometimes, you know, when we interweave faith and Christianity and some stuff, you know, people can feel condemnation or judgment. But yeah, I just felt this like kind of ease and comfortableness for me today. And it was just like so refreshing. So yeah.
00:46:30
Speaker
Well, thank you guys. And thank you for all the work that you're doing to help, uh, everyday folks like me, um, in your area and even beyond now with the podcast, really discovering kind of an uncommon lifestyle and, and to use wealth, not just to hoard it, but as a gift to serve other people. Thank you guys. Really appreciate what you're doing.
00:46:50
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks. Well, if you guys like what we heard, subscribe, like it, and rate it. And then again, if you guys ever have any questions, reach out to us. We're from Uncommon Wealth Partners. We'd love to hear from you guys and we would love to just, yeah, walk you through this uncommon life because we're all projects. So thanks again, Justin, and we appreciate everybody. Thanks, everybody.
00:47:15
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.