Young Men, this is for you. We focused this podcast on success in the workplace. We are here to give you our top three things young men need to understand about work. We address those who work for companies and those who start companies.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, and we want to talk today particularly focusing our conversation on young men entering in the workforce, starting companies, beginning to produce and to fulfill God's command to work, to be faithful, to glorify God in business. And so we have with us to talk about that, one of my dear friends, Matt Doohing. Hey, Matt. Hey, Scott.

Hey, Jason. Great to be with you. Good to see you again. Yeah, good to see you. Welcome.

Good friend for probably, I think probably over a decade, we've been talking and, but Matt grew up on a dairy farm. Hey, I'll just stop there for a second because we're talking about business. So here, I'm gonna tell you a story about dairy farmers. I had an electronics manufacturing company many years ago. And one day I was musing.

I said, what, what is it that makes my top employees top employees? And it occurred to me, many of them grew up on dairy farms. They had to get up every morning. They had to milk cows. The cows had to be milked twice a day.

And it didn't matter if they were tired or worn out or sick, they did it. They were, and in my factory, they were never late. They never complained. They always did what they say they were gonna do. And I loved them.

They were dairy farmers. See, there you go. How about- No, absolutely. I'll tell you what, when I'm interviewing people, if you weren't employed before you were 16, forget it. And if you were a farmer or an athlete, right, you got to leg up because you learn a little bit more discipline than potentially than other people.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he not only grew up on a dairy farm, he lives in Northeastern Pennsylvania. He and his wife Janice have eight children and he's an elder at Hope Community Church up there with his dad. He gets to preach along and serve along and care for these people alongside his dad. I love that.

He also is a board member of a Middle Eastern church planting movement and he's been in business, he's an entrepreneur, he's a licensed physical therapist, he's an athletic trainer, he's had companies, he's started companies, he sold a company and now he's working for one of the companies he sold. And he's overseeing 75 physical therapy clinics in the Mid-Atlantic area. And Matt's also been a blessing to Church and Family Life as we've tried to mentor interns and things like that. He's been on the phone with probably a couple, three or four dozen of our interns over the years, and he's always a blessing. So on this broadcast we wanna talk about young men in business, try to offer some help encouraging wisdom about that and we wanna talk about young men who are in the workforce, or even starting companies or have started companies, and maybe your company's been going on for a little while.

And we want to tap Matt for the top three things that come to his mind, particularly for young men who are in this zone. I want to just quote a couple things from the Word of God before we engage this question with Matt. Deuteronomy 8 18, and you shall remember that the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth. It's a godly thing to get wealth and God is the one who opens and closes the doors. Secondly, Proverbs 22, 29, do you see a man who excels in his work?

He will stand before kings. He will not stand before unknown men. These things have to, these passages have to do with God's sovereignty. God's designed to bless man with work and also the blessing of excellence in work. So Matt, let's get your top three, top three for young men who are in the workforce or have their own companies?

Yeah, fantastic. And I would think my first thought on this is to be successful at work and in business. There's a lot more than three. But we'll choose three. They may not be the absolute top three, but in my priority list today, they became top three.

And I think often about this verse, right? Proverbs 9, 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is insight. That's primary, but the first point I think to be successful at work and in business is to know yourself. I forget who, you know, what ancient sage it was that said, you know, the most important thing about us is what we believe about God. And the second part of wisdom is to know thyself.

All right, get to know yourself. And on one hand, it's like, what are you talking about? I live with myself. Of course I know myself. But too few of us really do the reflective work to understand, like God has given each person unique skills, gifts, abilities.

And so what am I? What is it that God has put me on earth to achieve uniquely? And I think it's a lifelong discovery. And so taking assessments, inviting other people to speak into our lives and really trying to get a sense of how has God created me in a unique way that I can flourish within those gifts. One thing in business for someone in business who has not matured, many times you'll hear this scenario where they, we'll go and read a book or we'll read a biography and we'll say, oh, this was the strategy of so-and-so.

And what ends up happening in the ethos of this business is everybody's afraid when that business owner goes away to a conference. Oh no, what's he gonna learn this time and come back? And like his personality has changed. It's like, oh, it's the new flavor of the month, new flavor of the year. And that's really an immature way to lead a business and lead a life because just reading a biography, you're reading about someone else's God-given gifts may manifest in the world.

And so while we can learn lessons from reading biographies, for sure, we should read widely of those. We also should realize the way you show up in the world and what you bring to your business and the way you go about your business will be unique compared to other people because of the specific gifts, talents, and abilities and ways that you think. So I think that's number one, is to know yourself. Yeah, you know, I've encountered people over the years, you know, faithful young men. They want to do something that somebody they respect does.

And it might be, well, I really respect my pastor, I think I wanna go do that. But they don't really know who they are. They're doing something that they admire, But it's not always something that they're fit for and I don't remember where I got this But hey back when we were dealing with interns We always want it when they exited our program We wanted them to have some sense of what you just said who am I and I would tell them You know God makes all kinds of different people. You know, on one hand you have visionaries, they, they, they see, they see where to go. On the other hand, you have managers, they, they really like to coordinate people and projects and they've got, you know, they, they, they just, they've got a dashboard that they're, you know, that they're controlling.

They love that. And then, and then you have, you know, individual performers. And those are the kind of people that they would, they're so valuable, but they, they, they don't have to know the global strategy but they can do a job and they want to do that job. And then you have the communicators, we're just going to call them sales people. They love to tell a story and they love to connect.

They love to connect people with things and, and, and so they, that's what they do. They re they reach out to people. And I don't know if I got, did I get that from you? I don't think so. I mean, There's so many different ways to think about these things.

I'm not sure I gave that framework specifically, but that's really good. So yeah, knowing kind of who you are is really critical. Okay, what's next? Number two. Yeah, so a couple thoughts we could go back to if time allows on that thought.

But number two, I would say know your people and lead your people. So beyond knowing yourself, the self-awareness, which is an important part of emotional intelligence, right, And just kind of overarching, it's important, I think, that young men realize 85% of their success at work and in business is developing their emotional quotient, right? Developing their emotional IQ. 15% of success is that technical knowledge you bring to your business and work. And I think without understanding that framework or having someone teach you that, we tend to go into work thinking the opposite.

We tend to think it's whatever I've been trained on, my technical expertise, this is going to be the primary driver of my success. And thankfully, the emotional intelligence is not a fixed variable like IQ is. My genes kind of have determined my intelligence quotient. I'm not going to move that. However, our emotional quotient can continue to grow as we're willing to, you know, learn better self-awareness, understand what are the triggers that motivate us, develop empathy, develop better self-regulation or self-control.

These are the kind of things, this is the 85% of success. And so that's so much about knowing yourself, but also it leads into this social awareness of when you enter a space, being aware of other people and what's going on in their minds and in their dynamics and being curious about that. Not being so locked up in your own head about what's going on in your world and what you want to achieve, but being aware of other people. I love the Zig Ziglar quote that says, if you help enough other people in life achieve what they want, you will eventually get what you want. And so if we take this, and I think this is very biblical, right, don't be filled with vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

If We take that model to business and say, these people who are gonna come and come alongside of me in this work, how can I bless them? How can I honor them above myself? And as you do that, it comes back to you. But it's that process of serving others, of saying this is really not about me, this is about something bigger than me, and honoring other people, and getting to know them, know what makes them tick, right? You have to know yourself, because you want to get to know how others function.

And that is such a critical, critical, when you love people that well, they want to stay. They want to work for you. You will have their loyalty when they understand this. You're not just doing it to get something in return. It's not just reciprocity, but you're doing it to bless them even if you get no return from their work.

Maybe this is correlated to the fruit of the Spirit. These are the things that come out of a person's life when God is their king, you know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. You know, that's emotional intelligence right there from God. It's God's intelligent design for our relationships. That's great.

Yeah. Okay, so awareness of people. You know, it's interesting, people get fed up with their bosses and they move from one job to another. And things like patience, kindness get lost. And then a person becomes a nomad because their boss or their co-workers are just such horrible people.

Problem is, as it turns out, if you're with horrible people, your next job you're going to be with horrible people. And then those who are, you're going to ditch those horrible people and you're going to get another incredible job. And you're going to find out those are horrible people too. But there's actually a common denominator. It's not, it's not those people.

It's true. Yeah, wherever you go, you go. Yeah, you go. So there are a couple of very classic New Testament texts on work life. I'd like to bring them to us.

It's Ephesians chapter 6 and Colossians chapter 3. So this is Ephesians chapter 6 verses 5 through 8. Bond servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling. In sincerity of heart as to Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free." We get to spend a long time giving a comprehensive exposition of this. I know our time's not for that, but there are a couple of key points here.

One is that work is work to the Lord. That can get swallowed up in a work day, just feel like you're just accomplishing very worldly objectives, but actually the way we work is meant by God to be a form of our worship. And bosses, managers, corporations need people who will work as if work is valuable even when they're not watching. So when you see this this word I service here that's what it means. Do you work diligently only when the manager's eye is on you and then when they're out of the room then all bets are off and you get away with whatever you can get away with because you're not being watched.

No, no, no, that's not what we're being called to. The second class, classic New Testament text on work is Colossians 3, 23 and 24. And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ." So there's more of a reward here than just a paycheck at the end of two weeks. Actually, we are serving the Lord in our work, and so we should work at it heartily as if we were just working to the Lord and there was no kind of human intermediary. You know, I read a book last year by Cal Newport called So Good They Can't Ignore You and he talks about hard work and he says one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they think that everything comes together if they just follow their passion and he says that's really dangerous vice follow your passions dangerous advice because your passion is going to come and go.

And what he, and he just gives one case study after another of people who really did very well, you know, in their professions, musicians, people in sports, things like that. And he says the common denominator is not that these people followed their passion, but they practiced and they practiced harder than anybody else. And he gives all kinds of illustrations like this. He says chess players who are the very best in the world, they're not the smartest people in the game, but they've just done it so much more than everybody else. They can see the patterns because they've seen more patterns.

Same thing with violinists. You know, Tiger Woods, his dad puts a golf club in his hand, you know, when he's just a few months old and he plays golf. You know, his whole life gets really, really good at it. But the whole idea is you distinguish yourself with excellence by just constant practice, continue, continue, continue, you know, to do things well. Do it heartily.

Do it heartily as unto the Lord. Okay, so the third pillar for the young man in business. The third one is know your numbers and manage your numbers. So many small businesses fail. And I think the biggest, one of the biggest reasons is people don't know their numbers.

I'm working really hard. I should be making money. But It's not the hard work. It's, I mean, it is, right? I don't know who said this, but I think there's a lot of truth to it.

Hard work is the floor to our success, right? We all need a floor. And we can't achieve any fruitfulness without hard work, But our strategy is our ceiling. And part of the strategy is certainly knowing the numbers of your industry, knowing the numbers of your business, and managing to those numbers. Yeah, I mean the world is full of really energetic people and they don't get a bookkeeper early on so that they can actually work and know what's actually happening in their business and all their receipts are scattered all over the place.

They have no clue what they've been spending or they're not invoicing regularly and things like that. I think just understanding all your numbers is like you say is really, really critical. Yeah, you know, I thought of it this way. I'm a pilot, right? And I have an airplane.

And so before I was an instrument trained pilot in the process of becoming a pilot, you first get your license and you're called what's called a VFR pilot or you're licensed in visual flight rules. Because the average, I've been told the average life expectancy of a pilot who is only trained in visual flight rules, not instrument trained, if they were to fly in a cloud, it's about 90 seconds. You have about 90 seconds before you don't know what's going on and your sense of balance is telling you one thing. And so you might be flying level, but you think you're banking, and so you take the plane out of control. And the whole point of the extended training to where you become certified in an instrument flight is learning to trust the instruments and not trusting what you're feeling, what you might be thinking you're sensing.

And this is so much the way it is with business, right? You might have a sense one way or the other, but the numbers don't lie. So just really being diligent to track numbers, you know, have a good bookkeeper. In fact, Yeah, just recently started a company that's fractional CFO services. And we're able to help smaller companies that are clueless, right, for a fraction of the price, get some sophistication because so many small business owners are making decisions in the dark, or they're afraid to make decisions because they really don't know what their numbers are.

And so yeah, it's so critical, whether you work for someone else or it's your own business. I think there's a case to be made for understanding, really understanding the numbers. Okay, so if somebody wants to get your business services, Where do they go? Well, I'm going to say call Matt, if you need a bookkeeper and some accounting. Yeah.

You know what? I don't even know if our website is up yet. It's Anywhere CFO is the name of the company, but we've got, we've just got a handful of clients. And we're growing by word of mouth at this point. But yeah, we've got big dreams and goals to help a lot of small business owners.

Neat. Yeah, if anybody's interested in that, let me know and I'll get you connected with Matt. So Scott, there's probably some percentage of young men who are gonna start businesses right out of the gate. Probably the largest percentage though, are gonna go to work for other organizations and try to cut their teeth there, learn to be valuable there, and then maybe start businesses or not later on. For those who are going to work for organizations, I have a couple of tidbits that I think pull together some of the things we've been talking about.

There are two. The first is this, work hard and honestly and cheerfully. If you will earn a reputation that you work hard and you tell the truth, you work honestly, and you work cheerfully, If you're known by those three things, you are the 1%. You can ask any business owner out there. If those three things are known to be true of you, you really...

Organizations would kill to have you working for them. The second thing is this, learn what makes the company long-term profitable and then do that. So Matt was talking about knowing your numbers. That should be true even if you're working for an organization and even if it's not particularly your business to know the numbers, when you learn the numbers that are relevant to the organization that you're serving, even if you're a lower level employee, and then you begin to tweak your performance to the things that matter to the business, you instantly make yourself so much more valuable. When your manager knows that you know the numbers that make your manager successful, your value to your manager and your manager's manager goes way up.

And so these things I think are true whether you're starting your own business or working in the workplace. When you know your business's numbers, whether it's your business or whether you're working for an organization, you've instantly made yourself so much more valuable. That's gold. That's gold. So, brothers, thank you so much.

This is great advice. We hope that we see many, many young men faithfully serving the Lord and doing well and being providers, being givers, and doing everything for the glory of God with all their heart. That's what we pray we'll see in the rising generation. And the truth is, you know, we do have a rising generation. They don't know how to work, and they didn't get, they didn't start working before they were 16, Matt, like you were saying.

And we, you know, we are under a divine mandate to work, and we need to train workers, and I think these things are very, very helpful. So Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture. And don't forget, know yourself, know how to love people, and know your numbers. We hope to see you next time.

Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.