Ep #106 “How to Leverage Your Present for Your Future” with Bob Hasson
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About Bob
Bob Hasson is a businessman, Author, Consultant and Podcaster. He is both the founder and CEO of HPCI, a painting subcontractor since 1978. For over thirty years, he has been active as a consultant and board member for churches, ministries, non-profits, and school boards. He has co-authored “Business of Honor” with Danny Silk and “Wired to Hear'' with Shawn bolz. Bob co-hosts the “Exploring the Marketplace podcast” with Shawn, which is in the top 100 of all Christian podcasts weekly. He has been married for thirty four years to his wife, Lauren, and they have four children and two grandchildren.
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Quotes
“This is what I really think. compartmentalization is the BANE of most men. I find that we compartmentalize. We're a different person in church, at home, in business. We're a different person with our friends. I've always tried to do is be the same person wherever you see me, you're going to hopefully experience the same me.”
“And this is what I love about the marketplace. This is what I love about talking what you're doing with men ‘that are forged’ is that is that we're hearing stories of regular people who God has put His hand on and He's moving forward.”
Takeaway Questions from the interview
How have you addressed shame in your life?
How can you shift your mindset about growing in influence and calling through the difficulties of your job?
What is your mindset toward faith and God at your work?
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Leadership Coaching for The High Performer…
Transcript #106
Hi, welcome into the men are forge podcast got a great guest today he's the author of the book shortcuts I want to show for any of my people watching on YouTube here. The proven path to purpose excellence in calling. Bob Hasson here he is the man the myth, the legend, Bob, it's great to have you in.
Well, I don't know about a myth and a legend.
I'm good. I'm good. Bob, you know, this Minar Forbes podcast, we talked about being forged in life, right? That men like the greatest men, I know the ones who have loud you know, loud God and life to just forge them into who they are. And it sounds like right now for all of us, you know, southerners deal with our heat. You're really being forged by that Southern cow San Diego lifestyle. So what's the summer's like for you? And San Diego? Speaking of forging, right?
Well, I mean, the winters are about 68 to 70 degrees and the summers are about 75 to 85 degrees. It's really rough out here. You really
struggling.
Low. The sun's usually out. Other than that, it's you know, it's a struggle.
But have you ever met a surfer bomb? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Still am? Oh, man. You got an out on the way soon. recently.
I actually had my hip replaced a little while ago. So I've been out of the water. But hopefully, at the end of this week, I'm gonna get back in as part of my rehab. Ah,
man, absolutely. I just, you know, I'm sitting there. First time everyone's surfing was in San Diego. And so I'm a little jealous of you just getting an opportunity to do it. So yeah, Bob, I mean, just diving in. You know, I love to hear, you know, those who have read your your first book, The business of honor, and hearing more of your story in business and really bringing your faith into work. So yeah, I mean, just for those who don't know, you, Bob, what's a little bit of your background upbringing, like, you know, I know, you didn't grow up a Christian. And really, like, I would say, let's let me start with this. Just as men, we're always looking for that man who like, really? It's kind of the catalyst in our life. And I know in your book, you referenced your uncle Lou. So yes, it Yeah, give us a little bit of insight of, you know, what he first imparted to you of what it meant to be a man what it meant to be in business, and then go from there. Yeah.
Yeah, I, it's a very, it's interesting, I have one younger brother 17 months younger than me. And we grew up in a household with an angry father who had a spirit of rage. And, you know, a mom who tried to get away from it. So she was, she was on tranquilizers a lot trying to get away from the anxiety that my dad created. And they eventually divorced. And I was 17, which I thought was the best day of my life. But I didn't realize it at the time, probably didn't even realize it till I was in my 40s How scarred that made me and what, what a part, shame played in my life. From having a rageaholic person, you know, being your father, it was it was a it was very, very confusing, and abusive. The thing that the thing I, the Lord found me when I was 18. So the concept of having a loving father was so foreign to me. And it took me decades to have inner healing and therapy and counseling to finally realize that I was a loved son of God and, and correct. That's where I come from, like, the base position I come from is, who are we, in our identity, we're allowed to sense of God. Therefore, there's no performance paths that whether we're as successful as we hope we're going to be, or whether we haven't achieved success, yet. We're still love sons and Sons of God. So you know, that's a little bit about my upbringing. You mentioned uncle Lou, he, he was my mom's he is my mom's brother. And he was a corporate attorney here in San Diego and he just had a zest for life and wasn't angry and seemed to love me and I glommed on to him and he ended up being you know, a lifelong mentor.
Yes, sir. There's something you hit in there because that's something I really like, you know, guilt tends to hit our actions and but shame hits our identity. Right and like that thing in us that is unchanging unmoving, but yet we as men, it's like our you know, security in our self is up and down. That's where insecurity is when we when we when we do something and immediately take it to identity. Not only did I fail, but I am a failure. Yeah, so yeah, um, PAC a little bit more of how you were able to really discover more of who you are that identity and address the shame in your life?
Well, you know, the way I like to say it is shame equals I am bad. Guilt is I've done something wrong. And so for for young men and men who are walking around in shame, their default position is morphin. Identity. And what's an orphan? An orphan is someone who has no parents, or you could say they have a one parent household. But there's many of us who live in two parent households who have an orphan identity. And what is the what is the orphan thinking the orphan thinking is this, no one will take care of me. So I have to take care of myself. And when and when we think like that, then we try to control everything in our lives. So if you're operating out of an orphan mentality, or orphan identity, you really don't believe that God can take care of you, you think that you have to take care of you. And so the concept of a loving Father in heaven, who, who wants to take care of us, it doesn't jibe with what we've experienced in our life. And, and sort of for me, it was a decade's long journey, and you're going to hear me over and over again, talk about process and journey. I know in some in some areas of streams of Christianity, there's healing. There's think people believe in healing, which I do. But I haven't seen supernatural miraculous healing around shame. In most of the people that I've talked to, I have seen some, but for most of us, it takes it takes a journey, a process of courage to look inside, to find the Lord and ask him in to get rid of this shame that drives us.
Yeah, I mean, and I think for some men it is. You know, I think a men and relationships we do things like shoulder to shoulder and activity, like I think you'd like just hitting on with your uncle Lou. I think by him loving you unconditionally, you kind of had to question that belief of that you weren't loved, you weren't worthy. And you fill in that shame. But I think that at some point, it had to come in your life of like, I needed that face to face relationship with someone. Yeah, real reflection, the real like picking apart these false beliefs we have about ourselves, and how did you pursue that?
Well, I married an amazing woman.
That'll do it, that will do it.
And she, you know, and she helped, and she encouraged me through this process. And she, and she also, like, told me, man, you need to get better, you know, you can't be walking around being a victim, being ashamed of yourself, because you know, what shame? What shame does is it says, you know, in my case, you know, my wife is good, and I am bad. My wife is right, and I am wrong. And, and, and I, the reason I'm using these black and white parallels right now is for you know, your listeners who have kind of been on the fence thinking like, I don't know why I think this way, well, this is why you think that way because, because this this, this shame, identity, this orphan identity is around you. And, and God really, really loves to break shame off of men. And it's, it's a wild process. And sometimes you have to look inward for for a period of time with counseling and therapy, or sometimes, you know, just having a group of covenant brothers who meet on a regular basis. Breaking that thing off of you is what's necessary.
Yeah. And shit. Yeah, that's interesting, man. Yeah, I like so what I'm like wanting more encouragement is like how do we get in groups where we actually pursue that man, we generally gather around content, which a lot of good content, but we don't gather around relationship. So yeah, what is the first step to really like, encourage men to step into that? What happened in your life to really find that?
I think, trust, right, when when you grow up in an abusive environment or an environment where there's an absence of a father figure. Trust has to come back. So proverbs three, five and six for me, trusting the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. acknowledge Him in all your ways, and he'll direct your paths became a lie. scripture for me, and learning to try to trust the Lord, and then seeing who the Lord has put in your life and learning to try to trust people, men. And, and you know, over over the decades, I've trusted some wrong people. And it's been painful. But I've always been an advocate of small groups, I've always had small men's groups in my office or in my house. And I've always been, I like to talk about myself as a covenant person, I value relationships. And when I'm in a relationship with you, you get me, I'm transparent and vulnerable, and I, and I'm safe. So when we, when we talk as a group or as a band of brothers, it's in the vault. So you begin this process of trying to trust and unfortunately, sometimes you have to weed people out. But that process allows the healing to start.
It's yeah, it's an interesting process in itself, because I just didn't think in most of men's relationships, it's either surrounded by an activity, which is good, or content, which is good. But there has to be the next level that we're all looking to get to that place where we're confronting that orphan. Spirit, we're confronting that shame in our life.
Yeah, I mean, think about, Hey, Carl, you want to go to a game? You want to go to a football game? Do you want to go tailgate? Do you want to, you know, this is what we do you want to go play? Golf, do all these different things that we do. And so you spend six hours with the guy on a golf course. And you get home and your wife says, How's this new baby? And you're like, Oh, we didn't we he shouted over though, and he was really happy. What's his baby's name? I don't know. All right. We tend not to connect on a heart level. But we have these experiences with men that, like you say, are content driven or activity driven?
Yeah. So I would love to get more into just unpacking your story, Bob, have, you know, if anyone has read your book, business of honor, it's this intentionality of bringing your faith bringing your relationship with God into your work into your career. And like you've you know, you've told me, and that you say, in the book that like, you know, you're just a painter who made a business and like it at that God had to be on that for that to happen. But yeah, so just, you know, you know, explain that process to people what happened for you? And, and really, how do they do that themselves?
I think this is what I really think compartmentalization is the bane of most men. And I find that we compartmentalize, we're a different person at church at home and business, we're a different person with our friends. And so what I've always tried to do is be the same person, wherever you see me, you're going to hopefully experience the same meat. What that meant in business was that I wanted to be one of the fellows as I was building a business, I wanted to be part of a team. So I built a team that I thought I wanted to be part of, and, and then sort of these morals and ethics that even a lot of believers don't have, I tried to put those forefront, like, what is my character, character counts, people look at you, they look at your character, whether you're a believer or not, whether you go to church on Sunday or not, people are looking at your character. And when we and when we define people we say, you know, yeah, if you do business with that person, they're a tough guy, and you better watch out because if they can, if they can get over on you, they're going to So, right. But what we're looking to do is let our character shine before. And so in business with employees, with vendors with customers, I wasn't an evangelist, I just showed up and said, I am going to do three things right. I'm going to show up on time. I'm going to charge what I said I was going to charge. I'm going to clean up after I'm done. Rocket Science, right. But I did that over and over and over again. And if I made a mistake, I admitted to it and said I'll fix something. And sometimes it cost you know, in the early days, it cost some amount of money and my time later in the mature part of my business. It's cost me The use of dollars if you make a mistake. And so it's it's hard on both sides when it when it's your time early in your business or when it's a lot of money later in your business to do the right thing. But I was committed to always trying to do that.
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, just this simple stuff that sometimes we say, oh, when God comes in business, it's this grand thing. But it's a little bit almost just like Abraham, I'm gonna bless you to bless others. Just simple, you know? Yeah. Serving role. Yeah, on that.
I think about I think about in Genesis two, verse seven, God breathes life into Adam. And then the very next thing he says to him in verse 15, is go tend to the garden, or go to work. Now, I mean, like, that's mind boggling to me, because I wasn't taught that, you know, as a matter of fact, that was just kind of glossed over. But in God's economy, the first thing that he asked man to do was go to work. It's crazy. When I grew up, and at the end of the Jesus movement, you know, it was work as a curse. You know, Jesus is coming back soon, there's no need to work, I even had friends and acquaintances who stopped taking Social Security out of their deck, because they could get more money in their check. And it didn't matter anyway, because Jesus was coming back. This is an extreme. But, but then you fast forward into John, And Jesus says, My father and I are always working. So work is part of this, this wonderful economy that God has. And, and I think some of it is misunderstood because of Western teaching, and some of it is misunderstood, because a lot of us are wonder like, what is our purpose? Is our purpose to be an evangelist for Jesus? Or is our purpose to provide for our families? Or is it both?
Yes, and yeah, use that you kind of got to the point I was getting to, eventually, but your book, you hit on that, like, many of us are asking that question, you know, what is my purpose in life, and you kind of get to the point where that's a good journey. And the kind of the key to that is understanding your current opportunities and responsibilities that actually stewarding those Well, right now will then lead to your purpose? And is that kind of what you found?
That's what I found. A lot of people are focused on their assignment. Yeah, I'm, I'm assigned to do this. And that's what I'm going to do. And when people are focused on their assignment, then then they they say things like, one stop passionate about it. And I hear young people say to me, you know, I'm not passionate about my job, I don't like what I do. Or they say things like, the big corporation that I work for, doesn't have a social justice cause and I can't get behind it, because it's a it's a big corporation. And, and so when, when you're focused on your assignment, it's hard to realize what you're passionate about. And I believe, sometimes our passion is independent of our work. And, and, but what one of the things that I talk about in in shortcuts is the fact that people and relationships create passion. So if some of your listeners are out there going, like, I'm, I'm right there, right now, I hate my job. I don't like what I'm doing. I'm passionate about, you know, changing the world for Jesus. Okay, that's great. 99% of us work in the marketplace outside of the organized vocational ministry. So unless you're in the vocational ministry, changing people's lives for Jesus, you're gonna have to put food on your table, you're gonna have to be a tentmaker. And, and I have some interesting thoughts about that, too. But let me digress for a second, obviously, was a tentmaker. Some of the disciples were fishermen. When we focus on Jesus, we think about the three years of his vocational ministry, right? Yeah, we don't think about, let's just say the 20 years that you worked from the time he was 13 to 33. We know that he was a carpenter. The word in the Greek is Tecton. And Tecton means master builder craftsman. And so there's a lot of people who think that Jesus was actually a stonemason. But irregardless of whether he was a carpenter with wood or a stonemason, he was an apprentice. He's an apprentice to his father's business. And he spent just use round numbers with me from the time he was 13. I would think when you go to younger till the time he was 30 when his when his vocational ministry started working in the marketplace. And I like to let my imagination run and think, What if you hired him to do a remodeling your house? As a cabinet maker? Or a stonemason? What if you, you know, I wanted a table built out of either stone or wood? What would that be like? Right? Like the eventual or son of God is standing there giving you a product and service. I'll bet he showed up on time. I'll bet he charged you what he said he was going to charge you. And I'll bet he cleaned up.
And does quality work to you?
And all that along the way people got healed and didn't even know why. Yeah. And so. So that is the opposite of compartmentalization. That is a wholeness of life. I think if we could learn to live that way, the sacred and the secular together, no division there? I think we would find, I think we would find a peace that passes all understanding.
Yeah, that's good. Because, you know, something I was sitting there thinking, just reading your first chapter of one in our culture, we have brokered our morality, but I think we're even doing that on a purpose for brokering are like, if I'm associated with this company or that group, then I'll have purpose. And it's like, do we not believe purpose is a personal, intimate thing between us and God? And how do we Yeah, and so how do we move from like, Okay, what is my purpose within this company? And actually asking that hard question of like, because you're right, like our, we're called to love one another. All right. So if you're in a job, you're around people all the time, and the opportunity to love people, you know, yeah, like a bigger congregation than you would actually if you were a pastor, or, you know, in vocational ministry.
And so I hear young people say, Well, I can influence people. And, you know, this is an older reference, but there was a businessman named Jack Welch at General Electric. And he started as an intern, and ended up as the CEO. And he claimed, you know, over over decades, he climbed up to be the CEO of that company. And, and I think, you know, when we look at the process that he took, he had to have been dealing with people, and, and having feedback, that wasn't good. And one of the things that I do is I crave feedback current, right? I want to know, how did I do? How did my company do? How did you experience me, because what I want to do is grow and shift and adjust. So when if you're younger, and in your career, and you're in an entry level position, you know, you can stand out, you can stand out, you know, you could be the 1%, if you show up early, if you do your tasks, and when you're done with them, you look at your co workers and say, Hey, I've got some free time, you know, do you need any help with your project or anything you're working on? You know, and they'll look at you like, what do you mean? Are you trying to steal my job? No, no, I'm just trying to help. Or if you go to your supervisor or your boss, and you say, Listen, I, I finished my tasks. I've asked, you know, everybody else within our team, if they need any help, they don't? Do you have anything more for me to do? You know, and this, just that attitude, changing the attitude just that much? You know, your boss or your supervisor is gonna look at you and say, well, actually, yes, I've been struggling with, you know, fill in the blank. Can you help me with that? And, and I think it's an attitude, this is what I'm talking about your character shining before you. You can say no words, and evangelize Jesus, because eventually, someone's going to say to you, what makes you tick, you're asking if you can help you are hoping you're going above and beyond. And you're not trying to take my job or climb over my back or take my idea, or steal anything from me, what is it? And, you know, you can say, Oh, I, you know, well, I have faith, or I'm a believer, or you know, that kind of thing. And people will want to know, because your light has shine before you and you take them to coffee or lunch and and if they want to know really about your faith and how it impacts you. Great. All of a sudden you're an evangelist. Yeah, but not at work.
Yeah. And Jesus even said that, I think maybe the modern Christian we've just done a poor job of this, that being a Christian means going to church and reading your Bible Double and have a Bible study at work and yeah, giving to the right ministry. But really Jesus said, they will know that you follow me by the work that you do. It's pretty simple. Like how great of an employee we are how much we, you know, like you said, our attitude on a daily basis, and we're willing to serve, we're willing to help, we're willing to grow the company, beyond just our own promotion. You know, what's fascinating, is that
it is fascinating. And one of the things like, think about this, I, I'll hear people will write it, or DM or whatever they do. And I'll hear that I just hate my job. I didn't know what to do. And I always I asked this question, what percent of your job do you hate? And they're, what do you mean? So this is what I believe if you, if you like, 75% of your jobs, 75 80% of your job, you have an A plus job. Yeah, if 20 to 25% of the time and your work week, which, you know, could be eight hours out of 40, you're doing stuff that you don't like, you've got a great job. Very rarely will you find someone who says I love everything I do. You know, the extrovert salesman who's, you know, selling product seems so good at what he does, until he has to go behind his desk and write reports, expense reports, contact reports, that kind of thing. He just does not want to do that. Because what he really loves to do is be selling but in order to be to continue to sell, he's got to write reports. So so so I think, you know, we have to look at that and say, Well, really, what is it? What is it that I don't like about my job? Or I hate about my job? And what can I do about it? Now for some of us. We're an introvert. And we're we have a job cold calling selling solar panels. We're not going to be pretty good at that right? Or we're an extrovert and we're sitting in a cubicle working on spreadsheets all day not talking to anyone is probably, you're probably not in the right job. So I don't know what you think about this, but I like the Enneagram, the disc test the Myers Briggs. So you can find out like, what are you good at what is your personality, or if you've graduated from college, what was your major, and are is the job that your current job that you're at, it doesn't fit. Sometimes we're in a job where we do have an abusive boss, where it's a culture of fear, rather than a culture of honor or love. And if that's the case, you know, you can do an experiment and try to pray for the situation or a couple of weeks and see what happens. I have an amazing story about that Cartwright this, a young woman came to me and she she said, my boss hates me. She's awful. She's, you know, I can't work there anymore. And I said, Well, would you? I said, Honey, would you do me? Would you do me a favor? For two weeks? Would you pray for not just pray for her? She's like, well, that's not going to do anything. I know. But let's just try. Yeah. And so she called me after a week. And she said, Well, I'm praying for and she hasn't changed, but I kind of have a burden for. And two weeks later, she called me all excited that does this dragon boss lady came in and and, you know, said something to her and said something like, I'm sorry, I've just been having problems at home. And this young woman said, I said something like that I've been praying for you. And this woman said, what? So I've been praying for you every morning for last two weeks? Can we go to lunch, you know, and they went to lunch. And this woman, you know, unloaded all of these, you know, marriage and family problems with her. And this girl was able to say, look, I I've got faith in Jesus, I'll pray for you. And, and everything changed over the years, like a decade, they both got promoted together, you know, through this company. And that's an extreme example of, you know, trying to explain it. But there's been other times when people have said, I have this abusive boss, and it doesn't change. And, you know, I, I do not advocate, staying in a job where there's any kind of abusive relationship or, you know, your life's being changed because of it. Yeah.
But I think there's something going back to what we said earlier about identity when we realize our identity is set and arrested in the place and God, right, that will when we do experience an abusive boss or someone who's critical or hard that we can go, oh, that we can do what, you know, this woman found out like, oh, it's not personal. She's dealing with something personal, and she's acting out of that. Right. But she gained empathy and she was able to connect with her and like, it's just like, when we when we stopped taking everything as like, Oh, they're they don't like me, you know, because they're this way. Yeah. And how was meant I think we can discern within a learn that gift, you know, gain that gift of discernment. In our life, when we Willy address the shame thing, we dress, the orphan spirit, the survival mindset, and realize that God's you know, we're taking care of like, at the end of the day, this is gonna work out.
That's really good. That's really good that at the end of the day, it's going to work out. And for some of us, you know, we're in a situation. And we're looking, we can only we were just looking at, we can only see this thing right here. We can't see the long view. If we step back and say, Is it going to be okay, in five years? You'd probably say to yourself, Well, yeah, of course it is. Or one year, of course, but right now and the next week, you know, this thing is so big. And, and ignore we're personalizing it and try and putting all of our self esteem on the line for this one situation. And we have to give ourselves a break give ourselves grace.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing to practice, because then it starts filtering into our marriage. Yeah, I find guys that are struggling, their marriage is in they are hard on their wives is gently because they're pretty hard on themselves. And then when they had that practice of grace, that's interesting. So you've kind of hit on it, Bob already. But I'm just curious what led you to really write this book and you know, shortcuts like there is no shortcuts in life, that message? What got that ball rolling.
I've had the privilege, you know, over, serving the Lord for 45 years, listening to 1000s of people, young and old. And hearing the dissatisfaction. Sometimes with the Lord's timing, you know, and we can throw scriptures, we can throw scriptures at it, you know, you know, like, my trust in the Lord, you know, just just wait, just be patient. Patience is a virtue. The, you know, the meekness is a gift, we can draw the scriptures, but but it really doesn't help. And, and so I'm a fairly, I'm a really practical thinker. And, and I just realized for myself that, and for many others that I know that this this process of, of life, you know, takes time. And so Cory I wasn't on social media until 2017, and Business Monitor was released. I didn't know what all y'all were talking about. And when I when I got on business of honor, I started to see why young people were saying to me, I'm a failure, because I'm not a millionaire. And I'm 25 years old. Where did you learn that? And they would say, well, on social media, everybody's a millionaire. And, and so, so I see this, I think it's interesting to me that Mark Zuckerberg, who is has has disclosed himself, he's shy, he's an introvert, you know, he created social media, so that, you know, you don't have to have face to face relationships. Now. That's not the only reason he created it. But But it's, it is amazing. And so now you can say, I've got friends all over the world, when you're never talking to them. You're seeing their feeds, which we all know now, you know, it's a highlight reel. And, and it makes, you know, some people feel bad about themselves. I, you know, I have two daughters, and, you know, they talk to me about body image. And, you know, you look on social media, and it's, you know, it's or on TV or commercials, it's one type of body, it's changing now, but I guess my point is, is that is that the current generations who are on the internet and on social media, have been fed, you know, just a lie, that everything has to happen so fast. And so they're, they're, they're have this generalized anxiety that they're not enough, and won't be enough and they're late to the game. When, for example, talking about a millionaire. 1% of the people in the world are millionaires, and those people 85% of them 90% of them are over 50 years old when they finally become a millionaire. And I think you know, these statistics aren't talked about enough and, and so like for younger people to slow down and realize there is a proven path to understanding who you are as a son or daughter of God, to understand who you are in the process of, of completing your purpose it for some of us, it takes a long time to find out what your purpose is and, and your assignments, the things that you do on a daily basis change regularly, your calling can change. But once you lock into what your purpose is, you see, oh, this is who God created me to be. For example, in my case, I was painting houses out of a 1964 Volkswagen Bob, and I go to go to your house, and I would paint your bathroom. And you come in and you say, oh, my gosh, look at it. It's amazing. It's, you know, it's not red anymore. It's white, it looks so good. I would be proud, like, wow, I didn't know this then. But I had transformed your bathroom. Right? All right, transformed your house, or whatever the bigger the Jobs got, I'm going to paint the outside of your house, or I want to paint a commercial building, blah, blah, blah. What I realized, you know, later is that it was I was in the transformation business. Now. Now we can all take that to what am I doing now? You know, I'm writing books. And I'm, I host a podcast, and I'm talking to you about how to transform your life. So since I've been an adult, I didn't even know it. I was in the transformation business. And I think if we step back and look at our lives and say, What are we doing? What is my purpose? What is my calling? What is my identity? And let God speak to you about what you're doing and where you're going? You might be really surprised.
Yeah. But the Yeah, the ability to or even just like you said, like, and that's it math around myself, stop being such a dang hurry all the time. Stop trying to get there. And just like really trust, trust what God is doing trust the process that I'm on. But I think it's really is really interesting, just like just from I mean, Hollywood is doing this indirectly is they're talking about, you know, show all these shows about the unicorns, about the startups, the these people that got really successful really quick. And really what happened, then what happened after was destruction. And what happened is their, you know, their success outgrew their character. And so Bob Yeah, really hammer on of like, in that hard job, or in that defining, trying to discover your purpose, how important is that of growing and character growing and who you are, and what and letting that take shape before the big time success or whatever?
Well, I don't think that most of us could handle fill in the blank, going from an entry level position to the CEO, you couldn't handle it because you don't have the experience. Or going from a small business to a super large contract. You couldn't handle it because you don't have the experience, the manpower, the financial backing the cash flow. In order to do that. There's there's steps for most of us. And even when you talk about the self made man, even when you Steve Jobs, for example, you know, was he really thought that he did it all. But he had partners, he had bankers he had, he had people that helped him he might have, you know,
tech people. He had actual, like tech to know he wasn't technology advanced either.
Yeah, you're I don't think you're ever a self made man. If you, if you look at Rockefeller, if you look at JP Morgan, if you look at all the industrialists that came, came before us, you recognize that they built companies, and they had to have help. And, and so, so someone who has the hubris to say, No, I'm a self made man, you know, I think, you know, you could ask five questions, and that person would realize that they had a whole bunch of help. Well, we as believers have this amazing partner in God. And I've heard believers say things like, you know, God is my CEO, or God is my, you know, God is my boss. And, and I think, okay, but I like to think about as he's my partner, he's my partner, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm stewarding these resources that he's given me, we recognize in the scripture that he owns the cattle on 10,000 hills. Well, guess what? He owns the 10,000 Hills and everything else too. So why not us? Why not us be able to in our identity, be able to slow down and say, Alright, I'm going to enter into this process. I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to partner with God. I'm going to be in a place where I'm willing to shift and adjust. And when I make a mistake, say I'm sorry. I mean, it just, it's the simplicity of the gospel. Whether it's in running a business, a family, your own personal life, or In the ministry that we need to get back to.
Yeah. So speaking to that, Bob, what about when you really started implementing and like partnering with God at your at work and built growing your business? How did that affect other areas of your life?
Well, going back to trusting the Lord and in Proverbs three, five and six. I think honestly, you know, I lived in fear for it took 30 years in my business of hitting singles and doubles and triples, and, you know, an occasional double play or triple play that would set you back. You, you, I learned to, you know, ask God is this job for me is this bid for me, Lord, please give us the jobs that are good for us. But, but sometimes, you know, where we learned the biggest lessons is where we made the biggest mistakes. And, you know, the Lord knows I've made lots and lots of mistakes. And so I, you know, I'm trusting him to get these jobs or run this business, and I'm trusting him to bail me out of the mistakes I've made too. Because that's what he says he's gonna do, he, that's what he's He hung on the cross, for the remission of our sins, and to give us the peace that passes all understanding. So it's this. It's this act of faith leading into him in believing what he says, a lot of us believe what he says in most areas of our lives. But when it comes to those heart areas, let's say like finding a spouse, or finances, or the job or a business, whatever it is for, for some, some of us, it's pornography, it's all these different are drinking, etc, etc, you get my point. It's hard to trust God and these things that have gotten hold of us. And, and that's where being compartmentalized will hurt us. But having covenant accountable, loving relationships with other men will help us.
Yeah. So So you're saying that get basically affected where you just saw the bigger picture? And, yeah, I mean, I'm just like, I've been big part of your book, I remember you hitting on in the business of honor was just how really your like relationship with your wife and your kids and how that has changed? Yeah, anyways, yeah, I would love to just hear more of that, you know,
you know, my, my, my boys. My boys, when my boys were young, I was I was building my business. And they, they didn't get a lot of me, you know, I was I was there to go to games and all that kind of stuff. But I got up early, and I worked and, you know, went to bed early. But by the time it my girls, the difference, my oldest is 37. Now my youngest is 25. So there's, there's a big difference for kids in between, you know, 11 years, or 12 years. And, and so by the time that girls were kind of in middle school, I had adopted this posture of working from the office, you know, in the mornings, and then trying to come home and the early afternoons and working from a home office then. So I could just be more around taking him to school and doing these things that. And I, I'm really glad I did that. I took the boys to school, too. But sometimes it was really early and they need, they remember funny stories about driving and going to McDonald's, and then me dropping them at school an hour and a half early, so I could get to the job site. And, you know, with boys, it's like, what are you guys are going to be fine, but you're not going to do that with your girls. So so I look back. And you know, I just did, I thought I want to be more present for my kids. And I've tried to adjust to be more and more present. I know you're recently married. And you know, I can't believe that my wife and I are celebrating 34 years next week. My little baby son is now 37. It's just how did this happen? It just goes and so. So you hear people say oh, it's in a blink. It wasn't quite a blink. But but it you know, the time is valuable when you have them at home.
Yeah, that's great. So I mean, you wrote these two other books. I do want to give a plug for both of them, but also with one of the co authors Shawn. You're doing exploring the marketplace for any of those who out there and know Sean Bowles. I am just curious just how you all's relationship got started. And why y'all started doing the podcast?
Gosh, you know, do you ever have do you have any of these friends Cartwright that they do things in you that you don't see in yourself? And then they say You know, you could do and you don't want to do and this is what happened with Danny, he, Danny saw something in me that I didn't see. And he, he got me to write a book with him. And I told you, I think before, I'd never even really written a long email. Danny introduced me to Shawn. And, and, and Shawn had needed some, some consulting, which I gave him and we just became, you know, fast covenant friends and, and so he said, Listen, let's let's write a book called wired to hear talking about how we hear God in the marketplace. And it was an IT, it's crazy. If you read the book, you can totally tell, you know, my my contribution, because I'm pretty pragmatic. And then you can hear Sean's, you know, he's prophetic. And he hears God, and he's crazy ways. And it's, it's, it's really a good blend of, you know, together for a person to say, oh, there's all these different ways I can hear God, I didn't know that. Yeah. In Christianity, we use the word discernment, right? Make sure you have good discernment. In, in wired to hear we have a chapter on instinct and intuition, or which, which is anathema to some believers. But but it's true. It's instinct and intuition. And Shawn and I grew in our relationship. And I try started traveling with him doing, he was doing all these hearing God. Gosh, I can't even think of the word anymore. Because we haven't done them since COVID. Seminars, he would go all over. And so we would bolt on a business, a business lunch to that. And so we would speak on, you know, what, who is God in the marketplace. And we had such a such interest in it. We said, Let's try a podcast and see what happens. And, and this podcast, what we do is we interview normal people who are in business, and who you would never hear from. And there's some of the most sacred people you've ever heard. Yeah, like, for example, this one guy who lives in a small town in the Midwest, he worked for, let's say, JP Morgan as a wealth advisor. And God told him to start his own business. So he got on his face. And he started praying, and he said, Lord, I don't even know any rich people. I don't know any rich people. And how am I going to start a business? And so God said, you know, every day, get up, go drive and park, I'll tell you where to park knock on 20 doors. His goal was that he had knocking on 20 doors, he'd have 10 conversations, and he would get one client. Yeah, so now 30 years later, he's managing over a billion dollars. But but you would never hear the story of the origin story of what it took to get there, and his faith in God, because he doesn't have a place at the pulpit. And this is what I love about the marketplace. This is what I love about talking, what you're doing with men that are forged Is that is that we're hearing stories of regular people who, who God has put his hand on, and he's moving forward.
Yeah, it's so cool. Bob, that's great. So I like to ask this question to all my guests is, you know, what, do you know now that you would tell your 25 year old self?
Oh, my gosh, calm down. Be patience. Grease on yourself. It's going to be okay. I mean, I over and over and over, it's going to be okay. And, and I think we're so hard on ourselves, we drive ourselves. You mentioned earlier about people, men who are hard on their wives because they're hard on themselves. Like, listen, God hung on the cross, you know, he shed his blood for the remission of our sins for these things that are deep in our heart. He has Grace over you. He's poured so much grace out over me all through these, you know, decades of mistakes and foibles and missteps. And he picks me up and dust me off and says, you know, let's go. And some of us have to pick our own selves up and say, Let's go because we're, I don't know, not, not getting, excuse me not getting up. But I would just really Cartwright say, have grace on yourself. You know, in the end, as the decades go by, you're going to be amazed at what God calls you to do. I know that I am.
Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, it's amazing. So as men and like, yeah, we wanted some more but then the day we want. What we want is to be the men like you Bob. We want to be this men that are like so stables in, in community that people admire and look up to and, and have wisdom, but that generally comes by living that comes by the hard work the not the quick result, not taking the shortcut, you know, that's a valuing the process. You know, so
I, I look stable. Yeah, I do, I've got gray hair, I've got good stories. But two years ago, my wife and I went through, you know, this inner healing program and God uncovered all this stuff that I didn't know was there. And, you know, I have, you know, I'm walking out my faith constantly, I have a good close group of friends who know every part about me. And, and I don't think God's going to stop until I take my last breath. I'm, I'm 63. You know, I'm thinking, okay, am I going to be relevant to them at three? Maybe, you know, am I going to live to them at five or, you know, whatever, I'm thinking that way now, because that's the, that's the phase of life I'm at, I'm thinking about legacy for my family, for God, all these different things. And, and I just, I just realized that, you know, in order to be moldable, pliable, and willing to change, I'm going to have to continue to be submitted to the Lord. Because where else do we go? Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, at the end of the day, what are you falling back on? Yeah. Yeah. Who? Because if it's a job, or its money, or its status, like, that's not gonna last very long, as we're finding that really gets pulled away pretty easily. Yeah.
Well, well, at my funeral, you know, I hope that people aren't going to say that he worked every day, he was such a hard worker, you know, he he put his time in, you know, he built a, you know, whatever. I hope what people are gonna say is, he knew Jesus, and he valued relationships. And I had a relationship with Him, hoping that my, my kids and my wife, you know, say the same things on my close friends. I, that's, that's where you come back to the journey of purpose. It's relationships. Yeah. And, and I, you know, I just, I just come to that. And I know, young people aren't thinking that way. So I'll just say it because I'm thinking why and they can file it away and think, Yeah, that guy, I remember listening to that guy. And he said that thing. And I didn't know what he was talking about. But, you know, maybe maybe at some point.
And I would say we, we've, we value it, but we want it in a passive way where we can just show up, and it happens. But as we're finding those things, you got to be intentional about it. You got to go after it and find it and pursue it. Yeah, anyway,
I am. So I've been I've been blessed enough to be around so many young people, and I'm so excited for the next generation. All the things that they have, I see people who are crushing it. In business, they're crushing it for the Lord. They're excited, they're full of joy. You know, the the media tends to portray all the negative things, but I'm here to tell you that, that I see. I see young young people just you know, moving forward and excited about taking this leap. And I'm excited for him. It gives me energy, it gives me hope, gives me faith in what's going to happen in the world. Yeah,
I appreciate you saying that, Bob. So yeah, let's I just want to enzyme Yeah, just I would love for you just kind of give a plug where people can find you.
Well, I'm I'm pretty active on Instagram at Bob dot Hasson. And I have a website. That's Bob house. And my good friend just just rebuilt it for me and I, I always hated the website. And now it's like, wow, that looks pretty amazing. And it has blogs, and it has some things that I've done on it. You can buy books there, and you can also buy all the books on Amazon too.
Great. Well, Bob, I appreciate you coming on. It's been a blast. Just hearing more from you. This is a long time coming. I know, I reached out to you a while back. And I'm very thankful that you came on
Cartwright. I love what you're doing. I've been on your website, I listened to your interviews. And I just believe I'm glad that you're doing this, that you're mobilizing men. Because I think we're in a fatherless generation. And you know if we can build not only sons, but if we can build young fathers, also those who are willing to take responsibility and say, You know what, no more of this stuff on my watch. It's going to be amazing.
Yeah, man, that's so powerful. Yeah. And you need to repeat that line to myself. Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Bob. Appreciate it.
I'm honored to be here. Thanks again. All right.
