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Check out the faith and family mortgage team at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Well, what can a blue collar business teach us about work and faith? Find out today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. We're people and we're broken and often things don't mesh well. And I think the real challenge is how do we help our organizations and our businesses and communities all work together? Building Relationships in really healthy, powerful ways is very impactful.
Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . A pastor realizes he needs to go home and take over the family gear shop. He didn't expect that job to become a spiritually transformative season of his life. Today we'll unpack what he learned about how much our work matters to God and how blue collar business can change people, communities and even the world. Dave Haytag is our guest today and our featured resource at the website is the book Good Work. How blue collar business can change lives, communities and the world.
You find out more at fivelovelanguages.com. Gary, when this topic came on our radar, I thought about your dad, who worked at a mill in North Carolina, and you probably learned a lot about hard work and faith from him. Is that true?
Well, it is true, Chris. My dad worked on the third shift in a textile mill. And he would go to work at 11 at night and get off at seven in the morning. And when he came home, of course, he was getting ready to go to bed when I was getting ready to go to school. But he would always kneel beside his bed in the morning before he went to bed and pray. And he prayed out loud. And I would often hear him call my name, along with my sister's name and his prayers. And so, you know, I just saw him as a hardworking man and a praying man. It was later that I realized the reason he chose to work on that shift was because he wanted to be available in the afternoon when my sister and I got home from school so that we could be together. And then later I figured also it was because he wanted us to work in the garden with him. But my dad, you know, he blended work and his faith in a really powerful way.
Well, I want to hear more about that from our guests today. Dave Haytag, H-A-T-A-G is how you spell his name. He's a second generation president and owner of Edgerton Gear Incorporated, a Wisconsin-based custom gear manufacturer.
Now, here's the back story. As a journeyman machinist by age 21, he then earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Irvine. He completed his master's degree from Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. His graduate work focused on systems theory in a family business context. In 2014, he earned a doctorate of transformational leadership from Bakke Graduate University, developing a curriculum called Craftsman with Character.
The course introduces high school students to the trades and manufacturing as an excellent career path while developing character and soft skills. That's Dave Haytag, and he's joining us today. Well, Dave, welcome to Building Relationships. Well, Dr. Chapman, thank you very much for having me on.
It's a real privilege. Well, now, Chris has told us something about your educational career. It kind of reminded me of mine.
And my dad once said to me, son, after I got a degree, another degree, another degree, he said, son, when are you going to get a job? So tell us a little bit more about yourself and your family and the family you grew up in. Well, I think all of us think our childhood is normal.
As normal, that's all we know, right? But my normal was both of my grandparents actually owned taverns in northern Wisconsin. And so alcohol and that whole culture was very, very much a part of my childhood. And I grew up in the shop.
My parents started the shop in 1962. So by age five, I was working in the shop and I basically became a journeyman by time I was 22. But drinking and alcohol and that whole lifestyle was very, very much a part of my culture. In fact, my grandfather actually died as a homeless person in Chicago with his alcohol struggle. So by the time I was 19, I was following my father's footsteps and my grandfather's footsteps.
I was drinking a lot on on the weekends, even though I was working in the shop during the during the day after I graduated from high school. My mother had taken us to all of us kids to church when I was little, because she's a very devout follower of Jesus. But my dad, somewhere along the way, became an angry atheist. And so faith wasn't a big part of my life until age 19, when I had one of those pretty dramatic conversion experiences.
And basically, God turned my world upside down. And before I knew it, I was finishing my apprenticeship and felt as often people feel, quote, called to the ministry, not really knowing what that meant. But I got hooked up with athletes in action, kind of ran away from home, went out to California and followed the typical career path of working in a church, doing short term missions. I got a job as a as a pastor to college students, even though I'd never been to college up to that point and had a pretty rough burnout experience in that church. But my wife, I met her when I was in school out in Irvine, California, and we basically started a little home church. We did mission work.
We did a lot of things. And and I just really tried to figure out, Lord, what would you have me do with my life? And back then, and I think it's still true today, that means, well, you should go be a pastor or a missionary or something along those lines. David, it sounds like God really has moved and shaped your career, quote, unquote, career path. So how did you get from that then back into the family business?
Very reluctantly. Let me put it that way. You know, I thought I was supposed to be a pastor. So I even went up to after I went to University of California, Irvine and got a degree in social science, which I'm still not quite sure what that was.
But but it was pretty relevant. It turned out as life went on. But my wife and I went up to Regent College and I was actually taking one of one of those classes that you explore what your talents are, what your gifting is and calling in Regent College is a theological graduate school.
So, you know, logically follows. I was going to go there and get a degree and probably be a pastor. But in the midst of that class, at the end of it, it came back and it said, you are uniquely gifted and qualified to run a small family owned manufacturing company.
And you got to understand that at that point, I swore I'd never come back to Wisconsin because the machine shop was the darkest, most decadent place on the planet for me. I didn't think God could add any any relevance to machine shop whatsoever. But my dad was starting to have some health issues and we felt very strongly that God said, you got to go back home. Well, now, did you question God at that point? I mean, because you are studying the ministry and all of this.
What are you doing, God? To me, it would probably have been a struggle to do that. Was it a struggle for you? It's been twenty nine years and it's still a struggle. You know, you know, coming back, though, I think my wife and I both thought we'd come back for two years, maybe five years, honor my parents, help help the business get to a point where my folks could sell it and my dad could retire. And then God would show us what he really wanted to do with our lives, what real ministry would look like.
And as I just mentioned, that was twenty nine years ago and still counting. And I and I think a big part of the journey has been God wanting to redefine what that definition of being called to the ministry really is. Yeah. So how does gears now? I don't know much about gears. OK, how do gears fit in to fit into all of this? Well, I think that's part of the redefinition of ministry.
A while ago, I read a book by Jeff Van Duzer and I think it was Your Work Matters to God or one of those titles. And he points out that, you know, the role of business is to provide goods and services so a community can thrive and also to provide meaningful employment. And the creation mandate, you know, back in Genesis talks about how we're really supposed to help create a civilization so it can thrive. So gears, that's that's all I know.
That's all I knew for my whole life. And I was asking that question, Lord, what does Gears have to do with the kingdom of God? Well, in this whole covid world we're in right now, we've had to redefine or really ask the question, who who is the essential? What kind of work is essential?
And I still remember when when the covid pandemic first broke out that they were saying everybody that's not essential has to stay home and I'm going to hold it. What about us gear makers? Because we make gears for equipment that make medical masks that make the beds that help keep the power on and deliver food and all of that. And so Gears, you know, people don't understand that that without Gears, modern civilization would not exist. I mean, literally everything that we would not be having this conversation, put it that way, because Gears, power, electricity, they keep the power lines going. They make the clothes we're wearing.
They help grow the food. They they print all your books, Dr. Chapman. I like Gears. I'm liking the more and more as you talk. But it's really true. It's amazing. You know, at one time, 70 percent of our business was in the printing industry. So Gears are an absolute integral part of of our civilization. And I've come to understand that this is my calling. This is what God's asked me to do to help serve his kingdom. Yeah, I can see that. So it's providing goods and services that are helping people ministering to people. And as you said earlier, providing jobs for people, vocations for other people. So, yeah, I can certainly I can certainly see that. Again, Dave Haytag is joining us.
He's the second generation president and owner of Edgerton Gear Incorporated, a Wisconsin based custom gear manufacturer. And in the very first chapter, actually the introduction, Dave, Gears and God's Kingdom, you say when gears are damaged and not meshing properly, bad things happen. The entire machine suffers. The other components can't function as they were meant to. And the whole system breaks down. And and Gears are basically, you know, if you put your fingers together, they're like teeth that that go together and then move smoothly.
And if one gets broken off, it changes everything. There's there's a spiritual component to that, isn't there? Absolutely. You know, we are meant to be in community with each other. And I think I often tell our students were created for two reasons. You know, besides our our our need for our basic food, water and shelter, we are meant to be in relationship and to be and to do something purposeful. And so business, blue collar business, all businesses, all organizations, when we are connected to each other and in mesh with each other and serving each other and recognizing, recognizing each other's gifts and talents and how we complement each other. Things go really well, but we're people and we're broken and and often things don't mesh well. And I think the real challenge is how do we help our organizations and our businesses and communities all work together, Building Relationships in really healthy, powerful ways is very impactful.
Yeah. You know, the first two words of the title of your book is Good Work. Some people are asking, is work good?
And if it is, what makes it good? It's hard where I am. How would you answer that? Well, I think any time work is purposeful and it is contributing to the goods and services of a community and it's providing employment, it allows us to thrive. It's good work. And I and I think when we do it with integrity and with excellence, work is a way that that we express our creativity, our individual humanity and work is a tremendous gift. You know that when the fall happened, that didn't say work is we're done. God worked. He calls us to work.
There's thorns and thistles now. But ultimately, the kingdom is really about how do we express ourselves in the way God asks us to. Yeah. Well, you know, I think some of us have read books about business owners and executives and how they bring together their work, their positions and their faith in God. But your emphasis is on blue collar workers and businesses and how they can change lives and ultimately communities and the world.
So talk a little bit about that. Well, I used to, you know, think that ultimately, obviously, ministry entailed working in a church or doing mission worker or whatever. But the reality is most of us spend our lives in our communities and the majority of jobs are blue collar work. We're we're we're making our communities somehow function, whether it's it's as plumbers or carpenters or or even working in a school or driving a trucker or so many different jobs. Blue collar work, I think, is the I refer to as just the average person that's really that heartbeat in the lifeblood of the community. And when we make that a focus and understand that our role is so important to the health of our communities. Again, we're I mean, the title of the show, Building Quality Relationships. That's what we do in a week. Focus our work and understand that that our role can help build those quality relationships that allows people to thrive.
That allows young people to discover their purpose and their their place in this world. You know, blue collar and all kinds of work, I think can be tremendously more impactful than I think we really understand or could imagine. You know, I was talking with a lady once who worked in a factory where they made blankets and her job was like sewing the end of the blanket. Same thing over and over all day long, you know, and I said to her, how don't you get bored with that? And she said, oh, no.
She said, I realize every every blanket that I put a seam on is going to keep somebody warm. Oh, yeah, I got it. So even mundane work, if you've got the right picture, it's very meaningful. And I think that's the way it is.
It's a matter of perspective. And I talk about that in our shop or about a shop, about 35 people. And you might you might be at a machine all day and you're like, how does this have any impact on the world whatsoever? Well, we constantly remind our employees this is where that gear is going. This gear is making toilet paper. This gear is helping make aluminum cans. This gear is helping, you know, create masks or or whatever purpose it is.
And once we connect the final outcome or the purpose of that gear, it really gives us a sense of perspective and purpose in what we do every day. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.
Yeah. It seems to me that there are a number of high school students, college graduates who are struggling with this whole area of vocation. They can't find the job that looks anything like what they feel might be their, quote, calling.
I'm thinking not even of Christians, you know. And what advice do you give those who are still grappling with what is my calling and where do I find the job that fits who I am? I don't know if you're going to like my answer or I don't know if a lot of parents are going to like my answer. But but I would tell people, you just got to you got to go to work.
You got to get a job. It may not fit. It may not seem to fit who you are. But I rely heavily on the life of Joseph. And I have to think, you know, look how God orchestrated his whole life.
I can't believe he felt called to be a slave or to get thrown into prison, to serve in prison and all these jobs that God was orchestrating throughout his whole life. And when I look back over my life, I've I've cleaned bathrooms and in state parks, I've driven a bus, I worked in farm fields, numerous other jobs. And I think we often get caught up in looking for that perfect job without recognizing that every job is going to teach us something. Every job that we do, God's going to work to reform our character and maybe prepare us for something down the road. I think it was Eugene Peterson who said the workplace is the primary place of spiritual formation that God grows us up. And I think too often we spend too much time trying to find that perfect job that we're called to. And, you know, if you just get a job, any job, God's going to work through that, I think, in your journey that nothing's going to go to waste.
He's going to prepare you, I think, for what he's got for you down the road. Yeah, I think there are people who are in jobs where they're not really, they don't feel fulfilled in the job. It seems too mundane to them. They're working and they're not going to leave their job because they've got to provide for their family. But they are struggling to find a sense of joy or accomplishment in the middle of all of that.
So it seems like you're saying if you're there, give it your best and see what God does, because typically there's always another step in God's plan for us. Absolutely. You know, I've got stories, you know, one of them, I worked for a cement contractor years ago, and he was the most horrible ornery guy. I mean, he'd cuss and swear up, yelling at us every day about something. And I'm like, Lord, what's the purpose of this? And it wasn't his purpose that I stayed there a long time.
That became pretty clear. But it really challenged me to have an attitude of gratitude in everything that I did. And it really challenged me to pray for that boss. And it challenged me to understand and to learn, not to allow his anger, his rage to affect my integrity of what God was calling me to do every day at work. And I think so many jobs that I've been in over my life, that it isn't that matter of perspective. It's that attitude of gratitude. It's a prayerful submission to what we're called to do that day. And I've noticed just in my own work life, and I've seen it in my staff, when you come to work with a bad attitude and you get just nasty and angry and you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, that affects everything throughout the whole organization. It affects your whole day and it affects your perception or your attitude towards your work.
Again, I would kind of go back to Joseph and I wonder, what kind of... How did he maintain his life of excellence and integrity in the midst of prison and all the other jobs that he was called to do? Yeah. So if you're in a place where you feel oppressed in the workplace, one of the things I hear you saying is that God has a purpose in your being there. And it may be praying for those people and being an example to them. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to stay there forever, because I heard you say you didn't stay too long. No, no. And some places I had to stay out of necessity.
That's the only job I could find when I was going through school and different places. And sometimes I'm praying, Lord, get me out of here as soon as possible. And sometimes he goes, you know what? I'm not through yet. You need to stay there a little while longer. And other times, like you're in the business, 29 years, like I said, I thought I'd be here for five years.
I'm going on 29. And boy, there's been a lot of times I'd say, Lord, are you sure? Are you sure you got something else in mind? He said, you know, I'm not done there. You got to hang in there.
And now it's actually transformed to a place where I can't ever imagine leaving. But that's a whole nother story. Yeah.
Yeah. Dave, in the book, you quoted Spider-Man as saying this, quote, With much power comes much responsibility. Do you feel that the reason many of us don't seem to take responsibility in changing what's going on in our world is because deep down we feel like we don't have any power to change?
You know, I can't, I don't have any power to make things different here. I thought a lot about that question and that topic. And I think there's two things.
And one you hit on. Absolutely. We are discouraged. We feel powerless. You know, we're wounded. We're broken. We might work in an oppressed work environment or just life in general.
Really, really is just challenging. And we have so many crises happening all at once, maybe in our lives. And we do feel powerless. But but I think the second reason is, again, this may not be popular to say this, but I think it's often because we lack humility and faith.
And I and I say that carefully because. I just think it's a lot easier to complain and and just be judgmental and be defensive about our situation, rather than really saying, OK, what is my what is God calling me to be here and do I have an influence? And one of the one of the things I try to tell our students to you ever. You ever notice when you walk into a room that you can or somebody else can walk in a room, if they're in a really foul mood, they can change the whole dynamic of that room. It may have been I mean, they could be a real downer, but but it works the other way.
You could really be uplifting. And I and I think we often discount the role that we can play in changing our work environments, even if it's a shop or an office, just by saying, OK, how can I be God's instrument of transformation? Even in this little situation, that seems so difficult. And I think once we combine humility with prayer and with faith and really ask God's spirit to enter into the whole situation, we're not nearly as powerless as we think we are because the spirit of God is working in us and through us. Yeah, I guess actually, in reality, we are influencing people around us every single day.
Right. Either negatively or positively. But we are having the power of influence on the people that work around us, at least.
Absolutely. And I think you just nailed it. What side are we going to be on? Are we going to be a negative influence or a positive influence? And being a follower of Jesus, we've got the we've got the power of the living God working through us.
And again, I think we discount how powerful he can be working through us. I think the real struggle, though, Dave, is is seeing that on a day to day basis. It's like I can hear a sermon about that or I can hear this program and hear you say that.
It's like it makes a whole lot of sense. And then I get into working on the gears and I work on the widgets or doing whatever it is that I'm doing. And I lose sight of that.
So there I think part of what you're saying is you have to stay connected to the real source. And there's an aspect of faith. I really believe that God is doing something in and through me as I whatever I'm doing.
Fit pipe, you know, plumbing. I have to really hang on and believe God is at work here. I'm going with him today. And remember when when Elijah wanted to see God. Right. You want to see the power of God. And it wasn't in the storm.
It wasn't in the wind. It was in that still small voice. And I think in the daily interactions in our jobs, no matter what they are, we we often want the big, dramatic home run. But I think it's in those little quiet moments when we serve our employees, our co-workers, when we when we recognize something's not quite right. You know, I want to put a little bit extra into effort into that.
And I want to make a commitment to excellence in everything I do. It's those little moments that add up that before you know it, boy, something changed. Did I change? Did the workplace change? Did my co-worker change?
What happened? And I think that's how God works. Those incremental moments by moments that he calls us to faithfulness and obedience. Dave, we often hear people talk about having a good work ethic or a strong worth ethic. Define that word for us or that concept for us. I go all the way back to, you know, the servant on the mount. And when Jesus says, seek God's kingdom and his righteousness. And I remember Dallas Willard translated the term righteousness as true inner goodness. And so we're supposed to seek God's kingdom and his true inner goodness. Well, what does goodness look like? You know, it's kind of a term that I think it's overused, but we've never really, really thought about what does goodness look like? And and we talk about the golden rule in terms of treat others, you know, as you want to be treated. But but goodness is so it's a it's a posture, I think, of our soul and our hearts.
And it affects everything we do. So a good work ethic would be a person who would be a person who's committed to excellence, is trustworthy, has integrity, who's honest, who's humble in all circumstances, is someone that you want to work with. I mean, just think about about all the different jobs people have worked at. And I think about the people that exhibited a good work ethic.
They exhibited goodness. And so I have to think about, do I want to be that kind of person other people want to work with? Or do I want to be that person that's like, no, I rather I rather not be around that person.
I think it's pretty common sense once we get down to it. Yeah. So how do we live that out in the workplace, assuming we think and agree with that? Yeah. I want to be a person that, you know, that really just demonstrates goodness to other people.
How do you pull that off? Well, again, I think it goes well, one, it's I think your spiritual life. I don't think we're really able to be good without the grace of God in our lives. So that that daily connection with God, I think, is absolutely critical. And as again, as as we pray, one of my prayers every morning when I when I take my dog for a walk is, Lord, you know, I want I want you to have your thoughts in me. I want to see as you see. I want to hear as you see here. I want you to speak as you would have me speak. And I think once we re reorientate ourselves to the life of God and the kingdom of God, then throughout the day, we get all these examples of, OK, and this this difficult situation comes up. Am I going to be defensive or am I going to try to be humble and try to work through it?
Am I going to not cut a corner or am I going to just make the best possible product as I possibly can? Am I going to be influenced by my co-workers really bad day? Their car didn't start. They went the ditch.
They had a fight with their wife or whatever. Am I going to show grace to that person or am I going to react and let their bad attitude and difficulties affect my my mood? And so I think throughout the day, there are there are literally thousands of opportunities for me to exhibit goodness and humility or or not. And I think that the real challenge is, can I be constantly cognizant of that throughout the day? Yeah, I hear you saying we need outside help.
We need God's help to pull this off. It's not natural to do that. But let me give you let me give you a situation. You know, let's say you're a Christian. You're in a work setting and you see co-workers who are really kind of slacking off. They're not giving it a hundred percent. You know, they're just not getting the job really done like it should be done.
As a Christian, what do you do in that setting? Well, two possible scenarios. One, it depends on your your position. Are you a team leader? Are you in a position of leadership?
Can you call that person out in a gentle but firm way and say, hold it, that's not what we're about. You can't be on your phone all the time. You're not doing your job. You're not honoring God or you're just not honoring your boss by doing a good job. But I think a lot of us in different jobs, we're not in that position. We're on the same level playing field as anybody else. We don't want to be that tattle tale.
You know, we don't want to be that rat. So let me let me answer that by by story that I had when I was in college. I was broke, desperately needed a job. I swore I'd never go back to being a machinist.
But five blocks from our house was a machine shop that was a defense contractor making parts for the Tomahawk cruise missile at the time. And the only job I could get there at first, they weren't hired. But once they found out I was a journeyman machinist, they said, oh, my gosh, yeah, come on in right now.
We'll give you a job. Well, the second shift. So I started at three thirty in the afternoon and I worked till, I think, one in the morning. Well, in that job, my my boss was an alcoholic. My foreman was an alcoholic who went to the bars every night at about 10 o'clock and didn't come back till bar time. One of my co-workers was a cocaine dealer and he would literally cut deals all day long. Another co-worker was one of his customers. Another gentleman bragged about how he was such a great family man and and great husband and father to his children.
Well, he started leaving every night at nine o'clock, having an affair with another woman and wouldn't come back till afterwards. Now, I was the only one there doing my job and I'm going, this is nuts. And then I was and then I was told that that I was making too many parts and I was making the guy on the on the day shift look bad. So then they came to me and said, you got to slow down.
You're showing everybody up. So I'm going, Lord, what do I do in that situation? And and I definitely was the low man, the totem pole. And so what I what I learned through that is, you know what, I may not have a lot of power to to to call people out, but all I could do is lead by example. And my life is going to speak louder than anything. So if I continue to maintain my integrity and show respect, that got that actually made the gentleman that was having the affair very, very angry. And he saw me write, read my Bible something because I'd have time at work when my machine was running and he just got furious at me.
And it was very uncomfortable for people around me to see someone that was not going to cheat the system, that wasn't going to buy into their whole world view. But say, you know what, I'm not just working on to my boss, I'm working on to God and I still need to do a good job no matter what. So it's basically modeling a conscientious lifestyle.
Yeah, exactly. One of the other things that you say in the book is that God is infinitely more concerned with who we become than he is with what we accomplish. I think most Christians would identify with that. However, in most jobs, we are evaluated on what we accomplish. How do you respond to that? Well, we take on a lot of high school students and we talk a lot about character. And what we've realized is that our inner character is really determines our outward performance. So a quality person is going to do quality work. And if we can focus on our inner character and who God is calling us to be and how he's wanting to grow us up, I don't have to worry a whole lot about my accomplishments or my performance. It actually just follows suit.
And we see that every day on the shop floor. If you can, you can help a person be honest and committed to excellence and attention to detail. Their results follow. It's really that matter of the heart and the character that that I think matters more than anything. So it's the matter of dealing with the inner person and then that shows up in the work. If they're really committed to character and to God, they will accomplish the work. Absolutely.
Absolutely. We see it over and over again. How do you encourage people who are in a job where they just feel like they're a failure in their job? They just feel like I've just blown it, you know, maybe over and over again in this situation. And I'm just so down on myself. I can't leave the job because I got to have, you know, money, but they just feel badly about themselves.
Yeah. And I would go back to that job that I had for that concrete boss who made me feel absolutely worthless. You know, honestly, I worked hard. Was I a gifted cement worker? I don't know.
I really don't think so. But his perception of me and everybody else really, really beat me up to a point where my self-esteem and my sense of failure was pretty great. And the next job I had after that, I worked at a state park and I probably had the best boss in the world. That was just the opposite. And I learned that a lot of times my perception of failure is that exactly that. It's not it's my perception and it's not reality. And I don't think God views any of us as failures. And I think that's a good I mean, we we screw up. We make mistakes. We struggle at times.
But but like a father with a child or, you know, I don't look at any of my sons when they screw up. I don't look at them as failures. I look at them as opportunities to grow and to be better. And so I again, I think it comes back to the spiritual life that if we're not connected to the source, if we're not allowing God to feed our minds and our hearts and constantly instruct us on who we are as his kids and who he's trying to grow us up to be. I think the world's messages, our job, our messages from work, they really just beat us down. And, you know, I've struggled with self-esteem my entire life, and I find that I need to be around people.
My wife is phenomenal that way. Just let reminding me who I am and whose I am. And then no amount of job performance or other people judging me is going to affect my true standing of who I really am.
Yeah. What about people who view their own success in terms of how much money they make? You know, it's the idea of I'm going to be a millionaire before I'm 30 or whatever.
And, you know, this is how ever I can get there. I'm a success if I make a lot of money. What do you respond to those, that idea? Well, I think the media is full of stories to the contrary.
You know, in our Craftsman with Character course, we teach our high school students. We watch this documentary called The Happy Movie. And in it, they share statistics that the person, the difference between the person who's on the streets just struggling to survive versus someone who's making 50,000 a year.
Your happiness level is, I mean, that's dramatic. Money makes a huge difference. But they showed the statistics that the person that makes 50,000 a year versus 50 million or 5 million a year, their happiness level is really, there's really no difference. In fact, the wealthier you are, there's evidence that says maybe the more miserable you are. And I've lived in, I lived in Newport Beach, California, when I was in school and I got to know a lot of wealthy people and I got to know a lot of really miserable, wealthy people. And I think that whole lie that money's going to make us happy, we need to really come to grips with that and examine that.
I actually talk about it quite a bit in my book. But again, it comes back to what we're made for and we're made to have a sense of purpose and we're made to have deep, meaningful relationships and money can't buy those things. And so I just really encourage, boy, if you're going to pursue money, you better take a really good, hard look at what your end game is because it may not be what you thought it was going to be. Jesus once said, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Exactly, exactly. So we're learning that, hopefully.
Yeah. Nothing wrong with making money, right? No, for businesses to survive, we absolutely got to make money. One of my mentors used to say that profit to a business is like blood to the body. We need profit to survive. We need blood to live, but we don't live for blood.
You don't exist to make blood. And I don't think a business exists just to make profit. A business exists, again, back to goods and services and meaningful employment and having a deeper sense of purpose. And I think people, businesses, business leaders get in trouble when they put profitability, maximizing profitability as their number one value and goal. But I think we get in trouble when we do that because if we make profit, the number one goal, it often leads to compromise in how we treat our customers and how we treat each other. And so the challenge, I think, is, again, what is a fair profit?
What does it mean to be truly good to treat our customers as ourselves? We have a practice here in our business that every job that we do, we do a cost analysis at the end of the job. And if we feel we made too much of a profit, we will actually call the customer up and say, you know what, we quoted that job too high. We actually need to reduce the price. Can you imagine our customer's response when that happens? I don't know, but I think they'll be back the next time they have a job. Exactly. Very true. Well, Dave, we know there are people who are just kind of living paycheck to paycheck. You know, any word for those people?
Anything you'd like to say to them? Well, you know, my wife and I, we have been married 31 years now and we were pretty poor for a while. I was a student because I was a student later.
I didn't go to college right away. And so the money was tight. And some of the basic things that I think we've often lost is the sense of having a budget. We would have the old fashioned way. We'd take our paycheck and if we wanted to have a date, we have an envelope for date night. We had an envelope for groceries.
We had an envelope, you know, for all the other things. Because I think especially with social media today, we are overwhelmed with advertising. We are overwhelmed with what the media is telling us the good life should be. And I think we've bought into the lie of stuff makes us happy. Like you mentioned earlier, life does not consist in stuff as Jesus would teach about. And we've lost the art of delayed gratification. You know, we want instant gratification. And I think there's just a real lack of awareness that, you know, the simple life and the disciplined life, life can be so fruitful and so meaningful.
And it and it freezes from that trap of of never quite having enough. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the early days of our marriage, my wife and I played a little game called, let's see how many things we can do without that everybody else thinks they have to have. That's a great game. We'd go down to the store and look at stuff, you know, when we had some free time and then say, isn't it great?
We don't have to have that. Wow. That's great. If you place the relationship as the important thing and not the stuff we have or don't have, that's probably the kind of bottom line, isn't it? That's wonderful.
Yeah. Well, there's probably a lot of older adults who are listening today who also have adult children, and their children have not embraced what we're talking about. They've never, they just don't have this sense of viewing work as we're talking about today. Can parents influence adult children?
And if so, how? Boy, these questions don't get easier, do they? But, you know, we've got adult children now, and we deal with young adults a lot in our business. And I think the number one thing is, you mentioned a little bit earlier, we have to model what we're talking about. We've got to practice what we preach. I mean, it sounds pretty simple, but I've seen parents who say they don't want their kids to drink, but they're out every weekend just really living it up. And even on a deeper level, I think our kids really watch our lives, even our adult children. Are we living a life of service, of authenticity, of humility?
Are we praying through all of our issues that we're struggling with? And like I said earlier, we all screw up, we all make mistakes. And I think our children, even our adult children, want to have honest conversations.
They want to know that we're being honest. I've spent a lot of my adult life apologizing to my children. You know, just this is a dad who I struggle with issues.
And I think that's opened the door for me to be able to say, hey, sons, you know, I see this in your life. You know, this is what's going to happen if you continue down this path. But with that said, we don't learn in comfort and ease, as Helen Keller would say, we learn through trials and struggles. So I think a lot of times, even with our adult children, we got a lot to let them experience the natural consequences of when they screw up and get themselves in trouble. And I think too often, at least my generation, we're too quick to jump in and save our children and protect them from those consequences. And sometimes those consequences are the best teachers.
Yeah, absolutely. What do you say to the person who sees their workplace as a mission field, but maybe they're overzealous? I want your opinion on this. You know, they feel like they have to witness to everybody in there, share the gospel with every single person.
And they come across as being kind of too religious. How do you respond to that? What's the answer to that? First of all, I just want to scream when you say that.
Oh, my goodness. Oh, we've and unfortunately, we've had we've had people like that. I was recently talking to some other business owners about this actual topic. And unfortunately, and this one of them is from Hong Kong. So it's not a not a U.S. problem.
It's a global problem. But they said oftentimes he said oftentimes and a couple other businessmen joined in. But the worst employees are often the Christians tragically. And I didn't I didn't even have to ask him why he jumped right in and said, because too often they're more concerned about witnessing their verbal witness, trying to get people saved, talking about Sunday school, going to a Bible Bible study rather than doing their jobs. Right. And that is so counter to what God calls us to do. I love the quote that we give to St. Francis of Assisi when he says, preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.
Right. Because our integrity and our our commitment to excellence speaks way louder than any words. And too often, people are so cynical about religion these days that they don't want to be preached at anymore. And I camp out on First Thessalonians for, you know, 10 through 12 when when Paul instructs, you know, Thessalonians to to live your daily life in such a way that you win the respect of those around you. You know, be quiet and work with your hands and and make your life something that's attractive, that people want to listen to before before you don't even let them ask the question. Yeah, I think if we live that kind of life, often they will ask us questions about, you know, our life. And then when they're asking questions, that's always the best time to share. Exactly. They're asking, you know.
Yeah. Well, Dave, this has been a wonderful conversation, and I know that most of our listeners are involved somewhere in a workplace. Some of them are working at home, but we're but we're all working. So I hope this book is going to help a lot of people, and I hope our listeners will get it, because I think they'll find it to be very, very practical in terms of the workplace as our place of ministry. So thanks for being with us today. My pleasure. It's been a real privilege.
Thanks for having me on. What an encouragement for everyone who is looking for good work and for God to provide that. Today's resource might be the encouragement you need on the job. The title again, Good Work!
How Blue-Collar Business Can Change Lives, Communities, and the World. It's written by Dave Haytag, H-A-T-A-J. And you can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, we'll take your questions and comments about relationships from our listener line. Don't miss our Dear Gary broadcast for February. And if you have a question, call us now at 1-866-424-GARY. A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
