Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to that makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis. We setting the Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes alludes us that makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Speaker 2 00:00:40 Well, it is not every day that I get to sit with a, another woman who has a connection with fuller and McKayla. I have done a couple of interviews with fuller people, but I'm like they have been men. And so it's totally fun. Like when I said that and I'm looking at her face and I'm like, this is the only time I've gotten to sit across from a woman who is on the fuller team. And, um, and that's a connection that we made right away. So I'm here with Mikayla O'Donnell. She has written a book that I was just telling her is challenging me, and I will be processing it for a while called make work matter, your guide to meaningful work in a changing world. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3 00:01:25 Oh, thanks for having me. Alexis is good to be here, especially with another fuller woman.
Speaker 2 00:01:30 So you have just, this is kind of a new position that you're stepping into at fuller for you, right. And you are the executive director of the Dupri center. So will you tell us, just give us an idea of what the, what is the work of the Dupri center at fuller?
Speaker 3 00:01:46 Yeah. Thanks for asking. I am sort of a long time fuller. I am surprised myself that I am still around, but you're right, that this new role is new. And so I am the executive director of the max to priests and our, for leadership. And we are named after max Dupree, who is longtime CEO of Herman Miller, which is a furniture company. Some of some people know the designs of the Charles and Ray Eames. I am currently sitting in an air on chair and it's very comfortable, very good furniture. And max Dupree was also the long-time chair of the fuller board. He was a person who could navigate between the business world and the world of faith, pretty seamlessly. And at the Dupri center, that's what we're trying to help people do. We wouldn't, we wouldn't say that we're just for business folks, but for anybody who's working across industries, meeting in different spheres, distinctly from the rest of fuller, we don't do as much work with church leaders. We're for all the rest of the leaders, helping them ask questions about how might they live as a Christian and wherever they are at.
Speaker 2 00:02:55 Yeah. I'm, I'm glad that, um, that you expanded on that. One of the things that actually kind of wanted to open with, um, which is not necessarily completely related to the book, but it's about your field, right. Of practical theology. So for listeners who are not in seminary or don't have theology degrees, or for those of us who are not necessarily in practical theology, can you kind of tell us a little bit about like that, like that sphere kind of like, what, what is that? Because I think we get it like, you know, going back and forth between those two worlds, but just kind of expand on that a little bit more.
Speaker 3 00:03:33 Yeah. That's a great question. And one, I actually get a lot, people say something like, wait a minute, isn't all theology is supposed to do practical or wait, no geology is practical, right? So, uh, if you think about theology as having a bunch of different sub-disciplines, there's, it's all about the questions and the starting point. So biblical theologians, they start with the text every time. What's the text saying systematic theologians. They want to know about the big beliefs of the Christian faith, things like salvation. And in times, practical theologians want to start with what's going on right now in the world and what my systematic or biblical, or just the history of Christian tradition say in light of what's going on and how might we grow and change. So practical theologians are very interested in that process. Um, and, and my specific discipline within that is helping people think about their work and sense of vocation.
Speaker 2 00:04:38 Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's really good. Thank you for that. That's helpful because I actually was thinking the answer, I thought you would get more is the theology isn't practical.
Speaker 3 00:04:49 Right. Right.
Speaker 2 00:04:50 Unfortunately this like esoteric out there, you know, kind of thing. And it's, you know, it's just kind of odd. And then you put practical in front of it and you think this is an oxymoron. This shouldn't be, it shouldn't be right. And then yes, there are probably the, the, the one that the better Christians are the ones who are going all theology is practical. Right. But, um, but when you talk about this, like when you do this and this sense of vocation, um, you know, we were talking earlier that you, you teach a class at fuller on vocational formation. And so again, those that w you know, that kind of leads into your book. It's like vocational formation formation is I think something that we're becoming, I think in the, in the American church, at least something that's becoming more and more common to hear, and more and more common to practice the disciplines and things like this, which just makes me so excited. But again, I feel like you put the word vocational in front of it and it's like, wait a minute. No, I went to college, I got a degree. I get a job. That's my vocation. So the idea of forming that feels weird. So what, what is that about?
Speaker 3 00:05:58 Yeah, well, I, I think that you're right, the formation, this idea that at the heart of it, we're becoming, we're becoming people. Um, and that, that, that's actually actually really liberating once, once we eventually come to believe in it, cause it's like, oh, I don't have to be perfect today. And oh, that person, you know, but I think about five years ago, like that's, even though they're a good person, there's a growth, right. And that's sort of core to, I think what it means to be a disciple of Jesus one foot after the other, becoming a better follower. Um, so then you apply that to a sense of vocation. And I think you got to back all the way up. I think there's a lot of what I call myths of vocation that are operative out in the world. And, and one of them Alexis is that our vocation or our calling equals a job, right.
Speaker 3 00:06:51 Or our vocation or calling equals a job I love or I'm passionate about. So then you get all, so right now it's okay to take practical theology, which is the what's going on right now in the world. So right now in the world, there's a lot of people who feel like what they're doing, doesn't matter for work. They don't even like their job. Uh, you know, we're in the midst of what some people are calling a great resignation or a great reassessment, um, at this sort of on the heels of COVID times, shouldn't say on the heels, in this stage of COVID times, um, and people are asking questions, well, well, what is a calling and why haven't I found it? Um, and this idea of vocational formation starts to become really liberating because first of all, it implies, there are layers to calling, which we can talk more about, but I won't necessarily write the second. And that you're growing day by day, step by step into a person who can respond more faithfully to those sense of callings. And that is not as sexy as saying, wow, here's my one special thing. And I am called to do this, and I'm going to save the world, but it's, it's a lot more grounded. It's a lot more doable. Ultimately, I think it's a lot more helpful.
Speaker 2 00:08:10 Yeah. Yeah. Um, I do want to talk about the layers of calling because at, in the book that I think the picture that you give will never leave me. Hmm. And this is the nesting dolls. I just, it was so good. It was, it was so good. My husband and I were like to think that we really do solve the world's problems in our evening, walk time. I mean, we take a mile and a half and it's fine. And, and, and, you know, they're not recorded, so no one knows that we've solved them all, but we're, we're getting there. And I was telling him about the book and we were, we were chatting about this, of course, because I'm in seminary and, and he's, you know, well into his career at this point, um, which was his, his story is kind of another one all into its own that the moral of the story was maybe God has just called him to be a good scientist.
Speaker 2 00:09:04 And that's what he can do in the world. Right. I mentioned this, which was wild for us at the time, young, young newlyweds, who just thought we were going to have to be missionary somewhere and that, you know, and, and it's like, wait a minute. I'm actually good at the, you know, anyway, so that was kind of a whole other thing, but we were talking about this and, and he was talking about how the word calling is problematic for him. And I think it is for a lot of us, you know, it's, it feels loaded, right? Like this, this, this, this word calling feels loaded. So I kind of threw it out there. Oh yeah. Well, what do you think about this idea? And he loved it. And so we, so we were able to talk about that. So this picture that you give, I think is so helpful in, in, in discussing calling and really, um, allowing ourselves to kind of be formed, um, in that, in that way and vocation. So take it away with the nesting dolls.
Speaker 3 00:09:58 Well, yes, I, I absolutely affirmed that maybe he's called to just be a good scientist and my goodness do we need good and faithful scientists in this age? So I'm grateful for the work that he does and he's not alone. It, I actually am somebody who has wrestled with the word calling. There's just a lot of baggage there. And I think it's important to ask where does that baggage come from? Yeah. I think that baggage is usually about expectations that we had that came from kind of, we'll say, larger messages. I won't name where all the messages are coming from because they come from different places, but expectations we had based on messages and those expectations didn't actually come true. And now there's a gap between what we thought was going to be and how we thought it was going to play out and what's actually going on.
Speaker 3 00:10:46 And I actually think as humans, we don't like that kind of gap. We don't like that kind of gap in sense of meaning. And I actually think that's, um, there's a lot of ways that God can move and work in that. I think it's a good thing, ultimately, that we want to be aligned with the sense of meaning and purpose. So, yeah, I historically a lot of people, uh, some of the best work on a theology of calling was done in the reformation. And that's when, when theologians, we won't, we won't say if they're practical, systematic, or biblical, we'll just say theologians, uh, started to talk about calling as central calling and a particular calling central calling is the core sense of belonging to Jesus and following God, and then particular callings. We're all, all of these stations that God's placed you in. And the reason why that, that was actually very liberating at the time because people thought mostly only callings were for spiritual people.
Speaker 3 00:11:41 And, and the problem now though, is that it feels kind of bifurcated. And most of us don't exist our lives in static stations. Like we'd like people did in the 15th, 16th century. So it's been helpful for me to think about calling more like a set of nesting dolls, where they all come together to form this whole self. And in that inner most doll that you can't see when you look at the outside, but if you keep digging in, is that call to belong to Jesus and follow Jesus. This is Matthew four on the shores of the sea of Galilee kind of stopped the follow me. Um, I would say, and I think there's, uh, there's some room for individuation here. Um, but I would say that the next layer out is, um, the call to participate in God's redemptive mission. So this is this, the big arc of the biblical drama.
Speaker 3 00:12:30 We go from creation to sin, to redemption, to restoration. And if, as Christians, we think that God really is making all the big, messy stuff, new and beautiful and good and bringing in wholeness and peace, then we're the, we're supposed to be part of that. And so in whatever we do, our jobs, our families, our relationships, our neighborhoods, et cetera. So we got called to belong called to participate in redemption, the next call, uh, the layer. Um, it is actually all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. When God, we get the story of God making humankind, and it's the call to create, we get the story of God has maker in Genesis one, and after God's made the heavens and the earth, then God makes people in the image of God and says, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
Speaker 3 00:13:18 And, um, you know, at its core that be fruitful is probably the, uh, commission to bear children. But it, it extends far beyond that. And it's how do we, how do we see ourselves as people who have the tools to create and be hopeful and imagine, right? And then after you've got the call to go along to call, to participate in redemption, the call to create then on the last, most outer, most nesting doll, you get the call to all the particulars now. And Alexis, I don't, I don't have one particular calling. I feel called to be a mother. I feel called to be a person who communicates professionally Ivy. I feel called to be a good neighbor. Um, I feel called to, um, my city in some really particular ways, right. To place. And so even just that we would have individuals that have one particular calling is limiting, but any of those particular callings, any of the things I just described, my, if I have a sense of call here in my current work at the max Dupree center for leadership, those core callings implicate, how I live out those particulars. So the call to belong the call to participate in redemption the call to create all impact how I show up every single day in my job.
Speaker 2 00:14:32 Yeah. Oh, thank you for going through that again. I told you it's picture that won't leave me and yet I'm still taking notes on, on how you communicated it just now. And while I was, I thought, here we go, this, this I'm like, I'm on it. Right. I'm here called to belong to Jesus. Yes. And amen. Call to participate in the word redemption. Yes. The messy things become new. The particulars I can get on board. And I, and I, and I can get on board with the, with the, kind of the new idea in some ways, for some of us that there are many particulars, right? My husband, isn't just called for example, to be a good scientist, but he's called in these other ways as well, the call to create, stop the presses at the call to create Hmm. Because, and you address this in the book and I'm thankful for it, but this is one of those things that some of us have to be told over and over and over again, some of us have to be asked about it multiple times.
Speaker 2 00:15:30 Some of us have to be told in different ways and read multiple books, because maybe we had a sister who was the poet or a mother who was the artist, or a, an uncle who was the carpenter. And we could see product, right. That was products of, of their creativity. And then it kind of morphed. And then all of a sudden, now it's a noun. Well, my, my mother-in-law was an artist. Therefore she was a creative. Right. And I look at her and I think my children laugh at my stick figures. Right. Um, I can play music, but I don't compose. Um, I write, but it's research papers. So that's just not very creative. And I go on and on. And I think about the things that I do and, and that no one in their right mind would ever call me a creative. So there's a few of us in the world who are in the boat that I'm in right now. Can you talk to us about this call to create this kind of third doll?
Speaker 3 00:16:43 Yeah. I I'm so glad you brought this up. I, I used to be in this camp. This used to be me. I did not think I was creative. I married an artist, a filmmaker, someone whose first language is visuals. And I used to be, we, we still own a business. I don't have, I don't, I don't have a ton of time to be active in it these days. But in the, in the early days when we were sort of both all in, we would go into meetings and I would say, yeah, Dan's the creative one. And I'm the business one. That's what I would say. That's how I'd describe ourselves. And after several of me, me doing that, he, he basically said, why do you do that? Why do you bifurcate? Why do you think I'm creative? And you're not creative? I'm like, well, I can look at it.
Speaker 3 00:17:31 And I was apples and oranges. I, you know, and he's like, oh, Mikayla. He's like, and he started naming. He started naming all the ways that he saw creativity come to life. He's like the way you cook food, he's like the way you are in a meeting. And you can see, you can strategize where everyone's going, the way you are with people the way, you know, and he just keeps going on and on and on, as he was talking, I'm like, oh, those, those, this is a person who knows me very, very well. And those things are true. Why don't, I think I'm creative. And I agree with you somewhere along the way, are our words of artists and creative became conflated. Right. And becoming a mother has actually helped me here. Um, I like to tell stories of when my children were very, very little and so indulge one story here.
Speaker 3 00:18:26 My daughter, when she was just about a year old, she was pushing around a, this story is actually in the book too. And she, she was pushing around a little shopping cart. One of those like Melissa and Doug things. And she couldn't get over. We have a lip in between our living room and our kitchen and she couldn't get over it. And the first couple of times I went over to her and I like help. I just like picked it up, just count as mindless, whatever I was doing. I just picked it up and helped her the third or fourth time. I'm like, oh, I can't. If I keep solving her problems, she's not going to solve her own problems. I can't, I can't be this kind of parent, no high school flashed in front of me, all that stuff. And I said to her, I said, why you are, you, you've got the tools to figure out how to get out.
Speaker 3 00:19:04 You got tools to do this. Like you can do this. And I sat there and I cheered her on. And eventually she, she picked up a wheel and move it over. And she did something actually very different than what I did because we didn't have the same strength. And it was a really creative solution. And that is when I was, is it struck me. I'm like, would this, with this wired in it's expressed differently, but it's wired in. And the data says, there's a great book called creative confidence by the Kelly brothers who run IDEO. It's a design firm in Silicon valley. And they say that what happens is that most of us start out just like my daughter with creative inclinations, even if it's problem solving, puzzle, doing Kranz, scribbling, whatever it is. And sometime through adolescents that gets kind of hammered out of us.
Speaker 3 00:19:54 And then some of us are told that we're creative and some of us are told that we're not. And some of us start to believe that we're creative and some of us start to believe that we're not. And I think that there is a bit of, it's actually one of the reasons why put it in the nesting dolls. I think there's a recovery of this source DNA and identity that we've got to get back to. And the last thing I'll say, and hear me on this, what I'm not saying is please go find a bunch of ways to try and be more creative. What I am saying is ask somebody else, ask your husband, like, how do you see me living as a creative person? Because Alexis I'll tell you the, the space that you create on this podcast right now, very creative, very creative, those papers that you write that feel very, you know, the way that you put them together. There's a lot of creative choice in that. And so even just some of the examples that I, you know, I'm witnessing right in front of me, I'm like, yeah, of course you're creative. And here's a couple of ways that it's expressed so that the invitation is to identify some of the ways that we're already doing this. Not necessarily to try to stack on more ways we might.
Speaker 2 00:21:05 Right. But to recognize how we're already living. Yeah. Living that out. I think it's for that example of you and your husband, because yeah. I mean, and for admitting you used to be in my boat. Right. That's, you know, that's helpful. Um, that's helpful. Um, I guess maybe one place we can go next is you have scattered throughout the book. I mean, I almost, you, you were talking about cooking. I'm almost like one of the, one of the seasonings and maybe that we can, that we can taste all throughout the book is this, is this, um, idea of empathy, you know, like you just did it with me. Right. Um, in our conversation. And I think that for again, I think if I said, here's a great book on work, you're going to love how she seasons this with empathy. They'd be like, I don't think you get one of those two words is not right.
Speaker 2 00:22:08 Like you, you know, maybe it's, you know, it's something else like that, that doesn't seem to go again. I mean, I think, I didn't know this would be a theme necessarily the conversation, there are a few things here that don't go together, right? We think, we think this is busy. There's things that don't go together. And when you think about, um, work that matters there, or leadership leadership, maybe it leans toward it a little bit more. But when I think about work and vocation, the idea that empathy would be a major ingredient just is not intuitive to me. It was after, after I read a little bit more about it, but how does tell me some of the ways that empathy plays a part in this, in this formation vocational formation process.
Speaker 3 00:22:54 Yeah. I love that. Well, one more thing to add your creative list. You think in metaphors, this is second or third time, I've heard, you heard you describe a metaphor. Um, and that's, that's very creative. Um, so yeah, empathy. This has been the great disruptor in my professional journey, actually in my life journey. I don't, I'm, I'm not one of those people that oozes empathy naturally and feels everybody's emotions and wants to be with them in that I, I don't I've, I've had, I've had to do some work to figure out why that stuff's got, that was a little more locked up in me and that's been good. And holy work, um, it started with, uh, I did a, uh, actually a doctoral project that was some of the seedlings for this book. And I talked with a bunch of different people who were, um, you know, kind of successful by objective.
Speaker 3 00:23:46 And I was looking for commonalities, what did they do? How did they show up that kind of stuff? And I was shocked to discover that one of the number actually the number one commonality was that these people practice empathy. And it was not the kind of empathy. When I say practice, I don't mean there was a set aside time to practice to go be empathetic. Okay. Now nine, I'm going to be empathetic with people, you know, that work for me or that I work alongside or with my family or my friends. It was, they did something that I've come to call practicing empathy along the way. Um, and, and for me, indulge me here in some Bible, and then we'll talk about the work part of it, um, in searching for a picture of what this looks like. Cause I do, I think pictures help us lean into things even more than, you know, we're definitions.
Speaker 3 00:24:45 I eventually settled into the passage of the good Samaritan and I have, I kid you not Alexis been sitting in the passage of the good Samaritan for the last three years. And it's just been, of course, of course I know the passage of the good Samaritan. It's like, you know, basic Christian stuff. And it's just, I've just been sitting in there for three years. And, um, what I love about this story is how empathy and interrupts a person who is moving from point a to point B, right this summer, we see that we see the guys, you know, passing this, the point of this is not the comment on their lack of empathy or whatever else got them all hung up. But then we have a guy who is walking along, going on on a road that is dangerous enough to be mugged on a road where, you know, there is considerable risk and he is so compelled by something.
Speaker 3 00:25:41 And I have to suspect it is just the state of another human being who needs help is so compelled by something. But he interrupts he's interrupted bowl and moves over toward the person who needs help. Not only that, he doesn't just say, oh man, I see you. And I fill you. It looks like you're having a tough time. He starts to imagine. And I'm now adding some, you know, kind of literary taking some literary Liberty here, but he starts to imagine like, okay, what if I help this guy get to a safe place so much so that he uses his resources. He puts him on his donkey and he slows down his journey. This is critical slows down his journey. In order to walk along this path, then he says to the innkeeper, I'm gonna come back and check on him and who knows he could have been financially exploited even there, but this, this picture of seen that, which might be seen as an interruption as the work is one of the very first steps, meaning of meaningful work.
Speaker 3 00:26:45 And it is this, I don't know if I can, I don't know. I'll say something similar. This step of being interruptible and realizing that what happens in those interruptions and who you're with in those interruptions is actually the meaningful work that so much of us crave it is because so many is if we're thinking big picture and grand and accomplished this and that and think about it, it's like all the best ideas that we have, all the risks that were worth taking day. If you, you probably can trace them back to a sense of others, right? A sense of even letting people move towards you or you moving towards other people. And because a lot of times there's this whole like, okay, the world is swirling all around us. How in the world am I going to do work? That matters how in the world is my everyday not going to feel like a crapshoot.
Speaker 3 00:27:40 You got to break it down into really, really small bits. So actually tell people, okay, make a list, make a list of all the people you interact with on an every day. Okay. Now add the people that you interact with on a weekly basis or monthly basis and not pick one or pick one or two that you within the next week are going to move toward. You don't know yet how you're going to move toward them because you haven't been interrupted yet. And you don't really know what's going to happen after you move toward them because you don't know what's going to go on, but just that we would make intentional space to move toward one another is in itself, very meaningful work. And is the seedlings of a lot that might come.
Speaker 2 00:28:23 Yeah. That it is the work. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:28:30 That's huge. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:28:32 That's, that's huge. And I like, there's a place in the book where you, um, I love the Liberty and the imagination that you, that you take in the book to kind of put some in-between thoughts and dialogue or monologue almost, um, with the good Samaritan in between the verses that we read. Right. Because I I'm with you. Yes. It's like Christian, maybe one-on-one, you know, it's, it's, it's not even Christianity one-on-one oh, one, there's no one. Right? There's all sorts of secular organizations that even have the name, you know, it's like, it's like, we all know this. We all know this golden rule kind of commonality. But because of that, I think we really do. If we, if we slow down and do that close reading that you're talking about and use our imaginations, this is a, this is a big deal. If we put ourselves in his position, you know, in his place for him to do that, how Jesus described is a really big deal and it's, and it's all about empathy. You're right. Like it's, it's all about empathy and that's the work that's making the difference.
Speaker 3 00:29:38 Yeah. And I think one more thing on that, you know, the good Samaritan, wasn't the solver of all the world's problems. I don't even know that he solved all of this guy's problems. But what he did say is I've got some resources that I can contribute toward this. I've I, you know, in these I I've got oil and I've got a donkey and I've got a little bit of money and I'm this matters, this guy's, this guy matters. And I, I can contribute my resources, heard that and resources. Aren't always, um, you know, items that we have or money. We have our time, we have our energy, we have our, our hope, our resources of hope and joy and creativity, deciding to contribute those in light of our movement, towards other people. I mean that, there's this a whole path that unfolds.
Speaker 2 00:30:26 Right. And when you, and you saying it in that way, when you talk about this idea of being interrupted bowl and that he used his resources in that way, I'm like, yes. And like, thinking about this, you know, kind of putting myself in that position, thinking about goodness, like what do we have? And all of that, it's like, he used this oil in that way, that was earmarked for something else. Right? Like he had these resources, but he didn't pack up his donkey that day thinking I can't wait until I run into the first hurt guy that I see so that I can put them on this great donkey and, you know, bandage him up with this oil in this cloth and then use all of this money that I've put in a bag for his recovery. But he had resources that were earmarked for something else and creatively use them in a different way.
Speaker 3 00:31:19 Yeah. And then I think to go back to one of our earlier points, I, the question I have is, and how did that form him and how did that impact him? How did that whole thing change him and grow him? Because you know, it did, you don't, you don't have a moment like that, whatever scale or scope we're talking about and have it not changed you. And so the interrupted wellness that we move in empathy, it has a risk Rena reciprocity to it in terms of our own formation. And we don't move to our people so they can give back to us. But we trust that God is, is using those moments and, and, and building in us capacities that we need to be able to, you know, belong to Jesus, participate in redemption, create in whatever particular spaces we might be in.
Speaker 2 00:32:11 Would you say this is part of being entrepreneurial?
Speaker 3 00:32:15 Yeah. It's core it's core. You know, people get all like weird when I use the word entrepreneurial cause like creativity, but even more people opt out of it. I'm not an entrepreneur. Um, and, and, and I'll give you an example that would prove it almost, almost any situation. And everybody can be more entrepreneurial. I was talking to PhD students and they were like, can you help us figure out how to market ourselves in a changing world of work? And I'm like, okay, you want to not do PhD stuff. I can do other stuff. Okay. How are we going to do this? This is the whole thing. And eventually we got down to this as PhD students, their minds have been trained to find gaps and fill them with something of value that is literally what entrepreneurs are supposed to do. Find gaps, fill them with something of value.
Speaker 3 00:33:03 Even the good Samaritan. There was a gap, right? There was a space that was looking to be filled and he filled it in a valuable way. And so I actually think that, you know, even if it's scary, everybody can think about being entrepreneurial because at its base, it's about noticing opportunity CRE you know, adding value, creating value. And usually in doing those two things in the face of some risk, good Samaritan, there is risk PhD students. I just described there is risk you and I, in our end, the different work that we do there is risk. Um, so I, yeah, I like to sort of strip down what it means to be an entrepreneur all the way to its base, because I think we need a lot more people that believe that they can add value in the face of, of need and that they, it is worth taking risk, uh, to do that work.
Speaker 2 00:33:51 Yeah. I was kinda mad about it when you, um, you're implicated when you kind of redefine that for me, because going into this, I could be like, look, I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm not creative. I am risk averse. And so this is kind of all, like, this would be a great book for someone else, right. Because all of those things, and then you left me with no excuses,
Speaker 3 00:34:20 Sorry.
Speaker 2 00:34:22 So it was kind of mad about it, you know? Um, but when you, when you talked about doing all this in an entrepreneur, preneur does filling those gaps with, with things of value in the face of risk, and then we will fail. We will. I, I don't, I I'm wondering if you're open to sharing this story. Um, it's one that it gives me anxiety thinking about because I'm in the middle of doing some kind of risky things and, um, and you tell a story of getting fired yeah.
Speaker 3 00:35:01 In your living room. Yep. Yeah. Bye friend. Okay. So let me say one thing and I'll tell the story. So I was hoping that you were going here, uh, because in the face of risk, you know, there will, there will be failure. I I'm an athlete. I played softball in college. I was talking to actually one of my teammates the other day. And this was a teammate who had been going for something big for us at the Dupri center. He, he put a lot of effort into this and he got the call that it wasn't going to work out and we didn't work. And he, you know, he sent me a note and I sent him a note back and I'm like, Hey, you want to talk? And of course he was disappointed. And we took a minute just to say this, this sucks. This just really sucks.
Speaker 3 00:35:49 Now I'm like, why does this suck so much? And he said, I'm gonna kill. I wanted to hit it out of the park. And I said, okay, okay. You're, let's stick with that analogy. If, if you are a baseball player, a softball player, it batting average is something people measure at all times. And a really, really good batting average is somewhere above 300. Now what that means is that still two out of three times a person goes up to plate. They're not going to get on base. They're just not going to get up. It's not going to happen. But the expectation is that if you get on one out of three times, you're doing a really good job because that's hard stuff. Someone's throwing a ball at you really fast, and you're supposed to hit it with a stick and it's supposed to go between people and you're running around.
Speaker 3 00:36:36 That's hard, that's hard to do. And I think that we would do well to apply the rule of batting averages to this. You know, we just, and because we are a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, people, we know that that failure and death and stuff that is sucky, doesn't have the final word. Um, God is a, you know, Christ is risen. And so we know that Christ conquers any of that stuff. And so I do think that resilience is a gift of the resurrection. And this played out for me very personally, um, in my business. Um, this was a couple years ago. Yeah. I'm trying to tracking it in terms of babies and how old they were. So this was a couple of years ago now, and we had a big, we had a big project that we were doing. And it was, it was when I say big, it was contributing a lot that year to our finances and we were having a baby.
Speaker 3 00:37:31 And so our, you know, my work time, and even my husband's work time was all thrown in, thrown up in the air. It didn't look normal. And so every dollar counted in, in our year. And I got a call from, um, this client who, you know, had become a good friend and my son was six weeks old. And she's like, can we meet? I was like, I'm not available. And now let me just preface this. This person is a really good person. They're just doing their best to right. This, person's not a bad person. They're making decisions, just like the rest of us. So there's no. And if anyone had fought here, it probably was, it probably was me. Right. So let me just preface it with that. Um, she said, I said, but you could stop by the house, you know? Um, because she, you know, whatever, she knew where we lived and stuff.
Speaker 3 00:38:22 So she came over and I was like, no joke, just like in my old sweatshirt and full of, like, I don't know when I'd taken a shower, last drinking cold coffee the whole bit. And she was like, it's like, you got, you're not delivering. We've got to let you go. And it was very painful. It wasn't the very first time that a relationship like that had ever ended, but it was big. It was with a friend and it was in this really vulnerable space that I was in being such a new mom. And, um, I was so angry. I was just very, very angry, um, for a while. And it, and, and I say that because resilience isn't about how fast we bounce back necessarily. Um, and resilience didn't come, you know, necessarily, even though that person and I, now, now we're in a good place and we've, we've moved past that.
Speaker 3 00:39:24 Um, it didn't come when we got to a good place when we moved past that it didn't come necessarily. Even when our income was replaced, it came when my husband and I could look ourselves in the mirror, look each other in the eye and be like, you know, dude, like God's still got us. Like, that's okay. You know, that was a big, we took a big risk by trying to do all that right now. And it didn't really work out and I wasn't really available because of this whole baby thing. And that didn't really work out. We sort of failed. And gosh, we're going to learn a lot from this. And I will say a couple of years later, like our business is doing very, very well. Like we're serving really meaningful clients and we've leveraged a lot of lessons about what actually to say yes and no to.
Speaker 3 00:40:19 And the biggest lesson we pulled out of that one was don't don't overextend because something seems awesome because you're probably not gonna be able to do it well, and it's going to be real, not awesome, real fast. And, but even just Mike, my capacity to do that, he could probably even feel it not, there's still pain there. I still have some like, ah, feelings about it. And it's just helpful to talk about it too. I don't think we talk about these moments enough and we don't give ourselves permission to feel the suckiness of work and to fail and to say to someone that I just met today. Yeah. I didn't handle that very well. And I lost a big client and the friendship was really tough for awhile. We got to have more spaces where we can do that because we got to, we got to get to the other side of that. We got to get to the hope and the new life and the generativity and the lessons learned and the what to say yes and no to, and where to invest effort. So I'm, I'm not a stranger to failure. Uh, I actually feel like that batting average thing is pretty accurate in my own life. Um, and I do, this is part of the formation stuff I feel, I do feel like God's just keep saying all right, just to get back up to the plate, let's go work on your swing a little bit, but get back
Speaker 2 00:41:33 Up to the plate. So yes. Resilience, failure, the batting average. I think I could own that. I feel like I could, you know, because I'm because I'm looking, you know, I was, I was having some conversations lately about some of the stuff that, you know, kind of makes me nervous, right. Because I'm like, this is, you know, this feels risky or this is, you know, this is something that I know I can do, but there's always this waddup. Right. You know what, but what if the, what if they don't like it or what, you know, and, and, and of course, as a student, I feel that way, every time I turn in assignment it, right. I think this is good. I've done what I can do. And I just don't know, you know what, it's what it's gonna look like on the other end and, and talking about the spaces to do this, I don't even remember now what the thing was that I was afraid was going to blow up, but there was something semi-recently that I was afraid I was going to blow up.
Speaker 2 00:42:24 And I was talking to my therapist about it. Right. Because I mean, you know, the anxiety was just like coming over me and, and she said, play out the worst case scenario. Right. Play it out in your imagination. Let's play it out. Right. What if this big blow up that you just cannot see to the other side of, because you're so afraid and anxious. Yeah. Play it out in your imagination. Right. And even, I would say, thank you for this conversation and for the book, because even though I said that story gave me anxiety, it gave me a space though, to do that again, right. To use my imagination and say, well, well, Mikayla, okay. And like, I've seen the work that you and your husband do for your business and it's beautiful. Right. And someone like this doesn't mean they don't do good work.
Speaker 2 00:43:22 Right. This doesn't mean that whatever they do is not objective really just like, you know, anyway, it's like, it's, it's good. Right. And, and subjectively, I look, and I say, it's stunning. Some of it is just, it's stunning and beautiful, and it's really good, meaningful work, and they're successful. And they're doing all of this. And, and yet in the midst of this, there's this fail, right. That you were so generous to be vulnerable with us about. But that, I think too, that, you know, that's one of the things that at fuller, that's been so valuable for me is, is kind of this, you know, every time we talk about formation, that it happens in community, right. This happens with one another. And so, and so I, and it's like not necessarily super flattering, but I'm like, your story of failure helped me play out a worst case scenario in my mind. Right. Good. Cause good. If I get, if I were, if this thing were to blow up, it actually wouldn't happen to me in my living room with my baby on my knee. Right. Yeah. Right. You know, and, and so it's like, it's giving me space. And then one of the other things you talk about is I think it was your mom, like kind of giving you this life. What is that? Yeah. Can you pep talk us?
Speaker 3 00:44:38 Yeah. You know, one thing I was thinking, as you were talking to Alexis and a practice that we've instituted as a family actually, cause we're, I mean, we are no strangers to play out the worst case scenario. We are no strangers to that anxiety because we're living, we're living, we're all living risky lives in one way or another life has to be human is to be risky. It just is so, and, and to bring our humanist to our work is risky. And, uh, sometimes if I'm, which I haven't done this, let me say, just since, you know, last night, sometimes when I'm spiraling about something, uh, my husband will say to me, or when he's spiraling about something, I will say to him, or, you know, okay. So play out the worst case scenarios, all those what-ifs now for every one of those, what ifs you've got to counter it with the opposite.
Speaker 3 00:45:24 What if right? What if this goes really well? What if it's helpful to a lot of people? What if it meets a need that really other people aren't meeting? What if it brings me peace and joy and happiness? Because those, because before we step into situations, we don't know where it's going to live on that spectrum. And so it's good for our brains to play those things out and, and to ask ourselves, as my mom would say, why, why are we so afraid to fail? Like, what's that about? Why, why don't we, why? And I think that's a good question for us to ask. And there's lots of stuff there for each of us. And I would say, if you're afraid to fail, you're not alone. You got I'm, I'm right there with you. Even though I write about this stuff and I encourage, I still don't want to fail. No one wants to feel those feelings, you know? Um, but yeah, it's good. It's good. And holy work to ask, why am I afraid to fail? And it's good. And holy work to counter all those worst case scenarios with the flip side.
Speaker 2 00:46:31 Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, of course I'm like that probably just reveals my, I had a friend once labeled me as a melancholy. I didn't love it, but it not be entirely inaccurate, but I'm like, oh, oh, I could, I could play out a best case scenario.
Speaker 3 00:46:46 What's that like, what happens here? I
Speaker 2 00:46:47 Can do that. You know, I can do that. I think it's, I think it was what I was reading a kind of a lesser known Bernie brown book a few years ago. And she was talking about that very thing, you know, of, of like your were afraid to play out the best case scenario though, or even to do that in community. Because if we do fail, then we have all of those other things. Right. Well then I'm embarrassed. Well, then I got my hopes up. Well, then I've got, you know, all of these things and, and, and I think her point, if I'm remembering it accurately was basically like, you're going to have those things anyway. Yeah. You're going to feel the feelings anyway. Even if you get your hopes up and you don't, so you may as well have the community that you've shared it with ahead of time to fall back on, you know, if those things do play out right. And if they, and if they play out in a way that you can celebrate, then look, we've got all these people who knew about it, that you can celebrate with you. Right. And that was a helpful, wait.
Speaker 3 00:47:38 I think that's really helpful. And her work is so core to her work is that is combating shame. And I think people do have a lot of work shame if I can use that phrase is that's not a phrase I've used before. Maybe we should investigate that a bit more, but, you know, I think part of also where she would go is that we need people cheering us on. So again, it's like part of our own combating our own shame is to reach out to other people and cheer them on and to be sowing that hope into other people maybe because you do in community report yourself. And so you, so I, I liked that push toward community. I think it's critical here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:48:18 Um, oh my goodness. We've like, we've covered a ton. Um, and I feel like we, I mean, I feel like we could cover a lot more, but what I want to ask you as we kind of wrap up sometimes, um, I find this helpful because, and I love how you've talked a lot about asking questions and in theology, this is a lot of what we do. So I'm going to ask you, what question did I not ask? What question did I not ask you? Where did I not go that you think would be helpful for us?
Speaker 3 00:48:48 Well, Alex is, you're a very generous and good hosts. So you've asked really good questions and it's been very fun to talk to you. Um, I'm not sure there's any blaring areas. I might just, just sort of say one last thing as a word of encouragement, which is, yeah. A lot of this stuff feels de-stabilizing because the world is destabilizing and Alexis, as you and I have talked to other places, it would be so nice to be able to have very predictable steps in front of us. Um, but you know, over and over again, like in the Bible, that's not usually what happens. Predictability is not usually central or key. And so we have a story that can guide us in this, in these times of unpredictability. Um, and so I would just encourage you that wherever you're at today, like you got this and I don't mean you got this in like a big giant solve it all way, but like, you can take a step. You can engage in your own formation. You can move towards other people. You can take a next doable risk.
Speaker 2 00:49:56 Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Make work matter your guide to meaningful work in a changing world. And I will link the place where you can buy that or a place where you can buy that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Mikayla for coming
Speaker 3 00:50:10 On. Oh, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 00:50:14 The links for all the resources mentioned in
Speaker 1 00:50:16 Today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth. Bruschetti be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit us at that. Makes total sense.com
