“What I achieve and accomplish is not important to the LORD compared to what’s going on in my heart. Jesus delt with the heart. I can say, “look at what I have achieved and accomplished” and suddenly my chest goes out and I feel like I did a good job because I got some attaboys and pats on the back. Does that matter in the light of eternity? Does that matter to the one who really matters?”
Jonathan is a visionary and entrepreneur. He is energized by inspiring leaders and equipping them with unique approaches to better understand their people, and creating high-performing teams. Originally from the UK, now living in the US since 1998, Jonathan has almost 20 years of experience in the recruiting industry. He started Titus Talent after experiencing firsthand that the traditional recruiting models were broken. Jonathan currently leads a unique, fast-growing, 100% mobile team of talent consultants who are located across the US. Jonathan is also a husband and father of three.
2:44– A little of my background
4:05– Where does your bubbly spirit come from?
5:30– What was in your dreams when you were young?
10:05– A little about Titus Talent Strategies
13:41– Some tips on finding good talent in the work place
18:11– Why is the idea of personal identity so important to you?
21:49– What is one of the biggest mistakes or failures you’ve been through and what did God teach you as a result of that?
24:04– What’s the best advise you’ve been given in business?
25:48– What advise would you give your 20 year old self?
28:02– Advise for those that are discouraged
30:36– The 4:23 Question
Full Transcript:
Ray: Hello everyone, this is Ray Hilbert. I am your host here at Bottom Line Fatih, and we would like to welcome you back to another version of the show, where we travel the country and we interview some of the most amazing Christ followers who are running businesses and corporations, entrepreneurs who are starting new ventures and creating new opportunities in the marketplace. And from time to time we do interviews with celebrities, coaches, and folks who are otherwise living out their faith in the marketplace in amazing and encouraging ways. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. If you’re a regular listener, welcome back. Hey, we would like to encourage you to take a moment and check out the bottomlinefaith.org. You can listen to dozens and dozens of interviews that we have completed over the past few months. There at the site you can scroll down and become a subscriber, if you’re not already a regular listener to the show. And so, folks, I am really, really pumped and excited to welcome to our show today a gentleman who even before we came on air, I was just, we were praying, and I was just thanking the Lord for new friendships and for people who really are an encouragement to those around them. And folks I just can’t wait; you’re going to love our guest today. His name is Jonathan Reynolds; he is the CEO of Titus Talent Strategies. You can check them out at titustalent.com. Jonathan, welcome to Bottom Line Faith.
Jonathan: Hey, thanks for having me here. It’s really, really good to be here.
Ray: Okay, so we’re just going to get the obvious out of the way. Just go ahead and tell them your name and you’re going to pick up right away folks, that he’s not a Midwestern boy by upbringing.
Jonathan: That’s right. Jonathan Reynolds, and it’s a good treat for me to be here across from Ray. As he said, a new friend, and we’ve had some laughs already this morning, but I am not from Texas.
Ray: Well, I was going to say, okay, so not from Texas, not from Atlanta, not from central Indiana. Where did you grow up? Where is home?
Jonathan: Yep, from Bath, England. Grew up in the UK. And a little bit about my history, I guess would be that I grew up here youngest of five kids. My parents passionate, passionate, lovers of Jesus. They were wholehearted and committed to the Kingdom advance in the world, and always grew up with that knowledge. And my parents did a phenomenal job I think, in raising me; look at me now. They did a really good job of raising each one of their kids with the knowledge that it was through the church that the manifold wisdom of God will be displayed to the whole Earth, but not limiting it in the understanding that it’s not just the church. The Kingdom of God is way bigger than just the church and not to belittle that will make you sound smaller, the bride of Christ is beautiful, but it’s each one of us living out. I’ll fight every single day and every single room we go to any single environment go to, we bring the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, his peace, his joy. I definitely grew up with that heartbeat of get out there, go change the world, and see the Kingdom of God advance through your life whatever you’re doing. Your full-time Ministry doesn’t matter.
Ray: And we’re going to get into that. That’s great and folks I wish you could be in the studio with me right now. Because Jonathan, you just light up a room, man. You’ve got this joy about you, you’ve got this countenance. You know there are several times we’ve been together and every time I’m with you are an encouragement to me and those around you. Where does that spirit, where does that bubbly, just joy come from for you?
Jonathan: Oh, that’s good. Well, my relationship with the Lord, really. I think the joy of the Lord is our strength and I need a lot of strength. And so finding, getting happy in God, getting happy in God every day, going, okay there is so much for the well of joy when we actually consider our salvation, consider the hope we have, considered our future, consider our present, whether it be trials we’re facing, finding our joy in God is great. Life is not without challenges or trials but, you know, I think from the outside, somebody would say, “Why you so positive?” And it’s not just positivity, it’s hope in God and faith in God, which transform out perspective and kind of helps us lift our eyesight a little higher than what’s going on in the natural. And I definitely, you know, can lose it at times. But, you know, take a step back here. Perspective in God, he is right here with me right now. So yeah.
Ray: That’s where it’s coming from. So, Jonathan, you shared that you grew up in a Christian home and we’re going to talk about the business and your how you live your faith in the marketplace, and so forth in just a moment, but growing up, did you see yourself becoming a businessman, or were you thinking you might become a minister? What was in your dreams as a youngster?
Jonathan: Sure, okay. I always knew that I loved being around people. Definitely a bit of a, now I’m not a natural academic, definitely enjoy being around people, and I want to help launch, equip, and activate people in the things. I was a ringleader, usually get people in trouble, but I realized at an early age, that I had influence and God had given me a gift in that area, and so any time I could sway the group, I would. And it was fun to me, but it wasn’t really locked-in of, I want to be a businessman, I want to be in, you know, traditional ministry, or full-time employment in church life.
Ray: So at what point then did you really begin to kind of hone in and understand that God had a call on your life in terms of this area in business?
Jonathan: Well, I guess we’re at a very young age, even in little, young school, I would find myself, I buy something from the toy store. I’d go to school and, you know, be playing around with some toy and people would say, “I want one of those.” So I would go to the toy store and clean them out, buy them in bulk and I would sell them at a markup at school. And this was pretty normal for me. People would ask “Where did you get these?” And I would never tell them where I got stuff from. I would just buy and sell it for a profit, and it was fun to me, and that has always been in my DNA. Then get into teen years, I would take my parents’ lawnmower, and I’m going to start mowing the neighbor’s yards and then suddenly, “Hey Mum, can I borrow the car and stick the lawnmower in,” and I’d be going all over town mowing people’s lawns. So suddenly I’ve got a lawn mowing business and this is great, and then stumbled across a cleaning business, where I heard a few of the youth group girls from church and said, “Hey, I got a job for you in this cleaning business.” And you’re thinking is this small. No actually this is getting pretty sizable. I’ve got a team of people doing things for me. Then people started asking why, and I said, “Well, I’m actually trying to raise money to move to America.” And that really set me set me up. I wanted to just to get away from being the youngest of five kids and being labeled as my parents’ kid and the expectations that came of that. And the reality is, my relationship with the Lord although I knew the reality of God and I knew him working in other people’s lives in my siblings lives who were all movers and shakers in their own worlds, I really wrestled to– I wanted to find God for myself. I wanted to know what an intimate relationship with the Lord looks like outside of my parents or people just expecting that I am there. Like somebody needs to invest in me.
I moved to the States to be a part of a Christian mission organization in ’98. And that’s not where I found God, but I certainly found that nobody knew me, and I thought it was going to be really easy, but I very, very quickly got back into the same kind of rhythm of life and wrestling through some of those things. But interesting enough, when I arrived at a missions organization in Texas, in ’98 and everybody was assigned a job. And my job that I was assigned was recruitment of people to the organization. And I did that; it was a two-year program, and I became a recruiter, and I love this. It’s like sales, and people, and I’m actually getting to interact with people, and bring them into this organization. And they kept me on for a second year and asked me to be a supervisor and manager of this team of fifteen recruiters. And it’s funny when you fast forward; I love this, the hand of God. Twenty-something years on here, I am leading a talent strategy recruitment company helping companies make the right hire, helping them figure out what they actually need, how are they going to do the retention, how they are actually going to keep people engaged in the employment, and in that company, and helping them build a culture. And I love it because God ordained this thing from twenty-something years ago, you know, introducing me to the recruitment world, and not just being a salesperson.
Ray: That is so neat to hear, and so, Jonathan, one of the things we love to do here at Bottom Line Faith is, we really define success here, is that if one person is listening to this program right now and they could be encouraged or maybe they’ve had a dream that God has placed in their heart and for whatever reason they have not acted on it, maybe they just haven’t had the faith yet or the confidence, but as I’m listing to your story, it’s like God’s hand was on you. He gave you these entrepreneurial bents from a very young age. You’re buying a product and reselling it, you’re starting these businesses, and then you found this niche of recruiting people, combining your love of people and business and so forth. So take a moment then; let’s dive in a little bit deeper. Tell us about Titus Talent Strategies; the problem you’re solving, and why you’re different and unique.
Jonathan: Yeah, good. Okay. I grew up in the traditional, well I guess I shouldn’t say grew up. I got my feet wet in this mission organization, this Christian mission organization, and then I ended up in commercial staffing and recruiting and learned the evils of, well the dirtiness of, this used car sales. Just throwing resumes and seeing what sticks. And I’m like, “This is broken.” So I actually, in 2009, I joined a financial services firm. I was hired by the president and owner of the company and he said, “I want to start a recruiting division.” 2009 was a rubbish time to start a recruiting division, but I didn’t think about that. So, funny enough, I was finding it really hard to get this thing going. I was the only one and I was sitting with a company called Milwaukee Tool, the power tool company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I was based most of the time. I was sitting with their Vice President and I said, “Okay, you got all these critical roles open, you have laid off whole bunch of people, you don’t want to post these ads because you’re going to get 500 applicants and you can’t spend all these wopping, big 25% fees.”
And it was like the heavens open moment where I just knew the Holy Spirit, inside of me, came and gave me this idea. I had one employee at the time, and I said, “Okay, we don’t have anything to work on, how about this? I rent in to you by the hour and for the next month, he can work on all of these critical roles for you.” And she said, “Interesting.” I said, “You don’t pay any fees; it’s just our time, on an hourly rate, just our time.” And she said “Okay. Can I have access to your applicant tracking system, the golden database?” I said, “It’s rubbish, there’s nothing in there.” And she’s like, “I thought all you recruiters said you got all this access to all these hidden people.” I’m like, “They’re all lying.” I’m like, “We’re in the data age, you can find anyone, as to whether you can engage them, and attract them, and get them over to you.” I said, “We’ll go exclusive passive candidate headhunting. We’ll build a database; you own the pipeline.” And she said, “Let’s do it.” After six weeks they made seven critical manager and director level hires and I was like, this is it; I’m on to something. And I felt that even in the pitch, like, you can’t lose when God is giving the pitch. It felt like I wasn’t even speaking, like where is this even coming from, and I’m making this thing up. You’re thinking, “Did you just make that up?” And it really wasn’t me; it was the Lord, I think, you know. So there we are; we fast-forward, we doubled year after year for the next few years, with this model, and figuring it out and it was just a joy to partner with companies only of late and helping them with their critical, critical roles. And helping them on that side, not on our terms for charging them a big whopping fee. That’s how we started, we’ve sort of evolved since then. I always say it’s unfair for Christians to be in business; its like insider trading. “How did you know that, how did you find that information out?” I’ve got the omniscient in me speaking. He knows everything. He knows exactly what’s going on in your company and he tells me. It’s kind of like that insider info, it seems so wrong, you know. We just have a competitive advantage.
Ray: Yeah, and I love that. I love that approach and I agree with that wholeheartedly, that if we’re walking with the Lord, he promises he’s going to speak to us. He is going to give us divine insight and perspective that no one else can; it is an unfair advantage, right? And so as you look out on the horizon of what’s happening right now, we’re in the midst of a frankly good economic season, the number one thing that I’m finding and it’s no secret here, companies are having a really hard time finding good talent. Just comment on that, not just your model per se, but what do you think of if I’m a business owner and I’m listening to the program right now, just give me a couple tips on what I should be looking for if I’m also struggling to find good talent.
Jonathan: Sure. It is hard for me to not sort of go into it without going into a pitch. So, I’m going to stay away from that, and I think it’s tradition, is really a biggest enemy here. So we look at things in the sense of like, okay, what is the job? We kind of go, okay, HR, can you create a job description as an HR job description? This is two or three pages that includes everything from must have ten to fifteen years experience, must be able to be to sit, bend, and stand, lift twenty-five pounds for extended periods of time, like nothing to do with the job, you know, and we just say, “Okay, you got to do this, a bunch of tactics and duties. Really it is a person description and like me, and the people who actually look at that are people who are looking for jobs. Well, when you got a couple of percent of unemployment, maybe that’s not the right person you’re trying to attract. Maybe, and so really starting from the angle of, fast-forward a little bit here, if I had hired somebody today, I wouldn’t know they were good until a certain period of time.
But how do we define quality? The quality hire is really that they’ve done something and so what should this person do, achieve or accomplish, that would that make you say, “Dang, that was a good hire. I really lucked out on this one.” You know, that feeling that we got like what a great hire, really comes down to probably two or three things that they’ve done, or achieved, or accomplished. So start there, for a start. I am looking for someone who can, will do, and wants to do that in my environment. Now, forget that the people are out there. We all agree that they are out there somewhere. Now I’ve just got to go find out where they’re at, tap them on the shoulder and say, “Listen.Would you consider a career move if it was truly superior to what you’re doing right now?” That’s a fair question. I’m not stealing people, I’m just saying if this is truly superior, would you consider it? Then we just engage in a conversation. Like, “Huh. So here’s my number one issue, is this. I need somebody who can do this; tell me about that.” And if they say, “Well, I’ve actually done that, but not on that scale. This would be truly superior, a bit of a bigger job to me, but it could be the next stretch, the next opportunity for me.” So that’s where we’re engaging people on that level.
Ray: So really, on the flip side of that coin then, you just mentioned that you’re going to make that call to that prospective candidate and say, “Hey, if this were really a superior opportunity, would you be open to it?” So now let’s do a little bit of reverse coaching. What would you say to the employer that makes it that they are already providing the superior opportunity, so that when Jonathan and this team call, they say “No, I’m in a perfect place. Thank you, but no thank you.”
Jonathan: Absolutely. You’ve got to know your people. You’ve got to put your people first, and so when we look at our team members, they’re not just assets, they’re people. They’re people that God wants to grab a hold of their hearts, and so if you’re listening to this and you love the Lord, and you see yourself as a Kingdom mission minded person, saying, “Listen, I want my whole life to see the advance of the Kingdom of God.” Look at the people that are in your care, almost as talents and gifts from God, and say, “I need to grow these people. I need to grow them and just find ways for God to put His seeds into their hearts and so I can win some souls,” right? So we look at the people in that level, and say, “Okay, how do I help them grow and develop? What is in their heart, what do they bring to the table?” I think we often don’t do that. We look at career trajectory and things like that as the mission of the company, but finding out what treasures God has given us in people, and unlocking that and saying, “Okay, how do I help you get there?” We’ve got a lot of Millennials in our company, like many people, it’s half the workforce in the next couple of years. I said, “Okay, In 2017, at the beginning of 2017, I want to know every single person in our company. What professional experience, cause Millennials like experiences, what experience would they like to have this year.” And blank slate, it was amazing the stuff that came back. And I said, “Okay, we can do 100% of those.” Some of these are more outlandish than others, but we’re going to do it. And so I made sure that in the calendar year that we provided that, I kept coming back “Remember that? You said that you want this, and I’m doing it.” I said, “You wanted this, I’m making it happen. And so it kind of creates that kind of a bond of I’m known, I’m understood, I’m loved, I’m care for, and it’s about people before just the bottom line profits.
Ray: Really, really great advice. Not only advice but that’s philosophy and God-honoring, practical based leadership, and I know that along these lines, that one of the things that’s important to you is the whole contempt of personal identity. Part of what you’re describing there is helping that person live out their own identity, their own passions, right? Speak to us a little bit; why is this so important to you? This whole concept of personal identity and understand it.
Jonathan: Yeah, it’s important to me and other people. It’s important in me when I started going through if I look about at my formative teenage years. And the things are going on in my family lives, and my stage of life and my parents, where they were kind of set in their trajectory in their life, certain things were shaped into me. I am not a passive person, I am always going, always moving, and I want to achieve, accomplish and produce stuff. I’m a driven person, okay, as time has gone on, I started to grow up and mature and look at my life and say, “Okay what is my life about? What am I doing? What am I achieving? And what’s important to the Lord?” And I realize that what I achieve and accomplish is not important to the Lord, compared to what’s going on in my heart. Jesus dealt with the heart. He said, “Yeah, your lips, you want to be the lips, but your hearts are far from me.” Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, you know. Guard your heart, as one of the Scriptures that you love to ask people. Guarding it, because out of it flows all of the issues, of one of the main issues of life. God cares about my heart, and I can say, “Look at what I’ve achieved and accomplished.” And he’s like, “Okay, let’s put all that aside right now. Let’s talk about your heart. What are your motives? What’s driving you?”
Ray: That’s good.
Jonathan: You know, God deals with the heart, doesn’t he? “Ok, it’s great that you’ve been able to give those millions, but I don’t really care about the millions. I have the whole world. I can do that on my own, I can do that in my sleep.” You know, you can get all sort of proud about what you’ve produced and accomplished, but like the widow, is all she had. And it was something about the heart, and so as I’m growing up and realizing, “Wow, I’ve got to look at the heart thing and what’s driving and motivating.” Even on to this show, say, “Okay, I want to do a really great job.” Why do I want to do a great job? How would I know if I’m going a great job? Maybe a bunch of people reach out to me and say, “Hey, I heard about you and what you’re doing. I’d love to connect.” And suddenly my chest goes out, and I felt like, “Yeah, I did a good job because I got some At-a-boys, and some pats on the back.” Does that matter in the light of eternity? Does that matter to the one that really matters? And so to reassess those, living from a place of wholeheartedness, I think is success from a worldly perspective, we can suddenly feel that was success and it’s not, you know, it really isn’t. It doesn’t matter at all in the light of eternity, and to the Lord, and he’s dealing with our hearts, okay. I’ve got to peel this back. I feel like I’m going through these weekly surgeries, now. “Oh, gosh, what is my motive in that? Lord, I want you to pull that out. I don’t want my motive in that to be name, my this, this is what I’ve done, you know. I want your name to be glorified. And if I decrease, and you increase, that’s a great, beautiful thing.” So yeah.
Ray: It certainly is. Jonathan, what I’m really impacted by, as I’m listening, that is, it’s rooted in humility. We have to be humble before the Lord, and say, “Lord, I need you to speak to me and tell me what’s in my heart, and reveal real motive to me.” And so when I think of humility, I think of brokenness, I think of failure, I think of things that didn’t go necessarily the way we were thinking and hoping. So as you look back over, you know, the past decade plus as you built your company, what is one of the biggest mistakes or failures that you’ve been through and what did God teach you as a result of that?
Jonathan: Yeah. I think you know, in day to day decisions we make in business, you know, how many decisions you have to make in a day, depending on your role, fast paced, you know. I’m very fast paced at decision-making, and probably one of the biggest things that I regret is making decisions without seeking the Lord. You think, “Come on, can you really do that in your role all day, every day?” Hold on a second. I’m in a big meeting, pause the meeting; I’m just going to seek the Lord. But being in tune, going into the meeting, saying “God, I really need you to guide and lead me today. I cannot do it on my own.” And so the biggest challenge or the one, the failure, would be making a decision that seems critical, and it impacts other people, then seeking the Lord, realizing that my decision, though it sounded wise, and I gave a very good argument of why I was making that decision, then going back and saying, “Hey, I’m actually changing my tune on this one, and this is why.” You know, sometimes I don’t always go, “The Lord Almighty spoke to me.”
Ray: I understand.
Jonathan: But there are times when I will in smaller groups, and say, “Listen, I’m going to sort of throw myself on my sword here. It’s important to me that I know that the blessing of God on what we’re doing. I don’t have to have to go back on that decision and say, “I just I don’t think it’s the right one.” And there we go, and some people don’t understand it, and some people go, “Wow. It’s great faith that you’re actually responding in that way.” Faith is actually about obedience, it’s it?
Ray: It totally is, and everything you just described just took me right back to that first conversation where your first client came from. You were divinely-inspired. I suspect you had prayed that morning; I suspect that you were asking God, perhaps even the midst of that conversation, “Lord, I need these words for You,” right? And that’s what you’re talking about.
Jonathan: I say yes, cause I want you to think I’m really spiritual. “Oh, yes, I actually fasted and prayed for a month before that one.” No, I didn’t. But, yeah I love, I do cherish my times with the Lord, and making sure I’m dialed into hearing His voice, for sure, yeah.
Ray: I love it. What’s the best advice that you’ve been given in business, who gave it to you, and how does it continue to impact you today? Best advice.
Jonathan: Oh, it’s the one that comes to mind right now. It’s funny, it actually came from Sir Richard Branson. Richard Branson is a wild entrepreneur, I don’t know that he loves the Lord. I wouldn’t think that he does, but he says, “Put people first, put your customer second, and put your profits last.” And that really stuck with me, and there was something in it that I just knew the Holy Spirit kind of birthing something, like, yes prioritize that which is important to His heart, which is the hearts of people. And I’m like okay, okay, that’s going to be tough, especially in a cut-throat business world, but I fight really hard on that on a day-to-day basis, and make sure the entire leadership team knows that we put our people first, before our customers. I know that’s a shocking thing to say in America, which is customer first, the customer is always right. But I want to make sure there our people are on it, and taken care of, and they know that they are secure, that it’s not like you’re only as good as your last sale, you’re only as good as the last thing you did. So I would say for me, and the ability I have in my role right now is, I really cherish putting people first before partners and profits.
Ray: That is really, really tremendous advice, regardless of the source. There’s good wisdom for living it out, right? And sometimes Godly advice can come from all sorts of sources. And so this whole theme around advice and counsel and so forth I want you to counsel your twenty-year-old self. Let’s look in the rearview mirror and if you could go back and counsel your twenty-year-old self, what advice would you give yourself?
Jonathan: I would say presents before productivity. As I start, my kids are growing up. I think there’s a very twisted trick of the enemy is that we think, if I can only just get to this level, then I will be able to. If I can only make my first “x” amount of dollars, then I will be able to be there. If I can only get through this season, babe, then we can have a date night. If I can only do this, then. And it’s such a twist, the thing is you make your “x” amount, you want to retire at fifty? Your kids won’t like you. It’s like, “Now I can spend time with the kids, I got money, I got this time.” And they’re like, “I don’t even know you. I don’t like you. You weren’t there for me.” And so I would say, presents before productivity. It is better that I’m present in my kids lives, it’s better, to me, that I’m present in people’s lives and not rushing. How fast can I get things done? And I pull up to my house, I realize it, I’m pulling up to the house now, seat-belts off, let’s get out of the car, and they’re like, “Why are we in a hurry?” I’m like, “I don’t know. Just get in the house. Let’s be efficient. Let’s not sit in the car for three minutes.” And I’m like, “What?” And they’re stressed because I’m trying to get them to be productive, and just be present, Jonathan.
Ray: You know, one of the things that comes to mind as I’m listening, if you don’t live in the past, there’s guilt, there’s remorse, the things we didn’t do; we should have. The things we do, you know, just guilt and remorse, in the past. When we live in the future, it’s worry, it’s doubt and it’s anxiety. It really is only in the moment where we get that real joy.
Jonathan: Yeah, for sure.
Ray: So folks, I hope you check it out, this is some of the best advice we’ve heard here at Bottom Line Faith. I wish we had another thirty minutes. Jonathan, couldn’t we get you back at some point for another show?
Jonathan: That makes me feel good, and my chest is going out, and I’m feeling pride rising in me.
Ray: So, the answer is no? We’ll have you back if you would be open to that. So what advice, and I’m in this whole theme around advice right now. So there’s a person listening to the program right now, and they’re hearing your story and they’re hearing how you’re changing an industry, and trying to live it out, live out your faith and so forth, but somebody who’s listening to this, they’re frustrated. They’re discouraged, they’ve had this idea that they’re not following through on, or maybe they just don’t have the faith that it takes to launch it, or whatever. I want you to just take a moment and really encourage that one individual right now who’s in a a season of discouragement. What would you say to them?
Jonathan: Yeah, a Scripture that I’ve been meditating on recently, from Jeremiah 6, and it says, “This is what the Lord says, “Stop at the crossroads, look around. Ask for the old, Godly way and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your soul. But you reply, “No, that’s not the road we want.” And I think it’s the counterculture road, especially of business executives who have to produce, who have to hit numbers, who have to do, who have to live up to the overstretch lifestyle that they are living. Stop, stop at the crossroads, look around, and find the ancient paths; find those who are finding rest in their souls from the Lord, and walk in that path and say, “Okay, I’m not going to live in strife. I’m not going to live in fear, or worry, or trying to produce something on my own strength. God, I want what you want.”
Ray: It’s really good, that’s really good counsel. Is that a struggle for you?
Jonathan: Oh, daily. Daily, because we get up, look at our calendar, and know exactly what we’ve got to do today. And it’s like okay, got to go, go, go. Stop, show me Your path today. If I follow His path, I will find rest for my soul. My soul, my heart will be at rest, and I won’t be rushing a million miles an hour. I might have things to do, but I’m doing them out in a place of peace, out of place of rest in God.
Ray: Yeah, I really like that. You’re talking about living in the moment. And you know, even when we’re facing business challenges, if we would just, you know, big decisions right? If we would just take a moment and say, “God, this is a really big deal, at least in my world right now. What are you trying to teach me? What do you want me to hear from you?” And sometimes the results are secondary right? And you were talking earlier about the heart; that’s not really what God wants for us, not only as his children, but specifically in the context of this program and conversation, he wants from us as business leaders.
Jonathan: Absolutely.
Ray: So for those of you who are regular listeners, you know that the last question I always ask on the program is what I call my 4:23 question. And Jonathan, you quoted this verbatim a few moments ago, out of Proverbs 4:23. It says that “Above all else, guard your heart, for it determines the course of your life.” So Jonathan, I just want you to just kind of help us paint this picture. Let’s say you have a chance if you’re at the end of this time of eternity, and we obviously don’t know when that would be, but let’s just say you’re an old, old man now, and you have a chance to gather around your family, your friends, your loved ones, those who are most precious to you. And you get to pass along that one piece of advice that you want them to remember for the rest of their lives. Jonathan, fill in the blank for us. Above all else?
Jonathan: Take time to put your life almost on the operating table, on a day-by-day basis and God, have your way. I’m going to subject myself to surgery, again, today, if there’s anything in me that needs to be adjusted, removed, washed away, thought patterns, offenses, that have been shaping my end of my yesterday, do your work today. Living in that place of constant submission to the Lord, you won’t go wrong.
Ray: Incredible, incredible insight from our guest today, here at Bottom Line Faith, Jonathan Reynolds. He is the CEO of Titus Talent Strategies; check them out at titustalent.com. They really are disrupting an age-old industry and doing it in amazing new ways. Well, Jonathan, you brought us so many tips today, and you shared your heart, you’ve been very transparent, and I am just so grateful for that. Thank you for taking the time to be with us on the program today.
Jonathan: You’re welcome, it was a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Ray: Maybe we can get you on here later. I’ll come your way, or whatever, we can get you out of this beautiful Indiana weather.
Jonathan: Sounds great, sounds great.
Ray: So folks, I am your host here at Bottom Line Faith, Ray Hilbert. Become a regular subscriber to the program. If you’re not, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page there at Bottom Line Faith, whether you’re on Apple iTunes or Google play, Stitcher, whatever your platform may be, become a regular subscriber, pass the word along. There’s great things happening here at Bottom Line Faith, and we are just very grateful that you have chosen to spend some time with us to grow in your faith in business and leadership. So until next time, I am your host, Ray Hilbert, here at Bottom Line Faith. God bless and we’ll see you soon.