1:50– A little of my background
7:38– About Soveriegn’s Capital
10:21– Advice to those looking to take their company to the next level
14:43– What is one of the hardest decisions you’ve ever had to make? And how did your faith get you through that difficult season?
20:18– What does “willful vs. faithful” mean?
23:35– What are some of the signs you should look for when decerning whether you are being willful or faithful?
28:18– What advice would you have loved to have been given early in your career of being a faith drvien entrepreneur?
30:23– To learn more about Soveriegn’s Capital
32:57– The 4:23 Question
Henry Kaestner is a successful entrepreneur having founded or co-founded three companies in the Research Triangle of North Carolina with more than $300 million in annual revenues, including Bandwidth which went public in November 2017. Henry is a co-founder and Partner at Sovereign’s Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in faith driven companies in Southeast Asia and the US across the SaaS, Consumer Goods/Services and Healthcare industries.
Henry serves on the Board of Directors of Bandwidth, CloudFactory, ThriveFarmers, First, and RevBoss. Additionally, Henry serves as an elder in the Presbyterian Church of America and currently lives in Los Gatos, CA with his wife Kimberley and their three sons.
Full Transcript:
Ray: Well, hello everyone. This is Ray Hilbert I am your host here at Bottom Line Faith and we would like to welcome you to today’s program and if this is your first time joining us here at Bottom Line Faith welcome and if you’re a regular subscriber and listener to the program. Welcome back. Well, folks, I am excited about our guest for today’s program. we are joined through the wonderful technology of digital online media interview here, Henry Kaestner. Henry is the co-founder and partner at Sovereign’s Capital. We’re going to learn all about Sovereign’s Capital in just a moment, but he comes to us from Los Gatos, California, and I believe that means the cats is that correct Henry?
Henry: It does indeed.
Ray: I’m not really up to date on my Spanish, but I do recall that but folks, let’s welcome Henry Kaestner to the show, Henry, welcome to Bottom Line Faith.
Henry: Ray, thank you very much. It’s great to be with you.
Ray: Well, Henry, I have really really been looking forward to this conversation we’re going to also talk about your podcast and the things that the Lord’s got you doing to also encourage entrepreneurs who are Christ followers in the marketplace, but let’s just take a couple of moments and help our audience tell us a little bit about your background prior you moved California recently from North Carolina so forth, but help our audience just get to know a little bit about Henry.
Henry: Sure. Yes, absolutely so I grew up in Baltimore Maryland went to school at the University of Delaware where I discovered my first love which was actually discovering I could make a T-shirt for $5 and selling it for $10 even I could do that math and really enjoyed the beginning part of my entrepreneurial journey there’s a much longer story in there that maybe some other day we will unpack but I found myself after school working on Wall Street I’d seen the movie Wall Street with Glenn Gekko and Bud Fox and I wanted to be Bud Fox and so I you know when you’re in big trouble when Charlie Sheen was your first role model. And I went to Wall Street, and pursued fame and fortune, and all the other trappings that I thought would really bring me happiness with time. And, of course, with time that they did, I found success. And I found some level professional accomplishment. And yet it was really a long, hard and difficult and even dark time for me, I ended up moving down to North Carolina with my fiancé at the time a wonderful, wonderful woman, and, was in the process of doing that, that we had thought we should really just invest in different churches, we’d both grown up in a very liberal church where the gospel is not at the center. But we understood at the time to think that really, church was kind of like a moral and social country club.
So we thought we should probably join one of those. And we walked into a church one day where they were preaching the gospel. And the pastor up front was confident, articulate, and intelligent, and clearly believe that the Bible was true. And that threw me through a loop so they sent me to read God’s word, and come to understand who the Holy Spirit that indeed it was true. And as it so often does, for adult confidence, it changed everything for me. And I came to understand why I was made and what the purpose was of my life and what the purpose was my entrepreneurial ambitions and started a company together with a guy who became my best friend and business partner, of course, named David Morken and started this company called Bandwidth. And we want to be very intentional about our corporate culture. This is the time 2000 2001 when it was all about that com culture. And whether do you had a ping pong table in your office, a time where all of America or most of America went for wearing coats and ties or suits and ties to work to wearing flip flops and shorts and there was a time where we also wanted to be intentional about our culture. But we decided, of course that our culture needed to have integrity to it didn’t really matter who we wanted to be as individuals and for David, and I it meant that faith was going to be number one, as a new believer who was a lifelong believer faith was going to be number one, number two is gonna be family, we have nine kids between us I have three boys and David’s got six, and then was work and then fitness. And we’ve started the company with those operating principles and values. And now 18 years on and about 850 employees that we’ve got now between the company’s everybody understands our foundational values to be faith then family then work and then fitness. And so that’s a bit about me.
And my background, I’ll actually I’ll fast forward a little bit up to the present day, when I turned 40, David, and I sat down and I determine that I was going to move from CEO position to the chairman role. We’d always been partners, but I really felt a calling to come alongside Christ, following entrepreneurs. You know, you see, when Dave and I were two or three years into Bandwidth, we had had some success, but we’d really spent through the money that I had from a prior outfit. So we went up to down Sand Hill Road, trying to raise money. And we wouldn’t talk about our foundational values on the first visit. But what came around the second or third time we would, we knew that we’re going to be strapped to the mast by bringing on a real partner into the business. And we didn’t expect them to share our faith. But we wanted them to know what made us tick. And we wanted them to know about our culture. And so I said, Look, we’re not going to be a holy huddle, we’re going to hire the best person for the job. But we might do things like pray before board meetings. And you need to know that. And I think that during that time, we were in a best case now really misunderstood and worst case scenario I think we were prejudiced against as a very long dark and hard time for us, we went O for 40 in ventures. So fast forwarding Bandwidth, it had quite a bit of success. We since taken Bandwidth public, we spun off Republic Wireless, which is a privately held company and that experience taught us two things one, of course, Christian led businesses can compete and win, and number two institutional capital doesn’t know what to make of that whether it’s on the venture side, whether it’s on the buy outside institutional capital, that doesn’t understand how faith can be so much of a fabric of leader and as a culture of the company. And so we decided to set up a money management fund in investment firm to invest in companies where Faith is the most important thing to them. So now we have a venture capital fund that invests in Southeast Asian and America and faith driven entrepreneurs, we’re just launching a new fund where we are buying companies from owners that had built and maintained a Christian culture and looking to maintain that legacy of a of a God honoring culture. And three years ago, my family and I, as you alluded to moved out from North Carolina to Northern California, really, to be hopefully a salt and light out here to the younger entrepreneurial community that’s really struggling with whether they can talk about their faith in the marketplace or not.
Ray: Well, boy, inside of that, there’s so much I hope we can unpack that is very exciting. So, Henry you, you really are passionate we You and I have had conversations around the entrepreneurial journey and so forth. So that’s a big portion of our audience here at Bottom Line Faith. These are Christ followers, who owned businesses have started companies, their CEOs, and so forth. So, would you mind maybe just talking to us just for a moment? Let’s let’s just park here and what you’re doing now, with Sovereign’s Capital. Okay. And let’s talk about as you and your firm you’re going in and you’re looking at companies to partner with invest in and so forth? What are those traits and characteristics that are most important from your perspective that even get your attention as to whether or not this is a firm you want to look into partnering with?
Henry: Well, great question. The first thing we look at is we look at excellence, we actually looked through things God has given us gifting and in operations in a business and we want to use all those gifts for His glory. And so the first thing we look at is, is this a business that is excellent Francis Shape for one said, I’m paraphrasing here, but but it’s the degree that we do our work well, that we have an opportunity to witness and be heard. And so we look at it kind of in that order, is this business crushing it? Are they doing really well, or they’re very serious about building a great product and service, are they very intentional about delighting their customers, and do they have a track record of doing that, in doing that in such a way that they’re able to stand out amongst their secular competitors in the marketplace. Second thing, we look at a, which doesn’t mean that this is less important, of course, but as the faith that’s very, very, very important for us, particularly one more invest in an adventure company, that’s a company where we’ll be a minority investor will come alongside the founder, and to encourage them as they look to love on their part, partners, vendors, customers and employees in a way that points to God. And so the faith driven nature of of an owners is just the super important for us, was that mean in terms of a church membership and accountability? How do they think that the biblical message of generosity Where’s their identity? And then we also, of course, look at that on the outside to when we invest in intergenerational transfer from more established businesses there candidly, it’s not as important because we’ll be going ahead and we’ll be running the business with one of our entrepreneurs and residents going forward. But it’s still important, we want to understand the culture that was stepping into is there chaplaincy? Is there a culture of praying with non believing employees as we go ahead and, and and look to operate a company along those principles? Has the road already been paved there or not. But I think just want to revisit that first order, it’s just really important that we look at it tried our best to be excellent in our work as we help these excellent companies thrive.
Ray: So let’s just for a moment, Henry, let’s, let’s just say that right now, there’s a CEO or a founder of a company that’s listening to our conversation, and they’ve wandered. Is there anybody out there that could come alongside me and maybe help me get to that next level grow? God’s blessed me with this, our business is solid, we’ve got excellence, what advice would you have for them? Just in general, what advice would you have for them to perfectly work through that next step of taking their company to that next level?
Henry: So that’s that’s a great question. I’ll try to answer it within the auspices of the minority investment in a majority investment. And one thing I want to make sure that that listeners hear from me is that I wouldn’t suggest for a second that in order to grow your business with an investing partner that you have to bring on board and investing partner that shares your faith that doesn’t need to happen at all It just needs to you just need to be in a spot where you’re able to be intentional about reflecting on the values you have being able to articulate with why you do what you do. And I think that that’s something that’s really lost a lot within entrepreneurial companies is how powerful it is to talk about why we do what we do on and there’s a great video on ted.com by Simon Sinek. It talks about the why of leadership and how important that is. So when we as Christ followers can be articulate about why we do what we do, presumably for the glory of God. That’s the first and most important thing if you’ve got that in place, and you feel confident in your ability to execute on it and that your investing partner will respect that even if they don’t share their faith, your faith rather than I want everybody to know that you can bring on board anybody I’d love for somebody to go and say, Well, we’ve we’ve got down to two files or Sovereign’s Capital on one hand, and then there’s the Battery Square us venture partners on the other and we know that we can be about maintain our Christian faith went with Sovereign’s, can we do the same with batteries acquire us venture partners?
The answer of course is yes absolutely all day so the first step to answer your question is the first step is really understand what’s important to you as a leader and are you talking about it are you able to talk about the reason for the hope you have with gentleness and respect is it baked into your values is what you are known for the way that you love people have you thought about not only being able to love people with action but also with word one of the big mistakes we made it Bandwidth for a long time as we didn’t pray with our nonbelieving employees we thought it was too over the top we missed the target on that we missed an opportunity to love on people so trying understand what that looks like. Also, we’re huge fan of chaplaincy, does it make sense for us to have a chaplain so go through those things first, then, of course, as it comes to financing endeavoured understand whether you should be financing at all, when you bring somebody else on board, you bring on board relationship where their expectations they’ll have they’ll have expectations on whether that’s with Sovereign’s, or somebody else go of expectations on a return to have expectations with regards to an exit so really understanding whether indeed you need to be financing need to be raising funds and what their expectations are it’s just super important, making sure that you’re now willful through that process also very important calculate back when David and I went 0 for 40 in the venture races. We were being willful about fundraising, and God saved us from our willfulness and he allowed us to go O for 40 in the venture races.
I’m so happy we wasted it all on a venture fund, and I know how ironic that sounds now as we had a venture fund and yet that’s very much the true truth we’re being willful believing that that’s what the next thing that we needed to do instead of being faithful there’s so many examples of course in Scripture about the difference between being willful and faithful and it’s all been laid Samuel before he went off and but Gideon did and you can be willful in your activity like that or faithful in your activity or you can be willful on your passivity like when when kings go off to war, David stayed behind willful in your passivity. So marketing yourself on that, do you need to be raising money at all? What are the expectations and then making sure that your culture can survive, that the values are consistent, and that you bring on board somebody that respects that even if they don’t share that.
Ray: And so Henry with this long and tremendously successful career in an entrepreneurism, and now investing and so forth, it sounds like one of the things you’ve taken away is, thank God for the unanswered prayers, right, because you talked about the that he wasn’t answering those prayers, and there was reasons for that. But as you look back over the course of your career, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe share with us an example of maybe one of the hardest decisions that you had in business, and how did your faith help bring you through one of those difficult seasons.
Henry: So the fundraising process is one of those and just to give a little more detail there. David, I would pray before the meetings. And I think they God answered our prayers that we prayed though, that that we’d walk out with a $20 million term sheet. That was our prayer, what we didn’t pray for and there’s great Scripture on this, that the Holy Spirit understands the drawings of our heart, what were the biggest prayer was, should have been, Lord, please just provide the resources for us to run a business for Your glory, and advancing and growing at the pace that you would have for us, help us not to be willful, that’s the prayer we should have been praying, and that’s what God answered and Hallelujah, that that’s what he answered it. So that’s, that’s super important. And then you asked about what are some mistakes that we made? Is that right?
Ray: Yeah, absolutely.
Henry: Yeah. So the biggest mistake was not not being able to understand early on in our careers, really the difference between being willful and faithful and understanding patterns and attitudes of the heart that would indicate whether the actions we were taking were out of being or willful or being faithful that really stems from a challenge that really can comes in really, I think, really plagues a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners, it’s really one of identity You see, all too often in our early days, our identity was being as his company it was growing at 20% month over month, or that had just done a big deal with Google as we did a big deal with Google back in 2008, tying their network and for other entrepreneurs, it can be, you know, just having closed a big funding round. And it’s insidious, because our parents will call us up and say, oh, my goodness, I’m so proud of you. Even if we grew up in a Christian home, all the type of inputs we get are that were successful entrepreneur, and it becomes our identity. And we see this in a lot of the companies we invest in, now they’re successful other set your venture capital funds, invest in them to get their lives are characterized with anxiety, as mine was all too often. And anxiety really betrays, of course, that we’re afraid of something. And it also betrays that we have a misplaced identity and what I missed early on, which is the biggest mistake and entrepreneur can make I think is that my identity is as a beloved child of God, I’ve been adopted as a son, whether I succeeded Bandwidth or whether I succeeded Sovereign’s Capital or not, I need to rejoice, not that we have this in terms of internal rate of return, or Bandwidth did this or that, but that My name is written on the book of life. And that sounds so preachy and so, like Bible studyish, but it’s like the deepest truth at any entrepreneur can really tap into and yet we might get it at some intellectual level. But it’s so hard to really have an entrepreneur habit seep in when we’re so busy, and there’s always something to do. And there’s always a dragon to slay.
I have a good friend of mine named Darryl. Darryl Heald, and Daryl and I met Darryl probably about a dozen years ago, and Darryl set me on this new trajectory towards discipleship that really, really changed my life. And you started a ministry called Generous Giving, and you just had me this simple question kinda in the middle of the fast growth times of Bandwidth we became to understand we were starting to give a little bit more and I don’t know at the time were probably 20% difference. I felt like you know, maybe there’s a special place in heaven for the double tither and epoxy things will schemes or something like that. And he just, he just, he just asked a simple question. And over the next six months, it’s taught that every time I open up God’s word, there’s another passage in in about money. And the passage that really made the biggest impact wasn’t the rich young ruler and his fortune or anything like that, or laying up treasures in heaven. But the biggest impact it really was made my life was reading the passage where Jesus takes two fish and five loaves and feeds 5000 like oh, my goodness, it doesn’t need my money. He just wants my heart. And he has about 20% of my money right now as the 20% of my heart. And it was just, I’m internalizing that that really set me free set me free to worship him better, anxiety didn’t completely erase from my life. But with this new teaching, I had the guardrails up and I knew when I started going down a road of being anxious that betrayed that I was afraid of something that my identity was tied up in something that it should be, and then actually really unleash me in a much more powerful, much more productive season of work, instead of really working out a fear, or working out his motives that may not have been as pure and maybe I wasn’t even conscious of them. But the more and more I came to understand how God loves me so much, and they didn’t need me to earn my salvation. It freed me up to worship him more, and, and no one boring and another 80’s movie reference, his Chariots of Fire when I work, I feel as pleasure so I try to go to the altar, so to speak with everything I have. And he just, he made me a business guy, but it’s my meaningful form of worship. And when I can tap into that, as my motive working out of the sense, of being grateful, it has freed me up to do much better work, I get so much more joy from work and it doesn’t mean I’ve got it solved by any stretch. There’s definitely, definitely seasons I go through and, and they’re they’re foul but those are that’s one of the those are some of the lessons that I’ve learned.
Ray: That’s fantastic. Well, Henry, you know, this concept that we’re talking about here, willful versus faithful, it’s really, really powerful. But would you mind taken just a moment or two here and give us a good framework or a working definition when you say willful versus faithful? What exactly does that mean?
Henry: That’s a great question. You know, let me tell you a little bit about the derivation of how it came about. It came about because two years ago, my business partner David and I together with my partner in Sovereign’s Capital Luke Roush took our son’s for a hiking trip in your Yosemite and Tahoe. And we were reflecting as we drove from Yosemite to Tahoe about just the things that had happened well, in the business at Bandwidth and the things that had been a challenge. And David responded and reflected upon the fact that the times in which we were really doing well were times in which we were being faithful. And we got a sense during that time that God was with us that we had trailing wins, so to speak, but at the times where we were not successful, like, for instance, during the fundraise or during several other times in the business, they reflected back on it, we both did, and saw that we were being willful, and it’s just being able to reflect back and remember how we felt the action we took, and really the position in the posture of our heart. So before we had failure, we felt this kind of frenetic dis, we’re just going to do it, we’re just going to soldier throw it we are going to persist, we’re going to persevere. I know that 20 people have said, No to us we are just going to continue.
We remember what our heart felt like during the times of sin in my life. I remember what my heart felt like before I did activities that I end up wishing that I hadn’t. And also when things were going when things went well in our lives, when we’re being faithful during times a spiritual richness when we felt close to God when we saw things that were hard to do in the workplace. But we knew that they’d be pleasing to God, or at least that from what we gathered from his promises to us, we needed to go ahead and do different things. We felt that our heart was we want to do what’s going to be good and honor God in this instance. And we always don’t have a pious heart. But the times that we did the times that we’re closer those were the times that really create vision not just spiritually in our own lives, but in the business so how do you define willfulness versus faithfulness? I think it’s just a reflection of the attitude of the heart. What is my motivation? Where is this action coming from? Is it coming out of a wellspring of faith and communion with God? Or is it that I’m soldiering toward a goal that I think the world wants me to get that my own sinful nature and tendencies want me to get? Whether it’s the approval of others and my peers or financial gain or just winning for just winnings sake? Or is this a action that I’m taking right now coming out of a time of spiritual flourishing I’m about to make a major decision? Do I find right now that I have endeavored to invite God into this conversation? Have I sought the wisdom and the Council of others have I prayed about it, have I fasted about it.
Ray: That’s fantastic.
Henry: What’s the attitude of my heart is I get ready to make this decision. As I embark on this season of life.
Ray: I love it, would you just drill down a little further on this concept of being willful versus being faithful? Because I think this is very powerful, it’s very unique and I’d like you to specifically address what are some of the symptoms or signs that cause you’ve warned, and you said, Hey, this is the biggest mistake you made in your early entrepreneurial career, what are some of the signs some of the symptoms? What should I be looking for, to help me to discern whether I’m being willful or being faithful in my journey in my business career?
Henry: Great question. Great question. Well, we mentioned one of them before, which is anxiety. So that’s a blanket one. And yet there are other ones too, I think that when we find ourselves being in a season where we’re not spending very much time in Scripture, or we’re finding reasons to not to go to our small group study, or we’re not seeking out to counsel from our accountability group in a group of five or six months, you can ask real questions, those are some symptoms. And that’s, that’s a sense that we need to do this on our own, and that we’re out of balance. And, and I think that those are important. I’ve seen myself being those those seasons, there’s a great quote from Martin Luther, at least that is described are attributed to talking about the fact that generally he has so much to do that day, and he had no chance of being able to do it and do it well, if he wasn’t in prayer for at least three hours a day. And that sets that sets a standard, of course, that I don’t hit.
And maybe I shouldn’t say, of course, well, I definitely don’t hit but I think that it says so much about how I need to be in God’s word number one to understand how much he loves me, scripture is God’s love letter to me, and to you, and I need to read it, I need to be an all the time less the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches is completely just sink me so that’s number one. Number two were created in God’s image, and I am not God and my friends are not God but collectively us all as image bears reflect God in a way that I cannot see on my own. I’m in this Bible study now with guys every day and we do it by text all over the country and nine of us and we take a chapter from the Bible every day and it is unbelievable how when looking through God’s word nine different guys will take a chapter like we’re going through to Second Samuel now we’ve went to the New Testament we went through Psalms now we’re going through the life of David how you can take a chapter and a bunch of guys can find nine different takes on the same chapter unbelievable and so a sign is us not doing that us not being in that type of community and that’s searching, searching it out. And we miss we miss out on the richness of life, the richness of being with our family, I talked before about family being a key attribute of our foundational values of Bandwidth. And for us, that means between about 850 employees we would kick out the employees at six o’clock at night, to be home with their families.
And, you know, we, we dial back into work at 830 and we don’t get our work done till it’s done. But we’re not we don’t do that once a night. And that’s date night. And that’s been really, really important to me is my 25 year career. And without it, I’d be lost. And without it, I’d be really missing one of the beautiful things that God has promised me and when I work at my relationship with my bride it is a beautiful, wonderful thing. And I get to experience the richness of life. So we’re worrying times us not feeling that now for into two or three week period, we’re launching a product that our seasons, their seasons when when kings go off to war, and there and they’re great examples of biblical heroes been on military campaigns. And, and they probably didn’t have a whole lot of balance in their lives, right, then for a time that they were rolling out a big product launch. But from a seasonal perspective, there was there was great balance and to oftentimes I see entrepreneurs missing that and so that’s the biggest anxiety, how are you doing in terms of your relational disciplines towards God, towards your bride towards good friends towards your larger church environment? Those are the biggest ones I think, yeah,
Ray: Yeah that’s fantastic. I’m thinking, I believe it’s Proverbs 10:22 that’s talks about that the blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he ads, no trouble to it. And that’s that anxiety. Right? It just then on the back end of that if we’re pursuing something going with all of our gusto, that anxiety is probably telling us it’s not of the Lord. And we might be willful in that moment. So I appreciate you just kind of taking a couple extra minutes there and dive a little deeper on that that concept because as my grandfather used to say, that dog will hunt right there. That is some great truth. And I think a Christ centered entrepreneur listening to this program. I hope they’re taking notes, but not if you’re driving. I hope you’ve pulled over to take notes if you’re driving. So Henry, you know, time’s flying by here. If I could transition if you wouldn’t mind. Maybe just want to ask you a couple of questions here around advice. This is actually one of the questions I’ve learned from you. But if you could go back into that first year of being a faith driven entrepreneur, what advice do you think you would have loved to have been given early on.
Henry: It’s really just that distinction of just being vigilant for being willful versus faithful,you know, scriptures passages, that’s really helped me in that is Proverbs 16:2 and 21 both say, all the man’s ways impure to him, but his motives are weighed by the Lord. So that talks about the deceitfulness of your heart By the way, one at some of the worst advice you can give to somebody an entrepreneur is to follow your heart. I had three teenage boys do not follow your heart, the heart is that there’s all sorts of different passages on that, but David, of course, was anointed as a leader, because he’s a man after God’s heart.
Ray: Yes.
Henry: And that’s something that’s really important. So gosh, as you’re getting started in that first year, endeavor to understand and pray God will show you when you’re being willful versus faithful.
Ray: Yeah.
Henry: That God will show you when you’re after his heart when you’re after his motives. And I think that if you ask for it, you know, God answers prayer, I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t know to ask for it. So I think that if you can ask for it, I think if you can invite people into your life that will hold you accountable, that will touch base with you periodically and ask you, how are you doing in terms of Are they the ways of your heart would seem right to you, or are they motives of God, which are more pure, and we all need people to help us understand our blind spots, because it can be really it can be really, really hard. So that’s, that would be my my single advice for for new entrepreneurs.
Ray: And it’s just such a great theme that you’ve driven in this conversation today. And I just really am very grateful for it. I’m just, if nothing else, thanks for teaching me today. This whole concept about faithfulness versus willfulness. So first of all, just thank you for that.
Henry: Thank you. Oh, it’s great for me to hear. I need it more than anybody else.
Ray: Right? I have a friend of mine, it says he needs to preach the gospel to himself every day, right? So we need to hear ourselves learn these things. So Henry, before I kind of move on to my last question or two here. If someone’s listening to the program, they want to learn more about yourself. They want to learn more about Sovereign’s Capital. What’s the best way for us to check it out?
Henry: Oh, great question. Thanks for asking, well, Sovereign’s Capital has web address sovereignscapital.com, as you might imagine, but one of the things that I’ve gotten really encouraged about has been a little bit of a creative outlet for me, is the faith driven entrepreneur dashboard, and we’ve got a daily blog on it. We’ve got a weekly podcast on a weekly podcast, you come to understand it, that not only do I have a face made for radio, but I’ve got a voice made for print journalism. And when I write my blog, you’ll find out that I’ve got it. I’ve got a writing style made for TV. But it’s fun for me, because I get a chance to tell some stories. Because there’s so many different industries and geographies, we can invest in in Sovereign’s Capital. And yet much of my mission field is to encourage Christ, following entrepreneurs and business owners that that are out there. And as I said, before, there’s slaying dragons. And for them to understand that there’s a community of faith driven entrepreneurs, that they’re not alone, that there is is a holy ambition and that they’re not on an island.
And, and they can really make a difference just being part of the larger fellowship is really, really a lot of fun. And so there’s a little bit more about me, there’s a little bit more about a larger team of contributors to both the podcasts and to the blog and my encouragement, my request to be that there’s somebody checked it out and saw ways in which we can make it better that they’d let us know. And it just meant to be a small piece of an overall faith and work movement to accompany great things like this podcast, I’ve listened to it. And it’s been it’s made a difference in my life, Truth at Work, being able to be involved in a community, whether it’s at the larger conference, or whether it’s in a small group in your own community makes such a difference. You know, I looted to before to be in a community with five or six other guys and being in this Bible study on it on a daily basis with nine it’s remarkably powerful when you’re able to be in community and fellowship with other people that are also business owners. So check out a Truth at Work group just try to figure out how did you get involved in ministry? Maybe you’ve been listening to podcast for a while and come to understand that there’s some things that might be valuable for you it’s infinitely more valuable when you process things real time and community.
Ray: Well thank you for that so Henry one more time give us give us those two websites if you wouldn’t mind.
Henry: Yeah faithdrivenentrepreneur.org faithdrivenentrepreneur.org and then the fund is sovereignscapital. com Thanks for asking.
Ray: Fantastic so down to my last question then Henry and for our regular listeners This is always the last question I ask on every program I call it my 423 question because it’s based we’ve quoted a lot of Proverbs today on a program that Proverbs 4:23 Solomon writes this, he says, above all else, guard your heart for it determines the course of your life. So Henry, I’d like you to fill in the blank here and pass along. You’re above all else, Counsel, you’re above all else. advice to anyone who’s listening. So fill in the blank for us above all else.
Henry: Be after God’s heart, be a man or a woman after God’s heart, don’t trust your own unless you find evidence that it’s in line with his in his word. And as you see him work through others, be after God’s own heart.
Ray: That is absolutely gold advice right there. So Henry, I just cannot thank you enough. Thank you so much for being a guest on the program today.
Henry: Ray, thank you for having me. You’re terrific encouragement to me and my life. As a business owner, but more importantly, as a Christ follower, and you’re really good guy. This doesn’t come across perfectly across podcast, but you’re really a lot of fun to hang out with in person to get a chance to do that.
Ray: That’s very kind. You said that just like my mom probably told you to say it right? Well, folks, our guest today what an amazing friend and an amazing Christ following entrepreneurs, Henry Kaestner, check him out at Sovereign’s Capital, and via the websites that we learned about today, pass along this program, email the link to this interview to your friends who are running businesses and, and leading companies and trying to do so to God’s glory. This whole concept today on willful versus faithful, it’s one of most powerful concepts that we have talked about here at Bottom Line Faith, and we have learned it from one of America’s leading Christ centered entrepreneurs. So until next time, here at Bottom Line, Faith, I am your host Ray Hilbert. God bless we’ll see soon.