Auto Shop Ministries Episode 1: Launching Faith-Driven Leadership in the Shop

0:00What's up, superstars? This is, uh, Joe Adams with Adams Automotive, the number one shop in America. This is Master Tech to Millionaire presented by Auto Shop Answers, where we talk about the transition from technician to business owner, CEO. Today we are so excited to launch episode 1, if you want to call it that, of our Auto Shop Ministries series. Uh, you know, we talk a lot about You know, we talk publicly that we're a faith-based business, that we do everything for the Lord, but, um, you know, Todd, our CEO, had this wonderful, this beautiful idea really to, uh, to make it even more official and to offer, um, you know, sort of a pathway or

0:41a lane for us to funnel those, uh, our spiritual conversations towards and to shepherd our people in our network. So we get the question all the time, "You know, you guys are open 7 days a week. What do you guys do about people that want to work on Sundays?" And we say, "Well, our business is a ministry. We want to change lives and we want to be able to shepherd the people in our flock."

1:02So I'll stop talking. We are here with, I was just talking to him. His name's Devonte Tidwell. We're coming up with a title for him. I'm going to go with head chaplain. You're the chaplain of Auto Shop Ministries now, Devonte. So I'll get off the mic. Why don't you introduce yourself? Tell them about who you are and then we'll get into it.

1:20Yeah, man. So I'm super honored to be here honor to be with everybody else. My name is DeVonta Tidwell. I'm a kid from Dallas, Texas. Don't hold that against me. Of course. But to be fair, I'm not a Cowboys fan. So, you know, that makes it better. I do love the Chicago Bears. I grew up Chicago household, went to college in Chicago, all of the good stuff.

1:41So, and my Bears are finally doing better. So listen, it took us a long time, but we're here. But I am so grateful, man. I've been in ministry now for well over a decade. But also what's cool is I've got experience outside of it. You know, I've got experience traveling around the world as an itinerant speaker and also, you know, working in corporate America, even in the auto industry, which is cool.

2:04So I've seen a lot of the cool concepts, and I believe that the Bible and business run hand in hand, that there are principles that we can put in place right now to make us not only better individuals, but better leaders, but better stewards, you know, have higher character, high integrity. So I'm really, really excited to be here, and I'm excited to dive in.

2:23I know there's some people that are hungry to get some, some practical cool stuff for sure. Yeah, so before we, uh, get into like the meat of the content, which I'm really excited to unpack, um, you were giving me a little preview and I'm curious just as much as everybody else. Um, I just want you to lay out, so what can, what can people be expecting from— we're going to release this episode, uh, the idea is every, every Sunday, you know, we'll have a 30-minute or so, uh, episode on, on just getting your preaching and getting your business, uh, ministry in.

2:49So you want to just kind of lay out for the people what you kind of have in mind, how you want these to go? Yeah, absolutely. So the hope is that we give biblical principles that, again, encourage you, inspire you, but also equip you to be a better leader, but also a better husband, a better wife, a better father, like all of these different things.

3:07They're not just exclusive to business, but they can be applicable from business to the rest of our life, which is the thing that I love about God is like he can give one thing in the living, breathing word, right? And that we call the Bible, and literally we can apply it to every single area. So people can expect to hear something that I can take notes on.

3:24They can expect to hear a challenge that they, you know, I'm going to give them every single week and that we'll get behind and talk about where we've seen this practically. But that challenge then will be something that they can put in place on Monday to make themselves ideal, you know, and live an optimal life. That's the goal. So you'll hear something, you'll hear one scripture a week, something that you can meditate on, that you can listen to, that you can, you know, pray about, that you can recite and remember every single week, one scripture, and it will unpack it..

3:53And it'll be something again that is not just inspirational, but it'll be practical. And then we'll give you something that, you know, to encourage you, keep you uplifted, you know, until you get back to us again on Sunday. That's the, that's the goal. And then we do it all again. That's the goal, man. Well, I'll say last thing is that, you know, I've been doing this, uh, well, really my whole life, my family's business.

4:12But, uh, you know, I've been full-time for like 6 years now. And I'll say nothing— I truly believe there is nothing more sanctifying or, you know, that can be utilized to develop a deep faith than trying to run a business and run a family business. Because you just— you need Jesus, man. There's some days where it's like, how am I gonna do this?

4:35Like, there's so much pressure. And, uh, you know, you can't have a big ego, and every time you do, you're real— you're kind of reminded, uh, you know, who we work for. So, uh, right, right. Pause there. But I'm super excited to hear from you. What do you got for us? Week 1. Yeah, so week 1, I want to talk a little bit about how trust scales.

4:53You know, in business, I think we talk a lot about, you know, is it sustainable? And is it scalable? These two questions that people are asking ad nauseam to be successful. But one of the things that I want to kind of flip on its head a little bit about scaling is, what about the intangibles? There are some intangibles that scale very well, and trust being one of them.

5:13You know, I found that what people are missing a lot of times is trust. It's not the competence. It's not even the knowledge. There's a lot of people who have the competencies, the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience to get a lot of things done. They just don't necessarily have the trust in order to go and do it. So I want to open up a little bit about trust.

5:36And, you know, honestly, I have this scripture that I think is going to help us unpack it a little bit more. So let me read one scripture, Luke 16:10. It says this: The one who is faithful in very little will also be faithful in a lot. And the one who's unrighteous in a very little thing will also be unrighteous in a lot.

5:56You know, what's interesting about this is that this gives us a concept and a strategy to life, Joe. It's not just information, right? If you really reverse engineer this scripture, it gives us a tool, like it almost gives us a metric that we can use to judge people on whether or not they can handle more. So what's cool is like, I'm like, man, how do I know whether or not I need to hire this individual?

6:20Or how do I know whether or not they're ready for promotion? Or how do I know whether or not they're ready to move into another level or another department or into another city? We relocate altogether. Well, here's a cool tool. You should ask them and ask yourself, are they consistent in the small tasks? What are the tedious, boring things that they do extremely well every single time.

6:45Because this is what Luke is telling us is if you can see it consistently in the small thing, then you will see it naturally in the bigger things. Nobody wants to be around somebody that only is, you know, buttoned up when the boss is around, right? Like, that's not somebody that I want to— I want to promote them. I want them to be the same person.

7:03I want them to be consistent all the way through. Like, I don't want them to, you know, do well when they know the email is coming to me, but then be mean in the email that's going to their peer, right? I don't want that space. I want to be able to see like, hey, no, I know that the same level of excellence I command and that I get because I am a superior leader or a supervisor or an up leader, or I'm in the C-suite, or whoever you may be to your, you know, employees or individuals.

7:30I want to know that the same way you treat that person that walks in that doesn't know anything from Adam, no pun intended, and doesn't know anything from Adam, you know, like, I want to, I want to make sure that you're treating them with the same respect that you treat me, not because I'm just providing you with a paycheck or providing you with advancement or influence.

7:50Ask yourself, what is the consistent small task that they are doing extremely well over and over and over and over? When they have to clean up their workspace, is it done the right way? Even when other people say, man, y'all, you don't have to do all that, you're doing too much. You know, are they making sure that they're walking around and picking up the trash that they didn't even put on the ground?

8:15You know, so like, it's stuff like that. Have you seen that? And have you seen in your own life? Like, yeah, let me, let me— so if I'm hearing you correctly, it's like, I can't— if I can't trust you with a little, I can't trust you with a lot. And it's like, how does it manifest? How does that manifest itself in your workplace, and how do you identify it?

8:29So my anecdote that just came to my mind when you were talking about that is, um, you know, my dad's got this rule. Actually, let me tell a story first. So I'm, I'm in the shop, and we've got this staircase— for those of you that have been to, uh, uh, our Blaylock location that are listening to this— and it goes up to our corporate office, and there's like a huge— there's like a coffee stain on it, you know, somebody spilled spilled coffee and it was just stained there.

8:52And I noticed that it like had been— it had clearly been sitting for a while. So naturally I like went and got a paper towel and just like wiped it up. And Greg, if you're listening to this, Greg, shout out, in our recruiting department, he was like— he like saw me doing it and he was like, nice. And I was like, what?

9:11There's a— there's a coffee stain. He's like, well, you know, like you— and he told me this story about what he learned in his last career about, uh, you know, doing the little things well. And, and he was like, well, you're just, you know, you didn't have do that, and you did. And I'm like, well, I had to do it. Like, right.

9:26And the reason I had to do it is because my dad, you know, my, uh, my dad Perry Adams, he's our founder, he has this rule. He's like, the way you do anything is the way that you do everything. It's like, it's like who— I love that. I think about that all the time. It's like, that is who you are. Like, you are the things that you do.

9:44And like, having just like an extreme amount of integrity with the way that you do things. And that is biblical. There are other parts of the Bible where it's like like, you know, I don't know what the verse is, but it's like, do everything as if you're working for the Lord. Yeah, everything in excellence is unto the Lord, man. And that is— and my dad always says that.

10:01He's like, you know, you rise to the level of your competence. And if you're not treat— if you're not stewarding the things you have well, if you're gonna walk past the coffee on your stairs, like, yeah, what— how could you expect 50 other people to clean it up, you know? So anyway, I'll get off my soapbox, but I, I hear what you're saying.

10:20I agree 100%. You know what's special about that? I love that you say that your dad says you to the level of your competence, because on the opposite side of that, I think you fall to the level of your process. Okay. So if you, if you rise to the level of your competence, you will fall to the level of your process. So if you want to create the margin between the floor and the ceiling, your process needs to be high too.

10:40I don't think a lot of people in business make bad decisions because they're unlucky. I don't think they have misfortune because they're unlucky all the time. I think it's because they have a bad process. Yeah. Like they're promoting people with a bad process.. And this is a practical tool that people can put into place right now to say, all right, this improves my process.

10:59When I'm interviewing them, is it that they've been around for a long time and they're familiar? Or can I point to something that says, hey, actually, I've seen them clean up the coffee. I've seen them organize the candy bars. I've seen them, you know, go out of their way to make sure that a receipt gets to a client. I've seen how they handle the callbacks.

11:19I've seen the details in the notes that they take in their journal when they're, you know, make, you know, interviewing prospects and looking for, you know, people to increase their, their margin, right, increase their workload, increase their sales, and whatever it may be, I've seen them manage the details. If you just started there alone, people will stop hiring mistakes. Like, it's not that the individual is a mistake, it's that the process they use is a mistake.

11:48And then they got somebody because they were there for a long time, and they're not necessarily rising to the competency. So now they're falling to their process. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's shocking too how much I take— I mean, I've interviewed probably over 1,000 people at this point, and it's shocking how much I take into consideration just like how put together they are or how well they're dressed or how prepared they are.

12:09Like, if somebody, if somebody comes in with a notebook and like, like they're taking notes during the interview, I'm like, okay, that's 90% of it. Like, you handle— you don't even work for us yet, but you handle The way you go about your business and your life is you treat everything with a high level of integrity, and your process, like you're saying, is, uh, it seems to be working for you.

12:29So I love that. Yeah, absolutely. You know what's interesting about that too is we do it in certain areas, but we don't do it in all areas, right? So I love that you say how we do, you know, uh, something is how we do everything. But think about a babysitter. Would you let somebody babysit your kids that forgot to hit send on an email for a pre-interview questionnaire?

12:49Like, it's like, hey, I I'm interviewing babysitters. I'm trying to see who's going to watch my kids. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't send you that. Oh, I forgot to send you this verification of my identification. I forgot to send you my reference. My background check. My references. Oh, I'll get it to you. But can we just do the interview now? No, you wouldn't let them watch your children.

13:07But we don't take that same process when it's time to hire the executive assistant. We say, you know what I mean? It's— we want the executive assistant that thought the initial meeting for the interview was on another day. Like, you can't manage your calendar. I don't know if I want you managing mine. Right. So that's that we do that process in certain areas.

13:25It just doesn't scale over to the other. And that's why I love to say trust scales well. If you can learn how to put a process in place to prejudge trust, I think it'll, it'll go further for a lot of people in business today. It's so funny you're saying that. I, it's like I've never heard— we didn't really prepare much for this.

13:44We're kind of just riffing off the cuff. And I agree 100%. Like, yeah, one, one, Todd, one thing Todd says all the time is he's like, how can this be wrong? Or he's like, you can't unsee it once you learn our our business concept, and I'm not going to get into our concept, but he's like, he's like, look, if you've— if I've trained you on the 10 things, like, and you don't do it, then it's a choice.

14:06You're just not doing the one thing with integrity. So I know that you're probably not treating the whole thing with integrity. But I love the babysitter example. It's like, let's say you're interviewing a babysitter and she just forgets to tell you that she has a background and she forgot to run her— it's like, would you hire her? No. Then why do you have— why do you have lower standards for your business than you do for your, like, who's watching your kids?

14:29Like, right, it's the same. I understand your kids are probably more important than your business a lot of ways, but like, can you think about it the same way? Like, do you have super high integrity with the way that you do everything? Another example is, uh, uh, we tell people in training it's like working out and getting in shape. It's like, how do you get in shape?

14:48There's like 4 things: you work out, You eat good, you sleep a lot, and then you like don't drink alcohol and stuff. It's pretty much just that, right? And people all the time, they're— it's like, it's like trying to go to the gym and work out all the time and then just go party on the weekends and eat a bunch of junk food.

15:05It's like, it doesn't— you're not gonna get the results. So no, you're not— stop skipping the steps. So anyway, exactly, exactly. I'll hand it back to you, but I love the analogy. I love it. Yeah, because again, you fall to the level of your process. So if there's no process in place, you will work out and then you'll get to the weekend and then you're drink yourself under the table and then wonder why the scale is going up instead of down.

15:26It's like, but now you've wasted all of the, you know, moments. You've wasted all of the work. You've wasted all of the, the sweating, the pain, the one more reps, the hustle, the grind. You waste it on a poor process. Now your process is missing. Now you have essentially thrown all of the hard work because you committed to the results instead of the process.

15:53Here's what happens when you commit to a healthy process. Now you know how the cake is baked. So when you make a good hire, and you hit that, you hit it out of the park, I'm sorry, when you make a great hire, and you say, you know what, that was a great decision. You know, one of the best compliments you can give somebody in business is you were a great decision.

16:09I would love to hear all the time, I was a great decision. I was a great decision when I was hired. I was a great decision to be put in this place. I was a great decision to handle the expansion. What happens when you have a repeatable, impartial process, and you commit to the process instead of the results? Now you get to hit a home run again and again and again.

16:27So hey, this process worked when we needed to hire the executive assistant. This process worked when we needed to find the babysitter. Maybe it will work again when we need to expand our C-suite. Maybe it will work when we need to make sure we have 11 bays with techs that all care. Again, you fall to the level of your process. So the way that you close the gap between the ceiling of your competency and the floor of your process is to make sure your process is extremely good because trust literally scales well.

16:55So this is what Luke 16 is saying. So it's so funny that you talk about process being the most important thing. We, uh, we think about our business as a sport a lot, and we'll connect this back to like biblical principles here in a minute. But, um, you know, we, we point to like the best coaches of all time. So one of them is going to be, uh, Nick Saban, you know, if you've heard of him.

17:16He's a championship— yeah, he's obviously— and then another one's going to be Greg Popovich, you know, he's a, he's a championship basketball coach for the Spurs. You know, Spurs won last night. You know, maybe they can, maybe they can come back depending on what part of the country you're rooting for. But either way, he famously said that he doesn't even care if the ball goes in.

17:35He's like, I just want to have an open look. You know, he's like, I just want to run the play. I don't actually care if the ball goes in. I just want to run the play. And then Saban is notorious for like, he is a— he talks about a process-oriented— like, you could either be outcome-oriented or you could be process-oriented. And I play a lot of golf.

17:56It's like very well talked about there. It's like most people are just so focused on like, well, I made a bogey. It's like, okay, but did you follow the process and did you detach yourself from the actual outcome? And that's right. Saban, you know, there's this story of him, like they're up 56 to 10 and he like, you know, some guy isn't listening on the out route and he drops the ball.

18:16Or like this guy in the fourth quarter who's a third stringer, he just isn't paying attention and Saban goes ballistic on him. And I'm not trying to like glorify going ballistic on people. That's not what I'm saying. Like, I'm not— I hope people don't listen, they take notes, and they're like, the one note I got is go ballistic on my team. That's not what I'm saying.

18:35But the idea remains, like, okay, he's Nick Saban, he's won like 7 championships, he is a freak on the process, and you either do it or you don't. Because the way that you do anything is just who you are. That's the way you do everything. And so, you know, I'll hand it back to you to connect it to biblical principles, but it sounds like if God gives you a little and he can trust you with it, then maybe he'll be likely to a little bit more.

18:57Yeah, absolutely. Because I think it's, it's the way that you understand whether or not somebody can handle it, because otherwise that makes you a poor investor. It doesn't make them necessarily a poor investment. It makes you a poor investor because you chose somebody that wasn't handling the small details enough, you know, to handle more. You like— they were overwhelmed at level 2.

19:19Like, why would you jump them to level 25? That makes you a poor leader. So I think it's something for us to evaluate and put this tool into perspective. You know, you talk about sports. Well, how does anything become muscle memory? By doing it over and over and over again. When you reach the point of success, you know, Steph Curry, I think Steph Curry takes, you know, 1,000 or 1,000 jumpers a day and 500 free throws a day, every single practice.

19:45That's not including what they do in practice. And that's not including running the plays. That's just individually. So yeah, you know, he can shoot from 35 feet and then turn around and shimmy at the bench because he can tell when it leaves his hand, like if the process was perfect. And that's what we have to have when we're talking about trust, you can perfect the process of trust.

20:04You won't always get who you trust right. You will get the process right in which you use the trust. I'll say that again, because I think it's really important. You won't always get who you trust right. People still are people. People are going to people. But the process you use to determine whether or not they are worthy of the trust in the first place can be perfected.

20:24And I think when people understand that, This is what Luke 16 is saying. It's giving us a tool, not just a description. The one who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in a lot. And the one who's unrighteous in a little thing is also unrighteous in much. This is— I have somebody on my team that I have exercised this with and have been working with him, been developing him.

20:51And I gave him a lot of projects and let him hit, hit the ball out of the park and set him up for a win. And okay, I'm gonna give him a little more and set step back and see how he handles it. But the thing about trust is it's difficult to give away. I completely understand, but it's necessary to give away.

21:05So I had to give away some things that's like, hey, if this ball hits the ground, it's gonna cost me, or my name is on the line for this. But you know what it does if the ball doesn't hit the ground? It sets us up for a massive win. Like, we go to the moon because now not only is his confidence through the roof, not only does he realize the ceiling on his competencies has been shattered— it's like you can go further than you thought— but now our wins.

21:30And I've ultimately promoted him to be my number 2. So literally from somebody who was just around and was young and was a volunteer to now being able to run things in my absence, it's because we continue to see, okay, you can trust a little more and a little bit more. And I have to be able to give that away for him to be able to thrive.

21:48So yes, it's difficult, but the process is the same. So since I've seen now that that works for him, and that worked to get us a home run higher in him, I can use that exact same process for somebody else. Okay, let's give them a little bit. I know that that's something that we, you know, want to typically put our hands on, but I have to let it go because otherwise we don't build a system that is scalable.

22:09And ultimately you have a good process, so you are quickly able to identify whether or not he has a good process. I think that's what people— they try to like silver bullet their way to having a good business, and it's like, doesn't— there's not going to be any podcast that like teaches you how to like silver bullet your way to a good— but you have to like like, you know, Todd has this phrase that he hates, and it's called, uh, it's called fake it till you make it.

22:32And he's like, he's like, that's the dumbest phrase in the world because like Steph Curry can't fake it till he makes it. Like, he is confident because he has, you know, 30,000 hours or whatever of jacking up threes since he was a kid. And he speaks the language. Like, we talk about business as, you know, a language all the time. And if you want to learn Spanish You can't skip Duolingo.

22:57Like, you can't just skip it and, and fake it. You can't— like, if I gave you Shakespeare in Spanish and I was like, all right, go speak on stage, like, do it, and you can't get up there and fake it. Like, I don't care how much charisma you got. And so you clearly have a process, you have integrity with the process, and you speak the language, and you have a high level.

23:18You know, the Lord has— you know, whatever your perspective theologically is— like, has entrusted you with, uh, uh, you know, this guy has a good process, let's give him a little Give it more. I mean, that's how we think about our team members. And so, uh, you are now able to identify, and I think myself as well in our business, when you do hand the ball off.

23:36Like, sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world to hand the ball off. Yeah, for sure. But when you do hand the ball off, it does not take you very long to see if the person that you hand the ball off speaks the language, if they— right— if they have a good process, if they do have a high level of competence. And they've, uh, I like what you said, if they've, if they've, the margin, uh, between the process and the competence, uh, is really good.

23:59So I'll stop there. Yeah, yeah. No, I think, you know, again, I love that we're on the sports because I can talk sports all day. Uh, you know, a quarterback, you know, again, I talked about the Bears. My quarterback is Caleb Williams. The quarterback could run really fast, but you know what's faster than him running is him passing the ball 40 yards down the field.

24:17Like, I can get the ball down the field faster than I can run 40 yards. And yes, I have to get to the point where I can trust you enough to say, yeah, I could do it myself. It would be a longer, more difficult road. But I'd rather trust you to get it done and go further. That's what happens. That picture of a completion of a pass is exactly what happens when we do the difficult thing.

24:39Trust is 100% hard. It's difficult to give away. Like, let's, let's not sugarcoat it. Let's not sprinkle glitter on it. Trust is hard to give away, even to our employees that have been around for a long time. However, it shouldn't stop us from giving it away anyway. We have to— the ball goes further when we pass it. They say the same thing in basketball.

24:58The fastest way to advance the ball is to pass it. It's not to run it yourself. Yeah, it's to— it's to pass it up the court. It's to pass it down the field. You know, I can— I mean, look at hockey. Like, hockey— the hockey puck moves so fast that the camera can't keep up sometimes. It's like, that's the best way to make an advancement.

25:15And if we take that analogy and that example and apply it to business with trust, yes, it's difficult to give away Yes, it would feel better to me if the trust stayed in my hand. However, we could advance further if I would just give it away and let them run with it, let them pull off a win. And that's a repeatable process.

25:33Okay, so let's try to, you know, connect it biblically back to the principles that we're trying to explore. So let's say you do speak the language, you're not faking it till you make it. Um, you know, for the people that get resources or they're, they're having resources, uh, that they need to steward well, how do you identify identify maybe somebody that is in your organization or works with you or underneath you?

25:54We don't like to say underneath you, we like to say works with you. How do you identify somebody that you have entrusted a lot of gifts and talents or resources, that they're taking them to the next level, versus maybe somebody who's kind of let the ball hit the ground, like you said? Yeah, so, you know, I think what's important about it is evaluation and review is extremely, uh, a necessity— excuse me— for this process, because it doesn't make sense to put the process in place if you're never going to go back and actually see how it's working, right?

26:23Like, we talked about baking the cake, we talked about the muscle memory, but you can have a lot of muscle memory and miss the shot. Like, you can have a lot of— you can bake the cake and it'd be nasty every single time. Like, nobody ever wants you to make anything for Thanksgiving ever again. So like, once we go back and we taste the cake, we see the shots going in.

26:39I think what's cool and a very practical tool that maybe a manager, a supervisor, maybe somebody that's not an owner or an owner themselves can do right now is go out and buy go out and buy a journal. If you go out and buy a journal, and the reason that I say do it old school, writing with your hand, is because there's something about making sure that that's committed to memory.

26:58It's something about sitting down and making sure that I'm going to give this evaluation, not just for a performance review, but for somebody that I've been intentional about watching their tasks. So you go out and buy a journal, and you say, okay, what was the small task that I gave away? Number 1. And when I gave it away, how did they do?

27:15Number to. And the moment you said, okay, hey, you know, Tommy, I gave him this task of just delivering this, and did it get there on time? Did they go out of their way? I said, hey, they need to deliver this, but did they go stop and get a card? Or they delivered this, did they stop, get a card and flowers? Because we knew we were only delivering this because somebody had just got out of the hospital.

27:34How did they go above and beyond? Were they excellent in the details? Because if you never go back and evaluate, this is just a cool idea. It's a cool process. It's something else to motivate you. But without something practical to put legs to it, you will see a bunch of people doing tasks. And we don't wanna just create people who follow a lot of tasks.

27:53We wanna create expansion because when they expand, when they grow, when they shatter the ceiling of their competency, the entire organization lifts, right? They say a high tide raises all boats. So it's important not just to realize that I gave them a small thing and they were faithful in a small thing, but I can point to how. So then I don't have to sit back when it's time for me to think of, man, who could fill this role?

28:17Or who could go to this location? Or who could be promoted in this space. I can actually have a log and I can go back and say, man, I remember when Tommy went out of his way on that delivery to write a card, to give flowers, to offer condolences. And that was something that showed me that the details matter to him. So if he would do that for a delivery for one customer, I'm pretty sure when it's time for reports over thousands of customers, he would have the same attention to details.

28:45Right. And that's a way that we can do it practically right now. I love what you say, you know, you said earlier, you use the word investor, You know, like maybe they're not a bad investment, maybe you're a bad investor. And I think, you know, God, a lot of people say God, you know, God doesn't, they talk about the root of, you know, the love of money is the root of all evil.

29:04And you know, you guys are just scoundrels trying to make a dollar. And it's like, okay, you can think like that and that's fine. But I like to point at the parable, you know, it's like the 1 talents, 5 talents, and 10 talents. You know, I don't know if they're kids or whatever, but there's basically, for those that don't know, there's, You know, actually you probably, you're the resident chaplain.

29:26Do you have any context on the details for maybe somebody who's not familiar? And then I'll go into my perspective on it. Yeah. Yeah. So for sure, there was, it's actually a parable about talents and, you know, this leader, if you will, gives away these talents to 3 different individuals, right? And then he goes off for some time and each of them does something different with their talents.

29:462 of them multiply their talents. They use them and they multiply them. And when he comes back and returns, he gives them a return or they give him a return on his investment. But one of them was like, man, I knew you were a harsh man. I knew you were, you know, somebody that basically to be afraid of. So I buried that one so that you would at least have what I gave you.

30:05And it actually was counted against him and not for him, like the ones that took the risk to multiply it. So that's the short, the Cliff Notes version of it for sure. So if you're listening to this on your drive, just, you know, when you park, go on ChatGPT and get the feel, get the full summary. So anyway, how does that connect to our business?

30:21Is I tell people all the time, like, I'm— I— people think I'm maybe silver spoon or like I was born into my family's business, but I like to think of myself as the kid who was just given 10 talents, and it's now my job. I was given a lot of responsibility, but it's my job to turn that— those talents into 10 more talents.

30:40And so, yeah, you said, you know, you— to think of yourself as a business owner as like an investor when you're thinking about finding people. I think God, you know, maybe he doesn't— I, you know, people have this issue with God and money and like mixing the two, but that parable is a perfect example. And this is what I'm getting at, is like God, or whoever is the leader in that parable that is in the Bible, uh, he had high expectations and they were, um, able to be tracked with numbers.

31:11Like, it's— so it's like, I love your little, uh, strategy of having a journal and and like, it's like a P&L. Like, he had a, he had a profit and loss statement for those talents. And even back in ancient biblical times, it's like, okay, I'm gonna give you this ball, like, I'm gonna hand the ball off for these tasks, and like, I need you to run with the ball.

31:29If you go and just like kneel it, like, that's what the one talent guy did, he just, he literally kneeled it. It's like, no, like, I'm giving you the ball, go out and, and use the talents that I've given you and come back with more. And so it's not like a— it's not like a formula. Like, I hate when people think that spirituality or Christianity, it's like a formula.

31:50You put work in, you get results out. It's like, not really. It's more in my head. I'm curious your thoughts on this as we close. It's more of just like the nature of the world. It's like, hey man, to much who is given, much is expected. And it's like your job as the investor to be like, okay, I gave this gentleman 10 talents, like, what's he going to go do with it?

32:11Is he, is he going to put it in the dirt, or is he going to put it to work. Exactly. And I 100% agree with you. You know, it is saying the same thing, but it's a different mentality, right? Again, it's a difference between something being descriptive, right? Everything in life is about sowing and reaping. It's not just, hey, go sow some seeds so that you can get something.

32:32It's that you have to sow seed and whatever you sow, you're going to get back. You will never put apple seeds in the ground and get rice. Like, it does not matter how many you put in there, it will never show up as oranges. But it's just a descriptive language. And what's interesting about it is like, you know, speaking of fruit, this is also descriptive.

32:54The reason that I know that this works is because the Bible also says, "You shall know them by their fruit." Yeah, right. You should know people, literally, your character can be summed up with what comes out of you, what you do, what we can see. And so this same same thing where trust scales. When we're using this as a metric for people, the hope is that you understand that they have enough value and you can see by what they do what they care about.

33:21It's not that, hey, I want to give them more so they do more for me. I'm going to give them more because it's going to reveal what's important to them and who they are and the character they have. And because I see that, they are worthy of promotion. Look, I've had a lot of privilege in my life, and I've had the ability to meet a very— a lot of really successful people, business owners and so and so forth.

33:42And like, I would say 90% of them, just either whether they're a Christian or not, like practice these principles. Like, I would say 10% of, of some of these people, maybe even less, are like scoundrels, or they're just trying to get one over and make a dollar. And like, that's fine. But I would say 9 or 9.5 times out of 10, it's usually a person who just, whether consciously or not, they just practice the principles of like serving other people first and putting other people before themselves.

34:13Themselves. And the fruit that comes out is like, they are— when they create their own luck, you know, like they are the person that people think about when they need something or when like they need somebody to go to bat for them. It's like, oh, they're the person who owns the business that did the one thing the right way. And so when that door gets open 10 years later, that's who comes to mind.

34:32And so I, you know, whether you're listening to this and you're a Christian or you're not, I think generally just applying, you know, fruitful principles like Devonte's saying is, uh, is a really, really solid value proposition in your personal life and in your business. Absolutely. I would agree. I would agree. This has been fun. This is a fun, fun episode. Yeah, so this is a little off the cut.

34:53We didn't plan this, but Devonte, you're our minister. You mind praying us out, uh, and then we'll close? Yeah, absolutely. Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you so much for every single person that's listening. Uh, whatever position they have, God, is so much smaller than the position that they have with you, which is a child of God. And I pray, God, that they would feel encouraged today, that they would feel inspired, that they would feel equipped to live the life that you've called them to live, the way you called them to live it.

35:18Let them be better leaders, let them be better followers of you, let them be better husbands, wives, and whatever else that you have charged them to steward. As we learned today about stewardship, uh, God, that we would just apply it to all the areas of our life. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, thank you guys for listening. This has been episode 1 of our Auto Shop Ministry series on Master Tech to Millionaire.

35:38Uh, man, we look forward to seeing you guys in Houston, and we look forward to seeing y'all next Sunday. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerland at 925-980-8012 or visit autoshopanswers.com. Get more information about key-to-key callbacks, courtside VIP Racquetech Day, where you spend a full day in the trenches with our teams. We have leadership classes, an AI academy, accounting first, fraud and prevention, as well as auto tech training.

36:08We are literally your one-stop shop. Please don't hesitate, reach out to Todd Westerman, 925-980-8012.