Building a business takes a lot of diligent work and time to get up and running. It also takes a lot of diligent and intentional time to rear godly children.

Join us for a candid conversation with Chris Widener about what he did to stay connected with his family while being a professional speaker.

Being gone often can lead to an absentee father figure but Chris put some guardrails in place to keep him on track. It was profound what Chris did to minimize his away time while speaking.

Listen in and find simple and practical ideas to connect with your children while you are away and while at home.

While every business is different, there will always be a way to close the shop and invest time in your children. It is the non-urgent but very important work that every dad needs to focus on.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

Do business by the book. God says a lot of things about living a righteous, godly life. You need to live out the same standard in your business.

One challenge from today:

Be the voice, not the echo. Be the person who is creating and delivering content to help others, just don’t repeat what everyone else is saying.

More About Chris Widener

Website: https://chriswidener.com/

Book: The Coming American Revival

More About David Schmidt

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The Journey of Balancing Work and Family

David

[0:00]To get a business up and running, you have to put in the work. And to rear up children who love, follow, and serve the Lord, you also have to put in the work for that as well. But the question is, how do you do both of them at the same time? And so today I brought on Chris Weidner to talk about his journey as a speaker and what he did to stay connected to and lead his family because he wasn't always at home. Chris has given over 2,500 speeches all over the world. He's been named one of the top 50 speakers in the world, and he's also a member of the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame. So yeah, he's been busy over the last few years. He's also written 25 books, been translated in over 14 languages. And as a former pastor in Christian Missionary Alliance, Chris has recently started his own nonprofit called the Chris Widener Ministries to promote the work of revival and spiritual formation in America. And his latest book is called The Coming American Revival. And it's endorsed by President Trump, actor Kirk Cameron, and a bunch of other people. So Chris, welcome. And to start off with, what is one way that you have found to honor God in your business?

Chris

[1:01]Well, I think you have to do business by the book, right? You have to, you know, starting with character things like, you know, integrity, honesty, discipline, optimism, service, you know, serving your clients, you know, and all customers, employees, leading, you know, as a servant leader, those kinds of things. But then, you know, the book of Proverbs is filled with all sorts of financial advice and time management advice and relationship advice and all those kinds of things. And so I just, I find that placing your character and your skill sets under the authority of God, you know, tithing from your business, you know, all those kinds of things, letting God own your business and, you know, following his lead is the best way of doing it. And I put it this way, you know, a lot of times we say, hey, God, I'm going to go do this. Will you bless me? And, you know, I've done that a lot over the course of my lifetime. You know, it's trial and error and you learn to follow God. And a lot of times it's like, hey, God, I'm going to go do this. And I just imagine in hindsight, God going, all right, I'll see you in a couple of years when we figure it out that this isn't what I want to do.

David

[2:11]Oh, yeah, I can imagine that. Yep. Very good. Just wait for me. Just hang on. Just wait. We'll get there. Yeah.

Chris

[2:18]Yeah. Yeah.

David

[2:20]Um, my grandpa always used to say, God is never in a hurry, but he's never late. He's right on time.

Chris

[2:26]That's a good one.

[2:27]Chris Weidner's Unique Background

David

[2:28]Very good. Well, Chris, give us a brief background on your journey. What led you to be a speaker and what, what kind of things are you doing today?

Chris

[2:35]Yeah, well, I had a crazy upbringing. My dad died at four, 28 homes, 11 different schools, shipped off to live with relatives twice, once in the fourth grade, once in the ninth grade, made most of my money growing up, betting the horses at Long Acres Horsetrek, started drugs in the sixth grade. It was a crazy upbringing. And then when I was 17 years old, I became a Christian. I got invited to a youth group. I spent the night at my biggest pot smoking buddy's house on a Saturday night, woke up Sunday morning. His mother blew open the door at about 8 a.m. and said, get up, we're going to Sunday school. And I literally had no clue what to do. I didn't even know the term. I was like, that's how far removed from church I was. I didn't even know the term Sunday school. I'm like, well, I go to Monday through Friday school, you know, but whatever, whatever. So I went to this little tiny Lutheran church, Mount Cy Lutheran Church at the corner of 8th and Ogle in North Bend, Washington. And they had a great youth pastor there who took me under his wing and taught me two lessons. Well, first of all, he had two things I needed. Number one, size 11 cowboy boots. That was the first thing I needed because growing up without a dad, I didn't have a lot of discipline. And number two, he told me that God had a plan for my life. So I became a Christian and went to Bible college, became a youth minister and started speaking right out of college because of my crazy upbringing. People wanted to know how that got fixed.

Chris

[3:55]And so colleges, high schools, you know, places like that, summer camps. And then as I got older, I sort of transitioned into speaking to adults. I was a church planter, started my first church at the age of 25 in a little town called Issaquah, Washington. It's about 13 miles east of Seattle on I-90.

Chris

[5:35]Parenting Amidst a Busy Schedule

Chris

[5:30]ministry, not pastoral ministry, but speaking and writing and all those kinds of things. So started a 501c3 and building that ministry around the latest book, The Coming American Revival.

David

[5:44]Okay. Very good. So you had a number of kids. How many kids do you have?

Chris

[5:50]Six kids. One boy, five girls.

David

[5:53]All right. That's a bunch. Five girls. Now you have four girls.

Chris

[5:56]Yeah.

David

[5:58]Very good. Well, you've been on the road a lot. So what kinds of things did you do as a dad to help stay connected to your children when you weren't there?

Chris

[6:06]Well, you know, early on when they were little, there weren't really cell phones, the 90s, you know, that kind of thing. So later on in life, obviously they had cell phones and things like that, but I would call home every night, talk to the kids. And, and when I was home, I was home. That's the nice thing about a speaking business is, you know, you can do five speaking engagements a month and you're still got 20 days off, you know, cause you've got some travel time there and back. But so, you know, I coach my kids teams and go to their gymnastics meets and all those things. I made it a sort of my own rule that every single night I tucked each one of the kids in bed separately.

Chris

[6:45]Um, the other thing that I did that a lot of, a lot of times, you know, speaking engagements seem to be either in like a, a dumpy holiday inn room or at some swanky resort. And so, um, I actually have a list of all the great golf courses in the world that I've spoken at, but didn't play golf. And just here in America, we're talking about Sawgrass, the Pebble Beach, Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin, you know, these world-class golf courses I've spoken at and didn't play them. And so, uh, you know, people will say, do you ever stay a few extra days to enjoy the sites? And I always said, you know, most, most speaking engagements I ever gave, um, um, probably 70, you know, 70 right around that plus or minus a little bit. But I always said, you know, if I took one extra day on each of my speaking engagements, that's 70 days. That's over two months a year I would have lost with my kids. So, you know, when I was living in Seattle, I would do, I would try to do like three o'clock in the afternoon speeches. I'd fly down to San Diego in the morning and fly back that night. Or, you know, fly down the night before late, get in at eight, nine o'clock, give my speech in the morning and be home by the afternoon, that kind of thing. So really trying to manage my schedule and making sure that when I was home, I was really home.

David

[8:04]Sure. No, that's good. That's good. Because sometimes business people are home, but not really home. They're home on their phone or home, continue looking at the computer and things like that.

Chris

[8:13]Yeah, they're physically present, but they're not mentally present.

David

[8:16]Absolutely. So what advice would you have for business owners to help separate that to help get home and stay home versus being distracted?

Chris

[8:25]Well, the first thing I would do is, is, uh, I would buy the book first things first by, by Stephen Covey. It's his time management book. And he has a quad, he has four quadrants and it's all a mixture of the, uh, the important, unimportant and urgent, non-urgent. And the idea is get into the quadrant where you're spending your, your time, uh, on the important, non-urgent things. And when you first buy the book and you first start managing your time, it's a little difficult because most people are doing unimportant things at an urgent time frame. So you want to move your life into the important things in an unurgent manner.

[9:03]Time Management for Business Owners

Chris

[9:03]I think that time management and disciplining yourself to time management is the number one thing because, um, you know.

Chris

[9:12]Turn your computer off at five o'clock and walk out the door, You know, my wife has a very big job for one of the largest telecoms, the largest telecom company in America, and she sells over $600 million a year worth of products and services, and she shuts her computer off at 5 o'clock. Down goes the laptop, and she's out. Because, you know, I was just telling her, you know, it'll all be there tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., you know, you're not going to save the world at six o'clock. And, um, she's always been, you know, she's always been a very strong work ethic, very strong worker. And, um, and really, you know, coached her into shut your computer off at five o'clock and just walk away from it. And now I know different people have different businesses, you know, some, some guys own restaurants, right? Well, you got to be there from noon until 11 o'clock at night. And so that means in the mornings, your kids are at school, you don't get to spend time with them. I would just say, go to work late and do breakfast with your kids. Take them out for breakfast once a week, something like that. I know there's some jobs that have weird schedules, but for the most part, we're working the same time they're going to school. Make sure that you get home. Make sure that you have dinner with your family.

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[11:22]Preparing Children for Independence

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[18:34]Spiritual Foundations for the Next Generation

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[21:21]A Life-Changing Challenge to the Audience

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