In 2011, Scott and his wife Carrie took Inspired Stewardship as a business to serve Christian men and couples that are struggling to live out their calling. They work to help align the way you use your time, your talent, and your treasures so that you can identify and live a fully authentic life that allows you to live your calling, serve others, and provide for your family. As certified Human Behavior Senior Consultants and members of the John Maxwell Team, they focus on helping you understand yourself, understand others, and through that understanding build the Kingdom. In 2017 they took the business full-time offering assistance through one-on-one coaching, speaking, and workshops. His book Inspired Living: Assemble the Puzzle of Your Calling by Mastering Your Time, Your Talent, and Your Treasures was published by Morgan James July 2nd 2024.

Links:

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/InspiredStewardship

Twitter https://twitter.com/StewardCoaching

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stewardcoach/

Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/stewardcoach/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/csmaderer/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Inspired_Stewardship

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/inspiredcoach.bsky.social

Website: https://inspiredstewardship.com

Links to purchase the book

https://inspiredlivingbook.com

https://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Living-Assembling-Mastering-Treasures/dp/1636983405?crid=1KQQ0IGSKZ2WV&keywords=Inspired+Living:+Assembling+the+Puzzle+of+Your+Calling+by+Mastering+Your+Time,+Your+Talent,+and+Your+Treasures&qid=1701093259&sprefix=how+to+write+a+kids+book,aps,83&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=yturie-20&linkId=4e3842a4b365b70ed23c7aafdd757f2d&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/inspired-living-c-scott-maderer/1144135862?ean=9781636983400

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Inspired-Living/C-Scott-Maderer/9781636983400?id=9012681501516

Welcome to 12-minute convos with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation. His truth spoken in one moment

became an evergreen seed for our generation today. The power of a conversation is eternal.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Good day, Scott. How are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic.

It's a good pleasure to connect with you. What part of the world are you in today?

I am in a town called Bryan, Texas. It's kind of in central Texas.

All right. All right. Thank you for joining me for a 12-minute conversation.

I'd love to know what was the thing that got you over the line for going into business full-time

with what seems to be your purpose. What really got me kind of over the line

was receiving input from other people. My wife and I went through a really bad financial challenge

of our own. I was suicidal because of finances. We nearly got divorced because of finances.

And when we radically changed the way we were living our life was at the same time that I

was changing into a corporate career and a lot of other things were going on.

But people started noticing that we were being different. And I actually had a friend of mine

come up to me one time and say, you know, you and your wife are weird. Do you think you could

help us be weird? And that was literally my first coaching client because we were like, yeah, we can

figure out how to help you be weird. And so we started coaching and that kind of grew on the

side. And as I kept getting feedback from folks and from community and from other folks that this is

what I was really supposed to be doing, that's when my wife and I decided to lean into it and

turn it into a business. Where does the God factor come in? God shows up in community is my belief.

And so that, you know, when the people around you, when you start getting feedback, you start

running into nudges, things just magically appear that it's like, oh, you're supposed to be doing

this. It's the feedback comes, at least for me, I don't hear some sort of audible voice from above

that says, you know, this is what you're supposed to be doing. It's more the peace and the contentment

feeling in your own mind, even when you're afraid, even when you're like, oh, I'm not sure if this is

going to work. It still feels right. And then it's echoed back to you from the community around you.

It's that feedback loop of internal peace and external validation that I think, at least for me,

that is where God shows up. The other places, honestly, in the voice of my wife, when my wife

was like, yes, this is what we need to do. That's usually a pretty good assurance that that's what

we're supposed to be doing. How long have you been married? We've been married 29 years. It'll be 30

years this March. So was this a new version of life coming into the business or just simply

because of what God spoke to you in terms of the nudges? No, it was really the nudges that was

new. What happened is, so I was a school teacher and I looked up one day and realized that we had

more debt than I made in a year, almost twice as much. I started feeling really worthless as a man,

as a husband, as a provider, all of these sorts of things. That's where the suicidal thoughts

were coming from. I began to feel like I was worth more dead than alive. I was going to protect

my wife, so I'm not sharing any of this with her. She's trying to protect me from stress, so she's

not talking to me. Not talking to each other is a great way to have a great relationship.

Just don't talk to each other. That's where the divorce and those sorts of conversations

and feelings were coming from. Then when we leaned into it, because both of us started hearing

messages independently of each other. Of course, looking back on it now, I realized this was God

speaking into our life that we needed to do something different. I needed to come clean

and lean on her and she needed to come clean and lean on me. When we decided to do that

radically changed the way we were living. We paid off $78,000 in two years, 11 months,

making $55,000 a year. If you do the math really quickly, you realize we were living on nothing.

It was because that's what we felt called to do. It's not that's the only way to do it or that's

the right way to do it or anything else. That was what God was calling us to do so that we could

rapidly get to a place where we can speak into other people's lives and look to other people

and really make a difference in their life. That's why we radically uprooted everything

and changed it. It just felt for us like the absolute right thing to do.

Okay. Connect some dots for me. I'm hearing Dave Ramsey. I'm also hearing

Craig Groeschel. Just in words that you're saying, do they connect? The book from Craig

Groeschel, Where and Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover? Some of the Dave Ramsey material

is part of what came into our life early on. I will say I've grown past that now to where I

go into it with a lot of different methodologies, not just Dave's. I've read all of the other stuff,

John Maxwell, Dan Miller, Groeschel, a lot of Max Lucado. I've done a lot of reading over the

years. Early on, Dave is what made me realize that we could do something different. Quite frankly,

I got really mad at his message. That was really the first time I felt like maybe I could do

something about it. Then as we learned more and added more into our toolbox and more into what

we do, then yeah, I went deeper into both on the Christian side and on the religious side,

as well as on the money and psychology and mindset and behavior side. That's where the

ultimate message of stewardship came from. That's why the business is called Inspired Stewardship.

How challenging was it for you navigating the relationship with your wife and what you guys

were doing with Inspired Stewardship? I think there's always going to be challenges

anytime you're working closely with someone, whether they're your spouse, whether they're

a friend, whether they're a total stranger. There's always going to be those sorts of

friction points. I think the key is clarity and communication. Are my wife and I always perfectly

100% on the same page about everything? Of course not. But when we're not, do we lean into that

and talk about it and fight through it? Not in a physical fight way, but we're going to wrestle

with it until we come to a point where we're like, okay, maybe we still don't agree 100%,

but we can both accept this. This is the way we're going to move forward. As long as we have that

clarity and that confidence to do that, it works. When we don't, that's when we run into problems.

If she keeps her mouth shut and lets me do something that she really doesn't want me to do,

or if I go off just kind of half-cocked and go off and do something without actually talking

to her first and getting her buy-in on it, okay, now we've got friction. But honestly, again,

even if it was just a regular business partner, that would still be true. I think sometimes we

escalate it and we kind of make it worse in our minds when it's our spouse, when in reality,

it's not necessarily worse. It's just you've got to know when you're wearing your business hat.

You've got to know when you're wearing your husband hat. You've got to know that you're not

all of those things all of the time. And you've got to be clear about kind of what those roles

and responsibilities and boundaries are. Scott, this has been a great pleasure. 12 minutes is

never enough, but I am thankful that I got it in spite of zero, right? So thank you for being here.

Amazing audience, of course, we can cover everything. Scott has a very cool podcast at the same

time that I got to listen to. You can check that out, or you could just simply click the show notes

here and go to everything. Scott, in closing, is there anything else you'd like to share with our

amazing audience? Absolutely. Just if any of these messages resonated, I hope you reach out,

I hope you connect, and you'll pick up the book, pick up something else of mine or someone else's

to make a difference in your world. Yeah, I love it. Again, a pleasure. I treasure it. Thank you

for being on What Is Inspired by 12 Minute Carnivores.