Starting a business isn't the LinkedIn highlight reel everyone makes it look like.

There's real heartache, real fear, and real moments where you wonder if you made the right call. But what if those hard times were actually the point?

Brian Livingston spent nearly 20 years as a chemical engineer at Caterpillar before being laid off during COVID alongside with 4,000 others.

Instead of landing safely back in corporate America, God led him somewhere unexpected — a copper tube that's changing the diesel industry.

Brian now runs Zell Cam and helps heavy equipment operators reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions through a simple, off-the-shelf technology that pays for itself in months.

Join us as Brian shares how losing his job became one of the best things that ever happened to him, why faith in God's sovereignty is the only thing that gets you through the gut punch of unemployment, and how his engineering background gave him the credibility to confidently step into something brand new.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

Brian's answer is simple: Don't separate your faith from your work. Your identity is follower of Jesus first — and everything else comes after that. Show up to your business as a whole person who belongs to God, not a professional who happens to go to church.

One challenge from today: Start small. If you've been waiting to build a deeper prayer or Bible reading habit, don't wait for the perfect hour-long routine. Open your Bible for five minutes today. Celebrate that. Tomorrow, do it again.

More About Brian Livingston

Website: https://www.decarbonize5.com/

More About David Schmidt

Free Resource: What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business

Subscribe to the RBT Weekly Newsletter for weekly simple, practical, and Biblical steps to help you build a thriving business in a way that honors God.

Newsletter also comes with Bible verses for business success for you to read, apply, and be inspired by.

Start again.

We all have a story. I always think of the conversion story of the Apostle Paul going on his ⁓ road to Damascus and God really turning around really quick. ⁓ But there's Daniel who was in captivity. David was anointed when he was a teenager and went on to be king. We all have different stories of where God has put us today. And really the only thing similar is God. Because we are all unique, all have unique stories. All have unique stories to tell of God's working in our life.

No.

And today I brought on Brian Livingston, who was a believer at an early age. He was a chemical engineer, worked with Caterpillar for many years until about 2020. And then God led them out of there and into the business he has today. And so we're going to talk to him about his business and also about the lessons that he has learned along the way. So Brian, thank you for coming on the podcast today. And to start off with, what is one way that you have found to honor God in your business that others may not know about?

Yeah, well, thanks, Dave. Glad to be here and glad to have a discussion about ⁓ my savior and how it intersects my life. ⁓

You ask what kind of give you a roundabout answer to that question. know, ⁓ whenever you're starting a business, ⁓ if you're just on LinkedIn or whatever, it looks like everybody starts a business and everybody just makes a gazillion dollars and everybody lives happily ever after. But you know, that ain't the way it happens for me and it's not the way it happens for almost anybody. ⁓ And so there's a lot of heartache involved and heartburn and these kinds of things. And I tease with people, but it's really true.

You know, even though there is all these hard times and heartburn and worry and whatever, man, I wouldn't want to trade a minute of it, you know, because it's been so good for my personal sanctification. God has taught me so much that I would never have learned if I just stayed in a large corporate America. When you're an entrepreneur, a solopredeur, you just learn a lot about everything. And I've always loved learning stuff. So that's been a lot of fun. But even the heartache and the heartburn or whatever, know, that I

kind of tease about, but it's true. Yeah, anyway, that started a business, you know, that's true. ⁓ It's been wonderful, you know, because through the hard times, it seems like God will teach us more than through good times. You know, I've probably our own stubbornness and our own nature, I don't know. But that seems to be kind of universally true. So boy, don't run from the hard times, run to the hard times. Don't try to make them yourself, but run to embrace them.

Yeah,

okay. Yep, it's not, we don't embrace it, but yeah, that's where James said, consider it all joy when you counter various trials, because it's good for you, it grows you. Yeah, I'll just let God determine the velocity of the hard times, not myself. Brian, give us a little background of what? Yeah.

I'm not sure.

believe in the sobriety

of God, that he's in control of every molecule that spins in the universe, then what can really happen? Bad. You know, if he's, part of his character is good and he's ultimately good, we just perceive things as bad because we only see a small part of it, you know, and it feels bad at the moment, but later on you find out, it was pretty good actually, it good for me.

Yep, and that's a very good point. We perceive it as bad based upon how it affects us today. And once we can see the bigger picture, yeah, it's easier to accept. But there again, it's that trust, trust in God. So Brian, give us a little background of your business, what you've been doing, how you got started with, I forget the name of the diesel thing, but what the name of it is, but yeah.

you

Yeah, Zell Cam. Zell Cam is

the name of my company now. background real quick. Was with Caterpillar for almost 20 years. And at the beginning of COVID, Caterpillar fired about 4,000 of us to make the quarter end numbers meet. And you know, that's just what happens a lot of companies. And so I fished around for something else to do, looking for a job in the middle of COVID.

at my age and you can tell I'm not fresh out of college. You know, it was pretty difficult and a friend of mine introduced me to a technology that I found to be very interesting. So I did a little homework on it. Actually did a lot of homework on it because it's a device that well, I'll just kind of show you real quick. Let me grab something here. I'm just going to show you real quick where the Lord led me on this thing because it's.

You run diesel fuel through this thing and it looks like a copper tube filled with stuff. That's because it's exactly what it is. Threads on the end there. You screw this into your ⁓ fuel line as the diesel fuel flows through here. It breaks up some of those long chains into shorter chains. Now, if you can remember your high school chemistry, that's essentially what this unit does and shorter chains of hydrocarbons burn more efficiently than longer chains.

And so I understood the chemistry of that when I started looking at this, but I was still extremely skeptical because I mean, I'd worked for, the largest heavy duty engine maker in the world for 20 years and you know, how can we do this? Well, I had to do my homework on it. But yeah, this stuff, this is really real. And so in short, I felt very comfortable throwing my reputation behind this and promoting this and ⁓

kind of basically taken to all my old customers in the diesel drinking world of locomotives, mining trucks, port equipment, maritime ships, ⁓ locomotives, I think I said that, trucks, that kind of people who are kind of my people, because working all those years for Cat, that's where I kind of learned all those people, learned their business and helped them with other things along the way. So now I'm doing this, which is kind of

You know, I'm a chemical engineer by schooling, so I get the chemistry of this and then all those years with with Kat, I get the diesel side of the engine and and how it helps customers or whatever. So anyway. It's been really kind of fun to watch this happen in my life, if you will. ⁓ To. Can't see where the Lord led me over the years and you know, here's a promise and I don't remember exactly where it something about won't let the righteous go hungry.

and I don't really claim much righteousness, I'll zero on my own, but he's taken care of me throughout all this. And it's been just kind of fun to watch. I don't know if you've had the experience, probably some of our listeners and viewers have, where you almost feel like you are a spectator to what the Lord is doing in your life. And I've been that way sometimes.

I mean, yeah, you're trying your best and all that, but you can see all these outside factors kind of moving in, you know, and kind of boxing you into to do a certain thing or whatever. And when you kind of get to walk through that door, it's like, oh yeah, I'm glad the Lord didn't give me any more choices besides that one door. It's also easy to kind of determine the God's will when there's only one door to go through. You know, when he gives you two or three, yeah, then you have to kind of, you know, do a little more prayer and counsel and whatever.

But the easy

Sure.

way, when he gives you the easy way, just one door, that's it. I kind of like that. I'm a little dense some other times, you know.

That's right.

So God led you from leaving CAT, not in your own terms, to finding this new technology. Can you tell us anything more about what this does for the diesel engines?

Yeah, no, be happy to the because of those, you know, the shorter chains that I was talking about burning more efficiently. Bottom line, gives you about five to 7 % better fuel economy. So, you know, if you're running a locomotive or truck or whatever, five to 7 % is significant. It's not huge. Oh, cuts it in half. Yeah, well, not a lot of things work that good, you know, but five to 7 % is substantial. It's believable.

And it's absolutely proved out by tests, by the science, by the chemistry, all that kind of stuff. anybody, by the way, anybody who's interested in this, let me just send you over to decarbonize5.com. So when I say five, it's like 5%. You know, decarbonize5.com. And I've got some calculators over there. You can put in your own diesel fuel use and whatever and see if this is worth pursuing for you, what the savings would be.

And also the number of tons of CO2 you'd be taking out of the atmosphere. ⁓ So it ⁓ does both of those things for you. Anyway, decarbonize5.com. If you want to talk with me further, just go over there and let's set up a meeting. Let's talk. I'd be glad to talk to anybody about this. something else on that same question, though, I'm feeling really good about this because it's really good for the world. I didn't just pick up selling something that 100 people

hundred other people already sell. And there's nothing wrong with that. I love good competition. But this is just where the Lord has led me. And I can sleep really well at night knowing that what I'm selling and what I'm pushing is really good for the world. And by the way, if you get five to 7 % on a truck, know, an over the road truck that equates to about a one year payback. And if you're doing like a locomotive or mining trucks or something, it's more like, ⁓ from a

Sure.

two to six month payback, something like that. So you're talking three, four, 500 % return on investment, ⁓ which is extremely rare. That's very tough to get. Your CFO probably doesn't have very many of those sitting on his desk waiting to be approved. yeah, I feel really good about providing the world with something that is good for you, it's good for the world. It's a kind of a win-win-win, even financially.

Sure, just to put, yeah.

Yeah, I'm happy about that.

Yeah, to most of my listeners, we have probably no idea how much diesel fuel is being used. Like a ⁓ trucker that's going across country, trucking overnight and all that stuff. How much money do you think they're on average they are consuming in a year?

Hmm

Thank you.

Well, I just happened to have a little cheat sheet with me that I made up. It's an infographic here that I use sometimes. And so I can't... ⁓

Okay.

The normal truck will go about 120,000 miles. That's kind of your average in North America here. you average probably about seven miles a gallon. So you can kind of do the math that way. But ⁓ I did some math for the whole trucking industry. And let me just kind of read this here to you. It's kind of fascinating. ⁓ The trucking industry just in the US alone uses about 42 billion

gallons of diesel fuel. And I'm going to call this a 4 % savings because it's slightly less on trucks than it is for heavier equipment. And that ⁓ savings gives you about 1.7 billion gallons of savings. And it takes about 16.7 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. And that's just one industry with

one technology just doing the 4%. So the numbers get really big, really fast. When we're talking about making ⁓ a change to climate change and really having an impact, some of these numbers get pretty big, pretty fast. And so if you are involved in heavy equipment, you own a mining company or whatever, ⁓ don't think there's nothing I can do. Because every little bit helps, right?

and especially if it's going to pay back very handsomely. Let's take a look at that.

Yep. And that's where in the manufacturing industry, we call it the continuous improvement process where even little things, you do all the little things and those little things add up to a lot. And so like you said, this is not a 50 % increase but or decrease, but it very much pay for itself here shortly. That's that's really cool technology.

You know, I'm glad.

I'm glad there's people working on electric locomotives and, you know, hydrogen locomotives and whatever else. And there's a lot of research stuff going on. But, boy, let's not spend all of our time and energy on something that's going to happen in 25 years later. Actually, when all of us are either gone or retired or don't have any accountability for the promises we made today. You know, let's do something now. And there's a, you know, I have this off the shelf technology and there's others as well that, you know, offer.

ways to do that. So let's not spend all of our time on these long-term things. Let's do something we can do today. I have kind of a saying I've been using on LinkedIn lately, that I think the world has enough thought leaders on this. I think what we need is a few execution leaders. Yeah, let's stop thinking about some things so much as I'm doing things.

Very good. Well, think about doing things. Sometimes it's easier to, sometimes we learn more from our mistakes and bad things that happened than all the good things that happened. ⁓ Going back to you starting your business and being laid off, what was that feeling that you had when you were laid off, first laid off there from Caterpillar?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, certainly there's a sinking feeling. You know, it's like a real, you know, gut punch that comes over right away. And ⁓ probably most of us have experienced that in our lives. ⁓ By the way, real quick to encourage people, if you're in that situation right now, you've just been laid off, you've just been fired, ⁓ you know, just quit something that you really didn't want to quit.

⁓ It will get better. You've probably had a lot of people tell you this in your life and I'll just be one more. You know, when you get fired, most likely you're going to wind up better off than you are today. And you're going to find a better job. That's something, you know, anyway, I just want to be one more voice in your life saying that because I've experienced it and yeah, it's true. Don't be scared.

It's true, it's just,

okay, I understand that. But what I want to help people with is you felt that way, what helped you come back? You're in a hole, what helped you get out of that hole, get positive going and yeah, get moving.

Yes.

great, yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you that that's where having a faith in God and God's sovereignty really helps. Like we talking about earlier, can anything really bad happen, you know, if God is good and he's committed to the welfare of his children? Not really. I mean, it might feel bad for the moment, but no, it's not. And so just having that faith and your faith is knowledge, right? The better you know God,

The more you're able to love Him, the more you're able to trust Him, the more you're able to ⁓ have what we call faith. And faith is not some airy, fairy, ethereal stuff, you know? I think of Hebrews chapter 11 and where it says, is the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for. And I might have those backwards, but evidence and substance. you know, when I...

first ran across that verse or that thought kind of came over me when I read that verse that I'd never done before, I had never had this thought. Well, know, evidence is the smoking gun in the courtroom, right? You know, and the substance is something you hang on to. It's not just some cloud thing you can't grab ahold of. It's real stuff. And as God makes a, it's almost like a track record in your life. You know, the longer you walk with God, the more you see him pull you out of these pits.

Mm-hmm.

and do things for you, you just learn to trust him more and more. And I love the fact that we all have this. And if you've only been a Christian for 10 minutes, you still have the Bible and you still have all the stories where he's taken care of God's people. So this knowledge, this evidence and substance gives us great confidence in God taking care of us. And so for me, anybody listening, ⁓ if you are a believer, you put your trust in God.

And if you're not a believer yet, well, still put your trust in God. Ask him to help you through this. Ask him to show you how to know him.

You said that going through this whole experience was good for your sanctification. Can you give us an example or two of why or what you learned going through this that you wouldn't have learned otherwise?

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I've learned ⁓ things about trust, know, trusting God ⁓ and greed, ⁓ fear, you know, and, and those are things I wouldn't have learned had I just hung out in corporate America. ⁓

I'll tell a quick story about trust. I think you've already understand my belief in God's sovereignty and all that kind of thing, but here's kind of something funny that I tell people. God is all powerful, all wise, all loving, all just, committed to the welfare of his people. And I'm an idiot. Who should I trust?

And so when you look at it that way, let's, yeah, it's a little easier to trust in God, even though you can't see everything, you know, because we want my faith, not my sight. You know, of course you can't see everything that he can see as to why you're in this position and why you, you know, think life isn't fair or whatever your thoughts might be, you know. Get over those, trust the Lord and study his character like those attributes I just mentioned, and you will be greatly comforted.

You said a lot about trusting God and I 100 % agree with you. But I know sometimes if you're not in the habit of trusting God, it's a habit you have to get into. What are some things that you can do to help you have this attitude that, I need to trust God even though there's bad things happening? What are some things that we can do to put us on the right track or point us in the right direction?

What is?

Yeah, well, you know, I've there's really three things that help us grow in the Lord. You've got the Bible, you have prayer, and then you have fellowship. And if you're balancing those three, you're studying the scriptures, you're praying, and then you're getting good quality fellowship with people who are biblically centered, you know, and gospel focused. That's going to help you tremendously. Because again, for fellowship.

we were not baptized into nothing. We were baptized into a body. Christianity is a team sport and we absolutely need each other. And prayer and scripture, I'm gonna quote John Piper here. says, whenever you have that scripture open, you should be praying over it. And whenever you're praying, you should have the scriptures open. ⁓ And those two really go hand in hand to get a good clarity.

of God's will for your life and what we pray as we read and then we allow our reading to enhance our prayers, et cetera, and those two go back and forth quite well.

I agree, so yeah, reading the Bible? Go ahead.

Well, let me do one more thing to kind of more directly

answer your question. know, obviously, you know, getting fellowship, well, that's just kind of general Christian growth. You know, those are the things I mentioned, but studying God's attributes and His character. You know, there's a number of good books out there on God's attributes and probably a number of just decent websites that would kind of give you a basic of each of those. But boy, the more you study God's attributes, you know, His love, His infinity, His eternity.

all those things, ⁓ how could you not trust him? So the more you know about God, really helps you know God himself in a personal way better. I mean, I'm not just saying build up bunch of facts, but know, facts are helpful.

Yes, it's interesting, John 17, three says, this is eternal life that they may know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And I don't know if you know this, but there's two in the Greek, there's two different words for know. There's oida, which means to know intellectually. And there's gnosko, which means to know by experience. And that word there is to know by experience where you get to know God by experience. And for me personally,

you

Hmm.

That's how I've gotten to know God by experience more often in my life is when I have trouble, when I have a need I can't meet and you pray, there's been multiple times where God has provided money through various people. And I've come to conclusion, he was like, yeah, I'm in need, but God can take care of it. I trust him. He has a track record, not just in the Bible, but he has a track record in my life of providing for my needs all the time as well.

That's how you get to know God more through these situations. And I'll tell you, for one who's been in there, I never liked being in the dark, but I always look at it as I'm in the tunnel. after a while, I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I see I'm coming out of it. And there's been other times where I'm like, I'm in the tunnel again and I can't see the light and it's no fun. It's no fun in the middle. But once you start heading out and you can look back, it is a very rewarding experience.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

to all you who are going

through trials and things. ⁓ You said something earlier about the whole diesel thing, but I think it applies to everyday life. You mentioned about quit waiting for the big change and get something incremental, something different. reword that, because I know you said a lot better than I could, and how does that apply to our life and not just to the diesel industry?

Thank

Yeah, you know, for diesel, it's like, let's not wait for the 25 year, 30 year, all electric everything or hydrogen or whatever it is. You know, when there's off the shelf things we can do today that are very profitable and effective, you know, so let's get started doing something today. And the way that kind of relates to our Christian life too, sometimes we can want some big experience or, know, the, tomorrow I'm really going to, you know, tomorrow I'm really going to start reading the Bible.

You know, and I'm going to do an hour a day or whatever. And I would just say, just do two minutes today. You know, just do five minutes. Just read one song today. Let's do some incremental things. You know, in our Christian walk, it's very much the same. We can have grand goals of wanting to be the super Christian or whatever. And just do a few minutes today. You know, that's that's my advice to everybody is just get started. You start doing something. And again, those three things.

Fellowship with a godly group of believers, a very gospel-centered church. Individual scripture reading and individual prayer. And group prayer is great too, but those three things will help you grow in Christ. So work on just a little bit each day. If you're starting from ground zero, celebrate the little successes. I prayed for five minutes. I read two whole chapters today. Great, celebrate.

Because yesterday you did nothing. So it's a win.

Yes, and that makes sense. Just start little, even though you may want to go big in an hour, five minutes is a good start to changing a habit like that. ⁓ Brian, do you have any final thoughts and challenge that you'd like to leave my audience with today?

Mmm.

Well, just a quick ⁓ favor for anybody in your audience. If you know somebody who does drink a lot of diesel, you know, a brother-in-law that owns a trucking company or some crazy thing, you know, send them over to decarbonize5.com and, you know, see if they can poke around and find any value there and, you know, give me a call. So that's on the business side. On the spiritual side, which by the way is extremely integrated with business.

you when you are a believer you don't separate that from your business guy or whatever. I I am a follower of Jesus period. I'm also a business guy you know I also promote you know this product whatever but no I belong to Jesus and so that's my identity and I wouldn't encourage anybody here that is your first identity you know it is not I'm a this and I'm a Christian no you're a believer you're a Christian first you know and by the way if if you've got listeners

that are not Christians yet. If you're not sure if you belong to Christ, I would urge you, can either talk to David. And if you want to go through my decarbonize5.com, let's talk about Jesus as well as diesel. I'll be happy to do that. So if you're not sure, you better make sure. Get sure.

Very good. Brian, thank you so much for your time and encouragement today. And friends, if you're wanting to go deeper and to learn more about Brian and the cool device and technology for diesel engines, check out the show notes because there's going to be links for the sites and the free resources that he has and the contact information, how to get more information on that. And if you enjoy this episode, I invite you to leave a rating and review, subscribe and sign up for our newsletter where you get a verse of the week and a challenge for the week along with that verse. And remember,

Be good.

Your business represents the great God you serve. So build a business worthy of God's name in a way that honors Him.