Job skills that recognize the individual are important

Intro Video: 00:01 Today we welcome guest speaker Mark Sanborn. Mark is the best selling author of the Fred Factor and an expert on leadership team building, customer service and change. He is dedicated to developing quality leaders and has consulted with outstanding organizations such as Costco, IBM, FedEx, and ESPN. Cornerstone help us welcome this morning's speaker Mark Sanborn.

Mark Sanborn: 00:29 Thank you.

Mark Sanborn: 00:31 Thank you very much, good morning, good morning. By a show of hands. Who's not here? You know, they had me walk out on stage. They want me to come out while the intro was on, for camera crew reasons, but it reminded me, a couple of years ago, my first speech of the year in Denver, I was introduced and as I came up on stage, I caught my toe and I fell flat on my face. Literally, I mean flat, but I was ready. You know, I had for years wondered what I would do and I simply said, I will now take questions from the floor.

Mark Sanborn: 01:01 It is wonderful to be with you. Thanks for having me. This is a, a, an important day for me. I wake up every morning, I say, thank you lord for another gift of life because I think life is precious and today is my mother's birthday. My mother passed a few months ago, the first birthday that she celebrated from heaven. My wife Darlene said, you know, maybe she's looking down and she's really proud of you and I, you know, I think they're pretty busy in heaven. I don't know how much time they have for that, but I'm guessing every once in a while they go, "Oh good. He's in church today. Good job." And so I just wanted to acknowledge it's a, it's a special day for me and I am so happy to have the next hour to talk to you. I'm just messing with you. I'm just messing with you, I've got the same amount of time as everyone else.

Mark Sanborn: 01:47 I'm speaking a few months ago in Santa Monica, I get done with dinner. I'm going to my car and a guy walks up, he sticks out his hand and he said, "Hey buddy, can you spare 100 bucks?" Now it is California. I know the cost of living is higher. I normally do not engage these people, but I was kind of... admired him, so I said, "You know, if you'da asked for a dollar I'd a given it to you, and if you'da asked for five bucks, I might have given it to you because you had the courage to ask, but 100 bucks? Come on, are you kidding me?"

Mark Sanborn: 02:19 Guy said, "Look buddy, either give me the money or don't -- just don't tell me how to run my business."

Mark Sanborn: 02:31 And this series is called The Office and you wonder does that mean somebody is going to talk about how Jesus wants me to run my business? Well, let me begin by asking a question that is fundamental to faith and that is why did Jesus come? And you can draw any number of scriptures, but I love John 10:10. Jesus said, "I came that you might have life and have it to the full." In some translations it's "abundantly", but I like "to the full" because a lot of people think Jesus just came to save us from our sins. Fire Insurance, protection for the life hereafter. But Jesus talked about the afterlife and this life, have life to the full. Think about how many people do you really know that you would say they're living life to the full and if you were honest, I asked myself this, am I living my life to the fullest because that's what the office is about, being all that we were meant to be at work, being all that we were meant to be at home and in the community, and I'm going to tell you a story today. I don't make anything up. My life is a lot stranger than my limited imagination. I'm curious, by the way, how many of you have read my book, The Fred Factor? Can I see a show of hands? Both of you, great. A lot of opportunity for market penetration here in Chandler, Arizona. Now you will not know this, but all the proceeds from my books go to benefit children, mine. So Hunter and Jack would like it a lot. No, I digress.

Mark Sanborn: 04:03 I moved to Denver back in 1987. At the time I was single and living alone in 1988. I bought my first home, I bought an old 1928 bungalow, about 950 square feet. If you're from Denver, ever lived in Denver, it was in Washington Park. I lived there about two days. There was a knock on the front door, open the front door and standing there is a relatively short fellow. He's about 5'2". Was about 115 pounds, wearing a blue/gray uniform carrying a bag. He says, "Good morning, Mr. Sanborn. My name is Fred. I am your postman. I just stopped by to say welcome to the neighborhood, introduce myself and find out a little bit about you and what you do for a living." I've been receiving mail all my adult life. I can't ever recall getting a personal introduction to the postal carrier, but I thought it was a nice touch. I said, "Fred, thanks for stopping by. So I am a professional speaker. I do not have a real job."

Mark Sanborn: 04:58 Fred said, "Well, that's important for me to know. If you're a speaker, you must travel a lot."

Mark Sanborn: 05:01 Now, back then I did about 250 days a year on the road, and I told him that and he said, "Great, if you'll just give me your calendar so that I know when you're in town, I'll hold your mail for you. I'll bundle it. Only delivered on the days that you're here to receive it." Now I never had a choice of a la carte Mail Service before either. I said, "Fred, that's not necessary. I have a box nailed right here by the door. Why don't you just leave the mail in the box and I'll pick it up when I come back in town."

Mark Sanborn: 05:30 Fred said, "Oh Mr. Sanborn, let me point out burglars watch for mail in the box, that's how they know you're gone." He said, "Here's what I'd recommend instead." He said, "I'll be glad to put mail in your box as long as the lid closes. That way nobody will know that you're gone. Any mail that doesn't fit in your box I can put in between the screen door and the front door. Nobody can see it there, and if that area becomes too full of mail, I'll just hold the rest of your mail for you until you come back into town."

Mark Sanborn: 05:51 Now, Fred is more worried about my mail than I am, but he is the postal professional, so I say, "OK Fred, let's try that." I promptly leave town, come back a couple of weeks later, as I'm unlocking the front door, I noticed my doormat is missing and I look around on my little front porch. I see my door mats in the corner, but it's covering something. See here's what had happened. UPS had mis-delivered a box of mine, five doors down, left my box from somebody else's porch. Lucky for me, Fred the postman was on the job. Fred picked up this heavy box, carried it down to my porch, put it in the corner, wrote a personal note of explanation on it. Then try to disguise it with a doormat so nobody would take it. Not only is Fred delivering the mail, now he's picking up slack for UPS. First time I ever told this story, I was speaking in Los Angeles to a group of bankers and at the end of the speech a guy comes up, he said, "Hey buddy, be honest. Were you talking about the United States Postal Service, or does Denver have their own?"

Mark Sanborn: 06:59 I said, "No, this is incredible service from a not particularly likely source." So that first Christmas, 1988, I was so grateful I left a little gift in the box for Fred. Now the next day the mail got delivered. I had an unusual letter in my mail. See the letter had a stamp on it, but the stamp wasn't canceled. I see from the return address the letter is from Fred Shay. That is my postal carrier's name. Fred lived in Northland, I lived in Denver. Fred knows it's a felony to put unposted mail in a box, so even though he carried the letter from his house to my house, he still put a stamp on just to keep it legal. So after I cut the stamp off I read the letter, letter said, "Dear Mr Sanborn, thank you for remembering me at Christmas. I'm flattered that you talk about me in your speeches and seminars. I hope I can continue to provide exceptional service. Sincerely, Fred, the postman."

Mark Sanborn: 07:55 So let's fast forward the tape. Uh, I met my wife Darla. We got married in 1995. She moved in two years later. We were expecting our first son. We moved down to Highlands Ranch, Colorado, where we live today, but for almost 10 years, Fred Shea delivered our mail. And even if you had read the book, there are two things you wouldn't know. The first is that when the book came out in 2004, Fred had been an employee at the United States Postal Service for 27 years and never been recognized by his employer. His coworkers found him inspiring, his customers loved him, and yet nobody in management noticed. Very important message this morning. If you want to have more Freds at the office, if you want to have more Freds in your life, pay attention to the ones you've already got. You can't over appreciate people if you're sincere. I've never had anybody come up and say, "You know what I hate about working here? You can't do anything without somebody thanking you for it, slapping you in the back. It's making me crazy."

Mark Sanborn: 08:54 And I gotta tell you, this is my third service and this is the first time I've been to Cornerstone. What a cool church. What a great pastor and staff and volunteers. I hope you give them a round of applause because frankly there Freds.

Mark Sanborn: 09:12 So I said, there are two things you wouldn't... What's the other thing you wouldn't know? Well, why did Fred do it? Fred didn't get paid more. Fred didn't get sent to nice off-sites. There was no incentive. As a matter of fact, for years when I would tell the story about Fred the postman, I was afraid the postal service would find out what he was doing and make him stop because he was probably violating some arcane regulations. So I asked him when I wrote the book, I said, "Fred, what motivates you?"

Mark Sanborn: 09:41 He said, "You know, Mark, I lay in the bed at the end of the day, I only worry about one thing."

Mark Sanborn: 09:44 How many things do you worry about? How many things do I worry about?

Mark Sanborn: 09:47 Fred said, "I only worry about one thing. The only thing I worry about, did I waste any of the day I just finished?"

Mark Sanborn: 09:52 Did I waste any of the day I just finished? Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to summarize 32 years on the stage and eight books in one sentence, so are you ready? Fear nothing but to waste the present moment. Because if you take care of the moments, the moments become your life. If you're daydreaming right now, I'm not offended, but choose to daydream. Don't do it accidentally, and if you're paying attention, don't let me trick you. Choose to pay attention. See, the secret to living life fully is intentionality. It's being in the moment. It's not sleepwalking through life like so many seem to be. So I wrote this book about Fred and I call The Fred Factor the ability to continually create new value for the people you live and work with through passion, creativity and commitment. Three things you completely control, passion, creativity, and commitment.

Mark Sanborn: 10:41 You might not have been encouraged to be a Fred when you were a kid, you might not have been taught by your employer or your teachers to be a Ered. Matter of fact, you might have grown up in an environment where either being a Fred or being a Christian was was criticized and you were put down for it, but here's the big message. Nobody can prevent you from choosing to be extraordinary and we need to share that with our kids so that they know extraordinary is a choice, not a condition. Extraordinary isn't about being born into the right family, living in the right community, having the right clothes or the right cars. It is a choice about how you live your life and as Jesus said, living it to the full, so in the time we have left, I want to share the four principles that make up the Fred Factor, four things that will make a difference for you at work and for that matter in your personal life as well as your professional life. The first principle is this. Fred is proof that everybody makes a difference. You say, ho-hum Mark. I've heard that before. No, actually you haven't. It dawns on me, we grew up in a culture that told us we could make a difference. Not we do make a difference. Everybody makes a difference. The only question is what kind, neutrality is a myth. If you meet somebody in the marketplace who will not help you or engage you do you turn to your spouse and say, "Oh honey, that's OK, they're just neutral." No, you, you interpret that as indifference. I'd rather you argue with me. At least engage me. Everybody makes a difference. Neutrality is a myth and the only question is at the end of the day is what kind of difference did you make? Did you build somebody up? Did you diminish them or did you pass through life like some kind of phantom vapor unaffecting others?

Mark Sanborn: 12:18 You know, I was listening to pastor Linn backstage and he reminded me of something I heard in youth group. I'm guessing a whole bunch of you heard it and youth group. It was a cliché for awhile, but it's a really good question. If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? You know that's the problem, we're supposed to be different in a positive way, but mostly what we're known for today, if you're a believer, is for being intolerant and critical and what we're against. Nobody knows what we're for. People should be able to look at us and be enticed by the fact that we live differently and it's a way that attracts rather than repels. And that's what the Fred Factor is. It's realizing you make a difference. I love Ephesians 2:10. Ephesians 2:10 says, we are God's workmanship, created in advance to do good works. God created us for service. Here's something I didn't share. You know what's nice? You come to a later service and you get all sorts of stuff you didn't get in the first two. John 20:28, Jesus said, I have not come to be served, but to serve and to give myself as a ransom for many. Now, if you take John 10:10 and you then take that scripture, living life to the full is about being of service. The way you reconcile them, Jesus says you want to live life fully, be of service. Now listen carefully because I don't want you to make a mistake. We are not saved by service, were saved for service.

Mark Sanborn: 13:46 We are not saved because we're kind. We're saved to be kind. We're not saved by works. We're saved to do good work. That is our response and so we owe it to God to make a conscious, intentional effort to be positive difference makers every day at home and at work. Number one, everybody makes a difference. Number two, it's all built on relationship. I mean, what's the difference between Fred and every other postal carrier I ever had? Relationship. He's the first guy I really got to know. A lot of people deliver my mail and I said to Fred, I said, "Fred, how are you able to give such great service to all the customers on your route or route depending where you're from.

Mark Sanborn: 13:46 Fred said, "Mark, I don't think of them as customers."

Mark Sanborn: 13:46 "Really?"

Mark Sanborn: 14:34 Said, "Nah, I just think of them as friends and it's easy to take care of your friends."

Mark Sanborn: 14:40 Wow, what great workplace theology, treat people like friends, John 15:15, Jesus says, I no longer call you servants because the servant doesn't know his master's business, I call you friends. You know, I'll tell you what, I like to study comparative religion as a hobby. Do you know most religions are based on founders that told us what to do, but never taught us how to do it. People that made demands of the flowers but never demonstrated it in their own lives and we have something very, very different in the way of Jesus. Jesus basically said, I want to know you and I want to be known to you. See what happens when you treat people like friends? You give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm the only guy in Colorado that drives the correct speed. Don't judge me, some of you feel the same way here. If you're behind me, you're going too fast, you're in front of me you're going too slow. I'm the standard and by the way, I believe in providing feedback. God would not have given us a horn if he didn't want us to use it and every once in a while somebody is driving slow in front of me and I'll blow my horn and every once in awhile they glance up in the rear view mirror and I know 'em. It's my friend Shoop, know do you think I'd say Shoop you idiot get out of the way. No, I'm like, Shoop, hey buddy, how you doing? You know why? Because he's a friend and when you treat people like friends, you treat them differently than when you treat them like strangers. How many of you are pet people? Who are the pet people a lot of pet people. If you're not a pet person, you're gonna roll your eyes. You might want to do something different for the next minute or two, but don't, don't leave, you don't have that much time. The reason I ask that is because I grew up on a farm and, you know, we had pets but they lived outdoors and they fended for themselves, survival of the fittest. Well, very sadly Friday we had to put our momma dog of fourteen years down, 14 years. She was a part of our family and I know she's a dog. I get that, but she was a family member and she was there every day when I came home from work, her and her daughter, my family wouldn't even notice I'd come home, but the dogs would come to the door and they go, "He's here!" That was pretty much the way and I'm telling... why do I bring up my dog? This is not deep theology, but I really believe God gave us dogs as an example of what unconditional love looks like. Because your dog, your dog loves you no matter, and it's sad when people are mean to dogs. That was the worst kind of people on the planet, mean to kids and dogs. You should be kicked off the planet, but here's the deal about dogs. Dogs are totally unconditional.

Mark Sanborn: 17:20 Now, my wife, my wife, she says she loves me unconditionally, right up to here. Beyond here, there are conditions, do not test me and incur the consequences. I'm being... but we're all that way, aren't we? But, but God gives us a glimpse. He gives us a glimpse into loyalty. You never see a dog conspiring against you. Dog talking to the fence, "OK? He comes home at 5:30. You're ready. All right. You got the rope?" No, dogs don't that. And we even get a little glimpse of how God must look at us because we all think our dogs are smart. We all really do. They're not, they're dogs, but you know what? When I think about my relationship to God's intellect, I'm less than a dog. Yeah. God loves me anyhow, and I just think that's what, that's what relationship's all about. It's going deeper with people and this surface... You know, they say in politics and we live in a terrible divisive time of politics. It's hard to hate up close. You know what that means? You think of a politician right now, you do not like, and it won't be hard. If you met that person, that man or woman, and you talk to them for three or four minutes, I guarantee you, you would feel a little different. You might not like them. You might not agree with them, but you would feel differently. We've got to put the humanity back in the office. We ought to put the humanity back, interaction with customers and colleagues, because number two, it's all built on relationship.

Mark Sanborn: 18:45 Number three, you can add value to everything you do. Doesn't have to cost a nickel. See I think the challenge your employer, whoever you work for, maybe you're an entrepreneur, All business owners want people who can replace money with imagination, can replace creativity with capital and add value. How do you add value to what you do every day? See if you only do it as well as everybody else, there will be no reason to notice you and no one will ever say, I wonder why they're different? See there's different odd and there's different good. Different good is when what you do is the kind of difference that attracts others, different odd is when they say, "Very strange, very strange." What are you doing differently? I give you a little acronym. I like to use "a, b, c, d," above and beyond the call of duty. What do you do to go above and beyond the call of duty at your office?

Mark Sanborn: 19:31 My wife and I used to take our kids to On the Border every Monday night when they were little. Why? 'Cause Monday nights kids used to eat free. I did not mention that I'm in a mixed marriage. My wife is southern, I'm a Yankee. But I, but I am bilingual and one night Darla said, "You want me to teach you how to speak southern?" I did not do this before. Pastor Linn's probably going to go, "And I wish you hadn't done it now," but Southerners say the same thing yankees say, they just make it sound nicer. My wife will say, "Bless your little heart," in the north we just say, "You're an idiot." I'm sorry. Kids, it's the same thing. So one night Darlene says, "I'm not feeling well. Get me something to go." And so I go to On the Border with the boys and our wait person that night her name is Alicia, which is Spanish for Alicia. She, she's really nice and I said, "Hey, I'm going to order some food to go for my wife. She's not feeling well." And at the end of the dinner, Alicia brings out a bag with two containers and she'd written and red ink, "Hope you're feeling better," smiley face, Alecia. When we got home Darla said, "Who's Alicia?" And I told her, she said, bless your little heart. No, no, no. She didn't. No, she was touched. And so the next time we went down to On the Border we said, "Is Alisha working?" And then we went back a couple of weeks later in her section was full and we said, we'll wait. See, all she had was her red ink pen and an app. I'm going to give you today the killer app for 2018 for the office. It's free. I'm going to tell you where to get it. I have a friend, Matt Messina was a practicing dentist. Now he teaches dentistry, but in his practice they noticed a lot of the older people did not have a anyone to celebrate their birthday with their older patients. And so they inventory birthday supplies. And whenever someone came in anywhere near their birthday, they threw a surprise birthday party for him. But that's not the coolest part of the story. The coolest part of the story is this patient started scheduling their teeth, cleanings on their birthday.

Mark Sanborn: 21:45 And both Alecia and Matt had the same app and you can have it too. It's called thoughtfulness, and where are you get it is in the space in your life when you slow down and stop going a hundred miles an hour with your hair on fire and you notice the needs of people around you. I work with business leaders all the time. I tell him activity as the anesthesia of the ineffective leader. There's a paradox. You will accomplish more of importance when you do less of unimportant. When you stop saying, "You know, it's not about how busy I am today. It's about do I have space in my life to notice an opportunity to create value? Do I have just a moment I can actually build into someone's life instead of just go by this?" Because number three, we can all add value at the office, at work and it doesn't cost anything but it requires thoughtfulness.

Mark Sanborn: 22:33 And number four, last but not least, the fourth principle, the Fred Factor. You can reinvent yourself every day. Matter of fact, I believe we need to reinvent ourselves every day. When I was 15 years old, I read a corny quote, today at 59 I think it's profound. The quote said, the only difference between a rut and a grave is distance and depth, and you know what? Now I see people all the time, they're upright at 55, but they passed at 38. They're still mobile, but they're not only bored, they're boring everybody else to death. They stopped living a long time ago, they just didn't leave. We owe it to ourselves... Irenaeus, the Greek cleric, I love this quote, said, "The glory of God is a man or a woman fully alive." It takes courage to be fully alive today because there are those people that don't want to see fully alive people because they feel dead inside and they're unwilling to admit it, and it comes out as anger. We have to be more tolerant and accepting of people in the workplace than they are of us, and that's hard. It's really hard, and yet that's what we're called to do. 2 Corinthians 6:1 says, if man is in Christ, he is a new creation. I forget that, there's days I don't feel like a new creation and it isn't because anything changed just because I forgot, just because I didn't choose to be a new creation. I love it when people say, "You know, I'm just a sinner saved by grace," which is usually an excuse for something really heinous they just did. You know what I tell people? I am a saint who forgets and sometimes sins. Once you are saved, you're a saint, and we're not called to continue... God didn't say I'm going to save you so you can be just like you were before and nobody would notice. You are called to be different in a godly kind of way. Not In an ostentatious hey, look at me, but to be different in a godly way. You wake up in the morning, you don't look in the mirror and say, today, I'm going to change the world, because if you did, you'd alarm your spouse. That sounds really grandiose. Yeah. I want you to think about two kinds of change. Big sea change is peace in the Middle East. Poverty, homelessness, abuse, and all of the societal challenges we've got and we're going to have to work together as a church. We're going to have to work together as a community, but I want you to think about little sea changes today, how you change the lives of a hundred people you meet every day in little ways.

Mark Sanborn: 24:59 Now don't raise your hands on this, but how many of you like me, have ruined an entire day with your spouse in the first 30 seconds. You have to cycle through rem sleep. One more time just to get back up to where you were yesterday. First 30 seconds are critical and you know what? My kids, I'll tell you, I'll never write a book about being married or having kids. I. That was a commitment I made to my publisher. I so don't ask, I don't know. Number one, they don't teach us how to raise kids. By the time we know how -- too late. Number two, by and large, we are not taught how to be married. People that write books on how to be married, I wonder if they know either. But here's the deal is that nobody has time for their kids. I learned that early on. Nobody has time for their kids. You make time for your kids. When somebody says, I don't time I say, "Wrong, you choose not to make time." I have hugged my boys every day they were in my house. When they turn teenagers, they wanted to stop hugging. You notice this about teenagers? I sat them down. We had a come to Jesus meeting. I said, boys, I'm going to hug it until I can't catch 'ya. When I can't catch 'ya I'm gonna hire a guy to chase you down and bring you back. Get used to it.

Mark Sanborn: 26:06 And then you're in traffic and you don't let somebody merge. Their day's a little different. Then you get to work and you ask the most superficial question in the world, what is it? How you doing? How you doing? Everybody goes through the halls. How are you doing? How you...? You know they don't mean it, but neither do you. No, next time somebody says, hey, how are you doing? Say you're going to be dead by noon, have a good one. By the way, I know "How are you doing?" is a greeting. I know it's like a "Hello, how are you?" The tragedy isn't that we ask how are you doing? and mean it every time, the tragedy is that we never mean it. Every once in a while what would happen if you say, "Wow, been crazy, but didn't your son just start school at Arizona State? How's that going? Your daughter's still on the swim team? How's her season?" See, we're different at work when we inquire into the lives of others and we stop treating our navels as a center of the universe, we look up. I live in Denver, Colorado. It's so funny how many times my office used to be west of my home and I would drive to work every day and not notice 15,000 foot mountains, the most spectacular scenery imaginable, and I just forget to look up. And it's what God calls us to do, to look up. my son Hunter. My oldest son is a sophomore at Ohio State University and ROTC scholar. So proud of the kid. He's a gym rat. He has less body fat on his whole body than I have in this ear lobe right here. This is... But I remember walking him into kindergarten like it was yesterday. I can't remember where I had lunch yesterday, but I remember walking him into kindergarten, first day of school. I'm walking him in. He looks up. He said, Hey dad, what's the most important thing? I'm thinking that's my boy. Wants to excel in kindergarten. And we stopped for the teachable moment and I say, "Son three things," now I apologize. That's just how I think, three points, but no poem. I said, "Number one son," I said, I said, uh, I love it when somebody gets the same joke I got and nobody else did. I liked it. I said, "Number one son, I said, mind the teacher." I said, "Number two, play nicely with other children." I didn't have a number three, so I had to pull something out of my ear and I said, "And study hard." Is that even possible? Is there anything that... there's nothing to study in kindergarten but it doesn't matter because he folds his arms. He looks at me.

Mark Sanborn: 28:27 He said, "Dad, that's not the most important thing," and I know I'm being ask a rhetorical question by a five year old.

Mark Sanborn: 28:35 I said, "OK Hunt, I'll buy it. What's the most important thing?" And he looks up and he said, "Love is dad." Love is the most important thing. Why do I tell you that? You know, when I wrote my book, the Fred Factor, my editor made me take the word love out nine times, nine times I used it. He took it out. If you're ever reading the Fred Factor, when you kind of generosity of spirit, cross it out and write in love because that's the way I wrote it. I said, Roger, why can't I write about love? And he said, because love freaks out business people. It's a business book. You read a book about business and use love you'll freak people out. You know what? He was only half right. Love freaks everybody out because we think it's sensual or sexual or familial or sugary, sweet and romantic, but that's not the kind of love the office needs. The kind of love the office needs is a commitment to treat people with dignity and respect regardless of how you feel about them and how they feel about you. Christ never said like one another. You know why? Because like is an emotion. And believe it or not, emotions are responses. Love is a behavior and you learn. And that's the test. That's the test is to treat somebody well when they don't deserve it and when they aren't treating you well. And, and I want to say that what, what makes you great as a believer in the marketplace is the three loves. Number one, they, they ask, uh, Lindsay Owen Jones, the CEO of L'oreal. What is the secret of L'oreal's success? And he said, "If there is a secret for our success, that it is we love this business a little bit more than anybody else who does it. So my first question to you today, do you love what you do a little bit more than the other people who do it? People say, "Well, Mark, you don't get it, man. I need a different job." Maybe, but maybe first do your job differently. Maybe do your job like you want to live your life to the full. Number one, you got to love what you do.

Mark Sanborn: 30:20 Number two, you love who you do it with. They have a different worldview, different political leaning, a different lifestyle. Love is not approval. Love is acceptance. God started where we were. I didn't say, once you get good enough, come back. You accept people where they are and until you accept people where you already got no bridge for them ever changing. Number one, you love what you do. Number two, you love who you do it with. Number three, you love who you do it for. Often we call them customers or clients. Sometimes they're students, sometimes their patients, sometimes we call them different things, but they're the people who come to us for products and services and experiences and they voted. They chose us. They voted with their time, they voted with their money, and that makes your business irresistible. Hopefully to the point that someone will say there's something different about him or her. What might it be?

Mark Sanborn: 31:13 Excuse me, because to be successful at the office, to live life to the full, we recognize Jesus came, not just to save us, but to help us fulfill who we really are, to be difference makers who choose to be difference makers who build deeper relationships and who create value and recognize what a blessing it is to get up in the morning and have a chance to do that.

Mark Sanborn: 31:34 Join me in prayer. Excuse me, dear heavenly father. Thank you for a wonderful morning. Thank you for this gift of life and another chance to try it again regardless of what happened yesterday. Lord, if people here today are believers, I pray that we would challenge ourselves to live life to the full. Jesus called us to do that and he also said he came not to be served but to serve, and that makes it even more challenging when we realize were of greatest, most greatly alive when we serve and are of service to others. Help us build deeper relationships. Make a bigger, bolder difference, add value, and stay fresh each day as we go to work. And Lord, I know not everybody here believes the same thing. Some people are tire-kicking, some people are agnostics, atheists, they have a different worldview. Lord just reveal yourself to them. Make yourself as known to them as you want to know them, and I pray they would examine the claims of Christ and they would see the difference it can make in their lives, not just after they die, but as they live today. Lord, we ask all these things in Jesus name, Amen.



Recorded in Chandler, Arizona.