Overcoming Your Failures - Jon Erwin
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Welcome to Pray.com's Relentless Hope, a podcast that'll help you love your life, lead with purpose, and leave a legacy of helping others. Each week we give hope of voice by bringing you inspiring stories from extraordinary individuals who have pursued their dreams, triumphed over evil, and found meaning in their life.
[00:00:26] I'm your host, Steve Gatena. Let's get started with today's episode of Relentless Hope.
[00:00:38] Failure is part of life. There will be times when we fall short of our goals, when our expectations go unmet, and sometimes we fail our loved ones and ourselves. And while it may feel like we have failed God, we can never really fail Him. We may turn our backs on Him, fall to temptation and experience broken dreams and painful realizations of our humanity.
[00:01:10] Yet He still loves us through everything and He forgives us, always. God understands that to be human is to fail sometimes, and sometimes the only way to succeed is to first fail, again, and again, and again. Which is why I'm so excited for this week's episode with Jon Erwin. Jon Erwin is gonna be joining us on relentless hope.
[00:01:46] And what John Irwin is gonna teach us about is that God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He only encourages us to keep rising after we fall, to keep praying and turning to Him when we stumble to keep Jesus in our hearts and minds. When we fail to live up to who we want to be, and to confess when we have sinned. And even when we fall short of these expectations for ourselves.
[00:02:24] God still loves us. God still forgives us. This week on Relentless Hope, faith-based filmmaker, Jon Erwin, teaches us how to succeed by learning how to fail well.
[00:02:43] During part one of this three part series on John's life, we learn how his hit Christian film "I Can Only Imagine" succeeded because Jon first learned from painful failures.
[00:03:00] We learn how after Jon's film, "Woodlawn", failed to reach its goals Jon went on a four month postmortem where he solicited criticism, opinions and feedback on what he needed to change. As he explains, facing his failures and being honest with himself as a leader was painful. Yet it resulted in an incredible personal transformation that also transformed his production company.
[00:03:33] During part two on this three part series about John's leadership, we get to hear how through his failures Jon also became obsessed with learning the art of leadership. Jon shares some of his strategies for creating the right culture, including identifying his and his company's core values. He talks about how people want to be treated and how they want to treat others in the company.
[00:04:07] Jon also talks about what values him and the team look for when recruiting others. As Jon shares with us, he's committed to hiring, firing, and promoting from values first and competent second. This one shift helped John and his team make massive transformations and achieve tremendous success. During part three of this three part series, we cover Jon's legacy.
[00:04:41] We learn how Jon believes our legacies are ultimately the stories of our lives. Jon invites us to think about what we want our stories to be and how we want people to tell them for us. Jon shares how he doesn't believe in having work-life balance, but rather he obsessively prioritizes over a few things in his life.
[00:05:09] Jon also reminds us that our careers will never give us an identity, and that success is completely meaningless and worthless if it comes at the expense of relationships with our families, with ourselves, and with God. As humans, it's important for us to remember. That we will fail. It's inevitable that at some point we will come up short, but that's not the end of our story.
[00:05:44] It's just the beginning. And through Jesus, we're offered a path of redemption. We're offered the chance to know God's unconditional love, infinite forgiveness, and forever grace. If we allow it, God can transform any failure and He can teach us to use failure as a springboard to greater transformation, including the renewal of our hearts, minds, bodies, and soul.
[00:06:26] Let's get started with part one of this three part series on relentless hope.
[00:06:36] Jon Erwin: I felt like Christian film was, was very similar to that in that it was emerging, uh, it was a bit disdained, you know, and even amongst Christians, if you say Christian film, a lot of people, that's cheesy stuff. It's not good or whatever. Again, I saw that as an opportunity, um, not as a liability. Other filmmakers were like, well, I don't wanna touch that. I don't wanna get near it. But I'm like, well that's, that's something to roll up your sleeves and work on, you know? And so to me, I felt like every Christian or someone that said: Hey, Christian films are not, are, not are cheesy or not great, was just saying what they're really saying is, I want a brand that I can trust and, uh and so I, we saw it not only as a, as a purpose driven thing, but also as an opportunity to really establish something and be a part of, of fixing something and establishing it and making it sustainable for other artists. And we go forward with a, with an absolute faith that we can be a part of being the tip of the spear.
[00:07:37] And there's not many of us, there's like maybe five or 10 of us, um, that do this stuff all the time. And we call ourselves competitive allies. We talk all the time and we share information. And our hope and our dream and our vision is that there's a generation of talent coming behind us that can truly far outshine and exceed anything that we've done.
[00:08:04] Steve Gatena: In part one, Jon Erwin reflects on how he was taught from an early age to go after his dreams. Through taking chances and trusting in God, he was able to pursue his passions as a filmmaker. By realizing his calling to spread the word of God, he was able to focus on film and help change people's lives.
[00:08:32] Jon Erwin: My name is Jon Erwin. I'm a filmmaker. My, uh, brother and I make movies together, and now are a part of the company that that does, that. We made, uh, the film "I Can Only Imagine" and, uh, and the film "I Still Believe" that comes out next spring among others. Um, I did not grow up in Los Angeles, uh, or Hollywood.
[00:08:56] I, but far, far away from that as you could imagine. Uh, I grew up in, uh, Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, and, uh, deep in the south. And I think in terms of who one of my first heroes was, that would probably be my grandfather. He received the Medal of Honor in World War II. And, uh, I remember very vividly when I was five, he, um, he sort of let me hold this blue ribbon, gold... now I have no idea what it was, and sort of set over my shoulder. Freedom isn't free, and he was horribly burned in the war. And the idea of the Medal of Honor is to go above and beyond call of duty to go further than what's required of you. And that, that really stuck with me. Uh, so grandson of this sort of, you know, war hero and, uh, my dad has always been a dreamer and always, he taught Andy and I from a very early age, he said to dream bold dream big, dream the impossible. And, uh, do things that scare you, you know, in pursuit of dreams, you know, and I remember probably one of the, the greatest lessons that he taught me from, you know, the earlier part of my life is, is that we were at this water park called, um, Whitewater, uh, which is in Atlanta.
[00:10:15] We didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't do it often. And we went to this water park and there was this slide called the dragon's tail. And, uh, to a five year old, five, six year old, you know, it, it looked like it was 10,000 feet tall. It looked like it stretched into the stratosphere, and I was terrified of this thing.
[00:10:29] And we walked up the stairs and as we got to the top, it was almost like I could see the earth bending, you know? And uh, and I remember I was, I was not gonna go down that slide, and I remember my dad said, uh, there was this GI Joe I really wanted, uh, called Dusty. And he said, John, if you go down this slide, he didn't baby me, he didn't take me down, he didn't pressure me. He just said, but if you do this thing, I know it's scary, I'll, I'll go buy you this GI Joe. And we didn't have any money at the time, so this was a, this was a rare occurrence. So I stared down the barrel of the slide and just thought, I'm probably gonna die, but, uh, I really want that GI Joe and I pushed off and, and had a blast and did it, uh, 12 more times.
[00:11:08] I think that day what I learned was that, you know, if you can be passionate about something and just a little more passion, uh, passionate than, than you are afraid, you can move forward, uh, towards your goals, and I took that with me. Uh, let your passion outweigh your fear, I think was the principle. And, uh, and, and so my dad encouraged, always encouraged my dreams.
[00:11:30] And, uh, when I was 15, my, my life really changed in terms of my career. Uh, I, I was an intern for a camera, and I'm not recommending this story. I'm not saying anybody should do this. I'm saying it's what happened. Uh, I was basically, uh, interning for a, a freelance camera operator. You know, I, I grew up in the southeast in the heart of, you know, S.E.C. Football country and lots of televised games.
[00:11:58] And on a, on a, on a Saturday, um, about three, four hours before the kickoff at the University of Alabama, a cameraman got sick for an ESPN football game. And my mentor and the guy that I'd interned for called me and said, John, get over here right now. Don't tell anyone how old you are. Don't tell anybody you've never done this before.
[00:12:17] Just lie about everything and you can run camera. And I didn't know any better. So my dad drove me over and, uh, he had dropped me off like four blocks from the stadium. I didn't want anybody to know I couldn't drive. And, and I went and ran this camera and I literally had a blast. You could zoom this camera, it's like a huge telescope and you could zoom it into a quarter of the moon, you know?
[00:12:36] And, uh, I had never done anything that cool. And they, they paid me $300. I had never seen that much money, and, uh, so I was really in after that moment. And, uh, I got a phone call a couple weeks later and, and a crewing agent said, you know, are you a freelance camera operator from Birmingham, Alabama? And cuz there was another game.
[00:12:57] And, uh, I didn't know if those were like three different jobs or if they were the same, I didn't never heard those words go together. So I said, of course. Yeah, of course. That's what I do. I'm a, I'm what? Say it again. I'm a freelance camera operator. And so I just began sort of working full-time, uh, for, for ESPN as a teenager.
[00:13:12] And, uh, you know, as a person of faith, I, I, was thrust into a world where I was the only person of faith. And, and you know, very quickly coming from not knowing anyone who didn't share my faith in worldview, and, and that was sort of, where my faith really became real. And, um, my dad, uh, got me a, uh, a camera with money he did not have and helped me get a loan for $10,000.
[00:13:38] My brother quickly joined and, and, uh, that was the beginning of, of our company. And, uh, my dad, just again, he said, dream bold, dream big, dream the impossible. And, uh, we did all kinds of videos and you know, what Malcolm Gladwell would call in a great book called Outliers, the 10,000 hour rule, that you know, if you really put the time in to learn something gradually and progressively and incrementally, you know, you can, you can be become successful.
[00:14:06] And I think a lot of people, they just don't realize, um, the time that truly has to be put in, you know, from the time that my dad bought me, it's funny, he said very early on, if you give 20 years to your life to something, you can become an expert in that thing. And of course, at the time I, I didn't think that that was true.
[00:14:24] But oddly enough, from the time that he bought me that camera to the time where, uh, the movie "I Can Only Imagine" was, had, had done over 80 million dollars in box office and, and was this sort of overnight success, I guess, in quotations and had become the number one independent film of 2018 had sort of been that breakout moment.
[00:14:44] It was almost 20 years to the day.
[00:14:45] I mean, it was, it was so, uh, he was right. You know, and I think a lot of people that they just, they give up too quickly on the time it truly takes to, to, um, hone something in and, uh, truly learn a craft, you know? Uh, if you become a craftsman in something, if you become an expert, people can take your job, but they can't take your craft from you, you know?
[00:15:07] And, uh, and so it took about about 20 years uh, but we, we had this camera, we had a loan and we started making all kinds of weddings and surgeries and, you know, videos for our church and all these things. And, and my dad taught me something interesting called, called the, uh, the wow factor. He said, uh, you know, if you make, you make people say, wow, you'll, you'll never, like, good is not good enough. Make 'em say, wow. Which sort of tied to my granddad's whole, you know, go above and beyond what's required of you. Now this wasn't a great business decision at the time. We never made any money, cuz if we had $10,000 to make something, we'd spend 11, you know, whatever. But the idea was to make everything great.
[00:15:45] And, uh, one thing led to another and, and each video led to three more and they got bigger. And, uh, and then the, I still to this day don't know why he did it. But thank God he did. Uh, the, there was a Christian music artist, Michael W. Smith, and also, uh, somebody who's become a dear friend, Amy Grant. They both have, and they, they gave us sort of a break to do music videos for them.
[00:16:05] And, and, uh, that the first video we did for, for Smitty went straight to the top of the charts. And, uh, that started a career doing music videos and high-end commercials. At that point, it was really just a career. It, it was not our life's calling, it was just what I had always done. You know, what Andy and I had always done, and we, we had really no, you know, lightning kind of struck, um, I wanted to be a basketball player when I was 14.
[00:16:30] That never would've worked out for me, that was a dumb idea. And, and you know, just when I, this, this, this film thing had just happened and, and I just, all I knew was I loved it, enjoyed it, and, I, and I do believe that like your life's calling is very closely linked to your, to your life's passion. I mean, whatever really you love.
[00:16:51] I mean, I think we're, we're built to contribute based off the things that we love to do. And, uh, all I knew at the time was that I loved it. And so I basically, uh, went and directed second unit on a feature film, a Christian movie called "Courageous" that a church, it's Sony movie, uh, uh, it is a real Cinderella story. A church in Georgia was making these movies and they were, they were doing enormous box office and, and, um, they wanted to make a movie that had some car chases and some action sequences. And, uh, which we were very, I love blowing things up and chasing things with a camera, you know, um, and very well versed in that.
[00:17:32] And so, but they were making movies primarily with a lot of church volunteers, and that's just something you never wanna mix with, like, cars and, you know, stunts, people can get killed. So, so, uh, I was brought in to, to just do those sequences for them. And the director of that film, Alex, like, right off the bat, like one of the first things that, that he mentioned right when I got there was, was a very profound question and something I think everyone should ask themselves at some point.
[00:17:59] He said, Jon, what's the purpose? What's your purpose and the purpose of your work? Why do you do what you do? Like, you're very good at what you do, but why do you do it? And not only could I not answer the question, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
[00:18:12] Um, it, it lodged itself like a splinter in my mind. And, uh, that led to Andy and I, um, making an enormous transition, which was instead of, you know, we were, we, we, we were like the Han Solo, you know, at, at that time of, of Christianity. Like, if, if you have money, we've got a ship, we'll fly you somewhere and drop you off. You pay us the rest is your problem. Uh, we were a service company and we, we took the journey to be, you know, sort of an intellectual property company and to do films that we cared about and to, to steward stories. Um, you know, I, why choose to do faith-based films, I guess they're called, uh, it's sort of a, an emerging category.
[00:18:53] I remember working with Sean Aston a couple times as a great friend, and, uh, I love it. I love everything. He's been in some incredible films. Uh, and he said to, to me and Andy, so that, you know, I consider you and Andy as sort of like pioneers and frontiersmen. And I'm like, that's exactly what I wanted to do.
[00:19:10] Uh, and then I'm like, that's high praise Sean. He said, you know, Jon, most frontiersmen die on the frontier. I'm like, I've never thought about that, but that's probably true. Uh, I think that I, I was drawn to it. Um, again, off that question from Alex Kendrick, of what's your purpose and the purpose of your work?
[00:19:31] Um, I'm a, I'm a product guy. I love great products and, uh, if I believe in a product, I wanna tell y'all about it, you know? I feel that way about my faith. I, I, I think that, that this whole idea of, of Christianity and its influence on the world and on my life and on, I, it, it's truly life changing and it, it brings great fulfillment and purpose, uh, and peace to my life.
[00:19:58] And I think it's worth sharing. And I just think the world has enough filmmakers, but I'm, I, I'm convinced that the world really needs, um, you know, I guess with the Bible we call the Gospel, which is just the good news and, and uh, and that we have in our time the ability to get it further than anyone else has ever gotten it.
[00:20:16] And so I sort of wanted, I want to be a part of that. I, I want to be a part of reaching my generation with a message that I believe that can change our life. And we all have a gift and a, and a way of doing that, you know, and, and, uh, God gave me a camera, you know, and God gave us the ability to tell stories on film.
[00:20:33] So what, a film takes too long and is too hard and too risky. It's a rough, it's one of the most competitive businesses on earth. And, uh, it's, it is shark infested and it is, it is a rough business. So if I don't have a really strong reason for staying in it, I don't know if I would be able to endure. So to me, the idea of making a film that first and foremost entertains, so it's the entertainment business, is why I go to the movies I go to have an emotional experience.
[00:21:06] So first and foremost, we want to entertain you and learn to do that as best we can. Um, you know, there's no difference in the price between my film and Star Wars, you know, even though there's a massive difference in the cost of the movie. It's not like other forms of entertainment, you know, where there's a, a differentiation in price based off, you know, the success and scale of product.
[00:21:29] Uh, so we want to entertain you and I wanna make things that are emotionally relatable, no matter what you believe. But then if we can do those two things successfully, I want to tell you a story that has the potential to change your life if you'll let it. And I believe that the right story, you know, we believe as a company, the right story can really change your life.
[00:21:49] And we believe that we're storytellers serving the greatest storyteller of all time, and that the Bible is a book that's full of stories and they've endured for centuries, and they continue to change people. And I, I'm just, I am fully convinced that Christianity's a great product. I mean, if, as it's a life changing thing that I wanna share and, and I would rather be a part of that and be bold about that.
[00:22:12] The other reason I just think is I love entrepreneurism. You know, we're at a company, we're in a wonderful, uh, partnership with a movie studio called Lionsgate. And one of the reasons, the thing that solidified that deal was, uh, Jon Feltheimer, the CEO and Joe Drake, the chairman of the motion picture group.
[00:22:31] And, and they were like, what do you want? And entrepreneurism was the word that kept coming up that drives that company. And I said, I wanna, I wanna be an entrepreneur first and the filmmaker second. I wanna be seen that way. And, um, and they said, great. That's what drives our company. And the idea that, you know, similar to these two artists that launched Andy and I's career music videos, Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant, that they, they took something that was, you know, there was, there was this, there was Jesus music and there was mainstream pop, and Amy and Michael and some others sort of, sort of crossed that chasm. And now there's this category of music that I think is very good. And there's a, there's revenue streams and there's an established platform where young voices can be heard.
[00:23:11] And, and I felt like Christian film was, was very similar to that in that it was emerging, uh, it was a bit disdain, you know, and even amongst Christians, if you say Christian film, a lot of people, that's cheesy stuff. It's not good or whatever. Again, I saw that as an opportunity, um, not as a liability. Other filmmakers were like, well, I don't wanna touch that. I don't wanna get near it. But I'm like, well that's, that's something to roll up your sleeves and work on, you know? And so to me, I felt like every Christian or someone that said, hey, Christian films are not, are, not are cheesy or not great, was just saying what they're really saying is, I want a brand that I can trust.
[00:23:50] And, and, uh, and so I, we saw it not only as a, as a purpose driven thing, but also as an opportunity to really establish something and be a part of, of fixing something and establishing it and making it sustainable for other artists. And we go forward with a, with an absolute faith that we can be a part of being the tip of the spear.
[00:24:13] And there's not many of us, there's like maybe 5 or 10 of us, um, that do this stuff all the time. And we call ourselves competitive allies. We talk all the time and we share information. And our hope and our dream and our vision is that there's a generation of talent coming behind us that can truly far outshine and exceed anything that we've done.
[00:24:35] It's our job to create that opportunity for them and to be one of those early pioneers that establishes something so that other voices can be heard. That's something that I could, that I could get really passionate about. And I, I love the idea of, of blazing a trail that does not exist. And, uh, and that's a lot of fun, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm invigorated by that. So, uh, from a personal level of my faith, it worked. And also it's just a businessman, an entrepreneur. It worked. And you know, I think anytime you do something new, you know, it's just gonna cost more and take a lot more time than you think. And we had some, some great people to facilitate that for us.
[00:25:13] But we got, uh, you know what I call, you know, Mike Tyson said that every boxer has a plan until he gets punched in the face you know? So we got in the ring and, uh, a little movie called "October Baby", and we had to raise the money to do it, raise the money to release it, and um, it opened in the top 10, um, movies in America.
[00:25:29] And, uh, it, it, we weren't trying to hit a home run, but it was a great like double and it made money. And then we got to make, uh, a film called "Mom's Night Out" for Sony, for Tristar also made money. And it was a step in the right direction and just we're looking for forward progress, you know? And then I think one of the more... meaning, like one of the things that changed me the most, uh, was we did a film called "Woodlawn", uh, Jon Voight was in a football movie. We raised the money for it, again, from a lot of the same people that had been with us all, all along. And, you know, everything had sort of worked up to that point. And the movie turned out great.
[00:26:08] A plus cinema score. True story. We really found our voice, but we did not accomplish what we wanted to in the marketplace and we overspent. It was the first time that had like a real, we had a real black eye that we didn't accomplish our goals. And I think at least in faith-based film, a lot of times there's a, there's a tendency because we're trying to get a worldview that we really believe, you know, through these entertainment products to sort of back up the finish line to the results achieved, you know, and say, well, you know, we didn't accomplish our goals, but it's okay.
[00:26:43] And, I actually think to learn to succeed, at least in retrospect, I've learned that you have to learn to fail well. And, um, you have to learn a process of learning from failure to learn how to succeed. And so at the end of, I can only, and it was a rough, you know, it was a rough experience with Woodlawn.
[00:27:04] There was, there was a lot of tension. There was, we were just growing too fast. We were spending too much on the film. Um, and, and, and so we took about four months, very painful process. And we began to solicit criticism and a lot of opinions and gather a lot of data and do this very painful postmortem.
[00:27:26] And it was a lot like getting in the, the, the, the sort of the boxing ring and, and tying your hands behind your back and getting people to punch you. And you're listening for trends and you're listening and, and what I learned is that. And just to the leaders out there, if you want your organization to change nine times outta ten, you need to change, and the problems that manifest themselves and amplify themselves in your organization really start with you.
[00:27:58] And over the course of that four months, um, it led to this 170 page, um, playbook and almost Bible. We saw all these things. We saw these insights into the marketplace. We saw around the corner, you know what in, you know, entrepreneurism, you call sort of uncommon wisdom. You know, stuff that people other people don't see.
[00:28:21] And that helped. But mainly we saw a lot of things that needed to change in our culture, uh, in our way of operating, in our way of treating people. And those all pretty much started with me as a leader. It's a very scary thing that the things that, uh, that the leader struggles with amplify downstream throughout the organization.
[00:28:43] And I was working off burst inspiration. I was going too fast. There was no margin. And, and, and we changed. And it was that process. And yes, it was painful of learning from failure, of being introspective, of hoping that you're wrong because you know, you can change yourself, you know, not blaming the marketplace, whatever, and discovering this playbook.
[00:29:06] And that led to a movie called, I Can Only Imagine, first of all, because we saw a lot of insights in the marketplace. We knew what to look for and we saw a lot of value where other people didn't because we saw that theatrical movie business is really becoming a brand-driven event business. And I, I knew that I loved that song and millions of people did as well, and, and we took a bet on, on what we believed in. And everybody said no to it, but we really saw, we really believed, and, and, and it, it fit the research and it fit our passions and it, and it fit. And it's like, if, if we're gonna go down, I'm gonna go down the story, and we're, I'm so proud of the team for being resilient and be able to sort of rally back quickly and raise the money for that film to not only make it and release it. And we built a lot of margin.
[00:29:52] And so I Can Only Imagine was built to be profitable. At my previous film, at our previous film's box office, which was 15 million, uh, I Can Only Imagine, did 17 million in its opening weekend and went on to do 83 million to become the number one independent film of the year, and, and was just this enormous win, uh, that was life changing, uh, for all of us and led to, uh, a deal with Lions Gate, that that has just been a wonderful relationship and a way to produce a lot of content that we believe can, you know, we believe we can make films that are, that, that can be entertaining, that can be emotionally relatable, no matter what you believe, but films that can really change people's lives. And so that win really sort of, sort of instigated sort of a movie studio.
[00:30:34] Um, and, and if it hadn't been for that process of, of just hitting pause and taking time to self-reflect and to be honest, and to be candid, and to be willing to be very wrong. Uh, and to learn, uh, we never would've experienced the success, uh, that we're experiencing. So sometimes failure can be the absolute best thing for you.
[00:31:00] And, uh, and so that's our story thus far. And, and I would say the only other thing that really, really, uh, shaped me, sort of fundamentally, um, is that I, um, we were editing, "I Can Only Imagine", and I had, uh, agreed to produce, uh, and direct a documentary on the life of the Hollywood actor, Steve McQueen and his spiritual journey, and Mel Gibson was in it and, and interviewed. Great friend Gary Sinise did the voiceover. And I was producing it with a wonderful friend, Greg Laurie. And right in the middle of it. So it was a one night only theatrical event, we had scheduled the release for September, and this was probably around March. We had gotten the film mostly in the can, and we were working on it and still had a lot to shoot.
[00:31:39] I found out that our son, who's fine now, he's fully recovered. He had a heart condition that we didn't know about that should have killed him. He was three at the time, and he had to have, very pressing, uh, not, not the next day, but definitely within the month, uh, full on open heart surgery. And so I was sort of just immediately sidelined, but you know, the first law of entertainment is the show must go on, right?
[00:32:04] And so it's like, what to do? This movie is scheduled for a theatrical release and we're editing, I can only imagine, and everything. And it's just, you know, it was the worst time for something like this to happen. And my brother and I got together and it was his idea, but he, we recruited another filmmaker named Ben Smallbone, wonderful Smallbone family, the band for King and Country.
[00:32:24] This, a couple of brothers, Rebecca St. James's sister, very talented family. Ben's a filmmaker. And he came in and I guided him from a, from a sort of a 30,000 foot level. And I sat at the premiere of that film. It was very financially successful. Sam fully recovered, I was able to be with my family, and I watched that screen and realized that he didn't do as good a job as I could have done.
[00:32:47] He actually did better. The team that we empowered did better. And that began a transition in me to actually enjoy, you know, for a while it was all about what I could create, and my passion began to shift from the, the, the work I could create myself or with my brother, whatever, to the people that I could develop.
[00:33:08] And I learned that if you can learn the art of developing and empowering other people, you can do anything. It's like this, the, the, the secret sauce of life is teams, you know, or at least a business. And I began to really enjoy the process of empowering other people and developing emerging talent and find that it was actually more fulfilling what I could draw to somebody else and what I could facilitate with somebody else than what I could do myself.
[00:33:40] And that began the basis of, of the, of the reality that we could scale the company. And, uh, and it was, again, one of those things that was very painful at the time. Totally unexpected, incredibly, probably the scariest two weeks of my entire life. But I learned a principle that has, has changed, you know, my life and my company, and which was that we could scale and that it was very fulfilling to empower other people.
[00:34:07] And, it's a tough transition for an artist to go from doing the work to managing others and empowering others. But if you can make that transition, you can really, um, amplify what you are, you're able to do in terms of contribution, you know, exponentially. So that became the basis of, of something called Kingdom and sort of where we are today.
[00:34:31] When I had my worst failures in business, it was because I was recruiting a lot of people like me, and I realized I didn't need more people like me. I needed people that were very different than me. And lots of times people very different than you can frustrate the crap outta you. That's a good thing. You know?
[00:34:46] And, and, um, and in that conflict and difference of opinion, there can be real greatness, uh, and genius. And so the art of a team is to get people together in the right environment that compliment each other's skillset and draw out that potential. Protect the team, empower the team, serve the team. That is when you can accomplish enormous things.
[00:35:12] Steve Gatena: In part two of this three part series on Relentless Hope we cover leadership. John explains the relationship between influence and leadership. In John's mind, leadership is about pulling people towards a collective goal and recognizing potential problems before they happen to you. True leaders make their decisions based on values and they find teammates to fill in the areas where they're lacking.
[00:35:53] Jon Erwin: Leadership is, that's a tough question. Leadership is an, I mean, it's, it's an art form. It's probably the most important thing you can try to learn. You know, I think leadership is not necessarily authority. I think leadership is influence. So in, in, in that respect, I think everything, everyone can be a leader cuz everyone can have influence.
[00:36:18] And I think a lot of people say, well, I'm not, I'm, I'm not in authority, therefore I'm not a leader. I think that's the wrong way to look at the concept of leadership. I think there's people in authority that are not leaders, and I think there's people that are not in authority, that are leaders just because of the pace they set and the example they set.
[00:36:34] Ultimately, leadership is drawing out human potential towards a defined goal. Right? And that would be my definition of it. And if you can learn the art of people, and if you, if you can learn how to. I mean the- In my opinion, the high art of business and what I'm still learning is if you can assemble the right people, organize them the right way, around the right thing and fully empower them and just get outta their way. You can literally do anything, you know, and I, I had to learn. That was very hard for me to learn.
[00:37:16] I grew up, you know, Andy and I sort of were filmmakers. We did all the work ourselves started, it sort of emerged as very scrappy, you know, sort of as street fighters almost in business.
[00:37:27] And, um, and started as cameramen, and did 3D animation and then I, we, we directed together and, and did every job in the business and then learned to direct and produce. And I've learned to love to write. And it's a very interesting dynamic if you are, are capable of a lot of things. Uh, in my, in my industry, I was able to learn things very quickly and I was able to learn diverse skill sets that typically didn't go together.
[00:37:54] Uh, like fundraising, for example, and screenwriting. Those two typically don't go together, you know, uh, and, and, you know, business and art and, you know, I, I, I sort of, they couldn't figure out when I was little, if I was right-handed or left-handed. And so I, I sort of loved both sides of, I loved the business and, and the art.
[00:38:12] This served me very well for a long time. But what happens is, if you, if you have, you know, if you are able to do a lot of things your Achilles heel is, is it's very hard to let go. And it's very hard to delegate and it's very hard to empower. And, and what happens is you end up being the ceiling to your organization, whatever that is, and people can't grow and flourish and emerge underneath you because you want to do everything.
[00:38:46] And it's a, it's a very painful thing to do, to let go, but it's very effective. Ultimately, for me to learn how to lead, I really had to experience failure, and that experience had to be painful. Uh, I had to learn that I couldn't do it all. You know, I mentioned this before, but after a movie called Woodlawn, we did this four month postmortem and I realized that I was the problem in many ways.
[00:39:13] I think the best thing to understand as a leader, the best thing you can do is to examine your organization hoping that you are the problem. I think a lot of times as a leader, as a CEO as an entrepreneur or whatever. We look at our organizations frustrated. We're frustrated with our employees, we're frustrated with whatever, but actually I've found most of the problems in an organization emanate from leadership, right? And they sort of trickle down and that issues in your own life, whether it's your operating rhythm or you know, just your, your personality or, you know, your achilles heels amplify themselves down or throughout the organization. So, um, what I learned is that for my company to change, I had to change.
[00:40:04] And one of the most important things we did with, um, you know, I work in a business where we have, I don't even know how many now, um, you know, core teams that are on board all the time in between films and there's probably 40 people, you know, but when we do a film, you know, we'll hire 2... 300 people, you know, depending on what the film is.
[00:40:25] So it's very hard to maintain a consistent culture when you're hiring all these kind of roadies and freelancers, uh, for four months of work, you know, and, and so, but, but what we did is in that postmortem, we identified clearly our core values. And what we learned is that if you don't, if you have not taken the time to identify your core values and to write them down, you will violate them in the heat of battle because you don't know what they are.
[00:40:51] We identified our core values, we identified our behavioral values. So not only this is what we value as a company, this is what we value in people that thrive in our organization, and these are the characteristics we really look for. I've actually found, even in a skill business like entertainment, give me the right person and I'll teach them the craft.
[00:41:07] You know? And, and that's can almost be more effective. Um, both my sort of right and left hand, the President and CEO my company, Josh and, Jerilyn they, Josh worked for me since he was 18. Jerilyn's been with us since 12, for 12 years, worked all the way up from the bottom of the organization. It's like a pa all the way to running every, and they're, they're running all the companies.
[00:41:28] And so to me, they're just, they're the right people and, uh, they have these incredible characteristics. And, and I've found to look after that, to look first, for certain characteristics and, uh, certain values and certain things you see in people, self-motivated people, sort of, you know, uh, and, and so, you know, these A players.
[00:41:48] And so we, we, in that process of, of a post-mortem, we clearly identified our core values are behavioral values and the ways in which we want to treat people. Um, and the way in which we, we wanna be treated and we solidified those things. And we made a commitment that we're gonna hire, fire, promote first off values and second off competence.
[00:42:15] You know, entertainment, there is a big feeling that if someone is really good at what they do, they can be a toxic individual. And, uh, obviously that, that a lot of, a lot of that is, is coming out into the open and it's no longer okay. You know, the, the, the Me Too movement is, is an example of this and, and I'm so glad it's happening in entertainment. Um, which just tends to be a business built on the back of like exploitation and lies, you know, and, uh, and just clear mistreatment of people defined class system. It's just, it's, there's a lot of things that need to change. So we made the commitment that we're gonna hire fire, you know, promote and all these things first based off of values and second based off competence, right?
[00:42:59] So when we did that, we made this commitment that I don't, if you're, I don't care if you're the Michael Jordan of your position, if you're a toxic individual, you're gone. And we're gonna win as a team. And we did this very simple thing. We took one day, we paid the crew, whether we're doing a film or whatever.
[00:43:14] We took one day and we just oriented everybody. Like if people aren't behaving according to your values, Maybe you haven't identified them, maybe you haven't taken the time to teach them. You know, so you can't blame people for not doing something you haven't, you haven't explained. And so we took one day before the film, uh, starting with, I Can Only Imagine, and one day before the marketing campaign, uh, ramped up.
[00:43:36] And same thing With, I Still Believe, and we just oriented everyone, this, these are our values. This is who we're aspiring to be, this is how we wanna treat each other. And we also leveled the playing field. Like, like one of the things that we say of how we like to treat each other is private criticism, public praise.
[00:43:52] So in the film industry, it's like, you know, like a director like Michael Bay is famous for yelling at people in front of everybody else. I think that, I think that tenses everyone up. I think it harms the product. I think it doesn't do any good at all. Uh, and I think the better way is if you have something against somebody, take 'em off the set and talk to 'em, but respect that person and do it out.
[00:44:12] Don't do it in front of everybody and uh, in front of everybody. Let's have our back, let's have each other's back, right? So, private criticism, public praise, which goes completely opposite of, of a lot of the entertainment industry. We made that decision, uh, as a group that we're gonna do this. And then whenever we orient people to our core values, we say, look, this is who we as, these, these are aspirational and we're flawed people and this is a very stressful job. So if you see us, I don't care if you're a PA, if you see me not being the person that I aspire to be, I want you to take me off the set and confront me. I don't care who you are and vice versa. And it just created, and, and what's so interesting is so many people told us, you can't con, you can't create a consistent culture because you're hiring so many freelancers.
[00:44:57] But it actually worked. And I've had to, I mean, I've had to let go of one person on my last film cause they just would not comply. And they were damaging the culture. And but beyond that, I mean people just, if you communicate and you set a clear example, uh, people respond. And so to me, clearly identifying the culture that we wanted to create is probably the most important thing.
[00:45:22] And you sort of hear this sort of buzzword about like culture trump's all, or culture over strategy or whatever. It's true, really the culture, the best thing you can do as leaders, create the right culture. And get the right people into that culture and protect it and really protect the culture. And to me that, that, that's a huge part of leadership.
[00:45:41] And the other thing I think with, that I learned with with leadership is just how fulfilling it is to develop people, right? And to empower them. Um, I think the way you make people trustworthy, oddly enough, is you trust them. Peop most people rise to that occasion. And I love what, uh, a great friend and, uh, mentor Craig Rochelle says, he says, you know, you can have control or you can have growth, but you can't have both.
[00:46:09] And to really grow an organization, you know, you gotta really, you gotta really let go. You gotta ask yourself, what are the things that only I can do? And you gotta radically delegate everything else, especially when you're in a sort of a, what we're in right now is, is, is a period of rapid growth. And that's scary.
[00:46:27] But it's so cool to see people emerge and to see people just come alive because you're like, you know what? I trust you with this and you can do it. And I'm here to help and to fully empower people and to work ahead of them where they have everything that they need to, to deliver. And just the, again, I, I had to learn it just by force of, uh, it was, it was a necessity because I was, I think as I mentioned, I was directing, I was directing a documentary and it was scheduled for a theatrical release.
[00:46:59] And, um, my three-year-old at the time, he's, he's, he's, he's, well, he's fully recovered. He's five now. Had to have open heart surgery. Totally unexpectedly a, a heart defect that should have killed him. And I was right in the middle of this project and I had to recruit, Andy and I recruited another filmmaker, and I had to empower and trust him.
[00:47:18] And I found that that was so, it was more fulfilling, uh, empowering someone else and guiding them and helping them and encouraging them was more important and more fulfilling than doing the job myself. And I realized that that's how we were gonna scale, you know? Um, because if we really want to impact a generation with what we, the things that we believe are true, no, no one filmmaker can physically create enough product to do that.
[00:47:43] And so I learned that it was actually more fulfilling to empower someone else. And so again, leadership is just the art of drawing out potential of other people. Sometimes potential they don't see in themselves. And that's the great, that's the great and fulfilling thing about leadership. It's not about the big speeches. It's not about, you know, how smart you are. It's just about how good you can become at pulling. It's not how great you can become. It's how good you can become at pulling out the greatness of other people and creating an environment where a team can become exponential. So I love this illustration of, of draft horses, which I guess are like yesterday's pickup truck and one draft horse can pull like 8,000 pounds.
[00:48:33] If you hook two of them together though, you'd think, well, they can pull 16,000 pounds, right? No two can actually pull 24,000 pounds. There's an exponential effect, uh, to teamwork, right? If the train together, they can pull over 30,000 pounds. And that's, I think the art of teams in my business is you put great creatives together in the right environment and it's like watching magic.
[00:48:55] It's exponential.
[00:48:57] I think what you have to learn, one of the things that I learned, and this was so liberating for me, is, unless what you do is, unless you're the only person, like you're a one, a one person sort of shop or something like that, um, you need to work on your weaknesses. But I think in your personal life, in your marriage, you know, you need to identify your weaknesses and work on them.
[00:49:19] One of the great discoveries I made about business and about leadership is you really don't need to work on your weaknesses. If you work in a team, the key, there's two, it's self-awareness and trust. You need to know what you're good at. You know what you're bad at. And the art of teams is to recruit people around you that are great at those things in which you just suck.
[00:49:45] You know, and you know what they are. And you recruit your way out of your weaknesses and you trust people. That is when it gets really fun because you get to come to work every day doing those things that you are great at. That make you come alive. And if you can spend 80% of your time in your core competency, which is like sort of where, you know, it's that sort of hedgehog concept that, uh, uh, that's in good to great the Jim Collins thing of, you know, what are you passionate about?
[00:50:12] What can you really be excellent at or be the best in the world at? And what can drive your economic engine or the, or contribute to the economic engine of your company. So you're, you're trying to find the trifecta and he calls it the hedgehog of, of, of passion, competence and, and value really. And, and if you can find that thing and you can come to work and do that thing 80% of the time or more, and that person beside you is also doing their thing 80% of the time or more and it's different from yours, that becomes, that's when a team becomes a force of nature, like an exponential force.
[00:50:48] And that's the art of it. It's to recruit. I think a lot of times leaders, when I had my worst failures in business, it was because I was recruiting a lot of people like me. And I realized I didn't need more people like me. I needed people that were very different than me. And lots of times people very different than you can frustrate the crap outta you.
[00:51:05] That's a good thing. You know? And, and, um, and in that conflict and difference of opinion, there can be real greatness, uh, and genius. And so the art of a team is to get people together in the right environment that compliment each other's skillset and draw out that potential. Protect the team, empower the team, serve the team.
[00:51:25] That is when you can accomplish enormous things, uh, because you're working as an exponential group and there's this exponential effect, uh, to teamwork. And so I think to me, I went on this transition of valuing what I could create to valuing who I got to develop and what we could all create together.
[00:51:47] And that transition was very tough. And a lot of people can't make that jump. But if you can, you can really, um, have a legacy and you can really, um, replicate yourself and you can do much, much more, um, uh, together. So the founding question of the, of our company, Kingdom, is simply, what can we do together that none of us can do alone?
[00:52:09] You know, and it's so cool to see, I just came out of a, of a room where there's a director and a writer. It's, it's modeled after our, our sort of franchise playbook, I guess, as it were, is, is a wonderful book called Creativity Inc. Uh, by Ed Catmull the president of Pixar, married with another great book, uh, to Pixar and Beyond, which is written by the CFO of Pixar.
[00:52:29] Gives you sort of a complete playbook and blueprint of that company. And they have this idea of the brain trust, which we've adopted. So you have a director and, and a writer who are typically doing what they're doing in isolation and even today. They had gotten to a benchmark on their project where we're trying to push it forward, and we took a day to get them in the room with all the other directors and producers and writers, and just began to work the story forward.
[00:52:52] And they feel so much support that they would typically not have. It's amazing to see sort of what can come from a group environment. So I think leadership is one of those things that you don't learn all at once. It's not what you think at all. There's a lot of the ideas of, of, of sort of the leadership sort of, uh, culture I guess, or the, you know, the sort of the leadership conferences.
[00:53:13] And I find a lot of that, not what leadership is at all, but, but, uh, I think the biggest thing that I've done is just either physically or virtually like podcasts and books and, uh, targeted great leaders that I admire and learning as much as I can from them. And I've found that incredibly, um, successful people are available.
[00:53:35] And are are and want to give back and want to teach. And, uh, and I, and I've learned a great deal from them. And I think the more I learn about leadership, the more we're able to accomplish. And, uh, and it's a transition, but it's an incredibly fulfilling one. I think for me, leadership as a sort of a life obsession, uh, emerged very gradually.
[00:53:54] Um, and I think I'm just, I'm an extremely goal-oriented person, and I just began to realize that there was a limit to what I could achieve and, uh, in isolation. And I began to really, again, through just a series of events that some of which I, I planned and some which I didn't, uh, you know, I, I began to see the value in a well-built team.
[00:54:18] And empowering a well built team and how much a team could accomplish as opposed to an individual. I think individuals can inspire, but teams change the world, you know, and great teams, uh, change the world. So I began to really become, as I, you know, I went through a season of just, again, what I could create and the art and movies and music, whatever that I could create.
[00:54:41] And then really just in the last, I would say five years, um, I really became obsessed with just the principles of leadership and how to draw potential out out of other people, mainly because, you know, I, you know, I, we experienced a lot of failure, you know, and some, some tough things. And I realized I could be very wrong and that I wasn't, I wasn't right all the time and, and, you know, I would burn out if I were too hard and, and, uh, and you know, there was just, there was a limit to, to, there's a cap and a ceiling to what I could achieve.
[00:55:12] And we're driven by the goal of really, um, reaching a generation with truth. And, uh, that is so much bigger than anything we could contribute. So the only way we could make any substantive difference towards that goal is to inspire and empower teams. But sometimes in our business, a singular hit, like I Can Only Imagine, can create a company like Kingdom.
[00:55:35] Uh, and, you know, or a, a singular hit, like Toy Story can create Pixar or whatever. And so we began to think maybe one, you know, if we could achieve success, maybe we very quickly scale and, uh, and sort of create opportunities for other people. So I just very gradually, um, fell in love with, um, the theories and art and sort of, uh, culture of, of leadership.
[00:56:00] And, uh, I've learned that, that, that leadership is the great sort of, um, thing to study, uh, in life. And again, it's, I, and you know, I think it start, my grandfather of course, is a Medal of Honor recipient. My dad's a dreamer and they're, and they're both leaders in their own way. And, and, uh, I think that that inspired me.
[00:56:18] But I just, I just, over the course of time began to admire great leaders and realize that leadership is, is its own art and, uh, and it, it's its own life, uh, study and it's its own craft. And, um, and I just began to love it over time. It was very gradual for me and very connected to the fact that the things that I really wanted to be involved in accomplishing were just much bigger than anything I, I could contribute individually.
[00:56:47] And, uh, and then for whatever reason, once you get a whiff of it, once you get a vision beyond yourself, And once you taste inspiring and equipping and empowering someone else and seeing that person go further than you could have gone, it is so much more filling than accomplishing something yourself.
[00:57:09] And I realize that, you know, directing a film, for instance, is a very unique set of pressures. And until you sat in that chair, you don't get it. You know? But the fact that Andy and I had directed meant that we could have a unique relationship that was very empathetic, uh, with other directors, and we could really help get them sort of be equipped to, to not do a lot of the stuff we had to do, like raise money and, uh, you know, and so that became sort of the, the, the, um, the goal was who could we empower and who could we equip?
[00:57:45] And, uh, it just led to a study of, of, you know, I think one of, if I, you know, I think learning is a, it's a muscle that, and if you can get in the, in the sort of the, the rhythm of constant learning, uh, you know, it, it becomes its own. It, it sort of becomes a rhythm and a, and a, and a habit. And, uh, and so to me, I just, I, I, I read constantly and, uh, one of the, one of the main, uh, areas of, of, of interest in studies leadership, both in like biographies and uh, also just, uh, you know, leadership books and especially anything that involves research and data and uh, and, and just, you know, you're just constantly learning and picking up.
[00:58:30] And then the other thing that the best thing to do is just to try to, to try to get around people that you want to be like, think about who you want to become and who that person is and do whatever you can to get in their life. And I've just been incredibly, um, lucky to be able to have and, you know, mentors that, and people that I've been able to learn from, uh, that have been so generous with their time.
[00:58:55] And, and you just pick up all these gold nuggets from people that, that are really, um, so far ahead of where, but they're, they're, they're, they're who you wanna become. So, you know, if you, you, if you can get around who you wanna become, you, you become like them. And, uh, in terms of my faith, I think, you know, I think, um, the greatest leadership lessons of all time are in the Bible.
[00:59:15] I think Jesus' definition of leadership, especially when you think about the culture that he was in, completely upended everything. The idea of servant leadership, the idea of the, of, of, you know, the last being first and the first being last and to lead, you gotta serve and, and, and, and to, to lead by example.
[00:59:31] And I mean all these things to lead through love and greater love as no man in the one to lay this life down for his friend and all these things. Completely new model of leadership, especially in that day. And so to me, just modeling God's principles as a leader, as a businessman, not only are they right, they work.
[00:59:48] And, uh, and, and, and the more I, I aspire and try to, to do that to the best of my ability, uh, the more we achieve, and I think my faith is, is essential to the vision of the company, to how we lead, to how we treat people. And, and the principles really. I mean, they really do work just in business in general, you know, um, the golden rule works.
[01:00:10] Generosity in deals actually is a way it, it's self-serving. It works, you know. And, uh, if you read a book like Ray Dalio's book Principles, which is amazing, one of his principles is to not obsess over the slice of the pie and how big your slice is. Just try to make a gigantic pie and actually be generous, you know, and, and, uh, and generosity works in business.
[01:00:29] And, and so I, I've just found biblical principles are enormously effective in the cutthroat, hyper-competitive industry of entertainment. You know, and they work and, and, uh, and they work better than, than sort of standard business practices.
[01:00:50] The thing that I love about Christianity and the reason that I'm so sold on, on it and on telling stories that promoted is that it's one big redemption story. And it's the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, uh, God can change the situation. God can redeem it, and it can be healed and it can be transformed and you can be sort of, sort of made new is the idea of something, you know, the, the cliche is born again, you know, is sort of something that's been overused, but that the idea of it, if you think about it, of literally no matter who you are, what you've done, what guilt and shame that you carry, you can literally be completely sort of, washed of it and you can start over.
[01:01:47] And many of the things even that that you've caused, that the pain that's been inflicted on you or the pain that you've inflicted on others can actually be turned around and can be a good thing and can be a way that you can be a voice to the lives of the people.
[01:02:03] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, we cover legacy. John tells us how his grandfather influenced everyone around him. Legacy is about building something that has a sustained impact. It doesn't matter what you accomplish, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of your family. Life is not about being balanced.
[01:02:29] It's about being completely obsessed on the right things.
[01:02:39] Jon Erwin: So legacy, I would say is not something I think about often, you know, I'm, I'm writing the sort of the, the, I've got young kids and we are, we're in sort of the, the peak of chaos, you know, in our, in our, in our business because it's scaling quickly and, and, uh, after the movie, uh, I Can Only Imagine. And so, you know, it's funny, legacy is not something that you'd like every day you really think about, you know, uh, when I think about legacy, I, I do think about my grandfather. He, again, he, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor World War II, um, which is our nation's highest award. He was severely burned. He actually grabbed a bomb on board a B 29 Super Fortress.
[01:03:19] And, and, uh, the plane was going down. It was a phosphorousbomb and exploded. He carried it all the way to the front of the plane. Should, should have killed him, shouldn't been able to do it. And he, he saved the lives of his crew. He threw out the window and they pulled up at 300 feet. That led to the fastest presentation of the Medal of Honor actually in our, uh, nation's history.
[01:03:36] And I remember, um, when I was, oh gosh, very young, five or six years old, He got this medal out, his arm was fused in place, he was horribly burned, kinda like phantom of the operate on his, on the right side of his face. And he let me hold this blue ribbon and uh, connected to this gold medal and uh, kind of set over my shoulder.
[01:03:58] Freedom isn't free.
[01:03:59] And I didn't understand what he was talking about at the time. And as a teenager we had a really good relationship, but I didn't really care near as much as I should have about his war stories. He had a photographic memory and it was actually at his funeral. I was 19 years old. And, uh, he basically, I remember vividly it was like sleeting rain and he was being buried.
[01:04:24] He wanted to be buried in Birmingham where he was from, and there were like generals and all these people, and it was sleeting rain with this bomber, you know, from the 20th Air Force dropped outta the sky and tipped its wings and. There was these two guys playing taps, um, echoing each other, you know, beautiful a couple hundred feet away, but no reindeers stood like bronze statues for like two hours.
[01:04:47] And, um, in the, you know, as did the guys doing the 21 gun salute. And I remember going up to one of these guys and just, and saying, I can't, I'm so sorry. Thank you for what you've done for our family, you know, and sorry he had to sit here in the sleeting rain. And they quickly, this guy quickly stopped me and said, this is my honor.
[01:05:03] You know, your grandfather's one of our nation's heroes. And there was instant, this rush of instant curiosity and guilt. What did I miss? You know, who was my granddad? And come to find out he's got these buildings named after him and all over the world. And, and I remember sitting with the only living eyewitness to the events, the only crew member alive that actually saw what happened.
[01:05:24] And he said, you know, I never properly got the chance to thank your granddad. You know, he didn't save 11 people. He saved generations of people and that legacy embodied in the Medal of Honor as I, as I studied it, and really learned who he was living with the, the ever-present guilt that I had this time where if I had just valued his stories, uh, I could have learned it directly from the source and I didn't.
[01:05:49] But this idea that the Medal of Honor represents going above and beyond, you know, doing more than is required of you, which is a biblical concept, uh, that legacy really sunk deeply into my soul and is something we've tried to embody in, uh, our industry, which is the entertainment industry. So when I think of legacy, it really is about your story, you know, and we all have a story.
[01:06:17] And how do you want your story to be told and how do you want your story to be remembered? And what do you want the purpose and point of your story to be? Again, it's not something I think a lot about, but, for me in terms of what I would love my legacy to be.
[01:06:38] When we designed the blueprint for Kingdom, it was called Kingdom Story Company, and uh, we really thought, can we leverage this moment to do something bigger than us? And can we empower other artists? And one of the words that we wrote down, uh, when we founded it, there's four of us that founded it was the word irrelevance. And that's sort of the legacy I'm chasing in the sense that I would love to be a part of building something that can have sustained impact culturally, that can tell stories that again, are sort of, the trifecta for us is stories that are entertaining, wildly entertaining, that are emotionally relatable no matter what you believe.
[01:07:15] But it really showcase the transformational power of Christianity and the truth of it and the, and, and the wonder of it, you know, and draw people to it, you know, emotionally. And the idea of creating something, using our window of success, what are our 15 minutes? Whatever it is you know. It's a deep question and a scary one to think how, how will my kids remember me, you know what I mean?
[01:07:39] About how I remember my granddad. I have four kids, uh, 10 to 2, and uh, and I have a rockstar, uh, wife, uh, uh, named Beth, who's very patient. I'm an obsessive creative delinquent, you know, I did, I did learn. I remember I read, I first time Andy and I won, you know, music video of the year and something that we were chasing at the time.
[01:08:07] It was on live television and I totally froze. It was pretty funny. I forgot to thank my wife or God or the label or anything. I just sort of froze with blinking lights. But I remember I had chased that and I was at the time sort of chasing it for the wrong reasons, like I was trying to abuse my career to get what a career can never give you, which is an identity, you know? And I remember standing on that stage thinking like, is this all this feels like, like is attaining this thing that I was chasing so hard? I thought it would be different. I thought I would get some rush of, you know, vindication or, or validation as a person.
[01:08:48] And, and what I realized is just to adopt the idea that I, I'm not my work, and you have to have a life outside of it all. And if you're not, um, loving your wife and loving your family, uh, it doesn't matter what you accomplish. So ultimately I just want my kids to know I love 'em and believe in 'em, you know? My dad, he never told me what to dream, but he always believed and did his best to this day, uh, to empower the dreams that I had.
[01:09:19] And that was very special to me. And, and so to me, for my kids just to know that I love 'em and believe in 'em, and hopefully to model the idea that you, if you really just don't give up, you can accomplish anything in life no matter where you're from, you know? And, and, uh, Andy and I are these uneducated kids, you know, barely graduate high school, you know, from Birmingham, Alabama, which is the farthest place you could ever get from Los Angeles.
[01:09:49] And, and, and yet we, we've, we've had a, you know, a success in the entertainment industry. And, and I think because we just didn't give up and we kept learning and kept growing. You know, there's people that grow old and there's people that get old, you know, and there's this, there's some people that I know that they just never lose the wonder of life and of learning and of curiosity, perpetual curiosity.
[01:10:13] And, and I would love to be one of those people that just doesn't grow old and never live, never loses the sense of wonder and maybe is always focused more on and, and obsessed with and intrigued by and celebrates what I don't know, not what I do. And that process of perpetual learning and, and just, um, I just think maintaining a sense of awe and wonder is one of life's great, which is sort of growing up without getting old, you know?
[01:10:41] Uh, I, I would love to, to see that. And, and then I would love to, I, I would love my kids to, to to know God and uh, and to know how loved they are, you know, by God and by us. Um, I, I'll say this, you know, it's not, it's, it's a, it's a struggle, especially when you're in a hyper-competitive industry and you have a moment of success and all of a sudden, The success that you experience ends up pulling you away from your family and from, and, and, and how do you build a life around that?
[01:11:15] And, and again, my wife's been very generous and, and we are like nomads. Like when I go film a movie, we'll move, we'll move the whole family for four or five months. Just did in Mobile, did it in Oklahoma City. And it's very difficult. But we just wanna stay together and she'll come with me all the time.
[01:11:30] And it's tough, you know, I don't believe in work-life balance. I, I think it life is about being obsessed with just a few things and the right things. I don't believe in like having a balanced life. Uh, I just don't think it, I, I like what Paul says, you know, in the Bible, in Philippians 3, he says, you know, this one thing I do, you know, forgetting what's behind and reaching towards what's ahead.
[01:11:55] You know, he didn't have a to-do list. He, he's had this one big obsession. And I actually think success comes from sort of obsessive focus on just a few things. I think the key is to be obsessively focused on the right things and only a few, and try to jettison as much as you can from your life to focus on what really matters and to, to relentlessly prioritize what matters.
[01:12:16] I wish I was better at it, and I'm grappling with at the moment that big ideas come at a cost. You know, it's tough to, to weigh that cost and to prioritize it and, uh, to figure out how to build a life around your vision and your mission and uh, and how to take time. But I've also learned that accomplishments at the expense of your family and yourself are worthless and meaningless.
[01:12:44] And I live in a business. It's very interesting that I get to, I, I, I've gotten to learn from a lot of wonderful people in the business, a lot of very successful people in this business. And so many of them are so deeply miserable, and so many of them are alone. And so many of them have had lives and marriages and families that have fallen apart multiple times.
[01:13:02] And I've gotten to see firsthand the people at the top of our industry, a and sort of the sadness they carry around with them, even though they've achieved so much and mastered their craft. And I've learned that that's not worth it. And so I think it's important to, to harness windows of opportunity. I think it's, it's important to, what we say is we outlearn and outwork everyone.
[01:13:25] Uh, I think the biggest thing that, that can, you can carry with you is, is a work ethic. Uh, that and, and a cadence and an operating rhythm that's just, you know, superior to, to other people. But if that comes at, at the expense of your family, uh, if that comes at the expense of yourself, if that comes at the expense of, of, of a deeper relationship with God and other people.
[01:13:49] It is not worth it. And, and I can say that just because I've seen people who've, who have achieved so much and they have everything that they could ever want, but nothing of what they really need because the pursuit of it has cost them those things. And, uh, I hope to, to avoid that trap. The thing that I love about Christianity and the reason that I'm so sold on, on it and on telling stories that promoted is that it's one big redemption story.
[01:14:24] And it's the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, uh, God can change the situation. God can redeem it, and it can be healed and it can be transformed and you can be sort of, sort of made new is the idea of something we, you know, the, the cliche is, you know, born again, you know, is sort of something that's been overused.
[01:14:50] But that the idea of it, if you think about it, of literally no matter who you are, what you've done, what guilt and shame that you carry, you can literally be completely sort of washed of it and you can start over. And many of the things even that you've caused, that the pain that's been inflicted on you or the pain that you've inflicted on others can actually be turned around and can be a good thing and can be a way that you can be a voice in the lives of the people.
[01:15:17] Um, that is amazing, uh, to think about. I think I can only say that as a relentlessly driven, goal oriented entrepreneur. You know, it's sort of like that final episode of Breaking Bad. You know, when he says to his wife, you know, I, the reason I did these things, and she says, if you say one more time that you did this for me, and he said, no, I did it, I did it for me. I did it because I enjoyed it. I did it because I was good at it. At the end of the day, I think a lot of the trap that at least people with my personality, and I think men in general, uh, we drift towards competence and it's sort of like, I'm, I, I so suck as a dad or as a husband or what, I don't want to confront that.
[01:15:58] I don't wanna think about it. And so I'm just gonna double down on where I think that I'm valuable and what I'm able to do and where I'm good and where I can sort of self actualize, I guess, is the psychology of it. And I think that that's a trap. It's like a, it's like a, a treadmill of exhaustion and to, to avoid those things in which, you know, you need to change or if cause pain.
[01:16:21] I learned actually through a guy that, a mentor, my early, one of our earliest clients, a ministry guy, a mentor who's sort of had a sort of a moral blowout. His marriage fell apart and I was in the first year of my marriage and sort of went to him and said, you know, dude, if it, if you, if like I'm like, if I'm screwed, like if, if you go down, I mean have, you know, then I'm, what happened?
[01:16:45] And he was very, uh, gracious to sort of, um, and, and, and he's since, is in the business of, of, of sort of restoring marriages, of sort of being a catcher in the rye for me. And it was, it happened early and just knowing that you can live a life without secrets period. You know, it's like night, this night night.
[01:17:06] You tell everybody everything, but you've told ev- you've told someone everything. And that I think the lie you have to break that is a trap is, well, if you knew this about me, there's no way in the world you could love me. That's not true. And uh, that's not true in my marriage. That's not true in my friendships.
[01:17:28] And I've actually found that that's an absolute lie that keeps so many of us in the trap of thinking we're only valuable for what we can do. We're only valuable for what we're good at. And you actually can learn that first of all, God's love is unconditional and forgiveness is infinite, and there's literally nothing you can do.
[01:17:49] It's like my relationship with my kids. There's nothing that they could do to make me love them less. I get frustrated with them. I have to discipline them, but I'm not gonna love them less. And that's the way it is with God. And I've actually found that's the way it's with other people. And we keep ourselves in, in, in a cage of our own making that if someone really knew all the details of our lives, that they, there's no way the world they could love us.
[01:18:09] And if you can break that lie, it's a very freeing thing. And uh, I was lucky that that happened very early with me through a mentor who became like a catcher in the rye in my own life. And, uh, I think ultimately you have to face it again, my, my greatest growth as an individual, as a businessman, as an entrepreneur are when I've taken the time to stop and just what I heard, Mel Gibson call hug the cactus.
[01:18:40] You gotta basically face it, you know, you gotta, you've gotta turn, you gotta stop running from it and, and face what you're afraid of in yourself or in your company and deal with it and get to the other side of it. And, uh, that can be horrifying. It can be scary, it can be, but you know, you can think you're wasting your time or whatever.
[01:19:01] But I've found that those, those are actually both in business and in life, the things that doing it actually changed my life for the better permanently. And, uh, and again, I just think it's, it's allowing yourself, allowing yourself to be okay with failure and with, you know, your own flaws. Thank God Christianity is a message of grace, you know, and the, and you know, something for flawed people.
[01:19:26] And the Bible is full of flawed, deeply flawed people. But that belief that acted on that belief and uh, and you know, we can all do that. And, uh, I just think that that breaking the lie of, I'm only valuable for what I can deliver and what I can do and if you really knew this about me, whatever that is, you wouldn't love me.
[01:19:48] Breaking those lies is I think, the key to freedom and I'm very grateful to have had people walk me through that journey.
[01:19:58] Steve Gatena: Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Relentless Hope with Jon Erwin. As we learn today, no one wants to fail, yet sometimes we do. Sometimes we fail because of something we've done or not done. Sometimes it's what we say or don't say. Other times, we have no control over why we failed.
[01:20:26] Broken dreams, unmet expectations and disappointments are all simply part of life.
[01:20:35] And through it all, God is there. He holds us up, steadies us whenever we waiver, comforts us, whenever we weep, and He invites us to embrace a different perspective on failure. Instead of seeing failure as negative, we can choose to see failures as opportunities. Opportunities to learn to reprioritize where we invest our time and energy to change how we treat other people, and to grow closer to God and strengthen our faith.
[01:21:12] And often it's through learning from our failures that amazing internal and external transformation happens eventually leading us to incredible success.
[01:21:25] This week on Relentless Hope, faith-based filmmaker, Jon Erwin taught us about how to fail well and how to learn from failure so that we can succeed. We got to hear about how Jon's hit film "I Can Only Imagine" was born out of numerous painful failures and he opened up about the painful four month process of facing his failures and the deep introspection that Jon undertook. We got to hear about how his process ultimately led him to realize that he needed to change his company if he wanted to win.
[01:22:09] John taught us that as leaders, we often feel frustrated by our employees, but most problems actually flow from us. We learned how leadership is the art of pulling out the greatness of other people, greatness they might not even see in themselves. And it's about creating an environment where a team becomes exponential together.
[01:22:39] As leaders. Jon explained that it's our responsibility to create the right culture, to get the right people into that culture and then protect that culture. We also got to learn how John believes that leaving a legacy is all about our stories. And he shared how he hopes to leave a legacy through his entertainment and content company, Kingdom Story Company, which he co-founded.
[01:23:09] As Jon explained, he's super passionate about telling faith-based inspirational stories that are wildly entertaining, stories that are emotionally relatable, no matter what you believe, and stories that showcase the transformational power of Christianity.
[01:23:31] As Jon shared, Christianity is one big redemption story.
[01:23:36] It's the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter what guilt or shame you might carry, God can change the situation. God can redeem it, God can heal it, God can transform it, and we can be made anew. As human beings, we fail sometimes. Facing our failures might be painful. But we can handle it and we don't have to face it alone.
[01:24:06] God is with us. He believes in us. He has faith in us, and he loves us unconditionally.
[01:24:15] We have no need to fear failure with God by our side. God helps us to keep rising every time we fall. And by holding tightly to the knowledge that his love for us is unconditional, we might find that failure becomes the absolute best thing for us.
[01:24:39] So as you go out into the world, don't be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again.
[01:24:48] My name's Steve Gatena. I'm the host of Relentless Hope. Thank you for listening to this week's podcast. And remember any time you share an inspirational podcast like Relentless Hope with someone you love, you give hope a voice.
[01:25:11] Thank you for listening to Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast. I'm your host Steve Gatena, and I'm here to help you love your life, lead with purpose, and leave a legacy of helping others.
Overcoming Your Failures - Jon Erwin
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Welcome to Pray.com's Relentless Hope, a podcast that'll help you love your life, lead with purpose, and leave a legacy of helping others. Each week we give hope of voice by bringing you inspiring stories from extraordinary individuals who have pursued their dreams, triumphed over evil, and found meaning in their life.
[00:00:26] I'm your host, Steve Gatena. Let's get started with today's episode of Relentless Hope.
[00:00:38] Failure is part of life. There will be times when we fall short of our goals, when our expectations go unmet, and sometimes we fail our loved ones and ourselves. And while it may feel like we have failed God, we can never really fail Him. We may turn our backs on Him, fall to temptation and experience broken dreams and painful realizations of our humanity.
[00:01:10] Yet He still loves us through everything and He forgives us, always. God understands that to be human is to fail sometimes, and sometimes the only way to succeed is to first fail, again, and again, and again. Which is why I'm so excited for this week's episode with Jon Erwin. Jon Erwin is gonna be joining us on relentless hope.
[00:01:46] And what John Irwin is gonna teach us about is that God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He only encourages us to keep rising after we fall, to keep praying and turning to Him when we stumble to keep Jesus in our hearts and minds. When we fail to live up to who we want to be, and to confess when we have sinned. And even when we fall short of these expectations for ourselves.
[00:02:24] God still loves us. God still forgives us. This week on Relentless Hope, faith-based filmmaker, Jon Erwin, teaches us how to succeed by learning how to fail well.
[00:02:43] During part one of this three part series on John's life, we learn how his hit Christian film "I Can Only Imagine" succeeded because Jon first learned from painful failures.
[00:03:00] We learn how after Jon's film, "Woodlawn", failed to reach its goals Jon went on a four month postmortem where he solicited criticism, opinions and feedback on what he needed to change. As he explains, facing his failures and being honest with himself as a leader was painful. Yet it resulted in an incredible personal transformation that also transformed his production company.
[00:03:33] During part two on this three part series about John's leadership, we get to hear how through his failures Jon also became obsessed with learning the art of leadership. Jon shares some of his strategies for creating the right culture, including identifying his and his company's core values. He talks about how people want to be treated and how they want to treat others in the company.
[00:04:07] Jon also talks about what values him and the team look for when recruiting others. As Jon shares with us, he's committed to hiring, firing, and promoting from values first and competent second. This one shift helped John and his team make massive transformations and achieve tremendous success. During part three of this three part series, we cover Jon's legacy.
[00:04:41] We learn how Jon believes our legacies are ultimately the stories of our lives. Jon invites us to think about what we want our stories to be and how we want people to tell them for us. Jon shares how he doesn't believe in having work-life balance, but rather he obsessively prioritizes over a few things in his life.
[00:05:09] Jon also reminds us that our careers will never give us an identity, and that success is completely meaningless and worthless if it comes at the expense of relationships with our families, with ourselves, and with God. As humans, it's important for us to remember. That we will fail. It's inevitable that at some point we will come up short, but that's not the end of our story.
[00:05:44] It's just the beginning. And through Jesus, we're offered a path of redemption. We're offered the chance to know God's unconditional love, infinite forgiveness, and forever grace. If we allow it, God can transform any failure and He can teach us to use failure as a springboard to greater transformation, including the renewal of our hearts, minds, bodies, and soul.
[00:06:26] Let's get started with part one of this three part series on relentless hope.
[00:06:36] Jon Erwin: I felt like Christian film was, was very similar to that in that it was emerging, uh, it was a bit disdained, you know, and even amongst Christians, if you say Christian film, a lot of people, that's cheesy stuff. It's not good or whatever. Again, I saw that as an opportunity, um, not as a liability. Other filmmakers were like, well, I don't wanna touch that. I don't wanna get near it. But I'm like, well that's, that's something to roll up your sleeves and work on, you know? And so to me, I felt like every Christian or someone that said: Hey, Christian films are not, are, not are cheesy or not great, was just saying what they're really saying is, I want a brand that I can trust and, uh and so I, we saw it not only as a, as a purpose driven thing, but also as an opportunity to really establish something and be a part of, of fixing something and establishing it and making it sustainable for other artists. And we go forward with a, with an absolute faith that we can be a part of being the tip of the spear.
[00:07:37] And there's not many of us, there's like maybe five or 10 of us, um, that do this stuff all the time. And we call ourselves competitive allies. We talk all the time and we share information. And our hope and our dream and our vision is that there's a generation of talent coming behind us that can truly far outshine and exceed anything that we've done.
[00:08:04] Steve Gatena: In part one, Jon Erwin reflects on how he was taught from an early age to go after his dreams. Through taking chances and trusting in God, he was able to pursue his passions as a filmmaker. By realizing his calling to spread the word of God, he was able to focus on film and help change people's lives.
[00:08:32] Jon Erwin: My name is Jon Erwin. I'm a filmmaker. My, uh, brother and I make movies together, and now are a part of the company that that does, that. We made, uh, the film "I Can Only Imagine" and, uh, and the film "I Still Believe" that comes out next spring among others. Um, I did not grow up in Los Angeles, uh, or Hollywood.
[00:08:56] I, but far, far away from that as you could imagine. Uh, I grew up in, uh, Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, and, uh, deep in the south. And I think in terms of who one of my first heroes was, that would probably be my grandfather. He received the Medal of Honor in World War II. And, uh, I remember very vividly when I was five, he, um, he sort of let me hold this blue ribbon, gold... now I have no idea what it was, and sort of set over my shoulder. Freedom isn't free, and he was horribly burned in the war. And the idea of the Medal of Honor is to go above and beyond call of duty to go further than what's required of you. And that, that really stuck with me. Uh, so grandson of this sort of, you know, war hero and, uh, my dad has always been a dreamer and always, he taught Andy and I from a very early age, he said to dream bold dream big, dream the impossible. And, uh, do things that scare you, you know, in pursuit of dreams, you know, and I remember probably one of the, the greatest lessons that he taught me from, you know, the earlier part of my life is, is that we were at this water park called, um, Whitewater, uh, which is in Atlanta.
[00:10:15] We didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't do it often. And we went to this water park and there was this slide called the dragon's tail. And, uh, to a five year old, five, six year old, you know, it, it looked like it was 10,000 feet tall. It looked like it stretched into the stratosphere, and I was terrified of this thing.
[00:10:29] And we walked up the stairs and as we got to the top, it was almost like I could see the earth bending, you know? And uh, and I remember I was, I was not gonna go down that slide, and I remember my dad said, uh, there was this GI Joe I really wanted, uh, called Dusty. And he said, John, if you go down this slide, he didn't baby me, he didn't take me down, he didn't pressure me. He just said, but if you do this thing, I know it's scary, I'll, I'll go buy you this GI Joe. And we didn't have any money at the time, so this was a, this was a rare occurrence. So I stared down the barrel of the slide and just thought, I'm probably gonna die, but, uh, I really want that GI Joe and I pushed off and, and had a blast and did it, uh, 12 more times.
[00:11:08] I think that day what I learned was that, you know, if you can be passionate about something and just a little more passion, uh, passionate than, than you are afraid, you can move forward, uh, towards your goals, and I took that with me. Uh, let your passion outweigh your fear, I think was the principle. And, uh, and, and so my dad encouraged, always encouraged my dreams.
[00:11:30] And, uh, when I was 15, my, my life really changed in terms of my career. Uh, I, I was an intern for a camera, and I'm not recommending this story. I'm not saying anybody should do this. I'm saying it's what happened. Uh, I was basically, uh, interning for a, a freelance camera operator. You know, I, I grew up in the southeast in the heart of, you know, S.E.C. Football country and lots of televised games.
[00:11:58] And on a, on a, on a Saturday, um, about three, four hours before the kickoff at the University of Alabama, a cameraman got sick for an ESPN football game. And my mentor and the guy that I'd interned for called me and said, John, get over here right now. Don't tell anyone how old you are. Don't tell anybody you've never done this before.
[00:12:17] Just lie about everything and you can run camera. And I didn't know any better. So my dad drove me over and, uh, he had dropped me off like four blocks from the stadium. I didn't want anybody to know I couldn't drive. And, and I went and ran this camera and I literally had a blast. You could zoom this camera, it's like a huge telescope and you could zoom it into a quarter of the moon, you know?
[00:12:36] And, uh, I had never done anything that cool. And they, they paid me $300. I had never seen that much money, and, uh, so I was really in after that moment. And, uh, I got a phone call a couple weeks later and, and a crewing agent said, you know, are you a freelance camera operator from Birmingham, Alabama? And cuz there was another game.
[00:12:57] And, uh, I didn't know if those were like three different jobs or if they were the same, I didn't never heard those words go together. So I said, of course. Yeah, of course. That's what I do. I'm a, I'm what? Say it again. I'm a freelance camera operator. And so I just began sort of working full-time, uh, for, for ESPN as a teenager.
[00:13:12] And, uh, you know, as a person of faith, I, I, was thrust into a world where I was the only person of faith. And, and you know, very quickly coming from not knowing anyone who didn't share my faith in worldview, and, and that was sort of, where my faith really became real. And, um, my dad, uh, got me a, uh, a camera with money he did not have and helped me get a loan for $10,000.
[00:13:38] My brother quickly joined and, and, uh, that was the beginning of, of our company. And, uh, my dad, just again, he said, dream bold, dream big, dream the impossible. And, uh, we did all kinds of videos and you know, what Malcolm Gladwell would call in a great book called Outliers, the 10,000 hour rule, that you know, if you really put the time in to learn something gradually and progressively and incrementally, you know, you can, you can be become successful.
[00:14:06] And I think a lot of people, they just don't realize, um, the time that truly has to be put in, you know, from the time that my dad bought me, it's funny, he said very early on, if you give 20 years to your life to something, you can become an expert in that thing. And of course, at the time I, I didn't think that that was true.
[00:14:24] But oddly enough, from the time that he bought me that camera to the time where, uh, the movie "I Can Only Imagine" was, had, had done over 80 million dollars in box office and, and was this sort of overnight success, I guess, in quotations and had become the number one independent film of 2018 had sort of been that breakout moment.
[00:14:44] It was almost 20 years to the day.
[00:14:45] I mean, it was, it was so, uh, he was right. You know, and I think a lot of people that they just, they give up too quickly on the time it truly takes to, to, um, hone something in and, uh, truly learn a craft, you know? Uh, if you become a craftsman in something, if you become an expert, people can take your job, but they can't take your craft from you, you know?
[00:15:07] And, uh, and so it took about about 20 years uh, but we, we had this camera, we had a loan and we started making all kinds of weddings and surgeries and, you know, videos for our church and all these things. And, and my dad taught me something interesting called, called the, uh, the wow factor. He said, uh, you know, if you make, you make people say, wow, you'll, you'll never, like, good is not good enough. Make 'em say, wow. Which sort of tied to my granddad's whole, you know, go above and beyond what's required of you. Now this wasn't a great business decision at the time. We never made any money, cuz if we had $10,000 to make something, we'd spend 11, you know, whatever. But the idea was to make everything great.
[00:15:45] And, uh, one thing led to another and, and each video led to three more and they got bigger. And, uh, and then the, I still to this day don't know why he did it. But thank God he did. Uh, the, there was a Christian music artist, Michael W. Smith, and also, uh, somebody who's become a dear friend, Amy Grant. They both have, and they, they gave us sort of a break to do music videos for them.
[00:16:05] And, and, uh, that the first video we did for, for Smitty went straight to the top of the charts. And, uh, that started a career doing music videos and high-end commercials. At that point, it was really just a career. It, it was not our life's calling, it was just what I had always done. You know, what Andy and I had always done, and we, we had really no, you know, lightning kind of struck, um, I wanted to be a basketball player when I was 14.
[00:16:30] That never would've worked out for me, that was a dumb idea. And, and you know, just when I, this, this, this film thing had just happened and, and I just, all I knew was I loved it, enjoyed it, and, I, and I do believe that like your life's calling is very closely linked to your, to your life's passion. I mean, whatever really you love.
[00:16:51] I mean, I think we're, we're built to contribute based off the things that we love to do. And, uh, all I knew at the time was that I loved it. And so I basically, uh, went and directed second unit on a feature film, a Christian movie called "Courageous" that a church, it's Sony movie, uh, uh, it is a real Cinderella story. A church in Georgia was making these movies and they were, they were doing enormous box office and, and, um, they wanted to make a movie that had some car chases and some action sequences. And, uh, which we were very, I love blowing things up and chasing things with a camera, you know, um, and very well versed in that.
[00:17:32] And so, but they were making movies primarily with a lot of church volunteers, and that's just something you never wanna mix with, like, cars and, you know, stunts, people can get killed. So, so, uh, I was brought in to, to just do those sequences for them. And the director of that film, Alex, like, right off the bat, like one of the first things that, that he mentioned right when I got there was, was a very profound question and something I think everyone should ask themselves at some point.
[00:17:59] He said, Jon, what's the purpose? What's your purpose and the purpose of your work? Why do you do what you do? Like, you're very good at what you do, but why do you do it? And not only could I not answer the question, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
[00:18:12] Um, it, it lodged itself like a splinter in my mind. And, uh, that led to Andy and I, um, making an enormous transition, which was instead of, you know, we were, we, we, we were like the Han Solo, you know, at, at that time of, of Christianity. Like, if, if you have money, we've got a ship, we'll fly you somewhere and drop you off. You pay us the rest is your problem. Uh, we were a service company and we, we took the journey to be, you know, sort of an intellectual property company and to do films that we cared about and to, to steward stories. Um, you know, I, why choose to do faith-based films, I guess they're called, uh, it's sort of a, an emerging category.
[00:18:53] I remember working with Sean Aston a couple times as a great friend, and, uh, I love it. I love everything. He's been in some incredible films. Uh, and he said to, to me and Andy, so that, you know, I consider you and Andy as sort of like pioneers and frontiersmen. And I'm like, that's exactly what I wanted to do.
[00:19:10] Uh, and then I'm like, that's high praise Sean. He said, you know, Jon, most frontiersmen die on the frontier. I'm like, I've never thought about that, but that's probably true. Uh, I think that I, I was drawn to it. Um, again, off that question from Alex Kendrick, of what's your purpose and the purpose of your work?
[00:19:31] Um, I'm a, I'm a product guy. I love great products and, uh, if I believe in a product, I wanna tell y'all about it, you know? I feel that way about my faith. I, I, I think that, that this whole idea of, of Christianity and its influence on the world and on my life and on, I, it, it's truly life changing and it, it brings great fulfillment and purpose, uh, and peace to my life.
[00:19:58] And I think it's worth sharing. And I just think the world has enough filmmakers, but I'm, I, I'm convinced that the world really needs, um, you know, I guess with the Bible we call the Gospel, which is just the good news and, and uh, and that we have in our time the ability to get it further than anyone else has ever gotten it.
[00:20:16] And so I sort of wanted, I want to be a part of that. I, I want to be a part of reaching my generation with a message that I believe that can change our life. And we all have a gift and a, and a way of doing that, you know, and, and, uh, God gave me a camera, you know, and God gave us the ability to tell stories on film.
[00:20:33] So what, a film takes too long and is too hard and too risky. It's a rough, it's one of the most competitive businesses on earth. And, uh, it's, it is shark infested and it is, it is a rough business. So if I don't have a really strong reason for staying in it, I don't know if I would be able to endure. So to me, the idea of making a film that first and foremost entertains, so it's the entertainment business, is why I go to the movies I go to have an emotional experience.
[00:21:06] So first and foremost, we want to entertain you and learn to do that as best we can. Um, you know, there's no difference in the price between my film and Star Wars, you know, even though there's a massive difference in the cost of the movie. It's not like other forms of entertainment, you know, where there's a, a differentiation in price based off, you know, the success and scale of product.
[00:21:29] Uh, so we want to entertain you and I wanna make things that are emotionally relatable, no matter what you believe. But then if we can do those two things successfully, I want to tell you a story that has the potential to change your life if you'll let it. And I believe that the right story, you know, we believe as a company, the right story can really change your life.
[00:21:49] And we believe that we're storytellers serving the greatest storyteller of all time, and that the Bible is a book that's full of stories and they've endured for centuries, and they continue to change people. And I, I'm just, I am fully convinced that Christianity's a great product. I mean, if, as it's a life changing thing that I wanna share and, and I would rather be a part of that and be bold about that.
[00:22:12] The other reason I just think is I love entrepreneurism. You know, we're at a company, we're in a wonderful, uh, partnership with a movie studio called Lionsgate. And one of the reasons, the thing that solidified that deal was, uh, Jon Feltheimer, the CEO and Joe Drake, the chairman of the motion picture group.
[00:22:31] And, and they were like, what do you want? And entrepreneurism was the word that kept coming up that drives that company. And I said, I wanna, I wanna be an entrepreneur first and the filmmaker second. I wanna be seen that way. And, um, and they said, great. That's what drives our company. And the idea that, you know, similar to these two artists that launched Andy and I's career music videos, Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant, that they, they took something that was, you know, there was, there was this, there was Jesus music and there was mainstream pop, and Amy and Michael and some others sort of, sort of crossed that chasm. And now there's this category of music that I think is very good. And there's a, there's revenue streams and there's an established platform where young voices can be heard.
[00:23:11] And, and I felt like Christian film was, was very similar to that in that it was emerging, uh, it was a bit disdain, you know, and even amongst Christians, if you say Christian film, a lot of people, that's cheesy stuff. It's not good or whatever. Again, I saw that as an opportunity, um, not as a liability. Other filmmakers were like, well, I don't wanna touch that. I don't wanna get near it. But I'm like, well that's, that's something to roll up your sleeves and work on, you know? And so to me, I felt like every Christian or someone that said, hey, Christian films are not, are, not are cheesy or not great, was just saying what they're really saying is, I want a brand that I can trust.
[00:23:50] And, and, uh, and so I, we saw it not only as a, as a purpose driven thing, but also as an opportunity to really establish something and be a part of, of fixing something and establishing it and making it sustainable for other artists. And we go forward with a, with an absolute faith that we can be a part of being the tip of the spear.
[00:24:13] And there's not many of us, there's like maybe 5 or 10 of us, um, that do this stuff all the time. And we call ourselves competitive allies. We talk all the time and we share information. And our hope and our dream and our vision is that there's a generation of talent coming behind us that can truly far outshine and exceed anything that we've done.
[00:24:35] It's our job to create that opportunity for them and to be one of those early pioneers that establishes something so that other voices can be heard. That's something that I could, that I could get really passionate about. And I, I love the idea of, of blazing a trail that does not exist. And, uh, and that's a lot of fun, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm invigorated by that. So, uh, from a personal level of my faith, it worked. And also it's just a businessman, an entrepreneur. It worked. And you know, I think anytime you do something new, you know, it's just gonna cost more and take a lot more time than you think. And we had some, some great people to facilitate that for us.
[00:25:13] But we got, uh, you know what I call, you know, Mike Tyson said that every boxer has a plan until he gets punched in the face you know? So we got in the ring and, uh, a little movie called "October Baby", and we had to raise the money to do it, raise the money to release it, and um, it opened in the top 10, um, movies in America.
[00:25:29] And, uh, it, it, we weren't trying to hit a home run, but it was a great like double and it made money. And then we got to make, uh, a film called "Mom's Night Out" for Sony, for Tristar also made money. And it was a step in the right direction and just we're looking for forward progress, you know? And then I think one of the more... meaning, like one of the things that changed me the most, uh, was we did a film called "Woodlawn", uh, Jon Voight was in a football movie. We raised the money for it, again, from a lot of the same people that had been with us all, all along. And, you know, everything had sort of worked up to that point. And the movie turned out great.
[00:26:08] A plus cinema score. True story. We really found our voice, but we did not accomplish what we wanted to in the marketplace and we overspent. It was the first time that had like a real, we had a real black eye that we didn't accomplish our goals. And I think at least in faith-based film, a lot of times there's a, there's a tendency because we're trying to get a worldview that we really believe, you know, through these entertainment products to sort of back up the finish line to the results achieved, you know, and say, well, you know, we didn't accomplish our goals, but it's okay.
[00:26:43] And, I actually think to learn to succeed, at least in retrospect, I've learned that you have to learn to fail well. And, um, you have to learn a process of learning from failure to learn how to succeed. And so at the end of, I can only, and it was a rough, you know, it was a rough experience with Woodlawn.
[00:27:04] There was, there was a lot of tension. There was, we were just growing too fast. We were spending too much on the film. Um, and, and, and so we took about four months, very painful process. And we began to solicit criticism and a lot of opinions and gather a lot of data and do this very painful postmortem.
[00:27:26] And it was a lot like getting in the, the, the, the sort of the boxing ring and, and tying your hands behind your back and getting people to punch you. And you're listening for trends and you're listening and, and what I learned is that. And just to the leaders out there, if you want your organization to change nine times outta ten, you need to change, and the problems that manifest themselves and amplify themselves in your organization really start with you.
[00:27:58] And over the course of that four months, um, it led to this 170 page, um, playbook and almost Bible. We saw all these things. We saw these insights into the marketplace. We saw around the corner, you know what in, you know, entrepreneurism, you call sort of uncommon wisdom. You know, stuff that people other people don't see.
[00:28:21] And that helped. But mainly we saw a lot of things that needed to change in our culture, uh, in our way of operating, in our way of treating people. And those all pretty much started with me as a leader. It's a very scary thing that the things that, uh, that the leader struggles with amplify downstream throughout the organization.
[00:28:43] And I was working off burst inspiration. I was going too fast. There was no margin. And, and, and we changed. And it was that process. And yes, it was painful of learning from failure, of being introspective, of hoping that you're wrong because you know, you can change yourself, you know, not blaming the marketplace, whatever, and discovering this playbook.
[00:29:06] And that led to a movie called, I Can Only Imagine, first of all, because we saw a lot of insights in the marketplace. We knew what to look for and we saw a lot of value where other people didn't because we saw that theatrical movie business is really becoming a brand-driven event business. And I, I knew that I loved that song and millions of people did as well, and, and we took a bet on, on what we believed in. And everybody said no to it, but we really saw, we really believed, and, and, and it, it fit the research and it fit our passions and it, and it fit. And it's like, if, if we're gonna go down, I'm gonna go down the story, and we're, I'm so proud of the team for being resilient and be able to sort of rally back quickly and raise the money for that film to not only make it and release it. And we built a lot of margin.
[00:29:52] And so I Can Only Imagine was built to be profitable. At my previous film, at our previous film's box office, which was 15 million, uh, I Can Only Imagine, did 17 million in its opening weekend and went on to do 83 million to become the number one independent film of the year, and, and was just this enormous win, uh, that was life changing, uh, for all of us and led to, uh, a deal with Lions Gate, that that has just been a wonderful relationship and a way to produce a lot of content that we believe can, you know, we believe we can make films that are, that, that can be entertaining, that can be emotionally relatable, no matter what you believe, but films that can really change people's lives. And so that win really sort of, sort of instigated sort of a movie studio.
[00:30:34] Um, and, and if it hadn't been for that process of, of just hitting pause and taking time to self-reflect and to be honest, and to be candid, and to be willing to be very wrong. Uh, and to learn, uh, we never would've experienced the success, uh, that we're experiencing. So sometimes failure can be the absolute best thing for you.
[00:31:00] And, uh, and so that's our story thus far. And, and I would say the only other thing that really, really, uh, shaped me, sort of fundamentally, um, is that I, um, we were editing, "I Can Only Imagine", and I had, uh, agreed to produce, uh, and direct a documentary on the life of the Hollywood actor, Steve McQueen and his spiritual journey, and Mel Gibson was in it and, and interviewed. Great friend Gary Sinise did the voiceover. And I was producing it with a wonderful friend, Greg Laurie. And right in the middle of it. So it was a one night only theatrical event, we had scheduled the release for September, and this was probably around March. We had gotten the film mostly in the can, and we were working on it and still had a lot to shoot.
[00:31:39] I found out that our son, who's fine now, he's fully recovered. He had a heart condition that we didn't know about that should have killed him. He was three at the time, and he had to have, very pressing, uh, not, not the next day, but definitely within the month, uh, full on open heart surgery. And so I was sort of just immediately sidelined, but you know, the first law of entertainment is the show must go on, right?
[00:32:04] And so it's like, what to do? This movie is scheduled for a theatrical release and we're editing, I can only imagine, and everything. And it's just, you know, it was the worst time for something like this to happen. And my brother and I got together and it was his idea, but he, we recruited another filmmaker named Ben Smallbone, wonderful Smallbone family, the band for King and Country.
[00:32:24] This, a couple of brothers, Rebecca St. James's sister, very talented family. Ben's a filmmaker. And he came in and I guided him from a, from a sort of a 30,000 foot level. And I sat at the premiere of that film. It was very financially successful. Sam fully recovered, I was able to be with my family, and I watched that screen and realized that he didn't do as good a job as I could have done.
[00:32:47] He actually did better. The team that we empowered did better. And that began a transition in me to actually enjoy, you know, for a while it was all about what I could create, and my passion began to shift from the, the, the work I could create myself or with my brother, whatever, to the people that I could develop.
[00:33:08] And I learned that if you can learn the art of developing and empowering other people, you can do anything. It's like this, the, the, the secret sauce of life is teams, you know, or at least a business. And I began to really enjoy the process of empowering other people and developing emerging talent and find that it was actually more fulfilling what I could draw to somebody else and what I could facilitate with somebody else than what I could do myself.
[00:33:40] And that began the basis of, of the, of the reality that we could scale the company. And, uh, and it was, again, one of those things that was very painful at the time. Totally unexpected, incredibly, probably the scariest two weeks of my entire life. But I learned a principle that has, has changed, you know, my life and my company, and which was that we could scale and that it was very fulfilling to empower other people.
[00:34:07] And, it's a tough transition for an artist to go from doing the work to managing others and empowering others. But if you can make that transition, you can really, um, amplify what you are, you're able to do in terms of contribution, you know, exponentially. So that became the basis of, of something called Kingdom and sort of where we are today.
[00:34:31] When I had my worst failures in business, it was because I was recruiting a lot of people like me, and I realized I didn't need more people like me. I needed people that were very different than me. And lots of times people very different than you can frustrate the crap outta you. That's a good thing. You know?
[00:34:46] And, and, um, and in that conflict and difference of opinion, there can be real greatness, uh, and genius. And so the art of a team is to get people together in the right environment that compliment each other's skillset and draw out that potential. Protect the team, empower the team, serve the team. That is when you can accomplish enormous things.
[00:35:12] Steve Gatena: In part two of this three part series on Relentless Hope we cover leadership. John explains the relationship between influence and leadership. In John's mind, leadership is about pulling people towards a collective goal and recognizing potential problems before they happen to you. True leaders make their decisions based on values and they find teammates to fill in the areas where they're lacking.
[00:35:53] Jon Erwin: Leadership is, that's a tough question. Leadership is an, I mean, it's, it's an art form. It's probably the most important thing you can try to learn. You know, I think leadership is not necessarily authority. I think leadership is influence. So in, in, in that respect, I think everything, everyone can be a leader cuz everyone can have influence.
[00:36:18] And I think a lot of people say, well, I'm not, I'm, I'm not in authority, therefore I'm not a leader. I think that's the wrong way to look at the concept of leadership. I think there's people in authority that are not leaders, and I think there's people that are not in authority, that are leaders just because of the pace they set and the example they set.
[00:36:34] Ultimately, leadership is drawing out human potential towards a defined goal. Right? And that would be my definition of it. And if you can learn the art of people, and if you, if you can learn how to. I mean the- In my opinion, the high art of business and what I'm still learning is if you can assemble the right people, organize them the right way, around the right thing and fully empower them and just get outta their way. You can literally do anything, you know, and I, I had to learn. That was very hard for me to learn.
[00:37:16] I grew up, you know, Andy and I sort of were filmmakers. We did all the work ourselves started, it sort of emerged as very scrappy, you know, sort of as street fighters almost in business.
[00:37:27] And, um, and started as cameramen, and did 3D animation and then I, we, we directed together and, and did every job in the business and then learned to direct and produce. And I've learned to love to write. And it's a very interesting dynamic if you are, are capable of a lot of things. Uh, in my, in my industry, I was able to learn things very quickly and I was able to learn diverse skill sets that typically didn't go together.
[00:37:54] Uh, like fundraising, for example, and screenwriting. Those two typically don't go together, you know, uh, and, and, you know, business and art and, you know, I, I, I sort of, they couldn't figure out when I was little, if I was right-handed or left-handed. And so I, I sort of loved both sides of, I loved the business and, and the art.
[00:38:12] This served me very well for a long time. But what happens is, if you, if you have, you know, if you are able to do a lot of things your Achilles heel is, is it's very hard to let go. And it's very hard to delegate and it's very hard to empower. And, and what happens is you end up being the ceiling to your organization, whatever that is, and people can't grow and flourish and emerge underneath you because you want to do everything.
[00:38:46] And it's a, it's a very painful thing to do, to let go, but it's very effective. Ultimately, for me to learn how to lead, I really had to experience failure, and that experience had to be painful. Uh, I had to learn that I couldn't do it all. You know, I mentioned this before, but after a movie called Woodlawn, we did this four month postmortem and I realized that I was the problem in many ways.
[00:39:13] I think the best thing to understand as a leader, the best thing you can do is to examine your organization hoping that you are the problem. I think a lot of times as a leader, as a CEO as an entrepreneur or whatever. We look at our organizations frustrated. We're frustrated with our employees, we're frustrated with whatever, but actually I've found most of the problems in an organization emanate from leadership, right? And they sort of trickle down and that issues in your own life, whether it's your operating rhythm or you know, just your, your personality or, you know, your achilles heels amplify themselves down or throughout the organization. So, um, what I learned is that for my company to change, I had to change.
[00:40:04] And one of the most important things we did with, um, you know, I work in a business where we have, I don't even know how many now, um, you know, core teams that are on board all the time in between films and there's probably 40 people, you know, but when we do a film, you know, we'll hire 2... 300 people, you know, depending on what the film is.
[00:40:25] So it's very hard to maintain a consistent culture when you're hiring all these kind of roadies and freelancers, uh, for four months of work, you know, and, and so, but, but what we did is in that postmortem, we identified clearly our core values. And what we learned is that if you don't, if you have not taken the time to identify your core values and to write them down, you will violate them in the heat of battle because you don't know what they are.
[00:40:51] We identified our core values, we identified our behavioral values. So not only this is what we value as a company, this is what we value in people that thrive in our organization, and these are the characteristics we really look for. I've actually found, even in a skill business like entertainment, give me the right person and I'll teach them the craft.
[00:41:07] You know? And, and that's can almost be more effective. Um, both my sort of right and left hand, the President and CEO my company, Josh and, Jerilyn they, Josh worked for me since he was 18. Jerilyn's been with us since 12, for 12 years, worked all the way up from the bottom of the organization. It's like a pa all the way to running every, and they're, they're running all the companies.
[00:41:28] And so to me, they're just, they're the right people and, uh, they have these incredible characteristics. And, and I've found to look after that, to look first, for certain characteristics and, uh, certain values and certain things you see in people, self-motivated people, sort of, you know, uh, and, and so, you know, these A players.
[00:41:48] And so we, we, in that process of, of a post-mortem, we clearly identified our core values are behavioral values and the ways in which we want to treat people. Um, and the way in which we, we wanna be treated and we solidified those things. And we made a commitment that we're gonna hire, fire, promote first off values and second off competence.
[00:42:15] You know, entertainment, there is a big feeling that if someone is really good at what they do, they can be a toxic individual. And, uh, obviously that, that a lot of, a lot of that is, is coming out into the open and it's no longer okay. You know, the, the, the Me Too movement is, is an example of this and, and I'm so glad it's happening in entertainment. Um, which just tends to be a business built on the back of like exploitation and lies, you know, and, uh, and just clear mistreatment of people defined class system. It's just, it's, there's a lot of things that need to change. So we made the commitment that we're gonna hire fire, you know, promote and all these things first based off of values and second based off competence, right?
[00:42:59] So when we did that, we made this commitment that I don't, if you're, I don't care if you're the Michael Jordan of your position, if you're a toxic individual, you're gone. And we're gonna win as a team. And we did this very simple thing. We took one day, we paid the crew, whether we're doing a film or whatever.
[00:43:14] We took one day and we just oriented everybody. Like if people aren't behaving according to your values, Maybe you haven't identified them, maybe you haven't taken the time to teach them. You know, so you can't blame people for not doing something you haven't, you haven't explained. And so we took one day before the film, uh, starting with, I Can Only Imagine, and one day before the marketing campaign, uh, ramped up.
[00:43:36] And same thing With, I Still Believe, and we just oriented everyone, this, these are our values. This is who we're aspiring to be, this is how we wanna treat each other. And we also leveled the playing field. Like, like one of the things that we say of how we like to treat each other is private criticism, public praise.
[00:43:52] So in the film industry, it's like, you know, like a director like Michael Bay is famous for yelling at people in front of everybody else. I think that, I think that tenses everyone up. I think it harms the product. I think it doesn't do any good at all. Uh, and I think the better way is if you have something against somebody, take 'em off the set and talk to 'em, but respect that person and do it out.
[00:44:12] Don't do it in front of everybody and uh, in front of everybody. Let's have our back, let's have each other's back, right? So, private criticism, public praise, which goes completely opposite of, of a lot of the entertainment industry. We made that decision, uh, as a group that we're gonna do this. And then whenever we orient people to our core values, we say, look, this is who we as, these, these are aspirational and we're flawed people and this is a very stressful job. So if you see us, I don't care if you're a PA, if you see me not being the person that I aspire to be, I want you to take me off the set and confront me. I don't care who you are and vice versa. And it just created, and, and what's so interesting is so many people told us, you can't con, you can't create a consistent culture because you're hiring so many freelancers.
[00:44:57] But it actually worked. And I've had to, I mean, I've had to let go of one person on my last film cause they just would not comply. And they were damaging the culture. And but beyond that, I mean people just, if you communicate and you set a clear example, uh, people respond. And so to me, clearly identifying the culture that we wanted to create is probably the most important thing.
[00:45:22] And you sort of hear this sort of buzzword about like culture trump's all, or culture over strategy or whatever. It's true, really the culture, the best thing you can do as leaders, create the right culture. And get the right people into that culture and protect it and really protect the culture. And to me that, that, that's a huge part of leadership.
[00:45:41] And the other thing I think with, that I learned with with leadership is just how fulfilling it is to develop people, right? And to empower them. Um, I think the way you make people trustworthy, oddly enough, is you trust them. Peop most people rise to that occasion. And I love what, uh, a great friend and, uh, mentor Craig Rochelle says, he says, you know, you can have control or you can have growth, but you can't have both.
[00:46:09] And to really grow an organization, you know, you gotta really, you gotta really let go. You gotta ask yourself, what are the things that only I can do? And you gotta radically delegate everything else, especially when you're in a sort of a, what we're in right now is, is, is a period of rapid growth. And that's scary.
[00:46:27] But it's so cool to see people emerge and to see people just come alive because you're like, you know what? I trust you with this and you can do it. And I'm here to help and to fully empower people and to work ahead of them where they have everything that they need to, to deliver. And just the, again, I, I had to learn it just by force of, uh, it was, it was a necessity because I was, I think as I mentioned, I was directing, I was directing a documentary and it was scheduled for a theatrical release.
[00:46:59] And, um, my three-year-old at the time, he's, he's, he's, he's, well, he's fully recovered. He's five now. Had to have open heart surgery. Totally unexpectedly a, a heart defect that should have killed him. And I was right in the middle of this project and I had to recruit, Andy and I recruited another filmmaker, and I had to empower and trust him.
[00:47:18] And I found that that was so, it was more fulfilling, uh, empowering someone else and guiding them and helping them and encouraging them was more important and more fulfilling than doing the job myself. And I realized that that's how we were gonna scale, you know? Um, because if we really want to impact a generation with what we, the things that we believe are true, no, no one filmmaker can physically create enough product to do that.
[00:47:43] And so I learned that it was actually more fulfilling to empower someone else. And so again, leadership is just the art of drawing out potential of other people. Sometimes potential they don't see in themselves. And that's the great, that's the great and fulfilling thing about leadership. It's not about the big speeches. It's not about, you know, how smart you are. It's just about how good you can become at pulling. It's not how great you can become. It's how good you can become at pulling out the greatness of other people and creating an environment where a team can become exponential. So I love this illustration of, of draft horses, which I guess are like yesterday's pickup truck and one draft horse can pull like 8,000 pounds.
[00:48:33] If you hook two of them together though, you'd think, well, they can pull 16,000 pounds, right? No two can actually pull 24,000 pounds. There's an exponential effect, uh, to teamwork, right? If the train together, they can pull over 30,000 pounds. And that's, I think the art of teams in my business is you put great creatives together in the right environment and it's like watching magic.
[00:48:55] It's exponential.
[00:48:57] I think what you have to learn, one of the things that I learned, and this was so liberating for me, is, unless what you do is, unless you're the only person, like you're a one, a one person sort of shop or something like that, um, you need to work on your weaknesses. But I think in your personal life, in your marriage, you know, you need to identify your weaknesses and work on them.
[00:49:19] One of the great discoveries I made about business and about leadership is you really don't need to work on your weaknesses. If you work in a team, the key, there's two, it's self-awareness and trust. You need to know what you're good at. You know what you're bad at. And the art of teams is to recruit people around you that are great at those things in which you just suck.
[00:49:45] You know, and you know what they are. And you recruit your way out of your weaknesses and you trust people. That is when it gets really fun because you get to come to work every day doing those things that you are great at. That make you come alive. And if you can spend 80% of your time in your core competency, which is like sort of where, you know, it's that sort of hedgehog concept that, uh, uh, that's in good to great the Jim Collins thing of, you know, what are you passionate about?
[00:50:12] What can you really be excellent at or be the best in the world at? And what can drive your economic engine or the, or contribute to the economic engine of your company. So you're, you're trying to find the trifecta and he calls it the hedgehog of, of, of passion, competence and, and value really. And, and if you can find that thing and you can come to work and do that thing 80% of the time or more, and that person beside you is also doing their thing 80% of the time or more and it's different from yours, that becomes, that's when a team becomes a force of nature, like an exponential force.
[00:50:48] And that's the art of it. It's to recruit. I think a lot of times leaders, when I had my worst failures in business, it was because I was recruiting a lot of people like me. And I realized I didn't need more people like me. I needed people that were very different than me. And lots of times people very different than you can frustrate the crap outta you.
[00:51:05] That's a good thing. You know? And, and, um, and in that conflict and difference of opinion, there can be real greatness, uh, and genius. And so the art of a team is to get people together in the right environment that compliment each other's skillset and draw out that potential. Protect the team, empower the team, serve the team.
[00:51:25] That is when you can accomplish enormous things, uh, because you're working as an exponential group and there's this exponential effect, uh, to teamwork. And so I think to me, I went on this transition of valuing what I could create to valuing who I got to develop and what we could all create together.
[00:51:47] And that transition was very tough. And a lot of people can't make that jump. But if you can, you can really, um, have a legacy and you can really, um, replicate yourself and you can do much, much more, um, uh, together. So the founding question of the, of our company, Kingdom, is simply, what can we do together that none of us can do alone?
[00:52:09] You know, and it's so cool to see, I just came out of a, of a room where there's a director and a writer. It's, it's modeled after our, our sort of franchise playbook, I guess, as it were, is, is a wonderful book called Creativity Inc. Uh, by Ed Catmull the president of Pixar, married with another great book, uh, to Pixar and Beyond, which is written by the CFO of Pixar.
[00:52:29] Gives you sort of a complete playbook and blueprint of that company. And they have this idea of the brain trust, which we've adopted. So you have a director and, and a writer who are typically doing what they're doing in isolation and even today. They had gotten to a benchmark on their project where we're trying to push it forward, and we took a day to get them in the room with all the other directors and producers and writers, and just began to work the story forward.
[00:52:52] And they feel so much support that they would typically not have. It's amazing to see sort of what can come from a group environment. So I think leadership is one of those things that you don't learn all at once. It's not what you think at all. There's a lot of the ideas of, of, of sort of the leadership sort of, uh, culture I guess, or the, you know, the sort of the leadership conferences.
[00:53:13] And I find a lot of that, not what leadership is at all, but, but, uh, I think the biggest thing that I've done is just either physically or virtually like podcasts and books and, uh, targeted great leaders that I admire and learning as much as I can from them. And I've found that incredibly, um, successful people are available.
[00:53:35] And are are and want to give back and want to teach. And, uh, and I, and I've learned a great deal from them. And I think the more I learn about leadership, the more we're able to accomplish. And, uh, and it's a transition, but it's an incredibly fulfilling one. I think for me, leadership as a sort of a life obsession, uh, emerged very gradually.
[00:53:54] Um, and I think I'm just, I'm an extremely goal-oriented person, and I just began to realize that there was a limit to what I could achieve and, uh, in isolation. And I began to really, again, through just a series of events that some of which I, I planned and some which I didn't, uh, you know, I, I began to see the value in a well-built team.
[00:54:18] And empowering a well built team and how much a team could accomplish as opposed to an individual. I think individuals can inspire, but teams change the world, you know, and great teams, uh, change the world. So I began to really become, as I, you know, I went through a season of just, again, what I could create and the art and movies and music, whatever that I could create.
[00:54:41] And then really just in the last, I would say five years, um, I really became obsessed with just the principles of leadership and how to draw potential out out of other people, mainly because, you know, I, you know, I, we experienced a lot of failure, you know, and some, some tough things. And I realized I could be very wrong and that I wasn't, I wasn't right all the time and, and, you know, I would burn out if I were too hard and, and, uh, and you know, there was just, there was a limit to, to, there's a cap and a ceiling to what I could achieve.
[00:55:12] And we're driven by the goal of really, um, reaching a generation with truth. And, uh, that is so much bigger than anything we could contribute. So the only way we could make any substantive difference towards that goal is to inspire and empower teams. But sometimes in our business, a singular hit, like I Can Only Imagine, can create a company like Kingdom.
[00:55:35] Uh, and, you know, or a, a singular hit, like Toy Story can create Pixar or whatever. And so we began to think maybe one, you know, if we could achieve success, maybe we very quickly scale and, uh, and sort of create opportunities for other people. So I just very gradually, um, fell in love with, um, the theories and art and sort of, uh, culture of, of leadership.
[00:56:00] And, uh, I've learned that, that, that leadership is the great sort of, um, thing to study, uh, in life. And again, it's, I, and you know, I think it start, my grandfather of course, is a Medal of Honor recipient. My dad's a dreamer and they're, and they're both leaders in their own way. And, and, uh, I think that that inspired me.
[00:56:18] But I just, I just, over the course of time began to admire great leaders and realize that leadership is, is its own art and, uh, and it, it's its own life, uh, study and it's its own craft. And, um, and I just began to love it over time. It was very gradual for me and very connected to the fact that the things that I really wanted to be involved in accomplishing were just much bigger than anything I, I could contribute individually.
[00:56:47] And, uh, and then for whatever reason, once you get a whiff of it, once you get a vision beyond yourself, And once you taste inspiring and equipping and empowering someone else and seeing that person go further than you could have gone, it is so much more filling than accomplishing something yourself.
[00:57:09] And I realize that, you know, directing a film, for instance, is a very unique set of pressures. And until you sat in that chair, you don't get it. You know? But the fact that Andy and I had directed meant that we could have a unique relationship that was very empathetic, uh, with other directors, and we could really help get them sort of be equipped to, to not do a lot of the stuff we had to do, like raise money and, uh, you know, and so that became sort of the, the, the, um, the goal was who could we empower and who could we equip?
[00:57:45] And, uh, it just led to a study of, of, you know, I think one of, if I, you know, I think learning is a, it's a muscle that, and if you can get in the, in the sort of the, the rhythm of constant learning, uh, you know, it, it becomes its own. It, it sort of becomes a rhythm and a, and a, and a habit. And, uh, and so to me, I just, I, I, I read constantly and, uh, one of the, one of the main, uh, areas of, of, of interest in studies leadership, both in like biographies and uh, also just, uh, you know, leadership books and especially anything that involves research and data and uh, and, and just, you know, you're just constantly learning and picking up.
[00:58:30] And then the other thing that the best thing to do is just to try to, to try to get around people that you want to be like, think about who you want to become and who that person is and do whatever you can to get in their life. And I've just been incredibly, um, lucky to be able to have and, you know, mentors that, and people that I've been able to learn from, uh, that have been so generous with their time.
[00:58:55] And, and you just pick up all these gold nuggets from people that, that are really, um, so far ahead of where, but they're, they're, they're, they're who you wanna become. So, you know, if you, you, if you can get around who you wanna become, you, you become like them. And, uh, in terms of my faith, I think, you know, I think, um, the greatest leadership lessons of all time are in the Bible.
[00:59:15] I think Jesus' definition of leadership, especially when you think about the culture that he was in, completely upended everything. The idea of servant leadership, the idea of the, of, of, you know, the last being first and the first being last and to lead, you gotta serve and, and, and, and to, to lead by example.
[00:59:31] And I mean all these things to lead through love and greater love as no man in the one to lay this life down for his friend and all these things. Completely new model of leadership, especially in that day. And so to me, just modeling God's principles as a leader, as a businessman, not only are they right, they work.
[00:59:48] And, uh, and, and, and the more I, I aspire and try to, to do that to the best of my ability, uh, the more we achieve, and I think my faith is, is essential to the vision of the company, to how we lead, to how we treat people. And, and the principles really. I mean, they really do work just in business in general, you know, um, the golden rule works.
[01:00:10] Generosity in deals actually is a way it, it's self-serving. It works, you know. And, uh, if you read a book like Ray Dalio's book Principles, which is amazing, one of his principles is to not obsess over the slice of the pie and how big your slice is. Just try to make a gigantic pie and actually be generous, you know, and, and, uh, and generosity works in business.
[01:00:29] And, and so I, I've just found biblical principles are enormously effective in the cutthroat, hyper-competitive industry of entertainment. You know, and they work and, and, uh, and they work better than, than sort of standard business practices.
[01:00:50] The thing that I love about Christianity and the reason that I'm so sold on, on it and on telling stories that promoted is that it's one big redemption story. And it's the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, uh, God can change the situation. God can redeem it, and it can be healed and it can be transformed and you can be sort of, sort of made new is the idea of something, you know, the, the cliche is born again, you know, is sort of something that's been overused, but that the idea of it, if you think about it, of literally no matter who you are, what you've done, what guilt and shame that you carry, you can literally be completely sort of, washed of it and you can start over.
[01:01:47] And many of the things even that that you've caused, that the pain that's been inflicted on you or the pain that you've inflicted on others can actually be turned around and can be a good thing and can be a way that you can be a voice to the lives of the people.
[01:02:03] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, we cover legacy. John tells us how his grandfather influenced everyone around him. Legacy is about building something that has a sustained impact. It doesn't matter what you accomplish, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of your family. Life is not about being balanced.
[01:02:29] It's about being completely obsessed on the right things.
[01:02:39] Jon Erwin: So legacy, I would say is not something I think about often, you know, I'm, I'm writing the sort of the, the, I've got young kids and we are, we're in sort of the, the peak of chaos, you know, in our, in our, in our business because it's scaling quickly and, and, uh, after the movie, uh, I Can Only Imagine. And so, you know, it's funny, legacy is not something that you'd like every day you really think about, you know, uh, when I think about legacy, I, I do think about my grandfather. He, again, he, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor World War II, um, which is our nation's highest award. He was severely burned. He actually grabbed a bomb on board a B 29 Super Fortress.
[01:03:19] And, and, uh, the plane was going down. It was a phosphorousbomb and exploded. He carried it all the way to the front of the plane. Should, should have killed him, shouldn't been able to do it. And he, he saved the lives of his crew. He threw out the window and they pulled up at 300 feet. That led to the fastest presentation of the Medal of Honor actually in our, uh, nation's history.
[01:03:36] And I remember, um, when I was, oh gosh, very young, five or six years old, He got this medal out, his arm was fused in place, he was horribly burned, kinda like phantom of the operate on his, on the right side of his face. And he let me hold this blue ribbon and uh, connected to this gold medal and uh, kind of set over my shoulder.
[01:03:58] Freedom isn't free.
[01:03:59] And I didn't understand what he was talking about at the time. And as a teenager we had a really good relationship, but I didn't really care near as much as I should have about his war stories. He had a photographic memory and it was actually at his funeral. I was 19 years old. And, uh, he basically, I remember vividly it was like sleeting rain and he was being buried.
[01:04:24] He wanted to be buried in Birmingham where he was from, and there were like generals and all these people, and it was sleeting rain with this bomber, you know, from the 20th Air Force dropped outta the sky and tipped its wings and. There was these two guys playing taps, um, echoing each other, you know, beautiful a couple hundred feet away, but no reindeers stood like bronze statues for like two hours.
[01:04:47] And, um, in the, you know, as did the guys doing the 21 gun salute. And I remember going up to one of these guys and just, and saying, I can't, I'm so sorry. Thank you for what you've done for our family, you know, and sorry he had to sit here in the sleeting rain. And they quickly, this guy quickly stopped me and said, this is my honor.
[01:05:03] You know, your grandfather's one of our nation's heroes. And there was instant, this rush of instant curiosity and guilt. What did I miss? You know, who was my granddad? And come to find out he's got these buildings named after him and all over the world. And, and I remember sitting with the only living eyewitness to the events, the only crew member alive that actually saw what happened.
[01:05:24] And he said, you know, I never properly got the chance to thank your granddad. You know, he didn't save 11 people. He saved generations of people and that legacy embodied in the Medal of Honor as I, as I studied it, and really learned who he was living with the, the ever-present guilt that I had this time where if I had just valued his stories, uh, I could have learned it directly from the source and I didn't.
[01:05:49] But this idea that the Medal of Honor represents going above and beyond, you know, doing more than is required of you, which is a biblical concept, uh, that legacy really sunk deeply into my soul and is something we've tried to embody in, uh, our industry, which is the entertainment industry. So when I think of legacy, it really is about your story, you know, and we all have a story.
[01:06:17] And how do you want your story to be told and how do you want your story to be remembered? And what do you want the purpose and point of your story to be? Again, it's not something I think a lot about, but, for me in terms of what I would love my legacy to be.
[01:06:38] When we designed the blueprint for Kingdom, it was called Kingdom Story Company, and uh, we really thought, can we leverage this moment to do something bigger than us? And can we empower other artists? And one of the words that we wrote down, uh, when we founded it, there's four of us that founded it was the word irrelevance. And that's sort of the legacy I'm chasing in the sense that I would love to be a part of building something that can have sustained impact culturally, that can tell stories that again, are sort of, the trifecta for us is stories that are entertaining, wildly entertaining, that are emotionally relatable no matter what you believe.
[01:07:15] But it really showcase the transformational power of Christianity and the truth of it and the, and, and the wonder of it, you know, and draw people to it, you know, emotionally. And the idea of creating something, using our window of success, what are our 15 minutes? Whatever it is you know. It's a deep question and a scary one to think how, how will my kids remember me, you know what I mean?
[01:07:39] About how I remember my granddad. I have four kids, uh, 10 to 2, and uh, and I have a rockstar, uh, wife, uh, uh, named Beth, who's very patient. I'm an obsessive creative delinquent, you know, I did, I did learn. I remember I read, I first time Andy and I won, you know, music video of the year and something that we were chasing at the time.
[01:08:07] It was on live television and I totally froze. It was pretty funny. I forgot to thank my wife or God or the label or anything. I just sort of froze with blinking lights. But I remember I had chased that and I was at the time sort of chasing it for the wrong reasons, like I was trying to abuse my career to get what a career can never give you, which is an identity, you know? And I remember standing on that stage thinking like, is this all this feels like, like is attaining this thing that I was chasing so hard? I thought it would be different. I thought I would get some rush of, you know, vindication or, or validation as a person.
[01:08:48] And, and what I realized is just to adopt the idea that I, I'm not my work, and you have to have a life outside of it all. And if you're not, um, loving your wife and loving your family, uh, it doesn't matter what you accomplish. So ultimately I just want my kids to know I love 'em and believe in 'em, you know? My dad, he never told me what to dream, but he always believed and did his best to this day, uh, to empower the dreams that I had.
[01:09:19] And that was very special to me. And, and so to me, for my kids just to know that I love 'em and believe in 'em, and hopefully to model the idea that you, if you really just don't give up, you can accomplish anything in life no matter where you're from, you know? And, and, uh, Andy and I are these uneducated kids, you know, barely graduate high school, you know, from Birmingham, Alabama, which is the farthest place you could ever get from Los Angeles.
[01:09:49] And, and, and yet we, we've, we've had a, you know, a success in the entertainment industry. And, and I think because we just didn't give up and we kept learning and kept growing. You know, there's people that grow old and there's people that get old, you know, and there's this, there's some people that I know that they just never lose the wonder of life and of learning and of curiosity, perpetual curiosity.
[01:10:13] And, and I would love to be one of those people that just doesn't grow old and never live, never loses the sense of wonder and maybe is always focused more on and, and obsessed with and intrigued by and celebrates what I don't know, not what I do. And that process of perpetual learning and, and just, um, I just think maintaining a sense of awe and wonder is one of life's great, which is sort of growing up without getting old, you know?
[01:10:41] Uh, I, I would love to, to see that. And, and then I would love to, I, I would love my kids to, to to know God and uh, and to know how loved they are, you know, by God and by us. Um, I, I'll say this, you know, it's not, it's, it's a, it's a struggle, especially when you're in a hyper-competitive industry and you have a moment of success and all of a sudden, The success that you experience ends up pulling you away from your family and from, and, and, and how do you build a life around that?
[01:11:15] And, and again, my wife's been very generous and, and we are like nomads. Like when I go film a movie, we'll move, we'll move the whole family for four or five months. Just did in Mobile, did it in Oklahoma City. And it's very difficult. But we just wanna stay together and she'll come with me all the time.
[01:11:30] And it's tough, you know, I don't believe in work-life balance. I, I think it life is about being obsessed with just a few things and the right things. I don't believe in like having a balanced life. Uh, I just don't think it, I, I like what Paul says, you know, in the Bible, in Philippians 3, he says, you know, this one thing I do, you know, forgetting what's behind and reaching towards what's ahead.
[01:11:55] You know, he didn't have a to-do list. He, he's had this one big obsession. And I actually think success comes from sort of obsessive focus on just a few things. I think the key is to be obsessively focused on the right things and only a few, and try to jettison as much as you can from your life to focus on what really matters and to, to relentlessly prioritize what matters.
[01:12:16] I wish I was better at it, and I'm grappling with at the moment that big ideas come at a cost. You know, it's tough to, to weigh that cost and to prioritize it and, uh, to figure out how to build a life around your vision and your mission and uh, and how to take time. But I've also learned that accomplishments at the expense of your family and yourself are worthless and meaningless.
[01:12:44] And I live in a business. It's very interesting that I get to, I, I, I've gotten to learn from a lot of wonderful people in the business, a lot of very successful people in this business. And so many of them are so deeply miserable, and so many of them are alone. And so many of them have had lives and marriages and families that have fallen apart multiple times.
[01:13:02] And I've gotten to see firsthand the people at the top of our industry, a and sort of the sadness they carry around with them, even though they've achieved so much and mastered their craft. And I've learned that that's not worth it. And so I think it's important to, to harness windows of opportunity. I think it's, it's important to, what we say is we outlearn and outwork everyone.
[01:13:25] Uh, I think the biggest thing that, that can, you can carry with you is, is a work ethic. Uh, that and, and a cadence and an operating rhythm that's just, you know, superior to, to other people. But if that comes at, at the expense of your family, uh, if that comes at the expense of yourself, if that comes at the expense of, of, of a deeper relationship with God and other people.
[01:13:49] It is not worth it. And, and I can say that just because I've seen people who've, who have achieved so much and they have everything that they could ever want, but nothing of what they really need because the pursuit of it has cost them those things. And, uh, I hope to, to avoid that trap. The thing that I love about Christianity and the reason that I'm so sold on, on it and on telling stories that promoted is that it's one big redemption story.
[01:14:24] And it's the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, uh, God can change the situation. God can redeem it, and it can be healed and it can be transformed and you can be sort of, sort of made new is the idea of something we, you know, the, the cliche is, you know, born again, you know, is sort of something that's been overused.
[01:14:50] But that the idea of it, if you think about it, of literally no matter who you are, what you've done, what guilt and shame that you carry, you can literally be completely sort of washed of it and you can start over. And many of the things even that you've caused, that the pain that's been inflicted on you or the pain that you've inflicted on others can actually be turned around and can be a good thing and can be a way that you can be a voice in the lives of the people.
[01:15:17] Um, that is amazing, uh, to think about. I think I can only say that as a relentlessly driven, goal oriented entrepreneur. You know, it's sort of like that final episode of Breaking Bad. You know, when he says to his wife, you know, I, the reason I did these things, and she says, if you say one more time that you did this for me, and he said, no, I did it, I did it for me. I did it because I enjoyed it. I did it because I was good at it. At the end of the day, I think a lot of the trap that at least people with my personality, and I think men in general, uh, we drift towards competence and it's sort of like, I'm, I, I so suck as a dad or as a husband or what, I don't want to confront that.
[01:15:58] I don't wanna think about it. And so I'm just gonna double down on where I think that I'm valuable and what I'm able to do and where I'm good and where I can sort of self actualize, I guess, is the psychology of it. And I think that that's a trap. It's like a, it's like a, a treadmill of exhaustion and to, to avoid those things in which, you know, you need to change or if cause pain.
[01:16:21] I learned actually through a guy that, a mentor, my early, one of our earliest clients, a ministry guy, a mentor who's sort of had a sort of a moral blowout. His marriage fell apart and I was in the first year of my marriage and sort of went to him and said, you know, dude, if it, if you, if like I'm like, if I'm screwed, like if, if you go down, I mean have, you know, then I'm, what happened?
[01:16:45] And he was very, uh, gracious to sort of, um, and, and, and he's since, is in the business of, of, of sort of restoring marriages, of sort of being a catcher in the rye for me. And it was, it happened early and just knowing that you can live a life without secrets period. You know, it's like night, this night night.
[01:17:06] You tell everybody everything, but you've told ev- you've told someone everything. And that I think the lie you have to break that is a trap is, well, if you knew this about me, there's no way in the world you could love me. That's not true. And uh, that's not true in my marriage. That's not true in my friendships.
[01:17:28] And I've actually found that that's an absolute lie that keeps so many of us in the trap of thinking we're only valuable for what we can do. We're only valuable for what we're good at. And you actually can learn that first of all, God's love is unconditional and forgiveness is infinite, and there's literally nothing you can do.
[01:17:49] It's like my relationship with my kids. There's nothing that they could do to make me love them less. I get frustrated with them. I have to discipline them, but I'm not gonna love them less. And that's the way it is with God. And I've actually found that's the way it's with other people. And we keep ourselves in, in, in a cage of our own making that if someone really knew all the details of our lives, that they, there's no way the world they could love us.
[01:18:09] And if you can break that lie, it's a very freeing thing. And uh, I was lucky that that happened very early with me through a mentor who became like a catcher in the rye in my own life. And, uh, I think ultimately you have to face it again, my, my greatest growth as an individual, as a businessman, as an entrepreneur are when I've taken the time to stop and just what I heard, Mel Gibson call hug the cactus.
[01:18:40] You gotta basically face it, you know, you gotta, you've gotta turn, you gotta stop running from it and, and face what you're afraid of in yourself or in your company and deal with it and get to the other side of it. And, uh, that can be horrifying. It can be scary, it can be, but you know, you can think you're wasting your time or whatever.
[01:19:01] But I've found that those, those are actually both in business and in life, the things that doing it actually changed my life for the better permanently. And, uh, and again, I just think it's, it's allowing yourself, allowing yourself to be okay with failure and with, you know, your own flaws. Thank God Christianity is a message of grace, you know, and the, and you know, something for flawed people.
[01:19:26] And the Bible is full of flawed, deeply flawed people. But that belief that acted on that belief and uh, and you know, we can all do that. And, uh, I just think that that breaking the lie of, I'm only valuable for what I can deliver and what I can do and if you really knew this about me, whatever that is, you wouldn't love me.
[01:19:48] Breaking those lies is I think, the key to freedom and I'm very grateful to have had people walk me through that journey.
[01:19:58] Steve Gatena: Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Relentless Hope with Jon Erwin. As we learn today, no one wants to fail, yet sometimes we do. Sometimes we fail because of something we've done or not done. Sometimes it's what we say or don't say. Other times, we have no control over why we failed.
[01:20:26] Broken dreams, unmet expectations and disappointments are all simply part of life.
[01:20:35] And through it all, God is there. He holds us up, steadies us whenever we waiver, comforts us, whenever we weep, and He invites us to embrace a different perspective on failure. Instead of seeing failure as negative, we can choose to see failures as opportunities. Opportunities to learn to reprioritize where we invest our time and energy to change how we treat other people, and to grow closer to God and strengthen our faith.
[01:21:12] And often it's through learning from our failures that amazing internal and external transformation happens eventually leading us to incredible success.
[01:21:25] This week on Relentless Hope, faith-based filmmaker, Jon Erwin taught us about how to fail well and how to learn from failure so that we can succeed. We got to hear about how Jon's hit film "I Can Only Imagine" was born out of numerous painful failures and he opened up about the painful four month process of facing his failures and the deep introspection that Jon undertook. We got to hear about how his process ultimately led him to realize that he needed to change his company if he wanted to win.
[01:22:09] John taught us that as leaders, we often feel frustrated by our employees, but most problems actually flow from us. We learned how leadership is the art of pulling out the greatness of other people, greatness they might not even see in themselves. And it's about creating an environment where a team becomes exponential together.
[01:22:39] As leaders. Jon explained that it's our responsibility to create the right culture, to get the right people into that culture and then protect that culture. We also got to learn how John believes that leaving a legacy is all about our stories. And he shared how he hopes to leave a legacy through his entertainment and content company, Kingdom Story Company, which he co-founded.
[01:23:09] As Jon explained, he's super passionate about telling faith-based inspirational stories that are wildly entertaining, stories that are emotionally relatable, no matter what you believe, and stories that showcase the transformational power of Christianity.
[01:23:31] As Jon shared, Christianity is one big redemption story.
[01:23:36] It's the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter what guilt or shame you might carry, God can change the situation. God can redeem it, God can heal it, God can transform it, and we can be made anew. As human beings, we fail sometimes. Facing our failures might be painful. But we can handle it and we don't have to face it alone.
[01:24:06] God is with us. He believes in us. He has faith in us, and he loves us unconditionally.
[01:24:15] We have no need to fear failure with God by our side. God helps us to keep rising every time we fall. And by holding tightly to the knowledge that his love for us is unconditional, we might find that failure becomes the absolute best thing for us.
[01:24:39] So as you go out into the world, don't be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again.
[01:24:48] My name's Steve Gatena. I'm the host of Relentless Hope. Thank you for listening to this week's podcast. And remember any time you share an inspirational podcast like Relentless Hope with someone you love, you give hope a voice.
[01:25:11] Thank you for listening to Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast. I'm your host Steve Gatena, and I'm here to help you love your life, lead with purpose, and leave a legacy of helping others.
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