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How to pivot with purpose: a conversation with Chris Preuss

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Content provided by Debra Hotaling. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Debra Hotaling or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Like many of us, Chris Preuss spent much of his adult life working up the corporate ladder—the nights, the weekends, the career moves—and he rose up the ranks to become a senior exec with a number of companies you would recognize. And then, he made a decision that dramatically changed his life: he left it all behind to lead a Christian ministry. We talk about what led him to rethink his life, what the pivot process feels like and how we change when we embrace a new adventure.

Here's where you can find Chris:

Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference

Transcript:

Debra Hotaling (00:04):

Hello and welcome to the Dareful Project. I'm Debra Hotaling. My friend Chris Preuss spent much of his adult life the way most of us have, that's climbing up the corporate ladder. He's really good at what he does, and so he climbed up pretty fast and pretty high. He ended up as a senior exec with one of the world's largest PR marketing advertising firms, and then he made a decision that changed his entire life. I'm going to let Chris take the story from here. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Preuss (00:38):

Debra, that's so good to be with you. It's so good to see you and just all that you're getting done with this wonderful podcast. I'm honored to be here.

Debra (00:46):

Thank you. So give us the groundwork. Where were you at? You were high level, you were cool, you were doing all sorts of important work, and then what happened?

Chris (00:57):

Well, in terms of the transitioning into a different phase of life, I had an amazing 34 year career in PR and at that most in the auto industry as you and I had worked together in that capacity in the past and got to be on the top of some pretty big mountains during that time as head of communication to GM during the bankruptcy, which was quite the thrill and had a good stint as the chief marketing Communications officer for one of the big suppliers. And then ended up, as you mentioned back with Ford and actually evolved into running their agency business on the PR side through one of the big PR advertising conglomerates, WP group. But to be honest, over were probably the last, I would say maybe five to six years, things just started to change the equations of what gave you satisfaction and what professionally you had done. I wouldn't call it an existential crisis per se, but maybe just a slow evolution to wanting to do something different with far fewer years in front of me than I have now behind me, which I think in that period you had that wake up call. And so with that, I decided to drop out of corporate life early and completely repurpose myself. And I'm now heading a nonprofit ministry in Western Michigan, a big conference and retreat center or faith-based entities,

Debra (02:30):

Making the decision sounds lovely and clean, but having been in the middle, it's really messy. Can you share a little bit more about the process?

Chris (02:45):

Yeah. Was like I said, it was more of an evolution than something you woke up with, but if I'm honest, getting into more senior positions, particularly in the corporate set, you have to want that. I mean, you're kind of all in and certainly your skills and your abilities get you to a certain level, but then sometimes it's the intangibles and maybe even odd circumstances that might get you into that most senior role. And for most of my young life, I was just singularly focused on that. I mean, God blessed me with a wonderful wife and two wonderful children, and we got to live all over the world. We lived in Washington DC twice. We lived in Switzerland for a while. I worked at Chrysler, Ford and GM at different times, so it was really wonderful. But I think you get to a point where once you maybe apex, there's not a whole lot of other mountains to climb.

(03:46):

And I had actually, the signals for me were getting strong because I've been sort of looking to get out of the industry for maybe the last little section of my career. And I was connected with some great headhunters. It was just, and I am not exaggerating, I ended up in the number two position for three major global chief communication officer jobs at different Fortune 50 companies. And so you're like, okay, and those processes take forever. They're like five, six months sometimes to get through. And you came up short three times. I'm like, all right, well, there's writing on the wall. And then similarly, I'd been in the auto industry. I had just been and done everything, and I was working with Ford and I grew up a Ford kid. My dad was Ford pr. And so it was coming home for me a little bit, but to be honest, they weren't getting my best.

(04:42):

I think I was just running out of that enthusiasm. You need to be the advocate that you need to be when you're in the communications realm. And so then Covid hit, and I think for a lot of people there was just a mass recalculation that Covid did because I mean, you were completely extracted from the environment that you were so used to in terms of how you worked. And then losing all the social contacts that our profession affords both with journalists and with your colleagues, and particularly in an agency role, when you're dealing with tens of millions of dollars of revenue to manage and you have no contact with people, you person it. That soul draining part just accelerated in that time. So that was sort of got me, I think to the point where I started thinking about maybe there might be something else out there to do, because if all it's going to be for the next, if I wanted to work in the next seven to 10 years, it just didn't feel like this. This was going to be a place to spend that time.

Debra (05:49):

I admire your self-reflection on that because I feel it in myself also that you want to gin up that same sort of obsessive corporate energy and go, I can do this again. I can do this again, but it doesn't feel as hungry or as, I don't know, it doesn't have the same mojo.

Chris (06:15):

Yeah, I think that's a great point, particularly in communications. Whenever I go to speak at a university to students or I still get to show up at U of M and some other universities to be a guest speaker every now and then, I make the point that if you're going to spend 80% of your waking hours is doing something, you need to really be passionate about it. And when that passion goes, then all of a sudden it becomes drudgery or it becomes obligation. And to be a hundred percent clear, I mean, I was in a very blessed and fortunate position that I could afford to take this change early, which not everybody can do, and certainly decided to forego a fair amount of earning potential for the next several years to go into nonprofit work. But honestly, once the kids are growing out, we've got grandkids now.

(07:11):

We were just almost laughing about how little we needed to live a life compared to how we lived it. And so my faith has really guided my life. Most of my adult life, I became a Christian as an adult and just after college, and that was sort of a subtract in my life, but it didn't take the predominance of my life that it should have during that corporate ascent. And in that, that was probably one of the more painful realizations several years ago, was just the toll my career had taken on my wife, on my kids, the things missed. And I'm not exaggerating. I can't listen to the Cats in the cradle song. It's just like to this day still, it would be too hard to listen to because I think there was also some of that reflection was, boy, a lot of the life went by when you were on conference calls or sitting in hotel rooms trying to sleep with jet lag in China overnight. So yeah, moving away from that was definitely not hard in that sense.

Debra (08:21):

You're reminding me of a aha moment I had in my career. My kids were little and my daughter was playing, I'm Mommy at work. And so she's on her pretend computer and she's on her pretend phone. And then I try to say something to her and she lifts up her finger and goes, no on the phone. I'm like, oh man. Oh man. Is this our relationship? Oh man, this is bad.

Chris (08:46):

Yeah, yeah. I and your kids pick up on that and in your own mind, you're convinced you're the greatest at everything you do and certainly all the intentionality of showing up for things or the meetings that you think you didn't go to, but the reality was you're not nearly as glorious as you think you are in that respect. And that the kids did have a lot of, I would say times that they felt distant or the dad was a bit of an enigma to them and just he did his thing, but they had life with mom at home. And so yeah, those are things you don't get back. And on reflection, you always wonder, would you do it differently? I'd like to say that I would. I don't know. I'm very happy that it came out the way it has. But yeah, there's a cost to everything. And I think for me, looking forward with what years I had left to work, that cost calculation changed pretty dramatically for me to what was going to make a difference for time and eternity versus just for our standard of living or my own desire to be recognized professionally.

Debra (10:06):

I wanted to ask you if you could have done this younger in your life, but hearing you talk right now, it sounds like it's important that you went through that because you're bringing some wisdom to what you're doing now by having that corporate life.

Chris (10:21):

Yeah, I think those are hard contemplations. Like could you have Yes, probably could have. Would you have, if I'm going to be intellectually honest, no, probably not. Because you were focused on what you thought you wanted. And again, I would never want to pretend that there weren't great benefits and things that I loved my career. I mean, I said sometimes I look back on all the things I got to do in places and people that you got to meet, and it's staggering. How is that me? But the other thing I would say really affected me, and again, you'll appreciate this as a communicator, but one of your key roles is to be an advisor to senior executives. So I've been very close to some very high performing executives, CEOs or chairmans or near CEOs. And one of the more interesting things that I did take note of through my career was how hard it was for so many of them when it came time to hang up, it wasn't their choice.

(11:34):

In other words, they kind of ran the game until time ran out, and they were just going to have to move on. And their inability one to dislodge from that world, and then two, they had no identity when they did, or the identity they had was somewhat misplaced or dislodged, broken marriages, fractured relationships. And I definitely did not want that to be me. And I knew that at an earlier age. I would say that I wanted to be able to decide when I wanted to stop working, not get that call that we've been waiting for you to figure this out on your own, but now it's time to go.

Debra (12:21):

Well, I think about that a lot because you and I both know executives who you move a lot, you work really hard, it's 24/7, and at some point your family goes, we're moving again for the third time in three years? We actually like it here in Florida. So you go do your thing and you come back and hang out with us when you can.

Chris (12:43):

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, what again, just do you count the cost, right? And I don't think when you're kind of blinded with that corporate aspiration or you've sort of got that single-mindedness willing to forego anything. Now, I was fortunate in that my wife and kids would pick up and go, and we did, I think at one point, Stacey, and when we were married for 11 years, we had been in 10 different homes, and some of that was circumstantial with just moving between Chrysler to Ford, they moved us within the Detroit metro area, and then we took some transfers that ended up, we ended up getting called back quickly, but they're moves nonetheless. You're just up and down. And I do remember one discussion we had kind of towards the end of my deciding to pull out, and I kind of made the comment,

(13:45):

…”look at all the great places we got to live, all the great things we got to do.” And it's like, well, it was great for you Chris, but I don't know if you bothered to know us that we, it wasn't always our choice to get to go. We always made the best of it, but that you were, there was never an option that you weren't going to take that role to get the next level to be the guy willing to go take the sacrifice to move the family. Yeah. So again, those are just contemplations that come up after the fact. So when you reflect on that question of would you done it when you're younger, I've often thought, what if I hadn't taken some of those moves? What would be different now? Would we be regretting some of those things or we wouldn't be able to do? I don't know, hard to know. We'll know it the next life, not this one I guess.

Debra (14:35):

So when you were making the decision to jump off the corporate bandwagon and to go nonprofit and to go faith-based, was it a long journey of loss and then sort of redemption I guess, in your own career and making that decision? Or what was the process?

Chris (14:55):

No, I think that I was ready to go because again, one was, like I said, the cost side of things personally came with certain financial rewards that made it possible. So that wasn't a hard part of it, and I think most people would've the hardest decision about would this affect our lifestyle? It was funny when I said I was going to do this. So many people like, oh, that's so amazing. That's so great, but it is not the sacrifice. It sounds like I'm getting the better part of this deal going. But the thought process was probably harder for my wife because her identity and her, we had been stable in one place for almost 12 years in southeast Michigan. The kids had grown up. We had my work life even we called it the Covid blessing to some degree because we were together constantly. So part of the equation was as Covid started releasing its grip, I started, I'm back to London, I'm back to, and I remember getting on that first flight and January of 21, January 22, January 22, going back to London for meetings, the agency and stuff, and just feeling getting on the airplane, just the smell of the airplane knowing I'm going to wake up jet lagged and have to push through meetings the next day.

(16:19):

And I got on the phone, I called Stacy, I just can't do this. I just can't do that. Being home for the two, we were constantly together, even doing everything, I just can't flip that switch and go back. So the thinking process from that standpoint was really easy. The harder part was going into this nonprofit world because there's, the place that we're at is called Maranatha, and it's wonderful, it's an 88 acre conference retreat center that's on Lake Michigan. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the state, and it's been a place that people have gone to vacation with their families for like 88 years. Billy Graham was an intern there in the 1940s, Billy Ruth Graham, before he was Billy Graham. I mean, that's kind of the roots of this place. And we used to vacation with our kids there because when we were in Switzerland or DC or other places, and our family was in Michigan, we didn't really have a place to base.

(17:16):

So we would come and stay at this place, and eventually we bought a cottage there. So it was always our kind of safe place. That's where we just went. We had a place there for 10, 11 years. It was seasonal. Well, now you're there full time. Now you're the guy that's in charge and Christian or not, you put a bunch of people together who own property and have certain stakes and things, human nature shows up. So the fear was if we go there is our sweet safe spot going to become, we're kind of pushing all the chips in. If this doesn't work out, we're not just losing, Hey, you made a bold change of your career and walked away from a big job. Well, now we've lost the place that we used to love to go and was. So that was tough. And to be honest, it took almost a year, I think before I think my wife really had sort of really absorbed all of it.

(18:09):

And we had found our place and replanted, and it's just weird. We had replanted so many times early in my career, and then we were stable for 12, 13 years, and then we replanted again. You'd think it would come back to you, but it was a big deal doing that. But the other upside for us is our daughter is on this side of the state. She had met her husband at Maranatha during one of summer several years ago, and we've just had our first grandchild and she lives close by. So that kind of made the transition a little more logical for us as well. But yeah, it's just such the weird thing. It's just such a radically different world than being in the corporate world. And the amount of change I've needed to make and just how I lead, how I see things has been quite an evolution.

(18:57):

You don't think you're going to learn new things at this late part of your career, but I've had to repackage a whole lot of my approach dealing in a nonprofit world versus the corporate world. And probably another growing tension for me personally, particularly over the last five to seven years was that, and we're very much a conservative evangelical big tent. I mean, it's very kind of a big tent –Protestant -- but very much on more of the conservative evangelical sphere of things in that community. And that's where my faith has been raised. But for most of my career, my Christian faith has been never a challenge for me in my corporate roles. I would like to think I'm a better person and leader and person to be near and around because my faith would dictate. But then some of the things that has been coming up more on the social agendas and some of the things that are becoming very predominant in particularly the DE and I space, and I'm not alone in this, but you're getting to a point now where there are some real strong clashes.

(20:07):

And it used to be that you could fade back and not participate in certain things because you might find them to be in conflict with your faith. And everybody was okay with that. But that equation for senior people changed over the last four or five years. So it's like, why aren't you more proactively using your social media to talk about this issue? Or we should be more, why aren't you out there showing up at certain types of events and things? And that became much tougher for me to manage. And again, I started I think feeling more conviction or conflict over some things that as a matter of conscience, I was having a more challenging time embracing or at least endorsing with my own platform or credibility. And so that part of it, being in the faith world where you can openly be express who you are and that your faith is very much central to what you do, that's been quite wonderful.

(21:10):

And I don't mean that you were a different guy there than you are here, but in terms of being able to maybe more freely speak on and be, I couldn't as an officer in the company go to somebody who might be struggling and share Christ with them and not have fear that that might come back in a certain way that would be a problem for the company or a problem if somebody took offense at that. And those are compromises that come with life in the world versus life in the faith. But those were certainly more pronounced for me I think in these last five or six years than they had been in the past. So that part of it for me in this new environment's been quite liberating and enjoyable.

Debra (21:53):

Did your friendships change when you went from being corporate Chris to your new role?

Chris (22:02):

That's a great question. There are certain people that I have stayed close to in my professional world, but the busyness of life and things going kind of do that. But I would say we, I would say just as good relationships. I do think in, again, some of those relationships that you've had coming up are more bent on the fact that your colleagues and that's what is your common ground. And so when that common ground is gone, you lose some of that connectivity. I certainly have people that I've grown up with through automotive who I would consider to be great friends, journalists or other enthusiasts or people that you stay in contact with.

(22:51):

But I think, and to be honest, my bent in corporate life, I was very careful not to cross too many personal lines for a lot of reasons that I just think are important just in terms of what your role is for the company and that you're not making decisions or doing things that are unintentionally unfair because you've got a depth of relationship with somebody and you might be treating them differently. So I always try to keep a fairly collegial, professional sort of friendships with people versus what I would say more closer friendships. But there certainly are some people that I've stayed in touch with and definitely would want to as we go forward. Yeah.

Debra (23:46):

What has surprised you about this process?

Chris (23:52):

One is just how much I'm enjoying it because it's always the fear of the unknown. You might make this bold decision, get over the fence and figure out, oh my goodness, what have I done? What was I thinking? Now I've walked. And that was, I think also part of my wife's fear was that, that you've talked yourself into this and things are crazy because of covid and you're bored and you didn't get the other jobs that you thought you wanted, so you're just looking to take an off ramp. But it wasn't that at all. I mean, I think that's been just the opposite. I'm immensely challenged in this job intellectually, and it's just so many different circumstances and so many things to learn and do differently. I've never managed a conference retreat, banquet, hotel operation before. I've had to learn that we've got a 20 million capital campaign going on right now.

(24:51):

I've got to build five buildings. I've never done buildings before. We're doing, I'm the guy who's having to shepherd the community relative to just community together and spiritual issues. The other sidelight that my wife and I have is I'm just finishing my seminary degree. She just finished her master's degree and we do counseling. So we counsel together, we do marital counseling in the church, we do individual counseling with people. So that sidetrack has been developing also for me, which was drawing me away from professional life, more towards ministry life. And so that's now another part of our time that we spend doing things that has just been really fulfilling. It can be very draining being in that environment when you're always admired in other people's issues, trying to help them through it. But it's been wonderfully satisfying and enjoyable for us. So I think that I've liked it that much has been a surprise, I would say.

Debra (25:50):

Although what you're describing is what you and I did every single day. And you in particular, right?

Chris (25:57):

That's true. To a degree. It's true. Yeah. You're a counselor. Yeah. Everybody runs to the communications team when they're not sure what to do and how you're advising people to respond. Yeah, that's very true. For

Debra (26:10):

Folks who may not be called to a faith-based next chapter, but are looking to pivot, what are your recommendations? What are your learnings?

Chris (26:19):

Well, I think one is, I think the caution against knee jerk reactions. A lot of folks, I'll just use the ministry experience. I know just as many people that thought that were corporate people that thought, oh, wouldn't it be great to be in ministry and take, and they get over and they're just, they hate it. I'll use an analogy that we would see in our, which is we've seen it where we've had people go from journalism into pr, they were journalists, and they go into PR and they just find out they absolutely hate it. So I think if you're contemplating moving from one spear to another, let's call it more from a professional corporate existence into something that would be more expressive, hobby based, maybe you're going to go into small business, make sure you understand that cost counting, because everything's fraught with difficulties. Nobody's grass is necessarily greener.

(27:19):

And the commitments in those worlds when you make those changes, if you don't understand them, could overwhelm you quickly. And I've seen that when people have moved out of corporate life into buying a business. For instance, they bought a dealership or they became a franchisee of a business or something and they found out there's a level of risk and commitment was completely different than what they had experienced before and overwhelm. I think the other thing you have to really think through too is if you're married and the affected relationships around you in making those choices, if you're doing this, are you together? And like I say, I couldn't be happier right now where we are in our marriage, we're just in this amazingly sweet period where things have come together and it's worked out beautifully that way. But I shudder to think, had we stayed in one context, would that be the case if I was still slugging it out or if I had taken one of those new jobs and was happened to go 150% again.

(28:26):

And then another one I would just say is, do you have the financial stability side of things sorted out? Because again, that's probably the biggest unknown. You could sit down with your financial advisor and look at cashflow analysis and what you're going to need. But I mean, literally the minute I walked out of my job and alright, well we know what we're going to get at a much lower pace rate over here and what we're going to have to take out of the nest egg. I mean the markets went down 15% in June of 22. The housing market slowed way down interest rate and went to 7% on mortgages. And I'm like, did I think this through? And so yeah, that side of it I think needs to really be calculated.

Debra (29:25):

I would like to double click on the decision being in line with the people around you on this. I'm going to be talking with another guest here in a couple of weeks, but we go down a road and we have to take the job because we are raising kids and we have a mortgage. And so there's things that you do, you got to step up and you got to do 'em. And if we're very lucky at this point in our life, we put a little money away, we have some experience, we're healthy enough that we've got years in front of us. And so this could be the point where we do that thing that we must do. And so that could be a reckoning in relationships.

Chris (30:08):

You really got to work through that. Because it's not just you taking the ride and everybody else gets to readjust. And even again, I don't know that if Covid hadn't happened, I don't know that I'd be in this role because I think that gave us the confidence of being together. I think we used to joke, what's it going to be when a third of my life wasn't on the road getting tired of hearing me talk? Well, at least you're going off on a trip or something and you have a different change of perspective and absence makes the heart growth fonder or whatever. How would you be if you're together all the time when you've had this other way of living for most of your married life? So yeah, what's the environment? Are you moving? What's the time demands? Are you doing it together? I mean, I just can't explain how I would like to be able to put into words more eloquently what the drivers were in my heart, why I felt so passionate about being in one context for so long and then just literally kind of flipped over.

(31:12):

This isn't where I'm supposed to be. I would say that to me that's more God's leading in my life and just where he took us as a matter of conviction and my appetites and my desires changed in concert with this change of venue. But I think making sure that your spouse or your significant others and that same mindset and is willing to take that journey is really important. But yeah, the sense of aging, you're just kind of shocked that you look in the mirror one day and you're like, wait a minute, my brain still says 30 and I definitely don't look 30 anymore. And you spend your whole career being the up and comer and always on the ascent and then all of a sudden you're not. And that again, that affects every relationship you have and how you relate. So yeah, I think you have to think it through and talk it through with whoever's taken the journey with you for sure.

Debra (32:17):

But you have a choice in that. Either you can try to grab back that past glory and just kind of muscle your way through as best you can, or you can decide this is going to be a whole new chapter.

Chris (32:30):

Exactly. Right. And it's a different equation too about what's really what counts, what does getting that glory back mean? And so I think again, for the corporate ascent, you kind of got there and then you're like, this is it. And that's not uncommon. I've worked with guys out of private equity in my journey, guys that are worth nine figures and they feel like they're, they've just, boy, I just didn't get to the billionaire mark. You're just like, what in the world? What kind of a perverse mindset is that? But that would just tell you that money's not going to be the ultimate arbiter of whether you're successful or not.

(33:20):

We're here for a breath and then you're not. And what's going to have mattered and what's it going to be? And I believe we give an accountant when we're done. And for me it was just, yeah, I want to be in service to my Lord as much as I could be before departing. And I think that's true even in a professional life, if that's where God's called you, I think we need godly leaders in corporate life and others, but for us, this was being part of this community, being in this place, we felt led. And so that was the kind of all clicked together. But yeah, you're not going to get that lightning back. And I think that's where it gets sad and pursuing it, you're going to find it can become quite a sad thing to watch. And like I said, I've seen that movie before with others, I've been around.

Debra (34:14):

What would you recommend for folks how to begin the smallest step, not the giant one, but just what is that one thing that someone could do right now as they're contemplating something like this?

Chris (34:29):

I think you really need to ask yourself, the hard question is if this is all the time I have left, what is it that's going to matter? And what would be holding me back from pursuing that? Because doing nothing or staying status quo is absolutely valid, but is that nothing happens until somebody acts. And so no, and I believe this is true in every phase of life, nothing comes for free. So there's a certain amount of equity you've got to push onto the table to say, I'm going to make a change, and am I willing to do that? And is my spouse or other willing to do that? But man, I think once you get over that hump of making that decision, you take that first next step. And you don't have to solve it overnight. But I think you have to ask yourself the real tough questions. Is this where I really want to be? Is this how I want to finish? And what do I want it to look like when I look back and do my kids know me? Does my family know me? Can I look in the mirror and say, yeah, this, and again, coming more from the face, am I going to look in the face my Lord and say, here, well done, good and faithful servant, or am I going to hear I never knew you?

(35:47):

And so that's where I just think you got to ask yourself that tough question and not be afraid to ask that question.

Debra (35:57):

Chris, can anybody come and visit you?

Chris (36:02):

Sure, absolutely.

Debra (36:03):

Anyone can come and have a lovely time, anyone can come.

Chris (36:07):

Anyone wide open.

Debra (36:10):

Alright, well we're going to make sure that we have all the information on our site so that folks who want to, and you're open all year round, even in the chilly winter months.

Chris (36:20):

Yeah. So let me explain that real quick. So we function for 10 weeks of the summer. So basically from Memorial Day through Labor Day on a set program. So for three weeks in June, we host a special needs camp called Johnny and Friends, which are families with disabled children and disabled adults. And we give respite to the caregivers. And so we have people that come together and take care of the needs person and then we pamper and have fun for the families to be kind of released from their responsibilities. So that's most of June. And then every week through the summer, we have a different set of speakers that come in each week, preachers speakers, and we have free concerts. And so families come every different week. So most families, if they've come week five for years, their families probably grew up coming to week five. And that's the summer. And then for the rest of the year, we run, basically we're open for retreats and conferences and we have groups as small as three people. And we have groups as big as 300 people that come in and use a facility. And it's, like I said, it's a very big tent, Christian. We're not denominational, we're not tied to any one church or anything. So it's a pretty big tent for people to come in.

Debra (37:31):

I love it. Alright Chris. We'll make sure that everything is on the site. Great. Thank you so much.

Chris (37:37):

Thank you Debra. So good to talk to you. And I just wish you all the best in this wonderful new endeavor and

Debra (37:42):

To you,

Speaker 3 (37:44):

Take care.

Debra (37:45):

Thanks for listening to the Dareful Project. Please follow, like and leave a review. It really helps. We're on all your favorite platforms, Spotify, apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, audible, tune in Amazon Music, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and YouTube and Connect. You can email me at debra@darefulone.com. That's Debra, D-E-B-R-A at Dareful one. That's with the number one.com. Thanks for listening.

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Like many of us, Chris Preuss spent much of his adult life working up the corporate ladder—the nights, the weekends, the career moves—and he rose up the ranks to become a senior exec with a number of companies you would recognize. And then, he made a decision that dramatically changed his life: he left it all behind to lead a Christian ministry. We talk about what led him to rethink his life, what the pivot process feels like and how we change when we embrace a new adventure.

Here's where you can find Chris:

Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference

Transcript:

Debra Hotaling (00:04):

Hello and welcome to the Dareful Project. I'm Debra Hotaling. My friend Chris Preuss spent much of his adult life the way most of us have, that's climbing up the corporate ladder. He's really good at what he does, and so he climbed up pretty fast and pretty high. He ended up as a senior exec with one of the world's largest PR marketing advertising firms, and then he made a decision that changed his entire life. I'm going to let Chris take the story from here. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Preuss (00:38):

Debra, that's so good to be with you. It's so good to see you and just all that you're getting done with this wonderful podcast. I'm honored to be here.

Debra (00:46):

Thank you. So give us the groundwork. Where were you at? You were high level, you were cool, you were doing all sorts of important work, and then what happened?

Chris (00:57):

Well, in terms of the transitioning into a different phase of life, I had an amazing 34 year career in PR and at that most in the auto industry as you and I had worked together in that capacity in the past and got to be on the top of some pretty big mountains during that time as head of communication to GM during the bankruptcy, which was quite the thrill and had a good stint as the chief marketing Communications officer for one of the big suppliers. And then ended up, as you mentioned back with Ford and actually evolved into running their agency business on the PR side through one of the big PR advertising conglomerates, WP group. But to be honest, over were probably the last, I would say maybe five to six years, things just started to change the equations of what gave you satisfaction and what professionally you had done. I wouldn't call it an existential crisis per se, but maybe just a slow evolution to wanting to do something different with far fewer years in front of me than I have now behind me, which I think in that period you had that wake up call. And so with that, I decided to drop out of corporate life early and completely repurpose myself. And I'm now heading a nonprofit ministry in Western Michigan, a big conference and retreat center or faith-based entities,

Debra (02:30):

Making the decision sounds lovely and clean, but having been in the middle, it's really messy. Can you share a little bit more about the process?

Chris (02:45):

Yeah. Was like I said, it was more of an evolution than something you woke up with, but if I'm honest, getting into more senior positions, particularly in the corporate set, you have to want that. I mean, you're kind of all in and certainly your skills and your abilities get you to a certain level, but then sometimes it's the intangibles and maybe even odd circumstances that might get you into that most senior role. And for most of my young life, I was just singularly focused on that. I mean, God blessed me with a wonderful wife and two wonderful children, and we got to live all over the world. We lived in Washington DC twice. We lived in Switzerland for a while. I worked at Chrysler, Ford and GM at different times, so it was really wonderful. But I think you get to a point where once you maybe apex, there's not a whole lot of other mountains to climb.

(03:46):

And I had actually, the signals for me were getting strong because I've been sort of looking to get out of the industry for maybe the last little section of my career. And I was connected with some great headhunters. It was just, and I am not exaggerating, I ended up in the number two position for three major global chief communication officer jobs at different Fortune 50 companies. And so you're like, okay, and those processes take forever. They're like five, six months sometimes to get through. And you came up short three times. I'm like, all right, well, there's writing on the wall. And then similarly, I'd been in the auto industry. I had just been and done everything, and I was working with Ford and I grew up a Ford kid. My dad was Ford pr. And so it was coming home for me a little bit, but to be honest, they weren't getting my best.

(04:42):

I think I was just running out of that enthusiasm. You need to be the advocate that you need to be when you're in the communications realm. And so then Covid hit, and I think for a lot of people there was just a mass recalculation that Covid did because I mean, you were completely extracted from the environment that you were so used to in terms of how you worked. And then losing all the social contacts that our profession affords both with journalists and with your colleagues, and particularly in an agency role, when you're dealing with tens of millions of dollars of revenue to manage and you have no contact with people, you person it. That soul draining part just accelerated in that time. So that was sort of got me, I think to the point where I started thinking about maybe there might be something else out there to do, because if all it's going to be for the next, if I wanted to work in the next seven to 10 years, it just didn't feel like this. This was going to be a place to spend that time.

Debra (05:49):

I admire your self-reflection on that because I feel it in myself also that you want to gin up that same sort of obsessive corporate energy and go, I can do this again. I can do this again, but it doesn't feel as hungry or as, I don't know, it doesn't have the same mojo.

Chris (06:15):

Yeah, I think that's a great point, particularly in communications. Whenever I go to speak at a university to students or I still get to show up at U of M and some other universities to be a guest speaker every now and then, I make the point that if you're going to spend 80% of your waking hours is doing something, you need to really be passionate about it. And when that passion goes, then all of a sudden it becomes drudgery or it becomes obligation. And to be a hundred percent clear, I mean, I was in a very blessed and fortunate position that I could afford to take this change early, which not everybody can do, and certainly decided to forego a fair amount of earning potential for the next several years to go into nonprofit work. But honestly, once the kids are growing out, we've got grandkids now.

(07:11):

We were just almost laughing about how little we needed to live a life compared to how we lived it. And so my faith has really guided my life. Most of my adult life, I became a Christian as an adult and just after college, and that was sort of a subtract in my life, but it didn't take the predominance of my life that it should have during that corporate ascent. And in that, that was probably one of the more painful realizations several years ago, was just the toll my career had taken on my wife, on my kids, the things missed. And I'm not exaggerating. I can't listen to the Cats in the cradle song. It's just like to this day still, it would be too hard to listen to because I think there was also some of that reflection was, boy, a lot of the life went by when you were on conference calls or sitting in hotel rooms trying to sleep with jet lag in China overnight. So yeah, moving away from that was definitely not hard in that sense.

Debra (08:21):

You're reminding me of a aha moment I had in my career. My kids were little and my daughter was playing, I'm Mommy at work. And so she's on her pretend computer and she's on her pretend phone. And then I try to say something to her and she lifts up her finger and goes, no on the phone. I'm like, oh man. Oh man. Is this our relationship? Oh man, this is bad.

Chris (08:46):

Yeah, yeah. I and your kids pick up on that and in your own mind, you're convinced you're the greatest at everything you do and certainly all the intentionality of showing up for things or the meetings that you think you didn't go to, but the reality was you're not nearly as glorious as you think you are in that respect. And that the kids did have a lot of, I would say times that they felt distant or the dad was a bit of an enigma to them and just he did his thing, but they had life with mom at home. And so yeah, those are things you don't get back. And on reflection, you always wonder, would you do it differently? I'd like to say that I would. I don't know. I'm very happy that it came out the way it has. But yeah, there's a cost to everything. And I think for me, looking forward with what years I had left to work, that cost calculation changed pretty dramatically for me to what was going to make a difference for time and eternity versus just for our standard of living or my own desire to be recognized professionally.

Debra (10:06):

I wanted to ask you if you could have done this younger in your life, but hearing you talk right now, it sounds like it's important that you went through that because you're bringing some wisdom to what you're doing now by having that corporate life.

Chris (10:21):

Yeah, I think those are hard contemplations. Like could you have Yes, probably could have. Would you have, if I'm going to be intellectually honest, no, probably not. Because you were focused on what you thought you wanted. And again, I would never want to pretend that there weren't great benefits and things that I loved my career. I mean, I said sometimes I look back on all the things I got to do in places and people that you got to meet, and it's staggering. How is that me? But the other thing I would say really affected me, and again, you'll appreciate this as a communicator, but one of your key roles is to be an advisor to senior executives. So I've been very close to some very high performing executives, CEOs or chairmans or near CEOs. And one of the more interesting things that I did take note of through my career was how hard it was for so many of them when it came time to hang up, it wasn't their choice.

(11:34):

In other words, they kind of ran the game until time ran out, and they were just going to have to move on. And their inability one to dislodge from that world, and then two, they had no identity when they did, or the identity they had was somewhat misplaced or dislodged, broken marriages, fractured relationships. And I definitely did not want that to be me. And I knew that at an earlier age. I would say that I wanted to be able to decide when I wanted to stop working, not get that call that we've been waiting for you to figure this out on your own, but now it's time to go.

Debra (12:21):

Well, I think about that a lot because you and I both know executives who you move a lot, you work really hard, it's 24/7, and at some point your family goes, we're moving again for the third time in three years? We actually like it here in Florida. So you go do your thing and you come back and hang out with us when you can.

Chris (12:43):

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, what again, just do you count the cost, right? And I don't think when you're kind of blinded with that corporate aspiration or you've sort of got that single-mindedness willing to forego anything. Now, I was fortunate in that my wife and kids would pick up and go, and we did, I think at one point, Stacey, and when we were married for 11 years, we had been in 10 different homes, and some of that was circumstantial with just moving between Chrysler to Ford, they moved us within the Detroit metro area, and then we took some transfers that ended up, we ended up getting called back quickly, but they're moves nonetheless. You're just up and down. And I do remember one discussion we had kind of towards the end of my deciding to pull out, and I kind of made the comment,

(13:45):

…”look at all the great places we got to live, all the great things we got to do.” And it's like, well, it was great for you Chris, but I don't know if you bothered to know us that we, it wasn't always our choice to get to go. We always made the best of it, but that you were, there was never an option that you weren't going to take that role to get the next level to be the guy willing to go take the sacrifice to move the family. Yeah. So again, those are just contemplations that come up after the fact. So when you reflect on that question of would you done it when you're younger, I've often thought, what if I hadn't taken some of those moves? What would be different now? Would we be regretting some of those things or we wouldn't be able to do? I don't know, hard to know. We'll know it the next life, not this one I guess.

Debra (14:35):

So when you were making the decision to jump off the corporate bandwagon and to go nonprofit and to go faith-based, was it a long journey of loss and then sort of redemption I guess, in your own career and making that decision? Or what was the process?

Chris (14:55):

No, I think that I was ready to go because again, one was, like I said, the cost side of things personally came with certain financial rewards that made it possible. So that wasn't a hard part of it, and I think most people would've the hardest decision about would this affect our lifestyle? It was funny when I said I was going to do this. So many people like, oh, that's so amazing. That's so great, but it is not the sacrifice. It sounds like I'm getting the better part of this deal going. But the thought process was probably harder for my wife because her identity and her, we had been stable in one place for almost 12 years in southeast Michigan. The kids had grown up. We had my work life even we called it the Covid blessing to some degree because we were together constantly. So part of the equation was as Covid started releasing its grip, I started, I'm back to London, I'm back to, and I remember getting on that first flight and January of 21, January 22, January 22, going back to London for meetings, the agency and stuff, and just feeling getting on the airplane, just the smell of the airplane knowing I'm going to wake up jet lagged and have to push through meetings the next day.

(16:19):

And I got on the phone, I called Stacy, I just can't do this. I just can't do that. Being home for the two, we were constantly together, even doing everything, I just can't flip that switch and go back. So the thinking process from that standpoint was really easy. The harder part was going into this nonprofit world because there's, the place that we're at is called Maranatha, and it's wonderful, it's an 88 acre conference retreat center that's on Lake Michigan. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the state, and it's been a place that people have gone to vacation with their families for like 88 years. Billy Graham was an intern there in the 1940s, Billy Ruth Graham, before he was Billy Graham. I mean, that's kind of the roots of this place. And we used to vacation with our kids there because when we were in Switzerland or DC or other places, and our family was in Michigan, we didn't really have a place to base.

(17:16):

So we would come and stay at this place, and eventually we bought a cottage there. So it was always our kind of safe place. That's where we just went. We had a place there for 10, 11 years. It was seasonal. Well, now you're there full time. Now you're the guy that's in charge and Christian or not, you put a bunch of people together who own property and have certain stakes and things, human nature shows up. So the fear was if we go there is our sweet safe spot going to become, we're kind of pushing all the chips in. If this doesn't work out, we're not just losing, Hey, you made a bold change of your career and walked away from a big job. Well, now we've lost the place that we used to love to go and was. So that was tough. And to be honest, it took almost a year, I think before I think my wife really had sort of really absorbed all of it.

(18:09):

And we had found our place and replanted, and it's just weird. We had replanted so many times early in my career, and then we were stable for 12, 13 years, and then we replanted again. You'd think it would come back to you, but it was a big deal doing that. But the other upside for us is our daughter is on this side of the state. She had met her husband at Maranatha during one of summer several years ago, and we've just had our first grandchild and she lives close by. So that kind of made the transition a little more logical for us as well. But yeah, it's just such the weird thing. It's just such a radically different world than being in the corporate world. And the amount of change I've needed to make and just how I lead, how I see things has been quite an evolution.

(18:57):

You don't think you're going to learn new things at this late part of your career, but I've had to repackage a whole lot of my approach dealing in a nonprofit world versus the corporate world. And probably another growing tension for me personally, particularly over the last five to seven years was that, and we're very much a conservative evangelical big tent. I mean, it's very kind of a big tent –Protestant -- but very much on more of the conservative evangelical sphere of things in that community. And that's where my faith has been raised. But for most of my career, my Christian faith has been never a challenge for me in my corporate roles. I would like to think I'm a better person and leader and person to be near and around because my faith would dictate. But then some of the things that has been coming up more on the social agendas and some of the things that are becoming very predominant in particularly the DE and I space, and I'm not alone in this, but you're getting to a point now where there are some real strong clashes.

(20:07):

And it used to be that you could fade back and not participate in certain things because you might find them to be in conflict with your faith. And everybody was okay with that. But that equation for senior people changed over the last four or five years. So it's like, why aren't you more proactively using your social media to talk about this issue? Or we should be more, why aren't you out there showing up at certain types of events and things? And that became much tougher for me to manage. And again, I started I think feeling more conviction or conflict over some things that as a matter of conscience, I was having a more challenging time embracing or at least endorsing with my own platform or credibility. And so that part of it, being in the faith world where you can openly be express who you are and that your faith is very much central to what you do, that's been quite wonderful.

(21:10):

And I don't mean that you were a different guy there than you are here, but in terms of being able to maybe more freely speak on and be, I couldn't as an officer in the company go to somebody who might be struggling and share Christ with them and not have fear that that might come back in a certain way that would be a problem for the company or a problem if somebody took offense at that. And those are compromises that come with life in the world versus life in the faith. But those were certainly more pronounced for me I think in these last five or six years than they had been in the past. So that part of it for me in this new environment's been quite liberating and enjoyable.

Debra (21:53):

Did your friendships change when you went from being corporate Chris to your new role?

Chris (22:02):

That's a great question. There are certain people that I have stayed close to in my professional world, but the busyness of life and things going kind of do that. But I would say we, I would say just as good relationships. I do think in, again, some of those relationships that you've had coming up are more bent on the fact that your colleagues and that's what is your common ground. And so when that common ground is gone, you lose some of that connectivity. I certainly have people that I've grown up with through automotive who I would consider to be great friends, journalists or other enthusiasts or people that you stay in contact with.

(22:51):

But I think, and to be honest, my bent in corporate life, I was very careful not to cross too many personal lines for a lot of reasons that I just think are important just in terms of what your role is for the company and that you're not making decisions or doing things that are unintentionally unfair because you've got a depth of relationship with somebody and you might be treating them differently. So I always try to keep a fairly collegial, professional sort of friendships with people versus what I would say more closer friendships. But there certainly are some people that I've stayed in touch with and definitely would want to as we go forward. Yeah.

Debra (23:46):

What has surprised you about this process?

Chris (23:52):

One is just how much I'm enjoying it because it's always the fear of the unknown. You might make this bold decision, get over the fence and figure out, oh my goodness, what have I done? What was I thinking? Now I've walked. And that was, I think also part of my wife's fear was that, that you've talked yourself into this and things are crazy because of covid and you're bored and you didn't get the other jobs that you thought you wanted, so you're just looking to take an off ramp. But it wasn't that at all. I mean, I think that's been just the opposite. I'm immensely challenged in this job intellectually, and it's just so many different circumstances and so many things to learn and do differently. I've never managed a conference retreat, banquet, hotel operation before. I've had to learn that we've got a 20 million capital campaign going on right now.

(24:51):

I've got to build five buildings. I've never done buildings before. We're doing, I'm the guy who's having to shepherd the community relative to just community together and spiritual issues. The other sidelight that my wife and I have is I'm just finishing my seminary degree. She just finished her master's degree and we do counseling. So we counsel together, we do marital counseling in the church, we do individual counseling with people. So that sidetrack has been developing also for me, which was drawing me away from professional life, more towards ministry life. And so that's now another part of our time that we spend doing things that has just been really fulfilling. It can be very draining being in that environment when you're always admired in other people's issues, trying to help them through it. But it's been wonderfully satisfying and enjoyable for us. So I think that I've liked it that much has been a surprise, I would say.

Debra (25:50):

Although what you're describing is what you and I did every single day. And you in particular, right?

Chris (25:57):

That's true. To a degree. It's true. Yeah. You're a counselor. Yeah. Everybody runs to the communications team when they're not sure what to do and how you're advising people to respond. Yeah, that's very true. For

Debra (26:10):

Folks who may not be called to a faith-based next chapter, but are looking to pivot, what are your recommendations? What are your learnings?

Chris (26:19):

Well, I think one is, I think the caution against knee jerk reactions. A lot of folks, I'll just use the ministry experience. I know just as many people that thought that were corporate people that thought, oh, wouldn't it be great to be in ministry and take, and they get over and they're just, they hate it. I'll use an analogy that we would see in our, which is we've seen it where we've had people go from journalism into pr, they were journalists, and they go into PR and they just find out they absolutely hate it. So I think if you're contemplating moving from one spear to another, let's call it more from a professional corporate existence into something that would be more expressive, hobby based, maybe you're going to go into small business, make sure you understand that cost counting, because everything's fraught with difficulties. Nobody's grass is necessarily greener.

(27:19):

And the commitments in those worlds when you make those changes, if you don't understand them, could overwhelm you quickly. And I've seen that when people have moved out of corporate life into buying a business. For instance, they bought a dealership or they became a franchisee of a business or something and they found out there's a level of risk and commitment was completely different than what they had experienced before and overwhelm. I think the other thing you have to really think through too is if you're married and the affected relationships around you in making those choices, if you're doing this, are you together? And like I say, I couldn't be happier right now where we are in our marriage, we're just in this amazingly sweet period where things have come together and it's worked out beautifully that way. But I shudder to think, had we stayed in one context, would that be the case if I was still slugging it out or if I had taken one of those new jobs and was happened to go 150% again.

(28:26):

And then another one I would just say is, do you have the financial stability side of things sorted out? Because again, that's probably the biggest unknown. You could sit down with your financial advisor and look at cashflow analysis and what you're going to need. But I mean, literally the minute I walked out of my job and alright, well we know what we're going to get at a much lower pace rate over here and what we're going to have to take out of the nest egg. I mean the markets went down 15% in June of 22. The housing market slowed way down interest rate and went to 7% on mortgages. And I'm like, did I think this through? And so yeah, that side of it I think needs to really be calculated.

Debra (29:25):

I would like to double click on the decision being in line with the people around you on this. I'm going to be talking with another guest here in a couple of weeks, but we go down a road and we have to take the job because we are raising kids and we have a mortgage. And so there's things that you do, you got to step up and you got to do 'em. And if we're very lucky at this point in our life, we put a little money away, we have some experience, we're healthy enough that we've got years in front of us. And so this could be the point where we do that thing that we must do. And so that could be a reckoning in relationships.

Chris (30:08):

You really got to work through that. Because it's not just you taking the ride and everybody else gets to readjust. And even again, I don't know that if Covid hadn't happened, I don't know that I'd be in this role because I think that gave us the confidence of being together. I think we used to joke, what's it going to be when a third of my life wasn't on the road getting tired of hearing me talk? Well, at least you're going off on a trip or something and you have a different change of perspective and absence makes the heart growth fonder or whatever. How would you be if you're together all the time when you've had this other way of living for most of your married life? So yeah, what's the environment? Are you moving? What's the time demands? Are you doing it together? I mean, I just can't explain how I would like to be able to put into words more eloquently what the drivers were in my heart, why I felt so passionate about being in one context for so long and then just literally kind of flipped over.

(31:12):

This isn't where I'm supposed to be. I would say that to me that's more God's leading in my life and just where he took us as a matter of conviction and my appetites and my desires changed in concert with this change of venue. But I think making sure that your spouse or your significant others and that same mindset and is willing to take that journey is really important. But yeah, the sense of aging, you're just kind of shocked that you look in the mirror one day and you're like, wait a minute, my brain still says 30 and I definitely don't look 30 anymore. And you spend your whole career being the up and comer and always on the ascent and then all of a sudden you're not. And that again, that affects every relationship you have and how you relate. So yeah, I think you have to think it through and talk it through with whoever's taken the journey with you for sure.

Debra (32:17):

But you have a choice in that. Either you can try to grab back that past glory and just kind of muscle your way through as best you can, or you can decide this is going to be a whole new chapter.

Chris (32:30):

Exactly. Right. And it's a different equation too about what's really what counts, what does getting that glory back mean? And so I think again, for the corporate ascent, you kind of got there and then you're like, this is it. And that's not uncommon. I've worked with guys out of private equity in my journey, guys that are worth nine figures and they feel like they're, they've just, boy, I just didn't get to the billionaire mark. You're just like, what in the world? What kind of a perverse mindset is that? But that would just tell you that money's not going to be the ultimate arbiter of whether you're successful or not.

(33:20):

We're here for a breath and then you're not. And what's going to have mattered and what's it going to be? And I believe we give an accountant when we're done. And for me it was just, yeah, I want to be in service to my Lord as much as I could be before departing. And I think that's true even in a professional life, if that's where God's called you, I think we need godly leaders in corporate life and others, but for us, this was being part of this community, being in this place, we felt led. And so that was the kind of all clicked together. But yeah, you're not going to get that lightning back. And I think that's where it gets sad and pursuing it, you're going to find it can become quite a sad thing to watch. And like I said, I've seen that movie before with others, I've been around.

Debra (34:14):

What would you recommend for folks how to begin the smallest step, not the giant one, but just what is that one thing that someone could do right now as they're contemplating something like this?

Chris (34:29):

I think you really need to ask yourself, the hard question is if this is all the time I have left, what is it that's going to matter? And what would be holding me back from pursuing that? Because doing nothing or staying status quo is absolutely valid, but is that nothing happens until somebody acts. And so no, and I believe this is true in every phase of life, nothing comes for free. So there's a certain amount of equity you've got to push onto the table to say, I'm going to make a change, and am I willing to do that? And is my spouse or other willing to do that? But man, I think once you get over that hump of making that decision, you take that first next step. And you don't have to solve it overnight. But I think you have to ask yourself the real tough questions. Is this where I really want to be? Is this how I want to finish? And what do I want it to look like when I look back and do my kids know me? Does my family know me? Can I look in the mirror and say, yeah, this, and again, coming more from the face, am I going to look in the face my Lord and say, here, well done, good and faithful servant, or am I going to hear I never knew you?

(35:47):

And so that's where I just think you got to ask yourself that tough question and not be afraid to ask that question.

Debra (35:57):

Chris, can anybody come and visit you?

Chris (36:02):

Sure, absolutely.

Debra (36:03):

Anyone can come and have a lovely time, anyone can come.

Chris (36:07):

Anyone wide open.

Debra (36:10):

Alright, well we're going to make sure that we have all the information on our site so that folks who want to, and you're open all year round, even in the chilly winter months.

Chris (36:20):

Yeah. So let me explain that real quick. So we function for 10 weeks of the summer. So basically from Memorial Day through Labor Day on a set program. So for three weeks in June, we host a special needs camp called Johnny and Friends, which are families with disabled children and disabled adults. And we give respite to the caregivers. And so we have people that come together and take care of the needs person and then we pamper and have fun for the families to be kind of released from their responsibilities. So that's most of June. And then every week through the summer, we have a different set of speakers that come in each week, preachers speakers, and we have free concerts. And so families come every different week. So most families, if they've come week five for years, their families probably grew up coming to week five. And that's the summer. And then for the rest of the year, we run, basically we're open for retreats and conferences and we have groups as small as three people. And we have groups as big as 300 people that come in and use a facility. And it's, like I said, it's a very big tent, Christian. We're not denominational, we're not tied to any one church or anything. So it's a pretty big tent for people to come in.

Debra (37:31):

I love it. Alright Chris. We'll make sure that everything is on the site. Great. Thank you so much.

Chris (37:37):

Thank you Debra. So good to talk to you. And I just wish you all the best in this wonderful new endeavor and

Debra (37:42):

To you,

Speaker 3 (37:44):

Take care.

Debra (37:45):

Thanks for listening to the Dareful Project. Please follow, like and leave a review. It really helps. We're on all your favorite platforms, Spotify, apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, audible, tune in Amazon Music, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and YouTube and Connect. You can email me at debra@darefulone.com. That's Debra, D-E-B-R-A at Dareful one. That's with the number one.com. Thanks for listening.

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