Live to Work? or Work to Live?

Much of my career was spent in Silicon Valley, where my life could be defined by “live to work.” Almost 20 years ago now, I decided that I wanted to “work to live.” The transition took me from Silicon Valley to Denver, Colorado. The move also took me though a major shift in thinking about my life and work.

Throughout my career I have seen many successes in marketing and business acceleration. It would be easy to list out my accomplishments and use my past success as a means of getting my next customer or my next gig. But now is not the time for personal accolades. I would rather acknowledge that any success that I have experienced has come as a blessing from God and others.

Any gifts and talents that I have, come from God. Any opportunities that I have encountered are open doors from Him. Any successes have come to me because God has opened the storehouse of wisdom from heaven for me.

Along with thanks to God, there have been 35 years of leaders, mentors and peers that have shaped me into the man that I am today. Joe McKone give me a chance when no one else would. Marty Moseley invited me into the world of data, analytics and entrepreneurship. Rich Ghiossi hired me repeatedly and took me under his wings to teach me strategic and solution marketing. Jennie Grimes give me a chance to work at one of the greatest companies on the planet and let me run free. Lang Anh Pham and Adrian Ott were the first to hire me at Ferraro Consulting, the start of years of blessing for me and my family. Darlene Lynch taught me what it means to be a leader and to work toward the success of those on your team, true servant leadership. And Rich Case has mentored me for years and taught me what it means to truly live and work in the Kingdom of God. Most importantly, Michelle Santaferraro has stood by me in all of the ups and downs, every business success and every failure.

I am a businessman. I am a marketer. I am a leader. I am an executive. I am a consultant. But first and foremost, I am a child of God and a follower of Jesus Christ. I love to further the Kingdom of God as my number one calling in life. Business and money are a means of doing more to make a difference in the lives of people I encounter.

I am a strange breed. For education, I received a Master of Divinity from Denver Seminary back in 1987. For the first 7 years of my career, I was a youth pastor. Then, I joined a venture-backed, software startup, co-founded by my worship leader, Marty Moseley. I was the third person in the company. Since that time, 23 years ago, I have been learning what it means to live out my faith in the workplace. I have not always succeeded at loving people, but I have always worked hard to live in a way that would touch people’s lives.

In 2002, I began to formulate a more specific calling for my life: reaching influencers and unleashing them to use their time, talent, and treasure to make a difference in the world, to build the Kingdom of God. During that time, I had the privilege of working with executives and entrepreneurs in Denver, Rome, and Milan, sharing the story of my life and inspiring some to move beyond success in business to a more meaningful use of their assets. For some, it meant, looking at their work in a different way. For others, it meant investing their future in organizations or countries to change the world.

It always amazes me how people make it to the top of their career and discover that it was not everything they thought it would be. To achieve their goals, they have made great sacrifices along the way; and those sacrifices don’t always yield the personal results they imagined. “There must be more,” is the statement I have heard repeatedly from some of the most successful people.

And there is more. There is nothing more meaningful than bringing meaning in life to people who have much in the way of “things,” but little in the way of hope, love, joy and peace. It is extremely gratifying to watch leaders in the workplace become a voice of hope to their own employees, or to see them transformed by a vision to touch lives in places around the world, those places where it seems like no one cares.

The shift toward the Kingdom doesn’t have to be massive. It happens one step at a time. About three years ago, I made one simple step to turn a very mundane part of my business life into a very spiritual act. I changed the closing of my emails from “sincerely” to “blessings.” More importantly, I changed my practice of sending emails. I used to just hit the send button. Now, before I hit send, I stop to pray for blessings in the work and life of the person who is receiving the email.

Along with my consulting business, I currently have the privilege of working with three business leaders, facilitating a peer group focused on building Kingdom Businesses, businesses whose highest priority are to build the Kingdom of God. What I do is very similar to organizations like C12, Convene, or Blake Frye’s CORE Leadership. When I first launched this effort in March 2018, I knew that this is what I was made to do.

My next adventure will be to take Kingdom Business Peer Groups to Italy. If you love doing something, why not do it in a place you love? My plans are not yet final, but I know that there are leaders all over Italy who have arrived at that place of success and want more. I hope to be in Italy by the end of the year. I can’t wait to share my story with them, as well.

So, what about you? Do you live to work? If you’re interested in working to live or building a Kingdom Business, drop me a note or leave a comment. I would love to share more of my story and more of my heart with you. If you’d like to learn more about my Italian adventure, you can find more at www.italyventure.com.