SNS 133: Saturday Night Special – Interview with creator of The Brand Sunday Zach Windahl

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 133.

[00:00:05] Zach Windahl: I'm Zach Windell. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to really live your calling into the world is key.

[00:00:21] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast by my friend, Scott.

[00:00:28] it's so important to audit the way that you spend your time and what you spend your money on if you're younger. So I'm 34. A lot of my audiences in there. We have so much time. And even if you're, even if you're older, you, most people have a lot more time than they really realize. Maybe that means you need to cut out the next season on Netflix that you wanted to watch.

[00:00:52] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who [00:01:00] God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true column. In the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that.

[00:01:16] Can impact the work

[00:01:18] tonight, Saturday nights. I interviewed Zach Windell. I asked Zach to share with you how you can find your place in God's story. I also asked Zach to talk about how he views purpose. And Zach also talks with you about how you can learn to trust your own experiences and use. To overcome self doubt. One area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity.

[00:01:48] Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your [00:02:00] passion. That's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:15] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personnel. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:33] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash law. Arthur and entrepreneurs, Zach Windell has helped thousands of people better understand the Bible and grow closer to God through his company.

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] The brand Sunday, he's the author of several books, including the Bible study youth edition and the best season planner. Zach lives in Miami, Florida with his wife just sell and their dog. Now he's released launch with God, his new book, focus on how you have been given a chance to make a difference in the world.

[00:03:21] A unique opportunity to see through your God-given purpose. Welcome to the shows. Zack,

[00:03:29] Zach Windahl: thank you so much. So honored to be here.

[00:03:32] Scott Maderer: So I really enjoyed checking out a lot of your different material. We talked about some of it in the intro, and one of the themes of my show is helping people identify their God given purpose and live it out.

[00:03:47] So how do you say, what would you share with people on helping them find their place and their purpose? And God's. Yeah,

[00:03:56] Zach Windahl: I think so often we make it a very complicated task to [00:04:00] figure out what our purpose is. And so we sit back and we wait for God to perform some crazy experience for us when in reality, a lot of the times I think it's right in front of us.

[00:04:12] And we take the waiting for granted and we take what's right here for granted. And so I think you need to look. What he's doing in the world, and you need to figure out how to partner with him on that and look at how he created you. Look at the gifts that he's placed in your life.

[00:04:28] Where are you naturally good at look at the spiritual gifts that he's given you. How, what is your role in in working towards bettering the body of Christ? What passions as he gets. What things do you live for? What do you crave to do with your time and your attention? And then from there, I think you just figure out how you can line all of that up with the kingdom, how you can impact it in some positive way.

[00:04:55] Maybe you love coffee, maybe you're so passionate about coffee. And to most people [00:05:00] you'd be like, what does that have to do with the kingdom? But I really think maybe you're using fair trade. Maybe you're making sure that the farmers are living on a great wage. Maybe you're giving part of your profits.

[00:05:14] Or say you have a clothing line, maybe you're giving the samples a way to the homeless, but I think no matter what business it is, no matter where your passions lie, you can find some way to impact the world around you in a positive way.

[00:05:30] Scott Maderer: So one of the things that I've seen people do when it comes to finding their purpose is they're looking at purpose and career as the same thing.

[00:05:40] How do you, how would you. Explain kind of the relationship between those or lack of relationship between those two.

[00:05:48] Zach Windahl: Totally. I think you can. I think you can put your purpose into your career, but I don't think your purpose always needs to be your career. And so sometimes people just love the [00:06:00] safety net of a great job and they're working their way up.

[00:06:03] And then on the side is like a side hustle. They're chasing after their purpose. I think it can be a huge thing or it can be a very small thing. Our purpose can be just impacting our neighbor or the person in the cubicle next to us. So it doesn't have to be always in entrepreneurial thing by any means, but it can be just in your day to day life.

[00:06:23] What is, what place has God puts you in and how can you live out the purpose, your purpose, and impact the kingdom from where you're at?

[00:06:33] Scott Maderer: And unrelated to that you talk about purpose as a form of worship, and I will tell you, listeners of the show have actually heard me used that phrase before, before I read your stuff talk about that.

[00:06:43] So can you explain what you mean by that? And then with kind of what you just said and what we were just talking about, how is the relationship between using purpose as a form of worship, finding business and work and. So that would all a [00:07:00] wax

[00:07:00] Zach Windahl: Yeah, 100%. I see it as such they worked so well together. The way that I was raised was very different from most people. So when I was four years old, my mom was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, and it was sent home with the 5% chance to. She was healed from that. Then she had a tumor on her psychotic nerve and was healed from that.

[00:07:23] And she had a colon cancer with three quarters of her colon removed and was healed from that. And then when I was 15, she had breast cancer and was healed from that. So my entire childhood from four to 15 was seeing her in and out of the hospital. On her death bed, but every single day, she would never complain about it.

[00:07:42] She never had a poor me mentality. She would always say, Zach, every single day is a gift. We need to treat it like that. And so when it comes to a work, I think it's the same thing we need to treat every single day, every single opportunity, like a gift like it's coming from God. We [00:08:00] need to be grateful for what he's placed in front of us and what he's done.

[00:08:04] What he's going to be using our lives for. And from that, I think we're worshiping God and it all comes down to obedience. And and I think obedience is that form of worship, where you have many people that have been given incredible business ideas by God. And just chasing after those ideas and chasing after what he's put into you is inactive worship.

[00:08:27] So living out the purpose that God placed in you is worship. Paul tells us to be imitators of God. So we need to be second in nature and everything that we're doing and put God first. And by putting him first chasing after what he's placed in us, I think that right there is worship in itself.

[00:08:47] Scott Maderer: So a lot of my listeners when I've talked to them, when I've had conversations with them, talk about that they feel this calling, they feel this pull they have something that they want to be doing, but they [00:09:00] feel like either their time or their money or both is holding them back from living it out busy lives, kids, debt all of these sorts of things.

[00:09:12] How is it that people. Begin to address the obstacles that they feel are in their path to launching out a purpose driven business creating that nonprofit, whatever it is that they feel on their.

[00:09:28] Zach Windahl: Totally. I think for everybody it's different, but it's so important to audit the way that you spend your time and what you spend your money on.

[00:09:37] If you're younger. So I'm 34, a lot of my audiences in their twenties, we have so much time. And even if you're, even if you're older, you, most people have a lot more time than they really realize. Maybe that means you need to cut out the next season on Netflix that you wanted to watch. Spend your time working on things that are actually important.

[00:09:58] We need to [00:10:00] lower our expectations of hitting goals. That don't make sense. And move on from there. One, one big thing that I learned early on was to say no. So I think all of us are called to do two, maybe three things. And if we aren't working on those, it's okay to say no to. But for young people, especially I deal with it too.

[00:10:25] We have FOMO, which is the fear of missing out. So we're getting, we get invited to so many things and there's so many things happening at once. So we want to be cool and be seen in all these areas. So we just say yes to everything. But one of the greatest things that young people can learn is to say no from an early age and to only say yes to this.

[00:10:44] That are directly related to your column. So maybe that's working on your building, the best family that you can. And then on the side, building your business, when it comes to funds, a lot of people may not have the money [00:11:00] to start a business. So start small when it comes to our first book, it was called the Bible study and we've now sold over a quarter million copies of it all independently.

[00:11:09] But that started as a Kickstarter. Because I was working a hospitality job and I didn't have the money to order a thousand copies and print them myself. I didn't have $25,000 sitting around. And so I ran a Kickstarter campaign, which is crowdfunding. So getting people to basically pre-order it before.

[00:11:30] And then another options, always investors. If you if you have a product that, that seems like it's going to do really well and you don't have the money, be surrounded by people that believe in you and have a little extra cash to throw your way.

[00:11:44] Scott Maderer: And let me just warn you as somebody who's a few years older than you that that FOMO thing.

[00:11:50] Yeah. That doesn't go away with old

[00:11:52] warn you. Okay. Yeah, it does not spontaneously

[00:11:56] Zach Windahl: stop. I wasn't sure if we get a certain year[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] Scott Maderer: and it is especially in today's world, I think we all have so many demands on us. We all have so many things that are put on us. We tend to over, we send a say yes to way too many things. I will honestly say that looking for a blessing out of a curse one thing that I think was a blessing in some ways of the pandemic is it is cause people to stop and reevaluate and go what do I want to say no to what do I not want to restart?

[00:12:26] Zach Windahl: Hey, what's important. Who do I, who are my friends? Who like, where should I spend my time? Completely. Yeah.

[00:12:33] Scott Maderer: You also talk about trusting our experiences and overcoming self-doubt, which again is another issue that I think is a hot button for a lot of folks. How can we trust ourselves and overcome our doubt if we also there's we have the experience of being deceived.

[00:12:55] We have the experience of having. Other voices, speak into our life, [00:13:00] both human, as well as supernatural that can misdirect us. How do we balance hearing the right voices versus the wrong.

[00:13:07] Zach Windahl: Yeah, I think it starts with understanding God's heart and knowing how he views the world knowing what your role is, and always keeping your identity at the forefront of your mind.

[00:13:19] So maybe for some people that means that you're writing out what God thinks about you and then reading it every single day. I know who I'm called to be in the name of Jesus. So anything that goes against that can be discarded. Personally, I've dealt with imposter syndrome since we released our first book, which is where you feel like

[00:13:39] it's who am I to do this? But I always need to go back to, okay. God often he qualifies the called. And he, and that's it. Period. End of story. And because of that, I focus on what he called me to do, because I know that I'm supposed to be here. I know that I'm supposed to be doing that and criticism is going to happen no matter [00:14:00] what.

[00:14:00] You're always going to have people that are talking behind your back that are critiquing your work. Speaking negatively of it. But oftentimes we get so caught up in the preparation and we just need to take one step forward. We can sit and we can read, and we can study as much as we want, but at the end of the day, it just takes one.

[00:14:20] After the next, and then from there, a lot of the, a lot of the times guys just asking you to move on with what you're working on.

[00:14:27] Scott Maderer: So what are the questions that I like to ask? All my guests is about stewardship. That's my brand. That's what I talk about. That's the filter that I run my life through in a very real way.

[00:14:40] So for you, what is stewardship? How would you define it and what is its impact been on your life?

[00:14:47] Zach Windahl: Yeah, to me, I think stewardship is when you've been given something it's usually a gift from God. And then I think that he sits and waits to see what you do with it. We can all have great ideas and [00:15:00] similar resources, but the ones that become successful are the ones that are stewarded.

[00:15:05] So for me, I was given the opportunity to go out to Australia, to study the Bible super intensely for a period of time. And it changed my life completely. And now I could have just used it as a place to learn for myself, but I knew that the understanding I developed needed to be shared with others.

[00:15:25] And so therefore I created the Bible. But I think often we all are given something and God's just waiting to say, to see, okay, what are you going to do with this? Because if we do take a step forward, I believe that he'll breathe on it and then it'll turn into something way bigger than we could ever imagine that.

[00:15:44] Scott Maderer: So now let me ask you what all of my guests say is the easy question. And they say that sarcastically, I invented a machine and I could grab you out of your seat right there, where you sit tonight. And I could transport you into the far future, a hundred to [00:16:00] 150 years. And you were able to look back on your life and see the impact that you've left behind.

[00:16:06] What is the impact that you hope you've had on the world?

[00:16:08] Zach Windahl: A lot of things I want to help people grow in their relationship with God. I want to inspire people to actually enjoy their life here. Instead of focusing on how bad things are. I want to spread smiles. I want people to be more kind to one another.

[00:16:24] I want to impact the world in a positive way for the common good, because I believe that's our purpose as a collective body of Christ.

[00:16:31] Scott Maderer: So what's coming next for Zach, as you continue on this journey and keep working on the brand Sunday and the other things you're putting out in the world, what's on the roadmap.

[00:16:41] Zach Windahl: Yeah. So 2020 is going to be a huge year for us. We're releasing the Bible study for kids in September which is going to be huge. We've had so many people. Question about that and just get really excited about what's to come for their kids. I have a new book coming out in November. That's all about living in the [00:17:00] awareness that life is a gift.

[00:17:01] That'll be a big push that we're doing for the six months leading up to it. And then I'll be speaking a lot more as well. Now that now that COVID is through, I'll be speaking a lot more on different topics on. Life being a gift that, that tends to be my my main message a lot of the time.

[00:17:20] And then also some stuff from launch with God, so super excited for next year. And just to see what it all turns into,

[00:17:26] Scott Maderer: you can find out more about Zach over on Facebook and Instagram under the brand Sunday. He's also active on YouTube Zach window. His home base is online as the brand sunday.com. Zach, is there anything else you'd like to share with us?

[00:17:43] Zach Windahl: I think the biggest thing is just to take it one day at a time, don't get overwhelmed and give into peer pressure.

[00:17:49] You really have so much time in the world. What matters is what you accomplished today with what God has given you. So I hope we can all make an impact together.

[00:17:59] Scott Maderer: [00:18:00] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listened, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:18:27] All one. ITunes rate, it'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.