WHY to Fitness

Stewards of Creativity: A Discussion with Scott Barlass

• Aaron O’Connell • Episode 30

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Imagine experiencing creativity from a spiritual perspective, as a divine gift from God. Join us as we engage with serial entrepreneur, Scott Barlass, who enlightens us about the intrinsic harmony between creativity, entrepreneurship, and Christianity. Together, we journey through the foundations of creativity as a divine endowment, underlining our role as stewards of God's creation. Scott's experience in developing IdeaBase, a software fostering innovative thinking, brings a refreshing perspective to the table.

We grapple with the fear of judgment that often intimidates us from sharing our ideas. As we delve into the role of personality in fostering this fear, we discover the importance of providing everyone the opportunity to express their ideas. The discussion unfolds into the realms of diversity and uniqueness within the Christian community, mirroring the body of Christ, where varied skills and gifts coalesce to create something extraordinary.

Venturing into Christian entrepreneurship, we highlight how it can be harnessed to serve others and build God's kingdom. As we discuss overcoming the fear of failure and the courage to take business risks, Scott shares his inspiring faith journey and the role of consulting in spurring innovation. The conversation culminates in a beautiful prayer for Scott's ministry, leaving us with a sense of inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment. This episode is a treasure chest for Christian entrepreneurs and creatives seeking divine inspiration.

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Scott Barlass:

The Christian community should be more entrepreneurial and more innovative than the non-Christian community. The ideas that are furthest out often are the ones that are the most revolutionary. We're given a job to be creative because in Genesis it says that we're supposed to rule and have a domain. It would basically be stewards over the creation.

Aaron O'Connell:

Welcome back to the WHY to Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, aaron O'Connell, and today I am joined with Scott Barlass. How are you doing today, scott? I'm doing great, thank you. It's great to be here. Thank you for being here. And today we're actually going to be exploring the spiritual foundations of creativity because, as Christians, we believe that our Creator has placed within us the spark of His own creativity. We're going to be exploring what the Bible has to say about this gift and really get into the nooks and crannies of creativity, because you've actually created a software all about creativity. You are a serial entrepreneur. You started with major corporations before you turned entrepreneur when you were 35? 35. 35 years old, and you created this software program. Talk about this creativity software program that you created and how it came about.

Scott Barlass:

The program is called IdeaBase and it's a collaborative problem-solving software. Groups of people that are working on a problem or opportunity in any kind of an organization can meet online and they can use three creative tools that we've baked into the software program that help provoke out-of-the-box thinking. Ideabase is kind of formed based on me doing about 200 live ideation or brainstorming sessions with companies like 3M, Procter, Gamble, Sherwin Williams, Michelin, companies like that big companies that were my clients and we did innovation work for them, helping them discover new products and opportunities and then helping refine those. Ideabase kind of does the same thing. Instead of hiring me as a facilitator on site, they can do that through the IdeaBase platform.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah, because a lot of people they complain that they're not creative.

Scott Barlass:

Right Wouldn't you say that, yeah, there's an Adobe study of about 1,500 people worldwide and that study showed that 50% of them say they're not creative, and I think one of the reasons for that is often creativity is defined in terms of music or some type of an artistic expression, and so when people think about creativity, they think about those things they don't think about out of the box thinking as it relates to solving a problem or an opportunity. The other thing, the reason that people don't feel creative sometimes, is they compare themselves to highly creative people like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk people like that, and then they feel like, gee, I don't measure up, so I must not be creative.

Aaron O'Connell:

Okay, but right there, we were made in God's image, correct? The very first verse of the Bible is In the Beginning, God Created the heavens and the earth, which is that powerful statement of creating nature. He's the ultimate Creator and as his children who are made in his image, it means creativity is an inherent part of us.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, it is. Uh, that's one aspect of being made in God's image. God is obviously the ultimate Creator and he takes great joy in his creation. It's interesting when they've done deep dives into the depths of the ocean, they found creatures that previously had never been discovered, and they were made in the depths of the ocean. And that's what we're doing here today. We're doing this because God took pleasure in having those in that creativity. And actually, not only were we created in God's image, but we're given a job to be creative, because in Genesis it says that we're supposed to rule and have domain and basically be stewards over the creation, the created world on earth, and expand it and add value and invent things, and so we can't do that without creativity.

Aaron O'Connell:

And so, when I was working with one of those creatures of the deep ocean, I just saw a video just the other day, and it was this thing that looked like it was lifting up its skirt just to walk, or to walk the floor. Depths of the ocean Some crazy stuff.

Aaron O'Connell:

And it was. It was, it was like changing colors and it was just like straight out of your nightmares type of thing, you know, like shape shifter type of thing, where, like you said, we we don't even seen that it's been over plus 5,000 or close to 5,000 years, however long it is, since God created these things and we're just starting to see them. So it really shows what you were saying of God taking pleasure in creativity. And I know for a fact for me, when I'm feeling creative, when I create something, I take pleasure in it. You know, it's great creating the program of why Too Fitness, creating this podcast, because, even though it says it right there in Ephesians 2,10, that we were created for God's hand, we're created for good works. What are those good works? Well, they can take a host of different things. They can be creativity, all left and right. You could go from just being a designer of pools to being a designer of software, to being the best cook for finding the most creative ways to be a parent.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, absolutely, and what's really great about the Lord and the Holy Spirit is that we're all gifted in different ways. So we have different passions, different desires, different skills, and then we have different gifts as well, and so there's different ways that we can express that creativity. And we're all not Michelangelo, we're not all great musicians, but in our ordinary life we can still come up with out-of-the-box solutions. We come up with different ways of thinking or handling a problem or opportunity that maybe nobody thought of before, or maybe it's just new to us.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah for sure. And even within the health and fitness realm, so many people want to get told what to do, they go back to that same old I'm going to just do three sets of 10, doing this, I have to lift weights, I have to do cardio, when no one really said that. That's just an adaption from the bodybuilders, the Michelangelo's, the Steve Jobs of working out and everyone wants to emulate them. But as a mother, as an overweight man, as a desk jockey, whatever you are, you weren't created to be like oh, I'm going to go lift weights and bash my muscles and do all these things. It's like no, go get creative, go figure out what you enjoy.

Aaron O'Connell:

If it's pickleball, go play pickleball. If it's hiking, go hiking. If it's going searching shells on the beach, get up and go. That is your fitness, it's your activity. That's more or less what God wanted us for physical activity. But it's like a lot of people lost that creativity. Granted, there are some people I've seen in the gym. They get a little too creative and it makes you wonder and scratch your head. But if you go talk to them, they're usually the most free-spirited people there are when they are doing that creativity, creative workouts and all that stuff. So it just really goes to show that creativity can be applied in so many different areas than just art and in certain areas.

Scott Barlass:

You know, when I would do seminars on creativity, the first thing I'll do is I'll ask people raise your hand if you think you're creative, and about half the people do. And I'll say raise your hand if you feel you're not creative. And again about half the people do. And I'll ask the people that raise their hand saying I'm not creative. I'll say have you ever had an idea for improving a product that you enjoy or a sport that you enjoy or a hobby you enjoy? And everybody raises their hand.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, everybody's had an idea to create or to improve something that they enjoy doing a hobby, a product, a passion of theirs, and so everybody has ideas. So therefore, everybody's creative. Some ideas are further out than other ideas, some are closer in. We brought a pickleball before and pickleball was created by some guys in a backyard that didn't have a tennis court and they wanted a paddle game. So they got a wiffleball and they started hitting that around and the ball went rolling off the court and their dog, pickle, went and retrieved it and that's why they call it pickleball, but it's the fastest running sport in the United States right now.

Aaron O'Connell:

I know that yeah.

Scott Barlass:

But it's a couple of guys that just had a barbecue and decided let's start whacking a ball around. Wow. So, that's creativity, no for sure.

Aaron O'Connell:

And you know, first Corinthians 1031 says so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. And what does that look like, doing it for the glory of God? I like to imagine when you first met your wife, when you first meet your girlfriend. You're going above and beyond. Usually You're going and doing that next level thing. You're not just thinking of let's just go to the movies and this. You're like no, I'm going to take her on this route, I'm going to bring her here, I'm going to surprise her with this.

Aaron O'Connell:

You get creative with that plan to kind of showcase that, to stand out from the crowd. And if we could take that in all that we do and like we're celebrating God and all that we can do, then in everything we're doing we can find that creativity where it's not just this mundane. I'm going in and just going to my job nine to five. It's like no, if we do it for the glory of God, that could be the spark of looking for a way to do it that much faster, that much more effective, that much more efficient. And that's how you would stand out to an employer. And you have bringing new systems, possibilities, proposals to that upper above and that may fast track you to get you out of that humdrum nine to five and get you to where you really are feeling a calling. Yeah, exactly.

Scott Barlass:

One of the purposes that God has us on earth is to help build this kingdom on earth and have his reign and rule throughout the earth, and so we're ambassadors for Christ. So when we're out there we're almost double agents in the workforce.

Scott Barlass:

in a sense we're working for ourselves we're working for somebody else, we're working for the customer, but we're really working for the Lord and we're out there to bring his values and his system against the world system and his creativity, so we can improve things, make things better. And so, as we look at work, work is really a ministry. Even in the most mundane types of jobs sweeping a floor for a living or something like that we can still be creative. When I was working for the Rubbermaid Company, one of my product line was garbage cans and industrial garbage cans.

Scott Barlass:

So I was at O'Hare Airport one time and I was just watching the janitors how they worked and I saw that they were taking the brooms and the mops that they were using to mop the floor and they were putting back into the middle of the garbage can. And one guy was shaking his head and I could tell he was disturbed. So I went up and I said so what are you doing in your work process here? And he said well, I cleaned the floor with this and then I have to. You know, my mop is supposed to be clean. I have to put it back into the garbage can.

Scott Barlass:

So I said well, what if you didn't have to do that? How would that work? And he goes it would be great if I could have an attachment on the side of the garbage can so I wouldn't have to put my mop inside the garbage can. And so I took that back to Rubbermaid and we made a caddy that wrapped around the brute garbage cans. And that was years and years ago and it's about a $10, $15 million business for Rubbermaid still. But it was because somebody that had a mundane job recognized that they didn't like the way they had to do that work and they had an idea for modifying the product. I didn't have that idea. They did.

Scott Barlass:

So that's creativity.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah, it really is like. An attitude is what it almost sounds like, because you either are stuck in something complaining, or you're in something looking for opportunity.

Scott Barlass:

Right, exactly, and I think it's a good point. When we think about creativity, we think about problems and we think about opportunities, and so problems are something that have to be solved. It's a distress or something. Opportunities are something to be gained and there's something mentally when we approach a problem or opportunity, to define it correctly. So we want to, if we want to talk about an opportunity, that kind of energizes us because it's a chance for gaining something and growing when we think about a problem, it energizes us in a different way because it's taking away a pain point.

Scott Barlass:

So our first step in looking at problems or opportunities is asking a question how can we or how might we take advantage of this opportunity or solve this problem? And right away when you ask that question, you start thinking of ideas. You can't help it.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah, for sure, and going along that lines of thinking of ideas, I'm actually in a small group with you for business entrepreneurs and the last session, just lo and behold, was the creativity session, right, and you were talking about. It was an exercise that we did about how to make bath time for kids better, like, right, yep, because everyone is always has an experience with taking a bath, whether it's themselves or putting their kids into the bath. And you stated something that you can't judge, no matter how outlandish the idea is, because I think a lot of people stray away from creativity. A lot of people don't wanna speak up with their ideas in fear of judgment, you know, especially from whether it be the peers, or they just don't wanna feel foolish, or oh, that's impossible, go sit down, you know, would you say, that might be a fear that people may have.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, and I think it depends on personality.

Scott Barlass:

When people that are a little bit more extroverted, maybe, you know, they will have less fear of being judged, usually for their ideas, because they're used to just throwing things out.

Scott Barlass:

People that tend to be a little bit more analytic and they really wanna think things through before they state something, or maybe they're a little bit more introverted. They tend to not be able to express their ideas as quickly, and that's one of the things in a brainstorming session or a live idea generation session is to make sure that you get a balance of people who are extroverted and the people that are more introverted or analytical, but then give them time to express their ideas, because the people that are really extroverted are gonna run away with it and they'll be three miles downstream and then, finally, the person that's analytic and has really thought this thing through will speak up. And so I think there's a personality component in terms of concern of being judged and making sure your idea is stated as the right one, and I think one of the classic examples of that is one of the most powerful tools for creative thinking or out-of-the-box thinking is the what If?

Scott Barlass:

tool, and so if you gave me a list of what Ifs and I put together a list of what Ifs for a kid-friendly bathtub, they'd be different. And so I'd look at your list and it would make me think totally differently, probably. But what If? Statements are basically meant to put reality on hold for a moment and say, look, I'm just speculating here, and so it's easy to judge a what If and jump in and say, well, that's ridiculous. So I could say, well, what If bathtubs could talk? What?

Aaron O'Connell:

would they?

Scott Barlass:

say, and you might say, well, they'd play tunes from the radio. So that could be judged really quickly. Or we could say, oh, okay, we'll build a speaker on the side of the tub, control with a smartphone, so we may come up with a great idea from kind of a crazy what If? What If bathtubs could talk? Yeah.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah, it's funny because I think I was that extroverted person during the exercise, because the first thing I said was what if it's not even a tub? What if it's like a conveyor belt, where you just set the kid in and then it does it all for you? And then they end up dressed at the very end and everyone's just kind of looking at me like okay, and not many people had many ideas. And then the next thing I was like what if there's a wave pool in there that actually has like rip currents, where they could like surf on it with their Barbies and their kids and it would be sealed in it? And then I started saying weird stuff Like what if you could put like different dot push buttons with dies and they mixed to different colors, you know? And then that, actually from somebody else's idea, then turned into different LED lights throughout the whole thing where the kid can be mixing colors and the water turns that color.

Aaron O'Connell:

Then I started saying like what if it could get cold or hot instantly and then it's sealed off with the speaker in there and then it could be story time. So if they're going through it they were going through the desert and all of a sudden it gets warm. And then the next thing, you know it, they saw a mirage and it was this cool wave coming. And the wave comes and it gets a little cold and there's all different sounds in it and at the end of it we're like did we just create a Walt Disney World ride?

Scott Barlass:

And sometimes the ideas that are. You know, the ideas are the what ifs that are the furthest out end up having the most potential. You know, when phones were invented, they hooked into a wall and somebody said, well, what if I could carry my phone around? Yeah, well, ok, we'll make a longer cord. Well, what if I can carry my phone in the car? Ok, we'll put an antenna in the car, we'll give you a car phone. You know, and then phones didn't have cameras. So what if we could take pictures with this thing?

Scott Barlass:

No, for sure what if we could have a camera in the front, one in the back. So the ideas that are furthest out often are the ones that are the most revolutionary Wow, in terms of hitting the market.

Aaron O'Connell:

No for sure, and I love that that you were saying with different personalities, because it makes me think back of Exodus 31.3. When God instructed Moses to build that tabernacle, he filled the craftsman with his spirit to be able to do all the different skills and tasks. That's why we're the body of Christ, why it's so important to be amongst people me be able to hang out with you, but hanging out with that person and being amongst the body, being a part of the church, because, as good as someone can be, steve Jobs was amazing, but without the people around him, nothing probably would have happened. He may have had all the ideas, but he didn't have the technical work to make this and to bring that in there. He probably he may not have the business to be able to mass, produce it and put it all together. And that's what I really love about having a good church body around you, having groups like our group, because we all are filled with the Holy Spirit in different ways. We have the different gifts and we can express those in different ways.

Scott Barlass:

And really, if you think about it, the Christian community should be more entrepreneurial and more innovative than the non-Christian community, because we do have the Holy Spirit, we do have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we have a mandate from God to go out, rule, domain, steward the creation and make it better, bring God's kingdom to earth.

Scott Barlass:

But we also have an admonition in the Bible to encourage each other, exhort each other, build each other up. And so part of being innovative is taking that risk and saying, oh, this is a crazy. What if? In the Christian body, we should be encouraging each other and going, instead of saying, well, that'll never work, or boy, that's a stupid idea, where we tried that before, or we don't have the technology, it would be like, oh, that's interesting, tell me more about it, and that's more encouraging. That opens up the flow of creative thinking, and that what if? Might not be the solution, but it may lead to another what if? Or it might lead to an idea, just kind of like stepping stones, so you never want to get rid of the first stepping stone.

Aaron O'Connell:

Wow, yeah, with what you said, we should be more creative, more entrepreneur. From your observation through the years that you've been doing this, have you seen that to be the case?

Scott Barlass:

I think I haven't seen Christians in general be more entrepreneurial than non-Christians. I haven't really seen that. I've seen some Christian organizations be very entrepreneurial and creative. I've seen some churches support business formation within the body of Christ, the local body of Christ. I think there's a huge opportunity for us there.

Aaron O'Connell:

If we think about.

Scott Barlass:

there's a certain amount of wealth out in the world and wealth can grow, but how much of that is controlled by God's kingdom or part of God's kingdom, versus the world system? So if we can have more Christians developing businesses, more entrepreneurs out there building businesses and they're tithing they're honoring God with their tithe we can bring more money into the kingdom. We can do more good in the world. We can bring more value to people's lives.

Aaron O'Connell:

For sure.

Scott Barlass:

So, to me, christian entrepreneurship is really an opportunity that we need to explore. We need to expand, we need to grow.

Aaron O'Connell:

I agree and I love that paradigm that you took is that we should be having that creativity to bring God's kingdom here on to earth. It's our great commission to go and affect this world for the positive, which means creating things. But, like you said, you kind of see more entrepreneurship, more creativity from almost non-Christians. I'm wondering maybe that's because when people aren't Christians they don't have any meaning to their life. They're doing things almost out of fear of I may not be worth anything. What is going to be my legacy? How am I going to stand out? What about me? What about me? That's driving them, and out of that fear-based, where Christians, we find God and it's like a lot of them may not get to their potential, that true potential of getting to that creativity, because it's more of what's God doing for me. He keeps me comforted, he gets all that. It's all about that.

Aaron O'Connell:

But not into that final step of what can I do for God when that realization of your Christian walk of like I'm good, what can I do for God? Because when I did that, when I finally got to the point after questioning my life, it actually happened in your class Because I was like, why can't I do? Why can't I start this podcast, why don't I do the things that I say I want to do? And God met me after one of these classes and he said that last thing that you need to die to, where you say, when I move my finger, the waters part. I've been very blessed, I've been very favored from God my whole life. I've gotten out of so much trouble that I shouldn't have all that and I've almost used that as an identity and it was keeping me procrastinating, not doing things, not loving people the way that I want, not working as hard as I should. Because I realized if I start working hard and even if I get the reward, but if I don't get the reward, I can't say that anymore. I can't say I work so little and have so much. And that was the last piece that I had to die to. And then, all of a sudden, boom, the next day I recorded my podcast. And when you finally die to your last bit of self and say it's no longer about me or any identities that I have, it's all about you, that's when I believe the creativity and God's spark and his ability to work through you just manifests.

Scott Barlass:

I agree with that.

Scott Barlass:

Christ said we're supposed to deny ourselves pick up our trust daily, and that means who's on the throne of our life every day.

Scott Barlass:

Are we going to be our own gods every day, or are we going to live in the true vine, which is Jesus, where the true life is? And it's interesting our pastor, pastor Scott Baw, had a series called Made for More. The first sermon in that series was you're here on earth to have a loving relationship with God, and so that's the primary thing. If you have that loving relationship, it's not about legalism anymore, it's not about religiosity or churchianity, or it's not about having to prove ourselves in the business world that we're worthy. We have that acceptance from God. Number two is to be transformed and be more like Jesus, to serve others, to bring value to others, to be honest and ethical. And once we have those things, then the third sermon was we're here to build God's kingdom. So we have that relationship with God, we're transformed excuse me to be more like Jesus, and that really empowers us to get out there in the world, set ourselves aside and do what you did, take that risk, put that fear aside.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah, I love that and, like you said, we always say end every time, don't conform, but be transformed.

Aaron O'Connell:

And that's Romans 12-2,. Do not copy or conform to the patterns of this world. Or copy the patterns of this world. Instead, be renewed by, or be transformed by, the renewing of your mind. And with that I feel like a lot of Christians will tend to conform to this world. That their push, their business push, their entrepreneur push, does come out of that fear of not having enough, maybe not doing enough, to get kind of legalistic with things of like am I not doing enough? But if we could instead stop that and be transformed by the renewing of our mind and just have that paradigm shift of what can I do for God? What can you know? Not so much. What do I need to do? What do I get to do? Right? And if we could just do a little bit of change that right there will then maybe have God step in and give us those ideas.

Aaron O'Connell:

Because if we're trying to do it all on our own and we're trying to do it all on our own might by copying patterns of this world, but we are truly Christians God might keep that block there right in front of you. Because if you do go get that success, you're going to think it's all about you. It could be a downward spiral. It could be something that could lead into losing your family because it sucked you in. You can be. If he cannot, you have that block and then you finally trust him, give it all to him. Don't do it your way, a pattern in this world, but a way of I get to do this for God. He may remove that block and then boom, here comes success, and you're not going to then slip into negatives or lose anything, but instead get closer to him.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, I agree with that, and I think part of that has to do with contentment, where contentment comes from.

Scott Barlass:

So if we can be content in the knowledge that God adopted us into his family and it gave him great pleasure to do that, and that he'll provide all of our needs and that we have heavenly treasures and rewards as well and our life in the flesh is really short, it's a drop in the ocean and so if we have that eternal perspective and we trust in God and we're here to serve him he's on the throne of our life then if he gives us passion to pursue something and we've prayed about it, we've sought wise counsel and it looks like, yeah, take that risk, go ahead and do that. Even if it doesn't work out for some reason, we can still be content because we have the most valuable thing that there is. We have that relationship with God that's eternal. So I think that brings freedom in terms of being able to explore new opportunities, take risks, think out of the box, because we don't have that fear of failure anymore. That fear of failure can go away.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah for sure. And you know, john 15.5 says I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I and you, you will bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. And if you are doing things apart from him, it could be so successful, worldly terms, money, cars, possessions, all that that still is nothing, and that's the best case scenario is nothing, and best case scenario usually doesn't happen. Usually it's a lot worse than best case scenario.

Aaron O'Connell:

So you're not just going to be doing nothing, you are going to be reaping death, like you know, in turmoil and trouble. That's why it's just so important to not lean on that old understanding but in all your ways acknowledge Christ and he's going to show you which path to take. Like people don't understand that, which is like for me, I maybe have planned out a couple podcasts, but I had no idea you'd be sitting here. I had no idea of a multiple people that I've been able to already interview. But that's because God's showing me that path. It wasn't me. I didn't lean on that old understanding. If I was leaning on my understanding, I don't even think we'd be here today, because there was already some kind of music in the background already.

Aaron O'Connell:

You got people coming in and out right now, you know, but it's like you know what? No, I'm going to give this to God. I won't lean on it, whatever he will then show me the path to take. And it just when you lean on God, it just everything explodes, right.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, it does, and I think that one of the things that we want to do is here at Journey is we want to really stimulate people they're Christians to create new businesses, be entrepreneurs, be creative in their business roles. Even if they're middle management, you know level and they're managing people, they can still have a lot of creativity and prove those businesses. So one of the things is how do you help Christians that don't know how to start a business? How do you help them do that? And there's tons of secular organizations that do that. They have incubators and accelerators and things like that, but from a Christian standpoint it's very, very limited.

Scott Barlass:

So you know, my vision is to have an entrepreneurial boot camp that's faith-based. So we lay the foundation of why do you want to have this business? And in fact, when you get this business, you don't own the business. God owns the business because he owns everything, and Proverbs says that God gives us the abilities to create wealth. So even our ability to be able to create wealth at some point doesn't come from us, even that's God's and then be able to take these baby businesses through an incubator process and have wise Christian mentors who have business experience and mature spiritually and help guide them in developing those entrepreneurial ventures. And so it's wrapped the entrepreneurial vision is wrapped in the faith, and it's for God, and it's by.

Scott Barlass:

God. So that's the vision.

Aaron O'Connell:

Oh, that's a great vision that reminds me of 1 Peter, 4, 10. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. And you're doing that right there. You're not. You're not just keeping your creativity in, you're using it for the benefit of others. And that's the true ex like the expression of faith. Because, again, even Jesus said what is love? What? How do you? What is real, genuine love? What's real religion? Serving widows and needy people and the poor, you know, and children, and when it's not just widows, it's not just the needy or the homeless, it's the people that are in need. We are to serve each other, we're supposed to lift each other up, and I just love that. That's your vision. It's amazing.

Scott Barlass:

And that's what I love about Christian entrepreneurship, because, again, if we can take more money out of the worldly system into Christ's kingdom, then there's more money to help the oppressed, help the people that are pushed down in life, the people that Jesus had so much compassion for, the humbled in this life, and we have an opportunity to really bless more people, bring more people into the kingdom, help people get free from their addictions from maybe the past when they've been abused, things that are really troubling their minds. So for me, Christian entrepreneurship isn't just about helping the entrepreneur become wealthy which they may, and that's great if God blesses them that way but it's really about bringing money into the kingdom so God's purposes can be fulfilled on earth to an even larger degree. So that's kind of what it's all about for me.

Aaron O'Connell:

I love that and I want to just actually shift gears just a little bit and ask you a more personal question, which is how long have you been walking with the Lord?

Scott Barlass:

So I grew up Viking, which means I went to Viking football games instead of church and the times that we would go to church.

Scott Barlass:

It was a Lutheran church and they basically read the prayers and at that age, as a teenager, it was kind of boring, but I didn't really feel a presence of God there. When I did go to church, and that was only a couple of times a year. And then I was on the varsity football team as a junior in high school. In the first practice I was about 140 pound, running back, ran into the line on a dive play and a guy named John Lewis, who's six, six 250 pounds in high school, picked me up by the shoulder pads and he said you're coming to the prayer meeting after the game.

Aaron O'Connell:

So I'm like okay.

Scott Barlass:

I'm going to the prayer meeting. So I went in there and there are probably 10 or 12 of the football players and some of the cheerleaders and they started praying. But it struck me because they were talking to God like he was actually real.

Scott Barlass:

It wasn't a written prayer, it was coming from their heart. And some of them had these big football players you know, just had emotion. You could tell that they had something I didn't have. So I went to a couple more of those. And then there was a retreat through an organization called Young Life. And so when on the retreat it was a camp way up in northern Minnesota and it was for all the football players in that in that district and the cheerleaders, and I thought, oh, this would be a cool way to meet some girls.

Scott Barlass:

And little did. I know I met Jesus. That's awesome. And yeah, they did a skit where they had a Roman centurion nailing big spikes into a cross, huge cross, and there were probably 400 kids there, football players and cheerleaders in a circle around us and most of them were weeping and I thought they know something that I don't know. They have a relationship with God. That.

Scott Barlass:

I don't have and I wanted it. I wanted it. So they gave the gospel message and they said go out alone into the woods for an hour and talk to God. And so it was in October and I accepted Jesus then. And what's interesting is when I got back on Monday, my best friend told another friend we can't hang out with Scott anymore because he's not the same person. He's radically changed.

Aaron O'Connell:

Really yeah, wow.

Scott Barlass:

And so, yeah, that's how it happened for me.

Aaron O'Connell:

That's a great testimony. Thank you for sharing that. Did you then? Did you remain relatively on fire or did you drift away at any point after that?

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, I did for a few years and then got married young, at 19. And then ended up having some kids. And then I don't know what it was. I don't know if I wanted to model my dad. My dad was a very successful entrepreneur and so I just had this goal all of a sudden of I want to make X amount of money by this age, and so I threw myself into corporate life. I went to work for Procter Gamble and brand management just kind of like a PhD in marketing this after my master's degree and worked there for you for years. I worked on Tide and Joy brands. Then I went to Robbermaid and was there for a few years and started a business for them as an entrepreneur in the agricultural market. So I had industrial design, engineering, marketing, sales working for me. And then I moved to the Toro company Lawn Mowers and Snowblowers and ended up running all of the functions for the consumer business, which was about a $600 million business at that time. I had everything except for manufacturing and so I was climbing the corporate ladder.

Scott Barlass:

So I was a vice president level by the time I was 28. Oh, wow, and big companies. And so at the age of 35, I had always in my master's program I always wanted to be a consultant. I had done consulting during my program for a couple of Metronik was one and Gould Battery Company was another so I got a taste for consulting. I really liked the idea Very eclectic, I like learning, and so that was always on my radar screen.

Scott Barlass:

And so, after spending those years in corporate life, at 35, I started a business with a business partner and our business was focused on innovation and creativity. So we basically became the intermediaries between, maybe, the technical people in a company like 3M and the marketing people, and so we'd help them discover what customer needs were, unmet needs, what the pain points were, and then we'd do brainstorming sessions and help them come up with ideas to solve those needs. Then we'd help test those concepts with customers and then once they would say, hey, okay, we're going to develop, like Sherwin Williams, we're going to develop this paint, and then we would step out. We weren't part of the development process.

Scott Barlass:

So we're kind of the upfront, creative thinking stimulus kind of organization. So ran that business for many years and then retired at 47 and moved down to the Caribbean and then was creative in different ways and become a certified underwater videographer and photographer and doing other things like that. Wow, yeah, wow.

Aaron O'Connell:

And during that time, when would you say that? When would you say your faith really started building back up? Because clearly you were busy during a lot of that? When did you really start making the? Because it had to be hard. If anyone that's climbing the corporate ladder to you know there's such a concern of making it through working hard, doing it all by your own self and instead letting God guide it, when would you say you really ended up giving your life totally for God within that process?

Scott Barlass:

Yeah, so I never, I never lost my faith. Yeah, I always believed in Jesus, I always considered myself to be a child of God, okay, and you know, went to church and things like that. But you know again, my pursuit, my treasure was, and where my heart was was on material gain and buying houses and sports cars and those types of things.

Scott Barlass:

So so I sacrificed some of my family. I mean I traveled 60% of the time so kids were growing up, you know, without me around a lot and you know, thankfully, you know I've got great relationship with all my kids Now.

Aaron O'Connell:

You know that's a blessing from the Lord.

Scott Barlass:

So I think what really hit me was when I had acquired wealth, we moved on to the islands, retired there. We had a few homes on the island, had all the toys we wanted. It just felt like empty. There just was something missing, right? So all of those treasures didn't really bring me contentment or joy. So I climbed a mountain and I found out it was the wrong one.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yep.

Scott Barlass:

And and so, you know, through that process of just trying to find contentment, you know, I came back to Christ, and then in a more faithful way, and then my wife had a serious health event, Almost died. She was 15 minutes away from dying. Wow. Thankfully we're back visiting Minnesota, where we grew up, and she was able to get the medical care she needed. So that was a big shocker. So that you know, that was, you know, a point where we're like, okay, this is serious, this could end, you know, pretty quickly here and and so we ended up moving back, you know, from the islands, getting involved with the church and then moving down here. We got involved with the church and actually going through the freedom program that we have here at Journey.

Scott Barlass:

My, my question was how can I serve God with the years that I have remaining, for, with every minute I have left in my breath? Because I was down here mentoring through FAU. I was mentoring veterans through the Veteran Entrepreneurship Program. I'm on the board of directors for Tech Runway, which is a of incubator. We have five board members and 110 mentors and we put 40 businesses a year. That's awesome, it was great, but it was still. You know, am I really serving God in those roles, yeah, and so going through freedom, I'd really got a vision, for I want to spend all the time that I have left in my life helping Christians who are in business take their faith from Sunday and bring it into their business, whether they're a mid-level manager or whether they're an entrepreneur. How can they really make their business a ministry and their leadership in a business a ministry? So that's that's. My whole vision is trying to equip and encourage business people to do that.

Aaron O'Connell:

Yeah, I love that because you said you climbed the mountain and you realized it was the wrong one. Yeah, and the analogy I use is you climb up the ladder realizing it was against the wrong building. Exactly Because I always give that example of you don't want to go and run off and say I'm starting this business, I'm doing all this stuff to take care of my family, and then, in the whole gist of it, you never spend any time with your family. You finally make all this money and they don't want anything to do with you. Right, it's like, okay, who was it really for?

Aaron O'Connell:

And within fitness, that's why I do what I do with. Why, to fitness, with where I break help Christians experience inner peace over their physical health and their appearance, because you, you this in within this group. You got it said best it was. We're in the business of obedience. God is in the business of results and when we look at it that way, so many people in the health and fitness industry are trying to achieve this amazing goal and every and throughout the whole thing, everyone's high fiving them working out, dieting, doing all these things, and they're they're a lot of them are miserable doing it. They're giving up social, social gatherings. They're, they're, they're irritable, they're. You know, their emotions are built up and whether they do or whether they don't, whether they work out or they don't, whether they eat something specific or not, and they will surround their whole lives on it. And not that many people do get to their goals, but most people that get to their goals I was one of them they realize how empty it is and they're just as crazy they're, just as they're picking themselves apart more they're, more insecure they're, they're, they're going well. I used to have this much fat and now all of a sudden, they're grabbing a very little bit, but because they ate a bagel yesterday, they're like, oh, don't, look at me. It almost like it's worse, because now they're feeling crazy about it.

Aaron O'Connell:

And that's why I stopped personal training, because I wanted to truly help people. And, just like you said, you were, you've climbed that, you've helped, you were helping people. You had, you're on the board of directors, you're still helping them. But within that there wasn't this Jesus can do apart.

Aaron O'Connell:

And it said, like we already heard that the verse apart from me, you can do nothing, you know nothing when Jesus isn't in it. There's nothing there, and that's one big thing that I want to just stress to everyone that's been listening is through entrepreneurship, through fitness and anything of this world, it is not going to fulfill you. Only Christ can, and when we can, take that paradigm still do all the same things. You're doing the same things incubator for FAU, you're doing groups here in in two campuses and you're helping as many people as you can within church, but all it is is taking the focus off self and putting it back onto Christ. Exactly, Yep, I love that and just to close up, I was. I was wondering if you have any advice to the listeners, whether that's how to be more creative or just anything that you would want to depart with our listeners for them to really take home.

Scott Barlass:

I think there's two things. Number one is what you were talking about where does content come from? And it's not through having a certain physical appearance, it's not through possessions, money, those things. Those things fade away. And Jesus said you know wherever your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. And he also said you know, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives peace.

Aaron O'Connell:

And so John 14, 27.

Scott Barlass:

Yeah so if we want that peace, we have to be connected to Jesus. He can't give us that peace if we're trying to do things on our own. We have to live for Him and within Him to have that kind of peace. There's so many people that are just ripped with anxiety these days and they'll say well, how much time have you spent with Jesus this week? Well, I haven't read my Bible at all, I haven't prayed at all. Unless you tap into the source of peace, you're not going to have that peace.

Scott Barlass:

From a creativity standpoint, I think the goal again, as you stated really well, is we're here to serve God and so when we're working, we're trying to be creative in our jobs or even our family life. How do we manage kids? How do we do these things? It really it's like God, I want to serve you. So give me some ideas of how to do this. Give me wisdom. The other part is is seeking wisdom from other people, seeking wise counsel. So even in the Proverbs is full of that. So it's. It's not just I can come up with ideas on my own. There's real power in looking at a problem or opportunity from different perspectives, but also getting the perspectives of different people and tapping into their wisdom, because, ultimately, creative solutions are combination of knowledge and we can't have all the knowledge within ourselves. So I think reaching out to other people, getting their perspectives, was key. And then there's basically three tools that we've integrated into idea base and that I like to use when I'm trying to help somebody think creatively. And one is we talked about as the what?

Aaron O'Connell:

if question.

Scott Barlass:

And that's just. Let's put reality on hold and just think way out of the box, and it may be casting out further than we can ever reach, but it might be a stepping stone to something else that actually reminds me of Google.

Aaron O'Connell:

They had the moonshots, right, you know they were. They literally got like bonuses If they realized it failed, right, they would just take moonshots of all these things, you go and they would get all the resources they could. And when you were admitted that you say, okay, this is impossible and you failed, they actually celebrated that and it just and that's the top of the top people at Google doing that so they tried.

Aaron O'Connell:

Because they tried and amongst that they then not only realized what can't be done, but throughout that process they realized wow, there is actually. We may have aimed for the moon, but we got. Now we got satellites from SpaceX floating all around with internet to everybody. You know there's things that will happen when you go really far out in the middle, but sorry, I caught you off, and that's what. If is what.

Scott Barlass:

IF is like a mental moonshot, and so the other tool that really works well is analogies. So if we wanted to make bathtubs more fun for kids, we'd say find analogies, what's fun for kids Slime fountains, aquariums, music bubbles, car wash, whatever it is. You list out those analogies and all of a sudden it's gonna lead you to ideas. The other tool that's really effective is principles of how or why things work that might apply to your problem or opportunity. So if you're in a nonprofit, you might you know it used to be Google, not maybe you're gonna use chat, gpt or something. You're gonna say, okay, give me principles of effective fundraising and you're gonna get 50 principles back. Now, when you see those principles, you can apply those to your situation and say, okay, that gives me ideas.

Scott Barlass:

So, for example, if we wanted to make bathtubs safer for kids, a principle of safety is a monitored system is more safe. So you could think of a lot of ways to monitor a bathtub. You could physically have cameras there. If your kids are playing, you could see them on the smartphone. Or maybe you have a high water alarm that's built in there. So if the kids kind of go under, the water level rises and alarm goes off. So principles, analogies and what ifs are really powerful tools for creative out of the box thinking.

Aaron O'Connell:

Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for all your knowledge that you're just bringing to this and if you wouldn't mind if I close the cell for prayer, absolutely All right, dear heavenly father. Just thank you so much for the technology of podcasts to be able to spread this message throughout to anyone that is willing to listen. I pray that those that are tuning in or have ears to hear, lord, that they become more creative, that they start looking at this world in a way of how they can serve you, not how they can serve themselves, how they can channel your Holy Spirit of creativity, lord, into their own businesses, into their own walks and daily lives, so they can enjoy it more, so they can be just experiencing life with you, because you are the God of joy, god of peace, the God of comfort, lord, and when we do life with you, it's just so much better.

Aaron O'Connell:

So, lord, anyone that's listening, that's what I pray over them, and I also just wanna just pray for Scott and just his ministry that he's doing. I pray that he's able to start up all the things that he wants to start up, that there's a mass following for it, that it just goes out to all the places that you want it to so he can positively affect this world for your kingdom. So when he does come up to you he hears those words well done, my faithful servant, and has major treasure in there, because he stopped storing up the treasure here on earth and instead started storing it up for you. Lord, bless him, bless his family, bless his health, and in Jesus' powerful name I pray.

Scott Barlass:

Amen. Well, thank you so much, scott. Yeah, my pleasure have a good one, that's great, thank you.

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