Ben Nussbaum on LinkedIn: #joyinthejourney #usethetime #keepgoing
Ben Nussbaum
just wanna give a Friday spotlight to my wife Emma&#39;s new employer, +WeCreate Media. they have already been a huge blessing to us.

we&#39;re expecting a baby girl… | 21 comments on LinkedIn
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"you guys are bit different than other management consultants. you guys are real shoulder-to-shoulder people." sometimes, the best marketing ideas come from your clients. you could have put us in a room for a full half-day and we wouldn't have come up with something better than that. 🤣 but it was that passing phrase that stopped me in my tracks and say, "yup - that's exactly it." ---------- i love many things about Jen & Derek - but i think what they (we) embody so well as a team is their "shoulder-to-shoulderness": they're in the thick of it with you. "in it with you" is not often a phrase that executives feel is true of outside consultants. yet, it's my sense that this is the exact pain point (and rightful reason for suspicion) proving a CEO might need outside consulting services! too many management consulting firms sprinkle pixie dust on challenges that the executive already knew about. they then hand over a playbook to a team unequipped to actually execute on said playbook and then say, "sayonara - we'll send you an invoice here shortly." this model isn't good, and it doesn't serve people...even though every consulting firm would say they sell a "good or service". our model? we'll stand in the challenge with you. we'll help you figure it out. we'll walk with you for as long as you'll have us. we're shoulder-to-shoulder with you. ...we'll even put on construction hats & vests for you. 🤣 👷♀️ 👷♂️ 🚧 🏗️ because what matters to us is our clients having "lasting outcomes" - you don't get lasting outcomes without standing shoulder-to-shoulder. or, in theological terms, our clients don't win unless we have an "incarnational presence", showing that we truly understand their pain and will work through it with them. we're in it with you. shoulder-to-shoulder. #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

celebration is a spiritual discipline. yet we often de-prioritize it. the great Dallas Willard once said, "celebration heartily done makes our deprivations and sorrows seem small, and we find in it great strength to do the will of our God because his goodness becomes so real to us" (The Spirit of the Disciplines). as Christ-followers, we are familiar with some of the more "obvious" disciplines: prayer, sacrament, worship, Scripture-reading, confession, and so forth. until i read Willard's book back in 2021, i had never thought of "celebration" as a discipline. that seemed funny to me - does celebrating really take any discipline? you may find it hard to believe, but i really struggle to celebrate - whether that be significant life milestones, professional wins, the success of others, or the beauty of the day before me. celebrating often seems...so inefficient, insincere, unproductive, and trite to me. it's for this exact reason that Willard labels celebration a "discipline"; it requires practice, rhythmic concentration, and the proper allocation of time. it forces us to stop thinking about "doing", "performing", and "achieving". it reminds us (soberingly) that we are not the fount of all joy - as a matter of fact, if you're like me, you can be a real stinker most of the time. it shows us a goodness that we did not and cannot derive for ourselves. a number of years back, some guys from our church decided to throw "Huggies and Chuggies" parties for prospective fathers in our congregation (i am still convinced that this was Stephen's idea - a flawless branding exercise, btw). the basic premise is that other men who love you buy you a pack of diapers, buy you a beer, and tell you why you are going to be a good father. what a concept! in a season for me (personally, professionally, spiritually) that has been marked by waiting, frustration, & patience, celebrating the life of a child we will meet in just a few weeks was indeed a discipline that blessed me greatly. it took time, effort, and prep. had nothing to do with my job. required all of these guys to carve out a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon. was not necessarily a hallmark of efficiency or success (tbh, what i spend most of my days thinking about). but it was a simple celebration of the goodness of God in the form of a little girl that i get to be a dad to here shortly. how could that not be worth celebrating? celebration is not optional for the Christian life. as Willard puts it, "holy delight and joy is the great antidote to despair and is a wellspring of genuine gratitude." celebration is a spiritual discipline. #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

"a theology of sales." i've often wondered if there is a resource like this out there. ---------- i grew up in a community where "Christians" & "sales" were intertwined. many neighbors worked in sales. and as i've spent the last decade in the marketplace, i've noticed that disciples of Jesus tend to gravitate toward sales (myself included). i've always thought that was interesting! yet, (to my knowledge) there is very little theological imagination on how we might sell in such a way that declares "the manifold wisdom of God." this is the mantle we take up when we sell - and nothing less! our selling, negotiating, and closing either validates or discredits the story of Jesus. i personally know hundreds of Christians who sell. but there is so little training on how to sell in the way of Jesus. collectively, we do not often ask the question: 👉 how is sales forming or de-forming me into the way of Jesus? what does the gospel have to say about selling? if we can't answer these questions, we end up like one of my friends, who worked in finance as a salesperson for a number of years. he suggested to me that the essence of how he could "live out his faith" in the workplace was to merely be a "money launderer for Christian nonprofits" (his words, not mine)! in short: make a lot of money so you can give some of it away comfortably. while generosity is undoubtedly a critical pillar in any "theology of sales", this also is reductionistic, and an incomplete picture. we must relentlessly prioritize the wisdom of the gospel - and what it has to say about sales - rather than the regular 'ol wisdom of the world ("do whatever it takes", "just hit your quota", "you're going to get a HUGE commission check"). a few examples of what i mean: 👉 we are formed as salespeople by the notion of "success". success is measured quantitatively. we were either successful or we weren't. yet, "success" (in terms of achievement or financial success) is not a KPI in God's economy. the gospel instead prioritizes "faithfulness", rather than success. 👉 we are formed as salespeople by the idea of "winning". in sales, there are winners and losers. interestingly enough, the gospel has quite a bit to say about losing, more so than winning. so that means that even in our losing, God has something to show us - think of Luke 5, when the disciples washed their nets after a night of catching nothing. 👉 we are formed as salespeople to make enemies. it is constantly presented as an "us" vs. "them" game. yet Jesus once had this sobering take: "if you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you?" the gospel suggests that even in our selling, we are required to prioritize an ethic of love, rather than a normative principle of "othering" clients. now, these are just a few ideas of how we might expand our "theological imagination" in sales. but for those of y'all who are disciples of Jesus out here selling...what would you add? #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

"business" and "theology": far more intertwined than you think. 👇 some quick thoughts on the important intersection between "systematic theology" and "my job". ---------- if you ask most Christians what the point of "theology" is, they'll say something to the effect of "we argue too much about that stuff...way over my head!" i studied theology in college. when i first started working in the marketplace, i didn't have many assets to offer the companies that i worked for other than a "theological imagination". yet i was confident this was still an asset! as the great Dr. Keith Johnson (my favorite professor at Wheaton College) once told me: "we must 'think theologically' about all of life". let's unpack that for a moment. what did he mean? and why is "thinking theologically" an asset in the marketplace? somewhere along the way, our theological instincts as "everyday, working Christians" became incredibly reductionistic. our vision for work was either a) "work doesn't matter at all, except for evangelizing your co-workers" or b) some borderline version of the prosperity gospel (i.e., "if i pray hard enough about this, God will bless me"). this is a limited view of what God actually offers to the person who walks into their office 5 days a week. as the Apostle Paul once said to the Ephesians, "I have not spared to declare unto you all the counsel of God." the "whole counsel of God" is not so reductionistic. on the contrary: systematic theology is vital for the modern professional, because it explains the entirety of our workplace experience. consider for a moment just a few categories of systematic theology, and how they each explain & minister to realities of working: 👉 "the incarnation" - God became a human in the form of Christ to "know our frame"...no amount of suffering, frustration, or hurt that you experience in the workplace is missed by God. 👉 "creation" - while many Christians (wrongfully) assume that work is a negative byproduct of sin, the creation narrative shows us that God created human beings to work - or, as Andy Crouch states, "to create culture." 👉 "sanctification" - many professionals feel defined by either their best or their worst moments. what the gospel says about this idea is that God is daily working by his Spirit within us so that we might be "transformed by the renewing of our minds." we can get better, with God's help. ----------- as the great R.C. Sproul said, "everyone is a theologian". the banker... ...the engineer the teacher... ...the attorney the plumber... ...the driver the producer... ...the seller we must learn to "think theologically", pushing our theological imaginations to better explain and cast vision for the meaning of our work. theology is indeed discipleship. may our offices be transformed into the likeness of Christ by the way in which we bear His image. #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

wisdom. i want more of it. (which is, in part, why i schedule breakfasts with my guy Caleb DeMoss. we talk about wisdom together). ----------- my sense is that many young professionals walk through career & life without ever asking themselves the question, "but is this wise?" (or) "is this really the way things ought to be?" what i mean is, we internalize so many modern cultural assumptions as "normal" or "the way things are." but we often do not weigh those assumptions against something more timeless or authoritative...which is a category i'll label as "wisdom." here are some examples: - many in modern culture assume it is "normal" to geographically move wherever it is that your job takes you, so long as an uptick in salary follows. move to where there is financial opportunity. - many in modern culture assume it is "normal" to save large sums of money for retirement, discretionary spending, or a child to attend college. save for the future. - many in modern culture assume it is "normal" to adhere to the old adage, "you do you." other manifestations of this idea include, "follow your heart" or "go with your gut." you know what is best. 👉 but i suppose my question is, do these things that we consider to be "normal" ultimately amount to "wisdom"? or do we just assume that the water we currently swim in is the wisest possible way of living? this, among many reasons, is why i am a follower of Jesus. because the way of Jesus (and the entire biblical witness) offer a foil to what modern culture may determine as "normal"...the way of Jesus functions as a corrective principle that actually critiques all the systems, ideas, hopes, and presuppositions our society has identified as "normal". and really, this is what the Bible labels as "wisdom." Biblical wisdom is the counter-scale by which we weigh and measure the flavors of the month as we live in the world. and if you work hard to gain & live out wisdom, this gives you a new set of prescription lenses through which you can see the world. "wisdom" redefines your presuppositions around success, love, suffering, planning, and so on. so then, wisdom is the filter by which we actually ask the question, "are things really supposed to be this way?" - a critical question for both living & working. as the Proverbs state, "Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her (wisdom), for she is your life" (Proverbs 4). #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

what do you place your hope in? as a Christian, it is easy to doctrinally know the answer: "Jesus! the resurrection!" we then also know how to explain the mechanics of this answer. but functionally, what does this change for our lives? i'll be the first to confess this - i think i often hope for things that are not a resurrection from the dead. i hope for: - my marriage to remain strong - my family to be healthy - my business to prosper / deals to close - my economic future to be stable - my friendships to be enjoyable - my reputation to stay intact - my church to grow - my city to thrive perhaps for you, your hope is in: - a particular outcome in this fall's election - the prospect of a new home - the security of a job promotion - the success of your children - the legacy that you leave - the stability of your physical health ---------- none of these things are bad hopes, but they may be disordered hopes. the aforementioned hopes are flimsy, flappable, uncertain, time-bound, and material. Saint Paul says, "If the dead are not raised, then 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" in other words: we cannot say we hope for a resurrection from the dead if we do not live like it. but as the author of Hebrews states, "...hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain." this is true "resurrection hope." and if our hope is not anchored to the resurrection of Christ (and our eventual bodily resurrection from the dead), then it is no hope at all. as it relates to our work - and i have been preaching this to myself lately - the very way in which we work must demonstrate a different understanding of the world & the outcomes for us as its inhabitants. if my hope is legitimately in the resurrection of Jesus (as opposed to, say, a significant sales opportunity going my way), then as Christopher Watkin states, this "introduces something radically new into the fabric of the universe and into our understanding of the possibilities and limits of our world, transforming the Christian's way of inhabiting reality." yes! let us aim for professional lives that are rooted in an anchor called "resurrection hope" - that in spite of any election outcome, lost deal, interview mishap, parenting snafu, or relational woe...we can still look toward the end of all things and say: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor 15). this is true hope. this is our witness. #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

are you working with a salesperson you really enjoy right now? 👉 tell their boss that they did a great job. sales folks...don't get a lot of external feedback when they do their job well. i mean obviously, we get rewarded internally with some commission, we are complimented for hitting our quota, we receive recognition from our peers & colleagues. these incentives are enjoyable, but i think they fail to recognize the most important thing that a seller can bring to the table: trust in relationship-building. --------- i remember receiving this forwarded email from Mike Derezin after running a deal cycle at LinkedIn. for context, Mike was my boss's boss's boss. i shouldn't be getting emails from him. i read the subject line and got a pit in my stomach:"uh oh...is a customer about to ream me out for something?" but then i read Mike's note. i was shocked! a customer proactively went out of their way to call out specific traits i embodied throughout the sales cycle that they appreciated. this was the first time i received a note like that in my entire career. after selling hundreds of deals. receiving this email was actually an important inflection point in my career as a seller. i craved more moments like this: prospects affirming a job well done...sharing how they had been respected, listened to, and guided throughout a process. and more than merely incentivizing my behavior, i was just greatly encouraged by the note from the customer. sellers don't get many of those. as the great Kevin Malone said in Season 4 of The Office, "it's just nice to win one." 👉 so...buying a piece of product from a sales rep right now? are you really enjoying the process? has the experience with the rep been positive? send a note of encouragement to their boss. takes 2 minutes. #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing

a CEO said to me last week, "Ben - don't kid yourself...EVERYONE needs help with strategy. it's just a matter of how badly they need your help." thought that was really insightful. you could make the case that just about any product could, of course, be useful to an executive. this is what most leadership & product marketing teams spend their time thinking about as they go to market. and if you're selling a product that has a track record of proof, then what that CEO said to me is almost certainly true: your product is helpful...but how badly does the executive you're selling to need the help? this is what distinguishes a regular seller from a great seller. regular sellers: "our product is so helpful!" great sellers: "our product will [be helpful in specific way mapped back to something the CEO said] given what you mentioned about [their specific moment in time]." in essence, the seller's job when selling to an exec is not to reiterate just how helpful the product is in a vacuum...the seller's job is to define just how helpful the product will be for the executive, given the circumstances. 👉 which is a long-winded way of saying, if you're actually in the room selling to an exec...odds are they already believe your product is helpful. but they may not be convinced that your product is so helpful to the extent that they will take action on it in the near future. work hard to define for the buyer "just how badly" they may need the help that your product can provide (rather than just regurgitating generic stories about how your product is helpful). sell better. redeem the profession. pictured below: a consultant **in the wild** (Derek) putting the final touches on a pitch for a potential OnCenter client. #JoyInTheJourney #UseTheTime #KeepGoing