Ask a Pastor Ep. 83 - Being a Christian in the Workplace
Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.
This episode, Joel Haldeman, Amy Haldeman, and Anita Harnish sit down to have a conversation about being a Christian in the workplace as entrepreneurs, setting boundaries between work and home life, dealing with making work or money an idol, and more!
Mentioned in the Podcast
The $100 Startup - https://www.amazon.com/100-Startup-Reinvent-Living-Create/dp/0307951529/
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Podcast Transcript
Joel Haldeman: Hey, welcome to the Ask a Pastor Podcast. I am very excited for the conversation that we're going to have today. I'm joined by my wife, Amy Haldeman, and a friend, Anita Harnish. Anita, how long have you been a part of Orchard Hill Church?
Anita Harnish: Since the beginning.
Joel Haldeman: Is that right?
Anita Harnish: Yes. Like the very beginning. Since before the chapel-
Joel Haldeman: Oh my word.
Anita Harnish: Was built, when we dug the first shovel full of dirt.
Joel Haldeman: I did not know that.
Anita Harnish: Yeah. I figured ... you never knew that. Oh, yeah. From the beginning.
Joel Haldeman: Wow.
Josh: Stars.
Joel Haldeman: What?
Josh: The stars.
Joel Haldeman: Oh, she is a star, absolutely.
Josh: No, say she ... Christmas star.
Joel Haldeman: Oh.
Anita Harnish: Oh, that's right-
Joel Haldeman: The first Christmas star.
Anita Harnish: The original first-
Amy Haldeman: Oh.
Anita Harnish: Yes. Yes, the very first Christmas, which actually ended up having to happen at St. Stephens because the church wasn't able to be open. But yeah, all those little pinholes-
Joel Haldeman: Oh, wow.
Anita Harnish: Through black wrap put over the top of-
Joel Haldeman: The same ones that are used today?
Josh: Exactly!
Anita Harnish: Same ones.
Josh: Yep.
Anita Harnish: Yeah, yep.
Joel Haldeman: Okay, let's stop talking about stars.
Anita Harnish: Okay, sorry.
Joel Haldeman: I think this is going to be a very interesting conversation because I have with me two people whose work doesn't come in the same form as most of the rest of us. And both of you are in a role where the more you work, the more you make. And if don't work, you don't make money, and if you don't have work next month there's no paycheck. And so let's start, just as a way of introduction, share with us what you do, what your industry is like, what's new, what's changing in your industry? Why don't you go first?
Amy Haldeman: Sure. So I own a nanny agency. I serve families in Pittsburgh by helping them find nannies and caregivers for their children. And I would say what's new is just that Pittsburgh is rapidly growing right now, and there are a lot of new jobs being created, and a lot more families needing childcare. So it's been really fun to scale my company with that growth over the last few years. And I just think it's a really fun time to be an entrepreneur, too, in 2020. You just have a lot of space to be creative in the work that you do, and just a lot of room to bring yourself to your business.
Anita Harnish: And I freelance as a video producer and director and do some shooting, but usually I leave that to actual shooters. But I've been doing that for several years. I did a few little stints working full-time for a company and it was like, no, I do better as a freelancer. And the technology has changed the business. There used to be bigger production companies in town, and it was more a cooperative, large scale of some staff where you'd hire some freelancers, and what has happened over the years as equipment got less expensive and smaller, then you have a lot of ... one person does everything kind of role. And so that's been an interesting transition, to see the big production companies go by the wayside and smaller companies be formed. And so that has changed my role. And transitioning of like where else can I jump in and maybe jump in with younger production companies who maybe don't have a producer with the skill set or the longevity that I had to help organize. They're highly creative-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: But they might not be organizers.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And my role is basically herding cats.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, yeah. We've met some of the people that you work with.
Anita Harnish: Yes, yes.
Joel Haldeman: And I just think they're such ... it's such an interesting, creative, techno group of people and ... fun group. What ... you mentioned about the city of Pittsburgh changing, you know a lot and spend a lot of time in the Strip District, what are some things that you've seen, just ... like being in the Strip District I feel like we get a front row seat of what's happening in the city. I don't know, what do you see? What do you both see in that? With the changing?
Anita Harnish: For me, well, I've been in the Strip District for ... I remember when everything was shut down on Sundays. It used to be-
Joel Haldeman: Oh, wow.
Anita Harnish: A Monday through Saturday for the vendors. And then ... I forget how many years ago, because of Steelers football season, then it was just like, okay, we're only open Sundays during football season. And then that became, no, we're open seven days a week, some shops close on Monday because now Sunday is such a high traffic area. But I remember when it was all warehouses. I remember when the first ... when the cork factory, which was a gutted place, I actually some band video footage in the cork factory before that got renovated. There used to be some skateboarders in there, and ramps, and crazy stuff. And to see, from that first loft space, and now if you go on railroad and there's just ... it's almost a straight line all the way up to Lawrenceville with buildings being built.
Joel Haldeman: It's amazing.
Anita Harnish: It's crazy. And I send you articles-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: I send you and Kurt articles all the time, I'm like, "Here's another building going up."
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: "Here's another investment." So I kind of get scared because I love the old part of it-
Joel Haldeman: Sure.
Anita Harnish: Multi-generational businesses, but it's great to see the growth and you just hope there's a proper balance-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Between the two.
Joel Haldeman: They are doing a great job of the new development, making it feel like the ... but you're right, the challenge is as everything develops, rents go up-
Anita Harnish: Right.
Joel Haldeman: Is that going to squeeze out the mom and pop-
Anita Harnish: Right.
Joel Haldeman: Shops that have been there-
Anita Harnish: Right.
Joel Haldeman: For a long time. What about you, Amy? What do you see just in terms of ... you work with very high end clients-
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: What do you see there?
Amy Haldeman: I'm a luxury service to clients, and I think my clientele has changed a little bit over time, too. I think when I first started I saw a lot of physicians, and attorneys, and the people that you would think have nannies. But I've seen a lot more just people coming in for tech jobs and looking for nannies more recently. So I'm definitely getting a lot more Google employees that are coming to me looking for help with their childcare. So I've just kind of seen that change-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: A little bit.
Joel Haldeman: Interesting. All right, so I think that the two of you are going to have a unique perspective that we all can gain from, just in thinking about money and thinking about work, and work as idolatry, money as idolatry. If somebody is in sales, if somebody's a contractor in some way, they deal ... and that's actually a large amount of people, they deal similarly with what you guys deal with. Where really your time is money, the more you work, the more money you make. You have to make hard decisions about do I have enough time to take on an extra client? Is there a place to say no? There's no guarantee that you have work tomorrow. So my first question is, what do you love about that sort of work environment, and what are some of the challenges or frustrating aspects of it?
Anita Harnish: Well, I always tell people, I learn a little bit about a lot of things. That's what I love about production. So I've been on a tow barge on the Ohio River with a third generation tow bar operator to interviewing the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, and everything in between. So I love that, because I learn all this little bits of information. So I like the variety. I like working from home, I could be prepping at home, I could be in an edit suite, I could be on location, so I just like that variety.
Anita Harnish: But it is like a rollercoaster. So I could be very busy doing three or four jobs at once for four different clients, to dead stop. So early on my freelance, you had to just get accustomed to that. And it's not scary anymore-
Joel Haldeman: Right.
Anita Harnish: Although there's times I think, "Maybe I should get a full-time job, I don't know," when things are slow, but you just have to ... and I know that's not for everybody. Because it is a certain level of insecurity. I have no pension, right? If I take a vacation, that's not a paid vacation. Like if you don't work, you don't make money.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: So ... but I love it. I love the people I work with, they're highly creative, and fun, and crazy, and there's a lot of insanity, but I sort of like that. So that's one of the things I like about it.
Joel Haldeman: I remember you talking about the tow barge thing, and it was like the steering decision that they make now affects them a mile down the river.
Anita Harnish: A mile and a half down the road.
Joel Haldeman: And I cannot believe I've not used that in a sermon yet.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: So ...
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: Sermon illustration coming soon.
Anita Harnish: Yeah, you have to look so far ahead, which I never knew.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And when they get on a barge, they're on for 21 days.
Joel Haldeman: Wow.
Anita Harnish: Imaging doing grocery shopping, because you're on the water, so the woman who's the cook buys all the groceries for 21 days, and they work six hour shifts, six on, six off, six on, six off. And all the locks and dams that we have along the Ohio River, they pull up, have to unlash all the barges, drop it down, they do it in batches.
Joel Haldeman: Oh, wow.
Anita Harnish: Imagine doing that in the dead of winter. It's wild.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. What about you, Amy?
Amy Haldeman: I love the flexibility. If my son needs to go to the orthodontist twice in one day, which happened last week, I have that flexibility to kind of drop everything and go do that and not have to ask permission to do that, and know that I can catch up on my work later that night. I think there's just almost an exhilaration when you seal the deal when you're an entrepreneur. And that's probably a bad thing at times, too. But I think there's just this energy that I never found in any one of my other jobs when I nail that placement.
Amy Haldeman: And going back to that, the flexibility piece is probably the biggest one. We've just had a lot of space in our life to travel because of it. I still usually work every single day that we're away, but sometimes I get to be by a beach or by a pool to complete that work. And that's pretty fun-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Too.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. That's definitely one of those like what a blessing it is to have some of that flexibility, but that flexibility comes with you're working when you're sitting in the orthodontist's office or when you're away.
Joel Haldeman: So the two of you have to think a lot more than the average person about money, because for most of us with a W-2 job, we just don't even think about it, like it just comes at the end of the month or whenever, and on a weekly, monthly basis we're not thinking about how much money is coming in. But the two of you, like that's front and center sort of all the time, like how much is this project going to be? How many clients do I have? So how on earth do you balance that? Because you have to care about it, but you don't want that to become all encompassing or it becomes idolatry. So how do you find balance in that?
Anita Harnish: I think, for me, the idolatry is not making a lot of money, the idolatry is financial security. Which I think are two different things. Because I don't ... I grew up in a very frugal family, I was raised by a single mom, my dad died when I was very young, so my mom had to go back into the workforce, raise four kids by herself.
Joel Haldeman: Wow.
Anita Harnish: So for me, I know that's in the back of my head along with don't make in an idol, trust God to be your provision. But as a freelancer, it's like, okay, this year I have 15 1099s coming into me, because I had 15 different clients this year.
Joel Haldeman: Wow.
Anita Harnish: So you have to do very good book working of like how much money did you make? I have a line of credit, that that helps me borrow from myself until the client pays, maybe 30 days, 45 days, 60, whatever, right?
Joel Haldeman: Okay.
Anita Harnish: You pay double Social Security.
Joel Haldeman: Right.
Anita Harnish: Because you are your own employer.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And then you have to be diligent to set aside money to forecast quarterly state, federal, and local taxes. So a lot of it is just ... you have to be really organized and set a budget. And it's like a squirrel storing nuts, it's like when you get excess, you still have to live by this budget that you said-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: You were going to live by.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Right? So I just think it takes a lot of diligence, and holding-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Holding to what you said you were going to do budget wise.
Joel Haldeman: So tell us more about this idea of financial security, the possibility of that becoming an idol.
Anita Harnish: Well I think, for instance, this past ... last year, it was very slow in April and May. And at first I get paranoid and think, "Oh my gosh, what am I doing wrong? Nobody's calling," and then I talk to the all the other freelancers and no one else was working.
Joel Haldeman: Right.
Anita Harnish: Like everybody was dead. But just to make enough to get by-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Or to pay your bills. And I'm not talking to be extravagant, because that's not who I am personally, I'm not an extravagant person.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: But ... being able to rest in the knowledge that God is the provider and he's going to provide. Because financial security, not extravagance, but security can become an idol.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Right? That can cause you to stay awake at night-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And worry.
Joel Haldeman: I know that there's been seasons of our life where I realized that money was an idol to us not by having too much of it, but by having too little of it. And it was actually like in us trying to control it too tightly, and we were being too cheap, and that like revealed to me, like this is an ... like if I'm not willing to splurge here and there, then I'm worshiping it just as much as somebody who has a lot and splurges-
Anita Harnish: Yes.
Joel Haldeman: All the time.
Anita Harnish: Yes.
Joel Haldeman: What's your answer?
Amy Haldeman: Yeah. I would just say we've been really lucky, and I owe it to you, because you've been really careful to make sure that we're always living within our means and having a budget. And that even goes back to before we were married, you put me on a really strict $3 a week budget that I was allowed to spend on my gum.
Joel Haldeman: Gum budget.
Amy Haldeman: Yes, you were so strict about it, but ... and I think even when we were first married, we were in college and we were making $11 an hour with part time jobs, and we didn't heat most of our apartment to save money, but we never worried about kind of like where the bills would come to pay the groceries.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: So as our income has multiplied over the years, I think you've been really careful in that, and I'm thankful for that. Because it's not something that I've had to stress myself over with my income that's coming in. But what this question really hits me, in a conversation that I had a few years ago with a friend, and you and I were about to buy another building for our real estate company, we were looking at starting a third business for our family. You were going to keep your full-time job and we were going to keep our three kids happy. And we were just excited to tell them about all of these things that we were doing in our life, and he stopped and he looked at us and he said, "What's your enough? When are you guys going to stop?" And I was offended, because I'm thinking, "Why can't you be excited? Like we're so driven, we have such a good work ethic," but that question's like hit me pretty hard. I'm a three on the Enneagram, and I'm constantly comparing myself-
Joel Haldeman: Tell us what that means.
Amy Haldeman: So Enneagram is a personality test, an it basically gives nine different numbers. And most people fall within one to two of those numbers on the Enneagram. And threes care about their self image, and they like to work really hard, and they like to compare themselves to what they were and what they've done previously. So I'm constantly kind of looking back going, "What can I do better from last year, and last month, and how can I hit better goals?" And when you pair that with being an entrepreneur, and pair it with being a Christian, it can kind of have some conflicting ideas in that, for sure.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: So I've kind of had to take a look at my heart and realize my calendar is probably a really good indicator of what my heart is. And trying to define those things that are really important. And in our family right now, I would probably say that those things would be family, making sure we have family time, making sure that we have time in our life to build relationships with people that are not lost-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: And making sure, too, that we have time to serve in our church. And I'm trying to add rest into 2020 into that last. But I've tried to just block off time on my calendar each week to make those things happen. I took email off my phone a year and a half ago, which was scary, like 95% of my job is run on email. But it's been a clear indicator for me to say, "Work has to stop at a certain point." My calendar shuts off at like 11:30 on Fridays, and that's so you and I can go on a date, and so that we can spend time with our kids Friday evening. We have traditions of family pizza and movie night, and our kids sleep over in our room Friday nights. And Saturdays, if someone would ask us to do something with them, we'd probably say no because we're too busy just lounging around the house in our PJs.
Amy Haldeman: So I think for me, our question of enough, we have some big goals for that for our family, but I think to make sure that I'm not overextending work at times and making work an idol, it's making sure that there's time on the calendar for the things that are important.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Right now.
Joel Haldeman: Okay, I'm going to press the button.
Anita Harnish: [inaudible 00:17:02]
Amy Haldeman: You like to argue with me.
Joel Haldeman: Because I think the ... and I'm curious about your take on this, Anita. The conversation about when is it enough is something that I guess I sort of want to push back on, because there's this part of me that looks at ... we have this real estate thing on the side, and when someone asks the question, "When will you have enough?" My reaction is, "You don't understand who I am." Like I am an entrepreneur, I want to grow this thing. And so there's never going to be enough, we always want to grow our work, we always want to grow our businesses bigger, and do more. Now, I definitely think that there is enough in this season, and we would say that the past season for us, we way over committed. We tried to do way too much and it wasn't good, and if we could go back ... well, I'm not very good at being able to say that I'd do it differently in the past.
Joel Haldeman: But so I don't know that I totally agree with that idea that there comes a point where it is enough. Like I get that from like a financial perspective, we don't want to be greedy, greedy, greedy for more, more, more. But at the same time, I think wouldn't it be better to build the business bigger and say ... I think Rick Warren does this, some other people, that when he started selling A Purpose Driven Life and selling tons of copies, he said, "I'm just going to cap my salary at this, and everything else that comes in we're going to give away." So build the business bigger, put things into play so that you're not working 80 hours a week or even 60 hours a week.
Amy Haldeman: I think where the challenge comes in is if you're not putting boundaries-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Right.
Amy Haldeman: That are really practical in your life. I'm the kind of person that will work an 80 hour work week. And what I've realized in the last couple of years about our life is that I was overstepping boundaries, and I had to make those walls in our life, and I need to make bigger walls right now, and I'm working on that.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: So it doesn't necessarily mean like, "Hey, we're going to stop what we're doing," but we need to protect-
Joel Haldeman: Yep.
Amy Haldeman: What we have here.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. I think that's right.
Anita Harnish: And I think-
Joel Haldeman: What's your take on that?
Anita Harnish: It's interesting because when you present the questions and you're talking about was there ever a time that you turned something down-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Early on in the career it's like say yes to everything, everything. And what that can do is wear you out emotionally, and taking on jobs that you really don't believe in, or working over holidays, which just creates a great deal of anxiety. And right before a holiday, Christmastime, I'm going to say Christmastime, whenever this airs, but back before Christmastime where we had the Women's Christmas coming up, and then I was speaking for the one messaging carols. I had a call from a producer in Florida about a production that was coming into Pittsburgh.
Joel Haldeman: Okay.
Anita Harnish: And they wanted to bring me on as like a line producer. And knowing ... it's like I'm at the point now, it's like I knew how that thing could become this monster. It would be a crap load of money right before Christmas, but it would be right before the women's event and me talking. And so I declined. Initially I said I had other commitments, where this woman though, "Oh, you just have two jobs of work that you've already committed to," and there's always a thing in our business that if someone calls, let's say I booked you for one day, and somebody says, "I could use you for eight days," it's just understood in this business, call me, let me know, I'll find a replacement because I want you to earn more money, because you're a freelancer.
Joel Haldeman: Okay.
Anita Harnish: So I finally said, "Well no, I have two things tied to church, that's why I'm turning this down." And the reason I did it was because yes, it would've been a bunch of money, but I know that I valued my sanity-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: More. And I knew that even though they said it wasn't going to be a big deal how these productions, especially out of town productions, grow, and grow, and grow, and grow. And I would've just been wrecked. I probably wouldn't have made the Women's Christmas Party, I would've been a mess before speaking, and I would've had to roll right into an all night shoot. And I knew I didn't want that for my sanity, so I said no. Because that was a better boundary. That was the boundary that I had set up, was to say no for that, it could've rolled into getting called again down the road, whatever.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: I just valued my sanity better.
Joel Haldeman: Well we appreciate you saying no to those things because both of those things were awesome. The Women's Christmas Gathering and you speaking-
Anita Harnish: Thanks.
Joel Haldeman: At that service was really good.
Anita Harnish: Thanks.
Joel Haldeman: What's your answer to that? Do you ever say no to a client?
Amy Haldeman: So in our real estate business we have said no to things in that. We've said, "Hey, we're not going to ... we're going to just not get rent in this apartment for a month because we need to focus on other things," and that-
Joel Haldeman: Said no to me doing the work instead of-
Amy Haldeman: Right.
Joel Haldeman: Paying someone.
Amy Haldeman: And I think that's felt a little bit easier than what I think Anita and I deal with, because I think the hardest part is not saying no to that client, it's saying no to the potential referrals-
Anita Harnish: Right.
Amy Haldeman: Down the road.
Anita Harnish: Right.
Amy Haldeman: Like that's the part that just kills me.
Anita Harnish: Because you know it could lead to something else.
Amy Haldeman: Exactly.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: So I've really failed, I have a feeling you might not be a three on the Enneagram.
Anita Harnish: I'm a two.
Amy Haldeman: Okay. I love twos.
Anita Harnish: Oh, thank you.
Amy Haldeman: You're the best. So I wish I was a two.
Anita Harnish: What's Joel? Wait, what's Joel?
Joel Haldeman: I'm a one.
Amy Haldeman: We think he's a one, but I think all this stuff for me, too. We're still figuring that out.
Joel Haldeman: What are you, Josh?
Josh: I'm an eight, I don't [inaudible 00:22:24].
Amy Haldeman: Oh, man.
Anita Harnish: I have a friend who's an eight who argued that I wasn't a two. I'm like, what? Don't tell me what ...
Joel Haldeman: That's perfect.
Amy Haldeman: Well, I have failed at saying no. It's not in me, I need to work on that. But I think what I've recognized in that is what can we do to kind of help alleviate things on the home front so that I can say yes? And I think we too have agreed like our goal with my business right now is to scale it bigger, we see the potential for that because we see some room for rest if we're able to do that. So right now I'm saying yes, I have put clients on a wait list, that doesn't always work out very well because they usually need a nanny now, and they're not happy to wait. But looking for help on the home front has looked like, hey, maybe we need to pay to have groceries delivered this week instead of spending the time shopping in the store, and maybe we need to hire some extra childcare, or housecleaning help that week.
Amy Haldeman: But I think when ... every person in any industry is going to have a season of hustle.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: And I think the important piece is to make sure that that hustle does not turn into autopilot for you. And I think that's turned into autopilot for us the last couple of years. And we're trying to back out of that a little bit. So now the question is, do I need to scale my company and bring on a bigger team? People say the first hire's your hardest hire, and I did that last year, and it was the scariest thing I've ever done but the most life giving thing I've done for my business, too. And it's just given me that confidence to make those steps for future. So trying to bring a little bit more balance into that hustle.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Right now.
Anita Harnish: Okay, I'm going to hit [inaudible 00:24:01]. Did you both realize early on that you were entrepreneurs? Because it never hit me that I was until like recently. I always just said freelance, but it's like oh, wait, I kind of-
Amy Haldeman: You are.
Anita Harnish: So like did you-
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Into your business thinking, "I'm an entrepreneur," or when did it hit that you guys were both entrepreneurs?
Amy Haldeman: I didn't believe it for a few years.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, I didn't either. I would say-
Anita Harnish: So what made you believe it?
Joel Haldeman: Only a couple years ago. I think probably the latest business that we started was ... was for me I realized I was finding myself getting really excited. We bought a building, an we're talking about what do we do with the commercial space? And there was just this like real excitement about yeah, we can come up with an idea and we can make something that's profitable here. And that was, for me, realizing this is part of who I am.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: I think you're a lot more of the starter, Joel's the one that pushed me to start my business.
Anita Harnish: Really?
Amy Haldeman: Oh, yeah. Kindly, he was good about it. I had the idea, and I think I'm ... I don't have the right words. I'm not confident enough in myself, and Joel's quote about himself is ...
Joel Haldeman: Always confident, sometimes right.
Amy Haldeman: Exactly, so-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Great statement.
Amy Haldeman: So like he was-
Anita Harnish: That should be a tee shirt.
Amy Haldeman: And Joel's the type where he'll just figure something out. Like where I don't have that in me, I've had to teach myself that I can just figure stuff out.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Google is amazing at asking questions to. So yeah, I think you definitely pushed me to do it, and the days I wanted to quit you were like, "Just keeping doing it, Amy. Keep doing it." And it probably wasn't until three or four years ago where I really say my company grow that I saw the potential and saw my role in aiding that growth, too.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. Yeah. I think ... Anita said something here that reminded me that like ... you have had to say no to clients when you realized those clients were going to drain the life out of you, because you saw something dysfunctional about them, or it wasn't going to be a ... it wasn't going to be a placement that was necessarily guaranteed.
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. Well okay, so let me ask this question. So Genesis 11 is the story of the Tower of Babel, right? And the problem with the Tower of Babel is God tells the people, "Go, spread, disperse all over the earth," but instead they're like, "Nope, we're going to stay here, build a tower," and it specifically says that they wanted to build a name for themselves. And that was part of their sin. Your business is tied to your name.
Anita Harnish: True.
Joel Haldeman: Your name is your business. So how do you walk that fine line of saying, "I need to care about my name, but not worship my name," as was the case in ... or I wouldn't even say that they worshiped their name in the story of the Tower of Babel, but there was this pride, this protection of their name that led them to build this tower.
Amy Haldeman: I'd like Anita to go first.
Anita Harnish: Yeah, so, early in my career I'd be knocking on all the doors. Now, it's mainly word of mouth, which is building good reputation, right, people hear about you and then you get calls. So I don't look at that as being prideful, it's just like you are doing a good job in what you do, right? I don't know ... pride and my name, I feel like I'm trying to do a good job and I'm competent in what I do.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: I'm not very good at selling myself. So that's why it's nice that people hear about me and call me instead.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Because I'm just terrible at marketing myself. And a lot of times, in the role I'm in, you create a product and the person who gets the accolades is your client.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, sure.
Anita Harnish: So if there's ever times that you think that you're going to get boasted about your name, you're wrong, because they're the ones that get recognized at the ceremony or the award or whatever. Their team, even though you might've done all the work.
Joel Haldeman: Are you someone who sits in the movie theater and reads all the credits as they scroll-
Anita Harnish: Yes.
Joel Haldeman: At the end.
Anita Harnish: I do, I do. Yeah, I do. I do, just curious about stuff. Like who did that, how'd they do that. That's a whole nother podcast, movies and how I watch movies. Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: That's so funny.
Joel Haldeman: What do you think about that? Your name.
Amy Haldeman: Yeah, this is tough, because I think anything that I read about and listen to in podcasts about business right now is telling your story, and making your face a part of it. And it's odd to me, too, like I'm now at the point where I have clients that call me and say, "Hey, we're looking for help, we heard all about you, we heard such wonderful things, everybody at the office was talking about you today," and that's just weird to me to kind of think of that. And I wrestle, because I also, when you talk about selling yourself, it's something I've had to kind of teach myself how to do, but it feels really prideful when you're selling yourself.
Joel Haldeman: Well and for you, every new client is selling yourself.
Amy Haldeman: Exactly.
Joel Haldeman: It's not like ... you don't have sort of the repeat client-
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: Not too many repeat clients.
Amy Haldeman: And I probably have at least 10 phone calls every week where it's a new potential client where I have to sell myself. So I think as much as I can to kind of put the credit on other people. Like I wouldn't be where I am today if there weren't just these phenomenal nannies in Pittsburgh that are making me look good for placing them. Or just phenomenal clients that are so kind to share about their experience. And as I'm starting to grow a team now, trying to use those calls to kind of put the focus on the work that my team has done and not me. Even though if I know I might be behind a lot of that work, but just trying to put that credit on others. But I don't have a great answer for that, I think that's a really hard question.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. Well I think that's a good point, that in the Tower of Babel there was sort of this attitude ... I'm reading between the lines here, of course, but this ... "We've built this, look what we've done."
Anita Harnish: "Look what we've done."
Joel Haldeman: "Look what I've done." But what you're saying is that when you do work, you want to say, "Look what they've done. The reason this is great is because of these other people, it's not because of me."
Anita Harnish: There is no I in team.
Joel Haldeman: That's right. So when does work become idolatry?
Anita Harnish: I'd say if you never stop, if you set no boundaries. I used to take ... because clients can overstep boundaries and reach you on weekends, or late at night, or text you at 3:00 a.m. I mean, I've had it all. So and the compulsion to feel like you had to answer right away. And if you do that you set a standard saying it's okay to invade your space 24/7.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Right? So setting boundaries of ... I mean, sometimes weekend answering, stuff comes up, but setting boundaries of like here's a realistic boundary of when I will respond. I don't care if you sent me an email, text, voicemail at 3:00 a.m., I'm going to respond during business hours. And that's okay.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: So I just think setting boundaries ... yeah. And I've seen too many people in work who literally die an early death and you go, "That's probably stress related."
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Because they just kept going, and going, and going, and didn't know how to turn it off and take vacations, or-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Quiet time, or rest, or whatever. Right?
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: What do you think, Amy?
Amy Haldeman: Yeah. I think we found ourselves in this, the last couple years. Like I felt really convicted of this recently. And I think we did it without anticipating it. We took on some new projects, and we didn't anticipate that my company would grow at that same time. And we didn't anticipate that a few of our properties, tenants would move out and we'd suddenly have these renovation projects. And I think that we just found ourselves stuck in something that we were struggling to get out of, and bring that room for our life. Some of the signs that I just saw in myself in that is I was just a lot shorter with our kids, like our kids definitely felt the brunt of it the last couple years. I think I found that we didn't have room for margin in our life. There were a lot of times-
Anita Harnish: What do you mean when you say that? Room for margin?
Amy Haldeman: Yeah, so I would say there were times where we saw people with needs that we knew, hey, if we could help them and maybe take their kids for a weekend, I think it would give them some breathing room. Or hey, they need a meal, and we just didn't have the space in our life to provide that for people.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Because we didn't give ourselves that margin to have that time. And I really regret that big time. And I think, too, because we weren't resting, we didn't have room for creativity in our life, and we didn't have room to dream and think. And I think God requires us to rest for a reason. There's just a lot of wisdom behind that. So-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: I think now we're trying to pivot our life and provide space for these things.
Anita Harnish: Jumping off of that, because I think the last year I was very intentional about like a devotional time. And I used to get up, out of bed, hit the day running, right? Bang, bang, band. Make the calls, whatever. And last year was probably the first year where I was doing morning devotionals like right out of the gate. And the peace of mind that that brought me, and even the whole idea of people saying, "Oh, I'm so busy, I'm so busy," if you don't create space to get bored, to dream, to ponder, to muse. I mean, the word amuse or amusement is the opposite of musing.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Musing is to ponder. And to think. To amuse is to distract.
Joel Haldeman: Interesting.
Anita Harnish: So I have a quieter mind an a quieter internal sense, because I took the time to set the boundary of like you don't have to go, go, go, go, go. You can set time because if you set that, then the rest of your day is set.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. I think for me the moment was ... and this was a while back, we were having some conflict, and someone said to us, "I think you need to get out of this business." And wrestling with that, I had to come to terms with this reality that if I got rid of this, if we stepped out of this business, I would no longer be able to say, "I started this business. I'm an owner of this business." And when I realized that I was tying my identity, my worth or my value to what I've done, and had this like resistance to trying to step out of it, that's when I knew that it was idolatry. I guess, when I think of idolatry, I think of what does my heart love? What are the things that I love? And if I'm defining myself by something, if I'm loving something so much that I can't get rid of it-
Anita Harnish: Right.
Joel Haldeman: Then that's a telltale sign that I've made this into an idol. And so I think for the average person, could you step out of your job? Could you be unemployed and be okay with that? And when people ask you what you do, that you don't have something impressive to say, I think if that causes you mental anxiety, like the thought of that situation, then I think you probably want to label that as an idol.
Joel Haldeman: So for the person who does get in that situation, how do you even begin to fight idolatry?
Amy Haldeman: I'll have a better answer in six months.
Anita Harnish: I'm pretty like ... I'm like put a stake in it. That's my internal language, if I catch something that I need to deal with, just like, "Lord, drive a stake right through it." Just go for it. Which is very ... I don't know ... German of me. Just do it.
Anita Harnish: Recognizing it is one good thing, God's so gentle. That's what's so ... I may be forceful in my thinking, like just deal with it, but God is so gentle. But he does bring stuff to mind, right, or like stuff to deal with, and when we find ourselves, like where do we put our affections, right?
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And our identity, or whatever. And even when things were slow last year, and I was like, "Lord, if you want me to a do a full-time job, I'll do it." I don't want to, but I'll do it. Or what other avenues could I go into, because part of producing is being very organized and detail oriented and so ... yeah, I think the willingness, right, just the willingness to say, "I will turn this over if that's what-"
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: "Is required," right?
Joel Haldeman: I think there's this beautiful part in the Tower of Babel where God ... the key word, or key sentence in the Tower of Babel story, it's a very structured story, and at the very center of it is God came down. And it was God's judgment at the Tower of Babel, changes their language so the people have to give up the project and scatter, and that was God's judgment, but God's judgment was his mercy to them. And I just think like even in our situation, thinking about this business, where we've had to wrestle with should we stay in this, and that hasn't been decided yet, we're still in it and might be for who knows how long. But that conflict that came in was God's judgment but it was also his mercy.
Anita Harnish: Correct.
Joel Haldeman: Because it helped us see like, oh, this is what this is doing to us, this is how this is affecting us.
Amy Haldeman: I'd add, too, for us, I know that we've kind of hit this hard point in our lives with our work, that we know that we need to make some drastic changes in it. And we set a date on our calendar to take five and a half weeks off of work. And I'll probably still work a little bit, but I know that I almost need to have a clean slate in my life to really think through some things.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: And one of the intentions of that is to really spend a lot of time together as a family, too. But I just know that I've just hit a point the last couple years where I need time to make big changes.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: In it.
Joel Haldeman: And that'll be really good for all of the areas where we work, too.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: Because it's going to force us to say, "All the things that depend 100% on us are going to have to exist without us." And so that's good for multiple reasons.
Anita Harnish: That makes me think, there were two points in my career ... well originally, I was going to go into nursing school out of high school. Changed my mind, ended up going to [High 00:39:14] University, long story, that's a whole nother issue, and then twice since that in my career I thought of getting out of production and going into nursing. My mom was a nurse, and I love blood, and guts, and gore, and I'm not afraid of hospitals. But I spoke to a friend who was a businessman, and both times he just said, he goes, "It's not that I think you need to go into nursing," he goes, "I just think you're burned out and you just need a break." And that's what you think your out is, is to change careers, versus the fact that you're fried.
Joel Haldeman: Interesting.
Anita Harnish: And you're exhausted. And you just need a break. Because he had experienced a similar thing where he thought he needed to change careers completely, and that wasn't the case. He was just burned out. And so sometimes I think we think we need to change stuff, or drop stuff, and it's like, no, you just need a break.
Amy Haldeman: Interesting.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: It doesn't mean you have to give up what ... right? You just need a break.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And the break will help you figure out whether you need to drop it or not.
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. Let me throw out two-
Anita Harnish: Sure.
Joel Haldeman: Rapid fire questions. Think of just a few sentences to answer these with. What would you say to someone who's sick of working for "the man", I know that's entirely sexist, but I've not heard that said any other way.
Anita Harnish: That's fine.
Joel Haldeman: And they want to go into business for themselves.
Anita Harnish: It takes courage and guts.
Amy Haldeman: I would just ... my answer's longer, but I would just say make sure that you know what you value in your life.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: And guard those things fiercely.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Make sure that you have the financial means to make smart decisions in it.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: And run after it, like chase after it. I think God puts desires on our hearts for a reason, and I think that you just need to make steps to ... even if that's an hour or two every day, to pursue that dream. And read up on books on business, and podcasts, there's so many options out there today. And just know that you're going to mess up, you're going to make errors, and those times that you fail, you are probably going to make the best stories in a nursing home one day. So just have fun while you're doing it.
Joel Haldeman: There's a book that was influential to me called The 100 Dollars Startup, and the premise of it was don't quit your full-time job, just take ... you've got this dream, take a few hours, start small, start baking muffins in your kitchen and selling them on the street before you go and quit your job and start a bakery. And I think that's a great-
Anita Harnish: Well I actually have a neighbor, an old neighbor, that did that. Used to work a full-time job, did a side business of candles, and bath bombs, and soaps, and it reaches a critical point.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: You're working two jobs as this new business is coming up, and finally it got to the point where he could quit the full-time job. And now he's working full gang buster on this-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: His own personal business, and he's learning to put some boundaries in place, because he's working all the time, but it's the happiness level is so much better.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, yeah. All right, last question. How does your profession fulfill God's mandate to fill the world and build society?
Anita Harnish: Well creating things, creating projects, and then being hopefully an influencer with the people that I work with. I mean, I think everybody who knows me in my work environment knows that I'm a Christian and that I'm a Jesus follower. And I hope there are attributes in who I am that come forward, whether someone experiences a loss or a critical time in their life, that-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: I can be a person that is open and available to speak to, and provide a resource, or provide thoughts about God and Christ-
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: That maybe other people would not be providing.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: And opportunities come up. Weird stuff out of left field, it's just crazy ... you just never know. You never know, right?
Joel Haldeman: And I would say, thinking about the specific work that you do, you are ... first of all, you've shared some projects that have been really awesome, stuff on campuses, but even just in serving businesses, like you've served businesses that we all depend on for things to come to our door in a timely manner and we love them, and they do a lot better than the USPS. And seeing those businesses thrive makes our world better.
Amy Haldeman: This is a hard question for me because I thought I'd be doing urban ministry, and I thought-
Anita Harnish: Did you?
Amy Haldeman: Yeah, I thought that was going to be my life, serving just inner cities and helping the poorest of the poor. And instead I'm here providing this luxury service, that I'm sitting behind my laptop every day and it's sometimes just hard to kind of grapple like where is that in the kingdom? And I think even just in our family, you're doing ministry full-time, and like what's more important? So this is a conversation we have a lot in our home. And I've kind of just come to recognize in that that I'm serving people, I'm helping people find quality childcare so they can go off and do their jobs.
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: And whether that's a professional athlete, whether that's a physician, an attorney, a surgeon like out there saving lives, I get to be a part of that bigger picture. And I'd say, too, like I have had the opportunity to kind of raise that bar of professionalism for nannies in Pittsburgh. Domestic workers are just kind of known to be taken advantage of throughout history. And really be able to make sure that they have fair pay and health benefits, and that they're being treated with kindness has been a really big piece of it.
Amy Haldeman: I think a third piece that I've wrestled with because I thought that we were going to be really poor, and I thought for some reason that there was something more Christian about that, to be living a poor life, but I think that God puts some people on earth to make money, to have that opportunity to give it away, too. And that's something that I've always made a part, no matter how small that paycheck was, to give back a part of that to help his ministry and his kingdom, too.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: One other thing I wanted to say, too, when you mentioned Joel does ministry and what you do, I mean, I think of Francis Schaeffer who always said, "There's no distinction between sacred and secular, everything is sacred."
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: So it's like everything is sacred, right?
Joel Haldeman: That's right.
Anita Harnish: No matter what we do.
Amy Haldeman: Yeah.
Anita Harnish: Right?
Amy Haldeman: And I'd agree 100% but I think the tricky part is when Joel's off to do marriage counseling and save a marriage, and I have 100 emails to send-
Anita Harnish: Yeah.
Amy Haldeman: It's hard to feel that in that moment.
Joel Haldeman: I don't save marriages. I don't think I've-
Amy Haldeman: Okay, I'm just throwing something out there, okay?
Joel Haldeman: Well, hey, thank you both, I really appreciate your time-
Anita Harnish: Nice to see you.
Joel Haldeman: Out of your day. And thanks for being here on the podcast. If you have questions, please send them to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com and we'd love to take a look at those in the future.
