Ep. 24: Pray.com CEO Steve Gatena on Solving Society’s Biggest Challenges by Growing Faith and Cultivating Community
In this episode, Darren Reinke chats with Steve Gatena, CEO of Pray.com. Steve shares the biggest lessons he learned while playing college football under Pete Carroll, how the loss of his business partner led to the creation of Pray.com, how Pray.com fulfills its purpose of creating a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others, and so much more!
Pray.com is a social impact company driven by a mission to grow faith and cultivate community. Pray.com is the world's #1 app for faith and prayer. The Pray.com mobile app brings faith to peoples' fingertips through daily prayer plans, inspirational audio content, and a private social network. Pray.com's vision is to create a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others.
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SHOW NOTES
How Steve’s Background Influenced the Person He is Today [1:04]
The Major Lessons Steve Learned from Pete Carroll Playing College Football [4:58]
How Pete Carroll’s Lesson of “Winning Forever” Has Influenced Steve as an Entrepreneur [6:40]
How Steve Persevered Through Countless Injuries in College and the Air Force [10:48]
Steve’s Advice for Overcoming Challenging Life Set Backs [13:02]
The Importance of Faith in Steve’s Life and How it Led to the Birth of Pray.com [15:37]
How Pray.com Fosters a Strong Sense of Community [22:35]
Why Leadership Isn’t Given, It’s Earned [31:50]
What Steve Does to Bring Pray.com’s Values to Life Throughout the Organization [36:38]
How Steve Unifies People of Different Perspectives through the Purpose of Pray.com [40:45]
SHOW LINKS
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Darren Reinke: Welcome to The Savage Leader Podcast, where I interview leaders from all walks of life so that you can walk away with tips to apply to your life and your career. But this isn't your traditional leadership podcast because I believe that leadership tips come from successful entrepreneurs and business executives, of course. Still, they also come from unexpected places, like Navy SEALs, successful professional athletes, sports coaches, musicians, entertainers, and more. So let's dive right into today's episode; my hope is you walk away with something tangible that you can apply immediately to your life in your career.Today's guests on the savage leader podcast is Steve Gatena. Steve is a CEO of pray.com, a social impact company that is driven by a mission to grow faith and cultivate community. The pray.com app is the world's number one app for Faith in prayer. Steve, thanks for coming on today.
Steve Gatena: Darren, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
How Steve’s Background Influenced the Person He is Today [1:04]
Darren Reinke: So take me back when your background is just amazing. I want to seek out some of the great snippets for later on. But take me back to little Steve growing up. What was your background? Like? How did your background influences and people you met family etc. influenced the person you are today?
Steve Gatena: Sure, yeah. I'll take it all the way back to diapers, you know, my backgrounds mixed. I was born to a single Jewish mom on welfare. So my mom is Jewish, which means I'm Jewish. And my dad is Catholic. And I was pretty much raised Catholic by my grandma dragging me to church every Sunday, I think I had a little too much energy as a child. It was not something that I enjoyed. Really, I was into computers. And I was into sports. And in high school, I was recruited, flown to Washington, DC. And I got pitched by a bunch of these three letter agencies, FBI, DIA CIA, on how you could use computers in the government. And there I was exposed to being able to work with computers and do satellite imaging. I thought that that was, you know, the coolest thing being able to take pictures of the Earth from outer space. And I decided that that's what I wanted to do with my life. So out of high school, I chose to go the United States Air Force Academy to major in computer science and get into satellite imaging. My first year at the Air Force Academy didn't really go as I planned, I actually ended up dislocating my shoulders, collapsing my lungs, breaking my hand and getting pneumonia. So I ended up with an honorable discharge out of the air force after my first year. And fortunately, I was born six foot five, I'm six foot five, I used to be 310 pounds. I'm only 210 pounds today. But I had the opportunity to play football in college, got to win a rose bowl with Coach Pete Carroll at the University of Southern California. And I decided, you know, the Air Force thing didn't work out for me. But I figured being in the NFL, that would be a great new career path. So I decided that I wanted to go to the NFL. And my senior year of college, I actually ended up with two fully reconstructed shoulders. And after coming back from that shoulder surgery, or those two shoulder surgeries, I really wasn't strong enough to play football in the league. And that was kind of a rough transition for me. But fortunately, USC is a great school, I had the opportunity to take an entrepreneurship class. And the first day in that entrepreneurship class, my teacher gave us a homework assignment, said think of a business that couldn't exist five years ago, that would boom five years from now. And I said there should be a company that makes professional YouTube videos for corporations. My teacher said What's YouTube? So YouTube was brand new, and that really was the jumping off point of my entrepreneurial journey. I ended up starting this company. We built out all the online media channels and content for brands like Herbalife, Los Angeles Dodgers, red bowl, Marriot Coldwell Banker, that was really the beginning of my leadership journey. And my journey as an entrepreneur.
Darren Reinke: What a fascinating journey didn't know about all those things is the computer imaging expert and so forth. I love to go back. I mean, I'd love to talk about that as well. But go back to football because I know you said at the beginning of your leadership journey from an entrepreneurship perspective, and I know you gained so much from playing at football about overcoming adversity, but also from Pete Carroll. Just what were some of the lessons that you learned and you mentioned, and then when your blogs about making the impossible possible and how practice is really a great jumping off point for performing in games, what are you learning there from playing football?
The Major Lessons Steve Learned from Pete Carroll Playing College Football [4:58]
Steve Gatena: Yeah, I mean, I do believe that all things are possible. As a person of faith. I believe in Mark 9:23. All things are possible for those that believe. And, you know, Pete Carroll really taught me to, to elevate my mindset. And he taught us, he taught the whole team, she taught us to do things better than they'd ever been done before. That was really a new standard that I was exposed to, at the University of Southern California was going out and doing things better than they'd ever been done before. having more fun, while we were doing them working harder while we were doing it, and really just setting a new standard, as a football coach. Pete Carroll is one of the most inspirational coaches that I've ever had. But he's also one of the most inspirational leaders that I had ever had. And I really believe that his framework and approach to coaching not only speaks for itself, based on you know, the results that the Super Bowl championships and you know, Rose Bowl championships, but it really gave the young men on the team, a framework for how to win forever. If you really embraced the Pete Carroll model, you could carry that into your life, and you could win forever, no matter what you did. So that was that was a truly special experience for me my time at USC.
How Pete Carroll’s Lesson of “Winning Forever” Has Influenced Steve as an Entrepreneur [6:40]
Darren Reinke: Yeah, I love that winning forever. I mean, you can see, you'll see Pete Carroll and a few weeks running down the sideline. You know, what an energetic guy, he's y'all this NFL coach now, which is amazing. But like, what were some one or two things that you took away in terms of winning forever, and how that's really impacted you as an entrepreneur,
Steve Gatena: we were so critical, and so clinical, as a team, I think one of the things that that I learned to be able to do at the University of Southern California was go back, look at my past performance, and be clinical about where I could get better. And one thing that I also learned while being there was you know, that comparison is a thief of joy, I believe that we were all divinely created. And we all have different talents, temperaments, and convictions. And that's what makes us great. And if you're constantly comparing yourself to others, it'll take you down a path, that robs the joy from your process of improvement. So when you're being clinical about your own performance, keep it clinical, based on your past performance. Don't compare yourself to others per se, compare yourself to yourself, and compare yourself to the future self that you want to become, and work on doing it better than you've ever done it before.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, I love that there's so much there to unpack, but just comparison and, and you know, what a toxic place to be in terms of comparing it to my kids, you know, through a sports land, hey, there's always gonna be someone faster than you is gonna beat you that ball, they're gonna be better than you, they're gonna be smarter than you're gonna have more insert X, Y, or Z than you. And I love that just focusing on yourself. And I think also love that idea of comparing yourself to the future self, because so much of the work that I do with people is what that end state or that next state? And how do you close those gaps? How do you get better, were some of the behaviors you need to develop? What are the skills you need to create but so much there love that just comparison, robbing you of joy also, by the way, which is so important just to live a better and more joyful life, frankly,
Steve Gatena: yeah. And if you're, you know, if you're like me, then you're somebody that's incredibly ambitious, incredibly competitive, and you want to advance in life, you want to get better, you want to do big things. And that's healthy. I think that that's incredibly healthy. And if you let that energy take you into a place where you're comparing yourself to others, it'll take you to an unhealthy place. And so for people that are incredibly ambitious, you know, being able to think about where you've been, where you're at, and where you're going, and really focusing on your own performance and comparing yourself to your past self, your present self and your future self. I think that's the, that's the recipe for success. At least that's, that's my recipe for success.
Darren Reinke: That takes a lot of introspection and vulnerability, frankly, to actually do that. I think that's probably a hard it's hard for most people actually do that.
Steve Gatena: It's super hard to get there. At least for me, the way I've gotten there is by having a great group of friends, mentors and leaders, people that are that I highly respect that are elite in their field. And by being able to rely on people who can coach me, and that I can be vulnerable with, and show my authentic self to, that's really what's helped me develop over time and helped me become the kind of person that I want to be. And I still struggle with being the person that I want to be in the world. So I fail every day, there's somebody that I let down as a leader. And there's mistakes that I make every single day. And being able to be open and honest about my own failures is what helps me get better and helps me get stronger.
How Steve Persevered Through Countless Injuries in College and the Air Force [10:48]
Darren Reinke: And that makes me think about just overcoming adversity and persevering. And you mentioned, the collapsed lung and the Air Force experience, and then the shoulders and I can imagine countless other injuries you have as a football player, how do you actually overcome that? How do you? How do you hang in there? I know when I had injuries growing up, it was so such a struggle to be injured, not be able to move and you have pain and all that, like how did you actually persevere and get through?
Steve Gatena: Yeah, you know, every time I struggle, now, I think of the Bible verse, Isaiah 45:3, it's actually my favorite verse, and I'm probably gonna butcher it right now. It says, I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in dark places, so that you may know that I am the Lord. And for me, when I reflect on that verse, anytime I'm I'm in a place where I feel like I'm in a dark place, or a place where I failed, and I'm stuck. You know, I really try to take a deep breath, try to meditate on that. And I try to think about what is the lesson that I'm supposed to learn here, and also, what is the blessing that comes out of that. And for me, you know, the the collapsed lung, and the Broken Hand and the shoulders, you know, there were a lot of lessons there. And some of those lessons that I learned was that my body is capable of extraordinary things. And I'm also capable of tolerating an extraordinary amount of pain, the blessings that came from that were infinite, being able to push through adversity, and work hard to bounce back, being able to go from thinking that I would never play football ever again, to being able to win a Rose Bowl. Like those were incredible blessings. For me, that taught me that I could pick myself back up. And I could strive to advance and strive to achieve something extraordinary, and really max out what I was capable of, and what my gifts are in the world.
Steve’s Advice for Overcoming Challenging Life Set Backs [13:02]
Darren Reinke: I mean, once again, that's that's a really challenging thing to do. You know, I try to, to extract the lesson through challenging times, whether it's professionally or personally, and it's hard and requires a lot of reflection. And, and also don't get jaded, not getting negative, and just be resentful for what happened. And woe is me, but actually to push forward. Like any advice you'd give to people who are going through tough times how they get themselves back off from that, when they get knocked down, whether it's at work or just in life, like anything you did to where you went to help you to pull that nugget of wisdom and to be grateful for that, but also have those lessons.
Steve Gatena: Definitely, you know, I have peer groups that I meet with both men and women in similar leadership positions. And I spend a lot of time with them, sharing all the highs and all the lows of what I'm dealing with on a weekly basis. These these groups are incredibly helpful for me. And they've allowed me to not only get wisdom from others, but just feel like I had a support system. That's been highly beneficial. For me, there's a lot of different groups you can join. There's groups that you can become a part of it at your local church, if there's an entrepreneur, if you're an entrepreneur, there's groups like EEO and YPO. There's a variety of professional groups if you're in finance or operations or marketing at a particular corporation or company. But these groups have been incredibly, incredibly helpful. Being able to just go through life with other people that are also going through life. And you know, sometimes in the things that I go through, I also feel very alone, especially as a leader, and a leader who has a lot of responsibility. It can be incredibly lonely. And when I feel that loneliness, try to meditate on the Word of God, that gives me a pocket of peace, no matter what I'm going through. Sometimes it's temporary. Sometimes it's longer lasting, but you know, I do my best to make meditate on the Word of God. And for me, that's kind of like exercise, it helps me. So, you know, these, these peer groups are great. And and also, for me working to grow my faith has also been incredibly powerful.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, I mean, the power of groups, and I work with a bunch of couple of CEO groups, and it's so powerful to have a safe place to share not just your successes and your accolades, but those struggles and challenges. And it tends to be very personal. But yeah, whether it's prayer or meditation, just to slow your mind down. And also think about things beyond yourself, I think is really powerful is based on my experience as well. Yeah. 100%.
The Importance of Faith in Steve’s Life and How it Led to the Birth of Pray.com [15:37]
Darren Reinke: So talk to me, obviously, you mentioned the importance of faith in your life, and what was the genesis of pray.com.
Steve Gatena: So, you know, I started my first company as a homework assignment at USC. And I'm incredibly grateful for that university, their approach to entrepreneurship, and all the encouragement and support I had gotten from not only the professors at the school, but the alumni. Even the football coaches helped me. And that gave me a launching pad to build this company that I ended up selling in 2015. That was a life changing event for me, financially. And, you know, I really had refined my craft as a producer, producing first new media and online content, and then it became television commercials and TV content. And after I sold that company, I became the CEO of the largest aerial production company. So we produce all the major motion pictures and TV shows, from helicopters, mostly, but also drones and fixed wing aircraft. So if you've seen like, transformers, Mission Impossible CSI law and order, we created all the aerials for those shows. We also did air medical transport, so patients and organs hospital to hospital, so like Children's Hospital, USC, medical UCLA, we had done air medical transport, and the other thing we did was aerial surveillance. So we did aerial surveillance missions for agencies like FBI, border patrol, Texas, DPS, foreign governments, municipalities. And it was an incredible experience. I mean, we're making movies, saving lives and catching bad guys. So it was pretty exciting. I was 29, CEO of this helicopter company. And I thought I had it dialed. I mean, I was really confident myself. And unfortunately, on September 11 2015, my business partner died in a plane crash outside Medillin Colombia, just after we finished the job. So to give you an idea of where I was at, it was Friday, September 11 2015. I was at a board room in a Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village, California, running a senior leadership team meeting for our company. And it was 4:53pm. My phone rings, and I picked up the phone. And the person on the other end said Steve Allen's plane crash. And I knew what that meant. You know, it meant that there were fatalities involved. And, you know, as a 29 year old CEO, I actually had never even been through anything like that. Not sure if you've ever gotten a phone call like that with an unexpected death in the family. And if you haven't, I hope you never do. But I didn't know what to do. And my responsibility was to lead the organization through this time. So, you know, I kind of prayed about it in the hallway. And I just asked for the strength to be able to get through this time, I really had no idea what I was supposed to do. And fortunately, we ended up getting through the next 48 to 72 hours, I was able to issue a statement and address the press. But I was trying to figure out what am I supposed to do as a CEO? What am I supposed to do as a CEO of this company? How am I supposed to lead? What am I supposed to do? As a friend to my business partners family? How am I supposed to be as a husband to my wife, I was newly newly married at the time, like, how am I supposed to deal with this at home? And then how how am I Steve, the individual supposed to feel about this? And I didn't know I didn't know the answers to these questions. So I started downloading a bunch of audio books, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Oprah, and really just trying to figure out how am I supposed to lead through this time? And a friend of mine had recommended a podcast he said, Hey, you should listen this podcast from my pastor. And I was like Pastor, first of all, isn't that like a fake priest? They can get married and have kids like I'm Catholic. Second of all, I'm bad at being Catholic. I don't even like going to church. And third of all, I'm Jewish. And my 23 and me even says, I'm Jewish. So I'm pretty sure this like Pastor thing is not for me. And my friend said, Dude, you're listening to Oprah Super Soul Sunday audio books, listen to the podcast, it's going to be fine. It's not going to kill you. So listen, this podcast, and this guy was incredible. Some random dude named Matt Chandler from Flower Mound, Texas, wherever that was, and had no idea never heard of him before, wasn't like a super mega, you know, like a TD Jakes or a Joel Olsteen. But this podcast changed my life. It really changed my life. And everything that he was talking about was stuff that was resonating with my heart. And so I started listening to these podcasts every day on the way to work and on the way home. And really, Darren, that was that was where the seed of the idea of pray.com got planted. About nine months later, I left the company with this sell off a bunch of different assets. And, you know, I'm a media entrepreneur, it's what I am. I'm just, it's who I am in the world. And I had this concept of one, why didn't I know about these podcasts before? This was so important, this information was so important. It's so incredible. It was so impactful to my life. Why didn't I know about it before? And two? Why is there no digital destination for faith content? We have a digital destination for sports content, ESPN, and you can find all the sports content, how is there no digital destination for faith content. Because if my friend hadn't shared that podcast with me, I would have never gotten it, I would have never looked for it, I would have never heard about it. And so how many people out there could benefit from this content? How many people out there could we reach if we built the digital destination for faith. And that's where pray.com got started. And so I felt called to spend my life building the digital destination for faith. And that's how we started pray.com.
How Pray.com Fosters a Strong Sense of Community [22:35]
Darren Reinke: That's fascinating, and just connecting to what you went through. And by the way, what how much weight that was to carry just as a CEO, as a friend, as a husband, as just just going through so much. That's just so that's heavy, and really inspiring how you connected your own journey to creating that destination for other people to go through probably similar journeys, but also other things that can be helpful in that situation. I know you talk about this concept of creating community. So how do you go about creating community with pray.com, and that's really interesting, just because you talked about community, with your peer groups, whether they're CEO groups or people in finance or a faith. Tell me about community and how you guys go about creating that?
Steve Gatena: Yeah, I You know pray.com, we actually launched our first version of the app as a social network. So version, one of the app was kind of like Facebook groups for church, or next door for church, if you're familiar with with those apps. And really, we went out and we talked to hundreds of Reverend ministers, pastors, rabbis, and we wanted to know, what was the most important thing that we could help them with? Right, I had been hooked on these podcasts. I wanted to build the ESPN for faith. It was something that I wanted selfishly. But we knew that we had to come with a servant leader mindset. And the people that were making these podcasts, right, all these incredible content creators, these these pastors and these reverends, and these ministers, they have their own set of needs. These are the people that are going out and making an impact on their local community, right. They're building the in person experiences. They're the ones creating these peer groups and these these real life groups, they're the ones going out there launching these community outreach initiatives, right to support people that don't have support. So really, the first way that we started to figure out what even makes up a community is we went out, and we just talked to all of these incredible community leaders. And what we came to the conclusion of Darren is that community is made up of these five components, leadership, culture, identity, voice, and need. And we define those five components in a pretty specific way. from a leadership perspective. There's always a leader, right? There's always a spark that originates a community, but the most important factor in the leadership component is not the actual leader. It's actually the first follower to that leader, the first person that says, hey, I'm going to trust you. And I'm going to, I'm going to invest in following your leadership. And so that was that was an interesting dynamic that we saw with leaders, the responsibilities of the leader, are really vision, right, setting the vision for where we're going to where you're going to lead us to action, taking action, and showing that you can lead from the front, right, showing that you can actually go out and do these things. And also accountability, a lot of times holding people accountable is it can be uncomfortable, and it's the leaders job to set the tone on accountability. So that's kind of the leadership point, as we talk about culture, that other point in those five points. So culture is as the second point, there's a lot of things that matter, in terms of facilitating the development of the community, as it pertains to culture. So social opprobrium, really the the ability to candidly express what is okay, and really what is not okay, within your community, that's fundamental to building a distinct culture, being able to say, Hey, this is not okay here. And cultures must be able to share content, right, they must be able to share ideas, and they also must be able to create subgroups. So you have to give the culture give the groups of people the ability to share content, to share ideas, right, and to create groups within the group. So that's the culture piece, a third point on community, I would say is need all great communities, they really do satisfy a mental or physical or spiritual need, the community has to meet the needs of its people for it to be valuable, right? Sometimes this is done with peer pressure, right? So peer pressure used in a healthy way, can create accountability and prompt action. If I say, hey, Darren, you know, we're all going out to do a soup kitchen or feed the homeless, right? Why aren't you coming in I peer pressure you into helping out with that action that can help us fill needs better, right, and needs vary in urgency and importance. If you are sick, or if somebody in your family is sick, and you need support, right? There's an urgency to that. And there's an importance to that, right? If we're going to do a community garden together, there might not necessarily be as much of an urgency, but it's still super important. So measuring the amount of needs met, and displaying the needs that you're meeting that can help create a delightfully rewarding moment for the for the community. And it really shows that that satisfaction of needs. So need being that third point, the fourth point in community would be voice. So really voice to me, means a moral approbation. Right? So, so celebrating, or explicitly praising the awesome things that people in your community are doing at pray.com We have something called a cheers feed in our Slack, and our cheers feed, we're constantly cheering each other. We're constantly celebrating people, we're constantly praising people for just doing their job, just doing a good job at their job, right? Not even when they do something extraordinary. And people are doing extraordinary things that pray dotcom every day. But we celebrate people just for being a great members of the community just for exhibiting the virtues, as well as the outcomes that are critical to sustaining community. So the ability to have an individual voice that gets celebrated and also a collective voice that is heard, while people are receiving praise and acknowledge acknowledgement. It helps make the community valuable. And that's really that voice is that fourth part of the five parts that I define as community the last part, the fifth part, Darren is what I call identity. And identity is really about yourself, right? We talked earlier in this podcast about being vulnerable, being open, expressing who you are. So understanding who you are, and having the ability to express that in a way that creates a unique and authentic representation of yourself to your community. It's so important It's so critical. So if you're a leader, right, if you're a leader, being able to facilitate a space, a safe space and create room for people to express themselves authentically, it allows you as a leader to connect with others in your community and allows others within the community to connect with themselves. So that's kind of how I think about community. And those are the five points of community that we really came up with, after launching the first part of pray.com, that component that was a social network.
Darren Reinke: That's really interesting, and a bit of a different, I won't say, take on community, but interesting perspective, because it's like, you're balancing that individual part of community, like talk about identity, but then it's like, you have like the collective but also the individual needs, like this interesting interchange between the individual needs, but our collective needs as well.
Steve Gatena: Yeah, absolutely. And then if you think about those, those five points of Community Leadership, Culture need voice identity, right, you could build software features against those things. So the concept of identity might be represented by a feature that we call your profile, right. And the concept of voice might be represented by a feature that we call a post, right? Or a tweet, right? It allows you to speak to the group. So we can build features against all of these points. And we have that pray.com. And that's how I organize the features kind of based on the five points of community that we created while researching the healthiest faith groups in the United States.
Why Leadership Isn’t Given, It’s Earned [31:50]
Darren Reinke: Fascinating. And one point I want to really zero in on these interesting is that it gets a bit of like servant leadership, that concept, but I think so many times leaders just they feel like they're anointed by their business card by their title by their promotion. And I love your definition of like leadership is really, when you have that first follower, you have to earn that right. Like, you can't just say I'm going to show up, because my business cards is this, you know, I'm your leader, I'm your I'm your manager, I'm your boss is like it's got to be earned.
Steve Gatena: Yeah, absolutely. And, and you might be anointed with leadership. And I think people tend to think that that means other people serve me. If I'm anointed as the leader, it means I have the honor and privilege of serving others. Right? I have the honor and privilege of being of service to others and being able to fill their needs, it doesn't mean that you are somehow blessed with an army of followers that do everything you say, right? It means you're blessed with the responsibility and ability to positively impact the lives of other people. And when you can act on that responsibility and ability to impact the lives of other people, you're actually leaving a legacy of helping others.
Darren Reinke: Absolutely. I think it's interesting, I think about two different leaders or types of I've seen total juxtaposition one that comes in, they're anointed, and they come in, you know, just command and control. Here's what I want you to do. Good. Let's go do it. Versus a person, a mentor of mine, who came in and did like listening to her. So let's see what what we're hearing what we're thinking, clearly, she had the expertise and insight to go to execute, but she went in and approached it really differently. How can I serve my team? How can I serve my people? So I obviously very, very different approach.
Steve Gatena: Yeah, and when we when we interviewed people at pray.com, especially for leadership positions, one of the things that we asked them to do is, tell us what you think your first 90 days looks like? And what are you planning on doing in your first 90 days, and the only people that ever make it through our process, start with some form of listen and learn some form of coming in and meeting with the people in our organization, and meeting with the customers that we serve, and conducting a listen and learn tour. And people that come in, or that want to come in and tell us immediately what we're doing wrong. Or say immediately what our customers need. And they haven't done that listen and learn tour. They're not they're not good fits at pray.com They're, they're not good fits at our company. We have five core values there and they spelled dream. So if you ever asked me how I'm doing all often answer live in the dream. And for me, you know, that means a very specific set of things. D stands for devotion, and devotion is an incredible commitment towards our mission. Right. Our customers are our mission. Then our team, which is our company, and then myself. So devotion is this incredible commitment to our mission to Gene and self, and you can hear it in the language that we use at the company, oftentimes people will express customer first, then company, then whatever my specific opinion or initiative is, and that's part of devotion. The next core value, the R is research, and a pray.com, we believe that somewhere out there, something is waiting to be known. So you can go out, and you can research, you can research the market, we can get qualitative research, we can get quantitative research, and you can bring that back to the organization that he in our core values is empathy, and we seek to understand others, we don't seek to be understood. We don't seek to tell people what to do, we seek to understand them first, right. And then we have the A in our core values, which is application. That's the doing part. So we've exemplified this devotion, we've done the research, we've used the empathy to understand and now we're doing right, so. So doing isn't even the first thing really, it's not even the first thing. And then after application is mindset. So for us, that means understanding the first, second and third order effects of your action. Right. So if you're gonna do something, you know, there's a direct first order effect, then there's a second order effect that happens from that, then there's a third order effect. So let's not just think short term, let's think, you know, short, medium and long term for all the things that we're doing.
What Steve Does to Bring Pray.com’s Values to Life Throughout the Organization [36:38]
Darren Reinke: And how do you go about bringing those values to life, obviously, give some great examples of devotion. And, you know, it's about customers, teams and self is like, how do you bring the rest of those values to life? How do you get people to, to own those and really exhibit them within the organization.
Steve Gatena: So a lot of times in the interview process, we do a really great job of selecting people that already exemplify these values. I mean, we have an incredible interview process. If you're looking for resources, on interview process, I highly recommend the book who by Jeff smart, and Googling top grading, there is a process called Top grading, that's an excellent process, not only for big businesses, but also universities, government organizations, and small businesses alike, top gradings incredibly effective. And the book who and Jeff smart, who I had the opportunity to learn from at MIT really helped me on the upfront selection and vetting process. So I think, you know, a lot of it starts with picking people that already exemplify the values. Right, then from there, we build in strategies and tactics to reinforce the values. I mentioned, our cheers feed earlier, the way that we cheers at praise calm is values first. So I'm going to read right now, our most recent cheers, so that I can just give you an example. So our VP of brand, Shauna received an empathy cheers. So remember, I told you empathy was a core value. And it says, Thank you for helping us better understand the pastor's we support and how they are leaving a legacy of helping others in their community. These shares, get me inspired, and help us see the value of creating a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others. Helping people who help people is a legit business and the kind of business I want to be involved in. Shawna got that cheers, because we had a weekly Friday stand up Zoom meeting, and she opened her presentation that was about brand marketing. But she opened with a little story and picture of a pastor and then Adam Mesa in Rancho Cucamonga and talked about the community garden that they have at his church, abundant living family church, and how they feed 3000 people a week. Right? So that was Sean's way of sharing with our company, the customers that we serve right the mission and really understanding what they care about at their local church. And so she got a cheers for that that's that's one way that we would reinforce the core values in our organization.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, I love that the richness in that cheers to wasn't just a hollow Hey, nice job. There's actually a lot of hey, here's how this is important. Here's how it connects back to the visors is so much enterprise a lot more effort to say nice job little high five.
Steve Gatena: So yeah, there's a little there's a little picture too of her presentation. You know, the moment in her career adaptation that inspired that. Cheers. So it's, it's cool, it's we try our best to communicate and see it, hear it touch it formats, you know, it takes 10 to 20 times for things to sink in if you're like me. So the more modalities you can communicate with, especially the same message, right? Tell me, send me a video about it, send me a text message about it, you could paint it on a sign and ship it to my house. All those different formats helped me better understand what's going on. And if you're like me, it probably takes a few times for things to sink in.
How Steve Unifies People of Different Perspectives through the Purpose of Pray.com [40:45]
Darren Reinke: Let us shift gears a tiny bit ask you one last question, which is, you obviously this this business was built as an extension of your personal purpose? And I think on the outside people might assume oh, you know, everyone's a person of faith or have the same faith and I think it's how have you gone about just linking together the different people the different perspectives, your different ways and reasons people are drawn to pray calm, and how you get them unify behind this singular sense of purpose?
Steve Gatena: I come from a from a mixed background, right? My mom's Jewish, my dad's Catholic. I'm listening to this, you know, Southern Baptist pastor called Matt Chandler. I was not a pastor's kid, I am not a pastor, I did not grow up in the church, right? I'm just kind of a, I'm kind of a regular dude that grew up more or less unchurched and not even really interested in growing my faith. And what I experienced when my partner died, was that for me, prayer could be the ultimate form of self care. And for me, being able to have faith at my fingertips through these inspirational pastors. It really changed who I was, it changed who I was as a leader. It changed who I was as a person, it changed my own understanding of myself. And I've got three other incredible co founders. One of them. His name is Mike Lynn comes from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and he was raised Catholic and is very Catholic. Right. His background is completely different than mine. I have another co founder, and they Matt Potter. His family helped build a mega church from 13 people to 13,000 a week. And they're a nondenominational Christian mega church. And I think they're the most diverse church in America. You know, they've got Korean people, they've got African American people, they've got Caucasian people, they've got all the kinds of people go to Matt's church, and it's this nondenominational mega church called Shepherd of the Hills, led by Pastor Dudley Rutherford. And then we've got another co founder, a childhood friend of mine, named Ryan Beck. And while I was being all American in high school and going to the Air Force Academy, Ryan actually was being America's Most Wanted. And he actually got arrested and went to prison for selling narcotics, Ryan as a has an incredibly inspirational story, would love to have him on the podcast and share his story with you. So I don't want to reveal too much. But you know, Ryan comes from this background of after getting out of prison, he couldn't get a job. He couldn't get a job at a McDonald's or a Starbucks. But a pastor from a local church called Calvary Chapel gave him the opportunity to be the janitor in new facilities. And after that, Ryan went to Bible college at Calvary Chapel Bible college, and got a degree in theology. And after that, he went to Calvin College, and majored in computer science and he became a computer programmer. And now he's our CTO. So you know, Ryan has a completely different background as well. And I can tell you this, there's many things that we all agree on. We all agree that prayer is the ultimate form of self care. Prayer is the ultimate form of self care. And, you know, if you're like me, you struggle to pray every day. Apps like pray, apps, like the Bible app, they helped me grow in my faith, and it's something I struggle with every day. If you're like, Ryan, you pray every day and read the Bible every day, morning and night like clockwork, he just has that in him and he nails it, you know, every day, just like, you know, brushing your teeth. But we both believe that prayer is the ultimate form of self care. And we would never turn away anyone that wants to pray. And we are building pray for everyone that wants to pray. Everyone is invited. Everyone is welcome. And our vision for pray. Our vision is to create a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others. And that might sound like a soft statement. But the word everyone means everyone Every one that means everybody on planet Earth. And we're here to help them leave a legacy of helping others. So we're for everyone. We're here to be inclusive and inviting of everyone. And we're here to help them help others. We're not here to help them be hateful, we're not here to help them, be mean, we're here to help them make a positive impact. And that's our vision statement to create a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others and our mission statement, how we achieve that vision, our mission statement, is to build tools that helped people grow their faith, and cultivate their community. We're here to give you things to help you grow your faith and cultivate community. And, you know, from the founders perspective, you know, we come from this worldview of being Christians, right. That's our worldview. And that's our perspective. And we would also never turn away anyone that wants to pray, or that wants to use the pray.com app, to find hope, and to find, you know, a pocket of peace and to find incredible, incredible lessons and teachings there based on the Bible.
Darren Reinke: Well see, where can people go to find out more about you connect with you, maybe on social media, but also to download your apps and so forth?
Steve Gatena: Yeah, so you know, I'm not big on social media, I do have a LinkedIn, feel free to add me on LinkedIn, I get a lot of LinkedIn messages. And I'm really bad about replying to them. But please feel free to add me on LinkedIn. I don't have like a Facebook or an Instagram or anything like that. But pray does and you can follow pray. It's at pray is our Twitter handle and same for Instagram and, and Facebook facebook.com/pray. And I encourage you to download the pray.com app, go to the pray.com website and just type in pray.com into the App Store. And hopefully you can, you can find a tiny adventure and a pocket a piece every day by by using pray.com and try prayer out. If you don't know how to pray. It's okay. You can just download the app and do the daily prayer. It's super easy. And check out all the incredible celebrity content that we also have on pray. We've got things like James Earl Jones reading the Bible. We've got Drew Brees, doing motivational locker room prayers, and we've got you know, a bunch of incredible bedtime Bible stories that can help you sleep. So definitely encourage you to download the pray.com app.
Darren Reinke: Fantastic. Well, Steve, I know you're super busy. I'll let you go on this busy Friday, but I really appreciate your time.
Steve Gatena: Thank you so much, Darren, it's a pleasure to be here. And thank you for listening to this podcast.
Darren Reinke: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Savage Leader Podcast. My hope is you walk away with tactics that you can apply to become a better leader in your life and in your career. If you're looking for additional insight in tactics, be sure to check out my book titled The Savage Leader 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader From The Inside Out. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and I would truly appreciate it if you would leave a review and also rate the podcast. Thanks and see you in the next episode.