[DAWN]
Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, host of Faith Fringes Podcast, recording live from Castle Rock Colorado, not only where I love to live, but I also work as the owner of a counseling center in the historic downtown. This podcast is a place to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. For those desiring deeper connection with God and engaging their spirituality in new ways, this will be a safe place to allow doubt, questions and curiosity, without judgment. We will be creating intentional space to listen in on other’s faith journeys, whether that is deconstruction or reconstruction, with the hope of traveling alongside you on your own spiritual path. If you’re interested in getting even more out of this podcast, grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my websitefaithfringes.com. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, spiritual explorers. Welcome back. This is Dawn, your host of Faith Fringes. Today, I was starting to get curious about, have you ever had a time where in your life you felt that there was a nudge or maybe even God was saying, “Hey, I want you to do something different than what you’ve been doing.” Maybe you have went down one career path and you felt like this is not for me anymore. I’ve been very successful, but it’s time to change. Or maybe you’re still in the undecided part of what should I be doing with my life? Well, today we are going to be talking with someone who actually worked in the business world. Actually, he was part of the Fortune 500, worked for Fortune 500 companies, he was a CFO and after 35 years in the corporate world, he actually felt a call from God to stop being in the business world and to go get his doctor of divinity in ministry.

It’s a great story sitting with Bruce and just hearing how that happened and where he was before and where he’s at now. And it’s just a really neat story that I’m excited for you guys to hear. As well as, the thing that actually caught my eye when I was looking for guests to interview on this show was he loves to hike and you guys all know how much I love hiking and how much I love nature, and just feel very connected to God out there. So he has hiked the Appalachian Trail with his wife and I was so surprised. I thought just because they lived near the Appalachian Trail they would just hike it often, but come to find out, they’ve spent four months on the Appalachian Trail. So he also is sharing some stories about that. I’m very excited for you guys to listen in to Dr. Bruce Hartman today.

Let me read a little bit more about him. Dr. Bruce Hartman is a Christian author and storyteller who was a Fortune 500 CFO. Today he is both a doctor of ministry and a business expert. After 35 years in the corporate world, including many years as CFO of Footlocker and the Yankee Candle Company, Bruce followed the path that God had laid out for him and returned to school to complete his divinity degree. His focus in life now is to help people walk into a better future, no matter what stage of life they are in. And it’s such a nice time interviewing him. I want you guys to just really hear his heart. I feel like even before we started recording, I was hearing some of his heart and just how much he gives back. He does a lot of his things for are free. Like he does a lot of business consultation and coaching people on how to integrate Jesus into business, which you don’t hear a lot about. Honestly, at least I haven’t. It’s either one or the other. And I love that because I love running my business and I also love integrating God into everything and Spirituality. So he is very much about that.
[DAWN]
So please help me in welcoming Dr. Bruce L. Hartman. Bruce, welcome to the podcast.
[DR. BRUCE]
Well, thank you for having me, Dawn. It’s really a treat.
[DAWN]
Yes, I am so excited that you’re here. I’m very interested, you have some fun stories to share, interesting stories, but first before we jump into it, I’d love my listeners to kind of get to know who you are and what you’re about. If you could share a little bit about who you are.
[DR. BRUCE]
Well, I’m a reformed businessman. Let’s say that, business person. I worked in business for 35 years. My dream when I was a young man or even as a child was to be CFO, believe it or not of a Fortune 500 company. It was always my I dream in my head. And I got to achieve that and I worked for Fortune 500 companies later in my career and spent, I spent 20 years as a CFO of the, believe it or not, of the 35. For companies, I think you’d recognize Footlocker and Yankee Candle companies, great brands. And I got to point where I felt like in my life I had done what God had given me to do or allowed me to do. It was such a tremendous gift to be able to be that.

So in one morning, it was May 5th 2009. I was feeling very unsettled and had been for a couple of weeks. I was walking along the streets at night, and you may think that’s a little crazy, but it was around one o’clock in the morning and I was out just roaming, trying to settle myself down and I’d come to a point where I had forgot, I felt like I had forgotten to pray. I forgot to have a connection with God. And that was always important to me, but I had been so busy in my career and so busy being successful, I had forgotten about God. So I walked underneath a lamppost and the light that was shining in front of me, and there was darkness behind me. And I only say that because that was the moment when I realized I forgot to pray. So I started to try to pray at that point and felt like it was ineffective and then later on during the day that day, and the next couple of days events happened that proved to me that I did still know how to pray, even though it wasn’t the formal type of prayer I used to know how to do.

From there, I decided that it was incompatible for me to be in business and also to serve the way the Lord wanted me to serve. And I also didn’t feel competent enough to serve the Lord. So believe it or not, in the mid fifties of my life, I went to theological school. I got a master’s degree. And they’re always telling you, the professors are always asking you what’s your call, what’s your call. I had no idea. I just knew I was where I was supposed to be at that moment. And a Masters in Divinity is a very significant time investment. As a matter of fact, it’s 90 credits. It’s almost the same as your bachelor’s degree. So after I got that, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. So the Dean of Drew University, that’s the theological school I went to said, “Well, why don’t you get your doctorate degree?”

So I thought about it and said, okay, let’s try that and see what comes up. And what came up out of that is this giving back the information that I knew about business. And now what I knew about Jesus could be combined. So that’s really what my call is. I have been a pastor at the church, a homeless church, but most of my work is writing now and writing from a real life of practical sense about Jesus and about faith. And my first book was about Jesus and business. My fourth book, fifth book, actually, which will be out in the winter is about Jesus and business as well. So not only do I write, I have a social media presence which is designed to help business people. And I also talk at college campuses. I talk to people about what it’s going to be like in the business world and how Jesus can help them.

I work with people that have been displaced from the workforce. I don’t know where these people come from, but they just show up and as my plate is time to get empty, I get a new client. And I don’t charge for any of these services by the way because I feel like it’s more important for me to give back what I received. I work with younger people that are just starting out in their careers and I’m now starting to work with authors. How to format your book is a very difficult process. I know everybody says, I want to write a book, but there’s more to it than just writing the book. It’s the marketing of the book. It’s thinking about how the reader receives what you have to say. So I work with authors on that as well. So my day is usually pretty filled with some way of helping Jesus and that’s my goal every day.
[DAWN]
Wow. Wow, I’m sitting here listening to what you just said. There’s so much packed in there. I can totally see a need for someone with your experience, your CFO experience, your business experience of integrating that in and with Jesus and saying, “Hey Jesus and business go together. Let’s talk about it. I don’t think I’ve heard that very much of people integrating that so much. Usually people try to keep it separate or they’re confused on how to integrate that. But first I kind of want to go back to something you said and just hear a little bit more about that. How did you go from walking at one o’clock in the morning, realizing, hey, I forgot to pray and then, I can’t remember the timeframe you said, but it sounded like a week or two later you realized I have to give up my business career. I’m done. I’d like to hear a little bit more about that.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. So you’re right, Dawn. I glossed over three months of — [crosstalk]. The issue you have is you know what’s comfortable and you know what, you know how to do. And there’s also certain selfishness that has, you have to be rid of that selfishness. So that whole chiseling process was about three months before I decided that, okay, we’re going to go to college again and learn what you’re supposed to learn. And so it’s a cleansing of yourself. And there was a moment right after this, that long walk at night, where I was sitting on a park bench, probably around eight o’clock at night, again, thinking through where was I going? What was I doing? It was almost like I had this cosmic struggle that I wasn’t even part of and it was my selfish side saying, “No, no, no, you’re good at business. You can make a lot of money. You can be famous.” All that stuff, which when you think about it, it’s really not serving the world. It’s just serving yourself.

But on the other hand as Jesus said, at the end of 40 days, I shall only serve the Lord, my God for all my days. And that’s, you know, Jesus of the three temptations that’s how He ends the third one. I had read that the day before and I kept repeating that I shall only serve the Lord. So it’s that fight and it sounds simple, but when you’re very good or an expert something, and you get a lot of personal recognition and reward, and I don’t mean necessarily reward by money, because there is a lot of money, but people recognize you as that and then you enter into this other own unknown world. There’s a battle for your soul going on.
[DAWN]
Oh yes. I can imagine just, not even a spiritual battle, but just all around. Like that takes a lot to go that deep into yourself and say, “Wait a minute, I’m feeling called to do something else, but I’m really good over here and I have to start over here.”
[DR. BRUCE]
Now, the good thing is, you know I have a lot of blessings in one of them, besides my four children, is my wife. She was perfectly okay with it. And a lot of folks when they go through this type of process, having your partner in life be on board with it, and I wasn’t that I was surprised because she’s always been okay with whatever I’ve wanted to do career wise, but that’s a big hurdle. Now when it comes to your friends and the people that you’re associated with, it’s quite shocking to them.
[DAWN]
I bet. But it sounds like though, your wife, that’s a huge blessing and a huge sign. Like, hey, she’s on board with it.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes, especially when you, because that’s the person you trust the most. So that beacon was an important beacon, but it was also myself convincing myself that, okay, it doesn’t matter what Larry or me, or all the friends that you have thank. What really matters is what Jesus thinks.
[DAWN]
Wow, that’s huge. So you go into it more, I’m assuming in your books on how do you focus on what Jesus thinks more than what the world, what your friends, what everyone else thinks.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. And essentially you just described the book that we just released, which is called Jesus is Everything. It talks about this dichotomy of what’s most important. I asked the question by telling a story of a elderly man near the end of his life as he’s in hospice. Fortunately this gentleman was in home hospice because this was during COVID. All he had left was his 18 children and grandchildren and wife and Jesus. Whereas he was preparing to die, it wasn’t a tragic death and it wasn’t a death of horror. It was a transition to releasing yourself to accepting paradise. So when you think about our own lives, we are born through the grace of God and we enter paradise through the grace of God. And Jesus is with us from the beginning and the end. There is nothing else in our life that is that permanent.
[DAWN]
True.
[DR. BRUCE]
And that’s kind of the point of, well, not kind of it is, that’s the point of the book, but it shows how we, the book is designed to talk about how we connect with Jesus, we imitate, we have faith in Jesus. There’s a number of things that we do and when we do have faith is everything to us. And I got this concept on Twitter. One of the things I do sometimes is I post these questions on Twitter and fortunately I have enough followers that I can get a decent sample size of what people think. When I asked this question, who is Jesus to you, yes, I got the lamb of God, all the normal ones, Messiah, but I was surprised the one I got the most was Jesus is everything.
[DAWN]
Oh really?
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. So I started studying and I started looking at the Twitter profiles and I started reading like their reasoning, not like casually, but like a real study. These people that when they say Jesus is everything, when something good happens, they thank Jesus. When they need something, they ask Jesus. When they’re looking for advice, they seek Jesus. Even when they’re doing their to-do list in the morning, it’s done with the Holy Spirit and Jesus. And it’s remarkable to think about these people their entire lives are spent in obedience to Jesus. And I really like it when I see that people thank Jesus, because I think too often we view Jesus as a genie. So in other words, “Oh boy, I’m in trouble, can you help me out?”
[DAWN]
Yes.
[DR. BRUCE]
Or, “I need this. Can you get it for me?” Jesus is anything but a genie. So that was the thought. It was the knowledge from this very close friend of mines, the death of this elderly man; that story combined with, there was a powerful story when it was relayed to me and the study of these folks on Twitter and why they said Jesus was everything to them prompted this latest book.
[DAWN]
Wow. I love that. I love stories because I feel like people relate so well to stories. Sometimes, like I personally grew up more conservative, evangelical Christian, and sometimes I got lost in the to-do list and like the obedience, meaning checkoff list and I forgot the connection and the relationship with Jesus. Sometimes I feel like my listeners have been on that journey too, where they maybe have been hurt by the church or hurt by someone in the church. And I think sometimes people forget about what the story of the person of Jesus offers us and the redemption and the grace and the love. Like I feel like that sometimes is more needing to be out there than the, this is what Christ should and should not do? I feel like it should be more about the relationship. So it sounds like that’s what you’re talking about, not prosperity gospel, but like real Jesus.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes, yes. So the church to day is not the same church that Peter started.
[DAWN]
Yes. That’s for sure.
[DR. BRUCE]
And society changes and the world changes and Jesus is consistently meeting us where we are. So like you, I’m very careful with doctrine because doctrine is really manmade. And I stress in all my books that every person’s relationship with Jesus is extraordinarily personal and very different. Yours is different than mine, Dawn and mine is not to tell you what to think, but when you need help, maybe guide you. And I think that that’s where I think some of our churches miss the point. It’s not about telling people how to thank, but encourage them to feel the presence of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
[DAWN]
Yes. Dive into that and help them think, not tell them, I like what you said, like I’m not telling them what to think. I’m here to guide or encourage. Yes, I love that.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. The next time you have a snowfall in Denver, and sometimes you have big ones —
[DAWN]
I know, and it could be in the summer, who knows?
[DR. BRUCE]
There are billions and billions of snowflakes that fall and not one of them is the same. And it’s the same way with us. Jesus meets us individually where we are and it’s our special relationship. And, while snowflakes can look similar, they’re never the same and we have to be careful with that.
[DAWN]
Yes. And what I’m enjoying about you, Bruce right now is I feel like you’ve referred back to nature a bunch of times. And that’s one of my pillars on my podcast is just experiencing God in nature. I mean, you snowflake you, it sounds like you take walks a lot outside at night, is how you reflect and process your day. But I also know, because we were talking before you love hiking, which is one of my passions and it sounds like you even have some stories about experiencing Jesus on the Appalachian Trail. I’d love to kind of move into that and hear some of that. Tell us about what got you in love with the Appalachian Trail. Tell us a little bit about the history of that for you.
[DR. BRUCE]
So I’ve always lived close to the Appalachian Trail, whether it was in Maine or New Jersey or Massachusetts. And now, especially that I live in Asheville, North Carolina when we first moved here, I said to Connie, one day, my wife, “Why don’t we try and walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail?” So at first she thought I was nuts, but we had started venturing out there and so in 2019, two years ago we started the hike. We started in spring at Mountain Georgia. And it’s an immersive process. There’s a term which is similar to what we are talking about. It’s called hike your own hike.
[DAWN]
Hmm love it.
[DR. BRUCE]
Because some people will tell you, “Well, you have to do it this way,” but no, it’s a journey. It’s not a destination. And that it’s your journey and it’s your journey in nature and it’s interesting, even with Connie and myself, we had different things that we got out of our journey. You know, for me to feel God, all I needed to do was sit on a log, but kind of, I felt, I would feel like Isaiah just listening to the quiet of God where for Connie, we had to stop for lunch at these great, massive outlooks where you see like the Shenandoah Valley or, you know when you’re in Hoppers Valley, you can see the river that meets there. But for each person, it’s very different, but you do feel God.

The first three days that we hiked it was I eye opening because all of a sudden, you’re out there with no car, you got your house on your back and you have to really be careful with your weight because you really shouldn’t carry a backpack that weighs more than, my opinion, nothing more than 20 pounds, though, there are people out there that do 30. Because you’re walking a long time, you’re walking on average 15 to 20 miles a day and you’re going up and down mountains enough that you’re climbing the empire estate building two or three times a day. So there’s a certain amount of training you have to do to get ready for it.

So first three days we’re like our eyes are wide open. It’s kind of like when we brought our first child home up, “Oh my, what are we into here?” So the fourth day, we’d done a lot of research and we always heard this term, the trail provides, the trail provides. So it’s the fourth day, we’re leaving this place called Neil Gap and it’s cold. It’s 40 degrees and the wind is blowing 30 miles an hour. We to climb up a 1000 foot mountain, it’s about two miles in length and about a thousand feet. When we get to the top, all of a sudden I started getting pelted with these little white things and I think it was, well, listen, this interesting, what is this? So this other hiker, and that’s one of the other great things about the Appalachian Trail, you meet so many wonderful people, this other hiker hooks up to me and says, “Are you getting pelted by the snow?” I said, “Yes, and it hurts.”

So he and I did some detective work the night before it had rained, well the day before, actually the day before it rained a little bit before the sun fell and then during the evening, the temperature dropped below 32. So on the branches of the trees, which didn’t have leaves yet, because this is late March in Georgia, the ice formed around the branches of the trees and then it started melting in the morning when it got above 32 and the 35, 36 range, just enough so that when the wind blew, it blew in our direction and that was hitting us.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh. So you were getting hit by ice?
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. So at this point you’re still kind of stunned about it. Everything that you’re doing you’re not really quite immersed and we’re walking along and Connie’s getting very cold and as you can imagine, it’s been a difficult day. Mm-hmm and we were going to have lunch about six miles from where we started and when we walk down this mountain, there’s, because the Appalachian Trail crosses a road on average every four miles, now sometimes there’s 20 miles between roads and sometimes there’s a mile or two, but generally during the day you’re going to cross a road. One of the things that happens on the Appalachian Trail is this term called trail angels.
[DAWN]
Yes. I’ve heard that term.
[DR. BRUCE]
So there was this man sitting down in his truck with a huge van of soup in the back of his truck. We’re all cold and so we get down there and if you wanted to talk about the perfect lunch at the perfect time for us to be able to go forward from that point was this soup. The term the secular people use is the trail provides. But over time I learned that this would happen, but it’s really, God provides,
[DAWN]
Yes. You saw the spiritual within that. You saw God within this man giving it to you right as you needed it in a personal way.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. So I decided to probe this gentleman, I felt like there was something more to him than just helping out hikers. And sure enough there was. Four years earlier he had been diagnosed with cancer and he had gone to the top of this mountain we had just come down to reflect on his life and to talk to God and say, “Okay, what’s going on here? What about my life?” And he felt like he was in the presence of God at the top of this mountain and he felt like God had said, you’re going to be okay. That was how he felt. Turns out he was, but his commitment he made to God that day was I will help the hikers that are walking on your trail. And there were plenty of these stories that we saw along the way, but I would never change anybody.

You know, people would say, “Well, Bruce that’s because the trail provides.” And I would never say to somebody, “No, no, no God’s providing,” because that’s really how I felt. So, and consistently, whenever we we’re in need it is, some strange event, like what I just told you would occur and you would know you were in the presence of God. Now I felt I was in the presence of God when I was walking under what I called the green tunnel because as spring comes, you can see as a hiker you walk and march and as you get into the Smokies, you start seeing the spring come up the mountains because most of the time you’re on top of these mountains and then all a sudden it starts to warm and you can feel it and see it. And you have nothing else to worry about other than waking up, feeling yourself and hiking 15 to 20 miles that day.
[DAWN]
Yes, it’s so beautiful. It’s such a beautiful story about the trail angel and the soup and just how, but yes, just even being in nature, like you said, just the surroundings, something about being so simple. It opens you up to seeing, I I think seeing and experiencing God in nature, in such a deep, personal way. I love it. It’s one of my favorite things too. Yes, that’s amazing. How long did you guys spend on that trail? Like did you do the whole thing at once or were you —
[DR. BRUCE]
Well, Connie’s knees gave out. We actually went further than 90, only 20% of the people make the trail full length.
[DAWN]
Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes, and half the people drop out before, I’d say mile 120 and it’s a 2000 mile walk. We got pretty deep into New Jersey, but she had an injury. Your body breaks down. I mean, fortunately mine didn’t, but hers was consistently breaking down. So we decided at that point, after about 1400 miles, in about four months, it was probably time to, so we fought a lot about it and believe it or not, we’re going back this March.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I mean even four months, that’s huge. For some reason I was thinking, like you just go out and hike here and there, but you did four months on the Appalachian Trail with your wife. That’s amazing. And, of course, like seeing how God provides on that trail, yes, I feel like it’s so needed. Like you’re just with the elements when you’re out in a trail like that for that long. Wow.
[DR. BRUCE]
And what was interesting Dawn, was, I by far was the oldest person I saw.
[DAWN]
Okay. Really?
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. There weren’t very many 66-year-olds out there.
[DAWN]
Especially through hikers. I’m sure there were some day hikers, but not through hikers.
[DR. BRUCE]
No, there were, I never really saw anybody my age.
[DAWN]
Oh great.
[DR. BRUCE]
But I know they were there, maybe like a dozen of us that spring. And it was funny, as older people we’ve learned to be careful, we’ve learned to walk within ourselves. And I think part of the reason why we survived as long as we did was that we didn’t walk outside of what we felt our walk was. And we would see these young kids just tearing it up and down and what we finally noticed after about a month or so is we would start out at the same time as them and we would finish at the same time as them.
[DAWN]
Wow.
[DR. BRUCE]
So if we were walking 17 miles, that would take you about eight, seven to eight hours to do that. So they would like hurry up the mountains and they’d get up to the top and rest, we would walk slowly up the mountain, not to wear ourselves out, but we were fresh at the end of the day, just as fresh as we were at the start of the day. And we learned about hydration and the body can do a lot of things if it’s properly fed and properly hydrated.
[DAWN]
Yes. And I’m hearing a theme. I think you said it a little bit ago, it’s your journey, similar to hiking. It’s your faith journey, as well as on the trail, you have to walk your own pace. You have to know your own body. You have to know what you need to be fed. I think that’s a super spiritual parallel, is what I’m hearing you say too.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. And that’s really the lesson because so much of modern life is okay, well they’ve got a nice house, they’ve got a nice car, they got a great job and you become aspirational for the wrong things in life. And yes, so there were people that could walk four miles an hour. It didn’t mean they were better hikers than us. It just meant that that was their hike.
[DAWN]
Yes. That was their pace and what they chose to do.
[DR. BRUCE]
Right. So I think that’s true in life too, whether it’s in your business career or in whatever you’re doing, in work. It’s never about what the other person’s doing. It’s always about what you’re doing with God.
[DAWN]
Yes. I love that. I mean, that’s so true. I’m just thinking, just even this last week or so it, how much we compare ourselves internally or maybe externally with other people and just how that is so not healthy. So and even myself, I had to go on my own journey this last week and saying, “Okay, let’s get back to what I know is true. I need to connect with God and where I’m at.” I just put a podcast out about it, actually on how I need to recalibrate and kind of get grounded again, because that’s who I really am and not what any other podcaster is doing or any other clinician or counseling center owner. I just have to get back to me and God. It’s very grounding. I call it soul care, like getting back to stabilize my soul.
[DR. BRUCE]
Amen to, Dawn. There’s a wonderful verse that I use particularly with students in my counseling business, which I do for free, but I still call it my business, the counseling business. It’s the Colossians 3 23, “Whatever you do, do as if you’re working for the Lord.” That’s probably the best career advice I could give to anybody. It doesn’t matter how you stack up with your peers. It matters how you stack up with God. And I guarantee you, anybody that works as if they’re working for the Lord is going to be a superstar in business.
[DAWN]
And I think it’s very different advice than if like, I’ve had tons of different business consultants that I’ve hired or business coaches and I think it is different when I have a faith-based business consultant, because it is going to look a lot different advice than what someone who doesn’t have a spiritual relationship with God. And that’s important to me. So it’s sometimes it’s going to look like a different advice even from yes, doing something that you and God are on the same page versus what even society or your peers are doing.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes, and it’s so simple too, because when you think about the Lord, you can change your behavior with really just three things, be positive all the time. Certainly the Lord wants us to be trustworthy and the Lord desires us who wants us to desire competence. Anybody that can get those three things working, just those three things, being positive, being trustworthy and desiring to be the best they can be, regardless of all the other things that are swirling around, those are the people who are going to be successful.
[DAWN]
Wow. So you’ve found that those three things are really what you see the difference kind of boiling it down to those three?
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. And it comes from understanding Colossians 3:23 and understanding the messages of Jesus and how compatible they are with business and your attitude in business. And one of the things that I discovered was when I, as a CFO I was either the number two or number three person in a company all the time. So I was a very involved in hiring decisions and we created this term in Footlocker called the profile employee. The profile employee did what I just said. They were always positive. You’ve heard that term Dawn with people will say, oh, he’s good or she’s good and I always wondered, what do they mean by that, he or she’s good? What’s the tangible thing? The tangible thing is you love talking to these people. They’re positive people. They see roses and not thongs.
[DAWN]
Yes. The focus.
[DR. BRUCE]
And trustworthy. You can trust them when nobody’s looking.
[DAWN]
Yes. Integrity.
[DR. BRUCE]
And desire competence. They don’t say I’ve never done that before. It’s not my job. These are people that figure out a way to get things done. So when you look at the, when I used to have to sit around these meetings for days where you would go over every employee and somebody from HR would say, “Oh, well, they’re good.” And I always felt like, “What do you mean by that?” But then I studied it. That’s what I mean by that. And that’s what Jesus wants from us.
[DAWN]
Yes. I never looked at that before with Colossians 3:23, but that makes sense. In fact, I was just hiring a new clinician for my team this past week and I was saying, I’m looking for humbleness, her energy level, which would be the positivity and hunger, like she’s hungry, wants to do more, wants to learn, which it sounds very similar to those three. They could fit into those categories.
[DR. BRUCE]
So it worked because at Footlocker, I didn’t tell you this part of the story, when I was made CFO, we were always within days of filing bankruptcy at Footlocker, believe it or not.
[DAWN]
Really? Wow.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. So Footlocker was 1.4 billion in debt the day they may be CFO. They had a negative sales trend and we were losing money every single day they were open. We had to quickly only rely on the people that we, that I described to you. So that was both those people that were resident within this company, giving them more responsibility. But also the people that used to work with me in the past of bringing them in and blending them. And in two years, we went from the Wall Street Journal calling us the troubled Footlocker company to Forbes writing an article about us, about what a wonderful turnaround it was. And it had nothing to do with me, by the way. It had everything to do with those people that had those three characteristics.
[DAWN]
Wow. That is a huge story and one that you can put facts behind that you really sought out those positive, trustworthy, competent, desired people. Holy cow. I never knew that. That’s a cool story. Thank you. Well, Bruce, if people want, if my listeners want to get ahold of you, what’s the best way to find you? I know you mentioned you have a social media presence. Could you kind of say where that is? What are you on, like Facebook, Instagram that?
[DR. BRUCE]
Well, I’ll give you my email. My emails is simple. It’s bhartman1235@gmail.com. And I do answer the emails, everyone that comes in, unless it’s from CVS or one of those other places. You know what I’m talking about? My website, you can leave a note on the website, www.brucelhartman.com. And then you can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, not so much. I find that difficult, and Instagram, believe it or not, I enjoy reading the comments on Instagram.
[DAWN]
Yes. Instagram’s where it’s at right now.
[DR. BRUCE]
It’s so much easier to use.
[DAWN]
Oh yes. And it’s more uplifting, I find than Facebook
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes, I agree with you.
[DAWN]
Great.. And I think you also mentioned that you have a book you want to give away if people join your email list? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. So we have, there’s a couple things. If they join the email list, there’s, I’ve done a video which is basically my speech to young college students. It’s called Jesus is Good for Business. That’s the title. That’s all my speeches on college campus. That’s what it’s called. Jesus is Good for Business. So that’s there. So you can get that for free and if you do sign up on email and you put in the email from Dawn’s podcast, we’ll ship you a signed book.
[DAWN]
I love that. Wow, thank you. That’s so generous and kind.
[DR. BRUCE]
And there’s four books to choose from too.
[DAWN]
Oh, wow. Ok.
[DR. BRUCE]
So the latest one is Jesus is Everything which we talked about. There’s one before that it talks about faith and what is faith? And it’s called Your Faith Has Made You Well. The original book was Jesus and Co., and then there was another book which I’ve done twice. This year will be its third edition. It’s called Spend A Year with Jesus, which is a devotional.
[DAWN]
Oh. And I think you have a podcast on that too, don’t you?
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes, I do.
[DAWN]
I know. I saw that you had a couple different podcasts going too. Yes, that’s great. Well, thank you so much, Bruce. This has been great to just kind of talk and hear your story and your thoughts on trails and your own journey. It’s been awesome spending time with you.
[DR. BRUCE]
Yes. Any time Dawn. I really appreciate you. You’re a very good interviewer and I admire the way you ask questions. It’s very thoughtful.
[DAWN]
Well, thank you so much. And I will put all, whatever Dr. Bruce Hartman said, I will put in the show notes if people want to catch his email, his website and how to find him as well as what he said about his books. So thanks again for listening.

Thank you for listening today at Faith Fringes Podcast. If you want to explore more of your own faith journey, I offer my free eight-week email course called Spiritual Reflections, where you take a deeper dive into your own story included as a journaling workbook that has guided exercises. So if you want to explore more of what you were brought up to believe, or even look at where you may have been disillusioned or hurt, but yet still deep down you desire to authentically connect with God, then this course is for you. Just go to faithfringes.com to sign up.

Also, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can reach me at dawn@faithfringes.com

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.