Why do so many people in our culture today dread work?
Why do so many people in our culture today dread work? Many times we think of work as a burden we have to do but really don't want to. Which breeds depression, stress, anxiety and unfulfillment in our lives. This perception of work robs us of true meaning in life, and leaves us very little time to actually enjoy life.
But is work really supposed to be a curse? David Bahnsen doesn't think so. David believes that work is actually a gift and a huge part of our meaning in life. David wrote the book "Full-Time Work And The Meaning Of Life." In this book, David discusses how work is actually meant to enrich our lives and he exposes lies we've believed in many areas where work is concerned. Including how valuable one job is viewed compared to another, and even how the church has wrongly viewed "ministry" work compared to "marketplace" work.
David argues that work isn't supposed to be something dirty. But it's actually supposed to be one of the most important things in life that gives us the deepest purpose and meaning. And we don't have to wait until the last part of our lives to make an impact. Doing work well now, as Christians, can be one of the greatest ministries to the world in this day. Listen as Mike and David talk about Full-Time Work And The Meaning Of Life.
David L. Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, New York City, Bend, Nashville, Minneapolis, Austin, and Phoenix, managing over $5.3 billion in client assets.
David spent eight years as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a Vice President at UBS. He is consistently named one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times.
He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and Fox Business, and is a regular contributor to National Review. He hosts the popular weekly podcast, Capital Record, dedicated to a defense of free enterprise and capital markets. He is a regular lecturer for the Acton Institute and the Center for Cultural Leadership and writes daily investment commentary at www.thedctoday.com and weekly macro commentary at www.dividendcafe.com.
David is a founding Trustee for Pacifica Christian High School of Orange County and serves on the Board of Directors for the Acton Institute.
DAVID'S BOOK: "Full-Time Work And The Meaning Of Life"
DAVID'S PODCASTS: Capital Record
DAVID'S WEBSITE: Full-Time
MICHAEL: Welcome everybody to the Iron Deep podcast. I have a very special guest, David Bahnsen, today. He's got a book out that really kind of... wrecked me in a good way. I really enjoyed reading. It's called "Full-Time: The Meaning of Work." David Bahnsen, how are you sir?
DAVID: Well I'm doing great. Great. And the the subtitle full-time work and the meaning of life, so it's even more dramatic than that. The even more controversial to say work is the meaning of life.
Yes you know as uh so uh I'm in the real estate entrepreneur a lot of our audience are Christian men that are that are in real estate are entrepreneurs and uh you know over the last 10 15 years or 5 10 years the landscape of business books um that been affected uh you know this this seems to counter or um maybe give more in-depth biblical um uh ex it just it gives more weight to really what the meaning of work is um I I I read this book and I was thinking of when I first read I don't know if you're familiar with Tim Ferris and you had this book called The 4-Hour Work week and um and there were other books that just came to mind there were sermons that came to mind in the past I was like wow this this really just smacks smacks it around a little bit uh are you familiar with Tim Ferris and the the 4-Hour Work week I am yes yes so let's just let's let David kind of contrast the two real quick well look the the book that that I most um critique directly in my own book is called halim uh moving from success to significance and and Tim's book know and a whole lot of others what they what you know there's just a variety of books in The Marketplace that essentially what they're doing is advocating for a lower view of work and to contrast um work with the things in life that are important and and it's not usually very subtle it's I'm not misrepresenting them this is an a STW man it's in the very title of the book uh Bob Buford book which is sold a million copies is used as a manual at churches and small groups and men's groups and things like that all over the country it's called um halftime moving from success to significance uh they're directly stating that our success is different from our significance and I believe that that that the Hulk idea that we spend half of our life the first half try to achieve success and and then we want to now transition at halftime into something that will actually create significance um it and and similar to Tim's Book on a 4-Hour Work Week it all presupposes that there's something dirty about work that there's something muddy um first of all let me say this if you are in your career for some reason doing dirty and muddy things in your work then just stop it if you're if you're rubbing elbows in a in a bad way if you're committing fraud if you're uh coloring outside the lines with the finances I mean if you're doing something that is out out of bounds then stop whether you're 70 years old or 17 years old don't do it but for those who are making an honest living and producing goods and services that meet the needs of humanity and in a phase of life where they're trying to build a financial base and pay for a house and raise a family and put the kids to school and all the things that people do in a career don't view that success as that odds with your significance view those things you're doing that have Financial ramifications as Kingdom work nobody is going to pay you to not create value and if you are creating value it is significant and so this to me is what is the need of the hour is not um accepting the sort of premises that so many in the church come to this subject with that work is somehow some kind of a a dirty messy inferior subordinated thing it is vital to the kingdom of God yes in in the book you outlin this in the um as well as the timing of what God says about work it was a it was it was established preall and sometimes you know we read over that and uh and and then it gets undergirded by maybe some of the sermons or maybe the books that we read that work is this this this thing that we have to do that that we have to toil and this is part of the curse I had to deal your book uh really uh you know I say I'm not a gnostic I'm not I have no I I reject gnosticism but I felt like oh well there's a little bit of gnosticism in Mike's heart that he's got to deal with and um that's one of the things that your books did and one of the things a pull quote that I'm going to pull from you and maybe I'll allow you to give context to it because I've I've experienced this um and I see this in my church and and it's it's just it's loud but no one talks about it a lazy people far outnumber Workaholics and pastor's congregation um when I saw that articulated in your book I was like H it's just something that I know but you know something that no one talks about it's something that I see at men's group something when I talk to people um and so what's the antidote to that David well the antidote to uh laziness outnumbering workaholism um is to get rid of laziness and to get more people that we would consider to be devoted focused workers but but laziness is a character deficiency laziness does not come because people are working so hard at doing something else well you know I this is where the self-righteousness and pism comes in that some will say um um I'm just so focused on my family I'm just so focused on church and you go oh okay um and and they manifest that BEC by slacking at work by going late by leaving early by not putting their all into it so what I want to advocate here I don't want to use the word balance because I don't think that's what we're after I think balance involves uh making everything fit neatly in your closet and and you're going to have a third of your drawers filled with shirts and a third filled with socks and you know I'm not talking about an asset allocation of life that fits a percentage of work a percentage of spouse a percentage of kids I think that we are to be a parent and a good one and a faithful one full-time I think we are to be a spouse and a good one and a faithful one fulltime but I also think we are to be a worker a good one a faithful one an excellent one a kingdom building one an ambitious one fulltime so this idea that we get to it's sort of um like Penance like uh yeah I'm pretty bad at my job but good news I really kicked the soccer ball around my kids today I I'm not impressed I find it unbiblical you have this uh quote you uh your chapter start off with quote and Dorothy sers has a quote about the Carpenter and and about hey you know what we don't want you to be struggling if you tell us about that quote from Dorothy I'll I guess I can read it if I've got it um give it it's one of my favorite quotes in the entire world and it's every time I hear it quote it say it reflect on it I am blown away that she said this in the 1940s because I can't even believe how much worse it has gotten since she initially said it but she essentially says the duty of the Christian minister has apparently been to tell the men in their congregation to come to church on Sunday and not be drunk in the middle of the week but what they should be telling them is to build good tables in other words if you're a carpenter be a good Carpenter and of course we want you coming to church and of course we want you avoiding sinful Behavior but the idea that the expectation that the prime AR expectation is defined by Church attendance and avoidance of sin is a very bizarre truncated understanding of Ethics in the Christian Life we are called to proactively do something what is it we were called to do the musician is to write music and perform music the lawyer is to practice law and advocate for clients the entrepreneur is to build a business and innovative create goods and services that meet human needs the carpenter is to using the example Dorothy used build great craftsmanship why is that not the spiritual Focus but but I think that what we have done is replace that kind of Kingdom mentality with something that is far lighter safer and and frankly um done for convenience by just merely pointing out the various obvious things of being at church and so forth uh we need to dig deeper we need to dig deeper because we have a kingdom to build we do the um I again I I see that that quote too and and you just gave it context I think when you said 1940s I think the greatest Generation I think of men that just went to work I think of my grandfather who was a a postal worker and worked three jobs uh he was an Italian immigrant and uh he lived on the hill in St Louis and uh worked and had 11 kids or no not 11 kids I gave too many eight kids um and uh that at at that point you you're almost a dozen um but in to another pull quote that I have on on this book and again uh it's the book is fulltime and the meaning of uh the fulltime in the book of is called the fulltime and the meaning of life uh work and the meaning of life sorry so more drama there David uh but this pull quote here I have a I have a son 21 and another son 15 and and this is a big um uh um uh stumbling block that I have in in our society with our with our kids these days is uh this is from your chapter on the sermon you'll never hear the infant infantilization I don't know if I could say that word infantilization yes uh I'm supposed to I I got a degree in broadcast journalism I should be able to say this but I'm not able to of young adult men in particular particular is so well known that has become the stuff of memes skits sitcoms and movies uh it is a theological Choice by pastors to preach endlessly about the dangers of work career and professionalist professional ambition when video game obsessions are a deeper cultural reality um yes so what's again what's the remedy here for our young men well I point out that um for the sake of the pulpits that one thing they could do is stop giving a sermon that equates to warning people in Kansas about tidal waves tidal waves can be scary but they don't get them in Kansas and I would be uh concerned with people that are just out working way too much but give me a break that just isn't what they're dealing with in their pulpits they're dealing with people and I'm now referring culturally society-wide um the a pastor who's trying to be missional in in the reality of what they're dealing with would recognize that we're playing 300 million hours a year of just one video game just fortnite is 279 million hours a year the um amount of men in between the ages of 19 and 34 that are living at home home that are um not uh working that are able-bodied is it record highs um as a percentage and an absolute number there is uh uh obvious um infantilization that has gone on where we have told people after they graduate high school they get an extra decade to grow up and I don't know why pastors are preaching about tidal waves in Kansas when we're dealing with millions of people so I'm not referring to an outlier in trying to make it systemic there's outliers out there and I can imagine it would be very hard for pastors to give messages to the whole congregation that are based on an outlier but what we're dealing with in terms of the more systemic issue is what I'm describing and I would love to see the church become a a prophetic witness to the culture where the most excellent people that can be hired in industry and Commerce in the marketplace in technology and agriculture are in the church where not only the character and the ethics and the morality and the honesty all of that which is vitally important but the proficiency the Excellence the technique all of those things are desirable and we think of the church not as a Bastion of mediocrity but a Bastion of performance so you have you have sons uh David what's your family like tell us about that yeah I have two sons I have uh one daughter so my oldest son is 19 and just finished his freshman year of college my youngest son is about to turn 14 and ready for eighth grade he's in the middle of middle school and then my daughter who is one heck of a driver very hard uh driving competitive lady um she just finished her sophomore year of high school and we'll be going into her junior year so uh you know we're right at that age of uh kind of pre-adulthood preparing uh these three lovely people for uh for the world ahead well that sounds supp your your oldest son goes to college what's he studying what's that look like for you uh he is looking at a double major in philosophy and economics at this time but he's uh still kind of fine-tuning some of that but he's very St studious very thoughtful uh particularly throughout his freshman year of college really has um expanded intellectual curiosity um in various aspects of philosophy and Theology and and I've been it's been exciting to watch his journey uh he loves the Lord and is um a very bright young man and uh will he'll you know take advantage of these next couple years to really crystallize what direction he wants to go U some a lot of our audience again they have uh our businessmen have children and what is your what's your philosophy as far as um schooling High School is concerned how did you guys navigate that with your kids and uh what was work like you have some information about the book about about work U some stats about teenagers in work uh what was the Boston household like and and maybe not necessarily a template for everybody but what's your philosophy there on kids teenagers work yeah so there is it's a good way to put it about a philosophy because it is difficult to template you know my my father passed away um at the end of my teenage years I was 20 um and and you know he was not a person of great means he was a Christian minister and and you know for me to have spending money and things like that I had to work for me to pay to get a car pay auto insurance bill you know um I had to cover those things that so it's not only that those were his rules in terms of how he prepared us and disciplined us and equipped us to be responsible and grow up but it was also a necessity you know it's a very different deal um by God's grace you know my kids have grown up in a very affluent home and yet uh while they don't have to want for anything in terms of you know uh spending money and and and and kind of the the amenities and luxuries that a teenager would want to have um I my wife and I very much have wanted them to learn the character that comes with having a job and with our oldest we got I think we got a little bit lucky because he was just such a naturally hardworking entrepreneurial guy um you know I think when he was like 16 years old uh and the you know he was basically running sound and lights at nightclubs all over the Hamptons in New York and at churches in Southern California he had really just built out a kind of skill set in audio and video production and run with and ran with it made good money paid bills and all these kind of things so he worked all the time and if he wasn't going to we would have made him but he did it on his own and actually did very well with it went into college with good you know savings and all that kind of stuff our daughter is uh we we've made her work a couple little summer jobs it's been a little bit more of a grind with her I think uh she is trying to figure out why she has to do that when she gets such good grades and Mom and Dad have so much money anyways why should she have to go scoop ice cream for a few hours in a summer day but she does the deal and like I said she's a very hard driving kid so our philosophy all that to say e you know our particulars and other families particulars are always going to be a little different but what I believe is that it's very difficult to ask someone to be 22 years old and start working their first job ever and think that they're going to know how to take orders from someone or get along with co-workers or or have the discipline to show up on time and and and kind of just deal with the realities of life that sometimes you got to do things you don't really want to do I want those basic realities ingrained in kids at a much younger age whether it's an affluent family or a a family of much lower means um there you know a lot of families today don't have the kids working jobs because their sports schedule requires them to take 40 hours a week of tournaments you know driving all over God's green earth and things like that I can't get into the particulars for every family I have my opinions but I've mostly gone about 20 years of child rearing without ever telling anyone else what I think uh uh because it's none of my business what they do but philosophically yeah I think people should learn to work a little bit I do I like it um I kind of share that when you're laughing about your daughter I I have my daughter who's 18 and uh it's some of the same sentiment hard driving and uh uh has some great questions about why why we do things so I really appreciate that um kind of to to talk about and in chapter 3 you do this really really well is it's a Theology of work and I I really want to um end the podcast with you specifically talking to the average Evangelical who's been who like me you know heard sermons and heard some things about hey what we do on this Earth or what the work that we do it's just it's just work it doesn't necessarily matter uh maybe we have taken scripture out of context maybe we have uh we had the wrong teachers uh maybe you know whatever that reason is if if you can just uh and you did a great job in in chapter three of this book and I highly recommend you guys read this book because there's a lot more info there but tell us scripturally about the work that we do here why does it matter when we you know uh in the next in the next place why does it matter when we go to heaven what does that look like and not the ministry work but really the the the work that we do to um um to to produce well I guess I accidentally have to use uh something you just said to kind of set the table for my answer which is I don't agree that there's a distinction between Ministry work and uh vocational work and that alone even that basic compartmentalization which I I obviously know what you mean and there is a a sort of convenience of category you know I recognize that the technology sect is different than the finance sector and when people refer to Ministry work in a benign way like you did what you're referring to is that there's a profession that involves missionaries and pastors and and it's different than the profession of being a tailor or a or or you know uh uh a lawyer or doctor whatever the case may be and so there are those distinctions but there is not in my mind and this is a core Protestant Doctrine the priesthood of all Believers there is not a distinction in the eyes of God between the value of the work that a minister is doing and that someone a janitor is doing or a corner office Finance year um the corner office Finance year is also not superior to the janitor there is a higher socioeconomic strata that part is true there are Market forces they're going to dictate compensation based on scarcity based on Supply and Dem Man based on barrier to entry skill level education so not all work is in to pay the same but when you talk about God caring about the worker this is my basic message to evangelicals God cares about the work because he made us to work and this was part of what he intended for creation and sin entering the world we now believe as Christians in the doctrine of redemption that God grace restores nature God is recreating the world through the work of his son on the cross and now the course of history is a Redemptive process to bring us back to the state he intended us to be in and the state he intended us to be in was a state where we were working where we were serving where we were worshiping where we were producing where we were creating God made us to be subc creators with with him that is why our work matters regardless of socioeconomic strata and regardless of whether or not it's in a church or in a law firm or at the shopping mall all of these functions are a byproduct of skills that God's given us that we're to use to his glory and I believe that that message should be a core Evangelical message a core part of what we believe about day-to-day Christan Christian Living and Christian identity well David Bahnsen full-time work and the meaning of Life. A couple notes that I would I would say is David's or your father David Bahnsen. I've read a lot and heard a lot of audio books on your dad he's you both now have done two things for me you've helped illuminate my scripture reading I was reading uh in in in the Bible reading plan today uh in Chronicles 29 and after having that the the filter of reading your book uh it just illuminated a lot of things for me your dad has done the same thing and and uh for those that know um in the podcast or on iron deep I would check out David's work he's got a lot of work on Canon plus uh if you guys subscribed to that and he's got a lot of there's a lot of resources out there as well David full-time the work in the meaning life really appreciate you on the podcast sir uh thank you working people find you if they if they want to look for you and follow you on the socials where do they go for that uh well the book's website fulltime book.com from there there will be links to the different socials and my investment writing and other parts of my own kind of public platform and whatnot so I think that it's such an easy web address I direct people to go to fulltime book.com and then they'll see different links and opportunities there and we'd certainly love to to to have you in touch with us okay awesome David thank you guys we'll see you next week on the iron deep podcast have a great day
