Burn the Ships 8: From Ministry Executive to Corporate CEO: Mike Beckham #157

Highlights

• Mike’s early days (3:09)
• The perils of comparing ourselves to others (7:22)
• Entering the nonprofit ministry world (11:39)
• Tentatively entering the for-profit world (15:37)
• His business crucible and the lessons it taught him (19:58)
• “Toxic persistence” (26:31)
• The beginnings of Simple Modern (33:29)
• The importance of corporate generosity (40:04)
• Important questions to ask before burning the ships (43:40)
• Mike’s word of hope for listeners (50:51)

Transcript

Warwick Fairfax:

Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I’m Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.

Mike Beckham:

I was not going to be able to maintain really doing two full-time things and being the kind of father I wanted to be. So what it did is it brought to a head I needed to make a decision about falling and where did I feel like I could make the most impact. And really what swayed my wife and I was a belief that there was more opportunity for impact in the business world. That the magnitude and the scale of impact that we could potentially make with our lives was larger in the business world than it was in the ministry world. But it was hard work. I loved ministry and I had so many deep and meaningful relationships that the transition was really challenging.

Gary Schneeberger:

Opportunity for impact. When you find yourself with a match in your hand, contemplating burning the ship you’re in to climb aboard another that will take you in a different direction, that’s about the best destination you can chart a course for and that’s exactly what Mike Beckham did.

Hi, I’m Gary Schneeberger, co-host of the show. This week in the final interview in our special winter series, Burn the Ships, Warwick talks with Beckham about transitioning away from rewarding work at a non-profit ministry to the corporate world. First as a member of his brother’s team at an e-commerce startup, and then as a founder and the CEO of Simple Modern, one of the nation’s most successful sellers of water bottles and tumblers. But the brand’s motto, we exist to give generously, is as critical to its mission as its bottom line. The company has donated more than $2 million to more than 1100 non-profits since being established in 2015. “I call myself a non-profit refugee in a for-profit world,” Beckham says, and that’s how he’s found the impact he was searching for when he set his ships on fire.

Warwick Fairfax:

Well, Mike, thanks so much for being here. Really looking forward to our conversation and just your journey, which is an unusual one, which listeners will understand here in a moment. Love what you do at Simple Modern. Just the whole ethos of generosity and relationships are as important as the product itself, and that’s not normal in the corporate world. So we’ll definitely get into that.

But I understand you grew up in Oklahoma. So tell us a little bit about your life growing up, and I’m guessing there might have been some signs growing up of your entrepreneurial spirit – that typically doesn’t come out of nowhere. So just talk about what was life like for young Mike Beckham in Oklahoma?

Mike Beckham:

Well, thanks for having me on the show, Warwick. When I think about my childhood, I think that one of the things that stands out that’s unique is both of my parents worked in the mental health profession. My mother was a social worker, my father was a psychologist. And really what I learned from that was the reason why they did their jobs is that they really deeply cared about helping people and making a positive impact.

I think I took away from my childhood part of doing life well is you’re investing your life and making a positive impact in the lives of others. And as a kid, I remember them deliberately saying to me, “We did not pick the careers where we could make the most money. We picked the careers we felt like we could make the most difference.” And for me; I’ll talk more about this later; I tend to view success and my life being purposeful through the lens of achieving, which is not always the right way to view it, but I tend to view it that way.

And I think what happened as a child was my view of what ultimate success was, was defined as it is making a positive, tangible impact in the lives of other people. That’s probably one of the great gifts that I got from my parents that, whether I’ve been in the non-profit world or the for-profit world, has really transcended and has been a North Star.

I did really well in school. I standardized tested really well. And so there was some thought that, hey, there might be some opportunity to do something academically. But honestly, my brother was probably the one that you would’ve said he’s the entrepreneur. He was the one who started the businesses as a teenager and things like that. And so for me, entrepreneurship and the idea of running a business, I’ve been slower to come around to the idea.

It’s funny because in Oklahoma, especially where I lived, a lot of people at this point would probably view me as the stereotypical example of the entrepreneur that you want to hold up. I don’t think I even really viewed myself as an entrepreneur until my mid-30s. So that came later for me but I think what came first is having a lot of vision and a lot of ambition about, hey, how do I use my life to make a real impact in the lives of other people? And that’s looked a lot of different ways over the course of my career.

Warwick Fairfax:

That is such a gift that you were given by your parents of just life is about impact and service and contribution. That’s defining success. That is overwhelmingly powerful. You look back on that and say, “Boy, that’s about as big a gift as I could have been given.”

Mike Beckham:

Absolutely. And one of the things that is a huge value for me that there’s often a gap between where I want to be and where I am is humility. But the way that I think about humility is just having a sober-minded view of yourself. That you actually see yourself as you are, and not just even in the eyes of other people, but in the context of the world, the universe. And that I really feel like that’s one of the things that came from my childhood and the gifts that my parents gave me, is that I’m really able to accurately look at some of the success of experiences as an adult and rightly understand that even though our tendency is to want to point at ourselves for anything that’s gone well in our lives and say, “Look at what I did.”

I can’t do that. I’ve certainly played a role and I’d like to think that I’ve worked hard, but the reality is I have all these advantages that I inherited, that I was born into. I won the genetic lottery, so to speak, by being born in this country, at this time, to this set of parents. So there is a sense of humility and also responsibility that comes with that.

Warwick Fairfax:

Mike, you would not consider yourself a better human just because you’ve had a successful business than you were before.

Mike Beckham:

No, not at all.

Warwick Fairfax:

You are the same person, you have good days and bad days. Does that make sense? Because I want listeners to understand just because you’re successful doesn’t mean that you’re a better person per se.

Mike Beckham:

I think, Warwick, it’s a great point. One of the ways that I would unpack it is part of to be human is to have a deep, almost heart-level desire to feel like you have value and to feel good about yourself. And unfortunately, the most destructive way that that expresses itself is that we want to compare. We want to ourselves to others and we’re constantly looking for, hey, how do I stack up to other people? And really with the hopes that we feel like, hey, I stack up better.

And it’s a terrible treadmill to be on because you’re either basically engaged in some kind of form of pride or self-righteousness where you’re looking at other people and comparing yourself and saying, “Hey, I feel better, or I feel like I’ve accomplished more than that person.” Or you get stuck on the other side where you feel like, “I’m not worthy, that person’s better than me,” or whatever.

And I think health is really where we get out of comparing ourselves to other people and trying to find value and worth there. Once we abandon that pursuit, it opens up the possibility to find self-worth and identity in a different place, in a healthier place. And for me, that’s probably the story of my adult life is abandoning trying to find my identity and my worth in my resume or how others perceived me and through comparison, and trying to find identity, worth, fulfillment through a comparison with myself of who can I be? What is it possible for me to strive towards with my life? And that that’s the standard I really want to press against.

And I want to be the best version of myself. I want to be all that I possibly can be. And it’s just been a much healthier place for me. So it’s funny because I’ve been in out of college for 20 years. I worked for 10 years in the non-profit world, and now I’ve worked for 10 years in the for-profit world. And I can tell you that definitely the way that I’m situated in the world right now is the type of situation that the world claps for. That I’m the CEO of a company and it’s fairly high profile. And so people want me to speak at things and I’m in the kind of position that the world claps for.

Well, 10 years ago I was in a ministry position that was the opposite to most of my friends. It seemed kind of weird. And yet I’m not a really radically different person over those last 10 years. But the way that people have responded to me is certainly different. And so it’s another one of those examples where it’s like, if I’m finding my worth or I’m finding my identity primarily through how other people view me and how I stack up, that’s always going to be a treadmill and it’s not even going to give me an accurate view of myself. And so instead it’s I want to focus on am I running the race for me? Am I doing the most that I can to use my abilities and my gifts to make a positive impact on the people around me, the world around me? And if so, then however I’m situated, I feel comfortable with that.

Honestly, I call myself a non-profit refugee in the for-profit world sometimes because my heart in a lot of ways is to be that non-profit person. And so it’s always a little bit comical how people respond to me now and how differently people respond to me now that I’m a CEO compared to somebody in ministry. But being on both sides has certainly been a formative experience and has really shaped a lot of my perspectives.

Warwick Fairfax:

So l let’s go back a bit and cover some of the things you just said. So you’re coming out of your upbringing. Were your parents, people of faith, I’m assuming?

Mike Beckham:

Yes.

Warwick Fairfax:

So given that kind of-

Mike Beckham:

Ironically, one thing-

Warwick Fairfax:

Go ahead.

Mike Beckham:

I’ll interject here.

Warwick Fairfax:

Sure. Yeah.

Mike Beckham:

Ironically, my parents were people of faith, but I don’t think faith really became a part of my life until college and it wasn’t really anything they did. I think what it really highlights is faith is a personal thing that even if your parents take you to church or are talking to you about, it’s a personal thing that each of us have to work out for ourselves. And so for me, that did not happen until about halfway through college. That was the big turning point faith-wise in my life.

Warwick Fairfax:

So you ended up working for a large, well-known faith-based non-profit, Cru. In fact, the lead pastor of our church back in the ’80s worked for Cru in Poland and headed up their ministry and part of story. But in one sense, that’s an understandable shift. You come to faith and, “Hey, let me go work for a faith-based non-profit or a church,” and not at all denigrating that. I think that’s great, but how did that evolve?

Mike Beckham:

So it’s rather shocking, actually. I think the process was, in retrospect, there’s things that happened in your life that you look back on and you just laugh. Like how did that unfold that way? Even now that I know, how did it go that way? So I was a finance major and finance, it just came easier than anything I’d ever done. It was like a language that I already knew that somebody just reintroduced me to. Got engaged in college. I got married the weekend after I graduated. My wife had one more year. She was getting a master’s in accounting. She had interned at very prestigious accounting firms. I had had some very good business internships and I really felt like, okay, the plan here is for us to go and work in the marketplace and hopefully one of the ways we’re making an impact is by being good business people and by giving generously.

But because she had one more year of school right after we got married, I knew I was going to still be around Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is. And so as I was looking at job opportunities, it just wasn’t clear what the best fit was. And an opportunity arose for me to do one year in college, full-time college ministry. And I thought I was maybe going to go get a PhD or I was going to go into the business world. And I didn’t do either of those things. I signed up for the one year, but I fully expected it to be one year.

I raised my salary. It was $18,000 a year. I struggled to raise the $18,000 a year. On every level, it did not make sense on paper why I was doing this and yet when I started to really pour into lives of college students, to my surprise it was making a difference and I loved it. And so one year turned into two, which turned into 10. My wife worked in the business world for a while and then she came on full-time and we spent most of our 20s engaged in full-time ministry with college students, which I never would’ve predicted as a 21 or 22 year old and yet it’s one of the absolute favorite parts of my story.

Warwick Fairfax:

So you’re working at Cru in college ministry. I think you’re doing very well. You’re in a senior leadership role. You’re doing that for 10 years. But there was a pivot, there was a shift.

Mike Beckham:

Yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:

What happened and why? Because it’s like I’m making a difference in the lives of students. What could be better than that? That’s a noble holy calling, if you will. Maybe you don’t get much respect in the business world, but in the faith world, they’re thinking, “This is great.” There’s a circle of people who think, “Mike, way to go. Keep going.” But yet there was a shift.

Mike Beckham:

So when I got to 30, I was leading the ministry at the University of Oklahoma. We were seeing some really cool things happen. The ministry was probably growing 50% a year for several years in a row. So it had gotten to some pretty critical mass. I looked at my life as a 30-year-old and some of the dreams that I had had as a 21 or 22 year old seemed like they needed to be let go of. I’m probably not going to work in the business world. I’m probably never going to teach. But I felt comfortable in my own skin. I felt like what I’m doing is meaningful and I’m making an impact in people’s lives and so I’m okay with letting some of these dreams go.

Now what’s ironic is right around the point where I was really processing through letting go of a bunch of this stuff, the narrative was about to change. I have a younger brother who’s two-and-a-half years younger than me, and he had gotten involved in the business world, had started a company of his own. He had done pretty well, but it was really like a one-person marketing company and he wanted to start a bigger company. He approached me with an idea and said, “Would you help me to start this?” And I thought, “This’ll be a great side project.” I can put five, seven hours a week towards this. It’ll scratch the itch that I have for numbers and things.

And so I said, sure. I helped him recruit several other people to start the company, but the expectation was always Mike’s just going to help out on the side. So that company started in October of 2009. By November of 2010, that company was having million dollar revenue days. And I was the oldest person even associated with the company. I’m not full-time. I’m not taking any salary. It’s taking up a lot of my time, but I’m not like a full-time employee. I’m still leading this ministry and I’m the oldest person at the company at 31.

So it was really a great example of just the craziness that’s possible. How quickly things can scale in an internet age. And then we got pregnant with our first, my son Carter, who’s right over my shoulder here in the picture. And I just realized I’m not going to … I was probably working 80 hours a week and it was untenable. I was not going to be able to maintain really doing two full-time things and be the kind of father I wanted to be. So what it did is it brought to a head I needed to make a decision about falling and where did I feel like I could make the most impact?

And really what swayed my wife and I was a belief that there was more opportunity for impact in the business world. That the magnitude and the scale of impact that we could potentially make with our lives was larger in the business world than it was in the ministry world. But it was hard work. I loved ministry and I had so many deep and meaningful relationships, that the transition was really challenging to make. So this would’ve been around 2011, 2012. I transitioned to working full-time in the business world and that’s where I’ve been for about the past 10 years. And I definitely think I underestimated the amount of challenge that I would feel making that transition.

Gary Schneeberger:

Would you describe that then as you burn the ships moment? Had you set at least a few sails on fire or did you burn the … Because going from ministry to business, that’s a pretty big shift. Seems to me like that would qualify as a burn the ships opportunity.

Mike Beckham:

Yeah, I think there’s two in my professional life and I think that’s the first of the two because I really went from somewhere where I had developed expertise and where I knew that I was making a difference and I was transitioning to somewhere where I did not have as deep of expertise and where it was less clear exactly what the path was to making the kind of impact that I wanted to make. But the belief was it would be worth it because the potential magnitude of impact would be greater.

But there was no certainty in that for sure. And to be honest, even in my marriage, I think my wife would describe that as the most challenging period for us as a married couple. We’ve had a very happy and harmonious marriage, but that was a challenging period because we were going through all the things that come with being parents for the first time, which anybody who’s done that knows that’s challenging. And then we were stacking on top of that a career change and I was working with family, which there’s challenging dynamics about that. So all those things stacked together to create, I think, one of the more challenging periods that really required a lot of communication and a lot of processing from us. So yeah, I would say so. It was not certain that the transition to the business world would go well or that it would be a permanent thing.

Warwick Fairfax:

Before we get to Simple Modern, it seems like that first business in 2009 was going great, but then in 2011 emboldened by the success you got in another business, that didn’t work out so well. So there was a speed bump, if you will, probably more than a speed bump before you got to Simple Modern. Talk about that speed bump, if you will, that you hit.

Mike Beckham:

Yeah, so the business that we started in 2009, like I said, when I first agreed to be a part of it, I thought this will be a fun thing that I put a few hours a week in and then it turned into a much bigger animal than I expected. But I didn’t leave the ministry world to go into the business world to run that business. I wasn’t passionate about running that business. It was a part of my job, but what I really got passionate about was we had another e-commerce concept that involved the gamification of purchasing and buying online that I thought was really compelling.

And that was what lured me into the business world is the idea of we’re going to build this new company and it has tremendous potential. When I look back on that period of my life, what I realize is that I really had had a very small amount of adversity up until that point. That pretty much everything I had worked on or put concentrated effort towards had gone pretty well. And this was the first time where I put a 100% of what I had into something and we poured millions of dollars. Who knows how many thousands of hours. And then we launched it and it just flat out did not work.

It was really, for me, a defining moment in my life where I had to emotionally process through I have made this transition, this burn the ships moment, of going into the business world and now we have launched this business and put a lot of resources and a lot of our passion into it and it just flat out hasn’t worked. What do I do with that? I think there were a couple of different dimensions I had to wrestle with. The first was, I mentioned this early on, I think the fundamental problem that my personality has is I view the world as I am valuable and I’m lovable if I achieve. And that is a destructive thought process.

It’s like I had learned how to root that thought process out in other parts of my life, but I think in the business world, because of the change of context, I found a whole new vector where I really hadn’t rooted that out at all. And so when you take somebody who thinks, “My self-worth comes from succeeding in achieving,” and then you run them into failure, then there’s all kinds of insecurity and problems that bubble up from that. So I had to relearn a concept in a new area of my life that I had been learning over and over again, which was my value and my worth cannot come for my achievement. It just can’t. And I would like to say I learned it quickly. I think I learned it over a series of months and years even during that period. And I’d like to say I could have learned it proactively, but I don’t know that I could have. I think I had to really experience the cold, hard, bitter taste of defeat and failure to really face up to this part of managing myself and having the right internal mindset.

The other thing I had to really wrestle with, Warwick, is I had this narrative of … We talk about the narrative of your life. I had this narrative of, okay, things I’ve been involved with have gone well and they’ve grown and now I’m going to go into the business world and I’m going to start this thing and it’s going to be great. And then who knows what happens after that? And then it’s like, okay, the narrative totally is broken. That is not what happened. And so it’s like, okay, well was I wrong? Was I wrong about that this was the right next move for my career? Was I wrong that I thought I heard some kind of calling towards this. What does this mean about the longer term view I have of what I’m trying to accomplish in my life, going to accomplish with my life?

And I would say my spouse, my wife, Heather, was profoundly helpful here. One of the things she said; and I give this advice to everyone; and I’ll tell it through the lens of faith, but I think this can work even through a non-faith lens. She said, “Just because this didn’t succeed doesn’t mean that God didn’t call you to it.” And I think I had a thought process which was the right next step or what I’m called to inevitably is going to lead to success. And that’s not always true in life. That sometimes the right next step and sometimes the thing we get called to doesn’t go the way we want it to, doesn’t go successfully because of the learning and the possibilities that it opens up through failure, through adversity, through difficulty.

And I think that that’s what happened with me in a nutshell is I think that I really had to fail to really start the rest of my life and it transformed me as a person.

Warwick Fairfax:

What you just have been saying, Mike, is so profound. One of the things you sent us in advance is this statement. It really is worth dwelling on. You said, “For the first time something that I’d put all my heart and effort into failed and I put a lot of my identity in the failed outcome of that venture.” “Sometimes,” and I certainly can relate to this, “failure can be a gift because it roots out identity issues.” And obviously I hear where you’re coming from. You’re somebody that always did well in school. It’s like success, I don’t want to say it came easy, but to a certain degree and you did so well. And you can think to yourself if you are really bright and you work hard, anything’s possible. Other people may fail.

Mike Beckham:

It’s like it’s manifest destiny. It’s just like, hey, inevitably, if I try and I work hard and I really believe then this has to go well. And you know what? Sometimes life just doesn’t work that way. We all have to learn it and in our own timing, I guess.

Warwick Fairfax:

So I think failure can be a real gift. I guess part of that I think you’ve talked about is one lesson was identity. You’ve talked a bit about that, but one of the other things you said here which I found eerily unfortunately able to understand and relate to. You talked about how persistence can be toxic and toxic persistence is pressing on when quitting would be wise. That quitting saves us from devoting our resources to efforts that are destined to fail. So one lesson with identity. Talk about this whole persistence, because it feels like these lessons set you up for Simple Modern, I would assume, but talk about that.

Mike Beckham:

It is one of my favorite things to talk about, Warwick. If I just said persistence rated on a scale one to 10, 10 being positive, one being negative, it would get very favorable marks. And then I say quitting. Rate it on a one to 10. How you feel, favorable or negative. It’s like I’m giving it a two or a one. We just get a favorable impression of one word and a negative impression of the other word.

If you look at the research. The research says tenacity and persistence is the most important trait in entrepreneurs, which is true, but … And this is the most important but you can hear. Persistence in the wrong context is more destructive than anything else. What would we call it when a woman who’s in an abusive relationship persists in that relationship? Well, we would say that’s not wise. That’s destructive.

What would we say when an addict persists in their addiction in spite of the fact that it chews through all their money and it chews through all their relationships and it creates all this hardship. That’s not helpful persistence. And so I wrote a long piece about this where I talked about basically if you think about persistence as having a light side and a dark side or a redemptive side and a destructive side, I think it’s really helpful. It is not a universally good thing.

What makes persistence good or bad is what we persist in and why we persist in it. And I think what’s easy to hear, especially when you’re a younger person, is persistence equals good. If you just keep going, it always turns out okay. All you got to do is keep going. That’s just not true. It’s just not true. There’s some relationships that don’t ever get better. Sometimes, there’s some startups that, no matter how much time or money you pour into it, it’s never going to get to product market fit.

And so what I learned through the process is that a lot of successful people also are persistent people and they developed this mindset that’s, by force of will, I can make things … By just hammering away enough, I can make things go the way that I want them to go. I think the perspective that we want to have and what I learned is that wisdom is understanding where to keep pressing in and where to quit quickly. That quitting quickly is actually one of the best skills you can have in life. It’s like if I’m dating, the moment I know I’m not going to marry this person or I’m not interested in a long-term relationship, the quicker I quit, the better for everybody. Because the quicker I can get on to meeting the right person or moving towards what I actually want to pursue.

And so Seth Godin has written about this in a book called The Dip, which I would recommend. But what he basically knows to paraphrase is what really successful people do is they say, “There are a few things which I will doggedly pursue no matter what, and then everything else which I am giving myself the permission to quit very quickly and to quit early on.” That you pick very few things, the best things, the most important things that you say, “I will press in and I will keep going,” and that everything else you give yourself permission to quit quickly.

An example is my son. He’s played both cello and piano in the last year. He doesn’t like cello and so it’s like, “I want to quit but I want to keep playing piano.” And I’m like, “That’s great, because the cello is just taking time that you could funnel towards piano.” I think within the context of business, what I learned was having your eyes open and really looking at the feedback that you’re getting from the market is incredibly helpful in understanding when I need to keep going and when I need to pivot or change direction altogether.

And that what had happened to me is that I wanted something to be true so badly that I just ran forward with my eyes shut. I just did not want to hear any kind of narrative or data that contradicted the narrative that I wanted to be true. And we’re all guilty of this where we so badly want something to be true and we want to go after it as hard as we can that we’re just not willing to any kind of interpretation or feedback that says, hey, this actually isn’t something that you should be continuing to chase.

So as a result, what I think I have found and developed is a real wisdom and discernment about what I’m going to be dogged in my pursuit of, and then a willingness to let other things go because I really only can be excellent at a few things in life. I can really only be truly persistent in a few things in life, and that’s okay.

Warwick Fairfax:

I want to shift here to what you do with Simple Modern, but gosh, we could spend a whole podcast on this last topic. My gosh, the idea of toxic persistence and listeners would probably … I may be able to glean from my story that this is one of the greatest challenges I’ve faced because I have, think it’s accurate to say, extremely high perseverance. I’m one of these people that never quit ever on things. It’s just ingrained in my-

Mike Beckham:

Yeah. And your entire life you’ve viewed that as a positive, right?

Warwick Fairfax:

Well, right. But the-

Mike Beckham:

It’s like, “Oh yeah. I’m like the Terminator. I can just keep going.” But what if sometimes it flips the other way and it becomes your weakness?

Warwick Fairfax:

Well, yeah, there were moments certainly, and which is too complicated to explain here, in my family business, which was environment takeover. There’s no break points. It’s just we’re going to make it work and ultimately we succeeded in getting control, but it didn’t work in terms of being financially viable. But yes, that is something that’s eerily familiar, that concept. Almost a haunting concept.

But let’s move to Simple Modern because after all that experience, how did that get started? And what I love about Simple Modern, I’d love you to unpack this, this wasn’t a typical business startup. You’re analytical, I’m analytical, I get that. Let’s do a market analysis. What product is needed in the market? What do we have unique, competitive value? All that good and analytical staff that I’m not against at all. But you didn’t at all start that way. You did not do the traditional … So talk about how did it get started? And it wasn’t easy. Two full-time jobs. So talk about how it got started and that original vision, which is just so different than 99% of how other businesses get started.

Mike Beckham:

Yeah. So after a few years working with my brother, a couple of gentlemen that worked under me at that company approached me and said, “Hey, would you be willing to just do a side business with us? We love the culture in our department and we would love to work with you.” And I thought this would be great. It’d be great to do something on the side with these two guys. All we knew at the beginning, Warwick, is that we had deep eCommerce skills and we wanted to do a consumer product. We wanted there to be a heavy generosity component to whatever we started and we wanted to really prioritize healthy culture and that was it.

People will ask me about the name and “Oh, the name is brilliant. How’d you come up with it?” You know what? The story is laughably mundane, how we came up with the name. And a year into the company we almost changed it because we didn’t even like it and now people will just rave about the name. But it’s like, no, there’s no great story. They’ll ask about the products and it’s really like, “Hey, we looked at a lot of products and I got an insulated water bottle for the first time and thought it was great and said, ‘yeah, let’s try that too.'”

There just wasn’t the Isaac Newton, apple falls out of the tree and hits you on the head kind of epiphany where the sky opens up and you know. But we knew principles of if we were going to build something, we knew the type of thing we wanted to build and we knew the fingerprints that it was going to have. Especially for me, really, I was torn between going back into the non-profit world and staying in the for-profit world. And so I knew that if I was going to stay in the for-profit world, it was going to be a certain way.

I think the way that I would describe what Simple Modern turned into is a fusion of the first 15 years of my career, where we took all of the things that I learned being in full-time ministry about healthy teams and about being purpose-driven in what you do. We took all the learnings from running a really big e-commerce company and the principles of a high growth startup, and we put all that together and came up with something that’s a little bit of an experiment.

And I would describe Simple Modern as an experiment of what happens if you try to create a for-profit company that prioritizes every stakeholder. We’re used to for-profit companies prioritize the shareholder. Everything else is subservient to that. There’s a big gap from that to number two on the list. But what if instead you said, “The shareholder matters, the employee matters, the community matters, the customer matters, the partners that you work with, they all matter and we’re going to try and create a for-profit company where everyone who interacts with that company’s life is enriched in some way as a result. Is that possible?”

And I’m really happy to say that eight years into that experiment, the answer seems to be yes. It’s a different type of company. It’s not a perfect company, but it is a very purpose-driven company and our mission statement is we exist to give generously, for example. Well, that’s pretty atypical for a for-profit company. So we’ve built something that’s pretty different, but I think it stays true to all the things we’ve talked about up until this point.

I was really passionate about my life making as big a positive and redemptive impact in the world and the lives of others as I possibly could. We now get to serve tens of millions of customers and we get to give away millions of dollars to non-profits. And then we have all of the people that we employ and the people that we work with and the way that we’re able to impact their life. And I feel like the company has provided the best vehicle I could have ever dreamed for being able to pursue that vision for my life.

Warwick Fairfax:

What I love about what you do with this company is, it’s funny, I don’t know how the business will ever do a case on this company, but they should because it’d blow their minds a bit because it’s not the typical company. And I think even forget the faith paradigm. There is a paradigm for success here in how you did it and it’s not why you did it, but from a spiritual paradigm, you do things the right way from a maybe heavenly perspective, I believe. I’m not a prosperity gospel person, but all things being equal it increases your chance of success, if I can thread that spiritual needle.

But what I love about some of the ethos; and there’s a great video on your website that really talks about the founding and the story; your concept of developing deep, meaningful relationships, authentic relationships, inspiring community, giving generously, the fact that you work to be more than just paycheck. This idea that you give away 10% of your profits to a number of areas such as education, water supply, ending human trafficking, community outreach.

And one of the things you also say is a percentage of every employee’s pay can be given by them to just different donations that they feel led to. I mean, who does that? It’s one thing to give 10%, which is unbelievable. To give employees a chance of … It seems like that’s the core of the company. It’s not so much that you make water bottles as wonderful as they are. It’s the ethos and the principles and the values. That talk about that because that is not normal. What’s the key to the success of Simple Modern? Who are we? You wouldn’t say, “Simple Modern, we’re about making really fun and cool water bottles.”

My guess is that’s not what you would say is, “That’s who we are,” right?

Mike Beckham:

No, I would say that we’re a company that’s about generosity and relationships and excellence and making a redemptive impact and we just so happen to sell water bottles and tumblers and backpacks. And that in a way, the things we sell fund the organization and that I think, if and when they write stories about the organization, if there are those case studies … Some people have approached me like, “We should do an HBS case study about this organization.” That if and when those get written, I think that the dominant theme is going to be that we set out to build a particular type of organization and that is really the secret sauce. And that the what you do does not matter nearly as much as why you do it and the type of organization that exists.

The entire book, Built to Last, is really built on this concept that the organizations that are really enduring and make an impact over decades and over centuries are the ones typically where the actual organization is the main point. That money and making money is not the central focus. It is a focus, but it’s not the central focus. The central focus is on the building of the organization and having some kind of a transcendent thing that you’re pointing towards.

And I think that I’m very specific to tell people our people are excellent at their jobs. I work with people that are very professional, very gifted, work very hard. And so you do have to go out and execute and do your job well. Just having a heart of gold is not enough to win in the marketplace. But when you get excellent people who want to do their job well and you give them a compelling vision and a healthy environment to grow in, you get exceptional results. There’s a great quote that if you want your men to build ships, you don’t talk to them about going to the forest and chopping down trees. You talk to them about the sea and that that’s really what compels people.

What compels people is when you’re able to … I mean, everyone wants their life to have a story that matters and they are just searching for people that will help give them that context and that vision of how can I pour myself into a bigger story of something that matters? And I think that that’s what we’ve been able to do with the company is we’ve been able to say, “Hey, it’s just one company. We don’t have any illusions that the entire world is going to be transformed by us, but we can make a significant impact and we can offer you an opportunity to invest the best working years of your life into making a real impact and something you really believe in and to be a part of a story that matters.” And that’s an incredibly compelling message to really gifted, really talented people.

So we’ve been able to have both. I think that if you came and you walked around our office, I think you would remark on a couple things. I think you’d say the culture seems exceptional, the amount of connectedness among people is really abnormal. And I think you would say, “Wow, the combination of capacity and aptitude with character here blows me away.” That, “This is some of the best people I’ve ever met, but they’re also really good at their jobs.” And so we’ve been able to attract some of the brightest people I’ve ever interacted with because they’re so compelled to use their giftings towards something bigger than themselves.

Gary Schneeberger:

I love the fact that you started that last anecdote talking about building ships because we’re talking in a series about burning ships and you’ve indicated that, even though you didn’t say it explicitly, starting Simple Modern, that was the second of your two burn the ships moments.

And it’s interesting, you’re the last guest, the final guest that we have in this series and you said something that I think is a great framework, great goalposts to aim for when people are approaching burn the ships moments as we’re ending this Burn the Ship series. And you said this. We asked you what advice do you have for people who are considering burning their ships? And you say, “For those who consider their own burn the ships moment, I would advise them to reflect and ask themselves a couple of questions. First, ‘Does this decision line up with my mission in life?’ And second, ‘Have you done enough research and experimenting to know that this is a wise risk?'” Why are those such critical questions?

Mike Beckham:

Yeah. Well, when you talk about burning the ships, what you’re really saying is, “I’m about to make a decision that I can’t just roll back.” A good example with Simple Modern was when I made the decision to start this company, I said, “I’m going to tap every relationship I have. All of the very best people I know. I’m going to recruit them to this. I’m going to have a lot of relational risk. If this goes poorly, a lot of my closest relationships are going to be impacted. And there’s probably no next time. It’s going to be really difficult to ever get the kind of force and the kind of gathering of talent that I’m trying to do right now. I’m putting it all into this shot.” So it felt like this is the attempt.

And so the first thing that I said, “Does this line up with your life mission?” If you’re going to make a commitment that large, that cannot be rolled back, where you’re investing a lot of your time, your relationships, your resources, that make sure that if it works, it was worth taking in the first place. I will see people take jobs, I’ll see them pursue opportunities without thinking through. Let’s say it succeeds. Are you closer? Are you fulfilling what you feel like you want your life to be about? Play it out all the way.

And so for me, it felt like if this is successful in the vision that I have in my head, then yes, I’m going to be able to impact more people than ever before and cast vision to a lot of people of you can build an organization differently. It can look different, especially in a for-profit company. And that seemed to really line up. This is an opportunity for me to make more redemptive and positive impact than any other way if it works.

The second piece goes back to this idea of persistence. You’re going to burn the ships. You should have good analytical, data-backed reasons why you think this is not just a Hail Mary, but this is a wise investment because this is probably going to be the biggest investment you make in your life or one of the biggest investments you make in your life whether it’s time or money or passion or effort or relationships or whatever else. So it’s really important that you have found some ways to test and validate your hypothesis that this makes sense.

They would call it burning the ships, because if you wanted to go and conquer a place, the easiest way to do it was you put your army on ships, you go across the water to this territory you want to conquer, and then with all the army there, you burn the ships. And what you’re saying to the army is there’s only one way, and that is going through our objective, because we’re not sailing back home. That’s not an option that’s on the table anymore.

And so you would never do that if you didn’t know. If you took a bunch of ships to a strange land, you had no idea what was there, you would never burn the ships. That would be a terrible idea. You would have reconnaissance of like, “Okay, I want to know the lay of the land. I want to know where we’re attacking. I want to know where we think we’re going to settle. I want to know what the plan is and have reasons to believe that there’s a better future on the other side.”

And that’s probably the combination. It’s being able to marry mission and vision for your life with the tactical skills of experimentation and looking at feedback and making wise choices. When you’re able to do those two things together, that’s when you get the best. To the outside world, they look like Hail Marys, but they’re much less risky than they appear because of the work you’ve done on the front end to validate that it’s still a risk, but it’s a wise risk.

Gary Schneeberger:

I’m going to shut up right after I ask this question or say this thing so Warwick can ask the final question because I know we’re getting toward the end of our time together, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you, Mike, how people can find out more about you and about Simple Modern online. Where can they go?

Mike Beckham:

Sure. For us, the easiest way to learn about the company and to look at our products is to go to simplemodern.com. For me personally, I’m pretty active on Twitter. It’s @mikebeckhamsm. And also on LinkedIn. You can find me on both those platforms. And really, this is a great preview of the kind of things I talk about.

Gary Schneeberger:

Warwick, take us home as we end Burn the Ships, our series.

Warwick Fairfax:

Well, Mike, thank you so much. What you’ve been saying about how you evaluate whether you’re going to burn the ships and shift, that’s one of the most profound, simple but in-depth paradigms I think I’ve ever heard. Just focus on does this opportunity fit with my mission and vision in life? Yes. We’re both analytical, so I get that. Do the analysis. Does it make sense? I would say, and I think we both agree, part of that doing that analysis is if this opportunity has nothing that correlates with your gifts and abilities or experience, probably not the wisest investment. Know that sounds simple, but we can get so hung up on it, but it’s a great opportunity. Who cares if I don’t have the skills an aptitude for the opportunity? It’s irrelevant how good an opportunity …

I know that sounds blindingly simple, but it’s amazing how often we can avoid the blindingly simple. We talk about in another context. I had my own cubicle moment after the whole takeover period a decade or so later. There might be somebody sitting in their office, sitting in their cubicle saying, “Yeah, I’m getting good performance reviews and life’s okay,” but they’re going through a “Is this all there is? Is this all there is to life? I’m doing okay, but I don’t know. What could be next?”

And I guess you’ve answered it in so many ways, but what would be a word of wisdom or word of hope for somebody that’s sitting in their cubicle or office saying, “Is this all there is?” What would a word of hope be for that person?

Mike Beckham:

What I would say, it’s easy when you feel that to think, “I need to do something dramatic with my career. I need to really structurally shake things up.” And sometimes that is the case. But I think what you really need to do more than anything else is become more radical in your thinking about what’s possible with your life. The reality is all of us can aim for a higher vision for our life and be more radical in pursuing that. That might be in our career, but that could easily be in the way that we’re involved in our church or the type of parent that we are or the way that we give resources or the way that we decide we’re going to mentor other people or any number of other things that I really encourage people to dream.

I think we get the idea of dreaming and thinking big gradually ground out of us by the world. And part of the message that sometimes we hear, especially if you hear a story like mine is dreaming big is you got to go start a big company, or you got to quit the job and start the new thing. And yes, for some people that’s the case, but here’s the reality. Every single person, no matter where they are as they’re listening to this, there’s a way that they could dream bigger in an area of their life and make a bigger impact.

And that’s really the question is just what is that one area of your life right now where you could be a little bit more radical, where you could dream a little bit bigger and you could make more impact? And as you develop that muscle, it becomes easier to believe that greatness is possible and that transformation is possible. And these are the people that change the world. Not everything, but they make an impact in the lives of others and other people, when they come into contact with them, they are changed.

And so you might be in an accounting job and say, “It’s pretty mundane,” and that can be great. Outside of your accounting job, you can be a superhero in mentoring local elementary kids, for example, and be setting an example with that or any number of other things. Or maybe it is in your professional career that there’s an opportunity to burn the ships and to aim higher.

One of the most simple concepts we talk about within our company – I’ll close with this. One of our core values is generosity. I’ll use it as an example. My message to each of our team members is you can be a leader in each of our core values within our company. So it’s easy if you hear something like generosity and say, “Well, I can’t be as generous as Mike.” Well, you can’t probably be as financially generous as I can be, but you can be generous in so many different ways that every single person in our company can be a foremost leader in generosity. It just looks different.

Some people, it’s with their words and some people, it’s with their time, and some people, it’s with their service and some people, it’s with their coaching and teaching other skills. But every single person in our company can be a leader of generosity. It’d be the same challenge here that it is possible for everyone listening to this podcast to be a leader in making a tangible positive impact on the world or setting their sights higher. What it looks like for each of us is different. It depends on how we’re situated, how we’re gifted, and a lot of other things. But one of the things that people hear from me is belief. Belief that it is possible for them to make a bigger impact with their life.

Gary Schneeberger:

I have been in the communication business long enough, listener, to know when the last word has been spoken, not just on a subject, but in this series that I have co-hosted with Warwick over eight episodes, and Mike Beckham has just spoken it.

If you’ve enjoyed our series, Burn the Ships, Warwick and I ask you to come back next week where we’re going to wrap up everything that we’ve learned over these last eight weeks. You won’t want to miss it. And remember, if your ship begins to drift off course, if your mission begins to bump up and down in the waters, remember this: you can indeed strike a match and burn the ships. We will see you next week.

If you enjoyed this episode, learned something from it, we invite you to engage more deeply with those of us at Beyond the Crucible. Visit our website, beyondthecrucible.com, to explore a plethora of offerings to help you transform what’s been broken into breakthrough. A great place to start: our free online assessment, which will help you pinpoint where you are on your journey beyond your crucible, and to chart a course forward.

See you next week.