Jeff Mau - Leaving the Badge Behind for Business

In this episode, host Jason Woodard talks with Jeff Mau about his shift from law enforcement to founding Tenicor. Jeff discusses his career path, the challenges he faced, and how his faith influenced his journey. He offers leadership insights and the importance of blending personal values with professional goals.

Tenicor website

Jeff's LinkedIn

The E-Myth Revisited book

Extreme Ownership book

Five Dysfunctions of a Team book 

Back Back Your Time book

The Goal book

Transcript

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Jason 0:00

Welcome to the Biblical Leadership at Work Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Woodard. In this month's episode, Jeff Mao shares his compelling transition from a career in law enforcement to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Jeff discusses his professional background, including his decision to leave a stable job at Expedia for law enforcement and eventually founding his own company, Tencor, which focuses on high performance concealment products. He talks about the significant challenges, learning experiences, and motivations that guided his journey. Jeff also delves into his faith journey, the importance of sanctification and maintaining spiritual disciplines. Additionally, he offers valuable insights on leadership, managing a growing business, and staying humble while aiming for excellence. This conversation is filled with practical advice and reflections on blending personal values with professional aspirations. Jeff Mao, thank you for joining me on the podcast, brother. I look forward to getting to know you and having the audience get to know you as well. So thank you.

Jeff 1:02

Looking forward to this.

Jason 1:04

Yeah. So, let's talk a little bit about your professional background. you've been law enforcement, now you're an entrepreneur, but tell us a little bit about how the Lord led you from high school, early career on to where you're going now, like a resume review.

Jeff 1:17

Yep. I went to public high school, went to community college for a couple years, and then the University of Washington is where I graduated from. I was married while I was in school. so when I graduated I was like, I should be responsible and get an actual real job pretty soon. worked for a mortgage company for a little bit and then went into the IT world and worked for expedia.com. and that was a great job, but I guess I found that to be boring and not interesting at all, sitting behind a desk and doing, computer office type work. and right after Vicki and I got married, I had met somebody who was the wife of a police officer. And I was like, well, that's interesting. I always used to like, you know, when I was a little kid playing guns, thinking about the military, thinking about law enforcement like most, young guys. and didn't really think about it. Kind of grew outta that and didn't really think about it as a career really. a lot of it probably had to do after I became a Christian. Like that, that world and that kind of thing wasn't really, Prevalent in the circles that I was running in. but it was kind of, I was like, oh, that'd be an interesting job. so I kind of thought about it for a bit, but didn't do anything with it. and just kind of over time working in the office, got frustrated with not feeling like I'm doing a lot. I went to this conference, the Northwest Conference on Reformation and Revival and the guy there was talking about calling and it really struck me like I should do the thing that I want to do, that I believe in, that I think would be a good fit Other people like my parents or like my friends or other people think is a good job. 'cause at the time, in like the early two thousands working@expedia.com, right after it spins off from Microsoft is a pretty good job. and so I just felt convicted that I wanted to do that. And so I was like, let's see what happens. So I started applying, and after a period of time, I finally got a job, and then went to the police academy, kind of. In conjunction with that. Before that I, you know, I said, I wanna be a cop. Well, I should probably learn how to shoot a gun and learn how to fight. so I started taking classes at a, company called Insights Training Center, which, early two thousands before like G Watt and all the gun stuff and all the training stuff that was really popular. Now they were one of the, original, national training companies that went around and trained people How to shoot handguns, how to shoot rifles, how to do, combatives and kind of had an integrated system. So I started taking classes with them. around the time I went to the academy, I started, teaching for them as well. And so I did that. and that kind of dovetails into stuff that I'm doing later on. That's why I bring that up. and so I went to the academy. I really enjoyed training. I did that training with that private company. And I just really enjoyed training and being in that environment. the fact that I learned about training and about how to do training in the private sector before I went into being a police officer. I think it was very foundational for me because I was. Interacting with a company that was doing this as a for-profit business, right? So like in the government service, you have to go to training. So it doesn't matter whether the training's any good, and it doesn't matter whether you care if the training's any good, but as a private company, like people are paying 200, 300, $400 a day to come take a class and it better be pretty good or people are not gonna come back, right? And so that was very foundational for me, for how I thought about training, how I thought about interacting with folks, how I thought about providing a service, to them. And so went into the law enforcement, as a police officer, went to the academy, learned a lot. I mean, like, I would argue that at least in the Pacific Northwest, like the period of time, like your field training time might be the most intense, Training for any profession out there in a 12 to 16 week period. Like the amount of information and the amount of change that is required of you as a person and how you interact with the world is like super intense. and not everybody takes it that seriously. but just like is a pretty significant shift from living in a world, doing a certain thing and looking at the world a totally different way and interacting with the world in a totally different way. It's, I think it really, it was really challenging for me and really rewarding, you know, obviously like a doctor or a physician is learning more over the course of their entire training period, but that's a, you know, an eight or 12 year training period and what you're doing in a concentrated 12 to 16 week period I think is really intense. and I really enjoyed it. So being a police officer in the beginning, super fun.

Jason 5:43

and that's post academy, how long was the academy?

Jeff 5:46

our academy was like 19 weeks,

Jason 5:48

Okay. So that's significant.

Jeff 5:50

yeah.

Jason 5:51

the academy you went into, was that like, for city police? County police? What was that?

Jeff 5:55

so it's the state of Washington and they do, basically the state runs all of city and county law enforcement. So the sheriff's office, the state has their own academy for the state patrol.

Jason 6:06

Okay.

Jeff 6:07

different states handle all of that differently.

Jason 6:09

so then you went in, how long were you in law enforcement?

Jeff 6:12

I was in law enforcement for about 14 years. so I, yeah, so I really enjoyed like the training piece of it. and so I ended up being like a field training officer. I was a firearms instructor, a defensive tactics instructor. I was on the SWAT team. I was an instructor for various things on the SWAT team. I always had patrol as like my primary thing, and then use all of that other training stuff as like collateral assignments. and, you know, overall from a leadership standpoint, again, like I really enjoyed the training and I would say I learned a lot about leadership and about helping people and about presenting information in a clear and concise way to make people better. Really from the private company that I worked for Insights and that gen translated into law enforcement and I have a different standard and different expectation for how to do training and how to interact with folks, because I was doing stuff in the private sector as well as in my government job.

Jason 7:04

Did you, you continued in the private sector as

Jeff 7:06

so I worked, I worked with Insights for probably from about 2003, 2004, probably until about 2012 ish, 2010, 2012 ish. so about seven and eight, nine years or so that I was kind of doing both. So I would, work overtime, get comp time, take a long weekend so I could go teach classes on the side and try to do that a couple times a month.

Jason 7:29

yeah. So it's really a passion then for you training other people on honing their skills and learning special, special, skills and techniques within law enforcement. Okay.

Jeff 7:40

Yep. and ultimately the thing that made me leave law enforcement is I realized like I was always the ambitious person that wanted to make things better and change things. and I always ended up in conflict with people because of that. most people who are police officers are people who like stability and consistency. And so somebody who comes in is like, we should change this and make this better, is like the antithesis of stability and consistency. well there were always people who really appreciated me. Some coworkers and then some leadership. But there were a lot of people who, I really bothered them because I was always trying to make things different and people didn't like that.

Jason 8:17

drive change?

Jeff 8:18

And ultimately I realized the government exists to minimize liability, right? there is a base social contract we've written with the government. We expect them to provide certain services, and if they don't provide those, they get in trouble. And so they just want to provide those, and that's it. as long as they can meet basically the minimum standard necessary, then they're happy. They've met that minimum obligation. And so there's no incentive for the government to change and become better. They just want to exist. And my personality has always been one to want to change and be better, not just be content. with who I am, I want to try to make that better. the thing that I've realized in the last several years is like, that's just sanctification, right? People want to arrive. and they want to get to a certain spot. And the reality is the only time you are gonna arrive is in glory. 'cause that's glorification. And the thing that we get here on earth is sanctification. that is the process of doing something and learning from it and being better. whether that is in your personal life or whether that is at work, whether that is in relationships with people, whatever that is, there is this process of sanctification. And you can fight against that process, which is what we're usually inclined to do. Or you can embrace that process and do something with all of that. Right? And I think most people don't want to embrace their sanctification and they want to stay where they're at. And I've always wanted to change and it always created conflict with people.

Jason 9:46

Yeah. I've spent my entire career in operations, but there was a time when I, began to get exposed to and get training on and fall in love with continuous improvement.

Jeff 9:55

Mm-hmm.

Jason 9:56

And I remember having that same epiphany as a believer. I was like, this is like sanctification, you know, spiritual sanctification, but in the business world or the workplace to just have this desire to find ways to do things better, right? To drive for, strive for excellence. And it is a characteristic of, you know, he doesn't need to improve, but for us to improve and find ways to do things better towards perfection, chasing perfection. No one will never get there.

Jeff 10:24

for sure.

Jason 10:24

So you,

Jeff 10:25

the book, the Toyota Way, I think is a fantastic book. It really struck me in many different ways. The thing that struck me was like, this culture that is not Christian or not Western, understands the world that God made and how he ordered it and how to implement it in a company, corporate manufacturing environment. it's true, not because somebody made it up, but it's true because it's consistent with how God made the world. one of the things that struck me in that book was one of the last chapters they talk about Hanse. Hanse is a Japanese word for an idea of, understanding that you did something wrong and then putting a action plan or practice into place to fix that thing, which sounds pretty familiar. It sounds like confession of sin and like repentance, right? Which is like, obviously we're talking about that in a spiritual sense, but that principle can be applied to all aspects of life. and. I mean, I think from a business stand standpoint or from an operational standpoint, like God has a lot of things to say about all of it, and it's mostly based on principles. If you understand the principles and you're willing to apply them to your work, and like we as Westerners, like we've taken, like Toyota Manufacturing methods and kind of turn them on their heads and done weird things with them, with like Lean six Sigma and like, we don't, like, we don't understand the, like the, the undergirding principles

Jason 11:49

Yeah.

Jeff 11:50

we we're obsessed with outcomes and not with processes. and it all gets lost, right? and I think that their non-Western. Perspective is actually a more Christian way to view the world and is like embracing, whether intentionally or not embracing like the truths about how God made and ordered the world and how people produce things and how people get stuff done, and how people interrelate to each other and a business or, operations culture.

Jason 12:18

I was listening to a podcast today on, respect for people and just how we build culture. this person talked about how the Toyota production system, has been embraced in the west, but often we forget about the second pillar of respect for people, and that as we look for improvements, we not only involve them, but we're positively impacting them in the workplace when we are making, improvements to the work that they're doing Taking waste out and frustration and making the workplace better. And it made me think of what, Jeff, exactly what you're talking about. It's like we took the parts that essentially will strive for less, cost more profitability and just hyper-focus on that and ignore the, oftentimes, not always, but ignore the respect for people part, which is also outright of a biblical

Jeff 13:08

Mm-hmm.

Jason 13:08

seeing that, people are made in God's image. So, that's really good. when, you transitioned, at some point, right? You decided to make the leap. I'd like to talk a little bit about that. I mean, that's a really tough transition for anybody to go from, I have a full-time job, I have benefits, I have a paycheck. By that time you have responsibilities of a spouse, right? Bills, maybe kids, I don't know. But you made that leap. What was that like? Making that's a big risk that I really respect people that have taken that risk. So talk a little bit about that transition.

Jeff 13:41

kind of the story of my career, up until tenor was always taking pay cuts, taking like 30 to 50% pay cuts. So I, I went from Expedia to, with stock options and everything to law enforcement. I took a huge pay cut. I was at a particular agency. I realized that I was doing, I worked for three different law enforcement agencies. the middle one, I kind of had my dream job where like I had almost an unlimited budget for training. Like we were on a pretty busy SWAT team, could kind of do everything I wanted. but I, that was when I really realized like, ultimately they're never gonna change and I'm a misfit here. and so I decided, I gave up being a firearms instructor, gave up being a DT instructor on the SWAT team, like all of those things. And that for me, I had always thought when I'm done with law enforcement, I would go back into teaching in the private sector and do that full time. but the thing that struck me about that also is that when I looked around into that community, there was no one that I was like, that was a husband and a father that I really respected. Like, I respected who they were and what they did professionally, but I wasn't like, man, that guy, I wanna really be like him as a father. I wanna be like him as a husband. because most of those guys are, if they're successful, they're traveling 200, 250 days a year. and obviously any job where you travel that much is pretty hard to be meaningfully engaged with your family. and so there's that side and I realized I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had, so tenor is a, we make concealment products, so holsters mag pouches and belts is what we focus on. and I had kind of dabbled with making stuff, just for myself and for friends as early as like 2005, 2006, 2007. people liked it and they tried to buy it from me, and I sold a few things just here and there to people. But I realized it wasn't a real business. Like there's no way, like I would make something and I might spend two hours on it. Sometimes I'd throw it in the trash 'cause it was garbage, and other times it'd be a great holster and I'd sell it to someone for like a hundred bucks or something like that. I'm like, that's obviously not a scalable business. Right. but, but it was always kind of interesting to me, and I guess probably around 2014 15 when I realized law enforcement isn't for me, kind of the most mature thing I had, or the most interesting thing to me was this whole holster thing. at that point, making holsters was kind of in vogue and there were a bunch of people who basically had their own garage holster business and there was actually a whole business to support garage holster people. but from my perspective, all of those people were all making. Basically the same thing. And it wasn't really interesting to me. I have a very high standard for what performance looks like. and what I saw was there was no one making concealment products that were, that concealed as well as I thought they should and were not as robust as I thought they should. So when there was pressure applied to the product, is the product gonna survive? And most, and most people from my perspective, didn't have the context for understanding how the equipment should be used and what should be done with it. So there wasn't anything that I, that met my standard. And so from my perspective, there wasn't anything that was like at the top of the pyramid of like, what is the best concealment products in the world? And there basically was a bunch of upper middle class, middle class and lower class products, but nothing at the very top. and so like I saw that as an opportunity and I was like, if you. I mean, a couple things stuck with me. One would be like, I, I thought, you know, Walmart could never become Nordstrom's, but Nordstrom's could become Walmart, right? So if I go for the top, I could always do something lower, but if I go just at the baseline, I could, you can never push your brand up. and then the other thing, a friend of mine who was an instructor stuck with me. He was like, you know, if you own a service business, which is training would be a service business, you're kind of stuck, basically working in that service business forever. Because if you hire other people, the level of service will always be a notch or two below, right? And you can never truly be free from that service business if you have high standards. He was like, if you have a product business, at some point the product has been designed, it's been made, it's being produced, you're sleeping. You're making money, you're on vacation and you're making money. And that really stuck with me. I was like, okay, can I take this training thing that I do? Could I just use that as like a marketing piece and then let's make a product. and so probably around 2015 is when I got really serious about trying to figure out what does it look like to, in a real production environment, actually make a holster and not just be one of these garage holster makers. and so I looked at things like injection molding pretty serious. I looked, I looked at a bunch of different things. Most people kinda laughed at me 'cause they were like, there's no way this guy's gonna spend the money to do these things. And ultimately I ended up kind of following a similar process. I was a garage holster maker because bot tenor started in our house. but ultimately, well, I did both jobs at the same time. so I started working diligently on tenor, probably around 2000. I, I've kind of flirted with it in 2015, but 2016 I started working really hard on it, and I didn't leave law enforcement until the end of 2018, so almost a two year period where I did basically both of them full time. And yeah, it was scary to make that transition, right? And everybody thought I was crazy that I would be able to do that, or that I would take that risk. but from my perspective, I was like, this is interesting. And when I did the math and I penciled it out, I knew there was no comparison between my law enforcement job and the pension and what this could end up meaning financially for me and my family, right? and so if I thought it was gonna work and we were really gonna make the highest performing products in their category, it was gonna be worth the risk. I talked to all these different people. I had ideas about product design in the beginning. I hired someone to do CAD for me eventually. I taught myself cad, and so law enforcement fundamentally changed really at that time with Ferguson and all the racial of stuff at that point. And basically, post Ferguson, most of law enforcement stopped being proactive and everyone was all react. It was like, wait till a call comes, go answer the call between calls. You can do whatever you want. And so I was like, okay, well everyone else is sitting in the fire station drinking coffee. I'm gonna go sit in my car somewhere and park somewhere, open up YouTube and buy Fusion 360. And it was free for, for people starting businesses. And I'm gonna go through all the tutorials and teach myself cad. And so I had a guy who was doing CAD for me. I was learning CAD at the same time. Eventually I got to the point where I could do it faster than I could explain what I wanted the guy to do. And so I learned how to do CAD and I learned how to do product design first I sent stuff off to Protolabs for, they would machine the tooling and stuff for me and they'd send it back. That was really expensive and I was like, I need to figure out CNC machining. So I bought myself little hobby CNC machines and started cutting tooling and that was a learning process. And I should have bought, you know, a Haas VF two a long time ago, but instead I bought five other little small machines working my way up to that. Right. But that was a whole process of things, of trying to play with that stuff, teach myself that stuff and figure it out. And then ultimately, so tenor, we do everything in house. So from idea to design, CAD tooling, prototyping, production, tooling, production fulfillment, like everything is in house. And it all, for me, I mean, it all was stuff that like I made up. For the most part. It's like me and YouTube figuring out how to make a manufacturing business. and it, it is a lot and it's super fun. and it was lots of, so like I wouldn't wish my journey on anybody and most people probably wouldn't want it. 'cause I, like most people will say, oh, I worked 70 hours last week, or I worked 80 hours last week. and a lot of people probably did, but a lot of people when they say that are exaggerating, But for me, I worked for an agency where, I was working for an agency that had 12 hour shifts and it was an hour to two hours commute. Right. And I lateraled to an agency that had eight hour shifts and I had a take home car and I worked real, like within 10 minutes of my house. So I basically almost go into service and outta service at my house, basically adding several hours a day of transition time. and so my, what my day would look like is I'd start shift at four o'clock. I'd work until like two o'clock. I'd get off, I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up at about eight or nine, and I'd work on 10 o'clock until about three o'clock in the afternoon. when I had to get ready to go to work and eat some food and then go to work. And that was what my days constantly looked like. And I would take off. Sunday from about, you know, maybe Saturday evening until Sunday mid-afternoon was like my time off during the week. And that was my time block of time off. And at the time, we homeschooled, our kids were little. And so I would have touchpoints where I could take 15 or 20 minutes and go eat dinner, or I could take 15 or 20 minutes and go hang out and do this thing. And I would do that a few times during the day. I have a take home car. I'm working, we're starting the business outta the house. And my wife is amazing and super flexible, and we're homeschooling the kids, right? And so all of that, like the whole world worked around me being able to maintain. And that doesn't mean it wasn't hard to do all that. There were times when there's tons of pressure and it's like, should we really be doing this? but I'm working 14, 15, 16 hours a day consistently for a couple years. and it was a, like, I don't look back. I mean, it was kind of fun, but it was also terrible.

Jason 23:18

Yeah.

Jeff 23:18

And that's why most people I think don't start businesses.

Jason 23:21

Yep. It's hard.

Jeff 23:22

and ultimately, like the 10 Core is a bootstrap business. I didn't go and get a loan from anybody. I didn't go and get investment from anybody. Like I own it and like I. We don't have any business debt and it just is what it is, right? We bootstrapped it from the beginning when it, when it came time to make stuff and I had to go from buying tens of things to hundreds of things or thousands of things like that. Just like I didn't get to make any money. It was just more investment. Right? And it's like if you do that on the front end, then it slowly scales, right? another thing about 10 the most, so most of the, most custom or most holster companies start out as a small business and they start out as a garage holster company and they start out as a, made to order type thing. And then they basically never get out of that mode. they take your money. Before the product exists, they go make the product, then they ship it. And that works out fine in the beginning when you don't have a lot of business. But once you've got a lot of business, now you have a two week lead time, then you have a four week lead time, then you have a 16 week lead time, you're talking about giving money for this thing and waiting 16. Like that's just weird in this day and age. Right? I'm, we're all used to Amazon. I give you the money and it shows up this afternoon. and so my thought was like, I don't wanna be a custom holster company. We're gonna be a production holster company and we're not gonna make any money until, until we can actually be a production holster company and we have enough stuff in stock. and so that's where like we've, we've always inventoried our stuff and we've only sold what we have already made. And that has been something we've done from the beginning, which is different I think from in general, a lot of small businesses and for sure in our little space. and that was a thing that's hard to do. and you have to, I mean, it's like we don't buy things on terms. Which is also weird. Like I think that's a weird hamster wheel that people try to spin and it's like, well, if I leverage this and I buy things on terms, then you know, they'll pay me and I'll pay them and then I can siphon money off the wheel, the hamster wheel, right? And I'm like, no, if I buy something, I'm gonna buy something I have cash for. And then, and unfortunately no one else feels that way. So everyone wants to buy from us on terms. but somehow I have to float the thing. But that is a thing that we've learned. Like we just have to put more money in our materials account so we can float everyone else's terms. But that puts us in a space where we're relatively cash rich. and so when we have profit, it's actual real profit. It's not like fake, weird profit hoping to keep that wheel spinning. Right. And so that was a thing from the beginning that I was like, we need to be a production shop and we need to make that thing go. And which made like, I mean I took a huge pay cut going from law enforcement to this. And I was, you know, I took a 50% pay cut, and it was a huge risk and people thought I was crazy. and I did it way, that's not how I thought I would do it. I was like, oh, I'll quit law enforcement once I can pay myself the same, I would make from law enforcement plus the benefits I'm losing. But that never happened.

Jason 26:24

How many people, do you have on your team now?

Jeff 26:27

we have about 45 people.

Jason 26:28

That's huge. That's big man for starting off with just running it outta your garage.

Jeff 26:32

Yeah. We're not in our garage. So we're in about a 8,000 square foot building right now. We just bought a new building that's about 20,000 square feet. we're waiting on permits from the city to start a renovation.

Jason 26:42

And you do, so you guys are doing design, manufacturing, everything. Who's your, who do you mainly sell to? commercial users? Individuals,

Jeff 26:51

our endeavor is to be the highest performing product in its category. we're trying to occupy the top, of the pyramid. probably about 80% of our sales are on our website direct to consumer. and then about 20% of our sales are to government agencies. Mostly that is federal law enforcement, military special operations, and the intelligence community. I'm not the one who gets to decide whether we're the top of the pyramid. Ultimately, it's the end user. I think a lot of the people who, like our product would say we are the best, which is what we're trying to do. ultimately that is just a thing that needs to play out over time. and so we have tons of growth. We have tons of product ideas and products we're working on that would push us into other spaces within the holster accessory world. and a lot of that is, you know, it's really been interesting. A lot of it is like, another thing that I realized early is if you grow too big too quickly, that can be the thing that puts you outta business. you know, we have grown at. 30%, 150%, 50% year over year kind of consistently. It's always been big numbers like that for us. last year we grew it, we were like, revenue wise, we was like 46% year over year. This year we're on pace for a similar thing. And so the growth is big and aggressive, which is great. but there's actually products, ideas that we have that could make the thing go even bigger. but I've always felt like organizationally we're not mature enough for that. and so for us, it has been kind of like trying to pace out, trying to balance enough that pushes us and that makes it really hard without too much, that just completely crushes us.

Jason 28:27

Well, and I, you know, the other thing I think people don't realize when you talk about those levels of growth, if they've not been in manufacturing, Is, that's a tremendous challenge 'cause it's not just driving revenue and someone else makes it for you. You're growing capital people training that I have seen more than once be the achilles heel of a manufacturing operation. It just grew too fast. You couldn't sustain it. And then all the, all the things you're trying to do to be stable, from safety to quality, all it goes backwards because you're just, it's growing

Jeff 29:03

Yep. For sure. Yeah. Totally different if you are outsourcing your production to someone else. but our experience with outsourcing is nobody. We're trying to be the best,

Jason 29:12

yep.

Jeff 29:12

are not trying to be the best. They're just trying to be good, which is, and there's nothing wrong with that. We've tried to outsource. And it's just been a real challenge to find people who will make stuff to our standard that is consistent with what we want. And so basically we've decided we have to do it all in-house. It's like, you know, if we got an order for too much too soon, like it would crush us and we wouldn't like, it would, you know, do you say, oh, thanks for the order, it'll take two years to deliver that? Or do you say, we're just not gonna sell on the website anymore and we're just gonna sell? I mean, like that doesn't work, right? we want, hopefully enough that makes us really uncomfortable,

Jason 29:53

yeah,

Jeff 29:53

to continue to grow. Right. And that ties back to that sanctification, right?

Jason 29:57

Yeah. Hey, a little pivot on the conversation. Jeff, tell us about your faith journey. How and when did you come to know the Lord? What'd that look like?

Jeff 30:05

Yeah. So I grew up in a home that wasn't a Christian home. I went to. Public school. a friend of mine wanted to go on this backpacking trip when I was a freshman in high school. And I was like, oh, that sounds cool. He invited me to go with him. I went with him. And that was a, backpacking trip to a place called Beyond Malibu, which is in Canada, which is like a young life camp. and so I went to that and then I started going to Young Life in high school and kind of went to, I kept going because I kind of liked the people, but I, kept telling them why they're stupid and why Christianity is dumb and why it's just a crutch and why you don't really need it. And it's just because. You know, I mean, I basically battled with them throughout and then all these people probably praying for me. and I became a Christian my senior year in high school. it was like the guy who was a young life leader and a really good friend of mine who was my pastor, when we lived over in the Seattle area. he and I went to high school together and he later on became a pastor. both of those people were really instrumental in my life in terms of being examples of what, being a faithful Christian looked like. not being a hypocrite and struggling through your sin and repenting of your sin and acknowledging it and not pretending that you're perfect and just being a real person. Right. and so I became a Christian when I was a senior in high school. then I actually, for my first year in college, I was a young life leader. and then kind of realized that wasn't really the right fit for me. When I first became a Christian, there was a small reform church that I went to, and then there was a charismatic church that I went to. And I liked both of those because like, these people are serious, right? In their own different ways, but they're serious about their faith. and ultimately I ended up on the more kind of intellectual reform side of things. And so I went to, to a, you know, reformed evangelical church. and then my wife, we led young life together and she started coming to that church as well. and then eventually we, you know, ended up getting married, and had kids and yeah, I've been gonna church ba basically went to that same church for, you know, 20 some years. and then we moved over to Idaho about four years ago, and are now over here. So that's, yeah.

Jason 32:11

How'd you guys meet?

Jeff 32:12

she was a young life leader. In young life. She led young life and I led young life kinda with her on the same team. And so that's how we got to know each other.

Jason 32:19

What are your spiritual disciplines now, Jeff? How do you keep close to the Lord? How do you keep growing and sanctification.

Jeff 32:25

Yeah. I mean, everyone knows the things that they're supposed to do, but doing those things are hard, right? Like, you're supposed to read the Bible every day. You're supposed to pray every day. You're supposed to go to church every week. You're supposed to keep short accounts with people. and then all of that is a challenge. And so like, I would say, you know, I have consistently gone to church every week, pretty much ever since I became a Christian. That was a thing that, like even on vacation it's something that I think is important that we try to do. so that would be a thing. as far as. Reading the Bible. I think most people, if they're being honest, struggle with that. It's like brushing your teeth. do you actually brush your teeth or floss your teeth every day? Probably flossing more than brushing, right? and reality is that is a fundamental shift. if you didn't grow up in a home where that's what you did, for somebody who grew up in a Christian home and they watch their parents read their Bible every day and pray every day, they don't know anything different and blessings to them, But if you grow up in a home where everyone sits around and watches TV and doesn't do any of those things, that's a hard thing to overcome. and so I would say it, I like, just frankly, you know, there were spurts of times where I read my Bible consistently over the last 25. For, I guess 30 years now almost. but it probably is in the last five or six years that it's like pretty much every day I do that. Right. And that has, that has just been a maturing, personal journey of understanding, discipline and understanding how to make habit changes and being consistent about those habit changes in your life. and I would say prayer is a thing that I still probably struggle with the most, right? That I, being consistent and deliberate about getting on my knees every single day and praying and giving, being grateful for specific things and then asking for specific things is probably the area that I'm, that I, I've not been consistent with over the last 30 some years. Right. and is a thing that really in the last probably several months, I've been more consistent with. And is a kind of like, I feel like I have routine and structure around reading my Bible in the morning every single day. and I'm trying to put routine and structure and consistency around the prayer side of things. but I think, and then as far as interacting with people, you know, I talked about keeping short accounts, right? And so like, that's like you go to church and you worship, you read your Bible and you pray. But the outworking of that faith comes out in a certain way. And I think ultimately that comes, like we talked about sanctification. It's like keeping short accounts with people, right? everybody has sin in their life. And if you let the sin go, the junkyard grows. But if you keep short accounts with your wife, with your kids, with your friends, then it looks like this beautiful manicured park, I'm really grateful that, God brought us to a particular church, where that was the expectation, like that was preached about from the pulpit, and that was given an example from the leadership in the church of like, what does it look like to keep short accounts with your wife, with your children? and so like being willing to confess your sin, and acknowledge it. I think one of the most powerful things you can do as a parent is confess your sin to your children,

Jason 35:27

Yeah.

Jeff 35:28

there's just like, I think that it's sad, but probably, certainly many and maybe even most adult Christians. Don't confess their sin to their kids. And ultimately that's just pride. I think that is one of the most powerful things you can do. I mean, one, it's just like, that's what you have to do. 'cause if you sinned against your kids, you're required to do that. But you're like then setting the example of like actual humility and actual working out of your faith in your life that you're not so much better than your children or than your co or even like here at work, right? Like I have, I have publicly confessed sin in the office, right? I mean, I had a meeting where it's like, gather all the people around who I was interacting with in this one way sitting against them. and I'm sitting there bawling, right? Because God like, totally like. Crunched me down to a little ball and it's like, like, you stuck and figure this out. I'm like, okay, yeah, I really do suck and I have to repent of this. And then my repentance has to be as public as my sin was. Well, I guess that's everybody. And so let's have a meeting, gather everybody up and like confess my sin to everybody. And, but that's like, that's sanctification, right? Like that is the, the working out of those things. as a father, as a husband, as a business leader, you have to be the example of those things to those people and you don't really have an option. And it's super weird and really uncomfortable.

Jason 36:52

Yeah, it is. No, that's good, man. I appreciate your transparency, Jeff, on all that. I mean, those are all spiritual disciplines and I think that, as you said, there's the fundamentals that we all know as believers that we need to strive for being in the word, being in prayer, being in community with our church and we're all in different areas of that, and even different seasons, as you said. but what you talked about with keeping short accounts, that's good because, you know, I don't think I've had people on that talk about that and the importance of that, that's super important both at work and at home and being able to confess to your kids. I can remember, and I certainly wasn't great at that, but I can remember when my oldest became a teenager and you know, just telling him as I was correcting him in some areas, but then also really trying to also say, Hey, look, I like. I get it because I was there when I was your age. I mean, I still struggle with sin as your dad and, you know, realizing me, then realizing how important that was to not just be the disciplinarian and, you know, trying to hold them accountable without ever confessing or being open about your own struggles, because they know, your kids know, they know, they know you better than anybody else. They see how you handle things. They know. Yeah, That's right. So, no, that's really good, man. I appreciate

Jeff 38:05

Yeah. and I think it plays out in the workplace, like keeping short accounts is just like reviews and stuff

Jason 38:11

Yeah.

Jeff 38:12

So like if someone has an issue, are you willing to talk to them about the issue? And it may not be a sin issue, but it's just the principle of keeping short accounts. Like, hey, here's this performance issue, or here's this performance thing that you did well, and make sure there's communication about that. And so when it comes time to dealing with those problems, if it escalates to a certain point, if you've kept short accounts, it's pretty clear. It's not a surprise. Right? but it's really hard. And it's just like dealing with your sin is really hard. Dealing with people and performance issues is also really

Jason 38:42

Yeah. I think that is so critical, what you just said. I'm a huge believer and I've, developed a pretty decent habit of, doing one-to-ones and being real open with my team and transparent. it took a lot of years of work and discipline and other mentors showing me the importance, but even recently seeing some of the, problems that come when that doesn't happen. And this thing I've thought about lately is that, you know, clarity is kindness as a believer, I was just having this conversation with my boss. he's, not a believer, but we talk pretty openly with each other about faith, and he's very respectful of where I am we were talking about having difficult conversations with people and I said, even for me, it's part of my faith and it drives me to have those conversations that you don't have 'em in anger. you have them out of love and truthfulness to the people on your team. to me it's much better to do that even though it's hard than to ever get to a point where you have to ultimately let somebody go. And it was a surprise to them. I think that is just really, that's terrible to do that. And, so keeping those short accounts, being transparent, being open clear to them, you know, and being open for feedback from them to say. Look, this is where I see your performance, but you tell me what do you need? Is there something that I can do differently to help you? You know, early on in those conversations, at some point, at some point you've done what you can, for that person and had those multiple conversations, escalating conversations that there's not a surprise. So no, I think that's, that's super important as leaders to do that. I wanted to ask you, go to your, when you guys moved, was what, was it difficult, challenging at all to find a new church? What was that like for you

Jeff 40:32

no. I mean, we moved to a place where we had a bunch of friends and we basically knew where we were gonna go, go to church.

Jason 40:38

Nice.

Jeff 40:38

from a church to another, like sister church in the same denomination. and so that wasn't, it was a known thing moving to the community we're in now.

Jason 40:47

that's good because I, we've only really made one big move in our adult lives. That's one of the toughest parts for us. we were really super plugged into a church. Our kids had grown up in that church, we homeschooled. So it was our entire social life was that church for like a decade and then we moved and that was tough for the kids

Jeff 41:05

Yeah. No, and our kids, everybody, like we moved and our oldest, you know, she was a senior, she's going into her senior year in high school, and she was the one who was like the biggest advocate for moving. and she's like, had a great time. So the kids, a couple of the kids were like, eh, I'm not sure about it. But everybody loves it now,

Jason 41:21

I'm glad. Good. That can be tough. Hey, I wanna talk a little bit about leadership. Jeff, you have, you know, you've worked in law enforcement and now you work as an entrepreneur, a business owner. I'm really interested in, you know, what have you, over the years, what have you developed as kind of your core leadership kind of principles, the pillars that you always go back to as a leader?

Jeff 41:41

Yeah. I think, as Christians we can get into things like talking about servant leadership and stuff like that, which I think kinda, it can become like cliche and maybe not really. Yeah. I guess doesn't, like at one point kind of. Resonated with me, but probably doesn't really resonate with me now where I'm at today. and what I do is probably a little bit different than most people. my perspective on leadership and what I'm doing, may or may not resonate with people, but you gotta have something you believe in. You gotta have purpose and drive. you gotta have a focus. do you, like who are you, what do you want to do? What do you believe in and what do you want this company and this thing to look like? And do you have a vision for that? and is that the more clear it is, the more real it is. So whether that is like writing it down. Or whether that is drawing a picture or whatever the thing is that helps make that clear for you. I think that's really helpful. because you are, I mean, going back to the sanctification thing, you are not gonna want to do it. So you gotta really believe in it to persevere through all of this different difficult, sanctifying things for hiring and firing and like spending money and taking risks and like all the things that go into building a business and being like, you know, a bunch of my people who are my friends work for me. And there's an element where like, I don't have any friends because a lot of my friends work for me. And then not, not, you know, like just fundamentally my relationship with people changes. And then it's like, I go downtown and I walk. I mean, we live in a small town. I walk down Main Street and it's like. well, that person used to work for me. That person got fired. That person, you know, it's like, it's just a weird dynamics. And if you lived in a bigger town, you probably wouldn't have those same dynamics, but it's just weird, right? And so, like, what do you believe in? Because you better really believe in it because there's gonna be so many distractions and so much pressure from other places that it's gonna be really easy to be lost and you're gonna be tempted to not make the hard decisions. and ultimately I think that's very analogous to like your faith, right? What do you believe in? Because the world is gonna tell you that you're wrong and they're gonna make it really comfortable for you to basically be complacent in your sin, right? And that's just that, that's how that works. And so if you want to grow, you want to drive, you gotta really believe in something. And then, so like that, I think that's really important. But then there's a real level of humility that has to go along with that. So you gotta be totally all in, bought in and almost be uncomfortably confident and arrogant about what you believe in. But then that has to be built on a foundation of humility

Jason 44:30

Yeah.

Jeff 44:31

And when you make mistakes, you're willing to learn from those mistakes and make it better.

Jason 44:36

Yep.

Jeff 44:36

then you're willing to like, like do you have these principled things that you believe in, that the principles. The thing that keep driving you to that vision, but your humility and your willingness to acknowledge the fact that you're a sinner. That you're not perfect, that you tried something, that you spent $5,000 on this thing and it failed, or you spent $50,000 on this other thing and it failed. And that's okay because that is all the sanctification process. Right. And so do you have that humility that then supports that vision that you're able to keep driving and keep growing, keep moving towards that thing? yeah, I think those are like the focus and the humility. and then as the leader, you have to own it all. You, you, you don't just get to own the win, you have to own the losses. Right.

Jason 45:26

yeah.

Jeff 45:26

Yeah. I mean, like everyone's looking, and everyone's temptation is to want to own the win, but really you kind of have to deflect the. Right. The win is for everybody. The loss is for you.

Jason 45:37

It's all

Jeff 45:37

And so are you willing to take, and again, that would be analogous to Christ, right? He owned all of our losses,

Jason 45:45

Yeah, he did and gave us all his righteousness.

Jeff 45:47

You gotta own it all. You can't own parts of it. You can't deflect it. you gotta own it all. And sometimes owning it, if you've delegated responsibility, means holding someone accountable to the small part that they owned. And it might mean doing the hard thing of having a hard conversation or even letting that person go, right? But own. if that person isn't a good fit and they need to be let go, and you don't do that, you're not owning it. Right? and so like, I think the, like having that principled thing that you believe in, having the humility to work through it and make the mistakes, and then truly owning the entirety of it, I think when I think about leadership, I think about that. That is where real leadership happens.

Jason 46:29

Sometimes people talk about vision and strategy and it's like this big, amorphous, whatever, smokey. I don't know, soft thing. But what I hear you saying, Jeff, which is absolutely true, and it's a good reminder, is that as leaders we have to have a vision and a clear picture of where we're trying to go. That's really what that is, right? This vision is, I have a guy idea of what I want this business to be. Or it could be, you know what, you might be a department head. Like, what I want my team, what I want it to look like, what does good look like to me? And then every day getting up saying, we're gonna, today, we're gonna take another step closer to that vision, knowing we're gonna stumble. I love that. Absolutely. The ownership and the humility is saying, we're gonna try, we're gonna drive hard towards this vision, we will fail. and saying, you know, as a leader, I'll take ownership of those failures we make. we're gonna go there together though, so that's awesome. Who do you, Jeff, who do you like to read or listen to or follow that keeps you sharp as a leader?

Jeff 47:28

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's great that you're doing this podcast. 'cause one of the things that is a struggle for me is, having real legit Christians that are doing real things

Jason 47:40

Yeah.

Jeff 47:41

to learn from. most of the people who are popular in the business leadership space, aren't Christians, or if they are, they are like inclined towards being like prosperity gospel type Christians, it doesn't mean you can't learn great things from all of those different people, but it is, a struggle, It's a struggle to find like people who think about their faith similarly to how I think about my faith and the impact that I wanted to have on my life and the business that I'm running. the consequence for Christian business owners is there's a lot of Christian business owners that are basically just doing what the world does and their business is. There's, there's what they do at church. Then there's the rest of their life or there's what they do at church. Like a lot of people get to the point 'cause there's lots of information about there, there's what they do at church, there's what I do with raising my kids. There's what I do with, and I think about politics and there's that whole world and my Christian worldview affects that, but does it really affect how they run their business? Because there's not a lot of people really talking about that. And that ends up being a challenge. So unfortunately, most of the people on my list of like people that I interact with and books that I read are not Christians. Or if they are, it's not really from a substantive Christian perspective. So like one of the books that I appreciate a lot is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. I think Good to Great, is like classic, leadership, business entrepreneurship book again. That is a great book. another one, five Dysfunctions of the Team. So again, that is a great book about understanding leadership and about understanding, all of the terrible things you could do as a leader, and then like practical thing about how to fix 'em. another book, the E-Myth Revisited.

Jason 49:28

Oh, man, you're the first person that's ever mentioned that, and I read that. I read that when I did an executive MBA, and we read that and that was a, especially for entrepreneurs, that was a super impactful book.

Jeff 49:40

Yep. So like one of the earlier, like, I think it was written in the early eighties and one of the earlier like true entrepreneur books, like the e is the Entrepreneur Myth. Right? and a lot of people have basically modernized the same, the same themes and principles from that Michael Gerber did in that book. Right. Which is great. So that is for sure a foundational book was very eyeopening for me. The first time I was like, oh, this is me. Oh, this is me, this is me, this is me. Right. totally. helpful.

Jason 50:10

I think if you're an entrepreneur, I'll say that for those listening, if you are or want to be an entrepreneur, E-Myth Revisited is a must read. It's a really good book.

Jeff 50:19

so just from a practical standpoint, like Dan Martel and Buyback Your Time has been really helpful for me as a like CEO ish leader type person. Pushing me to examine what am I doing with my life and where am I really going. things that are super helpful, like slightly outside of the leadership space, I would say would be the goal by Elijah Gold. Right.

Jason 50:42

Yep,

Jeff 50:42

Right. so I think again, you have like Jewish physicist guy writing a book about manufacturing, but really it's a book about all of life and really it makes sense because he understands the world that God made better than most of us as Christians. Right. And so just super weird book because it's like this didactic novel, but also a really fun read. I would say for us, that's kind of our bible here at Tenor, as we follow the theory,

Jason 51:10

theory of

Jeff 51:10

theory of constraints. Yep. and so like I've read that probably six or eight times. and so I think that's a really good book, and I think the principles of it can apply to any business, not just a manufacturing business. So whether you are a service business, consulting business, like definitely worth a read to try to understand. the theory of constraints and what is throughput It's like the more you study it and read about it and think about it, the more you understand the significance of what throughput is and what it means. so that was a really good book. another really good book that I think for any, on the finance world, and I think the goal kind of helped me push me that direction is like, I generally don't. Appreciate most of the finance world and how we are supposed to manage money and do those things. I have some pretty crazy views about that. and so a book that to me made a lot of sense and it was basically how we manage our finances is a book called Profit First, which is kind of a Dave Ramsey ish, basically a very practical way for a business to manage their money. And so if any of the listeners out there are struggling with how to manage your money, profit First is a great. Business and it basically is another layer of money management system kind of before your p and l, before your balance sheet, before your statement of cash flow, and really shines a light on things. And I know people who've done it and they're like, I wouldn't have seen this problem for months if I was just looking at my p and l. the fact that I manage my money through this profit first system would see problems earlier and fix things faster. and it's just a super practical approach. and it basically, you know, I think the average business in America, probably does 500,000 to a million dollars a year in revenue, maybe has half a million dollars in business debt. which is like, that's a fair amount of revenue, but the owner of that company probably makes 75 to a hundred grand a year. And is just slaving away, right? And then every few years maybe gets a distribution where they can pay themselves an extra 50, 60, 70 $5,000 and they're like, oh wow, this is great. We made more money this year. Right? And there's this constant hamster wheel that is spinning and they can't get out of it. And Profit First is kind of the fix for that, is to understand, for me, I started it early enough that it didn't cause significant changes in how we did the bus, how we ran the business. It basically has guided how we've managed our money, which has been great. but for a business that was a more mature business that tried to implement it, it'd probably be really, really hard to implement it, but I think is a great book. I recommended it to several friends and I know people who have implemented it and it's really helped their business.

Jason 53:50

I've never heard of that one, so I'll definitely, link 'em all in the show notes so people can click and check 'em out on Amazon, so I appreciate that recommendation.

Jeff 53:56

then, probably two books that I really, that I think just from a, not so much as a business owner, but, or entrepreneur, but certainly applicable to that. And really, but I think applicable to anybody who's a Christian that is trying to embrace their sanctification and make improvement in their life. So one would be a book called Productivity, which is by Doug Wilson, which is basically a more of like a worldview book about how to think about how to do things in the world and how to think about stuff. So how do you think about technology? How do you think about, accomplishing things like what's the right frame of reference? So it's basically like Proverbs contextual to the modern mind. combine that with a book called With Winning in Mind. Which is by Lanny Basham. Lanny Basham was a, Olympic gold medalist in the seventies and he wrote a book called With Winning in Mind, which is about mental management and how to think about improvement. And that a system of managing, like most people's problem is how they think about the world. their obstacle to performance is how they think about things. basically to implement it is hard 'cause it's not just a read, it's a study and a bunch of doing. if you take the foundation of how to think about the world from productivity, you could pair that with winning in mind. And I think basically you could do anything you want. and so somebody who is looking to make changes in their life from a Christian Biblical perspective, I think those two books together are pretty powerful.

Jason 55:26

Awesome. Good. Now those are good recommendations, some I've never heard of, and a couple of 'em that are super classic, so that's good. Well, good man. How could people, Jeff, if they wanted to connect with you, what's the best way to do that? To reach out

Jeff 55:38

to connect with me. I'm probably, as far as like social media platforms, I'm probably most active on like Instagram. Like I have LinkedIn and Facebook, but probably most active on Instagram. you know, Tencor, like we have a pretty active Instagram at, at Tencor usa and then also on YouTube, most of our stuff is like training, shooting performance, content focused.

Jason 56:00

How do you spell? we will, put a link to the 10 of course, website, but how do you, how do you spell the Nu name?

Jeff 56:05

Tencor is T-E-N-I-C-O-R.

Jason 56:09

Okay.

Jeff 56:09

And a core.

Jason 56:10

Well, so you have a YouTube, the company has a YouTube channel too, to show some of the products. Obviously website, you said you can go there and check out, and buy stuff from there. Well, hey, brother, thank you for your time. I know you're super busy. it's been an absolute joy hearing, what God's done in your life, what he is doing. the background of the, both the law enforcement and entrepreneur. I have so much respect for people who went out and taking the plunge and have done their own thing. So thank you

Jeff 56:33

Thanks for having me. This is great.

Jason 56:35

All right, man. Appreciate it, And thank you all for joining me again this month to hear from another faith-driven leader. Be sure to subscribe and like the podcast to help others find us. I hope you'll be back next month as we help each other and all of our journeys towards honoring Christ and our work as leaders. I.