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A podcast for visionaries who lead with purpose and live on mission. Rob Hoskins, President of OneHope, has spent decades equipping leaders around the world to impact the next generation for Christ.
Each episode will dive into conversations that challenge, inspire, and empower you to lead with clarity, conviction, and Kingdom impact.
A creative or an artist or an entrepreneur gets their identity wrapped up in the fruit instead of the tree, it becomes really hard to fail. It becomes really hard to receive criticism, input. It becomes a scarcity mindset. It says, this is the only thing I have is this piece of fruit. This is who I am.
Bobby Gruenewald:It's like, no. No. You're the tree. God designed you to produce more of that. If this one doesn't look good, if this one doesn't work well, if this one doesn't get noticed, that's okay.
Bobby Gruenewald:God designed you to produce more. If you can develop that kind of abundant thinking into how God designed you, I think it frees you to fail.
ROB HOSKINS:Welcome to the missional leader, a podcast for kingdom minded leaders who are looking for mission forward insight, practical strategies, and spirit led solutions. In each episode, we'll have conversation designed to fuel your calling, strengthen your leadership, and empower you to advance the gospel with clarity, courage, and conviction. Let's get started. Hey friends, Rob here. We've been playing this podcast for many months, and it's something we are really excited about.
ROB HOSKINS:And this first interview you're about to hear is something we recorded recently, but it's never been released. I know you're going to enjoy this conversation with my dear friend, Bobby Grunwald, the founder and CEO of YouVersion. I don't know if there's anybody I know in the whole world that is as innovative and as insightful as Bobby is. So I wanted just to dig in and say, Bobby, what makes you tick? How do you think the way you do?
ROB HOSKINS:And how do you take an idea that sparked in you and turn turn it into something that has such incredible value for people? You're gonna be able to dig deep into the mind of who I think is one of the great leaders of our generation. On with my great friend, Bobby Grunwald. Friends for years now, and not just friends, partners. They say that, you YouVersion and One Hope got married and had a baby and it's called Bible App for Kids.
ROB HOSKINS:So And you say So
Bobby Gruenewald:we can't get a divorce.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. We're married,
Bobby Gruenewald:we can't
ROB HOSKINS:get So a so here we are together. Yeah. But really, every time I'm with you, that iron sharpening iron proverb is just so true in my life. And you've been an incredible gift to me, board member, but life friend more than anything else. So thanks.
ROB HOSKINS:And obviously, when people hear that I was gonna do a podcast with Bayh Grunwald, they've got all these questions about innovation and technology. And obviously you had the background for that. But I I kind of like take a different different twist on it, which is like people see what you've built and they go, man, that's incredible. He's such an incredible innovator. But the very nature of innovation is that you're doing things that have never been done before.
Bobby Gruenewald:Right.
ROB HOSKINS:So I want to talk about like there has to be some level of doubt that begins to creep in as you're trying something new and like was I crazy to start this? We don't know if it's gonna work. How does doubt play into the mind of an innovative leader like you?
Bobby Gruenewald:Well, I think well, first of all, thanks for all the kind words. I think the same about you. You're like a dear friend, and we love love partnering. And and it it I learn more from you than you've learned from me. I guarantee it.
Bobby Gruenewald:But in terms of your question, yeah, I I think people didn't understand the relationship of risk as it relates to ideas and innovation. I can't think of anything significant that I've been a part of or done or been involved with that didn't have some significant risk associated with it. If that's the case, doubt's kind of right there with it. Right? Risk is
ROB HOSKINS:So I'm gonna keep interrupting you because
Bobby Gruenewald:Go for it.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. Like, you just have a risky nature. Like, you risky when you were young? Were you a risky kid? Was it like your parent like, I don't know, don't let him walk outside without a helmet on?
Bobby Gruenewald:No. Well, I mean, yeah, maybe to some degree, but no, I don't know that I I think I don't know. I've always been comfortable embracing, you know, some level of risk. I'm I'm a competitor. Yeah.
Bobby Gruenewald:And so competition's my number one strength.
ROB HOSKINS:I mean, you're a white kid from rural Illinois, and you were a rapper. That's kinda risky, probably. Yeah. But we're getting all kinds of
Bobby Gruenewald:stuff on this podcast. But, yes. No. No. I mean, yeah, that was a good example.
Bobby Gruenewald:Like, I took a risk on writing a rap song when I had no idea how to write a rap song because I thought it would reach my friends with the gospel. And so, yeah, looking back on it, yeah, I guess I've always I've not had an aversion to risk. I've had a comfort level with risk. And I think being a competitor, sometimes that's a little bit of also a a factor of it. Right?
Bobby Gruenewald:You in order to have competitions, strength, have to to risk losing. You know? Like, it has to like, that's what makes the win worth it. Like, if there's no risk associated with it, it's not the same thing. And and so I think in my life, that's sort of been a just sort of a regular facet because I've always been a really strong competitor.
Bobby Gruenewald:I've always really, I guess, looking back embraced risk. But when it comes to innovation, anyone that's trying to eliminate all the risk is not going to have anything innovative. It's it's just not going to it's it's not going to be new that comes with it. So I I like to I have a framework for entrepreneurs when they talk to me about their ideas that relates to risk, and I just say, well, I I've kind of categorized risk in three different categories. You could put it in whatever structure you want to put it in.
ROB HOSKINS:And we can put this in the show notes too if
Bobby Gruenewald:you're listening. Yeah. No. Sure. And and and this is just my terminology for it.
Bobby Gruenewald:It doesn't I mean, there's probably a better way to say it. John Maxwell could probably make it say it way better than I could.
ROB HOSKINS:It would rhyme.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. Would rhyme. Exactly. Rick Warren, anybody of those guys would be able to present this better. But the first frame the first grouping would be technology risk.
Bobby Gruenewald:And because a lot of the ideas I talk about are related some way to technology, this is the risk that it can actually be built or created or done. Like, there's some risk that's one category of risk. So an example is if I was gonna build a ladder to the moon, the technology risk of like, the the conceptual idea, could that even be possible to do? Like, could you build a ladder that goes all the way to the moon, and what would be the risk? And so the risk on that would be massive that it would never happen.
Bobby Gruenewald:Like, it would never be possible to do. That's obviously an extreme example for for a reason. The second category of risk is what I I would label as market risk, which is if you could build a ladder to the moon, would anybody wanna
ROB HOSKINS:use So so the first one, can we sort of label it as feasibility?
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. So the great. So there's the better word. So feasibility. So feasibility risk.
Bobby Gruenewald:Is it possible? How feasible is this to accomplish or do? And in some cases, things are very feasible. Like, an idea is completely feasible, but the risks fall in other categories. But in other way in other times, it's like there's a there's a significant risk this can't be done.
Bobby Gruenewald:Like, you're gonna get into it and find that you reach some kind of hurdle that just can't be overcome or and and you're not gonna know it sometimes until you start. And when you start, you're gonna then find out later that it never could have happened, never would work. So the second would be, like, market risk, which is so I let's say I can build it. Let's say let's say it's We can do it. Mhmm.
Bobby Gruenewald:Will anybody want to use it?
ROB HOSKINS:Will it
Bobby Gruenewald:benefit anybody? Will will have an audience?
ROB HOSKINS:Oh, yeah. I've I've had some great entrepreneurial ideas coming up.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. So so sometimes there's like a high confidence that, yes, like people would love this, and we know this. We've seen this. It's other examples of it where they like something similar, and we know that. In other cases, it's like people have never seen this before.
Bobby Gruenewald:We think they'll like it. We don't know if they'll like it. There's a risk that even when we got it built, that they might not like it. And, and so that's I call it market risk. Is there a market for this?
Bobby Gruenewald:You know, idea. So feasibility I'm gonna change my first one to feasibility
ROB HOSKINS:so you
Bobby Gruenewald:can come up with that. Feasibility. Market risk. And then the third is the business risk, which is is it so let's say I can build it. People love it.
Bobby Gruenewald:People wanna use it. Are they willing to pay for it? Is there some kind of economic sustainability structure that will support it? Because there's a lot of examples of companies that had something that a lot of people liked, but they could never build a business model around it, never could sustain it, never could. And so what's the risk factor that the cost to do it?
Bobby Gruenewald:It's so great. People love it, but the cost to do it's so exorbitant that I could never recoup it. So a ladder to the moon would be an example. If I could build a ladder to the moon, and, yes, there's a lot of people that are interested in climbing up the ladder to the moon, Could we do it at a cost that actually worked, or would we just be spending trillions of dollars and would never be able to get it back, and therefore, it's not a good business model or sustainable in that fashion? And so there's three cat I mean, there's probably more than that, but those are just three groupings of risk.
Bobby Gruenewald:And if you have risk in all three categories, like substantial risk in all three categories, it may not may not be be the best idea.
ROB HOSKINS:Mhmm.
Bobby Gruenewald:At least for the way I frame risk. You know? Like, I there's certain risk it could take on, but that might be beyond, you know, reasonable. Two categories is probably necessary for a good idea. You're gonna have Okay.
Bobby Gruenewald:One sometimes if you have significant risk in one and the other two
ROB HOSKINS:So it kind of sounds like that's that's healthy doubt.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. No. I think so. I mean, I think it's it's a necessity, right, if it's something meaningful. Because if you don't have significant risk in any of those three categories, then it's already been done.
Bobby Gruenewald:Like Yeah.
ROB HOSKINS:Not innovation.
Bobby Gruenewald:Or the buried entry is so you'd have so many competitors or something, or I would really question whether or not you're evaluating it correctly or if it's mean, it's
ROB HOSKINS:a So would you say on the on the innovation curve, you know, where you have those true innovators and then you sort of have those early adopters to it, like and and we'll put that in the show notes for people that aren't familiar with the innovation curve. With you, when you think about that risk conceptual framework that you just gave us with these three great points, I love them. Think they're fantastic. Where would that sort of put you on an innovation curve? Could it be Do you see yourself as a true innovator, or do you prefer like sort of the end of that tail?
ROB HOSKINS:Sounds like almost, because there's less, there's a little less risk, there's a little less doubt if you're able to go out and see some things that were tried that make you get to the point of saying, yeah, people have talked about that, but we've seen it's not feasible. Or, yeah, it's a great idea, but there's never been a good business model for that. Like
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. I mean, personally, I probably I'm not trying to put people on Mars. So, you know, I'm probably in the category of people that feel like I'm I'm I'm willing to tolerate a pretty decent amount of risk, but I, but I also have a practical kind of side to how I look at things and see things, and I wanna be sure
ROB HOSKINS:kinda weird. Like, when I when I analyze you, like, you're you're like an incredible risk taker, but you're amazingly pragmatic. Yeah. And that's really unusual mix, think. Because a lot of the people that are in the innovation space are the guys that are always coming up with entrepreneurial ideas they're coming.
ROB HOSKINS:I just started talking to them and I'm going, man, this guy's not very pragmatic.
Bobby Gruenewald:Well, there's nothing more frustrating to me than being like academic about things when it comes to
ROB HOSKINS:You know I'm an academic.
Bobby Gruenewald:I know you are. But when it comes to kind of innovation. Right? Because there's a lot of theorists Yeah. That have crazy ideas, and you're like, man, that's just a, you know, that's a crazy idea.
Bobby Gruenewald:And they're like, yeah. But what if it could happen? What if and but they live kind of just in that cerebral world of thinking about it.
ROB HOSKINS:Mhmm.
Bobby Gruenewald:And but their feet never kinda touched the ground in terms of actually being able to accomplish something or make something happen. So my strengths, competition's number one, but right up there's futurist, activator, ideation, achiever. So it's the combination of the activator and the achiever with with the sort of future thinking idea thing that causes like, I need both those things for it to be me, for it to work with me. So there's definitely risk involved, and you're and there's failure involved, and and a tolerance for failure, you know, kind of an embrace of the concept of it. But not the kind of thing where I would ever be satisfied if I just spent the next ten, fifteen years dreaming about something without kind of a sense of how to get traction or make progress on it.
Bobby Gruenewald:I would be it'd be frustrating for me to spend my whole life focused on something that could never come to fruition.
ROB HOSKINS:You sort of work I've seen how you work, and it's kind of in these short burst cycles. Mhmm. Does that sort of mitigate against risk and doubt for you? Because it's like you're not necessarily trying to solve the whole problem and every part of the problem all all all at once. So I'm I'm with a lot of entrepreneurs that come and pitch ideas to me And like the sort of the bigness is an enemy of the practical are the perfection of their utopian idea of what this ultimately could be.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah.
Bobby Gruenewald:No. That that I think it's fair. I mean, wanna find the failure quickly. I do like things down in smaller chunks. I think that you can well, first of all, you could sit and theoretically work through all of the risks and say like a simulation.
Bobby Gruenewald:Like, we're going to work through the first stage in our mind or in a simulation, understand what we think the results are going to be, and then work through the second phase and kind of think this through. And the reality of it is then when you go to actually do it, you hit the first phase and something completely different happens and something that you didn't expect to come happen. So let
ROB HOSKINS:me give an example that I've seen in your life. So like, you know, you you have this idea for now everybody sees the Bible happen. They go, oh, duh, of course. Like, but back then it was like, you know, in your first iteration
Bobby Gruenewald:The original idea failed.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. So it's don't know that.
Bobby Gruenewald:Don't
ROB HOSKINS:So think why did it fail and and was and I just wanna get in your psyche. Yeah. Like, I'm I'm so like when that failed, like, did your doubt level go up, or did your competitive nature just wanna double down on it?
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. I mean, it was the okay. So I'll answer the first part and then get to the second part of your question. It failed because I the initial question was probably the right question, just not the right idea. Not the the right question was, is there a way to use technology to help me read the Bible more consistently?
Bobby Gruenewald:I was a below average, in my mind, below average Bible reader. So I had this idea that was in the vein of web2.o, which is this so the time frame this idea was emerging, which said, what if we could create a website that allowed you to take any scripture, the whole the whole Bible for that matter, and take parts of it and say, this let me show a video, a photo, a blog post I found, whether I created it or curated it, and associated it with this part of Scripture. And I just thought this would allow people to kind of all this kind of Web two point zero user generated content world to kind of intersect with the Bible to illustrate how scripture is alive in their life or illustrate how they see the scripture being played out in some context. And that would be interesting because then people go and look at that content, they could find the scripture, and people could read the scripture and find the content. And and so it just seemed like a like a Wiki Bible, you know, commentary or something.
Bobby Gruenewald:You know? It would be another way of framing it with multimedia. So we had to go through a whole bunch of problems to even to get that thing off the ground. The one that you helped me with and didn't know you were helping me with, which was or maybe you did.
ROB HOSKINS:No, you were pretty direct.
Bobby Gruenewald:That's actually how we first met. It was on a phone call about this idea. I think you saw our blog post they put about it and somehow we got connected through a mutual connection. And I don't think you believed in the idea and your team did it when we were talking. At least you sounded skeptical.
Bobby Gruenewald:And you should have been because it was a bad idea. But you connected me to a person Mark Greene, who helped me get the conversations to get the rights to have the first Bible text because we needed to license the Bible, that was our first hurdle. Yeah. Like, the very first problem was we didn't know that people owned the Bible. Yeah.
Bobby Gruenewald:Like, you
ROB HOSKINS:didn't know that you were breaking the law. No. We had one broken the website.
Bobby Gruenewald:We were about to break it. We were about to break it. We didn't know. Risk. Yeah.
Bobby Gruenewald:Risk. And so that would have normally been a stopper.
ROB HOSKINS:So maybe the best thing I ever did was keep Bobby Grunwald out of jail.
Bobby Gruenewald:Well, yeah. Maybe. But that was a blocker to start with, and instead of getting stopped by it, God kind of, through you and through Martin, whatever, kind of provided a way for us to get over that hurdle. But I was asking everybody to work for free because we didn't have any money to around this vision of this idea. So I had a lot of people buy into the idea, at least enough to help and do it to launch it that year.
Bobby Gruenewald:Three months in, we realized it wasn't working, which is Measured by? Measured by people returning to the site. So we got some people to show up because we had a conference.
ROB HOSKINS:So you thought the market would like it, but they didn't.
Bobby Gruenewald:We thought the market would like it, but they didn't. No. They didn't come back. And it wasn't because no one heard about it. It wasn't know, the typical excuses that people make for their ideas, like, just didn't get a market penetration.
Bobby Gruenewald:We just didn't share these are excuses. But the reality of it is is they actually had a real audience come to it, and a real audience didn't come back. So it failed. Well, that's not easy for any leader, you know, even to acknowledge that it fails. I do think the fear of failure in in our context most of the time is the fear of shutting something down that's not working instead of the fear of starting something.
ROB HOSKINS:Good.
Bobby Gruenewald:And and so I don't wanna be guilty of that fear, so I'm willing to shut stuff down when it when it's clear that it didn't work, but we've got to learn from it. So with the team, we can begin to process why and realize that fundamentally, the contributor side of it, that that idea was just too small of a group of people that are interested in that. But what we learned was Bible in a digital context, just accessibility of it, the ability to kind of interact and engage with it would be meaningful, but it needed to be on a different device. It needed to on a mobile device because its proximity to our lives needed to be closer. And we had moved it to the desktop, which back then was just sitting on your desktop.
Bobby Gruenewald:You didn't have a laptop. It was just a fixed place and location for your computer. So we moved effectively for a person that had a Bible from their nightstand to their desktop, and that didn't fundamentally change it enough. But a Blackberry was available, so we redesigned it for a Blackberry, and then that's what God used to then lead on to
ROB HOSKINS:the app. So the mobility factor just it was the answer
Bobby Gruenewald:to It worked. Yeah. As soon as we changed that, everything really connected.
ROB HOSKINS:So so take me to that in between space, though, where you where you don't yet know that mobility is the answer to make your dream a reality, and your innovation actually is gonna is going to work. All you know is you failed. You had a passion around this. How in a person's mind like yours, because I want people to really understand the mind of an innovator, like, you kind of like risk. You like competition.
ROB HOSKINS:We But get when that moment of doubt does come, because it comes to everybody, I think you're more resilient than most people is one of the parts of your character. But what does that do to you? And you don't just have to use the YouVersion example. You've built businesses, sold businesses, you've failed in business before, you've been really transparent with me
Bobby Gruenewald:about I think the the best way for me to answer this is to talk about identity. Something I learned over the years, I don't know that I always embodied this, I think I've developed it over time, It's really an abundance mindset to how I see Mhmm. How God created me and how he created each of us. So many times when it comes to creative things like art, creativity, ideas, innovation, people don't understand. They don't have their identity correctly aligned with the way I think God really designed us to be.
Bobby Gruenewald:Meaning, the metaphor I use is is that of a tree. And in the metaphor, I'm the tree, and God designed me to produce some kind of fruit. So if for an artist, it might be music or it might be, you know, art or some something. For for me, it's ideas.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah.
Bobby Gruenewald:And some of the fruit on the tree is gonna look amazing on one side. You turn it a little bit and it looks bad on the other side. Mhmm. Some fruit on the tree is going to, drop and fall and rot and no one's even gonna notice it. And some fruit on the tree is gonna go and plant an orchard with the seeds, you know, that are in it.
Bobby Gruenewald:Some fruit won't be perfect. It'll be nice. But the the point of it is not every piece of fruit is going to yield an orchard and I mean, a a huge harvest, or get noticed. But that doesn't matter because God designed me to produce more fruit. Like, I'm the tree, not the fruit in in the metaphor.
Bobby Gruenewald:And, I think when we create when a creative or an artist or an entrepreneur gets their identity wrapped up in the fruit instead of the tree, it becomes really hard to fail. It becomes really hard to receive feedback. It becomes really hard to receive criticism, input, because the scarcity mindset it becomes a scarcity mindset that says, this is the only thing I have is this piece of fruit. This is who I am. I'm this thing.
Bobby Gruenewald:It's like, no. No. You're the tree. God designed you to produce more of that. If this one doesn't look good, if this one doesn't work well, if this one doesn't get noticed, that's okay.
Bobby Gruenewald:God designed you to produce more. And if you can develop that kind of abundant thinking to how God designed you and connect your identity to the right thing, I think it frees you to fail. It frees you to take risks. It frees you to honestly evaluate ideas or art or whatever it might be.
ROB HOSKINS:Well, I think the inverse is kind of probably true too then. So if you deal with doubt with that sort of identity mindset, it makes me more resilient. But I think the the alternative is also true to say you can't take the credit for it either. Yeah. Like there's an element of humility because if you're the fruit and everybody's admiring it and how wonderful and how beautiful it is and you you start believing that, right?
Bobby Gruenewald:Yep.
ROB HOSKINS:And so so it's the inverse of it probably that can can destroy not just your identity because pride comes before a fall. Yeah. But if you've got this kind of identity in you, like you you don't get as devastated by the failures, but you don't get too prideful about the wins either.
Bobby Gruenewald:Absolutely. Because the other side of it is if you if you had 10 pieces of fruit in your lifetime that went on to do amazing things, you know that you had thousands of pieces of fruit and those are just 10.
ROB HOSKINS:I think you probably you might have heard my dad say this because but he he would tell me, he said, know, he actually had one of our donor partners come say, I love investing in Bob Hoskins because everything he does succeeds. And my dad just sort of laughs and he goes, he goes, that's because I've only shown you the ones that succeeded. And he said and then he said something. He said, what that guy doesn't understand that all of my victories were were grown in the soil of my failures.
Bobby Gruenewald:Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:And it's like that makes him that makes you really super resilient.
Bobby Gruenewald:Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:In the sense of if you're a real innovator, like you've got to have that ability to say, hey, okay, it's not gonna work but I'm gonna learn from it.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah.
ROB HOSKINS:But there's also this part of character that starts experiencing it and you get wiser about But how to do that better then also you just cannot take the credit for it.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. No. There's exactly right. I mean, this is what God designed me to do. My responsibility and like you said, the fruit that I generate or the ideas that he that he gives me, you know, they're his to begin with.
Bobby Gruenewald:But, yeah, they're we're we're still imperfect kind of in our own sense, and we have all these different expressions of it. And you're right. Like, I know I know there's thousands of ideas and thousands of things that didn't work, thousands of things that never made it out of evaluation process because I was willing to turn the fruit the other way and look and say, I don't think that's really gonna be the best one. Or we should try it, but if it doesn't work, then that's okay. And I do think that if you really get hung up on the on that fruit thing though, it's just debilitating.
Bobby Gruenewald:It it it's it's really hard to be an innovator, I think, if that's kind of the way you see it. And I have people that come to me with their ideas or projects and want me to sign a nondisclosure agreement because they're just terrified that everyone's gonna And steal their I'm just like I I mean, I just don't think about ideas that way. Like, I'll share any idea that I have with you or with anybody, and if they're able to achieve it or reach it before I can or faster than I can or whatever, that's that's great. I mean, there'll be more, you know. It's not the only thing, the best thing that'll ever happen.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. So so the other thing I've I've really appreciate about our relationship is that there's very little protectionism around it because not only are we the tree rather than the fruit, I love that sort of analogy, but God owns the tree. Yeah. Like it's not not ours. So I was recently on a podcast with our mutual friend, Mark Green.
ROB HOSKINS:And someone had heard the story of how you met Mark and he became a patron to the YouVersion and everything and they heard that I had introduced you to
Bobby Gruenewald:him. Yes.
ROB HOSKINS:And the guy's like like, you're crazy. Like, why would you give away one of your leading donors? And I said, bro, you're asking the wrong they're not my donor. Yeah. They're mine.
ROB HOSKINS:Right. They're gods, right? So, I mean, think we see some of these innovators that fall into their success. Are they overly credit like who they are? I really appreciate that you about you Bobby, how so much of the time you're so quick to talk about your team.
ROB HOSKINS:Mhmm. You're so quick to talk about the amazing people God brought you. Mhmm. And people sort of think of an innovator as this lone ranger maverick out there building it on their own. It's kind of that Disneyfication of you can do anything kind of Yeah.
ROB HOSKINS:You know, expressive individualism that exists in American culture. And and that could be a heady thing. You could it's easy to go, yeah, that's me. But you're always really quick to sort of deflect that.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. No. I mean, think that's first of all, what you with Mar, that that story of of that is also just about the way you you think abundantly too because you don't think in scarcity, you know, in terms of some people just think, man, there's only so many the pie is only so big. There's only so many resources to go. So if I share a piece of my pie with someone, there's only so much left.
Bobby Gruenewald:And you're like, it was never your pie, first of all. Like you said, it was it's it's not your resource. It's God's resource. And but we have to serve an abundant God, right, that's got infinite resources. And when we start to think that way, just we become very protected.
Bobby Gruenewald:We become very you know, the scarcity mindset's a real debilitating limiting perspective and mindset. And, yeah. And as far as like the way you see yourself, I mean, the phrase I used for YouVersion with the team from early on is that we don't take it lightly and we don't hold it tightly. I love that. There's responsibility that comes with stewardship.
Bobby Gruenewald:Know, God says I entrusted you with this and you're a steward of it, whatever it might be. The parable of the talents is a clear kind of sort of indication of this. But we don't hold it tightly because it's not ours. Like, if we see it as ours, then you you grip a hold of it. So it's like this sort of loose posture of saying, okay, we have responsibility.
Bobby Gruenewald:We can't just like shirk from the responsibility and say, well, it's you know, there's not something that we we have respond it's like, no, there's a stewardship responsibility that's real. So we have to actually show up and, like, bring ourselves to it. But we do it in a way we have to continue to do it in a posture that just says, this never was ours. It wasn't ours to begin with. It isn't ours now.
Bobby Gruenewald:It's, you know, something on behalf of the kingdom. If we can keep that posture with everything God gives us, or God entrusts us with, there's just a lot of freedom in that. Like, you're I don't wanna be the person that's gripping on to to whatever it is.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. Because I think I think part of that protectionist call it mentality or that limited resource mentality is probably one of the things that stops innovation. Like you might have a great innovation idea, but if you don't create that innovative culture around the values of what your organization, company, business ministry is becoming, like you might have been a one trick wonder. You you might have had this one great idea that happened probably by accident. But what I find is that sort of the growth of the tree, right?
ROB HOSKINS:And the ongoing fruitfulness of the tree is really about that the culture that you create. Like YouVersion has incredible culture of innovation. It's not just that Bobby Grunwald's an innovator. Yeah. It's that you you're you're you're and and just one, I can name a lot of characteristics on this one.
ROB HOSKINS:But I think one of them is you talk about generosity of our relationships, Mark being one example, but there's been many many
Bobby Gruenewald:other
ROB HOSKINS:But examples of you, I think when I talk to you, one of the things that you're you're constantly pushing on is it's not about where am I gonna find the money and it's it's not about even you don't talk much about the doubt of whether it's gonna work or not. Like once you're going, you're going. Mhmm. It's always about people. It's it's always like, man, if I could only find this kind of guy or you've always got your eyes.
ROB HOSKINS:I found out this guy was a Christian and he's the head of this Yeah. Particular technology company and I gotta find a way to find that.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah.
ROB HOSKINS:And I I just love that sort of tenacity, almost ruthlessness you have about going after
Bobby Gruenewald:Sure.
ROB HOSKINS:People and relationships is the greatest resource that because you're finding people that are I don't know, there's something about them saying, I wanna find those people that have already taken a step of innovation. Yeah. That have already done things no one's ever done before. That are the bigger risk takers than we've ever been and I wanna learn, grow, them speak into my life. So it's kinda like that.
ROB HOSKINS:And it's not kind of, it is like the harvest is right Yeah. But the labor, the people are few.
Bobby Gruenewald:That's interesting observation. I've not really thought about it much, until as you were saying that, but like everything comes through relationship with people. Like, everything we do. So every I mean, partnership, the the ways we accomplish things through partnership, it's all about people relationship. But I don't partner with an entity.
Bobby Gruenewald:You know, I partner with a person who leads an entity, you know, or who connects to the team. We don't accomplish what we do, by just speaking it. It's not I mean, you know, the AI might be giving me a run for my money on some of these this this this part of the conversation, but but obviously we do it happens through people. Right? God puts it in the heart of a person to leave whatever it is they're doing and come and join our team and be a part of, you know, building whatever it might be, but it's a person.
Bobby Gruenewald:Financial resources, you know, it's like, yeah, I don't always talk about money or whatever. I do believe God brings his resource to his vision. But when I say that, I'm almost always talking about people.
ROB HOSKINS:Mhmm.
Bobby Gruenewald:And even when I'm talk even if I was talking about money, I'm still talking about people. Yeah. Right? Because God brings the people The
ROB HOSKINS:partners, the patrons.
Bobby Gruenewald:That have the
ROB HOSKINS:The resources.
Bobby Gruenewald:Resources to do it. It's still a person. Mhmm. So I I feel like and I've mentioned this to my wife actually this week. I feel like I'm like a trillionaire in with relationships.
ROB HOSKINS:Wow.
Bobby Gruenewald:You know, like like like, I feel so blessed to have the relationships I love that. That I have.
ROB HOSKINS:I was just talking to my dad last night. Know, he's 88 years old. And I was just talking about my time here at Life Church, spending time with Craig yesterday and here with you today and Martin. This in one city. This is Oklahoma City, right?
ROB HOSKINS:And Yeah. I gotta say it's probably been the biggest well of relationships of any city I've ever had. Who knew Oklahoma City? Yeah. I know.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. So so but it it was it was you know, my dad's response as an 88 year old is he goes, God's given us so much human wealth. Yeah. Like he's just given us Rob just amazing relationships. It really comes back to that.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. It's exactly the same thing I was the same thing I was saying. It's it's the people relationships at the end of the day. So I don't need money. I need people.
Bobby Gruenewald:Right? I mean, I I need a relationship with people. I don't need code. I need people. Mhmm.
Bobby Gruenewald:You know? I don't need content. I need people. You know? Everything comes down to people.
ROB HOSKINS:Wow. Beautiful. Hey, we could go on for on and on and on. So that's why want you be a regular on here. We'll we'll get more of Bobby Grunwald's thinking mind blessing us.
ROB HOSKINS:Thank you so much for who you are and the gift you are to the kingdom and the church, not just you, your whole YouVersion team.
Bobby Gruenewald:Yeah. We are we're humbled to be a part of it, and and I'm happy to be do anything you want me to do because I have huge respect for you. So so, yeah, we're humbled to be a part anyway. Man. Thanks.
ROB HOSKINS:Appreciate it. Thanks for joining me today. This episode was brought to you by One Hope, the organization where I have the privilege to serve and lead. At One Hope, we are passionate about affecting destiny by providing God's eternal word to all of the children and youth of the world. For more information about One Hope, visit 1hope.net.