The Making of an Exception

Steve Weigel is the Founder of The Ivy Brand, a lifestyle brand that is pro community, adventure and belonging. Custom-made longboards were the catalyst in Ivy’s mission to reach, encourage and inspire people. Since 2016, they’ve been creating a culture where everyone belongs, adding skateboards, apparel and adventure trips to the brand. Community built through Ivy gives people the opportunity to leave different than how they came. Pursuing adventure is how Steve lives his life. In this episode, you’ll hear him talk about how he’s intentional with what God puts in front of him each day, not wanting to miss out on something that could create long-term impact for the people he meets. The gritty walk of living in the moment and saying yes to what God puts in front of you is what drives Steve personally and in business. Living out what Jesus asks you to do could be a crazy adventure no matter where you live or what you’re doing as long as you’re open to what He’s got planned for you.

Josh Arment is the owner of The Aloha Monkey, a Minnesota tattoo shop started by Mike Malone in 1999. Although he grew up in a loving, faith-filled home, Josh remembers the day in middle school that he chose to follow what was culturally cool instead of living as his authentic self. Choosing cool for the next couple decades came with shame, depression and drugs, and it wasn’t until his 30s that Josh discovered what it meant to live as the man God created him to be. In this episode, you’ll hear about Josh being freed from religion and choosing a relationship with Jesus instead. Following a crazy baptism experience in Brazil on a trip with his dad in 2010, the war in Josh’s life got real for a period of time. Living life with Jesus doesn’t make him perfect, but dying from his ego and living free to be who God made him is the authentic life Josh wants to try and live out everyday with his family, friends and clients.

When you’ve got nothing else to rely on, what or who do you turn to? Bryce Ferrell, Founder of 10th Floor Property Management, has found himself asking this question a few times in his life, specifically as an entrepreneur building a business to support his family. It’s during these times that Bryce turns to prayer. In this episode, you’ll hear Bryce share why he thinks 10th Floor’s success is largely due to the people he surrounded himself with years ago and the people he’s developing relationships with today. In addition to people, Bryce talks about the value of goal-setting, especially the goals he made for his life starting back in high school at the nudging of a woman who is now his mother-in-law. But in life, business success, relationships and our personal goals may not come through the way we expected them to, and that’s when we realize where our identity comes from.

How many NFL players do you know starting a nationally recognized childcare center when they retire from football? Robert Blanton Jr. did just that when he and his wife, Erin, opened a Kiddie Academy in Edina, MN in 2018. As a confident, forward thinker, Robert has always taken advantage of opportunities to improve himself in football and academics, and is now taking on business opportunities. In this episode, you’ll hear about Robert’s successful football career and how he realized early on that there’s life beyond the pros. More recently, when his wife asked him to start going to church with her, Robert came up with every excuse to avoid it until one weekend when he agreed to go. It turns out, the service was unlike any other church experience he had growing up, and the topic of God gave them something deeper to talk about in their marriage. Robert’s faith journey is a lot like the rest of life - some days it seems great and other days he’s not sure what God’s doing, but he’s confident that God is always working to help him be a better man.

Dillon Wilson has been many things, including a Big 12 football star and a Young Adults Pastor, and is now setting out to be a clothing line designer as a way to influence culture for the better here and across the world. After coming through a few years asking questions about his faith and pursuing a life where he made the calls, not God, Dillon’s come to realize that the destination God has for us never changes, but the different vehicles he gives us to get there throughout different seasons of life is where obedience and trust develop growth and fruit. In this episode, you’ll hear how Dillon’s Love You clothing line is evolving using YouTube and that it exists to serve people online as a positive influence. Dillon’s approach is to include people who are investing in the clothing line onto the journey with his team as Love You impacts people all over the world.

Krista Carroll is the co-founder and CEO of Latitude, or lat.co, a creative agency specializing in brand and experience design with offices in Minneapolis, New York and Portland. She and her husband, Jeremy, founded the business together in 2009, and committed to give away 50% of the profits from the start. The business serves to connect people all over the world, and by giving half of their profits to non-profit partners, Latitude is helping to empower women and children living in extreme poverty to use their God-given gifts to change their own communities. In 10 years, Latitude has given $6.5 million to serve this need across the world. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of how this married couple, raising a young family in New York City, felt God call them away from the luxurious work they were chasing and start a business with the intention of giving away half of what they make for the sake of helping humanity.

Zach Windahl is the creator, writer, and designer behind The Bible Study, a one-year study of the Bible focusing on how each book relates to your life. Zach might be the most positive and kind person on the planet, and both his faith and business journeys are stories you’ll want to hear. As an entrepreneur, Zach has tried and failed with business ideas time and again, but says that the faster you fail, the faster you get on to a new idea. Through the ups and downs, you’re still gaining experience, gaining knowledge and building relationships. In this episode, you’ll hear about Zach’s struggle with Christianity and how he discovered his personal faith while spending time in Australia when he was 26 years old. From that time, his life’s purpose has been to create tools to help Christ followers further their faith. Zach is now building out a new business idea called Sunday School to go along with The Bible Study. Sunday School, online classes and merch that’ll help you love God and others better, should be ready for launch by February 2019.

Monica Friese is a full-time freelance Visual Brand Director, meaning she’s a stylist, content creator, photographer, brand manager and so much more. Whether you’re browsing her social platforms or know her in real life, you get the same person. Monica is committed to staying true to herself and stewarding what she’s been given well. In this episode, you’ll hear about how Monica’s on-again, off-again tension about whether or not to continue creating content on her social platforms. It seems that each time she wants to walk away from it, God keeps calling her to keep going, and she’s starting to see how even a space like Instagram can be used as a ministry. In an industry that sometimes makes people feel insecure or jealous, her realness is helping other women and girls see that they don’t have to strive to be something or someone they aren’t. There’s so much more to Monica’s story in this episode! She shared about home renovation, marriage, songwriting, and friendships. She’s awesome, and we think you’ll love this one just as much as we did.

Paul Hurckman is the Executive Director of Venture, a faith-based justice organization that does “tough things for people in tough places” around the world. Venture allows people to raise money through biking, hiking and running for justice and missions projects like refugee care, human trafficking and extreme poverty. Paul shares that we can feel deeply for people and we can have compassion for people, but he challenges us to give of ourselves fully on behalf of other people. Venture is getting people to move from comfortable to less comfortable whether it’s running a 5k or an ultra marathon all for the sake of helping change lives. In this episode, Paul not only talks about the journey that lead him and his wife to Venture, but he also shares about foster care and adoption. Having walked through the foster and adoption process with his two youngest daughters, you’ll hear about his difficult internal process surrounding the brokenness in his own community. Paul is passionate about being both a good citizen and being obedient to where God’s asked him to serve, like loving his neighbors no matter who they are or where they’ve come from. His heart for people is inspiring, and hearing his story could be the motivation we all need to get uncomfortable and give of ourselves fully on behalf of our neighbors and people across the world.

Erin Duininck is the founder and owner of Golden Rule Collective, a lifestyle shop and gallery in a little house on a hill in Excelsior, MN. Her “shop baby” was born out of a season of loss, and is now a place that welcomes artists and designers to be in community with one another. In this episode, Erin talks about her faith being tested while going through a divorce when she was 25 and then suffering several miscarriages once remarried to the love of her life. So much of her life didn’t go the way she expected it to, and while those times proved difficult, Erin now sees how God’s plan is so much bigger than the plans she had for herself. Through her pain, God was carving something out in her, and she chose to accept it and grow from her experiences. Golden Rule opened almost four years ago, the point in Erin’s life where she decided to give up control about growing her family and instead, poured her heart into the shop. When she realized it was becoming too much about herself, she took a step back and made space for other creative women to be involved. The shop is successful because people are seeing what Erin’s doing at Golden Rule and want to attach their lives to it and it’s purpose.

Jordan Dye is the founder of the Minneapolis-based clothing brands, Shepherd Goods and Lamb Chops, and he wants to use clothing to spark conversations about faith. For Jordan, his brands are more about creating experiences to connect with people than they are about actual business. Jordan was named after Michael Jordan thanks to his Dad being a big Chicago Bulls fan, so he was always wearing Jordan shoes growing up. His interest in shoes translated to clothing after college when he started designing his own apparel. Since then, his brands have taken off and Lamp Chops recently did a pop-up shop in LA, the first one outside of Minnesota. In this episode, Jordan shares about moving to LA for a year after college, being surrounded by and living with people in the entertainment industry and beginning to feel empty and down. Although he grew up in a Christian family and went to Christian schools, this was the first time he really chose to make faith his own. He knows now that he’s able to be a light in tough places and has influence in the entertainment industry. Jordan hopes to use his clothing lines and pop-up shops to create experiences for people where he can share the meaning behind the brands’ names.

Lawrence Pruitt is the founder and leader singer of Yam Haus, a Minneapolis-based pop band. Yam Haus released it’s first album, Stargazer, in 2018, and will be performing at a “Best New Bands of 2018” show at First Avenue in Minneapolis on January 4. In this episode, Lawrence talks about his road to faith and the stealth mission God’s called him to through music. At 17, his parents briefly kicked him out of their house, and it was during that time that Lawrence, an atheist, gave his life to Jesus at a weekend retreat. Lawrence learned that his journey with God was about letting go of control and opening his hands in full trust. When we open our hands and give God control, He’s able to do crazy things in our lives, allowing us to love people better. Lawrence’s mission is to use whatever gifts God’s given him to bring people to a place where they consider faith. As for that mission and his music, Yam Haus is not a Christian band, but if people read between the lines and get to know the people behind the music, they’ll see the love of Christ.

Ben Hoar is the Campus Pastor at River Valley Church - Minneapolis. He was raised in Ohio with his parents and four brothers, and had a dream to pursue baseball in college. However, everything changed after a significant injury. Growing up, Ben was taught to work hard and to give his all to everything he did, but when he made mistakes, he buried his failures. Hiding these mistakes eventually turned into severe anxiety. After several months, Ben confided in his mom and she spoke truth against the lies he’d been believing about himself. In this episode, you’ll hear Ben’s thoughts on how God can produce something good in us even when we’re in a broken season. Ben’s heart wants to love people where they’re at, and as a pastor, he’s sharing the message that God takes broken people to write epic stories… just like He did in the Bible. We don’t have to be perfect or polished to do the work He’s calling us to. We just need to be available and willing.

Susan Blount is the Managing Partner at Blount Collective. She’s all things marketer, storyteller, coach and consultant as a way to help people understand what their message is, who they’re trying to speak to and how best to do it. In this episode, you’ll hear about Susan’s upbringing and the behavioral and learning challenges she faced as a child and adolescent, and how they shaped her journey to this point. She’s seen God redeem her failures and the things she’s most afraid of in life, but only because she allowed Him to do it. Susan realizes that she could’ve never mapped out her journey to this moment because we can’t know where God’s going to take us. The only thing we can do is to be ready, to keep learning, and to be willing and unafraid. As Susan put it, “Hearing people’s stories is always holy ground.” Here is your chance to hear hers.

Paul Weaver loves people and their stories. In high school, he became interested in photography, and his parents would drop him off at concerts every week in the Twin Cities so he could photograph bands during their shows for free. His portfolio eventually gained the attention of a record label, and he was invited on a U.S. tour after his sophomore year of college. Photography and his new business, Activ Media, are outlets for Paul to connect with people and brands. He recognizes that God put people in his life and gave him a platform, allowing him to love on and pour into so many people in unique ways. In this episode, you’ll hear the story about when Paul answered a Craigslist ad during a college lecture from a mom in Chicago who needed help buying Christmas presents for her daughter. People who know Paul naturally rally around him, so it’s no surprise that when he reached out to his large Twitter following, that little girl had the best Christmas ever. Paul and his wife, Sami, are going strong in their careers, but know God is calling them to something more.