Faith Driven Entrepreneur

Where’s the Unlock? Innovation Inside the Fence Line
Host Justin Forman sits down with David Farmer, Vice President of Innovation and New Ventures at Chick-fil-A. Together they look at how a company grows for 80 years without losing the things that make it what it is.
The first Chick-fil-A restaurant opened in 1967. It was about 350 square feet inside an Atlanta mall, with room for roughly six seats. Today some Chick-fil-A operators move 500 cars through a single drive-through, which means a customer leaves with food every seven and a half seconds.
David leads innovation and new ventures at one of the most admired restaurant brands in America. He traces that innovation back to its source. Founder Truett Cathy deboned a chicken breast so he could turn tables faster. He brought food into the American mall before food courts existed. He also built an operator model that has barely changed in five decades. David connects that founding DNA to everything Chick-fil-A is testing today, from drive-through canopies to drones.
Key Topics:
- How a 1946 diner near the Atlanta airport gave birth to the Chick-fil-A sandwich
- The operator model: why Truett built his own capital structure, with a $10,000 refundable deposit and a 50/50 profit split, and turned down conventional franchising
- Why “nines don’t wanna work for sevens,” and how it shapes who Chick-fil-A selects as operators
- Dan Cathy’s rogue lemonade recipe and how one bottleneck became a single juicing facility in California
- Knowing what cannot change: closed on Sunday, privately held, and a short list of non-negotiables
- From 100 cars an hour to 500: canopies, tablets, NASCAR pit crews, and healthy competition
- The three-legged stool test for every innovation: customer, operations, economics
- Why Truett spent years making “my pleasure” feel normal
Every founder eventually faces the question of how to change without losing the thing that made the business worth building. David’s answer is simple and hard to live out: get clear on true north, then play freely inside the fence line.
Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.

Better Than a Touchdown Pass
Host Justin Forman sits down with Matt Hasselbeck, 18-year NFL quarterback and Pro Athletes Outreach leader. They talk about what an NFL locker room can teach a boardroom about generosity, identity, and depending on God.
Only one NFL team showed up to Matt Hasselbeck's pro day. Andy Reid stood in a Boston College snowstorm just to see if the kid would throw in it. Eighteen years later, Matt says a few moments rank right alongside any playoff touchdown, and none of them happened on a football field.
Matt was drafted 187th overall and spent three years backing up Brett Favre in Green Bay. He then became a starter in Seattle, took the Seahawks to the Super Bowl, earned three Pro Bowl selections, and entered the team's Ring of Honor. He finished his career with the Titans and Colts, mentoring Andrew Luck. Today he helps lead Pro Athletes Outreach, the ministry where his parents surrendered their lives to Jesus in 1981. Filmed at South by Southwest, the episode opens with a short film on the Hasselbeck family and the trip to Malawi that changed how they give.

Key Topics:
- Why generosity got harder, not easier, as the NFL contracts got bigger
- The family vision trip to Malawi Matt kept saying no to, and the school it inspired to fund two water projects
- Identity when the thing you're known for gets taken away
- Why NFL locker rooms pray more often than most faith-driven businesses
- How overanalyzing where to give can become a built-in excuse
- From "the man upstairs" to naming Jesus: what changed in sports culture
- Three timeouts a half: spiritual maturity as knowing God's playbook
For every entrepreneur who plans to get generous "when we scale," Matt's story is a challenge to obey in the middle of the season. You'll leave with a fresh picture of dependence, open-handed stewardship, and bringing your family along for the ride.
Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.

Host Justin Forman sits down with Tom Nelson, senior pastor and founder of Made to Flourish, for a conversation about how pastors and entrepreneurs can rebuild the bridge between Sunday worship and Monday work.
Five years into pastoral ministry, Tom stood before his congregation and confessed what he called pastoral malpractice. He had been more concerned with how he did on Sunday than with how his people did in their Monday world. That confession started a 30-year journey toward becoming a church for Monday.
Tom has pastored for 37 years and leads Christ Community Church. He founded Made to Flourish, a network of roughly 17,000 pastors who equip their congregations to integrate faith, work, and economic wisdom. He is the author of several books on vocation, most recently Why Your Work Matters, and his work has carried him into a national and global conversation on faith and work.
Key Topics:
- Why work existed before the fall, and what the first verb in the Bible reveals about God

- Rabbi Heschel's warning that we "see what we know rather than know what we see"

- Redefining work as contribution before compensation in the age of AI

- The parallels between first-century Roman roads and today's global marketplace

- Workplace visits and This Time Tomorrow, two simple practices transforming churches

- Overcoming the mutual intimidation between pastors and entrepreneurs

- Why faith and work should be woven into everything a church does instead of added as a department

Every entrepreneur who has wondered whether their church sees their Monday will find language and practical next steps here. Tom names a starting point for pastors, and the conversation hands entrepreneurs a simple invitation to extend in return.
Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.

The Shade We Sit Under
Host Justin Forman sits down with Scott Miller, former CEO of Interstate Batteries, for a conversation about building on a founder's foundation, naming the culture you inherited, and hearing God's call to the next seat.
Scott Miller started hauling 60-pound boxes of lead in his family's Dallas warehouse at 14. He spent 25 years inside the business and 10 more leading it. Then he stepped out of the CEO chair on purpose, to help fuel a half-billion-dollar effort to train pastors for 3.7 million churches.
Scott is the son of Norm Miller, who helped build Interstate Batteries into a national brand after John Searcy founded it out of the back of a Studebaker pickup in 1952. Scott worked his way up from the warehouse floor and a small-town Texas sales route before becoming CEO. As CEO, his team codified Interstate's purpose statement, values, vision, and long-term strategy. Today he is helping direct his family company's giving into the Global Pastoral Training Alliance, the single biggest investment the company has ever made.
Key Topics:
- Why following a legendary leader turned out to be easier than expected
- How Interstate codified its purpose and values through thousands of stakeholder interviews
- The consignment model that turned a grudge buy into a national brand
- How a phone call from Coach Joe Gibbs became a 35-year NASCAR partnership
- Knowing when your season as CEO is complete
- Training the trainers: the plan to close a pastoral gap across 3.7 million churches
- Why collaborative giving offers an efficient return on Kingdom investment
For entrepreneurs carrying something someone else started, Scott offers a clear picture of stewardship at every stage. That means honoring the foundation, naming what's true, building on it, and knowing when to hand it off. For builders wondering what their giving could become, his story shows what happens when business excellence and generosity grow together.
Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.

A Dream on a Sheet of Paper
Host Justin Forman sits down with Joe Gibbs, Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and founder of Joe Gibbs Racing, for a conversation about building something bigger than you planned and holding on to God when the plan falls apart.
In 1991, Joe Gibbs walked into Interstate Batteries to pitch a race team. The first question was who his driver was. He didn't have one. He didn't have a car either. All he had was a dream on a sheet of paper, and a CEO willing to say yes.
Joe Gibbs started his coaching career as a volunteer under Don Coryell and John Madden. He went on to win three Super Bowls in Washington with three different quarterbacks. He then founded Joe Gibbs Racing, which grew from a 17-person "hobby" into a nine-car operation racing across three divisions. He leads the ministry Game Plan for Life and wrote Game Plan for Loss after the deaths of his sons, J.D. and Coy.
Key Topics:
- Volunteering under Don Coryell and John Madden, and why Coach Gibbs believes God blesses average people with great experiences
- Pitching Interstate Batteries a race team with no driver, no car, and no track record
- Why sponsors are really partners, and how a race team survives on 60 to 70 percent sponsorship revenue
- Picking people and building culture when you aren't the technical expert in the room
- The time with family that driven leaders lose, and the second chance racing gave him
- Losing both of his sons, wrestling with God for 18 months, and what Romans 8 taught him about suffering and glory
- The Sunday school teacher who showed him what a person actually leaves behind
Every entrepreneur keeps score. Coach Gibbs has more trophies than almost anyone, and he still points to people, not trophies, as the real measure of a life. This conversation gives founders a framework for building with ambition, preparing for loss, and leaving a legacy that outlasts the business.
Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.