The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of John Crist – Lessons for Leaders
In today’s newsletter:
- The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of John Crist – Lessons for Leaders
- Tech Boom or Tech Buzzword? Market Watch, and The Most Expensive Stock
- Not Sure How to Do Morning Prayer and Meditation? Here are 3 Formulas to Help You
“Have you ever had someone ask you to pray for something so stupid you think, ‘I’m not praying for that’?” asks John Crist, famous clean/Christian comedian. “They pray before NASCAR races. Did you know that? What’s the prayer? ‘Jesus, we have engineered these cars to go 250 miles per hour. We will race them for six hours, three inches from each other. We just pray that you would help us not to die.’ …God’s like, ‘Just don’t race!’”
John has excellent timing, vibrant expression, and subtle changes to his voice that make it all the funnier in person. He’s on top of his game, selling out shows across the country, being featured on large, mainstream platforms such as ESPN, Good Morning America, and more. But it was not always this way – and as business leaders, there are a few lessons we can take from the tumultuous history of John Crist’s career.
In 2019, when Crist had finally established himself as an A-list comedian, with nearly 200,000 tickets sold for his global tour (making Pollstar’s top 100 tours list), a book deal, and comedy specials on the way, an extensive exposé by Charisma News broke that momentum, hard. Crist issued an apology, suspended his tour dates, and disappeared from public view for almost a year. Why? Because of numerous allegations of sexual harassment, manipulation, and the sending of explicit images. Crist responded quickly, saying that while not all of the accusations against him were true, many of them were, and he called his behavior “destructive,” “sinful,” and a violation of his Christian beliefs. He then said that he had been receiving regular professional treatment for his sexual sins and his addictions and that he was committed to getting healthy and free, so he would be stepping away for a while.
And then he did. He was gone from the limelight. Zero posts on social media. No interviews. No op-eds.
Eight months later, he came back from his very public cancellation with an apology video explaining what he had been up to. The short answer is rehab, taking a break, and taking ownership. He reiterated his remorse, blamed no one but himself, and thanked people for their kindness amidst his hypocrisy and sin.
Shortly thereafter, he was making videos on social media again and garnering chuckles, likes, and shares. Pretty soon, he was back to touring and filming, and now, a few years later, John Crist is a hugely popular comedian once again, with his own Netflix special and everything. He no longer seems to perform at churches, but he still publicly identifies as a Christian and incorporates American church culture into his comedic material. He has over 8 million followers across social media channels (more than double the number of followers he had in 2019 before the scandal) and over a billion views across his various comedy videos.
It’s almost difficult to remember that John Crist experienced such a devastating public scandal that sent him to rehab, made him think he was going to quit comedy altogether, and caused him to seriously consider suicide. He joins the ranks of other entertainers who have successfully put their pasts behind them and emerged with their careers stronger than ever – such as Robert Downey Jr., Martha Stewart, Rob Lowe, et al.
On the other side of it all, John says that the worst thing that ever happened to him (his sins against innocent people and his hypocrisy being laid bare before the world) was the best thing that ever happened to him, because it forced him to get serious about finding healing, and it taught him more about the grace and love of God than he had ever understood before.
Some people still doubt that his repentance has been sincere, but for the most part, Crist seems to be back in the good graces of Christian culture. John isn’t a pastor – if he had been, sending him back to his old job would have been a problem – John is a comedian, and he’s sticking to what he does best: Making Christians laugh at themselves.
Business leaders can take a few notes from this whole scenario.
Lessons for Leaders
Lesson #1 – Your sin really will find you out, and the greater your influence, the more hurt and destruction you can cause. Deal with sin in your life ruthlessly because sooner or later, it’s going to make an appearance.
20th century management guru says that personal integrity is a requirement for a successful leader. This means no shortcuts, tax-cheating, white lies to customers, or improper allocation of donations or resources.
Lesson #2 – Apologize when you mess up. Be specific, be sincere, provide restitution where necessary, and then lay low for a while. Let people process as you step to the side.
As Forbes puts it, don’t ‘fake it till you make it’ and don’t believe your own hype. The right move is to deal with a problem when it arises instead of letting it fester and get worse. For best results, tackle your failures head-on, and consider these six tips, again from Forbes, on how to send out proper messaging during a scandal.
John’s public scandal was pretty terrible – for anyone branded as a “Christian” act, it should have been the end of a career. While he does not seem to have done anything illegal, his behavior was morally reprehensible, and it dishonored many young women. When things began to surface, however, John did not justify his behavior. He apologized, fessed up, laid out a specific plan of action to address the problem, and stepped out of the limelight.
In our day and age, we believe that “deny till you die” is the way to go. “Never apologize,” we hear. “The mob is never satisfied!” And so, far too many people refuse to make amends for public missteps. This is a mistake. When we lose trust, it is important that we begin gaining it back by prioritizing the people affected by our mistakes. In our influence-obsessed, attention-obsessed social media world, it is all too easy to just keep talking, keep posting, and never step away.
But a wise man once wrote that there is a season for everything under the sun.
Hopefully, you and those who run your business with you will never make the same mistakes that John made. But you will mess up at some point, in some way or another.
Learn a lesson from the rise, fall, and rebirth of John Crist:
The truth (and a little humility) will set you free.
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Tech Boom or Tech Buzzword? Market Watch, and The Most Expensive Stock
Tech Boom or Tech Buzzword?
No one is seriously disputing that advances in large language models and the AI theory have incredible potential for wealth creation, productivity, and innovation. That said, according to some, the rush to market AI products has engineers appeasing investors rather than users, leading to burnout, bugs, and fraud. For instance, Google has been scrambling to catch up to Open AI ever since Chat GPT was released, and despite the hype, what has resulted has been mired by brazenly faked demos, a strangely woke bias into its operating procedure, and negative reviews that insist the claims of its capability were rather overblown. Or take Amazon, who was also pressured by investors to keep up in the AI arms race, announced that they had successfully incorporated revolutionary AI technology into the grocery store business to save money and raise efficiency. The claim was that AI bots were able to sense all of the products in a customer’s cart as they walked out, then simply charged their debit cards with the right amount. “Just walk out,” they called it. The only problem was that it was basically a lie. A team of low-wage workers in India had to stare at security footage and calculate what items were in each basket by hand before sending a bill, sometimes many hours later. The moral of the story? The old adage, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” still seems to hold up. Whenever there is this much money at stake, grifters are going to come out of the woodwork, so caveat emptor.
Market Watch
Optimism seemed to define premarket action Monday, as Dow Jones and Nasdaq gained nearly half a point, and Warren Buffet says his own stock should outperform the S&P 500. Nevertheless, some are now saying the Fed cannot avoid a hard landing for the economy, as the Fed has been unable to completely rid us of persistent inflation. The Bitcoin halving took place last month, but revenues, at least for now, are up significantly for Bitcoin miners, largely because of the release of the Rune protocol, which allows developers to mint new coins on the BTC chain like Ethereum does. Some experts warn that these revenue gains could be short-lived and that BTC will be down over $5k in the month. The Small Business Optimism Index is down to its lowest level in over a decade. The unemployment rate held basically flat last month, at 3.9%.
The Most Expensive Stock
If you’ve ever wondered what the most expensive stock in the US is, look no further than legendary investor Warren Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway. Their class A stock trades for over $600,000 per share, but believe it or not, this is not a wildly inflated number – the P/E ratio is just 9. Despite Warren Buffet’s love of dividend-paying stocks, Hathaway does not pay a dividend to its investors. Nevertheless, Buffet has consistently grown the company at around 20% year. He does this through conservative financial principles, staying within his realm of expertise, and staying away from short-term gains in favor of long-term, reliable growth. “Extreme fiscal conservatism is a corporate pledge we make,” says the company’s 2023 annual report. Buffet plans to run the company for as long as he can. “I feel fine,” he said at a shareholders’ meeting recently, “but I know a little about actuarial tables.” Buffet will be 94 in August.
Sunday School
Q. Where is the “Hall of Fame of Faith” in the Bible?
A. Hebrews chapter 11, which lists heroes of the Old Testament and the intertestamental period, demonstrating what it looks like to live by faith.
“He’s either extremely devout, or he’s sleeping. It could go either way at this point.”
TIPS & TRICKS
Not Sure How to Do Morning Prayer and Meditation? Here are 3 Formulas to Help You
As businesspeople, most of us have heard about how important mindfulness is and how a high-capacity worker needs to start the day with prayer or meditation. As Christians, we know the importance of these things as well. But as everyday, busy, distracted people… it can be a struggle.
If you aren’t sure how to go about prayer and meditation to start your day, try these three time-tested ideas:
A.C.T.S. Prayer
The A.C.T.S. method is simple, easy to remember, and a great option for someone who is trying to get regular about prayer each day. It is intended as a guide, but you shouldn’t feel restricted by it if you feel the need to go deeper into one area of prayer on any given day, or to pray about something else entirely.
Here’s how it works – each letter stands for a type of prayer, and you just work your way through them, starting with Adoration (in which you praise God), then Confession (where you confess your sins, tell God about your struggles, and repent), Thanksgiving (where you practice gratitude and thank God for specific things, relationships, circumstances, etc.), and finally Supplication (which is just an old way of saying ‘ask for things you want or need’).
This formula works well when you only have a short time to pray, but it can also be used as an agenda when you are praying for longer periods of time. Finish up with a scripture reading if you like, and head into the day. (Pro Tip – A.C.T.S. prayer is also great for the morning commute)
Lectio Divina
This ancient, monastic practice may require a little more time than A.C.T.S., but it can be a deep, rich, healing experience. This meditation is split into four sections – reading, meditation, praying, and contemplation. It works like this:
Choose a passage of scripture that you will focus on for all four parts of Lectio Divina. For part one (reading), you naturally read it, not worrying too much about analyzing. Just take in the information and familiarize yourself with what is being said.
Then, in the meditation, you read the scripture again, and this time you apply your reason. You might ask what some of the deeper meaning is, how this connects to your life, or what the application is.
Then, in the prayer portion, you read the text again, but as a prayer. Pray the passage of scripture, perhaps thanking God when it lists His holy attributes, perhaps asking for help or repenting when it lists commands, etc. Make the passage your prayer to God.
Finally, in the contemplation, read the text once more, specifically with a mind to seeing Christ in the scripture. How does Jesus fulfill, speak to, or answer this passage? Quiet yourself to hear if God’s Spirit wants to lead you into any understanding or knowledge, and rest in the stillness.
Prayer Walk
Some people don’t like formulaic prayer, but they nevertheless struggle to stay focused and awake when there is no structure to their prayer and meditation time, and they get discouraged. It can feel like prayer time is not much different from hitting the snooze button.
If this is you, consider the prayer walk.
When you wake up, put on your running shoes, grab a coat, and head out into the neighborhood for a time of prayer and meditation that will get your body and lips moving.
That’s right – the idea is to pray out loud so that you can stay on topic and remain engaged. Physically walking helps keep you awake and aware, and as an added bonus, you can even get a little bit of exercise out of it.
Try It Out!
If you want to start your workdays centered, focused on what matters most, and in a state of spiritual and emotional well-being, try out one of these three methods – and let us know how it goes! You’ll never know until you try, so perhaps one of these formulas is what you’ve been needing to gain a consistent habit of morning prayer and meditation.
Quick Hits
- Gas prices to rise as stations switch to more expensive “summer blend.”
- Forget rate cuts – the Fed may have to raise interest rates again if persistent inflation keeps up.
- Relevant Magazine suggests that Gen Z might just be like the young people of the Jesus Movement fifty years ago.
- Kendrick Lamar confuses Joel Osteen with Haley Joel Osment in a newly released diss track, and the internet is having a field day.
- Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says what customers have known for a long time: Starbucks needs to refocus on its in-store experience to win customers after recent earnings miss.
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Bringing Kingdom-minded leaders like you fresh perspectives and insights on business, finance, and leadership trends.
