In this episode Gina has a conversation with Van and Laurie Miller. Van and Laurie share the crazy journey of being entrepreneurs during the pandemic and the beauty and impact they experience when partnering with God in life and business. They talk about parenting and leading others in their natural giftings, and how to awaken a movement of kingdom builders outside the four walls of the church.
Check out Laurie’s luxury botanical skin care business Nani Pua.
DONATE to support the production of this podcast and other projects by Stockton Ministries
Entrepreneurs with Jesus
Gina:
So both of you are incredibly successful. Van, you are an entrepreneur, business man. And you can go into a little bit of what you do? Lori, you’re entrepreneurial as well. One of the things Lori, I’ve so admired about you over the years, is you are very intentional. The two of you are some of the most intentional and patient people I know. So you have Nani Pua which is like an organic high end skincare line, non-GMO, all the good high end hippie stuff.
Three years you researched and formulated it. It was a very calculated thing. Then the year you’re supposed to launch, Covid hits and everything shuts down. I would love for you to share about that. You are generous people, you’re ministry people, but you’re also entrepreneurs, which is not separate. I think God’s calling us to integrate all of ourselves. What is that in you? How you steward things, whether it’s spiritually or practically, or whether it’s a business idea.
Van:
It’s been such a joy for me to watch her journey with this because she’s come into this phase in our life, this comfortable maturity in her gifts and the ability to weld those gifts. So I think that if you look at the product that she has, and like you had said, it’s botanical, it’s non-GMO, it’s organic, and it’s working backwards to all of what goes into that. It aligns with her gifts so much. She is just uncompromising, if this is from God, it’s got to be the best.
It’s not just the end result. It’s got to be the best with my legal counsel and going through the integrity of it. Doing everything right and making sure that my taxes are appropriately being paid and not taking these shortcuts. It’s fun for me to watch because I see her be right in the sweet spot for her gifts. And it’s just, you can’t help but be super proud with that. But it’s also fun to pray with her for doors to be open. I’m super happy and proud of my mate.
Laurie:
Nani Pua is my passion and my true love. It’s my passion to be in the garden, and we’re out here on 157 acres. We’ve done a lot of conservation work out here in native plant research and that’s who God created me to be. Whereas Van loves the ocean, that’s his spot. I love nature. I need to be outside. I’ve always felt this sense that God has given us this land, not just our land, but land in general, the earth. It is our responsibility to take care of it.
It’s who He’s created me to be. I think that you dabble in these things of all these gifts that God has given you through your life and you have kids, and your real focuses on kids and you know, we’ve bought and sold them million houses, and I’ve been able to be really creative and remodel these homes and make them beautiful.
This is who I really am. I’m at this place in my life where I not only have given myself permission, but God has given me permission to be able to do this and to create this product. I feel like it’s such a beautiful time of my life that I can do this, you know? I’ve raised my children and we’ve made it financially and now I’m like, “Okay, I can use this other gift that has been on the back burner and what is God going to do?”
Three years of research to create, and 11 products were formulated. We were going to launch in June, 2020, and then in February 2020. Van does events for a living, and basically the same day he gets a call saying every event in the world is gonna shut down.
I get emails from all my distributors. The botanicals can’t get through customs. The pumps can’t come in from Italy. The bottles aren’t going to come in from Germany. We just sat there at our table and said, “Okay, there is no money coming in whatsoever, and we can’t launch this line.” All of our income stopped. So, being us, we were just like, “What are we gonna do?”
You know, again, we did the 24 hour prayer thing, and I think we woke up in the middle of the night on the first night, probably the first night that we went to bed. We woke up in the middle of the night and said, “Okay, well we’re in labs. We’re already in two labs, why don’t we manufacture hand sanitizer?” Because there was such a shortage of it.
So probably within a week we were manufacturing, I don’t know how many bottles we manufactured. I think the first one was 16,000 gallons. So we had made a commitment that for every bottle that we sell, that we would donate a bottle to charities throughout San Diego. We donated about 130,000 that first year. It was the biggest learning curve, but we did it together.
Once again, we were in this, “Okay, this is what we need to do.” And then financially, we still didn’t know what was going to happen the following year. I still couldn’t get botanicals into the country at that point. So the house that we were living in, we sold because the market had gone up a ton. So we understood the situation that we’re in and we came up with a solution of how to pivot.
Building with Open Hands
Gina:
I think it’s so important because I think we can get so caught up in what we think the dream exactly is supposed to look like. Then when it doesn’t happen that way or the rug seems to drift out, then I think a lot of people just get paralyzed or give up, but you guys don’t do that. “Pivot” is a great word. You just kind of go, “Okay, we’re shifting direction”, and you go to the Lord and you go to each other and go, “Okay, now what?” Rather than either go into a victim mindset or go into paralyzation or just giving up, you go to Jesus and go, “Okay, now what God? because clearly you weren’t surprised.”
There was something you said earlier, I’d love to go back to. You were saying, you raised your kids, you did these things, you bought the property, you’ve bought and sold so many homes and did VRBOS and AirBNBs for so long, and now it feels like it was time you could give yourself permission, and it was time and God gave you permission. Do you feel like you are ready in a way now to step into this that you wouldn’t have been maybe 10 years ago or 20 years ago? Like, is there something that you feel prepared for now as you step into Nani Pua?
Laurie:
I feel like God gives you this basket of gifts, and you use them throughout your life. You know, you should hopefully use these throughout your life. I think just the maturity of experience that you have, and making the mistakes that we do… financial mistakes and all that. I think for me now, I’ve owned a store before. I understand running a business. I think right now I don’t have that anxious spirit, and I have had that with this company before.
It’s like, “I’ve gotta be on Facebook every day. I’ve gotta be on Instagram every day. I’ve gotta make sure that this happens.” A bombardment of multitasking all these different things. I feel now if I create the most excellent product and stay in this place of integrity and pray for doors to open organically instead of chasing these things, they do. And we need to rest within that.
We put numbers on ourself. We need to hit this mark, or we need to get into Neiman Marcus. Everybody has these things that they’re told. And God says, “I have created a path for you to walk down, and I’m waiting for you to take the steps down that road.” And that road is so much easier than chasing the world.
Van:
She leaves chasing the world to me.
Laurie:
I just really believe that at this stage of our life, having more time in peace with God and with peace with each other brings us to that path that we should be on.
Leading Generations
Gina:
What were the things that you learned and the Lord showed you? And what is He doing in you guys now?
Van:
With the donation part of that, one great relationship that we didn’t really expect, we found a coastal roots farm, which is built on a Jewish tradition. It started one day we were driving around and Laurie was like, “I want a farm stand.” We were in Encinitas, so we just looked up on our phone and said, “Oh, there’s one right here.”
So we went to it and they have a farm stand, their vision is pretty amazing. They serve a lot of homebound seniors and bring them fresh vegetables. I didn’t know this, in San Diego there’s a very small group of Holocaust survivors that they bring food to. They come way out to Indian reservations, service of seniors. They have a lot of educational stuff, and they bring kids through and teaching them about agriculture.
It was a great way to have a relationship, and we would’ve never known. I feel that our relationship is something that is going to continue to build. And they’re like, “Okay, we’re good on sanitizer… we don’t need anymore.” It was really fantastic getting to know them. So I think the thing that Lori and I do with a lot of our giving and mentoring, is we do it at a real grand level.
The straight up giving, we try and be pretty quiet about that. The mentoring is stuff that it’s one at a time. You alluded to it briefly, I don’t know why it’s kids, but we end up being family for life. It’s fun because we need them as much as they need us. We have a kid that we got when he had just turned 18, and now he’s mid forties, and he’s doing amazing.
When you think amazing, think about three more levels above that. It’s just been so enjoyable watching his journey. He’s got kids and he’s married and super successful. I think what we get out of that is, he is extremely entrepreneurial and now he’s pushing us. It’s so funny. We probably talk four or five times a month.
Gina:
I think the temptation for someone in your kind of level and stage of life is that there’s no one younger that could teach you anything. So to position yourself in a place where you can receive from someone that would be, quote – unquote a kid to you, you can receive from someone younger, and that keeps you in that place of humility, but also keeps you in that place of growth.
Especially in church, and church leadership too, I see so often just hyper control and micromanagement, or fear and insecurity causing people to not receive the younger generation. It’s like, “No, you’re not mature enough.” “You can’t say that.” or “No, no, no. This is how we do things.” You know what I mean? That kind of thing.
And we’re just missing out on the beauty of the diversity of perspective and voices and experience and all the things. It’s beautiful that you can be in that place and go, “Oh my gosh, I’m getting encouraged by this kid that I pour into, and I’m learning.”
Van:
We have another friend of ours that we’ve been with ever since he was a mere lad. Now he’s in Tennessee in full time ministry. It’s really inspiring and makes you like, “Okay, we need to step up our game a little bit.” It’s interesting how they want your input about how they’re at a crossroads or what do we do about this?
And so that’s really rewarding and a lot of these kids that we’ve pulled a lot, have worked with us in different capacities. So I think it’s important. We were very, very fortunate that our kids got to work with us. They see you in situations that are difficult, and how you respond to those things.
You’re upset and mad and how do you deal with that? How do you work? How do you process that? I was very fortunate in that both Ken and Jake got to work with me for many years. Jake says it occasionally like, “Oh yeah, you taught us to work hard, and to be grateful for what God’s done in your life.”
Gina:
I so appreciate you guys, your friendship means a lot. You are family. You’re also board members for Stockton Ministries. The impact you’ve had on our lives has been significant, but it’s also been so fun to watch how God is moving in and through you guys and how he’s using you, and to be able to have a front row seat and also glean from it has been awesome.
Van:
Likewise. It’s fun to watch your and Norm’s journey in your family. It’s rewarding to see these pieces come together, like you said, right when we were starting, This is your fifth season. There’s a lot of people who don’t get five Seasons. So it’s pretty awesome.
Laurie:
One of the things that we love about you and Norm is your level of excellence. We talk about that with Nani Pua and that journey, but you and Norm also do it the same way. You were talking about Norm earlier. He wants everything so excellent. He gets stuck in excellence, but there’s not a lot of that right now.
It’s refreshing when we see kids like you, because you really are kids to us. You’ve been so passionate about ministry. You are walking that hard road of ministry and finally getting to this place that you’re at now, where your true gift is starting to shine and it’s easy to see somebody else’s gift.
That it’s really hard to be that person to get to that point where you really have received your gift and you’re actually moving forward on it. I’ve said this to you so many times, is that your gift is that you are really good at being able to hear somebody, listen to their story, process that story, take it somewhere back to God spiritually, and having a word that you can give back to that person so that they can actually hear it.
So many times in the church, people speak such Christianese. A regular person can’t hear it, a broken person can’t hear it. That gift is a view of being able to listen and then process that through God, and then be able to speak those words to somebody that really resonates within their heart and changes them is a gift. You are at this place in your life where you’re actually using that and it’s beautiful.
Gina:
Thanks Laurie. Thanks for being our friends. Thanks for being on and for taking the time.
Van:
We were looking forward to having you out here. It’s great to see you, but it’s always fun when somebody comes out and this was enjoyable.
Gina:
I love you guys.
Laurie:
We love you too.
Check out the beginning of this conversation:
Humble Beginnings
Check out the Dwell Meditations
Thx