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.

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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.

The Dream He Couldn't Shake

Host Justin Forman sits down with Chris Tomlin, worship leader, songwriter, and founder of For Others, for a conversation about what happens when the platform God gives you turns out to be for something bigger than the thing you're famous for.

He was 18, knew three songs, and had never led worship in his life. At the end of a youth camp week in East Texas, the speaker put a hand on his head and prayed that God would make him a psalm writer for his generation. Three decades later, the man whose songs the global church sings on Sunday mornings is in statehouses talking about the 400,000 kids in America's foster care system.

Chris Tomlin helped shape modern worship music from the inside, back when radio stations told him his songs were "Sunday morning music" and nothing more. It took three albums before one got played. That same pioneering instinct — hacking a trail where no template existed — is what he brought to For Others, the organization he founded after a dream he couldn't forget and a question from his pastor he couldn't answer. Today For Others convenes best-in-class child welfare organizations, states, and donors around a single goal: ending the foster care crisis in America.

Key Topics:

• The prayer at 18 that set the trajectory of a 30-year career, spoken over a kid who didn't have any songs yet
• Pioneering a new category: why radio wouldn't play worship music, and what six years of knocking on doors taught him
• Hebrews 13:15-16 and the conviction that worship which doesn't change the world isn't finished yet
• The dream of a filled stadium and an abandoned baby in the street, and the decade it took to understand it
  Good Friday Nashville: why he decided to give away every dollar before he knew there would be any
• 400,000 kids in foster care, 400,000 churches in America, and the math that lit him up
• Building For Others as a neutral convener rather than another agency, and why that became the secret sauce
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Chris's story is the entrepreneur's story in a different key: no template, no permission, no clear next step. Just enough light for the step in front of him. If you've been sitting on a calling you can't fully explain yet, this conversation is a case study in what obedience looks like before the plan exists.