Pastor Turned CEO: How Tim Davenport-Herbst Is Using AI to Transform Project Vida

[0:16]  Welcome back to another episode here on the Heart and Hustle Podcast. This next guided the pull pit for the front lines now leading one of the borders boldest nonprofits. Listen Tim, I ask you the first question. You spent decades in the in the app pit in emergency response. When did you know the call was actually shifting? Do you remember that that time?

[0:36]  Yeah, it was it was a year ago. Thanks for having me, by the way. Um about a year ago I got approached to consider this. It was not even remotely on my radar. I had thought about through the years what would I do if I didn't do the pulpit? I guess maybe a nonprofit, but it got brought to me about a year ago by the founder of the organization. And when he brought it to me, I didn't know much about the organization. And so I spent about a week doing research and I came back and I said, "What the heck makes you think I am remotely qualified to do this?" Uh because it's it's just such an expansive organization. And it was it it was it was a wrestle. It was really a wrestling with God in there too. And my wife was helping me along with this and some friends, but of course it was very close to the vest. Uh talked to several people about it. And it just kept having opportunities coming up and and when I would pray, the sense that I would get from God would be I would say, "What am I supposed to do? Do I stay here at the church that I love? do I look at moving here?

[1:50]  And God would say, "What would you like to do?" And I hate it when God does that.

[1:56]  But but finally, essentially, God gave me a save the date card because I got invited to come out and do something uh church related on the same weekend where it would make sense for me to interview with the organization. So, I said, "Okay, there we go. That's it." And and so I talked to people about it. Um, it it was really kind of funny. I I had my actual interview on Zoom with the whole selection team while I had co and I still became the single finalist and so it was it was wonderful.

[2:35]  It was meant to be.

[2:36]  It was just absolutely meant to be and I have a blast here. Most days I can't believe I get to do this. I mean, you said you you at a year ago this all kind of changed for you. What have you learned in a year about yourself and and being into this space?

[2:53]  I've learned that I love challenges. I love having to get creative. Um, you know, since around late January, February, uh, we get about 55% of our income comes from federal or state grants. And usually the state grants or federal grants sent through the state.

[3:15]  So everything's kind of been up in limbo uh since then.

[3:20]  And someone asked me the question, what is it that gets you up in the morning? And I took the question seriously and really thought about it at that point because you know you usually have some sort of a pad answer. And I thought about it and I thought, "Wow, I am really getting energized by the opportunity to be creative and lead an organization, help lift people's spirits, help us go in the direction so we can keep helping people." And so those challenges really get me going in the morning.

[3:53]  I ask you, Tam, you you walked into a uh a legacy organization like like Project Vita

[3:59]  a year ago. Were you scared to lead something so storied? Like this this has to be at some point just a little nerve-wracking. You know, they they called upon you for a certain reason. You you know why that reason for you have these talents, but even when you know your worth and understand the value you bring, you got to still be scared of a organization like this that has huge legacy. Was there any moment that you thought, why am I here? I can't do this. There are a lot of times where I thought, I can't believe I'm here. This is so amazing. This is this is like a fantasy come true. And they're they're nerve-wracking times to be sure. Um, you know, when you start, not because I'm Tim, but because I'm heading this incredible organization that's been here, I get access and I get invited into a lot of different spaces. And so when you have members of the US House and the Texas House reaching out to you to have meetings, um when when you get invited to sit on panels, um you know, I I was on a Federal Reserve Bank the Fed listens panel last week and it was amazing. I was there alongside folks from Microsoft, the Hispanic Chamber, um, our local major food distribution organization, and sometimes at that point I go, what am I doing here? Um, but it's it's more of like a I can't believe I get to do this many cool things. Um, you know, we're we're getting to go out last week, this week, next week, we get to go out and uh talk about how Microenterprise is going to be doing research alongside the University of Texas at El Paso and other partners including the county and figure out who are the microenterprises in our communities and what do they need? And it's just amazing. You get to go do these press conferences, people show up, and you get to tell them how much their community matters and and I get the fun job of saying thank you over and over and over again.

[6:11]  Yeah. This is 50 years, man. 50 years of impact this organization has. Um, what are some of the things that you guys So people that are are listening can actually understand more of the services. What are some of the services that you guys provide for the community? So, one of the earliest things, so I guess I should go back and say our founders that I took over from got here about 45 years ago. The organization was going in some form or another for 5 to 10 years before that. uh records are a little bit sparse, but they started off in the Chamisel neighborhood in south central El Paso, the poorest zip code in the United States at the time and still second poorest. So they went around, they had community congresses, ask people what they want, and that's always been our driving force. What does the community understand that it needs in order to rise up, succeed, be prosperous, be proud of who they are, and over time our community continues to grow wider and wider and wider. But that's always the way that we do it. So early on it was Abuas and um Tias that were saying, "Our kids are going out in the street. They're getting in trouble and we need activities for them to do. We need people to help us with child care during the day and we need afterchool programs. So those were some of the first things we did. So today we have an early child we have a couple early childhood centers and we have afterchool programs including the best buy team tech center and uh programs at I think we're at about a half dozen different school locations right now. We see about 500 children and youth each week that we look after. So that's education. Um we're helping them and and it's exciting like our Best Buy Teen Tech Center kids are getting to go to Geek Squad Academy. Earlier this year they got to take their robots and they got to go compete in a national robotics competition down in San Antonio. And so it's it's just really cool to see these things come up. We have housing. one of the first things that we did because they said that they needed housing and and it was a number of white people in a heavily Mexican-American Mexican neighborhood. And so it looked like it was white savior complex people coming in just from the outside do some good things make themselves feel better and move on. And so we bought apartment buildings and made them affordable housing very early on. So now we have about 300 housing units, seven different apartment complexes, a lot of scattered site housing and uh and we work in partnership with a lot of different federal and state agencies on that. We have a federally qualified health care center and that sees about 15,000 patients each year. We have five different brickandmortar locations and we have about 30 campusbased locations where we see people for primary care, acute, chronic, and um and especially behavioral. And that goes in uh with another part of our program. We're just finishing up our first year of being the only community-based intentionally bilingual psychiatric residency program in existence. So, this is worldwide as far as we can tell. There are places where they will bring people in and you're going to have to speak the language. You're going to learn it, but we do it intentionally. And this is to create providers who will stay in our community and who want to do community- based health care. So in addition to seeing all the folks with diabetes and we see folks with anxiety, depression, it just runs the absolute gamut of of the things that we cover. And we have this amazing staff that uh do this in in its association of graduate clinical medical education. and that's the uh accrediting body for internship programs. So, they've accredited us. We have a community development financial institution that has done about $1.2 million in loans over the last year. We have helped about 300 micro and small enterprises. We are partnering with chambers, cities, communities. Um, out here bounce houses are called Brinka Brinka. And so we have a number of folks. It's just a local thing. As near as I can tell, it's not even a Spanish word that people in interior Mexico know. It's just a local thing. And and so, you know, one of my favorite stories is a couple that wanted to get a side gig going and they just needed two grand to get a um Brinka Brinka um business up and going so they could take u bounce houses out to different people and and offer that service. And so we were able to approve that and this is their side hustle. You know, everyone needs a side hustle and all of our almost all of our microenterprise technical assistance experts, they are people that have side hustles. They own stores. One of them uh gets trained in Guadalajara uh to do her floral arrangement business in Huades while she lives in El Paso. And and we just have we have a lot of stuff like that.

[12:01]  I love her, man.

[12:02]  Yeah. I I know I'm forgetting other things, but that kind of

[12:07]  Yeah.

[12:08]  And then when you say uh Brinka Brinka is it means jump. So it makes sense why they call it Brinka Brinka. That's what you're doing in the bounce house. You're jumping. No, I love it, man. I I love that you guys are helping at almost all aspects of the community. Um from the bottom tier to, you know, helping people start, you know, start their side businesses, right? that's truly making an impact into communities for those that may just need that little push to kind of keep going over that hill that you guys do that. But even those that are at the bottom of the hill that you you you guys are pushing them to get to the top of the hill, to get over the hill um and and you leave, as we mentioned, the pull pit, right? What do you think that really sets you up for to be here? because I always feel like there's always something to learn from your past experiences or from that past, you know, career path as as we may say, but there has to be something there that you still today just it sits with you and even the work that you're doing out in the community. Is there anything that that comes to mind?

[13:02]  It teaches you to be adaptive and to learn to learn. So, I've worked with a lot of uh boards. I've led the boards. I've been on the boards. So, I already knew a lot of that stuff. I've worked with community organizations, been on those boards, uh helped do direct response, um you know, feeding people, getting them Walmart gas cards when, uh the federal government shut down, but they were required to keep showing up for work. Um it it's a lot of people management. It's a it's a lot of leadership. And and I think about it, uh in the community I came from, St. Angela, there was a surprising number of folks that went from being theater majors to leaders of nonprofits and and it's the same sort of idea because you learn project management. You learn how to get along with people. You learn how to speak in front of people and you learn how to take something from the very beginning to the end. And when you're done with it, you have to let go of it because you tear down the set, right? And that's the way it goes with all these projects. So being a pastor is a lot of that and and it's just it's accompaniment

[14:18]  and accompanying people that's part of what we do. We accompany our community into growing into what it can possibly be.

[14:27]  And when you talk about earlier you you just mentioned um just that technology piece and and right now we're in a space where we have to innovate as a nonprofits. I feel like nonprofits are usually nonprofits and healthcare are usually those last to really integrate to the new technology. Newest one being AI, you know, and a lot of people say AI faith, AI community may not go together. But what is your thoughts, Tim, that AI could actually be a resource to an organization like yours and other organizations, but there's still that fear? How do you guys think about AI? Are you guys dipping your toes in it? Looking around the corner for it? What are your thoughts?

[15:00]  We're dipping our toes into it. We just actually last night we just approved our AI use policy with the project VA health center board. So we we have that in place right now. My communications director and I are the only ones using it. We have to be really careful because of private information. We want to make sure that that doesn't go into someone's data set and get harvested and and have unforeseen consequences, let alone breaching privacy and the trust that people have put in us. But I think that it's really good. You can I've used it to help perfect documents, to help get started. Sometimes it brings out what you need, sometimes it doesn't. And it's never something that you use all by itself. It is it's like Wikipedia, right? Um you use it to get farther than you could all by yourself. And so AI can go in there. We're we're getting ready to also pilot some AI as we use it for our physicians being able to take notes. They've now gotten to the point the the biggest challenge because they've been at the point where they could do speech recognition for a while.

[16:16]  The biggest challenge was having a system that could do Spanish, English, and Spanglish. And so, and so we now believe we have those resources in hand, and we're going to start piloting it with our chief medical officer and probably with our residency director so that we can see how it works, if it's working. Uh 18 months ago, I was at a gathering for community health uh centers, which is what we call the local mental health authorities in the state of Texas, and we heard from people from Penn State there, about how far along everything had gotten, how you could put it into different people's voices, uh not just you could capture the sense of the community and and you could you could capture a um a politician's perspective on something. And so it kind of gives you something to also push back on, right? Because you can say, "Here is here are the six talking points we're going to go talk to our state senator about with the funding bill that relates to teen pregnancy prevention." And here is the person we're going to go talk to based on everything that they've said to this point in their career that you can access. What are most likely going to be their responses to these things? And so you can start seeing where there are likely bridges and then you have to develop that.

[17:47]  It's not it's not something where you can just turn it over to the computer and it's done. None of this works that way. Uh I was talking with my daughter's physics professor a couple um years ago and he was saying that he tells his students go use AI. You will be using it just like math. No one you no one does math without a calculator anymore. It's just not what's expected.

[18:14]  If the Hard and Hustle podcast has ever sparked any idea or made you think differently, do us a favor. Make sure to guys share this. post it on LinkedIn or even text that nonprofit friend that you just have. Whatever works. This is what keeps the conversation going and allows us to just grow this community together. Seriously, we appreciate you.

[18:36]  What Tim, they used to tell us that, hey, you have to learn math a different way because you'll never have a calculator in your pocket, but now that's completely wrong. There's a there's a calculator in your pocket at all times. And uh I really want to tap what you're saying because it's just a a new generation and things are completely different. And I was talking to my neighbor and he was mentioning seeing these kids know before even knowing how to talk or walk that they can maneuver a cell phone, how to unlock a cell phone, how to go to YouTube and all these different things. I said, "You know what? Those are the young leaders that we need when it comes to technology because they understand it way more than what we do, right? I mean, I think about just a couple of years ago, we had an iPod, we had a 2-way, we had all these different things and now who no one carries around an iPod. You just have music on your phone now." like all these things that we had all multiple devices are all in one. So yeah man, technology is moving very very fast and I'm happy to know that you guys are kind of adapting to the AI but also figuring out how do we make it that is safe not just for others but for us as an organization but I think that we're in a space as well Tim and you're probably seeing this with some of your colleagues or even other leaders is that they're truly um living in fear. They're they're they're just in surv survival mode. Um, what are some of the tips and tricks that you could provide others that that want to scale but are kind of still living in this fear bubble?

[19:54]  I would say that, you know, we we've got a lot of fears with economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, funding uncertainty. Uh, the markets going up and down. Uh, right now it's up. Um, that's great. Uh, my retirement fund is happy. Um but we don't know that that's going to stay the case. So we have to um we have to accept that there are risks.

[20:22]  We have done hard things before. We got through co

[20:27]  most organizations made it through co we had to pivot almost immediately figure out how to do what we're doing right now communicating on Zoom. And it created this incredible opportunity. My family's never been closer than after we all got isolated in our homes. We couldn't go travel to each other. So, we set up Sunday afternoon check-ins. And we would get everyone in the family. We had an 80th birthday party for my dad while we were caught up in in this. And we were able to have almost 50 people show up and give testimonials. I was able to record it. Uh we could have it transcribed. It was just amazing. I mean, it's it's this opportunity. So, so it's I mean the the old adage about how crisis means dangerous opportunity in Chinese, right? I have no idea if that's true or not, but I love the story. So, it's it's this dangerous opportunity. We have people that haven't been tapped. We do have a lot of um a lot of uh concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, but we also have a lot of folks that are seeing the need to get involved. We're talking in our organization about how do we create a civil society that's fully engaged again. People just don't engage in the same way they once upon like bowling leagues. People don't do bowling leagues the way they used to. That was a way that you could meet people. Church doesn't have as many people going to it. That was a place where you could meet people across socioeconomic lines, if not racial lines. You you went to these places and you mixed with other people. So, this is an opportunity for us to figure out how do we create community? How do we stay connected? How do we collaborate? I'm seeing more and more collaboration with people on Signal. uh they value those relationships. Uh everything I hear people say stay connected. And so these things allow us to stay more connected than we ever have. I I had no idea that the people I went to high school with were so cool. And now I look forward to seeing the stuff that they have and and we can share as we watch the Tigers uh do really well in baseball this year and we can share as we work on pure recovery from substance abuse. That is so good, man. You are right too. Like if utilized right, all the resources that we have at our fingertips, if utilized right, could really benefit us. Um, and it's how do we continue to find that for our organization? I'm I lead an organization now and it it is that is how do we continue to maintain that community long term because it's out of sight, out of mind. So, how do we continue to engage in that way? And I'm finding as I'm taking, you know, care of this board now after a year, it's like it was just nothing built for that. Like there was no database. We weren't collecting emails. We weren't just sending message thank you something as thank you, a thank you message for people to just appreciated in the sense, right? um inviting them to certain events and how do we continue to communicate to even build I was talking to another leader the other day and I said this later earlier and I see her writing it down is in order for us to build longterm lasting relationships we have to be at these chamber comments like why are we not meeting with local people in our communities business partners these are literally business partners once you tell your story once you build a relationship those are the same people that would invest thousands of dollars to the mission not just because of the mission but who you are as an individual what you stand for what the organization stands for. So I think there's a lot of different things that people lowhanging fruit that people can actually tap into. So thinking about lowhanging fruit, Tim, if you can give somebody that one, two things that they can do today that could just maybe get eyes on the organization or just maybe donors. What does that look like?

[24:27]  Make friends. Make friends and tell your story. Uh go out uh go to the chamber events like you're talking about. Uh, go meet people at a bookstore. Uh, plug yourself in to the local things that are going on. I was just talking with one of my employees about how she was going to get me an invite next time her Hindu temple had something going on because I've never been to a Hindu temple and I would love to and and we have a mosque here, too. I need to get in and and meet that community. I've patched in a little bit into the Jewish community. I've been preaching at Presbyterian churches, but it needs to go out farther and farther. And people just love when you reach out because we're all lonely and we're hungry for connection and relationship.

[25:15]  And if you can do it over something meaningful, that's even better.

[25:20]  Yep. Yep. And that's why I I think I may have mentioned this a little earlier, but when I had a neighbor yesterday tell me like, "Man, am I going to be electrician forever?" And um I don't know. I said, "Hey, you don't know until you try something different." But because I speak to nonprofit leaders and I see all these transitions from a judge, you know, that was in a courtroom to go to a nonprofit and and love it and say, "Hey, it wasn't about the money, it's about the purpose that you know, chasing that." Um, so I I tell this man, I said, um, what do you love? If it's being electrician, I'm pretty sure nonprofits could utilize your services and and get, you know, 5 10 hours a week goes a long way, but not only for the organization, but how you will feel. But even in that sense, the relationships that are being built now someone that's seeing this electrician on property. Oh, I need electrician at my home. Like in reality is how do we continue to sell the story and realize that we're all in partnerships. When someone walks into one of our establishments that is a community member, how do we not only help them, but how do they help us in a sense, right? Um when you're getting a board together, getting board members that actually make sense for your organization, not just someone that's taking up a seat, but someone that adds value. I I think there's just so many different things that when I look at organizations from just the outside perspective, I see they could do be, you know, do better. And Tim, everything you just mentioned is completely on par. Like find different communities to be a part of because it's not just about the community you live in. It's even further than that, right? The whole world is is kind of in a situation of fear. So today we're just talking to every single person. But if I if you're actually talking to your your community, what what information do you give them when they're kind of still walking on eggshells? Can I can imagine that people don't want to walk out their house? People don't want to go to uh their checkups anymore. There's so many different things that happening. What is the message you provide to to to your community? Now, in our community, um we saw a small dip in people showing up for their primary care appointments. That came back within about a week or two. Uh surprisingly, um our community as a border community has always been used to having uh people go back and forth and it's just part of the ordinary. What we're seeing is um I was just talking with my property supervisor and we're getting more vacancies because breadwinners are being uh deported and so you have families that are left behind.

[27:43]  Wow. and they have to they they can't make it because you know husband was doing the hustle and he was the one that was bringing in the funds and now he's gone back to Mexico or somewhere else and and the family is looking at having to move back to Huades. So I I think that we have to acknowledge that these are real fears. There there is a real fear and a real crisis that's going on out there. We see the headlines in the newspaper. Um but the fear is out there. The the and the fear will and the anxiety will get in. You know there are there people have less babies for example during wars. uh they just have fewer. And so part of that is that anxiety and that fear. And so people are more scared and they're less trusting in the future, which means that they're not thinking longterm about their investments, which means our politicians are not thinking longterm. And and when we're when we're so caught up in fear, we have to be able to take a step back. And that's where I keep coming back to my folks and say, "We know how to do hard things. We have done hard things and we will get through this. It's not that this is an easy thing. It's not. But we know how to do this." And we get the opportunity to serve our people with creativity.

[29:19]  Yeah. And I think it's easier said than done when we say this, but instead of leaving in fear, leaving in faith, but what does living in faith look like at this time, Tim? someone that's kind of been on the other side of of the community that you know as we mentioned was a pastor.

[29:33]  So my my vision comes from Revelation 21 and 22 and Isaiah 65 which talks about this peaceable kingdom this place in which people will live out their whole lives. They can uh as the Bible says plant vineyards and enjoy the fruits from them. They will um be able to have children not dying in infancy, old people living out their lives with dignity. And and this is in my faith the future that will surely be. This is what's coming. And we can fight it. We can join in with it. But it's going to happen. And I don't know exactly how that's going to happen, but we get to be a part of making it happen. And so I've been given this one little piece to do. And my little piece is to make sure people are treated with dignity, that they have opportunities, that they have access to health care, to food, to lodging, and and to education to further themselves. Uh these are things that I can do. I can't do a lot of the other things. I can write to my Congress folk, but I can't make them pass certain laws. What I can do is what I can do right in front of me.

[30:55]  So, the Bible tells us to love our neighbor. And our neighbors are everywhere around the world, but they're also right in front of us. And that is in some ways harder to deal with. the people that dump their trash even accidentally on your lawn. The people that took down the the branches, the people that have the parties late at night, loving them and connecting with them. I think that's what we can do. See what's right in front of us and go do it.

[31:26]  Tim, that you said that. I'm going to open up a door right here. So, I told my wife about exactly that. If our neighbors, like I'm the type of person, I talk to all my neighbors for the most part, right? I and my wife is like, "Oh my god, how do you know all the neighbors?" But I am I do believe that sometimes the change that you need in your life is right across the street. It is to the left. It's to the right. But we don't talk to those people that lived right next to us for all these years where we can make an impact in their lives or they can make an impact in our lives. But we'll go to work for 8 10 hours a day and have these conversations, fake conversations with these people cuz we're just having work conversations. but not to the people that we speak to next door or when we go home. Like to me, it's just kind of mind-blowing. But I do feel what happens when communities really come together if they can just take all their talents or when we have kids that need to be, you know, raised in our neighborhoods and and it is a very trusting like for me I've experienced sexual abuse in my life. So my wife was like never no one's taking care of the kids, right? Other than us and and grandma. But I I do hear what you're saying, man. I don't think that that's something that we've I've ever grown up thinking. you know that we just speak to our neighbors. We just go home and that's it. We may wave a little bit, but I love that you said that that where we start is just love your neighbors for who they are and where they are, you know, because those could be the difference of um even thinking about I have a neighbor now and when he leaves he he's always so appreciative because I take care of his dogs. He has two German shepherds and he just got this new job and this job required him to travel two three days and he's like, "Hey man, can you take care of my dogs?" I have dogs. I go work out of his house. So it's like nothing cool. I go over there and he's appreciative. But just imagine if we had more of that how comfortable people actually feel and maybe even more safer in communities. Anyway, that's just when you said that I just I had to drop that, Tim, because you're right dead on when when you just have to love your neighbor um or whatnot. So good good stuff, man. Good stuff. Where can people find more of you, Tim, the work that you do, but also um what's the website for the organization? Are you guys on social media, Instagram, Facebook? Talk to us.

[33:31]  We are. We have a website and we're about to completely redo it. Should have something new up by the end of the month or first of next month. It's P Vita Va.net. And so that's where we're at. And then we are also Project Vita El Paso on Instagram. Um I'm an old Gen X person and my um Gen Z millennial communications chief. I have to keep going. Post stuff on Facebook. Post stuff on Facebook because it's just not on his radar, right?

[34:07]  Yeah.

[34:08]  Um but but we're we're out there. We're on LinkedIn. Um we're trying to get more of a presence out there. We've been doing some great videos telling stories. Most of it's recently been microenterprise, but we also have a lot of uh we we have a lot of uh employee spotlights and some of those are done by teenagers uh at the Best Buy Teen Tech Center. We let them loose. They come and ask whatever questions they want to and it's kind of fun watching my team because they'll come in, they'll get interviewed and they'll be like wondering what they're going to get asked and I love that because it keeps us all on our toes.

[34:50]  Yeah. No, that's cool. And just to get engaged with that youth, man, there's something there when you get to just engage with the next generation um and and realizing that we as much as we're planting seeds whether we know it or not, right? it could be a good seed or a bad seed and and we've seen that happen for us in our lives. So that is so cool that you guys kind of intertwine the both of them to continue the legacy alive per se in what Vita is doing. So shout out to what you guys are doing man. But are you are you ready for the blind question?

[35:17]  Oh go for it.

[35:19]  All right. All right man. Hot seat time. So what leadership or life belief has truly stayed rock solid for you even when everything has changed? the importance of community and service to the community. It's um our family I don't know how many generations we go back on this but we always find places to serve. Now, we have a whole family story about my grandfather being president of the school board, but everything got consolidated in rural districts. And that was a very unpleasant experience for him and his family because no one wants their school in their neighborhood that they went to when they were little consolidated in. But, you know, I watched my dad uh as a small business owner be involved, support activities in the community, um help pay for things that needed to get paid for, uh give opportunities to um immigrants who were just starting their businesses. And um and I didn't even know about most of this. It was just part of the background. I just knew that this was going on behind here. I didn't realize how big a deal all of this was that I was being exposed to this. You know, it's um being around all sorts of other people. I grew up in a really liy white community and um my parents had folks that were born slaves at their wedding and and and it's just it's always been there. uh needing to go out and meet other people, you know, put in travel with some of that. Um but you need if you are given a life, you are obligated and I mean this in the best possible way because I'm a Presbyterian and obligations are a joyful obligation for us.

[37:16]  Um you are obligated to go and give back what you've got. So I I'm Reverend Dr. White Male. When I go into school districts with families or with my own kids and I had special needs kids, I get what I want. So it it happens for me. And uh I've been in meetings where single Hispanic moms with kids with special needs, they were blown off by Hispanic moms who were administrators. There's this whole racism that's just in there that people internalize even against their own community.

[37:58]  Yeah.

[37:58]  And but I walk into the room and I have a presence that I'd never earn. I never earned that. Right. And it's my obligation to use that on behalf of people that are marginalized and to show up because my voice gets heard unfairly more than other people's do. And so I need to speak on behalf of those that can't and more importantly make the table make space for another chair so people can be sitting there and be seen as full members and participants. you don't have the you don't have the right to just sit self-contained.

[38:41]  I love that. I love that answer. Um you hit on hit on so many different things that that people don't talk about and that's why I love that you were just so honest and and just yourself today. But I ask you, what is your blind question when it talks to the next leader? If you can ask the next qu, you know, leader here a blind question, what does that look like? sound like

[38:59]  I would say what is the one thing in yourself that keeps you from being the leader you want to be?

[39:10]  Oh, you getting deep now. You getting deep, Tim.

[39:12]  Pastor,

[39:15]  pastor coming out. No, I truly appreciate it. Guys, if you guys have not already shared, subscribed, liked, or comment, make sure you guys do so. These are the great conversations we have here on the Heart and Hustle podcast. great leaders like Tim Davenport that just show up and always just want to make a difference. No matter what life looks like for us, we still show up. Um, and I think that's what's so great. God has really chose the strong ones to lead and and we do that even through difficult times. We still find the joy in in just um of life, you know, what life looks like for us. You know, even as you mentioned, even if we didn't earn it, we still always appreciative of those moments. We're grateful to be here and be able to do the things that we do. So Tim, we thank you for the conversation guys. This only continues to be beneficial and impactful if you share. So make sure you guys go ahead and tag your favorite leader down below. My name is Ephrain. This is Tim. We'll catch you guys on the next episode. Lers. Thank you.