Jacob Barr (00:02)
Yeah, so like some groups, you there's like the softball versus the hardball. So this one is just about encouraging the audience. It's not about, you know, trying to have any kind of gotcha question. It's more about just like, how can we serve the audience best? And so it's a very different style.

Delaney (00:08)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ yeah, I've

heard very good things about being a guest on your podcast. So I wasn't worried in that regard. was like, it's easy to talk to Jacob. We're going to have a good conversation.

Jacob Barr (00:20)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, so, ⁓ I'll go ahead and get us started here and yeah, we'll see where it goes. ⁓ so welcome to the pro life team podcast. I'm Jacob and I'm here with Delaney and today we're going to get to hear Delaney's story. So Delaney, would you give us some background on, on, on yourself and how you got brought into this pro life movement?

Delaney (00:48)
Sure. Happy to be here. Thank you for having me on the show today, Jacob. So I honestly, I didn't see myself going into the pro-life work. I didn't have it on a list. Honestly, I don't really have those five, 10, 15 year lists that people talk about. I should because I love strategic planning so much for organizations, but for myself, I didn't necessarily have that. I've always had these ideas where I'm like, man, it'd be cool to take the journalism class. It'd be cool to be a journalist one day and then I...

I'm a journalist and then I'm like, it'd be great to work at a nonprofit one day. And then I'm working at a nonprofit and really, I feel like that over and over again has just showed me. I know one of your questions mentioned this, like God's fingerprints in my life. So I can go back a little bit more and actually tell you how I got there.

Jacob Barr (01:38)
Yeah, that'd

be great. Yeah. us where, tell us some of the stories where God led you into this direction or how did that play out?

Delaney (01:45)
Sure.

Well, I grew up in Army brat. My dad was a chaplain in the Army for 34 years. I got the opportunity to move every one to three years, lived in quite a few states, was overseas a bit as well. And it gave me an appreciation for stories, hearing where people came from, what they've been doing and everything, and ⁓ kind of...

exploring different strengths I have based on where I was at at that time, like what school, the friends I was surrounded with. And so I think just that also shaped me in a huge way. And it was in my third high school that I found myself looking at a journalism class and I was just like, oh man, it'd be so cool to be a journalist one day. I didn't have anything really to base on other than I liked stories, I enjoyed writing, and there was just something there, which was probably Holy Spirit.

And then when I was in school, I found out I could graduate early with my psychology degree, but I quite feel like that was it. So I was looking at my options and I saw communications with an emphasis in journalism and I was like, well, let me add, add that one. Did that. and it's funny because that was like my second major, just kind of to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. I wasn't sure if I immediately wanted to go into work that would involve the psych degree. And when I got out of.

college, my first job ended up being at a small town newspaper as their general newsbeat reporter. And it was during that time that I got to work with a bunch of the organizations in town as the nonprofit reporter. I met ⁓ Tracy Shellhouse, who's the executive director of a new Hope Pregnancy Care Center at that time. And so our story started there and I should probably take a breath at this point.

Jacob Barr (03:33)
No, that's good. Yeah, I've got some

good follow up questions. So fast forward to today, what role do you currently serve or fill at Extend?

Delaney (03:41)
Yeah.

I am the manager of Extend. So Extend Web Services is a solution of Heartbeat International. So I get the honor, the privilege of leading a fantastic group of people who are really excited about reaching and rescuing lives.

Jacob Barr (03:49)
Okay.

Awesome. And then how does your passion for telling stories like that journalistic passion, ⁓ how does that help when it comes to this kind of, have you seen that play into this marketing space? And then the same question for psychology, how's your psychology background helped when it comes to like word choice or figuring out how to communicate a message?

Delaney (04:25)
Sure. The funny thing about the passion for journalism is I don't know if you've worked at a small town newspaper before, especially a daily one, and that just really means you write a lot of articles. And so it was like during the two and a half years, I think I wrote anywhere from 1,100 to 1,200 articles, which is a lot. I was a creative writer. And so that was more of just like the, some of the more creative. ⁓

Jacob Barr (04:46)
Yeah.

Delaney (04:53)
but a lot of them were just reporting on what happened. And by the end of it, I was like, dear God, get me out of this. I'm so tired. And at that point I was wanting to really pour into something where like every day I could be a part of a mission larger than myself. ⁓ And so what I took from it at that point, like I had a little bit of burnout when it came to writing. I still could still write, but I had burnout there, but it gave me this.

idea that I could just ask whatever question I because I've been doing it for two and a half years and I did it before. don't know if it's a middle child trait or what, but it just kind of fine honed. Okay. If you're wanting to find that specific things you have, you need to be strategic about what questions you're asking. And so more than just that, ⁓ passion for writing, I stepped away with just this assurance that I could ask a question and find a really good story from that.

Jacob Barr (05:47)
Interesting. So, oh yeah, no, yeah, keep going.

Delaney (05:48)
And you asked a second, sorry.

No, Jacob, I was going to say you asked a second question and I know I've lost it in giving you that first answer.

Jacob Barr (05:56)
was just,

So psychology and journalism, it both seems like they can play into marketing work. Like the journalism can help someone when it comes to, you well, maybe asking these questions of privacy clinic directors and helping them build out stories or the psychology side might be coming up with the right word choice in order to have someone hear what you're trying, you know, trying to drive someone to the right direction based on questions.

Delaney (06:02)
Mm.

Mm.

Sure.

I have wondered about my psychology degree. I just remember when I was in high school, I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. And I kind of woke up and was like, yeah, I want to study psychology. And I genuinely, Jacob, to this point, to this day, don't know if the psych degree was just getting me on the right course, going to Lee University, getting me plugged in so that I could have the setup for the communications degree and stuff. I don't know if it was a matter of just

⁓ having a broader empathy for people, learning more about, you know, psychology and how people's brains work and why they do the things they do. I probably could have taken the material that they gave me during that time and used it the way you're describing. I think it would be a brilliant use of it. I don't think it has, ⁓ I don't know if I've necessarily looked at it through the lens that you gave so much as it kind of broadened my perspective on how humans work.

why they do the things they do, ⁓ which I guess maybe points back more to that, question part or the curiosity part of my brain.

Jacob Barr (07:33)
And there was, I used to go to this conference with a sister, Paula van de Geer, and she passed away a few years ago, but for a long time she had this annual conference called an advanced training Institute. And one of her repeat speakers was Dr. Gregory Lester. And he was like a, a psychologist who would understand, essentially he would give these talks about how people, ⁓ how you can essentially work through personality disorders through.

Delaney (07:44)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (08:01)
And sort of like he would help

Delaney (08:02)
Great.

Jacob Barr (08:03)
us navigate questions that would cover a wide swath of these personality disorders ⁓ in order to get the desired outcome when it comes to having a Prancing Clinic client that had personality disorders. And I felt like what he was explaining would work even outside of the personality disorders space in terms of having like two positives and a negative. ⁓

Delaney (08:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Jacob Barr (08:28)
in order for someone to better be prepared to accept a negative comment. And so if you give someone, and he wouldn't just say two positives, he would say, you know, a positive when it comes to like this one style, a different positive style, and then you bring the hard truth. And then now they're more likely to accept it if you do it in that fashion, more so than just starting with just the hard truth. Because they're more likely to reject it.

Delaney (08:31)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (08:56)
And so

it was just sort of interesting how psychology would help someone communicate messaging, which is really what marketing is all about, is helping someone get a higher degree of, you know, accepting the message that we're trying to deliver.

Delaney (09:04)
Yeah.

yeah,

especially now with so many different ways that people can communicate and how just everybody, as long as they have a phone, some kind of platform, they're empowered to put their voice out there. And so you're cutting through a lot of noise these days. So marketing's gotta be more strategic than ever.

Jacob Barr (09:28)
Yeah, and there's a lot of tools, a lot of competition. And sometimes it gets a little bit overwhelming or just exhausting. Like what you experience is the reporter doing 1100 articles or more than that. ⁓ Sometimes, you know, doing the same kind of analysis can be very, you know, well, tiring. Even though it's helpful, like it's really good. It's a good work, but it's hard work. it doesn't have the... Yeah, so let me go to a new question. So

Delaney (09:33)
Yeah.

It really can.

Sure.

Jacob Barr (09:58)
When you're starting to feel burnout, where do you find your green pastures or your still waters? Like where do you find, know, how did, like in Psalm 23, it talks about the green pastures and still waters and how they restore, you know, how the good shepherd is restoring our soul through making us lie down in green pastures, bringing us to still waters. So where do you find restoration, which is a wet, you know, ultimately it's, you know, not even have burnout. Like where do you find green pastures in your life?

or still water.

Delaney (10:28)
Yeah,

I think I'm still trying to figure out what does it look like to live without experiencing that burnout. I have found at least to myself, and I don't think this is uncommon, that the more I keep on my shoulders and the more I try to do out of my own strength, I'm going to hit that burnout faster. Or I'm using the word burnout and I know that there's like legit burnout where you just can't do anything else. You've hit decision fatigue. You've lost the joy for the mission and you don't really want to talk to anybody. You just kind of want to eat, you know.

cheese balls and stare at the TV. ⁓ But there's also just the burnout of like you are feeling that kind of like that burning around the edges. You are still doing the good work. You still know why you're doing it, but you are tired and you're not getting the, you're not doing what you need to do to make sure that you're, you're, you know, firing on all pistons. So that different levels, I don't know if you have different.

Jacob Barr (11:00)
You

Delaney (11:26)
words for that because I'm just going to continue calling all of it burnout Jacob unless you stop me now.

Jacob Barr (11:30)
Yeah, would call it, ⁓ I

mean, burnout is probably a result, but I think it's anxiety or stress. I think those were probably the, and there's probably different levels of those.

Delaney (11:34)
Yeah, sure.

So the

definitely pre-burnout, I guess is what I'd be talking about. Where you're experiencing that stress and anxiety. And that's really, if I am keeping my eyes on the Lord, I wish I had something like really great to say, but when I was working at New Hope Pregnancy Care Center as their director of advancement, it was the first time in my life that I'd been placed in a position where the goals that we had felt so much larger than the mission that we had felt.

larger than what I felt like I could accomplish. And honestly, I came to New Hope without the skills that you would necessarily need for a position like that. most, I think a lot of, ⁓ pregnancy help organization, team members and volunteers are in a similar spot. But I had been a journalist. I'd have the communications. I mean, I had the communications degree, but I didn't have any experience in fundraising. I didn't have a wealth of experience when it came to.

advertising and donor relations. That's a lot of stuff that I learned underneath Tracy's tutelage and then just doing the job every day. And so in that position, I was looking at these huge fundraising goals and the fundraising goals just kept getting bigger and bigger. And my first walk for life was a failure. It was rough. I don't think my second one was that much better. I was there for five years and it, it put me in that spot where I

for the first time in my life, and I was still relatively young then, I just realized, man, this is bigger than me. And when I had my eyes on the Lord and I was actually taking time to rest in Him, even though that seemed counterproductive sometimes when you've got so much going on, and I kept remembering that like, yeah, in my role, I'm supposed to accomplish this goal. On paper, this is what I'm supposed to do, but really, who's going before me? Who's got my back? Who's standing beside me? Who am I doing this with? And it's God.

That made all the difference. so every time, like when I'm starting to feel burnout and stuff, it's because I am taking it on myself. Long answer to say I'm taking on myself. And if I point myself back to the Lord or very kind, wonderful, challenging people in my life, point me back to the Lord, then I am in a much better place. Is that similar for you, Jacob?

Jacob Barr (13:55)
somewhat. Yeah, I sometimes get ⁓ anxiety and stress from just like every time I wake up in the morning, I've got about 40 plus emails, and throughout the day, there's 40 more rolling in. And it's just like, how am I ever going to keep up if I take off time, I will just be buried. And, and so I get some anxiety from that or stress or burnout or pre burnout. So what what I

Delaney (14:07)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (14:24)
been doing a lot lately is my wife and I, we we've been picking up some hobbies, you know, athletic hobbies. We been playing on the ball. Yeah, we play pickleball three times a week, probably adding up to like seven hours, maybe even eight. ⁓ Sometimes it's so it's so much fun. And when I first started playing pickleball, I would get anxiety because I was you know, ⁓ just you know, playing a new sport planning and people that were better.

Delaney (14:32)
Like pickleball. Sorry.

It is.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (14:54)
And so for some reason, when I would serve, would sometimes just like think about Psalms 23 and that would help me like, you know, make it through playing, which seems a little, I don't do that anymore because I don't have that anxiety when I'm playing anymore, but it was actually a really, a really good experience was to do something that was athletic outside of my comfort zone. And then Psalms 23 was like what I would chew on when trying to, you know, we leave stress, but I also wasn't thinking about work.

Delaney (15:00)
Mm-hmm.

Sir.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (15:24)
It was stressed from playing the game. then, so my wife and I, also are playing sand volleyball on Monday night. I've had the similar experience there. And now as of the last six weeks, we're working on a half marathon that's coming up in middle of December. And so I don't even know if I can walk 12 miles, but we had been walking seven and a half several times as prep. So we'll see how that goes. But,

Delaney (15:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Look at the bars.

Man, I'm

Jacob Barr (15:52)
Yeah, I feel like these kind

Delaney (15:53)
so impressed.

Jacob Barr (15:53)
of things have been helpful. when walking, I've been able to get some podcast time in, I've been able to get some music or just thinking about some of these projects and thinking about my word choice for some of these projects. That's been really helpful because when I'm sitting at my desk, my email is constantly engaging me to the point where I don't really have the ability to do deep thought. But when I'm walking and there's really nothing else around me except

Delaney (15:58)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (16:21)
mountains and the ability to just think that's really helpful or yeah.

Delaney (16:26)
That is so

Jacob, I've got so many responses to things you just said. Can I just like hit you with them? First, I feel very seen when you talked about the emails. I was just thinking about this yesterday. Again, I was like, okay, what do I need to do to set up my day so that I get these emails taken care of? Cause there's some important things I don't want to miss, but I also have like all of these other things I want to do. So thank you for mentioning the emails too. I am.

Jacob Barr (16:30)
Yeah, go for it. Yeah.

Delaney (16:55)
This is not something you have to share on the podcast, but I'm very curious where you're at that you have a sand volleyball court and mountains. That sounds lovely. ⁓ that's nice.

Jacob Barr (17:02)
Yeah. So we're in Tucson, Arizona and there's a public park.

It's called Udall. It's a public park, about 10, 15 minutes from our house. And we play pickleball outdoor. play pickleball indoor there. And we also, there's two sand courts and we play on Monday nights with a league where they balance the teams out. So we don't, we don't all have to come with our pre-built team. We just come as singles or duos and mix in and reshuffles every three months. And, ⁓

Delaney (17:15)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (17:32)
My wife and I, we're the second and third oldest people out there. There's one lady, Debbie, who's 71, but we're the next oldest people. But most people are, yeah, Debbie, go Debbie. But most people are in their 20s or 30s. But it's a lot of fun. They put on some music, we play games, we all take turns bringing food. There's a whole schedule to it, and it's really fun.

Delaney (17:37)
Yeah.

Get it, Debbie.

That is so

fun. The last time I played volleyball, I went with a friend. It had been a year since I played in high school and I took a spike right to the face. And you know, I left that court embarrassed and in pain and I haven't returned, but maybe now's the time to find a group like yours. ⁓

Jacob Barr (18:15)
Yeah, it's

a pickup league and my wife she took a and she's like she's she's much shorter than I am and she took a ball I think to the neck and I don't know at first the adrenaline a plane it didn't bother her when we when but when we stopped playing like it she started crying because they overwhelmed her with all the you know like wow this really hurt. Yeah. ⁓

Delaney (18:22)
Mm-hmm.

She kept going.

Yeah.

I bet. Yeah. I mean, I

heard once there was this joke, someone said that pain takes a backseat to embarrassment. And maybe that's what happened in that moment. Embarrassment took the floor when it happened to me because you know, like in movies when everybody goes, ⁓ that's what happened. Like he had like 10 or more different voices saying that. It's like,

No, everybody just saw that happen. And then the final thing is I'm just really impressed that you guys are doing a half marathon because I just set up a list of things that I want to do. And let me tell you what, Jacob, it wasn't a half marathon. I said, oh, by March, I will do a 5K. Like it wasn't, that's three miles and you've got what? 13, you've got 13 miles for your half marathon.

Jacob Barr (19:13)
You

13,

I guess 13.1 or 12.1. I can't remember which, but it's one of the two.

Delaney (19:25)
I it's 13.1.

Because it's 26.2 for a marathon, I think.

Jacob Barr (19:30)
Oh yeah, that's 13.1. Yeah. Um, so my wife on Thursdays from 10 to noon, we, we also play Wally ball, which is volleyball and racquetball court. And we're one the youngest people in that group. And, and, and so with Wally ball, one of the ladies we've been playing with her name's Tammy, she was going to run this half marathon. And, and meanwhile, I'm going to, my wife and I were going to marriage counseling with our pastor.

Delaney (19:44)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (19:59)
And my pastor was telling me, need to make, we need to, you know, it's been a Jacob centric world for quite some time. We need to let that pendulum swing back to let it be a Heather centric world. And so part of having a Heather centric world, and I know she likes running because she would do it on the treadmill in years past, but she would, you she hasn't done much outdoor running. And so I was telling Tammy, you know, Heather probably would like to run with you.

Delaney (20:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (20:28)
And then I knew Heather would agree because she actually does like running, but she would do it resistantly. And so she ended up, I only had to ask her once and she signed up with Tammy and then Heather says that she got tricked into doing it. But really I'm the one that got tricked into doing it because I ended up joining them too. And I'm not the that likes to run. So.

Delaney (20:46)
Yeah, support.

No, I like it. And I also like that it's so what you said was so, ⁓ man, what is the word practical? Like I agree. And so going back to the question you asked, I do need to keep my eyes on Jesus because that's what like ultimately helps. But really what you said, things that bring you joy, that's, also helps me. Like I love writing letters and I love laughing and I love having a good conversation with people.

So I think it's brilliant, because I mean, all anybody has to do is look at everything you output to know that you do a lot of work. And so the fact that you've built in space to have those moments where it's like away from work, that is awesome. And you're right, that's probably a killer way to keep burnout away, even though it seems like counterproductive at times.

Jacob Barr (21:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. And sometimes when, you when the work piles up, we have to, we focus on it, but we have to balance it out with, with downtime and restoration. Uh, cause like I spent, I do a lot of thinking on Psalms 23. So, you know, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And then it goes into the, he makes us, we don't need to want by covering us, making us lie down in green pastures, leading us to still waters. And then it says, restores my soul.

Delaney (21:45)
Mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (22:07)
And, and then it says, he leads us along righteous pathways ⁓ for his namesake alone. And, and then it goes into like these dark spaces, like, because he might lead us into hard places. I think about that as being like the work that we're involved in the pro life space where we're having to go into these, you know, the valley of death, but we don't, we don't fear evil because he's with us and we have his rod and staff for comfort.

Delaney (22:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (22:36)
And there's a, and that might mean the Bible that might mean just his protection and guidance, which is the Bible in some ways. And, but, but I look at that restoration of the green pastures and the still waters is balancing it so that we can go into the dark, scary valley of death. Which is really to, you know, because he's guiding us somewhere based on something that he's calling us to do for his namesake. And so I feel like there's that balance.

you know, we're invited to have. So we're not always called to be on that hard, scary road. We have to have our soul get to storage first in Psalms 23, and then we take that hard path. ⁓ And then if we end up staying, you know, the next verse comes about, he prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. And that just seems like such a wild verse to think about how

Delaney (23:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (23:34)
God preparing a table for us in the presence of our enemies. And I look at that as also reflecting my experience in the pro-life space a great deal. And then our cup overflows, we get anointing with oil, which is very intimate sounding. and yeah, and goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life. But I look at that table story, like I just love thinking about those words. And I feel like Psalm 23 is a way of defeating anxiety.

Delaney (23:41)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (24:03)
Like I feel like it's it's built to help us understand the full picture of like it's a whole story. It's a lot there.

Delaney (24:11)
Yeah,

I, one of the things I try to remember when I'm in a spot where it feels like maybe I'm in front of my enemies or it feels like the people I'm talking to are my enemies or just the odds are overwhelming is going back to ⁓ my time as the director of advancement at New Hope. I, kept seeing God show up time and again.

And so sometimes it felt like I was on a bomb shelter, you know, like where you're like getting slammed and you're like, another one hit, but it was really cool. During that same time, got the opportunity to see God go before us again and again. And it's not that you don't have some defeats and stuff. And it's not that you don't have things that hurt your heart. Like you said, sometimes it be very dark, but the fact that like, I don't think I would have seen nearly as many miracles many times like God coming through. If I wasn't in that space, like if I was just in a space where. You know, was way more comfortable or there just wasn't as, as.

big of obstacles, like you're not going to have your David and Goliath moments if there's no Goliaths in front of you.

Jacob Barr (25:10)
Yeah, no, that's a good point. And yeah, and pulling, well, yeah, and David wrote Psalms 23. it's like, being, yeah, and he actually, yeah, he was prepped out there and watching sheep to learn how to, you know, fighting off bears and lions or fighting, you know, fighting and killing some large animals. But yeah, sometimes I feel like, you know,

Delaney (25:18)
Hey, he pulled it back together.

Jacob Barr (25:39)
You know, God can't have a victory unless there's something to have victory over, or you can't have a comeback unless you have a deficit or you can't, you know, overcome unless there's something to overcome. And so I feel like if it was just all easy, it wouldn't be much of a story. It would just be like, it would be sort of just like a coast. It would just be coasting and that wouldn't be much, that wouldn't be worth celebrating perhaps.

Delaney (26:00)
Whoa,

you've put entirely too good of a spin on the times that I need to struggle, Jacob. Next time I'm complaining to the Lord, I'll be like, wait, wait, Jacob said something really good about this.

Jacob Barr (26:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, my pastor tells me I'm

what's the word? I ⁓ spent everything positive.

Delaney (26:21)
Yeah, I do like though, speaking of victories, I think sometimes I forget this is ⁓ sometimes it just seems like victory is so far off and just remembering that like God's got the ultimate victory. Like he's got it in his hands. I, when I was working for Tracy, she has this story ⁓ where somebody told her, you you're not as important as you think you are, but he, didn't mean that in a bad way. He meant like, you know, this is

God's ministry, he's got this. So whether you're here or somebody else is here, like it is his work. And that has been nice too, because sometimes, like he says, sometimes you're just climbing that mountain and it is a struggle. And then just to remember that he does have the ultimate victory. Like it's already there. just, you've got these stories in between now and then.

Jacob Barr (27:12)
Yeah, and I feel like our responsibility is to follow his leading and then let him do the work because like in that one verse it says, ⁓ he leads us down righteous pathways. We have to follow, but that's about it. And then, and then he's doing it for his namesake, not for, and so we don't have to worry about the results or the credit because it's for his namesake. So it's, ⁓

Delaney (27:16)
Mm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (27:39)
And usually that just means we get to observe what he's doing. I think that's some, I think that's part of what the experience is like.

Delaney (27:45)
I've got a question for you, Jacob. I probably have a lot, but one of them is, especially with everything you've been doing and when you do have those victories, do you actually take the time to celebrate? And if so, what does that look like? So I think celebration is a key part of keeping burnout at bay.

Jacob Barr (28:02)
Yeah, I would say I fall short on celebration. But I would agree that celebration is good, especially when we have a victory. Like when Roe was overturned, it was a huge victory. it just felt like celebrating. I felt like when I was trying to celebrate, I would get hit with a wet blanket by people who...

Delaney (28:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Jacob Barr (28:27)
didn't understand or didn't agree with my viewpoint. And it was just, it made it almost like, like, do I, do I celebrate or do I just soften my voice? And, and I would just say, but I got hit with the wet blanket and it was sort of like, I mean, cause I didn't think that that would ever happen in my lifetime. I knew God would overturn Ro. I just thought it would be something that my kids would see and I would already be gone. But

Delaney (28:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

sure.

Jacob Barr (28:56)
for it to happen in my lifetime was so much quicker than I expected it to happen. Just because of, yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Delaney (29:01)
I do remember, so sorry.

I do remember there were a lot of like mixed responses, like even in the pro-life world, like a lot of mixed responses to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I also, I think something else that happened during that was like overturn, and there's like, yay. And then it's like, this is what we need to do next. And I feel like that's something we do and almost, I mean, I say we, it's a blanket statement, but like anytime there's like a victory, whether you got your monthly,

Jacob Barr (29:23)
Every time. Yeah.

Delaney (29:29)
the money you wanted to get in for your organization that month, or you had a great event, or you reached another abortion minded woman, somebody accepted Christ. I feel like sometimes you have those moments and there's a little bit of a celebration, but then you're like, what are we gonna do next? This is what we should do next time. And that part's really important. That's how you grow and improve. But my sister-in-law called me out one time. She was like, I don't think you're good at celebrating. And she was right.

Jacob Barr (29:50)
Yeah.

Delaney (29:59)
And I still am not great at it, but it's something I'm trying to try to be better about because I think that's a really important piece.

Jacob Barr (30:06)
Yeah, it's sort of aligned with this podcast. When I try and ask people about their stories or where God is, where you have someone seeing God's fingerprints, we can capture that story and let people hear it or amplify that voice. But in general practice, I would say I'm also poor at celebrating because I put the semicolon in versus the period and say, and now what do we do?

Delaney (30:13)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jacob Barr (30:35)
It's not like we take a couple hours just to breathe and relax and enjoy the victory. We're thinking, okay, now what's next? Or how do we continue?

Delaney (30:41)
Yeah.

Or even if there was a set way, like, cause I understand that sometimes it doesn't feel like you have a couple hours and maybe it's a, ⁓ I don't know, something that does demand like you do something else next. But I wonder if, and this is probably me making it way too, ⁓ I don't know, put in a box or something, but I wonder if there's like a set way, like my, my sister-in-law, her way of celebrating that time of her life was she went out to a nice, like got a nice meal. And that just doesn't hit me the same. I don't always enjoy going out to eat.

But I do enjoy like having like experiences or sharing the news or something and celebrating with somebody. So even if you just had a set way and I was like, as we're talking in my head, I'm like, what does that look like at I-Rap shirt? Like if you guys had a win, what would a celebration look like for your team? Whether it's just between two people or if it's like a really big win, it's a win it's across the company.

Jacob Barr (31:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, it probably would look like a phone call and just simply, you know, expressing how we're excited about how something played out well. That's usually how it plays. ⁓ Or it might be us, you know, commenting on Slack with very happy emojis.

Delaney (31:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, right. That's what I was thinking. I was like at Extend, we

would like just flood Discord with like one GIF after another of celebrations.

Jacob Barr (32:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so, I mean, my family, take vacations, like once a year, usually with my parents helping, helping with the funding, or we go on a group a trip with my parents. And that's been really great. But for my wife and I, we, I sort of we try to treat like our physical activity, like a weekly vacation where we're trying to restore. And I literally think about it like

Delaney (32:09)
Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Jacob Barr (32:28)
is if it's like a miniature vacation every week, getting that, ⁓ that exercise, getting to not think about work, ⁓ in order to be able to be able to be more present at work when I come back. and, but I think that's sort of like when something really good happens, sometimes I feel like just, you know, being able to break away and get some physical activity is a way that I feel like I'm enjoying some time off or enjoying some time, but yeah.

Delaney (32:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I like it.

Jacob Barr (32:58)
⁓ How do you celebrate with your team besides Discord? Do you have some good phone calls or ever have it? Is everyone remote? I don't even know. Everyone's remote. Okay.

Delaney (32:58)
Nice.

Everybody is remote there. I it'd

be It's great because we have these fantastic people on the team and they do not live in You know Columbus, Ohio, which is where they would need to live if we were in person ⁓ and I wouldn't be on the team if we didn't have remote but I There is something to be said about having everybody in person

Jacob Barr (33:25)
you

Delaney (33:31)
That's something I like, as we're talking about celebrating and stuff, I am really thankful for this conversation because it's bringing back to mind. I'm like, okay, well, I know the importance of celebration. have been pretty like focused on getting this thing done, the next thing done. And I was like, but what does it look like to bring that in? Like we do laugh and we share gifts and stuff. Um, but what does it look like to really celebrate with my team in a way that kind of just adds a little. Not, I don't mean this in a bad way, but adds like a little sparkle to their day. I was going to say magic, but adds a little sparkle to their day, you know?

Jacob Barr (34:02)
Yeah, that's, that's a good thing to consider, especially as someone who can help orchestrate or plan that out. That is, that sounds desirable. One of my colleagues who Sandy, who helps manage our team is helping us organize a Christmas party. Cause most of our team is in Tucson. We have a few people that are outside of Tucson, but most of us are in Tucson, like 80%. And, and so we're putting together a Christmas party at her house and we're going to have a ugly sweater contest.

Delaney (34:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay, nice.

you

Jacob Barr (34:31)
going

to be making some short videos with of our, Carlene, one of our team members is going to have us, she's orchestrating us to do some video work over there and we're to to change out of our ugly sweaters into some normal wear. And we're doing potluck, we're having a cookie exchange. think that's, yeah. And I'm looking forward to that. That should be a lot of fun. ⁓

Delaney (34:45)
right?

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (34:56)
some holiday celebration time. So that might be a good way to it's holiday driven more so than, you know, maybe like a win driven but I guess we made it to the end of the year, which I think is a win. Yeah.

Delaney (35:00)
Yeah.

Hey, you did it. We do. Okay.

So now that you mentioned the holiday pottery, I do have this thing. I call it the quarterly shenanigans and I just pop it on everybody's calendar. And for an hour on some random Friday, every quarter we do, we like, maybe we'll play Jack and Vox games or we will play Among Us, which is that game where it's like somebody's going around just like taking out other players or we will. ⁓

Jacob Barr (35:26)
Okay.

Yeah!

Delaney (35:35)
This next one, I'll probably have them do the scavenger hunt where you're sitting at your computer and it's like, go find something blue and they have to race their house to get it. And then whoever wins that will get a gift card. And I also, this is probably more like torture than team bonding, but ⁓ I sometimes will ask my team members the weirdest questions. I inherited this position. Lauren was the manager before me and she had on the agenda.

I asked a silly question and I was like, okay, I don't want to rock the boat too much. So let me continue doing that. And it turned out my silly questions were just so much weirder than hers. Like I, one of them was just you're walking down an alley suddenly three, like these three characters come out. I think I had something, ⁓ maybe it was just three bad guys. And I was like, using a fictional character, how are you getting out of this situation? Or you have to get away from bad guys jumping into your favorite movie while you're in there.

Jacob Barr (36:13)
you

Delaney (36:33)
What are you doing? you part of the story? you like, anyway, so they did. And they would just look at me with horror on their face, Jacob, when I would ask these questions. And I was like, this is a little, a little weirder than the one she would ask you, huh?

Jacob Barr (36:40)
Hahaha

that's good. My son, he likes this game called Fun Employment. And you essentially have two decks. One is like a deck of traits and there is a deck of jobs. And so like one person's the person hiring. And so there's a card, like let's say it's chef and then everyone has their three traits. You have five cards, you pick out three traits and you have to try and apply for the job using these traits in your hand. Like you pull out two or three.

Delaney (36:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (37:16)
And so like, you know, the person that's applying for this chef, one person's going to say, you know, I'm, you know, I, know, I, I am able to, um, I can't even, let me try and think, you know, I'm, can, I can turn everything into dairy. Yeah. They're of my superpowers or, or, and I'm also a pirate. And so obviously I'm going to be a really good chef. I can work in confined quarters. And then the person hiring, we pull off a random card off the trace. We said, well, when I was looking at your social media,

Delaney (37:30)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (37:45)
I see that you also have a unicorn. Can tell me more about that? And so like that...

Delaney (37:49)
Smart. Yeah,

I like that. I haven't heard of that one before. I feel like I'd panic. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (37:53)
Yeah, Fun Employment, it's a card, a small

card game. it's, it's, really, my son and my youngest daughter really liked that game.

Delaney (38:02)
So

you're telling me they might have a little bit of spin in them as well like you able to spin a situation

Jacob Barr (38:06)
Yeah, they

like the storytelling and the humor and and then my nephew, ⁓ when he gets when he plays that game, he does these amazing accents and it's really fun.

Delaney (38:10)
Yeah.

yeah, I like to do accents too, but I don't think anyone would ever describe them as amazing. ⁓ I will say, you know, as we're talking, one of the things I just want to and I don't want to interrupt any question you have next, Jacob, but one of the things that's just really cool is I don't think I realized that one of the focuses of your podcast was seeing God's fingerprints like I'd seen it. Like I knew you gave me like the prep questions and stuff and I had watched some of the other episodes, but I don't think it like

It just didn't click. ⁓ And that's on me, not on you. just hadn't noticed that. I've been thinking a lot about it. And you asked me at the beginning of this podcast about how I got involved in the pro-life work. And it's been interesting being in this, as someone who never had it on my list, just the way that I can very clearly see God's fingerprints all over my life. And not only just the fact that I came in initially with New Hope,

But during the time that I was at New Hope, developed a love for ⁓ strategic marketing and just early strategic plans. And I saw the importance of them and the effect it had on New Hope and how it helped us accomplish even more. so after, when I felt like my time at New Hope had come to an end, I was like, okay, God, what am I going to next? And there was one thing that sounded like a lot of fun and I didn't know what it would be, but I just liked the idea of building something with an organization and then.

stepping away and like helping if I needed to, but not like not doing it at the organization itself. And I ended up working at the strategic marketing company that worked with credit unions across the country. And then I didn't see, I didn't know what it would come next. I still love the pro-life work. I still believed in it, but it was three, three and a half years or so later that I ended up working at Extend, which is a solution of heartbeat. Didn't see it, was not on the plan again.

And looking back, I was like, ⁓ I see all the ways you were involved in this, God, getting me, getting me back here. And I'm so thankful to be here. I, you you mentioned that the pro-life work can be like, sometimes like a really dark and rough place, but it also is like, man, so encouraging and so obviously life-giving. And it's an absolute joy and a humble to be back involved in it again. And like an active way other than a supporter or donor and stuff.

Jacob Barr (40:40)
Yeah,

that's good. So there's a prayer retreat that's connected to a few churches in Tucson, and it's called Learn to Love the Master. the way it's built is they will add, essentially, it's like a journaling project where we spend a lot of time by ourselves journaling, and then we read to a group of ⁓ people who love Jesus in order to share what we wrote journaling with, know, just journaling, trying to hear God's voice.

Delaney (40:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I've done that before. It's

fun. It's really edifying.

Jacob Barr (41:10)
Okay.

And the way this one works is that the goal is to ask, what is your earliest memory? Like that's where this one starts. And then the follow-up question is, is you pray, God, where were you at that time? And then you write down what you hear, and then you try and decipher whether it's God's voice, the enemy's voice, or your own voice perhaps, but usually it's God's voice or the enemy's voice. And...

Delaney (41:18)
Okay.

Jacob Barr (41:37)
But the idea is to start off with your earliest memory, because obviously your earliest memory, you wouldn't have been aware that God was there because it's a very early memory. But God was there, God was present in those early memories. And so even though we don't see it, God is present. It's just a matter of us maybe asking him now, where were you when I wasn't paying attention to you? It's sort of interesting how you said.

Delaney (42:01)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (42:04)
You can see God's fingerprints now looking back ⁓ because I think that's always true is that God is present. It's just better of asking him today, where were you when I wasn't paying attention or during that time?

Delaney (42:07)
Mm-hmm.

yeah. I was the, the,

the months leading up to starting at extend, I just, was so befuddled. was like, God, it's always followed the same path. Like I would be at a place and then I'd get to the point where I was like, okay, it's time for a switch. And then I would get this like dream of what I wanted to do next. And then it would happen. A door would open or something, or I would step away and then like a door would open and, it just followed that same pattern. And I was.

I was like, hey, I'm tired. I like, I know it's time for a change, but I think I had a dream of what I wanted to do. hadn't, I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go. And I didn't realize I had been having conversations with Lauren and Tracy with Extend that year. It just hadn't clicked. And I had been talking to him. was like, man, God, I would love the opportunity to be in a leadership role where I really have an opportunity to.

into people's lives because I've seen the impact of good leadership in my life and I've seen the impact of bad leadership on my life and other people's lives. And I also wanted to dive into, I loved helping credit unions. It's cool what they do, but also I was wanting to dive back into work like this and I really, really wanted an opportunity to use the things that I had learned for good. And so while I was getting frustrated with him, which is embarrassing to say about, you know.

got but I was getting frustrated it was still following the same path and then like extend just like popped up and I was like ⁓ you've been working on this thing this whole time and I I didn't realize it like as I was you know feeling a little a little sad that I didn't know what my next thing was but I could tell that the season was needed to come to an end

Jacob Barr (44:04)
Wow. Yeah, it's interesting to try and reflect on finding that time to reflect on your story. ⁓ As you're talking about credit unions, so we used to use Bank of America back in the day, but they donate to Planned Parenthood. so about, I don't even know now, eight years ago-ish, we switched to a one called Evangelical Credit Union.

Delaney (44:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice.

Jacob Barr (44:33)
And then they changed their name to Adelphi. I'm not sure exactly what Adelphi means, but... then just this... And then this... then... Yeah. There's probably a Greek word for something, but I never looked it up. And then ⁓ this last month, they merged with ⁓ Christian CCC something, Christian Community Credit Union. I'm not sure, but... ⁓

Delaney (44:36)
Okay.

That tracks. Not that you don't know, but that they changed the name. Sorry. Please keep going.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (45:02)
there were two that were pro-life and I was trying to find an alternative to Bank of America a long time ago. And it was the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, ECCU, and also the Christian, the one with all the Cs, Credit Union. But now they've actually merged. And it's almost sort of disappointing when they changed their name to Adelphi because it didn't have the same... I was trying to have one that sounded...

Delaney (45:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (45:27)
Christian, did part of my interview question, I only asked him like one or two questions. And one was, would you ever donate to Planned Parenthood? And their answer was no. I don't know if I even had a second question before choosing. That was about it. It said no, we wouldn't do it. Oh, and my follow up question was, what if there was an employee matching program, and the employee picked an abortion clinic? Would you would you do it in that case? And he said no. And so I was like, Okay, that's what I want.

Delaney (45:37)
You're like, cool, let's go.

Yeah.

Good question.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (45:56)
Because I think that's how PayPal donates to Planned Parenthood is based on an employee matching program or things like that. And I didn't want that to be the issue. ⁓ Yeah, anyway, so all that to say is, so yeah, we made that switch a long time ago to the credit union. It's less sophisticated. It takes a little bit more work because the bank had more options, more features, but I really like working with them.

Delaney (46:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, I get that.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (46:25)
And then

we also switched from using Intuit for our credit card processing, which is not a healthy company spiritually at all. Probably unhealthy, guess would be a better way to say it. And now we're using Cornerstone payment system, which is pro-life slash Christian. And that's been a good move. We actually just did that one this year. I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. It's been really good to make that switch.

Delaney (46:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

well,

mean, those ⁓ switches, just like the thought of going through, I don't know, like the paperwork or whatever it is. Yeah, top of everything else you have, but I think that's great. We've got a number of ⁓ customers that use cornerstone payments.

Jacob Barr (46:54)
trying to work with pro-life vendors.

It's overwhelming. Yeah.

Yeah,

I think they're the one I refer to today. There's been a lot of vendors in that space, but they're the one I currently promote the most. Yeah.

Delaney (47:14)
Mm-hmm.

I, Jacob, there is one thing that I was really wanting to pick your brain on. I am clearly doing the podcast wrong. I'm supposed to be on here and you're supposed to be picking my brain. This is basically what I, what I did to you at ⁓ Karen, at conference. just like pelted you with questions. Okay. So when I was looking at the questions you had, and one of them was about new marketing, ⁓ or tactics, and I. Not opposed to those as that's something that we're.

Jacob Barr (47:25)
Yeah.

No, it's fine.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Delaney (47:50)
you know, looking at and like, what do we need to have to make sure that the people that we're working with have reach and rescue as many lives as possible. But something that has that I've been thinking about a lot this year is just the number of ⁓ pregnancy help organizations, whether maternity home or a pregnancy center. I haven't talked with any adoption agencies that this might be a thing for them as well, but it's just

you know, they want to hit certain goals. Like they want to reach more abortion minded women, or they, they want to have a certain number of people coming through, but they don't know what they're, but they don't know what numbers they're already seeing. So they don't know what their, baseline is. And then to even compare like what a success look like, to like one, do they have goals for the next year? What's the baseline that they already have? ⁓ and if they are working with some kind of marketing vendor, is there like, if they don't have that information, how are they determining like whether or not

works being done or how can they tell how good of the work is being done? So like that's just something that's been on my mind. So like what do you, what has been your experience? Have you run into a lot of organizations that don't have that information? How important do you think that is to really reaching goals or doing as much good impact as you possibly can?

Jacob Barr (48:48)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm gonna make my short list, I don't forget. So one is Google Ads, and the other one is, how did you hear about us? And the other one will be A-B testing and measuring ⁓ events. Okay, so Google Ads. So with Google Ads, if someone has like a vendor and they're paying them $500 a month, so I think the Princey Clinic should have access to that account.

Delaney (49:06)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (49:30)
and then can go to the history or the log and see how many entries has there been over the last seven months. And if you see only 10, then you know that you're overpaying. You're paying $500 a month times X number of months and no work is being done. And that's a travesty. And I would just say, stop it. That's what I would say. Like it's better to pay someone zero.

Delaney (49:44)
right?

Yeah. that's smart. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (49:58)
and let them do zero than to pay someone 500 and let them do zero. so that's an easy one to measure. It's based on the log, like the history of actions done on the account. But I to keep going because there's a few other things. So measuring success is, I think, really important on that how did you hear about this data, which is often pulled from Echiro, Waycool, or Next Level, or something else.

Delaney (49:59)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, go, go,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (50:27)
but that how did you hear about us those answers? and then taking that data of dates, the response of how did you hear about us in relation to the status of that client, the client assessment, whether they're AV, AM or LM, like abortion vulnerable, abortion minded or life minded. And then disregarding the LM's and focusing on the AVs and AMs. And then,

Delaney (50:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (50:54)
comparing that data before and after a marketing event. So if you end up going to a, let's say in the month of April, you go to three health fairs or job fairs or book fairs or community fairs or county fairs. And then you measure your word of mouth number before that and after that, because word of mouth doesn't last forever and it's not completely organic. It's based on people having interactions.

Delaney (51:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (51:23)
And so

by going to those county fairs, there's going to be a bump on word of mouth. And the question is, is what kind of bump? Or if you do, someone does four different baby bottle bounce back campaigns of four different churches, then measuring church and word of mouth before and after the events will give an indication of how that impacted the clients coming in and having them choose. I would love to see people having the option of picking more than one.

Delaney (51:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Thank

you.

Jacob Barr (51:53)
How

did you hear about us? But that's currently not an option on any of the platforms, but I think that would be smart. But having one is okay, because that's what we have, but it'd be better, I think, to let people pick multiple. Because usually people have a few touch points, but they may only be picking the one that's most prominent, which still might have the most weight. ⁓ And then AB testing. This is something I'm really excited about. And it's not like it's a new term, but most print clinic directors, if I ask them what's AB testing, they'll say, well, I'm not sure.

Delaney (52:05)
Yeah, right.

to do.

Jacob Barr (52:21)
But once I explain it, makes it really obvious. So it's simply a matter of doing something versus not doing something. That could be an A-B test where you measure whether it was better before we did it or after we did it. That's an A-B test. A-B test would be like version A versus version B where you run and let's say you put up a sign outside your building for 30 days and you put up a different sign for 60 days. And then you see which one did better per business day. And that's an A-B test.

Delaney (52:24)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (52:52)
and, measuring events, think that's something I would love to see more clinics do. And I feel like it's, it's very much a quiet, there's a lot of room for improvement in that space.

Delaney (53:05)
I think that's great. I, cause I definitely was looking at it from the perspective of, to.

you know, going into new year, make sure you have goals, right? Make sure you know what you're going after. And then also make sure you know what you've done, like historically, what have you done? How realistic is this goal? And then what do you need to accomplish to hit this goal? And then as you're working either with people internally or with vendors externally, how are they helping you reach this goal? But I really like the perspective you have on just even the Google, like if you're paying someone 500 bucks a month and they're not doing something or, I mean, and you can even go,

look at the other way of like, what are the conversions? Like what are you, who are you seeing come through your doors versus what are you hearing? But I like all the different ways. Like I don't, I also like how you've taken A-B testing, which you know, typically or before A-B testing, we're looking at emails, you know, how do they compare? And you're like, no, I'm not just gonna keep it to emails. I'm gonna bring it out and we're gonna look and see like, what does this look like in the real world as well with everything that you're doing or not doing.

Jacob Barr (53:48)
Yeah.

Yeah. So there was this case study that I learned about in college. So the year was probably 1998, I guess, because I took this class. And the case study is probably a Harvard case study because we've got most of them. I went to the University of Arizona and it was about assembly line workers, whether they would work better under bright lights or regular lights.

Delaney (54:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (54:38)
Which one do you think ended up working better, bright lights or regular lights? It is a quick question. So I'm gonna give you a heads up. Regular lights, okay. So you're right, it was better under regular lights, but it was also better under bright lights. And the reason why is because someone was right behind that person counting how fast they were working. it wasn't about the bright lights or the regular lights. It turned out people work better when they're being measured.

Delaney (54:43)
regular, regular lights.

⁓ okay.

That is hilarious. I want to know how they got to the point where they realized it wasn't the lights. Now I'm curious about that.

Jacob Barr (55:14)
That

was, they literally did a case study on what, you know, which lighting would be better. And they learned that it was both. And it was only because there's someone right behind the person working measuring. So I just want to apply that to Prancy clinics and AB testing. Let us, let's compete with our best ideas. Let's compete with our colleagues and their great ideas. And it's not about the A or the B, even though that's how we process this. It's a really about the testing.

Delaney (55:18)
Yeah.

yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (55:43)
It's about measuring and trying to out-compete our previous best idea. So testing, A-B testing, the word testing's the most important word there.

Delaney (55:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like.

Yeah, and I mean, you have to know where you've been to see if you've, if you're actually moving forward and stuff. ⁓ can I throw another case study out there real quick? So my friend, I don't remember why, what, this book was about, but I remember there was this case study, the book talked about, and they took two groups of hotel cleaning workers, same hotel group of people. just split them into two groups. And for one group, they, ⁓ had them do everything like normal.

Jacob Barr (56:01)
Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Ha!

Delaney (56:23)
and the other, had them, they told them, this is how many calories you burn when you vacuum, this is how many calories you burn when you change the sheets, this is how many calories you burn when you take out the trash. Like everything that they would do, they knew the calories. So one group just did everything normal, they didn't get that spill. The other group, they heard about the calories burned and nothing else was changed, like just do normal life. It's just one group knew the calories were being burned. And when they...

When they came back to them, whether it was six weeks or three months or whatever later, they found that the group who was aware that they were burning calories were actually like they had lost weight. And it wasn't again, because they had changed. They hadn't changed their diets. They hadn't changed. Like they weren't suddenly working out five days a week. They just knew that they were putting out energy, ⁓ like when they were working and stuff and burning calories and the whole finding of the case study was just like, you know, the brain is so powerful. Like it knows what you're doing and kind of.

thinking about that from ⁓ a pregnancy help organization like Lens is just like, I wonder what that would change like in terms of going back to burnout and stuff, how that would change how we're operating. Like if we had like an awareness at every level of a maternity home or adoption agency or pregnancy center, like the work we're doing, how it impacts life, whether you're crunching numbers or you are actually on the front line talking to people like, would that change something? Or is there another way that we could kind of twist that just thinking like how powerful the brain is?

when you have a when it's, you know, has a ⁓ certain filter on it, how would that impact your day-to-day life and maybe keeping that anxiety and stress and stuff at bay.

Jacob Barr (57:56)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, I think the A-B testing literally connects with what you're trying to say. Cause like essentially if we can try and compete with ourselves, compete with the other person on our team. So that way we're trying to constantly improve and polish. Instead of trying to put out a marketing piece that just has to coast into oblivion until it turns into a muddy mess and has to be turned off. The goal is to have it.

Delaney (58:03)
Mm-hmm.

Go for it.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (58:27)
be something good and only have it run

for 30 days and then run something else that's competitively as good or better. And then measuring per business day, which one had a better outcome. And then trying to compete against the winner and learning from what ended up winning. So we can see, know, word choice, color choice, and how these different elements, different, you know, size, number of words, how these

Delaney (58:36)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (58:56)
how these pieces played into the results. And ultimately to essentially try and add someone over our shoulders, testing our ideas so that we're trying to compete with our past idea or with our colleagues idea so that ultimately as a group and through this A-B testing, we're doing better by adding more rounds of polish, more rounds of ⁓ creativity and not letting things just coast because coasting is the go-to.

Delaney (58:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (59:24)
Like that's what you end up with when someone's, you know, you're paying someone $500 a month for Google ads and there wasn't any work being done and you don't even realize it because you're still getting impressions and clicks and conversions, but you also could have gotten that same result by paying someone zero by letting it coast. And so I feel like, you know, that, you know, kind of have an ongoing AB testing and, you know, and polish building is, is there not just for coast, it's essentially it's a way of growing.

Delaney (59:48)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (59:54)
And it can be applied to like, you know, someone's Google ad spin goes from $10 a day to $15 a day. There can be an AB test on what was the outcome of that $5 increase per day. If we use, have a banner in front of someone's building that has their slogan versus maybe abortion pill reversal, you know, awareness building. An AB test could be done on that based on the how'd you hear about us in the signage response.

Delaney (1:00:07)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:00:24)
in front of the office. ⁓ And then the AB testing can be done anywhere there's a way of reaching the community, like you know, the county fair booth, you could have one version, and then the next county fair, try a different, you know, table version, and then compare the results and the results will be it'll be better based on the testing because we're trying to outdo previous ideas instead of just doing the same thing repeatedly or trying to do minimal. Yeah.

Delaney (1:00:31)
Mm-hmm.

How

would someone build this? We're talking to the average pregnancy health organization here and they've got a lot going on. So how do you recommend they actually build A-B testing into what they're doing?

Jacob Barr (1:01:03)
So

they have the data in the Kairos Wavecool or Next Level, that how'd you hear about this data, a date for the client that came in, the response on the how'd you hear about this list, and then there's also gonna be the client assessment if we can get that to be paired up. And then it's a matter of just simply, there's a marketing event on a certain date comparing 60 days before, 60 days after, in order to see that...

Delaney (1:01:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:01:32)
to see the outcome of that event. And so I'm also doing a workshop at Heartbeat ⁓ in April on data-driven analysis, and it's going to be all about this. And I'm going to have examples. ⁓ But yeah, I share about this all the time lately, because I feel like it's needed. And sometimes people talk about it in a high level where it doesn't really click. And so I'm trying to bring it into very practical words.

Delaney (1:01:37)
⁓ hey, there we go. Yeah. ⁓

I love it. Yeah.

I was going to ask if you had like a blog or something that like listed like, Hey, these are practical ways you could, but it sounds like you are already obviously ahead of the game and you have a whole workshop.

Jacob Barr (1:02:08)
I don't have a blog about it,

but I do share about it directly with directors. Whenever I talk to a director, it's one of my go-tos. And I'm also looking at their signage. And we're also working on a plan for signage that faces a Planned Parenthood parking lot. And that's a new concept. And it has the same principles being applied. And it's also a collaborative joint effort concept.

Delaney (1:02:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Jacob Barr (1:02:34)
But that one's newer and that one we're working on trying to build out, but I think it's going to take off.

Delaney (1:02:40)
Yeah, I think that's great. I would, I'm curious, so I get what you're saying about like how you practically do it in terms of you have the data, but building it into a busy schedule. Like, I don't know if it's best to have a set of meeting every month or how do you build that into something that you were, if you already feel like you're at capacity, but this could be a really good payoff.

Jacob Barr (1:02:55)
Yeah, ⁓

Yeah,

it does take about an hour a month to evaluate ⁓ and do this kind of work. It does take that and it's focused work ⁓ on this exact piece. But the benefit would be confidence in what needs to be amplified and what needs to be printed.

Delaney (1:03:05)
Mm-hmm.

That's true.

Yeah. You're going to, you're going to see me sneaking into the back of your workshop when you're talking and March. I mean like what you got?

Jacob Barr (1:03:22)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, no, it's it's

well and what we've seen ⁓ So part of it is just knowing what's working because like when we do things We know our gut might say it works, but actually looking at the how'd you hear about us is the ultimate number You know, that's the ultimate conversion number to look at

Delaney (1:03:38)
Yeah.

See,

that's why I'm so passionate about the other data too, which is where it's like, if you don't know what you've been seeing, how can you tell if it's successful? Which is funny because that's kind of part of it. I have a workshop that I'm gonna be doing at Heartbeat as well. ⁓ Which I mean, man, can you imagine if I didn't get the workshop, how awkward it would be around the every time I pass that person? I'd be like, Cathy, you told me no, I'm just kidding. Everybody deserves an equal shot and if it's not good enough, it's fine. ⁓ But mine's gonna, ⁓ sorry.

Jacob Barr (1:04:04)
You

Yeah, go ahead. ⁓

Delaney (1:04:15)
I was just going say, mine's going to be kind of all about that is just like making sure you have this, you know, a strategic marketing plan that goes into it. And some of that is like knowing where you're wanting to go and who you are and what you're just like, it kind of encapsulates all of that stuff so that you can do as much good in your community as possible, reach as many reach and rescue as many lives as possible.

Jacob Barr (1:04:36)
Yeah, because impressions lead the clicks, clicks lead the conversions, conversions lead the client coming in. yeah, that's.

Delaney (1:04:44)
But one of things,

okay, when you're looking at someone, you're doing Google ads or something for them, and you are seeing the conversions and you're like, my goodness, that's a beautiful number. And if you're talking to a center and they're like, we're not seeing people, what is your immediate thought on, okay, well, what is going on here? Because typically my brain is like, what's the experience like? What's happening after they click schedule an appointment or whatever?

Jacob Barr (1:05:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, the Google Ads will drive traffic to a website or to a phone number or to a landing page. And so that the next step is for that landing page website or phone conversation to convert. ⁓ so there might be an issue. So if we have a lot of traffic going into a website and then the website doesn't continue with a high percent, good percent of clients actually coming in.

Delaney (1:05:12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:05:37)
then that

means that there's that might be the the hang up is that website if it's getting lots of good or we're sending the wrong kind of traffic. That's another option that could be taking place if we're sending traffic with the wrong intent. ⁓ And then they it ends up falling off.

Delaney (1:05:41)
Yeah.

you

See, it

This is why I like took an hour of your time at Care Net because I just think it's so fun and easy to talk with you, Jacob. I just want to throw things at you and get your perspective on things. And you're always like so game to answer the questions.

Jacob Barr (1:05:58)
You

Ha ha ha!

Yeah, my pleasure.

Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. I'm trying to think of what else I There's something I wanted to say and now I forgot. what was it? Well, it'll come back. ⁓ boy. ⁓

Delaney (1:06:17)
you

I know I threw you off. just been, I told you at the beginning though, when you were like, when you, whatever the initial question. And I said, that's given me confidence to ask whatever question I wanted. I didn't mean for it to be a warning, but really that was a warning, Jacob, of how this was going to go.

Jacob Barr (1:06:23)
Ha!

Oh, that's good. Yeah, it's just such an important work. I think sometimes I feel like there's this like level of anxiety that comes like if we don't get it right, you know, we're responsible for, for, you know, for someone not for someone not reaching that clinic. And I think ultimately, I think it's in God's hands and our goal, you know, what we can do is do our best or we can do well. And usually that's our best.

Delaney (1:06:49)
Right.

yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:07:06)
and strive to do well, do our best and let God have the results. And so like, you know, if we can let God have the victories, we can let God have the defeats and that's fair. But as long as we're following his direction and leading and asking for his direction and then taking that and then trying to follow it and push it through, I feel like that's what we're called to do.

Delaney (1:07:18)
Yeah.

I agree.

Yeah, and I think I mean, I agree with you earlier. That's that was my felt like a very holy response for how I avoid burnout. But what I'm doing it right. ⁓ You know, it's interesting, though, is I feel like you you hit different levels of responsibility and then you get to this new like before something that would have taken you out. It doesn't take you out as much. I noticed this first when I was in college and freshman year, I had so much time to blow. Like I just was just.

just so much time. I didn't realize this. I was taking like 18 credits, but I was also going to Walmart at 2 a.m. with friends, because that's what we had to do for fun in my town at that time. And I remember each year of college, and I was a super senior, so I stayed around for five years. Each year of college, I was just like, why did I think that I had no time the year before? This year I have no time. And I've noticed that too with...

with my jobs, I'm thinking like the first year I was at New Hope, how much more could I have gotten accomplished because like working as I do now and what I know now, but I think God's so good to shoulder that. And so sometimes I haven't noticed quite how significant the increase is or when I have noticed it, just knowing that like he's got it. Cause like I'm going to look back two years for now. And unless I've just made really poor decisions and I was like, Oh man, I was working way too much at that time. I'm still going to be like, man,

I'm doing so much more, I'm involved in so much more. Maybe it's personal, maybe it's professional, maybe it's both than I was before. And it's cool sometimes how he just kind of, like as you're climbing that mountain, you kind of get stronger under his guidance.

Jacob Barr (1:09:14)
Yeah. And I feel like sometimes we get really busy with busy work and it feels like we have no time. And then if we, if we could somehow just like cut through some of that clutter, can not only get time back, we get clarity back. And, um, so I remember what I was going to say before. so, so with Google and AI, I feel like AI is where people are getting answers to questions and they're

Delaney (1:09:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:09:43)
avoiding Google because Google takes a bit more work. And there's a shift between Google and AI. And Google may still have the most traffic, but there's definitely a shift taking place. And when I say AI, mean like Chachbite, Grok, and Gemini. well, that's true. There's a lot of others as well. those are the three largest, well, three large. Maybe I don't know what they're the largest. ⁓

Delaney (1:09:52)
Mm-hmm.

And whatever else has popped up that day.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:10:11)
But I feel like there's like a need to go back in marketing to what's less Sandy or more, more firm. Um, and so like word of mouth used to be number one, uh, before 2011, it was always number one. And since 2015, it's no longer number one in markets that are like 50,000 people plus, uh, in smaller markets, it's still number one, but

Delaney (1:10:21)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:10:39)
It's only in smaller communities that have under 50,000 people in their county. ⁓ But I feel like going back to word of mouth across the board, word of mouth marketing is something that is desirable in my opinion. And that means like more church marketing, more community events, going to a community event where you get to tell positive stories about the Pranksy Clinic to 200 plus people over two and a half days. ⁓

Delaney (1:10:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:11:08)
county fairs, book fairs, any kind of like, you know, school events, just different community events. I think those are things that need to be continued and amplified or, and look for new opportunities to do more, you know, places where you can have a booth at a community event. I think that is something that can be grown and then that's going to impact word of mouth that will impact word of mouth. And then another one that's almost as good is signage.

Delaney (1:11:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think.

Jacob Barr (1:11:37)
I feel like a lot of pre-school clinics need to reevaluate their signage, not like their logo sign, but like their slogan banner or their banner that says something that would be attractive to draw someone in. And then to do more signage at the high school ⁓ sports fence, at the college or university, more outdoor signage, more... ⁓ I think signage is, it may be number five.

Delaney (1:11:40)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:12:06)
on the how'd you hear about us list, but it's been very steady and I think it needs to be amplified. And with AI and Google being ⁓ changing, I think we need to go back to the ones that are less volatile. And I'm also trying to work on some plans to navigate AI and how they're summarizing clinics based on, so like when basic clinic has the statement of we don't provide or refer for abortions or abortive patients,

that's ⁓ showing up in the AI summaries when someone's searching for abortion help in their area, the Prancy Clinic is getting hit with that ⁓ disclaimer text. And so that's something that we're trying, we're doing some tests, testing on trying to navigate ⁓ options around that right now. But that's something we don't have an answer for yet, but we're working on some ⁓ tests or theories on how to work with that.

Delaney (1:12:49)
Hmm

Jacob Barr (1:13:06)
because I think that's showing up to cause harm to Prancy clinics is that disclaimer because it's saying what we don't do and it's getting used against us in these AI search results.

Delaney (1:13:18)
Yeah, I think all that's good. The first part that you were talking about in terms of the word of mouth ⁓ and finding ways to boost that by being at an event or something, I think goes very much in line with what we're seeing people wanting to see others be authentic and genuine. In the past, I'd say five years ago, people would be like, this is my authentic self. And it was just a... ⁓

blank card to do whatever they wanted. But when I'm talking about authenticity here, mean, people being genuine in their interactions with one another. And so I think that is going a long way, both in maybe what you're putting out, like on social media or something, how you're messaging yourselves, and then also how you're interacting with people. And what does it look like to maybe, yes, go to events and stuff. What does it look like to also have some of that like authentic interactions that are...

like an element of delight or something. don't know that would look like, having kind of like a like a love your community where you find ways to express your appreciation for I don't know the people you're trying to reach. This is just a random idea that I'm thinking of. have not built it out at all, but I just

Jacob Barr (1:14:34)
No, I like,

I like that direction though. That sounds really, yeah. Cause that we, yeah, go ahead.

Delaney (1:14:39)
Like how can you, sorry,

how can you spark those moments of, like yes, you've planned them out a little bit, but how can you spark some like genuine, sincere moments that are even outside of stuff like the events that you'd be going to? How can you create those moments? I think that would be really cool to explore as people kind of get back to that authentic, in a healthy way, appreciation.

Jacob Barr (1:15:00)
Yeah, maybe there's an opportunity to have like ⁓ some kind of club at a high school or some kind of ⁓ group at a college. Yeah, that's something worth pursuing, trying to come up with like a list of the traits and then figuring out what activities might match those traits. I think that would be worth exploring.

Delaney (1:15:23)
I also, sorry, I just caught sight of what I'm assuming is my picture for this call. And it is like, look like I'm laughing and in the middle of a sneeze. It's like a scream, grab out of the side. It's totally derailed me. I just caught sight of it for the first time. I'm like, yeah, that's gonna be a great picture.

Jacob Barr (1:15:41)
I just I see it at the side the thumbnail. I know. That's

the thumbnail, it won't show up in the podcast.

Delaney (1:15:49)
Hey, great. I'm like, this is, that's nice. You you try to wear

a nice shirt. You try to get everything in order and then a screen grab gets you. ⁓ The second thing you were talking about, Jacob, that I've messed my response up on, the signage. ⁓ Yeah, I also thought it was great that you were talking about, one, you were making some good points about signage, but also it amuses me because I'm like, I look like an idiot.

Jacob Barr (1:16:05)
Yeah.

Delaney (1:16:15)
Jacob has his sign right behind his head. was me the entire time. There's anyway, I was like, I just thought it was funny that even on that level, like you're saying good things about marketing with signages, but then I was like, and he also like lives it. Like he doesn't just talk about it. Like he believes that there's a sign on his wall behind him.

Jacob Barr (1:16:36)
Yeah, I've got all these Amazon boxes that you can't even see right out of view right now. And I've got my luggage for my work in here and I've got my pile of things I need to return to Amazon that my wife bought that I need to return. I put those just outside of the camera view.

Delaney (1:16:42)
yeah, I...

You calling her out like that? no, I

when I'm working I'll like scribble on post-it notes and then because it just makes me feel better in the moment like I'll chuck them over my shoulder and then I have to do this like big trash haul and I looked back right before we started this and I wasn't sure it was gonna be in camera and I was like kicking those out of frame so I was like I can't just have these little colorful post-it notes.

Jacob Barr (1:17:12)
No, that's totally normal.

⁓

Delaney (1:17:16)
I did, I'm sorry,

I had other, I wanted to build off of what you were saying, but that screen grab totally got me and I lost. I wanted to say actually something really good about the signage, but it's gone and I don't think it's coming back. Yeah, go for it.

Jacob Barr (1:17:22)
You

Well, I guess that I want to share. So I would love it

if pregnancy clinic directors would, ⁓ so when they put up a billboards, so like, let's say if someone has a ⁓ two different billboards in their community ⁓ on that, how would you hear about us list? It would be really good to have each one listed to like billboard by the highway, billboard by the Walmart and letting someone pick.

Delaney (1:17:39)
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:17:57)
which billboard they saw. So if you have two billboards outside, hopefully you'll have the signage by the baseball field at that high school, and you'll have the signage by that college, and you'll have the signage by the Walmart. But essentially listing out each one on the how'd you hear about us list, so someone can actually pick out the desired one, or the one that they saw, and then you can learn which one's actually producing ⁓

Delaney (1:18:00)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:18:26)
And then that are referring to that's how I heard about you and and then that way you can stop using the one that doesn't get traffic and maybe amplify or change or improve or a B test the one that is getting some traffic and Yeah

Delaney (1:18:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, I

like that. And also I, if there is a director listening to this podcast, it's like the time, all I'm saying is at one point I was at an, I was at a center who's the director was, had so many tasks and I had a propensity or proclivity, whatever word you need to use there to ask questions. And so maybe look at your team. Do you have someone who asks questions that are

I'm not meaning this in like the people who ask questions and you're like, you're being insupportive, but the people who ask questions when you're like, I want to move to the next thing, maybe grab that person and start getting them to ask questions about like, you know, point them in a specific direction. And it might be a way to look at this. Like if they're asking the questions anyway, and they're good questions, then put them on the billboards or the stuff like that. Like look at how you're doing things and how could you possibly do them better? Like let them unleash.

Jacob Barr (1:19:24)
Listen to something.

Delaney (1:19:35)
Does that make sense what I'm trying to say here?

Jacob Barr (1:19:37)
Yeah, letting someone explore options. then if you weigh those options, then you can figure out which one might be the best next one to try next.

Delaney (1:19:50)
Yeah, because I mean, you've had a lot of great ideas and I'm just like, some of them is just taking the time to ask the questions. And if you don't feel like you have that time, but you have somebody on your team who maybe could ask those questions, it could be a starting point. Like, and then you could have further conversation with them, but they could like bring those convert those questions to you.

Jacob Barr (1:20:08)
Yeah, one of the questions that I've been asking lately that I wish I would have started years and years ago on was I talked to a Pinnacle Clinic director. I'll ask, what is your greatest need? And then my follow-up question might be, what is your greatest marketing need? But usually I don't even get to that one because they're usually the greatest need is tied to marketing. ⁓ And usually I would say the answer has been most common is to reach more abortion vulnerable, abortion minded clients. ⁓

Delaney (1:20:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm, yeah.

Yep.

Jacob Barr (1:20:35)
And then, then once, but identifying that as the greatest need is really helpful because then if we come up with ideas that point to that outcome, then it aligns with something that's worthwhile to pursue versus just making the assumption that that's what they would want. Cause some groups have different greatest needs, like more volunteers or more funding, but the most common answer has been more AVAM clients. And, ⁓

Delaney (1:20:52)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:21:02)
But asking questions is really helpful for just like building up direction for what needs to be done next. And yeah.

Delaney (1:21:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

I love that you're hearing so many ⁓ centers express a desire to reach abortion minded, abortion vulnerable. That's typically what I hear, but occasionally it'll, you know, it might be, like we don't have that problem around us. And I'm like, if you've got a mailbox and somebody can get a pregnancy, I mean, an abortion pill, then you have this problem. If they have a way to get it from people from like other states or whatever, then you still have this problem. So I'm glad that that's consistently what you're.

Jacob Barr (1:21:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, if someone most most basic directors get it but for the few that may not see it like they I've heard that a few times where they said, you know, we don't we're in a different area or it's not that. ⁓ Yeah, the abortion pill can be shipped from India, it'll have a return address that looks local to your county. It will show up in someone's mailbox, they'll get it, they'll bring it into their house or dorm. And it's completely invisible to

Delaney (1:21:39)
Like it's.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So thank you.

Jacob Barr (1:22:08)
There's no sidewalk counseling. There's no, ⁓ there's no tallies being made. It's people guess it's 60 to 80%. I first 64 % said a lot. but we don't really know because it's not India is not reporting. and, ⁓ yeah, it's B it can be shipped without a prescription. It can be shipped in bulk for

Delaney (1:22:13)
Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:22:35)
distribution, can, it's, there's a wide range of scenarios right now.

Delaney (1:22:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a, it's, you know, totally, it hasn't, I mean, I don't mean it's changed the what's going on. Now we're both blurry, Jacob. Our cameras are not behaving, but it has, it's added a completely like different element. You've got to, I think it's important to be like aggressively, um, strategic and looking at what is at your disposal. What can you work on now? Cause I don't, I don't think everybody has to start doing everything today.

⁓ One of the things I talk to customers about is, you know, what does it look like to build up? Like right now, if your budget doesn't allow for this, I know we're going to see some success here. So let's start here and then let's this conversation again later, but just being intentional about the strategy and stuff, because you're right. Like it's crazy what's happening, especially just with what you just mentioned about idiot, the pills and everything.

Jacob Barr (1:23:30)
Yeah. I think when it comes to budget, what's one question I used to ask that one regularly, what percent of your budget is spent for marketing? And Care Net put out a number that a small clinic should have a budget of 10 % of end of revenue for marketing and a large privacy clinic should be close to 20%. But when I talk to privacy clinics, it usually ranged anywhere from

Delaney (1:23:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:24:00)
half a percent up to 4%. That was the most common range is like less than one to four. And then I think I spoke to one clinic that was spending 10%, but very often it was below four. And most people will probably hear this podcast and they won't get to see our blurry video. I worry too much about it.

Delaney (1:24:13)
Yeah.

Okay, that makes me feel better because I'm like, man, Jacob's so

nice. He has me on his podcast. I can't do anything about my camera. ⁓ I'm trying and I'm like, I don't want this to mess up any kind of like, I don't know, like people's is blurry video and then judge it. And it's not your fault, Jacob. It's my camera's fault. Okay, sweet.

Jacob Barr (1:24:30)
You

I've done podcasts where someone didn't even have a camera or where Alveda King

was in the back of a car and it was bouncing around. So no worries.

Delaney (1:24:45)
Yeah. Also, I'm

impressed by who you have on this, ⁓ who you have on the podcast. I was like, man, Jacob just must, like, do you, to get the wide variety of people from a bunch of different backgrounds and experience and levels of popularity and stuff, like, do you just always ask, like, what is, what's your tactic here? Or is there sort of type of person you ask?

Jacob Barr (1:24:50)
You

Yeah, I think ⁓ most people say yes. President Trump didn't say yes. I asked my contact there and it came back as he wasn't available. But other than that, I've had pretty much yes across the board. And I did say no to two people. ⁓ Actually, I did have one person say no, but it would have been controversial. It wasn't going to be a friendly podcast. ⁓

Delaney (1:25:14)
Nice. You're welcome.

You know, there's still time. yeah?

this is probably

for the best. Well, it could have been an interesting one.

Jacob Barr (1:25:40)
It was, yeah, I ended

up saying no on because it was also going to be controversial and it would have been hard. was ⁓ tied to the abolitionist group. in the end, I decided just not to amplify the message ⁓ more so than have a controversial podcast on here. Cause it's not really, we're mostly built to be friendly, encouraging, amplifying God's voice. But there's some that I wouldn't want to amplify their voice. It's, think they're attacking.

Delaney (1:25:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Peace.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:26:10)
Tracy clinics and that's not something I want to amplify.

Delaney (1:26:13)
I liked the one I was just listening to the, I'm going to mess it up. I want to say it was not sexual health, but ⁓ was her name Lisa or, no, I'm messing this up. She was, no, I shouldn't have tried. Lori. That's right. Lori. ⁓ She was talking about Lori Kukendall.

Jacob Barr (1:26:26)
⁓ there's a lot of episodes. ⁓

Laurina Villas at the Texas or Laurina.

OK.

Delaney (1:26:42)
Q Kindle,

she was talking about ⁓ how you start having the conversation before people ever are in need of like going to a maternity home or a pregnancy center, know, or an adoption agency or something. You're having that conversation beforehand.

Jacob Barr (1:27:00)
⁓ upstream.

Trying to reach them. Yeah, I think your group might even be called upstream. Yeah.

Delaney (1:27:03)
Yes, yes, there we go. Yes, yeah.

My bad. I should not have brought it up unless I knew the title and everything. But I was listening to that and it was encouraging and it was interesting. so it makes sense that that's how you're kind of determining who's going to be on the podcast.

Jacob Barr (1:27:11)
No, no, that's fine.

Yeah, so I've tried to have a lot of ⁓ different parts of the pro-life movement, like legal, religious, ⁓ practical, counseling. ⁓ For a while, we did a pastor and a priest combo. ⁓ And then we've also had just a wide range. And then we've also been doing a lot of the maternity home and adoption, trying to do the complimentary. ⁓

Delaney (1:27:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:27:53)
edges of the pro-life space. ⁓ We did one on frozen embryos adoption from IVF. We've done one ⁓ on just a lot of different topics. Yeah.

Delaney (1:27:54)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

You had

a lady, I mean, I'm sure there's multiple people, but somebody, I'm at the Care Net Conference. She's a pro-life children's author where she has, I actually have her book. Yeah, yeah, out of Alaska. Yeah. Yeah, anyway.

Jacob Barr (1:28:24)
Yes. Out of Alaska, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she wrote a book about, for

like three to eight year olds about, essentially to help them understand what an ultrasound is through storytelling, you know, grandma style. And, and I feel like there's probably going to end up being more ultrasound doctors who will say, you know, I got interested in ultrasound when I read this, you know, my mom would read this book.

Delaney (1:28:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:28:52)
10 times in a month. And I'm imagining that's going to happen. with books like that, that's where people start is when they're three to five years old, they get an interest in something and then they continue in that interest. So having content for those three to five year olds is really important for having more people show interest in that area. I mean, I would assume.

Delaney (1:28:53)
that's sweet. Yeah.

Yeah.

I've

that's true. And I feel even more convicted now to get that book in the mail to my godson so that he knows what's going on with mommy. Maybe he'll become an ultrasound tech or doctor. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:29:20)
you

You might have more awareness. It's not like it's,

and if they can understand it, why not let them understand it? What an ultrasound is. Yeah. It seems like that's, it seems very reasonable and it blesses the future of the ultrasound world, of the ultrasound kind of work.

Delaney (1:29:32)
Yeah.

Yeah,

and it helps the kids celebrate maybe a little bit more what's going on with mom when they kind of see like, this is what like this is what's happening. This is what it means.

Jacob Barr (1:29:53)
Yeah. And it's surprising what kids can understand. if it's put into a language that they can understand and it's reachable, and it's cool and good, yeah, it seems like that passes the test of, let's do it. ⁓

Delaney (1:30:01)
Yeah.

⁓ I, Jacob, you were, I remember one of the things I was going to say, it's still not like the marketing thing, but when you were talking about just like being competitive, even like on your own team and stuff, which I think is good and like especially done healthy, like can really help advance, but it made me think I was like my.

Gosh, Jacob must just be terrifying on the pickleball court. Like if you're talking about competition within teams, I was like, what, now that you feel comfortable, like what does that look like? Just like going hard at it.

Jacob Barr (1:30:37)
man.

Yeah. So we play indoors and it's an older crowd, like between late thirties to early eighties. ⁓ It's an older crowd and they're really good. I played yesterday against this lady ⁓ Lauren, who is this smaller woman.

Delaney (1:30:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, they are.

Jacob Barr (1:31:03)
And she is a force to be reckoned with. She hits the ball so hard and accurately. I mean, it's, I was lucky to win one out of two games and I lost the other game. And then this lady, Judy, I was playing with this lady, Judy on my team and she was, I think she said she was, I want to say 71, 65. I don't remember now, I guess, but, um, anyway, she did great. mean, but it's definitely the kind of sport that someone can play.

Delaney (1:31:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:31:33)
into the later years of life and be really good at it too still and play competitively. ⁓ I did hit the ball really hard at this one lady and I felt bad because I did speed it up on purpose because when I wasn't speeding it up she kept returning it and I hit her hand and I think it might have bruised her hand a little bit but I told her I was sorry and I definitely played softer after that hit but I really did hit it hard.

Delaney (1:31:35)
yeah, it's so fun.

I mean, you didn't.

Jacob Barr (1:32:03)
No, but she said ow

Delaney (1:32:03)
You didn't yell, that's what you get.

Okay, everybody

listening to this podcast, if you are inspired to pick up Pickleball, you've got to send selfies to Jacob. Have you taken up this new hobby? Tell him you're in it with him.

Jacob Barr (1:32:18)
You

Yeah, it's so much fun. And I was watching my wife play with her friend Tammy and they were just, they were killing it. Like she was getting these returns just barely over the net. And then her friend Tammy was jumping up and like hitting it really hard down and ⁓ boy they were, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's just that it's sort of like what it's a unique sport where you can show up at a place where there's a lot of pickleball players and just shuffle in to the play.

Delaney (1:32:27)
Yeah.

So nice.

It is.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:32:51)
and you'll meet, you'll play with different people every game or regularly ⁓ when you're there playing. And it's just, have a lot of these, at this one park, there's a lot of people that show up during certain times and it's really easy to play with people you'd ever played with before and end up just. Yeah. It's a really interesting way of play. The community is the interesting part.

Delaney (1:32:55)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a real welcoming. It's.

It kind of reminds me of like pick up basketball, but nicer and pickleball. Like if you've ever been playing ping pong and you're like, man, I wish I could hit this ball harder or you ever been playing tennis and you thought, man, I'm tired of running. Then pickleball is the sport for you. It helps with both of those.

Jacob Barr (1:33:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah and people that had played tennis or ping-pong or racquetball Usually pick

it up really quick or if they're young a little just pick it up pretty quick ⁓ I've even seen some golfers and baseball players seem to pick it up quick, but usually it's ping-pong and tennis Yeah, those translate very very closely ⁓ So ping-pong I think people are better at the kitchen line with doing really quick ⁓

Delaney (1:33:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:33:55)
responses to, you know, the speed ups or thinking. And then people that have that tennis background usually have really good long shots from the deep, the deep part of the court.

Delaney (1:33:58)
I panic.

I'm back court

back court is where I want to be if you if I get it if I get near the kitchen like the closer I get the warmer I get and that's because I'm having a full-blown just panic from the top of my head to the tips of my toes I'm like there it's just it's just too much like take me to the back and I'll just hit them I I do this one move that looks great when I do it it's probably not recommended by anybody with experience and it's terror it looks stupid if I mess it up but like in a moment like where I'm reaching off

throw my paddle from my right hand to my left hand and hit it. And when it goes over, it looks so cool, Jacob. And when it doesn't, it looks like, why did that, why did she do that? That was a horrible, like, why'd she make that mistake?

Jacob Barr (1:34:38)
⁓

Wow, you can switch hands, that's cool. Nice. ⁓

Delaney (1:34:51)
I think

it's poor impulse control is really what's happening when I toss my paddle from one hand to the other.

Jacob Barr (1:35:00)
Have you ever heard of the phrase ATP?

Delaney (1:35:04)
Nope.

Jacob Barr (1:35:05)
So ATP means around the post. if the ball's on your side of the court, and you can actually hit it below the net, but as long as you go around the post and into the other person's court, it's still good. That's an ATP. And those are pretty rare. Or when you're near the kitchen, have you ever seen someone jump outside of the kitchen so they jump over the edge?

Delaney (1:35:09)
⁓

Mm-hmm.

Wow, what a curve you have to put on that thing.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:35:34)
So you

can't step into the kitchen hitting the air, but you can jump from the kitchen line to out of bounds. And once I was playing in California and I saw someone jump over the kitchen, over the net, I don't know if that's legal. I never looked it up. No one else has ever done that before, but that's what they did. They're in a game.

Delaney (1:35:36)
Yeah, that's true.

Mm-hmm.

No, it can't be.

How young were their knees that they did that jump? There we go. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:35:59)
like 22. They were and the guy was like six, five and just barely

athletic. can't. Yeah, he was just really athletic.

Delaney (1:36:07)
There's no way. There's no way that's

Jacob Barr (1:36:11)
We can jump out of bounds. Other person's heart might be.

Delaney (1:36:13)
You can jump out of bounds,

but you're not in my court. If you jump in my house, that point's mine, not yours. That's all I'm saying. Right. Talk about intimidation. Like if someone's like, leave with some intimidation, they're the person that's jumping over the net, getting that point. That's funny.

Jacob Barr (1:36:18)
It's one those rules you don't even have to look up because most people aren't tempted by that idea.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's I just like the dinking where you try and just get it barely over the net or you speed it up. And then if you ever heard of that nasty, nasty Nelson, you ever heard of that phrase? So so that's when you're serving. And instead of serving into the appropriate court, you try and hit the other player that's closer, you know, if you hit them, it's your point. And that's a nasty Nelson.

Delaney (1:36:43)
yeah.

No!

huh.

⁓

Okay. I'm so glad you told me about that because I have two brothers that I pickleball with and I really looking forward to this, but I do sometimes get so annoyed. Like I'm playing with my dad and or my old, my younger brother, he there, there's so much taller than me and their net game is or kitchen game or whatever. So much better. Sometimes I get really irritated and I just pelt it straight at their chest. What is that called?

Jacob Barr (1:37:25)
Well, that's fine, they pelted it at their chest. So there's a move called the punch move, where you put your paddle straight, and you just push it straight forward. It's called a punch shot. So you don't actually swing, you literally just put your paddle, so it's like, you know, it's right there in front of you, and you just punch it straight forward. So if someone shoots the ball right at your chest, punch shot it back. And you have a lot of control over where it goes when you punch shot it.

Delaney (1:37:27)
you

Ooh, tell me about it.

huh. The punch move.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I do in ping pong, so I just need to bring it to the pickleball court.

Jacob Barr (1:37:56)
You have

a punch shot and take a ping pong? That's cool.

Delaney (1:37:59)
It's

called a pan... I call it a panic hit, but I've done that before where I just like, you know, immediately. Yeah. huh. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:38:03)
It's almost like a bunch where you literally just like push straight forward. You're not swinging. You're not trying to put English on it. just,

but it allows you to cover that really otherwise it's hard to swing when your arms are trying to swing right in front. I mean, sometimes you can, but if you, if these, another option is to just, yeah, punch shot. ⁓ so here's some trivia for you. You know why, you know why the, the first server starts in the Northwest corner of the court.

Delaney (1:38:15)
Yeah.

Huh. I'm sorry. Tell me.

No.

Jacob Barr (1:38:33)
So the game started in Washington, which is the Northwest of the country. And so that's why we always, that's why it always starts in the Northwest corner. That's the side that starts to serve based on where it started. ⁓ My favorite serve, I only do it once in a while because people think I'm making fun of them when I do it, or some of my friends do. I stand backwards at the serve line and then I bounce it and I do a back hit.

Delaney (1:38:36)
⁓ I like it.

Yeah

Okay.

Jacob Barr (1:39:00)
And I usually get about 80 % in and then but it's definitely morale booster because whenever I whenever I do that my team will ultimately you know we get excited every rally. Yeah.

Delaney (1:39:10)
rally. Okay,

do you guys have like an an iRapture Pickable team at this point? I mean know you and Heather go out but...

Jacob Barr (1:39:19)
Not, I

mean, not technically, but Heather and I play a lot and we're both employed by Rapture. The rest of the team, I don't think anyone else is currently playing. ⁓ I mean, that would be cool if they did, but ⁓ we have, we did play against another marketing group. We, we, we, met at one of the conferences and we were playing a lot. I'm trying to remember the name of the group. was, ⁓ boy, I have to look it up.

Delaney (1:39:25)
Yeah

Mm.

Who'd you play?

Jacob Barr (1:39:48)
But we play like they had that three or four people on their team plane and we met we've done it twice now at the car. Actually, we also play some of the hopesink or the heritage house group. ⁓ But they weren't as competitive. They think they are but they they don't they don't get out. They don't have any competitive people and snowflake.

Delaney (1:39:54)
Okay. ⁓

How?

How can

EWS get in on this? How can Extend get in on this action? Because we don't play, but... I mean, we play. Some of us do.

Jacob Barr (1:40:10)
Yeah, so bring your basketball paddle to the... you can... So if you start off with

a YouTube video, the way to balance it is you have one newbie player or new player along with, you know, a seasoned player and the other team you do the same thing, you know, a new and a seasoned and it just balances out. it'll like... People that are seasoned, what can help you learn the game, help you bring you up and then increase the intensity.

Delaney (1:40:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

Jacob Barr (1:40:40)
as appropriate.

Delaney (1:40:42)
Okay, my team, as long as everything goes well, I'm hoping to bring them all in for the Heartbeat Conference at the end of March. And I'm gonna tell them there's a good chance we might be able to play people in Pickleball. And they're all competitive. They may not know what they're doing. I'll teach them. We'll talk about it ahead of time, but that would be so fun.

Jacob Barr (1:40:55)
What's the matter?

Yeah.

Essentially, I think if people bring their pickleball paddles and we just work to find the nearest court to the hotel, that's all we normally do. And it might just be a short walk or it might be a short Uber, but either way, it's the closest courts.

Delaney (1:41:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that would be really fun.

Jacob Barr (1:41:21)
It was actually at a conference. I was playing by myself at the San Bernardino conference when I saw that guy drop jump over the kitchen and the net. I was at one of the last Sister Paula ILS conferences ⁓ that year. And but yeah, and I had just started playing like three weeks earlier. So I was just starting to get my pickleball addiction started. And and yeah, I was only three weeks into it at that point, I think. But ⁓

Delaney (1:41:28)
Yeah. Wow.

you

You mean didn't try jumping

over the net at that point?

Jacob Barr (1:41:52)
I still haven't tried that but I'm still curious if it's allowed or not. don't quite know. If you're a, one of the rules about the kitchen is that you can't run into the kitchen if you hit the ball in the air. Like you can't be in the kitchen or your momentum can't take you into the kitchen. But I have heard that the rules say that you can pull your team member back by their ponytail to help them stay out of the kitchen.

Delaney (1:41:57)
I'm

Yeah. Yeah.

No, no! If somebody pulls on

my... I'm not gonna be friendly after that. There's gonna be some friendly fire happening.

Jacob Barr (1:42:23)
That's what the rules say.

I don't know if anyone that's ever actually used that rule, but that's what the rules say. You can pull your team member back from the kitchen if the momentum is about ready to take them in. So you can like help them stay out. But I don't see anyone ever playing that level of competitively.

Delaney (1:42:40)
You know, I have seen in female soccer, ⁓ I've seen some girls get yanked down by their ponytail. So people who've maybe had a soccer background could possibly be really good at pulling. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Jacob Barr (1:42:43)
Ha!

Well, because you can't step into the kitchen if you can help your team members stay out. Yeah. ⁓

so yeah, so my wife, we play on Mondays before volleyball from like 4 PM to 6 PM. And then we play on Thursdays from eight to 10. And then we're playing today from noon to four. And, yeah, it's just, it's a lot of fun. then.

Delaney (1:43:00)
Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Jacob Barr (1:43:16)
I used to play a lot with some guys from my church after church on Sundays, Sunday evenings. We haven't done that lately, boy, it's a kind of sport though that I feel like my knees are stronger. think I probably have lost some weight. I definitely feel like my energy levels are higher. ⁓

Delaney (1:43:21)
Mm-hmm.

Well, you definitely

need your knees stronger if you're going to be taking up a half marathon. You need something building it up.

Jacob Barr (1:43:41)
When I first started playing

pickleball, my knees were terrible. One knee brace was like a must and the other one was just for like confidence. But it took me like after playing for six months or so, I didn't need the knee braces anymore. ⁓ But yeah, my knees were bad. I was sitting at a desk doing marketing work so much that my health started falling apart. yeah. ⁓

Delaney (1:43:49)
Yeah.

Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

I was talking to a friend who she's a physical therapist doctor. There's a better name for it, but that's what she has. And I was like, man, my knee should not hurt this bad in my mid thirties. I mean, I did a lot. I played rugby throughout college and after I played all kinds of sports in high school. And I also fell down the stairs many, many times. My last two years of high school, I just, it was carpeted and I was daydreaming. And so like all the time.

Jacob Barr (1:44:15)
You

Delaney (1:44:36)
⁓ so my knees have been through a lot, but I still feel like they hurt worse now than they should at this point. I, ⁓ pickleball, that's what I'm hearing as my, is an answer.

Jacob Barr (1:44:49)
Yeah, yeah. And just go do it. Have you played much yet? Or it sounds like you've played some, or maybe not.

Delaney (1:44:57)
I play pickleball about three times a year ⁓ because that's typically when my entire family gets together and that's one of the things we do. But I'd like to play it more. just, you know, need to actually look for a community group or something.

Jacob Barr (1:45:14)
Yeah. If you can find her, you don't, you don't want empty courts. want courts that are, they have, um, what's ideal is that there's a way to sign up to play in the next game with people you don't know. Like that's the ideal scenario. So like at one of the outdoor courts, there's, um, a paddle system. So people can put up four paddles in a row and, and every time there's four, you just put your paddle into the next group. And.

Delaney (1:45:24)
Mm-hmm. Okay, that's good. Good tip.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:45:41)
or indoor there's a whiteboard and people put up their names once there's four names, you know, that that's full. And then if it's into the system for like, when there's a court open, the next four go on, you want to find a place in your community that has that because if you have that you can show up as a single, a duo, a trio, all four people, but you don't have to have all four. You can just show up with something less and then mix in with people that are there. And then you'll play with a variety of people.

Delaney (1:45:56)
Okay.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:46:09)
And it's, and as long as you balance the teams out where the teams are roughly, you know, not way out of skew. And if you have two good players, just split them up, then it's really fun. It's really fun. ⁓ I think the community part is an absolute must cause you don't want to have just a bunch of empty courts and then just go play with, you know, the same group of four all the time. That's not as interesting. I think the community part is really good to, to find a group that's

Delaney (1:46:24)
Good to know.

Jacob Barr (1:46:38)
where it's busy and there's a little bit of a way and you have to get in the way to mix in.

Delaney (1:46:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I know we've got some good racquetball, not racquetball, pickleball courts. I just don't know which ones have that set up, but I'm sure they exist because.

Jacob Barr (1:46:54)
Yeah, you might have to look at some reviews or just to go visit them. Where I'm at, it's usually really busy in the mornings and then sometimes at sunset or during certain hours. If you can find out like when it's busy, that's usually the time to go and then find a way to mix in. ⁓ Yeah. Once you get past, you know, once you sort of get the basics down at least, or for someone that, you know, for someone to get the basics.

Delaney (1:47:02)
Mm-hmm.

Are you in

the mountain time zone?

Jacob Barr (1:47:22)
So we're in Arizona. we match mountain half and Pacific half. We never change.

Delaney (1:47:29)
Okay, I was just looking at the time and I was like, is Jacob about to, but then I remembered that would be, that'd be central. And then I was like, maybe he's in Manta. So I see. So you're close. You're close to like Mounin and Pacific. Like it's, what did you just say?

Jacob Barr (1:47:44)
Yeah. Well, so we don't, yeah,

our time zone doesn't, we, we, we went off of Arizona, which matches Pacific half the year. And then we matches mountain other half. Um, yeah, the podcast has been, I guess we're hitting like an hour and a half. So this is good.

Delaney (1:47:47)
⁓ okay.

Okay.

So I

was, I were talking, I was like, ⁓ I was like a bit, a bit. Jacob just cut some of this. Like maybe, that's was happening here as I pelt you with questions. Just want to talk here about pickle wall for 25 minutes.

Jacob Barr (1:48:07)
You know, when someone's on that long drive and they just want to hear some good banter, everything from marketing to

pickleball and beyond. ⁓

Delaney (1:48:19)
Yeah, I mean, I've had a good time.

Jacob Barr (1:48:22)
Awesome. Well, Delaney, I'm glad you've been on here as we wrap things up. ⁓ What are your final thoughts as we wrap things up? Maybe pulling back to the marketing and the extend conversation and yeah, what are your final thoughts before we close in prayer?

Delaney (1:48:44)
Let's see. What? Okay. Tell me this first, Jacob. What's the one thing you want to take your listeners to take away from any podcast episode you do?

Jacob Barr (1:48:48)
sure.

So ⁓ hearing God's fingerprints in the stories of the person on, hearing encouragement, and then hearing about something new that they may not have adopted yet.

Delaney (1:48:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jacob Barr (1:49:14)
And I think we got the finger. I think we got the new part with a B testing and the word of mouth and signage. Yeah, that's fine. And then and then hearing how God's brought you into this position and using your skills, even though you, yeah, whether you see it or sometimes you don't even see God's fingerprints until you go back and look later. ⁓

Delaney (1:49:20)
Your contribution. You're like, okay, if Delaney is not gonna bring me something new, I'm gonna make this happen.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (1:49:44)
That was good. Reflect on that.

Delaney (1:49:44)
Yeah, I think

kind of going off of that, something that this kind of goes in hand that we've been talking about, but going back to that celebration portion and then just also recognizing that it's not all on your shoulders. It feels like it is, whether you are the ED or the CEO or the director advancement or the client services director, whatever role you have at any point in an or. ⁓

in maternity home, adoption agency, pregnancy center, it can feel like it's all weighing on you, whatever your role is. And so just taking a moment to recognize that it's actually resting easy in his hands. And you might have those seasons of struggle where it does hurt a little bit more, but it's still resting easy in his hands. And what you get to do is look to him. So when people are looking to you for answers, you still get to look to him for that where it's like, Hey, did you hear that? We need an answer for this.

But one of the things that I found really encouraging is just looking back over the year. And so sometimes people will do that, but like grabbing a big sheet of paper, like we used to do this at New Hope and we will just write down like all the successes from the year, but it doesn't have to just be like looking at the year and the successes. I think it's really cool to take some time and you can even have a day, like maybe your next staff retreat or something, talk about God's finger to a finger prints in your life. Like take a page out of Jacob's book and

you know, everybody take like 30 minutes to an hour or something, kind of really just reflect on what did it look like? God's involvement in my life. What does it look like? What have I seen God doing at this organization? And then come back together and share. I think that could be really powerful, especially if you're in a season that's a little difficult to prepare you for what's coming next, to kind of remind you of what he has done and to encourage you for what he's going to do.

Jacob Barr (1:51:18)
to do with exercise coordination.

for.

Hmm. That's good. And I think that's the part that, yeah, that's the new part or the part that needs to be more adopted is, you know, taking time to celebrate and, and, reflecting and writing down, noting, paying attention to the wins, the small wins, the big wins, the, wins over time, but including those small, you know, fingerprint level wins. ⁓

Delaney (1:51:56)
Yeah.

When I see you at

a conference, Jacob, I'm to be asking how your team celebrates.

Jacob Barr (1:52:05)
Yeah, when I play pickleball, I'm just very vocal. I usually just like yell celebratory words.

Delaney (1:52:10)
Okay.

Genuinely, even

though you are so kind Jacob, I thought what you were about to say was well when we beat you in pickleball I'll show you how we celebrate. That's what you're gonna say

Jacob Barr (1:52:24)
I don't really

care about who wins the game overall. I really like just a really good rally. Even if I don't win the point, I just really enjoy having the ball go back and forth and people getting these really hard hits or maybe they lobbed it or someone dinked it or they had to go from the left side of the court to the right and they had to fully stretch or they had to hurry up because it was really far from where they were. To me, I just feel like

Delaney (1:52:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (1:52:53)
so much fun to see someone do well. even if you know, if usually both sides do well in those kind of rallies, but only one side gets the point, but I would celebrate it regardless of who gets the point because it's just really fun to have that kind of like competitive high level play.

Delaney (1:52:56)
Yeah.

So kind.

Yeah, that's true.

Jacob Barr (1:53:11)
Yeah. Cool. so, you think what's the, so we did the, yeah, I think we're, I think we covered the three pillars. I think that's, I think we're in good shape. So, so Delaney, would you, ⁓ as we wrap up, would you close this out in prayer? And then those who are listening, yeah, join in and let's call us. Let's yeah, let's pray to God together.

Delaney (1:53:19)
That was my last thing. Sorry.

Yeah.

Sure. Dear God, thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you for this conversation with Jacob. We were talking about burnout and I, ⁓ you know, this, there's always a lot to do. And I told him earlier that one of the things that helps with warding off that anxiety and stress is laughter. And I have had so much fun laughing with him and talking with him, celebrating what she's done in my life, ⁓ in his and Heather's lives and.

what is happening at organizations all across this world. Lord, I pray for the people listening to this podcast. I pray for the good work they're doing. If they feel isolated, God, I pray that you would open their eyes to not only the people around them that are running hard with them, but also the good work that you're doing. God, I pray that they would be encouraged. I pray that they would be equipped, that they'd be empowered.

I pray that they would have the space to take a deep breath, to not make some reactive ⁓ decision, but that they would be able to move forward with confidence and ⁓ knowing that you've got them, you've got the organization, you've got the women that they are trying to reach, the men, the babies, that each day when if a new Goliath is popping up, that you're not surprised and you're not scared and that you've got their back.

Lord, I pray that they would start to see miracles that are happening. The things that you have brought them through as individuals, families, their organization, as a team. I pray that they would remember those victories when new obstacles come about. God, I pray that this next year they would feel, I don't know, they just have a little bit more time to do things like A B testing, like Jacob suggested. I pray that you would have.

that you would have.

just really cool stories come out of this time that they would be encouraged and that they would ⁓ share those with Jacob so that he'd be encouraged as well. I thank you for the work that Jacob's doing. I pray that she would empower his hands as well, that she would continue to bring that next podcast guest his way, that these directors and ⁓ pregnancy help team members would be encouraged and they would be blessed. In your wonderful name, amen.

Jacob Barr (1:56:08)
Amen.

Delaney (1:56:09)
You wanted a five minute prayer, right Jacob?

Jacob Barr (1:56:11)
That was perfect.

Cool. I'll stop the recording there.