Episode 1: Getting to Know Jason Weimer, Founder of Gratūs Funds, on the Take Your Mountain Podcast

In this inspiring episode, we dive into the concept of kingdom change and how it requires not only a shift in capital but also in leadership and human capital. Our guest shares their insights on accelerating financial journeys, developing leadership skills, and driving positive change. We also explore the idea that wherever there is brokenness, there is an opportunity for a kingdom revolution in every industry. Join us as we discuss the potential for a new generation of warrior entrepreneurs and the gap between our current actions and our intended potential in Christ. Get ready to discover a deeper level of who you are and how you can contribute to the kingdom change needed in the world. Don't miss out on this thought-provoking conversation!

Transcript

Swell AI Transcript: TYM001 Mick Pickett Guest Host.mp4

Mick Pickett: Welcome to episode one of the Take Your Mountain podcast. My name is Mick Pickett, and I am guest hosting today as we interview Jason Weimer, founder of Gratūs Funds. I've had the privilege of getting to know Jason over this last year, and I'm honored to be here.
Jason Weimer: Cool, I'm excited. Thanks, Mick. Thanks for hosting.

Mick Pickett: Yeah, so we're going to jump right into it. I was just going to start with where'd you grow up?

Jason Weimer: Cool. Well, yeah, a little bit of background on me. I grew up in a little town called Grayslake, Illinois, about an hour north of Chicago. had an older sister, younger brother, two loving parents, had a very good childhood in the faith. Then in college age, chose to come up to a school called Bethel University out of St. Paul, Minnesota. They had just won the MIAC championship the year prior. I guess that was way back in 2000. We didn't have a very good high school football team. Loved playing sports and football and was looking to improve the program that I was a part of. So I ended up coming up to Bethel University and ended up meeting my wife and been up in the Minnesota, St. Paul, Minneapolis area ever since. What was it like growing up?

Mick Pickett: What was family life like?

Jason Weimer: Family life was, I would say, very average or, you know, normal, middle class upbringing. My dad was an electrical engineer, worked for a startup, a small company when I was a young four or five years old. And then my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so had the privilege of having access to her a lot and yeah, just a fairly, I don't know, average, normal class. No, no crazy drama either way.

Mick Pickett: Cool. And I know you went to, you said Bethel. I know you're a man of faith. So do you mind just getting into like, how did that journey begin for you?

Jason Weimer: Yeah, so we grew up, my family grew up in the Baptist tradition background. My parents were part of kind of launching a newer church in the early 80s. And I would say, I guess I described my faith or conversion was it just always seemed like a good idea. They were talking about Jesus and just righteous, a lot of I'd say, yeah, traditional righteous values. And it just always kind of resonated at a heart level. And I don't really have a specific moment in time that I recall, but as far as, you know, praying the prayer and all that stuff, but subsequently followed up like many people do, you know, a couple more times to just cover your bases. But yeah, so I grew up in the Baptist tradition and, you know, took my, Faith, serious enough that I wanted to pick a school when it came time to college, to pick a school that would support that faith that, you know, between partying, sex, drugs, rock and roll, the whole nine yards, I wanted to find a place that was conducive to continuing to grow my faith.

Mick Pickett: So just to kind of dive into that a little bit more, one of the main reasons one of your close friends wanted to introduce us was because he had noticed that you and I tend to use some of the same language regarding our faith. So I'm a man of faith as well. And that language is in regards to a concept that has become what I would say like a spiritual foundation for each of our journeys. And it was maybe a concept that was maybe just not taught as much in traditional churches or something, but we both of us came to this same revelation, I guess, and that would be this concept we've been describing as kind of the revelation of the father's love. Would you be able to like describe your experience with that concept and what it means to you?

Jason Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. So actually kind of going back a little bit, as I went to college, actually even probably even before that, I had different bouts of, I don't know if it's depression, but different bouts of like, You know, I got this wonderful family. I got plenty of opportunity. Even back in eighth grade, I remember thinking, you know, kind of what, what's it all about? Like, why am I, why am I here? I heard Elon Musk actually mentioned something like he used the term existential crisis. You know, it was kind of like, this is great. You know, I'm in his case, he's a, you know, 155 IQ genius guy and obviously capable of a lot of things, but kind of, So seeking that deeper meaning, that deeper purpose amidst all the, you know, the day-to-day, I'm an introvert, so I enjoy thinking and having time for my own thoughts. So when you cut away, you know, eating, feeding, playing baseball, whatever the heck you do, you know, really answering this deeper question of what's my purpose? Why am I here? Well, that was kind of like in the back of my mind. And I intuitively sensed, you know, the faith and purpose were linked to each other. But as I approached the end of college, you know, I intuitively sensed that I was gifted and skilled in business, economics. But in my faith tradition, this wasn't necessarily spoken from the pulpit, but there was this idea that if you're really serious about your faith, that you are one of two things. either a pastor or a full-time ministry. Sort of over in Africa or Papua New Guinea, those were the people that were hardcore, that were serious. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. I want to be hardcore and serious. At some level, I realized, you know, you got one life to live. It's a tremendous gift. But I wanted to do it well and to do it hardcore, for lack of a better word, But the model that I was given was kind of broken as far as what I kind of knew I was supposed to be doing. So it was actually in that process, in that tension of trying to figure out, well, yeah, at the end of college, I basically was willing to do nothing until I figured out purpose. I know there's lots of different opinions on purpose. Some people feel like, you know, you're looking for this big download versus just taking these little steps. I didn't necessarily need all the steps, but I wanted to have a certain settledness in my spirit that as I was starting off life, after college, picking my career path, that there was at least some semblance of alignment between what I was supposed to be doing on this earth with the day-to-day activities that I was doing And the model I had just didn't, didn't answer those questions. So I was really pressing into the Lord during that time. The first, uh, first year out of college, um, got married in that timeframe. Um, and you know, like I said, I kind of have these different emotional emotions about it. Um, and while, but while I was counterintuitively, this wasn't something I necessarily invited or asked for, but while I was trying to figure out this deeper, purpose in life, I end up having this experience that you kind of shared a little bit earlier, which I come to, I didn't really have words for it at the time, but I come to today to describe it as a revelation of the love of the Father's heart. And what had been happening, I was reading all kinds of spiritual books and really trying to get a deeper meaning and purpose. I stumbled on stories of these near-death experiences. I don't know if you've heard of these like near-death experiences, but It kind of fascinated me because it was like this glimpse into the spiritual world from a much different perspective than you would get at church, but also very real and specific to the people's stories. But one of the things that was consistent through a lot of these accounts was this idea of a life review. You've kind of heard of that, like if you've ever fallen or something and your life flashes before your eyes, Um, you read these accounts and everyone's description is a little bit different, but, um, I just recently rewatched one and he talked about this idea of being accountable for your life. And on the one hand, it's like a, it's a super scary idea. Um, they said specifically you're, you reviewed your life. Um, forwards, like from your perspective, backwards from your perspective, then through everyone else's perspective that you impact. Things you said, the things you did. And I know for most of us, when you hear that idea of like, I don't know, reviewing your entire life and everything you ever said and did, and how that impacted others, I think a lot of us kind of cringe, you know? It's like, what did I say? What flipping thing could I have done? Even in my, you know, when you're in best of attentions, Anyway, so on the one hand, that's kind of a little bit of a terrifying idea, at least it was to me. But also what you had countering to this in every one of these stories was this idea of just this loving presence that helped you process that. And just as you know, there's plenty of things people had to be rejoiced, you know, happy about. But, you know, when it came to things that they were like, oh, my gosh, that really hurt so-and-so's feelings or whatever. There was this presence, this overwhelming, unconditional love that kind of surrounded them. And from what I could tell, made it like not only a tolerable experience, but like a beautiful experience. And anyway, so I started kind of getting obsessed with these and reading these different accounts. And I think what was happening as I'd had probably 10, 15 years to review that was that my vision of who God was, his very character was being shifted and changed through that process. I didn't, I have a, term for that now, which I didn't even have words for, but this idea of the orphan spirit or the orphan mindset is pretty simple. And I think pretty much all of humanity probably struggles with this at one time, which is despite my upbringing, I had wonderful parents. But there was this kind of performance mindset built into whatever I did. I was very gifted at school. I was gifted in athletics. But no matter how good I was, I could always be a little bit better. Whatever you needed to accomplish in life, you know, you needed to be disciplined, get up, work out hard, play hard. You know, I would call all that now striving, which is just, you know, pouring yourself in and having to kind of this sense that you're on a hamster wheel, that no matter how much energy you put out, the next challenge, the next demand requires that much more energy. And it's kind of exhausting, actually, you know, to whom much is given, much is expected, that kind of idea. As a young man, that was actually a pretty big weight on my shoulders. So, but all these things are subconscious. You don't even realize kind of like how You've internalized the world and in this case, like God's very character actually. So I think as I was reading these stories, I think what I was attracted to was a refreshing, a new way of looking at life and through this kind of life review process. And it was sometime during that thing, I didn't ever actively ask for this experience or anything, As I was pressing in, trying to figure out some of the deeper things of life and my purpose, there was this one day where I was by myself and just felt the presence of the Lord. That's a tricky thing to say, but I felt the presence of the Lord come into the room and literally like what it felt like was this love like water, like washing over me and through me and into every cell. I like literally could feel like pushing, pushing things almost like cell by cell and just flowing through me. This idea of just unconditional love that no matter, here I am, you know, I've got to figure out my purpose. But I was just saying, basically like, calm down, Jason. Like, I love you. I love you. There's nothing you can say, act, or do to ever get more of that love. And it is one thing to like hear that and know that, oh yeah, that sounds great. But it was literally this sense of knowing that there was nothing I needed to do. I basically, God loved me completely and totally as I was. And no matter how much gifts and all this stuff he'd given me, how I applied those or didn't apply those, wouldn't change how much he loved me one bit. And I share that also, when I say me, what I've learned since then, that's a universal thing. That is true of all of us. We're all God's children. He truly loves us, each and every one of us, just like that. And for me, in that moment of taking that head knowledge and shifted to the heart knowledge. And I was just overcome with gratitude, just like a profound sense of gratitude. And I use this word now to kind of describe the shift. But if in the past, that striving, that acting, trying to earn love, you know, whether it's a girlfriend, a relationship, a job, it's something you're always trying to earn, love, acceptance. In that moment, I knew I had received all the love I could ever need. And so instead of working to earn love for love, my heart was shifted to a posture of coming from a place of love and gratitude. And so it wasn't that long after when I actually did feel like I got a massive download. of kind of confirming a calling and a purpose for myself. But because it came from such a place of profound gratitude, that's what ultimately why I picked the name Gratus, which is a Latinized version of gratitude, to act as a reminder of that experience and also what that experience means in every single challenge and environment I find myself in, just as a reminder.

Mick Pickett: Amazing. And for the listeners, I had a similar story as well. And I would just introduce and encourage anybody to just go to the Lord and ask him about this concept and just be like, I want to know your love on a deeper level. Invite him to father you and reveal himself to you as father and kind of go after this thing. Because what we've realized is when that love of God goes from your head to your heart, It answers all the other questions, like you said, Jason, like all the other affirmations that you're seeking from the world and things, they get solved in that moment. And it becomes this like cornerstone foundation that you can bounce back quicker, because the world, it doesn't mean every day is easy, but you have an anchor that nobody can ever talk you out of. That's why I like to describe heart knowledge where nobody can ever talk me out of my experience, just like for you as well, you know what happened. That's that. And when you have something that secure, you can build a life off of that. And it becomes almost like your new lens that you, that you have inputs, like, uh, the way you experienced the world, everything has to filter now through this new revelation knowledge that you've received. So that's for everybody. So I encourage you all to go after that, but moving on a little bit, you had mentioned earlier that, uh, you are married. Yeah.

Jason Weimer: Talk about it. Yeah. So, uh, in college met, um, Actually, it's kind of a funny story. In my junior year of school, I went to a smaller private school full of plenty of eligible bachelorettes and didn't do a ton of dating. In my junior year, my dad just kind of took me aside one time and said, hey, you know, basically you don't have a lot of time left. You start to get a little more serious about this whole dating thing. I don't like to be corrected by my dad. I'm like, you know, you can't have a point. So it wasn't that much longer. I was in a gen ed. It was called Society and Morality. And met one day my future wife. I was late to class. Ended up sitting next to me in the back. I was a junior. She was a freshman. So she was normally up front. I was chilling in the back. But she came in late. And we hit it off. And yeah, the rest is history. We got married, dated for two, two and a half years, got married in 2006. 17 years. Amazing.

Mick Pickett: Yeah. Okay. I have kids.

Jason Weimer: Yeah, so that's a little bit of part of our story. We tried to get pregnant like mid-20s, found out it wasn't going to be easy for us. And through basically, I don't know, a seven-year process, in vitro, finally had our first child, Ruth. She's five years old now. And then we're blessed with a second child, son, McClay. And he'll be two in October here, October.

Mick Pickett: Amazing. Yep. All right. Well, you, you touched on a little bit earlier that you were, you kind of feeling you're drawn to, to the Lord and kind of advancing the kingdom, but also kind of drawn towards the business world as well. What'd you, what'd you do with that?

Jason Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. Well, as I said, in this year after college, um, I was basically, I guess I describe now a visual is I kind of had built this faith up, right? And there's all these like, assumptions on top of assumptions on top of beliefs. And I felt I was up on top, kind of swaying in the wind where I was like, I felt there's plenty of good stuff below me. But there's plenty of stuff that probably wasn't core or central. And so I made a decision just like, and blow the whole thing, like blow the whole thing up and start fresh. So I was, I was very open. I was learning. Um, I ended up reading the Quran. I ended up reading lots of different things just to like, you know, what's all out there. Um, but what, after kind of going through this process, um, I just felt like I ended up with a much simpler faith. Uh, that's like not at all religious. Um, as simple as like you're put on this earth for a reason from your father, your child of the most high. And like that relationship is, is there like, that's the key relationship. Um, and once you kind of understand that, like everyone's relationship with, with the father is, it's going to be different. Just like everyone relates to one another slightly different. So some people, um, hear through dreams, some people hear the audible voice of God, some people just have impressions, but basically, the tenet, love God, love others, that really is what I attempt to be my faith in a nutshell. That shows up as going to church and doing a lot of religious activities, but to me, it's much more simple, it's a relationship with my father. And then, discovering that God is a creative God. The classic kind of critique of the boring Sunday experience. If you find life there, then do that thing. But like God's designed us for a purpose, literally like the skills, the abilities, the impressions, the visions, the relationships he gives us, those are all given to us to latch onto to ultimately to serve him and build the kingdom. Um, so, but what I realized though, is that the Lord wanted to show me, um, before you do any of that, don't worry about that. Don't, don't get ahead of yourself. You'll get to do some cool stuff, but just rest in the identity in me. And subsequently I, I, you know, later on, um, you know, the stuff's all over the Bible, but we just haven't quite accessed it the way I think we're meant to, um, versus talking about how we are, um, sons and daughters. in the royal lineage of the Most High. All that really just helped me shift my perspective on what my faith meant to me and how I lived that out. But ultimately what it manifested in is I did end up having a revelation or a download in that time frame. And the way the Lord did it kind of used Socratic method. So again, after I had this experience of love, I was like, okay, Lord, now I have this love, now I want to show it. What does that look like for me? So I had mentioned I was wrestling between full-time ministry and business world. And the Lord's just kind of like, slowly walked me through this is like, OK, so what's full time ministry all about? Well, you know, impacting people and serving people and helping helping the world, you know, changing the world. OK, well, where are most of the people like on a day by day basis? Like, well, I think actually ninety nine percent of people are in the business world. You know, they're out doing some sort of commerce, just percentage. OK, so. That's where the people are. And you've got a deeper purpose. And, you know, business inherently has a sustainable. That's the other thing. If you're if you're in the nonprofit world, what are you continually doing? You're always raising money. It's like, OK, why couldn't you just start a business that has its own economic engine and it serves a deeper purpose? And you're where all the people are. Walk me through that. I was like, oh, that kind of makes a lot of sense. Um, so that, that helped affirm that that was a, not just a, uh, secondary calling, but a primary calling equal. Um, and I wouldn't say it's more than, but, um, it needs to be more edified than some of the traditional paths. So we're all, we're all like different parts of the body, right? But the heart, if you had just the heart and you didn't have the lungs and the stomach and the intestines doing what they do, then the body wouldn't function, right? So, come up with these analogies in the future to help me actually organize this to think about it. So anyways, as I was, after this kind of affirming that that's a legit calling, you're not a second class citizen, being in the business world, being in government, being in anything but, you know, being a pastor. No, like the world needs, Basically, when God comes into your heart, then you start to reflect God. And so then when you take him with you, then he wear his hands and feet. So he needs those hands and feet everywhere, right? So yeah, that's how I would describe that. And we can dive more into that further download, but that's kind of a summary on that.

Mick Pickett: Very cool. You touched on one thing I wanted to bring up. How you at the very beginning of the process, you kind of blew up your whole blew up the whole past understanding and things. I think that's a super important concept when you're trying to be trying to take your take your mountain and kind of like become whoever God created you to be. And it's we've all learned different shades of Christianity or different ideas about the world based on our experience or mentors that have taught us things. But this, if you want to step into a deeper relationship with the Lord, you kind of got to get quiet with them and just say, they just kind of surrender your previous understanding, almost just set it aside and say, Lord, I'm here. What do you want to work on in my heart or my mind next? I want to go your way. And it's you basically did that without even knowing you were doing that. Like this is kind of the idea. And I think that's the, that's a prayer he wants to answer. So what did you do in Like after college, what did you do in business first?

Jason Weimer: Yeah, so like during this time, I was involved in a startup right out of school. But it was during this timeframe and I had been kind of building a worldview, I guess, which was really just kind of noticing certain compromise in different areas. I looked at kind of the education system. Um, even studied on the government and how, you know, our, our country was originally designed and, and notice there was a lot of discrepancies between. What, um, let's just take education for, for instance, um, you know, we pay all these taxes and, um, I got done with college. I was like, you know, I could have probably got that done a year or two sooner with a little bit more focus. and started researching more entrepreneurial, innovative ways to do education and stumbled on this idea of vouchers and recognized that there were certain forces in play. Those were probably good ideas or at least worth exploring, but there were certain power structures that were in place that made that highly unlikely without some real acts of God, literally. And I started studying that there was kind of these compromises in different areas throughout society. And being the entrepreneur, as I started noticing that it fires off all these like potential business ideas or ways to make a difference. And I quickly realized that there was way more than I could personally do in multiple lifetimes. But the idea of building a platform where you could bring together capital, kingdom, kingdom capital, if you want to call it purpose driven capital with, you know, entrepreneurs that were designed and built and excited to tackle some of these challenges and bring those two things together. That's what ultimately became the inspiration for, for Gertuse Capital. First doing it for ourselves, like doing successful investing for ourselves, but all with the intention of building a capital platform that we could launch businesses and improve the world through entrepreneurship, not sitting back complaining, but saying, Hey, we can make a difference. And let's do this. And in our lifetime, let's see, see how much positive change we can drive.

Mick Pickett: So we're trying to integrate our faith and our relationship with the Lord into the marketplace, our day to day business and things like that. So it's like when you have like, let's just say, an everyday decision, like What is your, how does your faith play a role? Just, I would say just in your, your normal decision-making throughout like your business day.

Jason Weimer: Sure. Um, well, I recently heard someone say, uh, there's a verse that says, you know, it's supposed to pray without ceasing. It sounds kind of unrealistic, right? It's like, well, I'm not going to be, you know, our father who art in heaven. Right. Um, I don't think that's what they mean. Um, I heard someone define prayer as focused intention of the heart. I mean, they said it more succinctly, but it was based on this idea of what are you intending to do and for what reasons? So each one of us have a desire in our heart that we're trying to live out. So I've come to, as you press into that on a daily and a consistent basis, and you're truly seeking to seek God's will, basically, for you in any circumstance. I think I've made it clear, spiritually speaking, that I want as much wisdom, guidance, help that I could ever need at any point. There's times where I have to really press in and demand it. But if you have that kind of posture for seeking, you know, the highest and best in a circumstance, then I believe that opens you up to, to hear, to be, to receive that relationship, to receive that tweet, to receive, oftentimes, plenty of times, it's your wife, you know, telling you, giving you some insight or idea of, of how to handle a particular situation. So I guess to summarize, it's like just continually pressing into What, Lord, what do you have for me in this situation? And making plenty of mistakes, you know, like not getting it perfect, but like trying to listen to that still small voice and amplify that. And the more time you spend with the Lord, I find it easier to amplify that and press out the world and all the other distractions you have. But that is, that's part of the discipline.

Mick Pickett: That's good. It's almost like the more time you spend with him, the more he proves it to you that it's worth spending time with him. Getting kind of near the end here, do you want to describe Gratus any further?

Jason Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. So as I was mentioning before, part of the vision that came to me early on was being an entrepreneur, realizing that not this isn't a calling for just one person that we need a ton of entrepreneurs. There's anywhere you see a gap between what you think might be possible and what is, that's an opportunity for an entrepreneur to dive in and figure that out. And as I kind of analyzed the world and looked at the deeper spiritual reality to lots of these things, if you look at our education system, the government, our entertainment, the business world. Each one of these things you can kind of break down. And actually, a friend of mine just recently gave me this word, this idea that there's meant to be, wherever things are broken or not working the way, you know, an entrepreneur, someone who can see how it could work better, wherever there's brokenness, God has a kingdom revolution for every industry. There's a kingdom way to do things. There's kingdom solutions out there. And it's become more clear to me, I think, in the last three to four years, that there's actually a new generation of, I call them warrior entrepreneurs, but basically people that are willing to stand up, be counted, to do the hard work to start a thing, to see a thing through, to raise the money, to bring the teams together to tackle these issues at a deeper level. And Gratuce is meant to be a platform really just to help to help grow capital faster and more efficiently with less risk, because that's one of the biggest challenges is a lot of the resources are concentrated in a fairly small number of hands. So, you know, a big part of what our mission is, is to is to make investing and alternative investments more accessible to a wider audience, because we know, you know, really kingdom change requires. The capital is almost the easy part, but the leadership and the human capital is the second piece. So to use this platform to help people to accelerate people's financial journey, but also create a platform where we can learn the leadership skills and the things necessary to lead at that next level, to be able to drive the positive change that I believe that the Lord has as we as we lay hold of this thing called kingdom.

Mick Pickett: Great. I just love you are. You're definitely an inspiring leader when it comes to these types of concepts, helping even me to just, just understand that we all have a lot more value to add to the world around us than maybe we've been led to believe. So it's, it's a, it's exciting to hear you talk about this and to be giving it like an on-ramp to. probably lots of other people that have been in that similar boat of like, well, I love the Lord and I'm in this job and I don't really know what to do. And you're kind of trailblazing, trailblazing the way I think for these next generation of believers where I think God wants to just to let us in on some like divine creativity. I think the body of Christ is meant to solve world problems. And I think your type of heart is a leader in that field already. So I really appreciate who you are and how you walk out your faith and a very genuine person that I am so honored to know. So I appreciate you, Jason.

Jason Weimer: Thanks, Vic. Yeah, I mean, that reminds me, if we leave on one concept, it kind of goes back to the beginning of my story. is one of the key attacks that we take on this earth is around this idea of identity. Like, who are we? Because if we know who we are, then a lot of other things fall into place. And, you know, obviously I shared my story of feeling the sense of love, but then going back and finding the Bible verses to kind of support that we, when Jesus came and died, he paid the legal price for our sin and earned, bought back our original identity, which is sons and daughters in the royal lineage of the most high. Even just using the term saints to refer to Christians, you know, so much we're talking about sin and sin's real and sin's, sin is harmful, but Jesus overcame sin to free us to live into the highest identity that God called us. You know, there's a verse that says, you'll do the same things I do and more. What's he talking about? I actually don't fully know what he's talking about, but what I do know is it sounds pretty stinking good. And there's a huge gap between what we're doing and exercising today and what I think the intended potential for who we are in Christ is. And so that's really what this podcast is about. It's discovering at a deeper level who we are and connecting that to the kingdom change that's needed in the world. And my desire is just to learn to build a community where we can learn together, do deals together, and pursue God and purpose at a higher level in our lives.

Mick Pickett: Amazing.

Jason Weimer: I love it. Well, thanks for doing the interview, Mick. I really appreciate you kicking us off on this first episode of Tank Your Mountain.

Mick Pickett: Yes, I'm excited for you and all that you guys are doing at Cartuse.

Jason Weimer: Thanks, Mick. See ya.