Veteran, Honey Mogul, I Am Second Founder – Now Fighting for Clean Food ｜ Ron Simmons & Nate Sheets
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Summary
Nathan Sheets is a fifth generation Texan who grew up in the Air Force and served in the U.S. Navy. He was a member of the Texas Rangers and served as the Chief of Staff to Governor Rick Perry. He is now a candidate for Texas Governor Greg Abbott's 2020 re-election campaign.
Transcript
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Well, welcome Nathan Sheets to the Relatable Podcast. And I know you'd much rather have
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Allie doing this. I get it. But I'll have to be second fiddle today. But so thank you so much for
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coming on. I know you've got a limited amount of time. You're a busy man right now without with
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Governor Abbott traveling the state. But what we wanted to do, and we're interested, of course,
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in what's going on right now in your candidacy. But I wanted to also give you a chance to talk a
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little bit about your background, Nate. Just give us just a couple of minute overview of
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the Nate Sheets' first early growing up story. Where did you grow up? And maybe your parents,
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Yes. So my dad was an Air Force pilot. And so we moved every two years growing up, always on Air
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Force bases, so up until high school. But my parents actually met in North Texas. My dad had just gotten
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out of the Air Force Academy and met my mom when he was up in Sherman in flight training. And my
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grandfather had been the Sherman band director for 55 years at the high school up there. And so
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our roots were always in Texas. I'm a fifth generation Texan, but grew up, went to high school
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and down in Hayes County, down south of Austin, and went into the Navy the day after I got out of
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school to pay for college and came back and went to Southwest Texas State University and then moved
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That's great. I mean, my dad was a band director as well.
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Yeah, in Arkansas. And in fact, he turns 90 here in a couple of months. So his 90th birthday coming up.
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So yeah, so I'm very familiar with high school band and all that type of stuff. And so you got
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out of the Navy, went to college, and then where did life take you right after college?
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Yeah, so I moved up to Dallas. My brother and I had started a little pen and pencil company,
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kind of serial entrepreneur. And so I moved up to Dallas and then started attending Preston
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Baptist Church, where you and I actually knew each other from and met there. But I also met my
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lovely wife, Patty Sheets there. And we got married in 1996. But right after we got married,
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we had a couple things that we did that kind of set a course for life that had no idea where it
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was going to take us. But one thing I did is I went on a mission trip. And so I went down to
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Valencia, Venezuela with a ministry called E3 Partners. And that resulted in me spending 12 years
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in full-time Christian ministry. But also right after Patty and I got married, she told me that
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we needed a hobby together. And I think she was thinking like scuba diving or antiques or,
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but I wound up buying a beehive. And so that one beehive turned into what today is the largest
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Tell us a little bit about your salvation experience, Nate. When did you,
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did you grow up in the church? And did you later? Tell us about that.
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Yeah. So my parents were believers. And so we were raised, you know, in a Christian home.
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And when we were at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, I remember at First Baptist Dell City,
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going down in front in fifth grade and committing my life to the Lord. And then I'll tell you,
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just, you know, again, we moved every two years. And so we grew up in Baptist churches,
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Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Pentecostal churches,
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kind of wherever my parents had relationships with friends because we were there for such a
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short period of time. But really the place where I experienced the most spiritual growth was after
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I got out of college and actually joined Presswood Baptist Church. And I was in a discipleship group
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with some guys. And one of them challenged me to get in this class called Evangelism Explosion,
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which teaches you how to go out and go share the gospel. And so that probably had the greatest
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impact on my life. And, you know, there's nothing, you always hear that the teacher learns more than
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any student. And so just having the opportunity to really learn to be able to represent the death,
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burial, and resurrection of Christ and understanding that salvific experience with Him,
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you know, really transformed my life from a maturity standpoint. And really, God brought me on that
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mission trip to actually go out and go learn how to do Evangelism. And so that just became a massive
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part of my life. And tell us about, you know, coming out of that, you said, okay, I'm going to
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join this mission field full-time with E3, what became E3 Partners. And then I want you to also tell
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us just a little bit about I Am Second and also the Evangelique, because I know those were things that
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came out of that as well. And just maybe how that all, how that all happened.
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Yeah, I'll tell you, it was such an awesome experience. You know, I never wanted to go to
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seminary. I never even thought I'd be in full-time ministry. I was just a business guy that went on
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a mission trip that changed my life. And so when I wound up going on staff at E3, I was asked to
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come on staff. And I guess that was in the fall of 1997. And I asked Mike Downey, who was the founder,
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he was also the guy that led my mission trip, when he said, hey, why don't you come on staff with us?
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I said, you guys have to raise support like a missionary, right? And he said, yeah.
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And I said, well, I'll have to think about that. So we prayed about it for a couple months,
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and we felt like that's what the Lord wanted us to do. And so it was such a great experience for me,
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because I felt like I was giving to live out my personal testimony of both learning how to
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articulate the gospel and then mobilizing people on short-term mission trips. And so God gave us
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in 2000, this idea for this one thing called an Evangelique cube. It looks like a Rubik's cube.
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And it's got seven pictures that represent the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And so
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we started equipping believers all over the world. It was amazing. We'd go to India and train,
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you know, 20,000 Indian pastors and give them Evangelique cubes to be able to go out in their
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communities and share the gospel. And then the second evangelism tool that the Lord allowed us
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to create was a platform called I Am Second. And it's an online evangelism platform. Norm Miller had
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called me up and was sharing with me about- And Norm was the president of Interstate Batteries
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at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. He was the CEO of Interstate Batteries. And he was just
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sharing with me that he was having a conversation with the Lord in his backyard on his 70th birthday
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and just asking God, what do you want from me for the rest of my life? I got maybe 15,
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20 years. And he felt like God said, well, have you ever gone for broke in your Jerusalem?
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And he's thinking, well, you know, I funded the Jesus Film Project in Romania and Russia.
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But, and he's telling me this on the phone. He says, but Nathan, if I was going to go try to
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sell more batteries, I'd probably do an advertising campaign. And if I was going to do an advertising
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campaign in Dallas, Fort Worth, I'd probably use Tony Romo. And man, as soon as God's, as soon as
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he said that to me, the Lord put this idea in my head. And I said, all right, Norm, imagine you're
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driving down the tollway and you see this billboard and it's got Dirk Nervinsky on it. He's the man.
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He's number one. And that says, I am second. And it drives you to this website. And we show you
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Dirk test, Dirk's testimony, share the gospel with you and try to hook you up into a local church.
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And said, Norm said, all right, let's get together in a week and see. And, uh, and let's talk about
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it. So I hung the phone up and this guy, Adam Lydick, who worked with me at E3 was sitting on
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the other side of my desk. And Adam was a creative genius and said, man, that's huge. Walked out of the
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room with a, came back with a white piece of paper and wrote, I am second. And that was the beginning
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of what turned into, I am second. We went over and showed it to Norm and he gave us 3 million
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bucks. And so, um, it was an amazing thing. Yeah. And those of you that are watching, listen
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to this, if you haven't heard of that, uh, just all you have to do is Google it or search
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for it. It's on there. There's some great testimonies, uh, through there, but then, then
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also during this time, your, your wife still, you are still doing this, you know, small honeycomb
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business. And then you said, okay, well, the next thing was to take that bigger. Is that
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right? And I know it was part of it had to do with one of your relatives that had some
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health issues, right? Uh, yeah, my mom had, uh, Alzheimer's and, and, uh, and cancer. And
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so she had, uh, been negatively impacted by that, but I, uh, took that one beehive and started
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getting into it. And you know what, Ron? Um, I hate this, but the governor there right
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here, I've got to go. Um, 10 seconds left though. I want people to, they can, they can
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look up Nate's honey, but tell us what you're doing at public service. What's your, what's
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your trying to get done? Listen, I'm running to be a Texas agriculture commissioner because
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we're losing, losing agriculture like never before. And we have a pandemic of health crisis
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related to the food that we're eating in America. And so, um, I've come alongside to be able
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to run for the Texas ag commissioner. I've been endorsed by governor Greg Abbott. I want
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to make agriculture great again, and we're going to get out there and help farmers and
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ranchers. We lost 68 farms this week and, uh, and we don't have to continue to do that.
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So you can go see more at natesheats.com and, uh, and show, and you can see how we're trying
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to impact Texas and help clean up the food that we all eat. Well, thank you, Nate. I appreciate
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that. Give my best to the governor and, uh, just be safe out there. Thank you, buddy.
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Nathan then decided that his, his honey business was growing and he built that into the largest
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honey company in the world, put his cell phone on every jar of honey. And he would answer his
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cell phone in the middle of the night. I've heard him tell the stories about that, put a
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nice Bible verse on every one of those. So like Chick-fil-A, like Norm Miller, he followed
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in the footsteps of those businessmen and like the greens with Hobby Lobby that not only walk,
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you know, talk the talk, but walk the walk in their business world to help build the kingdom.
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And then he's been called in to potentially be a part of public service. Nobody knows what's
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going to happen. The primary elections next week. And I'm not sure if he'll win or not. I, you know,
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I'll support him, but, uh, you know, there's, you never know. Sometimes God calls us into something.
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I remember when I first decided to run for public office, I didn't know if I would win or not,
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but I knew for sure that God had called me to be in the middle of it. And so I did that and was
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fortunate enough to win. I'm not sure whether Nate will or not, but I know that he, this whole experience
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has probably changed him and he's probably seen a lot of good and a lot of bad, but he's committed,
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uh, to, uh, trying to help Texas, uh, you know, live a healthier life and the department of
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agriculture in Texas is a big part of doing that. But I just thought it was an interesting
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interview, even though it was pretty short, there was some real nuggets in there. So I hope you'll
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take those and listen to it. And, uh, we'll, maybe we'll be able to have Nate on again in the future,
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but thank you for supporting Allie's podcast. Don't forget to get your share of the arrows
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tickets. They're available, um, online and we'll look forward to seeing you soon. Take care.