“I don’t want to be eulogized as, ‘He was a good entrepreneur, had a great social media marketing company.’ And I felt, at the time, like that’s kind of what I am. It’s kind of what I’m known for.”
In 2018, he left his role as founder and CEO of Click Rain to become the 32nd mayor of Sioux Falls, hoping to find a sense of significance in the process.
With seven years of public service under his belt and less than one year left, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken says he’s found not only significance, but also contentment.
“What really fills my cup and what really makes me feel like I’m having significance and an impact on the world around me is when I can build up leaders, when I can bring people closer to their faith through their work, and (to) see the connection between those two.”
Mayor Paul recently joined an episode of our podcast, Common Cents on the Prairie™, to talk about leaving Click Rain for a greater purpose and how money has impacted his career at every step.
Why Mayor Paul TenHaken left Click Rain
“It’s kind of a tale as old as time,” Paul said. “People who…reach the top of the mountain, and they’re like, ‘Is this it?’”
Before his tenure as the mayor of Sioux Falls, Paul was a colorblind graphic designer by trade with a marketing education from Dordt University.
“So, it’s what every politician goes to college for,” he joked.
Paul moved to Sioux Falls in 2000, where he worked in marketing for eight years before founding Click Rain in 2008.
“Which, at that time, was a social media marketing company,” he said. “And social media wasn’t even a term then. No one really knew what it meant.”
It was around 2015 and 2016 when Paul started to feel what he described as unrest and discontentment with his work.
“We were doing great, and life was good, and I loved it,” he said, “…but it was just really hollow.”
Paul acknowledges that he had success, but what he was lacking was far greater: significance.
“I was looking for more significance, so I started to unwind myself from that company,” he said.
From CEO to public servant
In the book “Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance,” author Bob Buford challenges readers to think about how they’ll be remembered.
Since reading that book, Paul says he’s written his own obituary multiple times.
“I just rewrote it a couple weeks ago,” he said.
During his period of unrest, Paul realized he would be eulogized as an entrepreneur and for his role as founder and CEO of Click Rain — but that’s not all that he wanted for himself.
“I want to serve people. I want to lead people. I want to make this community better. I want to have impact. And I just felt like God had more for me,” he said.
So he sold the company over a couple of years “to run for mayor of Sioux Falls, and fully expecting to lose.”
Not only did he win in 2018, but he was elected to a second term in 2022. And, he found the significance he was looking for.
“For me, purpose is really centered around the impact that I can have on other people,” Paul said.
“As corny as it sounds, it’s the reason you hope most people get into public service: because they’ve got no agenda other than they just want to serve and make people’s lives better.”
The financial state of Sioux Falls
Since Common Cents on the Prairie is, at its heart, a podcast about money, Paul and host Adam Cox took some time to discuss finances as they apply to the city of Sioux Falls.
“As mayor of a large and growing city, you get to see really two different sides of the same coin,” Adam said to Paul. “You get to see extreme wealth, and you also get to see extreme poverty. How has that perspective changed your view on money?”
“Too often, I think, we get stuck in our bubbles of: we hang out with the same people, we drive the same route to work, we go to the same church, we watch the same shows,” Paul said. “And we don’t get exposed to true poverty in our city and really understand what happens in areas of our city where we never go.”
“Those are things that I, without being a mayor, never would’ve had my eyes opened to or would’ve understood,” he added.
We’ve only covered a fraction of what Mayor Paul TenHaken and Adam Cox discussed on the podcast. If you want to hear more, watch the full episode at the player below!
And if you want to talk with an expert about your own financial situation, reach out to Adam and our team at First National Wealth Management; we’d be happy to have a conversation.
Any comments, insights, or strategies discussed in this article are intended to be general in nature and, therefore, may not be suitable for you and your situation, whatever that may be. Before acting on anything written here, please consult with your attorney, CPA, and/or your financial advisor.
