Episode 87 - Building More Than Homes with David Weekley
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In 1976, 23-year-old David Weekley started his own home building company. Now more than 40 years later, the company has sold more than 100,000 homes, expanded to 19 cities across the nation, and won countless awards. In addition, David and his family launched a charitable Foundation to impact the world through both Christ-centered and secular organizations. David joins us to share the story of starting one of the most successful home building companies in the country and how their foundation is changing the lives of thousands around the world.
Episode Transcript
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David Weekley: I would share to you, no one go where their passion and where they're called, but number two, not to set aside their business acumen and learnings when they give so often times, especially if you come from a place of faith, you kind of it's like you do business with your head and you give with your heart. And to me, you ought to combine those just like, you know, hopefully we're living out our faith during the week and work. I think we're supposed to give with the same business acumen that we use in earning money. Just amaze me that people spend 40 hours of 50 hours a week, whatever earning sums. And then they'll give at the drop of a hat without any investigation, understanding, et cetera.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast is a special edition to combine this with our sister property, Faith Driven Investor, because we've got a really special guests. And to be clear. Having done a couple of hundred of these, each one of the guests are very special. And each one of them has made a major impact, I think, on all of our lives. I think they're great stories. I hope that you'll agree with me today, though, is, shall we say, extra special. We've got David Weekley on the program and from time to time we'll have an interview with somebody who's made an impact on my life and has for quite some time. And David is one of those people. I met David first, I think, probably about 12 years ago, and I think back to the different entrepreneurial things that I've been involved with my life. And to some extent, they've been informed by some measure of naivete and hubris. And you know, David met me when I was in my thirties. I'm now in my early 50s and I found him to be nothing but incredibly encouraging. He must have been thinking, this guy's crazy. He just did all these different things he wants to do. He's never going to be able to do any of them. And I'm a busy, successful guy and I don't have time for this. And yet he did, and he's been one of those guys that has consistently been a source of encouragement to me, of guiding me and how to think about entrepreneurship, how to think about giving and giving. Well, Sir David, thank you very much for spending so much time with me over the years. Thank you very much for being on the program.
David Weekley: I'm excited about it.
Henry Kaestner: So we like to start every one of our episodes by hearing about the personal background of our speakers. And you've got a great one and you've got incredible testimony. And so we want to start there. And so maybe you can just start off. Of course, at the beginning, bring us through quickly about the type of home you grew up in, but then what made you decide to launch your own business?
David Weekley: Born and raised in Houston, Texas, fortunate with a mom and dad who were together for seven years and two older brothers. We were all eagle scouts and, you know, kind of a suburban. Leave it to beaver kind of life growing up. So I was blessed in that way. My two older brothers were a lot older, 12 and eight years older, and so I know look up to them and always wanted to live up to their expectations of my parents expectations. Found out Boy Scouts, if you work hard, you could get badges. And it was kind of fun and I was never the smartest guy in school or the best looking or the best athlete. So I found out the working hard is what worked for me. I married my high school sweetheart, three kids and grandkids, and started out and went to work for a homebuilder right out of school because I was supposed to go get a a business degree up east, go get an MBA, and they wanted me to get a couple of years of experience. And so I went to work for a homebuilder and that was great. But then I got fired after about a year and a half, and so my brother said, Well, why don't we start our own company so at age 20 to start my own company? Fortunately, it was the late 70s in Houston, Texas, and lots of homes were being sold and so grew that company up to the mid 80s. By the time I was 30 made a lot of money, thought I was God's gift to the homebuilding business president, Local Builders Association, speaking to three hundred people every month and driving my BMW seven Series and building a 10000 square foot house at Memorial. I mean, I was I pretty much had it made. And then, sure enough, market downturn in the mid 80s oil and gas business in Houston and American went from 30000 starts to 6000 starts. And most builders went broke and we didn't because we went to a couple different markets and were able to get profitable before we went broke. But the key point about that part of the story is that I remember the worst thing about that downturn was the reality that I had millions of dollars flow through my hands and nothing good had come out of it. And so kind of made got a promise to give me one more boom and I won't screw the next one up. And he came through in the late 80s and early 90s, and guess what, about 92 that they have open heart surgery for a birth defect. I went on a Christian retreat and remembered my promise and said, OK, from this point forward, I'm going to give half my time and half my money to charitable causes. So I had to hire a CEO. I went through a couple with and found the right one, and I had taken the company up to about 300 million and he's taking up to three billion. So I was fortunate to find someone wonderful, talented I was that was a professional manager where I was an entrepreneur, so to speak. So since then, I've been given half my time as well. And so that's something that a lot of folks can't do, but it helps you gain some knowledge, I guess, of the last 30 years and half my time, a thousand hours a year. So that's 30000 hours into philanthropy. And you know, we've all heard it takes 10000 hours to get to be an expert, but I'm still making. Mistakes regularly, so still working on it.
Henry Kaestner: Well, the best part of that is that you're showing mistakes with people like me is I and a lot of other people try to be better on that giving that helps rather than hurts. If you think about Brian Stricker and his work and so you've been a big part of that. I actually want to go backwards just a little second there because you talked about running the business as an entrepreneur and running the business as a manager and going from $300 to three billion. And what the type of skills are, they're required to take it to that level. So many of our audience are entrepreneurs and they have a vision and they've got the energy and they're catalyzing things. And yet it's almost agree that you get the vision sometimes that you're not great at actually program witnessing things. Can you talk a little bit about how that happened and just some of the maybe some of the lessons that you've learned in not only your own experience, but having been around enough around other entrepreneurs about mistakes made and or just council, you would give a visionary entrepreneur that is starting to see success come about and yet is really wondering what it takes to really scale something.
David Weekley: I was fortunate in that my older brother, who was my partner, was also a great mentor. And so I was able to bounce things off him and he had good business judgment. And entrepreneurship is sometimes a pretty lonely business. And so my first thought is to get some mentors people who you trust and have faith in to count for you early on. Second thought would be, is that, you know, oftentimes if you got a private company in your private stockholder, you know, the story is never sell anybody else stock or never give to anybody else. You know, you can pay them well, but just don't give up stock. And for me, I found just the opposite to be true when I brought on my CEO as a partner sold some stock to him. Now I've got 40 managers that are my partners, that own real stock. And it's great having them go through ups and downs. You know, this last downturn for us in 2007 and eight was really tough. Sixteen hundred team members and we took it down to eight hundred to survive and having a bunch of folks on the board with me pull through those waters that were my partners, whose financial net worth was on the line, just like mine was, was very helpful.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, OK. So that's helpful. You know, we talked a lot about partnerships on the program and I'd be completely lost. I've had three different entrepreneurial endeavors, and each one of them were successful because of Divine Providence, but more pragmatically, having an incredible partner because otherwise being an entrepreneur is a really, really lonely journey. And so I did not know that part of your story. Tell us about the story of the idea of trading your principles for an Oldsmobile,
David Weekley: and that goes back to when I was fired. And what happened? I was running a community for another builder and we kind of had this compensation deal that was set up where it was. I got a percentage of the profits about halfway through the in June, they said. We want to change the deal and instead of you getting a percentage of profits, we want to give you a company, Oldsmobile. And I kind of said, Well, I really don't want a company, Oldsmobile. I kind of want the deal we set out. And so end up talk to my boss or my boss's boss. And they finally said, Well, this is really where the companies go. And then the final. I went to the president that, you know, wrote a letter to him and he called me in and I thought it was going to be great. You know, we agree we're not going to change it midyear on you. But he said, I didn't really have the right attitude and I need to go find employment elsewhere. So that's kind of what happened.
Henry Kaestner: If it had been a BMW, would you have said
David Weekley: maybe you could
Henry Kaestner: trade even weekly at home instead of one of the largest and most successful home builders and contractors in the country? It's huge. If you went down from 600 to 800, it's now come back where you are now. Can you share that?
David Weekley: Yeah, we got again six hundred team members, but we're doing a lot more volume. That's good news. Yeah, we're back up to three billion, which is our peak.
Henry Kaestner: So if you're in a really competitive homebuilding business, then you always have been. The fact that homebuilding is a lucrative venture is not new for other people. It's not like you have invented a new rocket ship to the Moon or something like that. There's some amount of execution that has to go on, and there's some amount of really understanding your market and product market fit and understand your competition. Can you share a little bit about what that was like for you over the last couple of decades about how you've looked at the competitive landscape, how you're able to come up with a product that was just better than other people's? In a way that it was preferred.
David Weekley: When I first started out, I was up against a national homebuilder that had better buying power and more efficient. And so they were selling cheap. And we were and I figured out pretty quickly. I had to figure out how I was going to differentiate myself. And so I decided the design was going to be that first differentiated myself. So I went to California, got the latest designs, hired my own designer in house, Brad. Going outside so we could learn what our customers liked and didn't like and continue on a path of being very, very customer focused on design. Then about the early 90s realized that we need to do more next. We were catching up on design. So then we gave our customers choice instead of design centers, and they could come in and pick out their own tile and various things. So we moved to choice. And then sure enough, most of the competition have copied our design centers, and I'm not a copy from somebody starting out, but we went pretty fast and big with it. And then so service became the key differentiator for us, and now we get about 40 percent of our sales from referrals. You know, we got 4.8 stars on a five star rating from our customers. And you know, you can't get a steak meal where you get 4.5 stars. And this is a very, you know, complex purchase. Very emotional takes a long time. They get to see building it. And so getting people that really care for the customer and care for that customer experience has been a huge differentiator for us currently. And that's not easy to do. You can't just flip a switch and make that happen. That's a culture in the company.
Henry Kaestner: OK, so I want to get to that because that's the other differentiator. It goes beyond just design and selection. There's a unique culture that you have, and I think I know part of the answer to this. I think that our audience knows part of the answer to this about your unique culture. Part of it is the fact that you have these 40 car owners with you that are strapped to the mass with you. But I think it's also more than that to talk about your unique culture and how you built it.
David Weekley: Well, in my early forties, when I had that operation and kind of moved from being a cultural Christian to being more of a committed Christian, I really kind of made the decision to look at the other more than myself. Quite honestly, the first 20 years of the company history, it was all about me. After all, the company was named David Weekley home. That should be fairly self-evident. And so moving for me to the other is when we really started taking off and creating, we have
Henry Kaestner: it so that your name was on it, but your brother, at least one of your brothers, was involved.
David Weekley: Right? Well, he started out the little story on that would back the late 70s. When we started our first billboard, it was weekly homes. It wasn't David Weekley homes and it was weekly homes from the 30s, not 130, not 230, but from the 30s. It was. It was a lot of home. Now remember a truck pulling up in front of one of our models full of furniture on the back and said where those homes to rent for $30 a week weekly homes from the 30s?
Henry Kaestner: Oh, that's great. No, there's an e there between the L in the world, right?
David Weekley: Right. But oh, so I talk to my brother. So we need a change, change the name of the cavities and what he want to do. I said, How about David weekly? Sounds good to me. So. Wow. So anyway,
Henry Kaestner: what was his name, Ebenezer or something that just didn't work?
David Weekley: His name was dick weekly. It is. So anyway, one of the interesting challenge about that when I hit my thirties and I had young kids in school and you know your names on a billboard, I realized I was kind of put my kids in a situation where all the kids in school would assume their rich folks because our name was fairly well known around town, et cetera. So I looked at changing the name of the company that literally we did market studies, et cetera. And we already had enough of a reputation that it didn't make sense. And then, you know, later as I got into my more philanthropy and being able to speak and talk to folks, et cetera, I realized that God kind of had a plan because he gave me a platform that I wouldn't have had otherwise. You know, with a name that was known out there. And so, you know, I love the way I guess Rick Warren coined it, whichever stewardship of affluence our money. But we also have the stewardship of influence, you know, the folks we know, et cetera. So I recognize that having a company called Weekly Homes gave me a stewardship of influence that I need to work with
Henry Kaestner: and do steward that influence within the company. If I come on board and I'm a project manager and I'm one of the six. What am I going to experience a David weekly that are not likely to experience it of Pulte or somebody else like that?
David Weekley: Well, we bring everybody in here to the main office and we have a fabulous one on one. I get to meet them all and we talk and and they get inaugurated, so to speak. The main thing is we hire people that really care, right? So it starts off if you don't get people with similar values. It doesn't work. So we get people with summer values. We incorporate them well. We do multiple interviews before they come. We even interview their spouse.
Henry Kaestner: OK, I was going to ask you, is there something unique that you do in doing that early? And I'll tell you that that's one. So I'm glad you said that. That's one of the secrets to our success at bandWith was interviewing spouses.
David Weekley: Right, right. And it's it shows that we care about them and puts everything on a different playing field right now. And then, you know, you take care of people, you know, eight percent managing for one K, there's profit sharing every quarter. We have weekly TV personal encounters where the manager and the team member, you know, we're fortunate we've been on Fortune's Unabridged Place to work like 14 times. And for a homebuilder, that's not Google, you know, we're out there building houses, it's it's hot and and, you know, in tough work and, you know, we don't buy everybody lunch and we have a gym for them, you know? But it's how we treat them and how they work well together.
Henry Kaestner: Tell me more about the personal encounters part.
David Weekley: Well, most people want to know how they're doing and having their manager spend time with them each week for half an hour personal encounter and making it the team members time to feedback to the manager what their needs are and how they're doing and what's going on in their life and how they're going with the kids. Or it's a half an hour personal encounter every week with each team member. And it's really their time with their manager. It also quite honestly cuts down on all the day to day interaction, having to go back and forth because they know they have this set half an hour.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, yeah, that's very interesting. OK. So personally, Karen, something I didn't know about are just shocked at the frequency of it. But what you just saw obviously suggested there is that actually, it sounds like it's inefficient, but actually is remarkably efficient because it changes the dynamic of the other thirty nine and a half for forty nine and a half hours.
David Weekley: Right, right. It saves time. It doesn't take time.
Henry Kaestner: OK, I want to go back to Dave quickly. Homes, you've won lots and lots of awards and accolades over the years. Are there any that really stand out more than others? That's a leading question, because you've been invited to build for a company that I think we can all really admire. You may have a different answer to it, but if you don't answer it the way I want you to answer it, I'm going to bring you back there, OK?
David Weekley: Telling me that you want to hear about the invitation to build it was Disney. Yeah, and we went in there celebration project in Florida. And I'll never forget sitting in my office and getting a call from somebody at Disney. And you know, this is Dave and I'm with Disney in this. I don't want any tickets or anything. So no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. You know, the setting, the sales call. And he said, We've been looking at you for two years. We've interviewed your customers in Dallas and in Austin, and we've seen your designs. We've had this week that we ran that because they research stuff to death and we'd like you to come with us in Orlando and said, Well, we don't build in Florida said we know that. And but we want you to come bill for us in Orlando. So anyway, we got together with him. I went there a couple of years early before the project was opened, so we could learn how to build in Florida, went to Disney, you, you know, university. And anyway, it was a great experience for us. They obviously know customers focus very well, building that community where we were the only builder to start out and finished up. Everybody else blew out over time because the customer expectations at Disney are through the roof, as you can imagine. And they were paying quite a premium for their home, on their side, not on our side. But it was a great experience and really we were building. It's called T and traditional neighborhood design, very higher density smaller houses, but front porches really creating a sense of community. And that has really worked for us strongly for the last 20 25 years, for probably the largest candy builder in the country and a lot of flippers come to us because of that experience.
Henry Kaestner: So there are clearly things you picked out from that engagement that you then brought back into the business for sure. OK. David, the way that we first got together was actually not around entrepreneurship, not around business. So much, although I heard a little bit about your story and I think it probably showed a little bit about mine, but it was around the concept of giving. And how does one give? Well, when I remember being on the Board of Hope International about 10 years ago and you had been a very significant underwriter that I came to understand that there's this guy is really thoughtful about giving in. So you spent a good amount of time with me. I don't know if you remember the first time was at a gathering and maybe an hour on kind of like a veranda. And I want you to be able to see if we in our time that we've got left. If you can share some of the lessons that you've learned in philanthropy and in giving, you talked about the fact that you've done some things well. There are some things you still are learning as you get to that 10000 hours of giving. Can you share some of those with people, our demographic, we tend to have our average entrepreneurs, probably in their 40s. Many of them are coming into a place now where they're having some financial success and they want to be generous. And their heart is oftentimes really influenced by a lot of stories. And yet they're businesspeople they want to give, Well, what would you share with them?
David Weekley: I would share to you, no one go where they're passionate and where they're called. But number two, not to set aside their business acumen and learnings when they give. So often times, especially if you come from a place of faith, you kind of it's like you do business with your head and you give with your heart. And to me, you ought to combine those just like, you know, hopefully we're living out our faith during the week and work. I think we're supposed to give with the same business acumen that we use in earning money. Just amaze me that people spend 40 hours of 50 hours a week, whatever earning sums, and then they'll give at the drop of a hat without any investigation, understanding, etc. And since from my standpoint, it all kind of belongs to God anyway. You know, I have no idea why he put me in this place and decided to give me a company that's grown like it is, et cetera. It's just been a true blessing, and it really belongs to him. Why shouldn't I give his money away as carefully as any other investment I make? And so to me, it's just it's a little bit of a mess to not take it that seriously.
Henry Kaestner: Can you give us some examples of maybe some given that you did early on? Were you learned some of these lessons or was it just always just baked into the way that you thought? Were you just like, you know, from the get go? I'm just not going to give to something that doesn't satisfy both my heart and my head.
David Weekley: No, usually, you know, said people give to people. Right. And so, you know, somebody in they're doing good work and they come up and they talk to you about something. And I did a lot of that giving starting out. And then over time, the more time I spent, I saw some of those funds were not being effectively used were being wasted. You know, the outcomes weren't there that were hoped for or promised. And I just realized that if I was really going to take my giving seriously that I had to again, I had to pay attention and I gave the time as well. Most people don't have the time or don't make the time for me as an entrepreneur. Once I got up to a certain size, I realized, you know, I was working 70 hours a week flying all over the country, and I realized that I was getting out of my skis. I was losing control. I wasn't good at managing four cities and 300 million. I mean, it was getting beyond me. And so when I committed to give half my time, it meant I had to go find somebody to run the place. And that worked out, obviously, to my benefit in both ways. It freed up the time to be serious about philanthropy, and it also helped the company by getting somebody that had skills that I didn't have.
Henry Kaestner: You also did something on your company structure, right? You landed on kind of a unique ownership structure that allows the company to operate in perpetuity. Can you just share a little bit about that?
David Weekley: Yeah. As you get older and you have this company, especially if it's a large company, you got to figure out what you're going to do with it. Am I going to sell out or go public or what's the endgame here? And I did lots of research, talked to lots of families, looked at all kinds of different opportunities, and I didn't want to lose what we created as a team here in terms of the culture doing a great job for customers, et cetera. So I wanted to continue specifically as a private company. So I said, OK, how are we going to do that? How are we going to get alignment, et cetera? And I decided to do a third of it since I'd had luck with ownership being in other people's hands. I said a third of it's going to be owned by the employees, by the team members. And so I've got 18 percent of it in individual managers hands owning stock individually and then we got a 15 percent ESOP that we put on top of that. And then I wanted the charitable aspect that I've been doing with my own funds as the primary stockholder to continue. So I put a third of the stock into a charitable trust. And then the final third is going to be owned by the founding families to keep it like a family business into the future, that doesn't mean everybody's going to work here, et cetera. And whether my kids or anybody's kids have the skills to earn three billion dollar company, that's a pretty significant skill set. But you can be great owners and you can be in different positions if that's their choice. But I just like the concept of a third, a third, a third, all with the line values, a third for the team members, a third for charitable interest and a third for the founding families. All of them have aligned interest in trying to do the right things for the right reasons and move on down the road and hopefully be here 100 years from now.
Henry Kaestner: OK, so you hit on a topic. I want to get back in a second back to giving and lessons learned what you're getting as you spend ten thousand plus hours and giving. But when you talk about your family and you talk about your kids, I know you've got three. I know Robin the best Robin. I've known Robin for these 10 years because I know she helped us put together a trip to Nicaragua back before there are any traffic lights in Managua. You also come from a family of three boys. And I have three boys, so I'm a father of three boys. I'd love to get any reflections that you have of family dynamics, being a good brother, being a good father and seeing faith be a part of the family dynamic. Most of the people assume that are going to be parents. You've been thoughtful about this. Can you share something with us about family dynamics?
David Weekley: Well, the family dynamics started seeing my father put an envelope in the plate every week, right? He'd reach into his coat. The plate would come by. He'd put it in. And so right, I think things were mostly caught, not taught. And so my father was a generous man and that helped set me up that this is what we do. This is how we operate. There's a father growing up. It was a challenge because I said my name was on billboards all over town, so my kids were labeled rich kids right in work. And so how do you handle that? So my kids earn half the money for their car. You know, we sit down with Amigos de las Americas. They went down to Central America and live for eight weeks in a village on the floor when they were in high school and did mission work. So I mean, they've seen that our life is not the usual life. And I think that that builds a responsibility for you. I mean, for me personally, I've just always come from a place of deep gratitude for my parents, where I am in America, et cetera. And out of that gratitude, I get a deep sense responsibility of what am I to do? You know, too much is given, et cetera. And then when I act out on that responsibility through philanthropy and working with people in other ways or in the company, I just get a deep sense of joy, not just happiness, but deep, deep joy feeling like I'm in God's flow, feeling like I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing.
Henry Kaestner: So I think that you touched on something there that it's taken me a while to really kind of embrace, which is this kind of selfish ambition, which is this personal joy that you feel as you give is what we are trying to always get when we are selfishly had selfish ambition before, but kind of wrestle with it. So I always had a selfish ambition and a selfishness that's been a kind of the core of my life and influence all that I've done. But you're getting on something there that's really important, which is that that you actually have an opportunity to lean into that. Yes, you probably can give examples where you sacrifice and you take up your cross. And yet at the same time, this guy's invited to life that is truly life and that you can have this selfish ambition of looking for joy. And there's a recipe for it. And you found that in giving you found this joy and as cool as a BMW seven Series is and it's more fun to drive than a Prius, you get presumably more joy from some of the giving you're doing, regardless of what car you have. Or am I just putting words in your mouth, right?
David Weekley: No. And yeah, I've got a pickup truck now, so I'm sorry. It's just I had the great good fortune to have had a lot early and had it taken away in the downturn and recognized that that's not what life was all about. So my generosity came out of that understanding.
Henry Kaestner: OK. Share with us other things that you're learning about giving and maybe way that maybe start off with this is just how do you all give? And for those that don't know your daughter, Robin is running the foundation and you're giving away more and more and more money. But what's a way aside from the amount? But what's a way in which you give differently than maybe did 10 years ago?
David Weekley: Well, like most entrepreneurs, I love deals in models. And so I used to give to whomever had the best model for something, whether it be, you know, five for finance or savings groups or community health workers or whoever had the coolest models that I thought, This is neat. Let me go, give to it. And what I've found out is that even more important than the model is giving you great leadership. It might seem self-evident, but I got caught up in the deal earlier. But, you know, if you got great leadership, they'll adjust the model and get it to the best place. But if you don't have good leadership, the best model will fail. So the key thing is that we really, really give to extraordinary leadership. So that's that's one thing.
Henry Kaestner: Before you go that, I'm going to come back and remind you that there's a second thing, but that's really, really important. That's really hard to do. What are some different ways where you interact with a person and are able to determine whether they're a great leader or not?
David Weekley: Well, have they established a vision that is big and broad and is a dean supported with a strategic plan that can get them there? And do they have people around them that can help get them there as well? So oftentimes will work with or meet the second layer of folks and not just to face the organization, but people really doing the work. And then you can really see what the organization is like and what they're doing. And obviously always trying to focus on the outcomes of what's happening. So, you know, it can be great people in lots of flash and a great deck and a great plan. But if the outcomes aren't there, nothing else matters. And so again, I feel like I'm investing God's resources and I want to have flourishing humans out there as a result of my investments.
Henry Kaestner: So you hit on something there that somebody that you and I both know. Kirk Kyle Hacker is the board chair. Praxis has impressed upon me and he said, You know, they're really only three things for a leader to do is that you're responsible for the vision you need to resource the enterprise and you need to get the right people on the bus. And it's that emphasis on that third one that I think a lot of us miss. And that's why I think that just in the same way that you interview spouses of employees, they're coming on board the organization. Interviewing the next level of leadership helps you to really understand, Is this a great leader or are people really following the leader or not? And I think that's really important. OK, so thank you. So the first one is leadership.
David Weekley: The second one, this really has three items. I look for an organization that uses leverage where my dollar will create $5 or $10 worth of impact. You know, I'm a real estate guy. I love leverage. So one authorization that has great leverage. I want to organization that can scale like geometrically, not arithmetically, but can really scale. So I want to fund organizations that can blow things up, right? That that can really impact the world. And then thirdly, I want to fund an organization, has some type of sustainability plan for the long term. Do they do anything where they can create their own income? Do they have a plan to get government funding, you know, or bilateral funding? Because if it's an organization and the only way that they can grow is to go get more donors, and they will always be limited by how much that they can raise. So I want to get involved in things that can have high leverage, can scale and have some way to reach sustainability over time.
Henry Kaestner: Can you give us some examples of the leverage in the scale where you go ahead? And you know, if I write a check for a dollar, it's going to lead to four or five in any samples of ministries. Charities doing that well, they come to mind.
David Weekley: Well, the one you mentioned, Hope International does it well because, you know they lend money, make interest on the money so they can fund part of their operations. Another one that I'm very involved with is Christian Camping. And so if we go and help and build a Christian camp, so if a Christian camp from go broke, add more cabins and you know, more dining halls, et cetera. Once that investments made, assuming you have a big assumption, great leadership and great board governance that can break even and provide returns and continue to impact kids for Christ forever. And so you plant the seed and it grows.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. So there's this sustainability in there that you build out some infrastructure now parents feel better about spending twelve hundred dollars on the right.
David Weekley: And so things like that to me have a lot of impact for the dollar invested a lot of leverage.
Henry Kaestner: David, is we come to a close. I'm going to ask you the question that we ask every one of our guests. And that is that is there is something that God is teaching you through your time in scripture, your time in the Bible. It doesn't need to be necessarily. This morning could be last week, but what are you hearing?
David Weekley: You know, something that is kind of guided me through my Christian journey as I try to think about what should I do this or should I go left? Should I go right? Should I go to more full time ministry or something else is I've always appreciated the version. First Corinthians 07:24 brothers and sisters. Each person as responsible to God shall remain in the situation God has called him to. And so to me, we're in these life situations. And rather than presuming that to be a Christian brother or show my love of God or whatever, I've got to go, change my situation, take the situation to God's, place me and figure out how I can take that to the next level and in a more Christian way, in a more loving way, in a more outreach way. How can I take where I've been placed and really plus it in a significant way through my faith and outreach, et cetera?
Henry Kaestner: It's a great word. That's a great word. So as we're entrepreneurs, you've probably if you found this podcast, you probably know enough to know that God absolutely uses you in your business. And that being entrepreneur is by no means a second class citizen where we're just doing this just so we can make money to do something else. Or gosh, if we're really following God, we'd be in full time ministry in Botswana or something like that. But to stay where we are and look to honor God there. And of course, as you've heard from David today, you can make an impact on a lot of people's lives where they live, as in the case, David. But each of us has an opportunity to be able to impact culture, and one of the things that I'll take away from this is just the greatest investment that you can make, and culture is bringing the right people and giving them some skin in the game. But when you bring the right people in, getting to know them more than another important might and what a great way to be able to live on somebody. And when you're having this every week where you're following up with so many of this personal reflection moment to actually know who their spouses. So when I'm talking about going on a vacation or they're talking about something that they're wrestling with with their spouse in terms of where they give it, their time or their money, or what they do, or how they can support their spouse, you actually know them. And so that's a big takeaway of mine for many. David, thank you for your time. Thank you for your friendship and partnership. And again, one encouragement that you are to me and all of us.
David Weekley: Thank you.