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GDP/Capita over the last 2000 Years

Frank Chen LinkedIn

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The Chalmers Center

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, and I want to set the stage a little bit, faith driven investing, of course, is about Christ followers coming to understand that there’s an opportunity for them to steward their investment capital in a way that advances God’s kingdom, the traditional method. And if this is video, you’d see what I’m talking about here. But in my left hand, I have making investments in Goldman Sachs and in Maverick and Greenspring instead of trying to make as much money as you possibly can over here on your left hand. And then to the extent that an investor understands the biblical message of generosity, then over on their right hand, they try to give away as much as possible. Well, this movement that you found yourselves in a podcast on is about the fact that we believe that the very process of investments might accomplish many of the ministry goals that we’d otherwise just relegate towards giving in this industry we found ourselves in. We have all sorts of different players across, all sorts of different asset classes, all sorts of different geographies. We have real estate. And if you go back into the podcast archives, you’ll see some great real estate conversations. You’ll find conversations with people onshore here domestically. You’ll find people all over the world. And you also have different types of people running different types of funds. I often tell people, especially as we launch this faith driven investor marketplace where we highlight a lot of individual angel deals that are super exciting. Let us know if you’re an accredited investor, want to get access to that. But most people who are waiting in the faith driven investing need to look at funds.

And today we’re talking to a fund manager, somebody whose job their vocation is to go out there and find great investment opportunities that have spiritual integration and have you participate in what they’re doing as God is honored in the different communities that they’re at now. Of those fund managers, not only do you have different types of asset classes and different types of geographies, but you have different types of fund managers. Some amount of what we’ve done in the past is talking to people like Frank Chin at Andreessen Horowitz, who has Andreessen Horowitz, one of the biggest funds out there, and Frank talks about how he brings his faith to work in what is otherwise a very secular world of Silicon Valley. And how he looks to be a faithful witness is he loves on his portfolio companies. We’ve had, of course, Terry Stephens from Founders Fund that invested in some of the biggest deals ever alongside of Peter Thiel. And he talks about how his faith informs contrarian view of investing. And to some extent, there’s some amount of retrofitting in the industry. And these are people who are established fund professionals who are going back in to look at their funds and say, how do I bring in and how do I weave in spiritual integration and what we’ve been doing for decades. On the other side, you have a group of successful business people that have said, gosh, there’s an opportunity to get out there and to have funds that would invest in companies and industries like. I know. And I’m going to start Denovo. I don’t have to worry about retrofitting a fund or an industry. I’m going to go ahead. I’m going to start things out with my new fund, exactly how I’d like to have them intended, completely consistent with my faith. That’s going to be something that’s a driver for me from the beginning. And it is Mike Arietta from Garden City that fits into that latter category. So, Mike, awesome to have you. Thanks for being with us. Thanks, Hennery. First time caller, longtime fan.

So, Mike, you’ll know from having listened before that we try to get really good understanding of the history in the story. Who is the person we’re interviewing before we get into what you do? So give us some background. What’s your story? Who are you? Where do you come from?

Mike Arrieta: Yeah, sure. In regards to who I am, I’ll answer that question by saying that a couple of years ago, I read Pat Gelsinger, his book called The Juggling Act, and it encouraged me to come up with a life mission statement of who I am. So I’ll just recap that Mike Arietta is a beloved son of Christ, knowing that there’s nothing I can do to earn more of his love. I’m a faithful and loving husband to my wife, Veronica. I’m a presence and engage father to my two little kids, Olivia and Lucas. I’m a loyal friend to my family and community. And lastly, I try to keep it. Lastly, not first and foremost is I work to make a big internal impact on the world through business.

Henry Kaestner: So that’s who I am. I don’t William, we’ve done hundreds and hundreds of these. I don’t think anybody’s done that as crisply is. That was definitely one of the preparation of word to start out on a bar that I may borrow, that I may end up saying that my kids are Olivia and Lucas. Oh, was that good? Okay. All right. So tell us about tell us about your growing up, your faith journey as you grew up in a Christian home. Has faith always been a part of your life? Bring us through and maybe take us through your to your first work experience.

Mike Arrieta: Sure. Sure. Great question. I was the first of my family actually born here in the States. So my two older sisters and my parents, they were all born in Puerto Rico. So I’m I’m Puerto Rican.

Henry Kaestner: Did you know that my grandmother grew up in Puerto Rico? You probably didn’t know that. But we share that kind of. Yes.

Mike Arrieta: With disciplinary cases. You’re Puerto Rican.

Henry Kaestner: So I am Puerto Rican. Yes, my grandmother grew up in Puerto Rico, spoke Spanish, and I am. Yeah, absolutely.

William Norvell: And if this was a video podcast, our listeners would be more surprised by that fact.

Henry Kaestner: I don’t look very Puerto Rican, but nonetheless, my grandmother did indeed grew up in Puerto Rico.

Mike Arrieta: Should we do the next phase driven investor conference in Puerto Rico?

Henry Kaestner: I love to do that. I love the old San Juan. Absolutely. I love that place.

Mike Arrieta: So you’re probably more Puerto Rican than I am because I was raised in South Florida my whole life. I had two very hardworking parents who did their very best to provide for my two sisters and I. There was always food on the table and we always had a roof over our head. We were raised in a Catholic church the way probably ninety nine percent of Puerto Ricans and Hispanics are. So we have the fear of God to kind of God somewhere way up high. I don’t know where that way of high is way up there, but we never had an intimate daily relationship of walking with the Lord. And so it was purely a Sunday morning thing. You know, you go get your little wafer and you dress up and you go back home afterwards and then you resume life. Right. So it started and stopped there on Sundays. We moved 10 times and about 18 years growing up on the same kind of town due to our financial situation. My father worked a ton of jobs. He started selling Flon like the Puerto Rican or Cuban. Yeah. You know, he started selling Flon, that kind of of cards. And he worked at Home Depot just in the warehouse. And then I started selling timeshares, worked in furniture store. My mother worked in a retail store, just hourly worker to make matters more difficult. My father had very severe health conditions his whole life growing up since he was two years old, particularly Type one diabetes. He worked around the clock, you know, came home after I was sleeping already ten, eleven o’clock every night. So the constant theme around our home was financial stress, which, you know, in a hard working family automatically leads the marital issues. So they constantly fought and eventually they got separated by the grace of God. They came back together. But that was it kind of growing up, you know. So I’m very grateful for my family, for my parents and looking back. But looking back, my youth was pretty difficult to zero in on myself. I was never a good athlete. Pretty terrible. It was never a 4.0 students. I’m confident that if yes, all my teachers, which of the students they were most worried that would do something meaningful with their life, I’m pretty sure I would be at the bottom of the list. I was just rebellious. I challenged everything. I did not like to be in control, which now that I know I’m an eight on the anagram, it speaks a lot of that at a young age. However, I started realizing that I was naturally really gifted at selling. I was a good salesperson. I just came naturally to me. I would go buy something from someone next door and sell it to someone down the street for fifty dollars more. I would ask my dad to do a garage sale and I would have a whole strategy of how I’m going to sell my Nintendos and only sell that for an inexpensive price. We get a lot higher prices for the games or for the controllers, right? I would buy a little Caesars box for five dollars a pizza box. I bring a knife to school and cut them up into 16 slices and make it three hundred percent return at lunch on a couple of boxes. Right. I would buy baseball cards, Pokemon cards, Beanie Babies and figure out which shops wanted what based on the geography that they were in. So I was a sales guy, you know.

Yeah, that was it. And then the three things really in my life, I would say, were sales, as I just mentioned of the second one was service workers. I was just surrounded by hard working working class people like my family who are trying to do their best to stay alive or survive. But they really didn’t have any dignity or purpose or fulfillment or any calling. It was purely just a paycheck. And probably the third theme was I was obsessed. It’s really weird.

I think boring is so sexy. Right. William and I have talked about this for a while, but service companies have always been obsessed with learning about car washes and furniture store deliveries and dry cleaners and restaurants. I was naturally drawn to them. And so all that was kind of it that I was drawn to.

Henry Kaestner: So coming back to the born and natural salesperson, when I think about all the different organizations that are really focused on being able to be a sales guy, I guess maybe when I was growing up about encyclopedias, sales people, but then very quickly, that was eclipsed by the cutco knives vector marketing. If you’re a sales guy, like kind of the best form for you was to go work at Fekter Marketing, Cutco Knives, and you did that. And so I think about this is like the job for salesmen. And you were like the salesman of all salesmen where you ranked like number one in the country or something crazy.

Yeah. Yeah, it was, yeah. So how many how many nice sales people were there. Are there there bunch. There’s a fifty thousand I think. Yeah it’s that’s, that’s, that’s pretty good. That’s pretty good.

William Norvell: It’s really helpful. One of my best friends was number twenty four along to. And every time he starts bragging about it and he knows Mike, we all went to the same church, I’m like, Yeah, but it sucks for you. I know Mike like, this is not impressive. Like, what is number 20?

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I bought some nice from Cutco. Great night. OK, so tell us about that. Probably half of our audience has heard of cocoanuts. Tell us about your experience there and what you learned about yourself and what you learned about selling short.

Mike Arrieta: One of the most difficult parts of my story. It was I had a severe stutter problem and I still do. So today. I manage it better. But it turned out to be the biggest blessing of my life because I was granted a state grant by Governor Jeb Bush, which provided me the opportunity to get out of the public school system and go into the private school system. And so my greatest disability became my greatest blessing. Mean that’s where I met my best friend Protagoras, you know, when I was 12 years old. And so I was able to get this huge benefit of experience and a whole new world, this world where I gain older mentors that I looked up to, my friends, parents. Right. I saw the way they live, where they went to college or professional careers. And I just wanted to be like them. It reminds me of that podcast you had Reggie Joyner and Chris Naib that they were talking about were kids in poverty. Don’t make it out of poverty because of education and talent. Two out of every three make it out because of the adults in their life who help them take the next step, what to do and where to go. Right? Yeah, it was my Zach story. My father got very sick and pancreas transplant, kidney transplant, dialysis. My mother got breast cancer. I felt calling to help and ease the burden. So I asked a friend of mine’s father, he said, start selling cutco knives. It’s been around since like the 40s and you could kill it and make a great amount of money. And so I started doing it. So I woke up every morning and I made cold calls. I ask teachers, go to the bathroom and make cold calls during lunch, make phone calls.

Henry Kaestner: You made Kolka, you left class. You do cold calls from the bathroom.

Mike Arrieta: Oh, it’s crazy. I used to have a schedule that I would know. Today’s Wednesday. I asked my math teacher on Monday to go to the bathroom so I could do it again today. But I can’t do it tomorrow because I can pick up on me. So I’d have this little puzzle of knowing which teacher I would go to the bathroom and what they said to pick up on me. Unbelievable. Yeah. So it was my first real job. I had to succeed. I felt like at least I told myself that. So success was the only option. Failure was not. And so yeah, my back was against the wall. I think your true colors showing your backs into the wall and just something came natural to me. I had a big vision. I didn’t get Bob. I had persistence, perseverance. I had a big vision. I built rapport very naturally. I wasn’t scared to ask for the order. I focused on value, which in cutco value is recommendations and the long game rather than just a transaction. So I don’t care about selling Henry. I rather much so have Henry refer me to William and everyone else, ten of his friends around town, rather than just because I know long term I’ll always have something to eat first if I just focus on the sale and I run out of recommendations now I’m only eating for a day rather than a lifetime.

Henry Kaestner: I’m OK. Bridges through obviously setting up a fund and you haven’t set up a fund to invest in more mature businesses. You said boring. Boring is the new sexy. Williams says that a lot as well. But you didn’t go from knives to starting a fund, so bring us up to speed. You worked as chief of staff at some really, really important businesses. Tell us about your career and more established business. And I shouldn’t say more established somebody from Cutco. Can you hear me right now and think differently? But tell us walk us through your career, please.

Mike Arrieta: Yeah, after college, I went to Silicon Valley and joined a company that the CEO did a recap on called Lies. He gave me an opportunity, which is a great reminder of me to give people opportunities. He said, Alexander the Great Conquer the World in nineteen twenty one. I have high expectations. You’re two years late. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so we got acquired by Dell about a year later. At that point in time was the largest payout I’ve ever seen. Right. And I thought that’s the point, that I would be content and happy and have purpose and say I made it. I’ve never felt so empty my entire life. Right afterwards, I got the opportunity to be the chief of staff for the cloud group at Dell. I was traveling all around the world going to World Economic Forum in Davos every year, and I’ve never felt so empty inside. My best friend Brett Haggler calls me and tells me he just got baptized in Atlanta and invites me on a trip to Haiti. And then that’s where my Life 2.0 started. I became a believer in 2013, and that’s really where I started to live on the scales off my eyes and saw the world in a way like I never had before. I was able to love and see and experience in a way that before was no longer I truly Christ who lives and still lives in me. And it was amazing. I started following him that year and I never look back since. That’s where I met William right when I became a believer running the gates there. And so after that, twenty fourteen was a big year for me. I got married. We start a new story charity and I joined this company called DocuSign and I became the chief of staff then at DocuSign to the CEO there. And I was there for six years. We grew the company from one hundred and seventy five people and so I left in February of this year. We were about five thousand people now and the chief market cap of about 40 billion dollars. And yeah, it was a tremendous opportunity. And I realized none of it has to do with our own ability. But really got favorite was with my involvement with it.

Henry Kaestner: So Mike is really interesting. I mean, when you look at a company like DocuSign, Dell Time in Silicon Valley, DocuSign, having that type of growth, one hundred and seventy five employees of five thousand or whatever the case is, that seemed very, very different than where you really feel called now to be involved in kind of more traditional businesses that are presumably growing slower than that, growing profitably, but slower than that. But tell us about what you learned in those six years and how it informs the way you think about your career now.

Mike Arrieta: Yes, during those six years, especially when the chief of staff plays the role spans across the entire organization. Right. So you’re doing M&A integration, equity, fund raising, international expansion, launching your products, recruiting and everything in between. It’s like a little mini CEO role, which I just loved so much. And during my last tenure there, when I was operating a business unit, I missed having a holistic view of the business. Right. I liked actually being one inch deep and a mile wide rather than just one mile deep. And so I was really reading this book called Garden City February of twenty eighteen.

And it just talked about how when God created the world and in it he made us in his image to thrive, prosper and flourish, and he made us to labor and co create alongside him so we could get the kingdom of heaven and we could bring it on to earth and say it is good, it is good. And that’s just really spoke to me about thinking about people like my father and like my family to say how come they have not experienced that kind of culture or that sort of environment here in the city as it will be in heaven. So what would it look like if we met those people? Were there wrath, which is in the marketplace, in those service companies? What if we actually invested in those companies, service companies? And once we were investors, majority investors, we would have the opportunity to build a kingdom culture so we would radically pursue the enrichment of working class through culture. We would enable the business to make it beautiful and modernized and reimagine. And then lastly, we would help them with sales and create new technologies out of the business and everything else in between. So that’s where the vision came in.

William Norvell: We also McWilliam, jump in. That’s awesome. We’ll put that in the show, notes John. Mark Colmer, amazing book. Weingarten’s You Stole the copyright from him and double-Check, that one. But it’s an amazing book. My Faith and ERG starter pack is usually ten killers, every good endeavor. And John Mark Combers, Garden City. I think it’s a great head and heart combo pack. And John Mark really does an amazing job. He’s a guest pastor at the church. Mike and I went at Mike and I met as part of the random Alabama people that happened to be wandering around San Francisco crowd and someone ran into him. And as usually happens, they say, oh, I know a guy that went to Alabama, you should meet him. And I remember that little restaurant off of the street in San Francisco. There we grab a drink and then started, you know, along for. A ship that went through church, that went through Huxley, which we didn’t talk about in the news story in the Garden City, and it’s been tough on brother, it’s been a ton of fun to watch what God has done in your life, but mostly in your heart and in your relationships with Veronica and everyone around you. OK, so excited about Garden City. I know you’re very particular with your phrases, as we saw from your opening, and I know that’s something I always love hearing from you about. And so I want to talk to you about a couple of the terms you use to describe Garden City and let our audience into that, because I know you’re so thoughtful with what each word means. You say on your website, you say in your talks that you are purpose driven, holding company. Walk us through that. And I also know you did a lot of diligence. I want you to walk us through what it means and then why you chose that model.

Mike Arrieta: Sure. Purpose driven goes to exactly what Henry first started with in regards to it is more about financial returns for us. It is about true impact. And that is our purpose. That’s our ethos. That’s what makes us tick. So the reason why we exist is for our purpose. Right, which is to honor God and to commercialize the working class service workers.

Right. In terms of holding company, why do we choose the holding company model? For a few reasons. One of the reasons is shared services. Right? We believe that once we have a good amount of companies in the portfolio, we could be of value add to the portfolio companies by providing the back offices such as our marketing, legal finance, so that they could focus on what they do best. Right, which is providing the actual service and the operations instead of the office stuff which typically box them down. The other reason why we did a holding company model is because we want to share best practices across the companies. But the probably the biggest reason as to why the holding company model is we were not called to do a fund or a fund had an end life. Right. So most funds have a typical year structure of three to five to seven years with a couple of years extension. Right. That’s the way typically fund models exist, especially buyout models. There’s an impending event that you’re being forced to embrace regardless of the performance of your portfolio companies. Right. So in that ticking time bomb comes in, you’re seven years out. So we sat on it for about two years to say what is our approach that when we make investments, we have no outside selling date, so we have a permanent horizon? Right. So we basically modeled it of saying we buy companies and we have the ability to hold them forever.

Right. We never have to sell how that goes.

William Norvell: So that’s one of those things that I hear. And I go, OK, that sounds really great. It’s a fantastic model. I think we’ve already mentioned this your first time. I know you’re not calling it a fund, but fund manager or first time operator of an investment vehicle. Right. Let’s some of our investors. How did that track go out on the trail, raising the money for it? What were the pushbacks to it? What were the critiques? What were the wins? What do people find exciting? What do people not find exciting? Just walk us through how the journey went.

Mike Arrieta: I love these deep, tactile questions. It’s kind of what matters most and put meat on the bone. So, William, there’s I mean, baby boomers started more businesses than ever before in our country’s history. You know, you wrote the search on paper at Stanford, right. And they were the most entrepreneurial generation. Now they’re all in their 60s and 70s and they need to figure out something to do with their baby. I mean, business. Right. And so they got to figure out something to do with their business. Their son became an architect. Their daughter became a nurse, and they run an eight track business. What are they going to do? Right. They’re getting older by the day. The years are taken away. They don’t have a succession plan. They don’t have a liquidity plan right now. You would say private equity funds, private equity funds are typically too large to ever entertain deals in this one to five million dollars of EBITA. Right. They cannot put enough money to work in there. There are some lower middle market funds, but for the most part, they do not like to play in there. So you have a lot of onesies. And these players like great search funders or independent sponsors. Right. But in terms of committed pools of capital, that you can make multiple acquisitions. Right. And you’ve committed pool ready to deploy. It’s very rare to have committed capital in the lower middle market. So what we do is we raised thirty five million dollars from all mission aligned investors and we call down that capital as we find companies to acquire. Once we called on that capital into that company, we take a majority stake targeting anywhere between 60 and 80 percent. We like the owner to hold some equity and do a roll over. It shows us that they still believe in the future of the business. It also still keeps them as part of the team, which we believe is sacrosanct. So now that we have the business, that means we now have control of 70 percent of the cash flow that comes out every year. So this business is already making money, right? So let’s say we bought a business for two million dollars of EBITA. Well, we bought it at four times EBITA. That typically means it’s going to take is four years to get back our investment. That means starting in year five, now we profit two million dollars with no growth. And you’re 60 million. You’re 70 million. You’re at 80 million. Right. That’s the whole model. We buy existing profitable business at a couple times. Iveta, we call our investors capital. Our investors get paid back in a couple of years. And then once our investors get paid back, here’s a big question. How do they make money? We split ongoing distributions in terms of the percentages to investors and to Garden City, and we do that in perpetuity. So it’s more like a yield play. It’s more like a dividend play. If you’re familiar with the commercial real estate investment. Right, that it’s mailbox money, as I call it, it just keeps coming. And as a company compounds and grows, it makes roll ups and tuck in acquisitions or builds new technologies. The checks in the mail get bigger and bigger, so there’s no reason to sell. If you’re investing in Garden City, it’s because you’re OK with the model that we’re going to buy and grow and hold and you’re going to get distribution in the mail rather than when we sell this in five or seven years, because that is not our model.

William Norvell: Let’s get in. And I love what you’re highlighting there because it’s so good, right? There are different models for different people, both what God put inside them like you. And you want to dig into a company for 20, 30 years or so and investor basis who want to be a part of that. And that can be part of their portfolio. Right. I think one of the things we talk about a lot on this is especially the faith driven investment space. There’s not always right and wrong. There’s just different. And God is calling us all to different things. There’s nothing inherently, quote unquote, wrong with the 10 year fund.

Right. It just does mean you will do different things with those companies. You will use debt differently. You will look at growth differently. And to make sure that if you go to work for one of those places or decide to start one, that you understand the trade offs you’re making and understand what you’re going be able to say to these business owners. And on that, furthermore, you made another decision.

You have focused on the southeast specifically. So you have taken the chance. And you said, you know, I actually think God is even I don’t put words in your mouth.

You tell me if you feel like it’s a calling or if it’s just a good business opportunity or both. Tim Keller says ability, affinity and opportunity. But you’ve intentionally focused on that niche, saying this is where I want to build Garden City in the southeast. Walk us through how you came to that meeting and how that story played a little bit on the investment trail. And and if that got people excited or if they invested, even though they’re nervous of that, but they still believe in you or anything like that.

Mike Arrieta: Sure. Sure. Yeah. So really, Garden City, it’s like Berkshire Hathaway meets ServiceMaster, right? That’s the way that we see it is we like the approach that Warren Buffett takes by with no intention of selling. Right. Keep things very simple, especially on diligence. Right. Keep your team nimble. Allow them greater autonomy to do what they do. That’s the reason why you’re buying those, because they did something right. So don’t break it then. Also, ServiceMaster, where we love those service companies, as we mentioned, they’re very fragmented in nature, right. That they need some professional misandrist, great opportunities for efficiencies and everything else of that sort and then mix in a culture with Silicon Valley technology enablement. That’s kind of a four legged stool there. But to answer your question about the Southeast, personally, I wanted to focus on the Southeast because I’ve heard horror stories over two years of Prain into the insurance business about how demanding private equity is when it comes to diligence and business development. To me, as I mentioned, to start off with my mission statement, the second most important thing for me is to be loving to my wife and to be present engaged to my children. I knew that if we bought companies in California or Washington or anywhere else, it’s longer. Flights longer or earlier or later calls more time on the road. And so I made the decision up front to say we focus on Southeast. I could go to Birmingham, I could be back the same night. I go to Kentucky and be back the same night. So it was more of a personal thing for my kids family night for the longevity. Second reason is has the largest density of service companies in the entire country and it has the largest density as well of retiring business owners. There’s more baby boomers. They go to the southeast than anywhere else. Right. We also have great seasonality so we don’t shut down for the winter, unlike the Northeast. And then lastly is our network, our network of investors are primarily in the southeast. So there’s great referrals that we get on businesses, make it supports as well and deals.

Henry Kaestner: Can you give us an example? Just walk us through a company that you found what the story was of the founder. Maybe you can speak into the spiritual integration of the companies.

Mike Arrieta: Well short. Two examples. One, I’ll say that the owners and secular owner and the second one, he’s a believer. Right. So the first example of the owner, that is a secular owner, they own a children’s sports camp company. So this company does sports camps all year long. You did about five hundred sports camps that fifteen thousand kids went through last year. He’s. Older and he started this business because he was an assistant baseball coach at a university and he had to make supplemental income, so he started the sports camps 13 years ago. He’s getting older. He no longer wants the calls, the emails. He wants to retire. He realizes his own shot clock. His brother had a brain aneurysm. Right. It made him realize how precious and short life is. Right. And he’s willing to sell at a multiple of a couple of years ahead to get this off of this place so we would engage with him. And on that example, we would figure out which of our advisors are skilled in the sports arena. Right. We would invite them in on that diligence process and we’d say, you know, this is way better than we do. What should we look out for? What are they telling us? That’s true. What are they telling us it’s not true? Or are they not telling us that they don’t know about their own business? Right. And then we put together an offer to see if that works. That was, you know, Henry, it’s months and months of cultivation and there is no impending event for them to sell. Right. When you’re dealing with an investment banker or broker, those are companies that have a for sale sign in front of your front door. They’re willing to sell right now. When you deal with what we’re looking for, proprietary deals, it’s cultivations, building trust of money over time. So that’s one example of a company that has no spiritual integration that we told them, hey, we believe in chaplains, OK? The Senate uses chaplains, airport chaplains, teams, police chaplains. They are so value add every human deals with financial circumstances, marital circumstances, work circumstances. What is the downside of having someone who’s going to love on our people with nothing to gain or return? That’s my permission only. So that’s something that as majority investors, we would want to institute. We want to institute a new training to focus on how the pursuit of excellence. We want to focus on integrity. We want to focus on having fun. We want to focus it on a bunch of things that to us, we call that honoring God. They don’t have to be believers. Right. They do need to agree with the ethos that we have on what it looks like to have a humble pursuit of excellence. Right. Got it. So that’s example. And then there’s other examples that people are already believers and they already have a head, that they may already have a chaplain or have Bible studies. Right. Or tithe out of their profits and so forth. So there’s a wide variety of them.

William Norvell: Well, if Henry’s first love language is telling you his podcast is great, his second, his corporate chaplaincy. So I love chaplains. You are just you are just knocking it out of the park today, Mike. Well, you just you gave a great pitch for it.

Mike Arrieta: I’ll be honest. All the chaplains I was not very passionate about chaplaincy until I experienced it firsthand at a company that we did an on site with. I heard verbally what the benefits were of chaplaincy, but until you experience it firsthand, you could never truly understand and comprehend the impact and the value that it has.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I think you did a good job of setting up why you do this. You know, as people if you love unfocussed and it’s something they opt into. And when we roll out chaplaincy at bandwidth, we had a couple of people, senior people in the company saying, listen, we know that you guys are really serious about your faith. I think that’s a little bit too over the top. And when we decided, of course, to continue with it. But when we introduced Jeff, who was our first corporate chaplain, we said, you know, we’ve got a ten thousand dollar bonus for those of you who adopt a child.

But I wouldn’t presume that any of you feel pressure to adopt a child. Right. And so same type of thing here. This is a benefit. It’s there for you to use. And as you ever find any opportunity or need to talk to somebody, know that it’s something you can do and you do it off site. But ultimately, you know enough about our family and our ethos, our foundational values of faith first and family, then work in fitness. We want you to be able to bring your whole selves to work. And if you have to check who you are as a spiritual person at the door, we’re not getting all of you. And that’s just going to be just seeing you as a person in black and white. So we want to be able to afford this to you as something for you to be able to see as a resource. So I love that you’ve picked up on that. And you’re right, you got to experience it. Some of the guys that had pushed us back on bringing on board corporate chaplains ended up becoming some of the biggest believers because they saw the way that these chaplains were able to love on people, on their teams.

Mike Arrieta: As an investor, our responsibility is to be stewards of our investors capital, and that is stewards, both impacts and financially. Right. I believe investing in chaplains through corporate chaplains of America what not that is a financial ERG you could quite literally calculate because you can say, well, what is the retention of this business pre and post? What is the employee satisfaction? How does that translate to customer satisfaction? I visited a dear friend of mine’s company in South Florida, best roofing company. The gentleman’s name is Greg Wallach. He’s had a chaplain there for the past 13 years. I was there in the morning when he did a little quick message to all the roofers, and I had a one on one with the chaplain afterwards. He told me I have four hundred employees that are there. About one hundred and seventy have put their faith in Christ.

And out of that, every time he speaks, his meetings are booked up about two weeks out because there’s such a high demand from people and we love him Amen as we’re coming near close.

William Norvell: I want to switch to this. You have a very interesting as we’ve gone through this, a very interesting. Niche and and focus, and it’s really cool to see how that’s come together manifested itself in Garden City. I know just personally, because we’ve talked a little bit that you found some other people and I guess we’ll call cultural investors for lack of a better term. That also called the vision that maybe had experienced something similar through their own life and journey and maybe the impact they have been able to have on a community. And a Drew Brees, for instance, was one who I think probably really just looking outside in. Right. I mean, what he was able to bring after Katrina to that place, I assume was a big part of why he emanated with your vision. But could you talk us through a few of those cultural investments? Have they been an encouragement to you, maybe some of the stories they’ve shared to sort of put some wind in your sails? Because, as we all know, there’s still a tough journey finding companies to buy as hard work and it doesn’t come easy. And you hear, as you know in your life here, a lot more no’s than you hear yeses in this job.

Mike Arrieta: Yeah, for sure. You’re smiling because you’re sure it’s such a messy, messy world, but it’s beautiful. At the same time, we’ve been very blessed.

It’s funny, William, we’ve known each other now for probably 10 years or a little bit less. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re constantly thinking of things to start, right? You’re always thinking of things to start. But when the Garden City vision came to me on February 20th of twenty eighteen, I knew something different. It was this wind behind my sails. The doors were opening and I knew that we were on a high speed train that was never going to slow down. I knew that it was just a matter of time that God was going to launch us. And I think a big question mark on that was, well, will the investment come through right? First time fund folks in the lower middle market. Will the investment come through? And God has just flooded, flooded, flooded Garden City with Favre, financial Favre from missional and investors. So as mentioned, we’ve now raised thirty five million dollars. We have to criteria’s for all of our investors. One is, are the mission aligned? Right. Ninety five percent of them declare their faith in Jesus. They’re strong believers, right. The other five percent, they are totally aligned. They would love to see the Garden of Eden come into our cities. And then second of all, are they willing and able to be value add? So are they giving us the green light that they will help us in any which way or form introductions, diligence, whatever else it may be? And so they’ve all agreed to that. So, one, it helps us build credibility when we’re talking to businesses like we were talking to a company right now in New Orleans. And I was like, oh, well, Drew Brees is one of our investors. And they’re like, Drew Brees is one of our investors. Are you kidding me? Like, can we quickly go to management on site right now and invite him for Joe? And of course, I tell him that if we’re talking to a company in Raleigh, North Carolina, that Henry Gates, there’s one of our investors and they say, you got to be kidding me. Can we have lunch right now? The Henry Gates or you come to our lunch, right? Oh, my God.

William Norvell: Look, whenever you get to Florence, Alabama, I’m your guy just throwing it out there. I don’t have a lot of pull a lot of places. But I’m your guy.

Mike Arrieta: Exactly. Exactly. We’ll do a whole campaign there in Florence, but they give us good deal flow. They give us great wisdom. They introduce us to strategic people for the investments. They help us with diligence. Like I mentioned, the sports camp deals. So we have great people like Pat Gelsinger at VMware. Right. Maggie Walter. She’s a chairman of DocuSign, Lyft, Tiboni, HP, Tannebaum. I mean, she’s amazing. Just Korell in Kentucky. They’re Horde Chelsy from the Ritz Carlton. Right. The gentleman Lecrae more than you guys. I just interviewed a Grammy Award winning rapper. So just a whole variety of people.

William Norvell: Amen brother, nice cross production value. You gave us their go listen to FDE Lecrae and been Wilsher. Unbelievable.

Great story that Brett Haggler. We’ve had Brett absolutely Paramjit and Marshalsea. That’s right.

That’s right. You’re just you’re just you’ve just given us free publicity now, Mike. And well, and we take that to be very clear. We we happily accept that. Unfortunately, Mike, we do have to come to a close. And it’s always a sad time when I have to come to a close of the conversation with you. But in this one, we want to invite our listeners into where God is in your life today during the season. It’s always fun for us to see how God’s word is alive and living and transcends generations and thousands of years and from a podcast from someone in Atlanta to someone internationally or even in San Francisco.

And so if you wouldn’t mind sharing with us where God has you in his word and what he may be taking you through and teaching you during the season your life.

Mike Arrieta: I remember when I first moved to Silicon Valley, I was part of this. I actually met you there called legends Kleiner Perkins. And one of my friends and mentors, Joie Chen, told me he was a venture capitalist. And he told me every single day he leaves the office around five thirty. And the reason why he leaves the office of five thirty is because he’s exemplifying exercising his faith.

Right. It takes faith to leave the office at five thirty, go home to dinner with your family and then get back on at nine or whatever else it is. And I asked him. How in the world can you do that, you know, like how can you get the best deals and still provide the best returns? It goes well, if I’m only working just as hard as everyone else. But I’m saying that I’m a believer God’s basically just like a cheerleader for me. But I’m not truly trusting in what faith does it take for me to try to be the best investor but to work just as hard as everyone else? So he pointed me to Daniel, and I never really studied Daniel ever since then and probably never spent some time in it until last week. We had a company that we were about to go into Loai with, and last minute he tells me he gets an offer that’s significantly more than ours. And I had a moment to realize what to do. I could either be like the rest of the world and compete on price alone, which the price is all predicated upon debt. If you’re competing, it’s a secular buyout investor or I exercise my faith and I trust wholeheartedly on God. And so I’ve been reading the book of Daniel like crazy over the past five days. I’ve been studying in such a way of how a man trusted that God would legitimately save him multiple, multiple, multiple times, and how he eagerly prayed for God to intervene in his life and all the circumstances that he found himself in. So I am currently in the season of Daniel and just trust in the Lord like I never have before to get a place to trust.

William Norvell: That’s a good place to trust. Thank you for sharing that with us, brother. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Thank you for sharing your heart with us and in your vision for Garden City and just in just how God has placed you in the new FDE landscape that we’re trying to bring people into. And it’s just such a joy to see the different segments and the different pieces, the God’s pulling together across this landscape.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

Host: Welcome to the feature of an investor podcast, if you’re a fund manager, investor or financial adviser driven by your faith or want to be driven by your faith, then you’re in the right place. The best way to stay connected in the faith driven investor community is to sign up for our newsletter, Faith Driven Investor ERG. This podcast doesn’t exist without you, our community. One of the things we’ve heard the community asks for is help in finding great deals to invest in. And so we’ve launched Marketplace. It’s a new platform of funds and direct deals, everything from private equity and real estate funds. That’s from philanthropic to market rate deals made in the U.S. in emerging markets. Check it out at faith driven investor ERG for slash marketplace. While you’re there, please send us any thoughts you have about how this podcast might better serve you or any questions you have about being a faith driven investor.

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including your team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.

Daryl Heald: The big idea here is for us to see it as opportunity, not obligation. Right, so we kind of think that when you say investing, giving generosity, the investing side implies opportunity, right? Because we all like, hey, here’s a great opportunity. It’s right. Everything every deck built on that. Right. Every pitch is built on what’s the opportunity. Right. What’s the potential? What’s the upside? How much am I going to make? What’s the game? Right. Well, if we really understand scripture, which is why I ask you the why question on your giving.

So it’s not about the tactics of giving. It’s about why and why is the answer and why is important because the answers to the why question our beliefs.

Henry Kaestner: Thanks, everybody, for joining us again this week on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our guest today is a friend of the podcast, someone we look up to and respect, but more importantly, someone we’re also happy to call a good friend. Darryl Heald is the founder of Generosity Path. For more than 20 years, Darryl has traveled internationally, sharing the message of biblical generosity in his role with generosity path. He focuses on mission related activities, strengthening and developing relationships with champions, facilitating journeys of generosity or jox and training, as well as encouraging business people to be generous. He’s here today to share his personal story, to give us a primer on what it means to be generous and explain why you never meet an unhappy, generous person. Let’s listen in.

Welcome back to the future of an investor podcast. I’m here with my great friend, business partner, confidante Luke Roush. Luke. Welcome back. Good to be here. Dude, we got a great guest. You know, a lot of times when we have guests on, I do some amount of prep. A lot of times I don’t. But most of the times I do. And I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t do any prep because I knew we had Darryl. And Darryl is one of our best friends in the world, is a guy that if you’ve listen to this podcast or at least a Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast long enough, you know that there are two major foundational faith moments in my life. At age twenty eight, I came to know Jesus through God, speaking to me through his word in a very patient associate pastor. And then at age 38, I got introduced to this guy named Darryl Heald. And Darryl came to know me and endeavored to understand some of my story. And then he stopped maybe two hours into it and said, hey, I think I’m following this. But why do you give? I talked a little bit about why I was talking a little bit about some of the different ministry things that Kimberly and I were involved in at the time. We were given probably 20 percent of why we thought there’s a special place in heaven for the double tither. You get box seats at Angel games or something like that. There’s something in it for me, undoubtedly. And that simple question from Darryl sent me, Raylan, and sent me back to Scripture and allowed me to just have a completely different and renewed relationship with God. And I’m forever grateful to Darryl for that. I wanted to get involved in the ministries that he was running. He’s a co-founder of Generous Giving, founder of Generosity Path, and he loves bringing the biblical message of generosity to people as they come to know God more fully. And it’s a great message. And I love our friendship and our partnership in ministry and so many other things. He formative in the starting of sovereigns, capital and his journey with us through every step of the way. And it is an embarrassment and an oversight that we have not had him on the program, any of our programs. So I’m really grateful. Thank you for join us. Maybe we’ll start off by talking about a ministry that is really important to you at this time of year that has nothing to do with generosity or actually it has everything to do with generosity, smoking for Jesus. What is it?

Daryl Heald: I don’t get some smoking for Jesus. All right. We’re diving right in. This is one of my favorite topics. Well, I’m a Texan and I think it’s just in our blood to smoke meat. And I tell you, it was I mean, just one of these amazing gifts twelve years ago that God gave me a friend here in town, man named Big Kenneth Johnson, who also loves to smoke, mate. He’s a Tennessee. And and, you know, through God’s providence, he brought us together. And we are at lunch one day. And I said, you know, Kenneth, what’s your dream? And he said, you know, there’s a lot of people hurting out there.

And, you know, I like to help him.

And his brother’s a great preacher and things like that because I’m not a preacher. He’s I just like smoked meat. And I said, I think we got something like we got something there. And so we started smoking for Jesus and we just started would take our smokers and we’d go into some of the housing projects and. We said our smokers just brought the aroma of Christ, and if you want to draw a crowd said, you know, you got three components that will always draw a crowd smoke, fire and meat, and you will draw a crowd. And sure enough, he did. And he was the oldest of 13 kids, no father. He grew up in these different housing projects back in the civil rights era and 10 years older, me, one of my mentors and best friends, he went to be with the Lord last year. A huge loss for me there. But we continue the ministry. We just smoke. Two hundred and forty turkeys for Thanksgiving takes us about forty two hours of continuous smoking. We’re hoping to do three hundred at Christmas and it was very interesting. We took Kenneth, we just had a notebook and his distribution system is he would call up different people he knew. That worked with refugees or worked with widows or worked with homeless people, teachers at school that knew kids that were in trouble and needed help, it was just a hand ledger. And so for 12 years, we have his notes from these hand ledgers, and that’s what we went off of this year. His wife, Connie, just worked off that ledger and called all the people and said how many turkeys you need? And they would say, well, I need five. I need eight, I need six. And we welcome and that’s our gift to the community and we feed. Well, covid has been a terrible year for us. Last year we had twenty seven events and fed well over ten thousand people a year. And yeah, just a simple history of loving people this way and being able to do it with our past and we just stay up all night smoking butts.

And what meat would you say most resembles the aroma of Christ?

Well, so we always have this, you know, people that know barbecue, which I just said, I’m a Texan. He’s a Tennessean. The big rivals here are brisket versus pork butt and pulled pork versus the brisket. So I’m a beef guy. And so, you know, we didn’t argue too often, but basically I did the beef and he did the pork and it was a good teamwork.

Luke Roush: That’s awesome. Body of Christ in action.

Henry Kaestner: That’s right. So we started talking at the outset about the impact you’ve had in my life and in others lives. And it comes down to this concept that I think is really important for the faith driven investor. And on one hand, somebody might say, what is investing have to do with generosity and at one glance kind of their distant cousins? Yes, they have to do with money. And yes, there’s faith in there somewhere. But I think that we’re coming to understand with time that it’s all kind of lumped up into the same concept. And I’m hoping that you might be able to help us unpack that a little bit and refine it a little bit, because my sense is that it’s a similar DNA and similar heart posture that allows for somebody to be a good faith driven investor as well as a generous person. And maybe you can help us sort through that. What’s a heart posture? What’s a mindset? Somebody is listening as podcast and saying, what does it mean to be a feature investor? Where do I start? How would you help them with that?

Daryl Heald: Yeah, well, I don’t think they’re distant cousins at all. I think they’re the same. But I think the big idea here is for us to see it as opportunity, not obligation. So we kind of think that when you say investing, giving generosity, the investing side implies opportunity, right? Because we all like, hey, here’s a great opportunity and. Right everything. Every decs built on that. Right. Every pitch is built on what’s the opportunity. Right. What’s the potential? What’s the upside? How much am I going to make? What’s the game? Right. Well, if we really understand scripture, which is why I ask you the why question on your giving.

So it’s not about the tactics of giving. It’s about why and why is it answering? Why is important?

Because the answers to the why question our belief. And so none of us act on unbelief. We only act on belief. But here’s where I want to make the connection is it is all about the investment because it’s all about our stewardship. One hundred percent. Right. So we have a hundred percent that whatever God has entrusted to us as a steward. But the big idea is not like, well, now you’re obligated as a steward to do well and you better do good. Otherwise, I’m going to you know, I’m going to get you know, it’s really about the opportunity I’m giving you to be the steward. And so it’s about allocation. Right. And so it’s all about to me, investment is the same. Meaning whether you’re investing in a for profit or you’re investing in a ministry in the kingdom, right. Because to me it’s all about queendom investment. And so then it’s allocation into different types of asset classes on this, and that’s where I think we hurt ourselves when we bifurcate it, because then we think differently. We allocate differently. If I’m saying, oh, this is a for profit investment and this is my type of return, and then I have this conversation, oh, this is now a different conversation. If it’s to a ministry and this is right pocket, left pocket, never the twain shall meet.

Henry Kaestner: And just the whole process is different when you’re suggesting that it’s not it’s the same type of fundamental process to endeavor to understand how do I steward and how do I lean into this opera? And I think you mentioned something really important there is that I think the two oftentimes people think, well, it’s an obligation. And I think that there is an element of us being held accountable. But that’s not the way God designed a guy designed us, gave us an opportunity to participate in the work that he is doing in his kingdom. And we can participate alongside. And you’re suggesting there’s that type of mindset that can guide both our giving and our investing?

Daryl Heald: That’s right. Well, I think we have one hundred dollars and how we choose to allocate that in a stewardship side. Because here’s the fun thing is a lot of the different entrepreneurs that we see here in the US that are faith driven, we see globally that are faith driven, the lines have begun to blur, actually, even between what is traditional ministry, what is a traditional investment, you know, from a philosophical side or learned a lot from a friend that works at the Omidyar Network, Randy Newcome, and he told me how the Amedi are set up their investment. They said, look, this is not, you know, so typically you go looking for money from the Omidyar’s and you say, well, if you’re a for profit, you go talk to these people. You’re not for profit. You go talk with these people. What beer are figured out is Nagas know, I want great people with great ideas and in the continuum of capital, I’ll figure out what type of capital I need to allocate to it. But I see it all the same. And I think that’s where we’ve kind of traditionally bifurcated this. I think this is all about Kingdome investment here, regardless of whether it’s a not for profit or for profit entity.

Luke Roush: So as as you think about some things that are maybe better capitalized with for profit dollars and other things that are better capitalized, and what’s your methodology? Darrel’s you think about kind of what goes into what bucket, because the concern might be that you got something that really should be for profit, but somebody just wants a better valuation. So they end up kind of cassin is kind of a non profit deal or vice versa. How do you think about that just in your own practice?

Daryl Heald: Well, I think there can be. This was the interesting thing that I actually learned again from the middle class is there’s this continuum of capital. So you can take a great person with a great idea that in some ways sometimes has started maybe as not for profit, maybe in the in some of the early, early stages. It might have done that. There are actually a number of what I’m beginning to see are actually either for profits or not for profits, attaching the complementary organizational structure to it. Like, for example, news story has started a venture capital fund, which is a not for profit, but they’ve created a for profit venture capital fund to fund innovation in the building space, because if their big idea on the nonprofit side is to solve the homeless issue, provide great housing to people globally, they realize that in some ways you almost can’t get to it in the traditional nonprofit way. And this is where my experience, too, is the difference between, like you have again, this bifurcation. You have two pocket books of what I have to give to a ministry and what I have to invest in a great deal. Well, what I’ve seen is it’s typically a huge multiple of what someone’s willing to invest in a great deal versus what they’re willing to give.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, well, you know, there’s something there that I think is really powerful and I want to make sure that we don’t pass over it too quickly because otherwise we might go onto a different subject. You’re suggesting that there’s a big difference between a bottom up approach, which is the way that most crossfires think about versus a top down approach. So here, what a bottom up approach means. OK, I have a certain amount of money that I’m going to give this year and have a certain amount of money I’m going to invest this year. OK, how am I going to invest it?

Where am I going to get the return? And then you’re saying, no, no, no, no. Top down. What are the causes? What are the things you care about? What are the problems you’re trying to solve? Start there, go to people, find out what’s the best way, what are the best ideas that are out there. And if you do that, you start based on where God is calling you, whether it’s justice related or whatever it is, maybe it’s housing related, whatever this space is, if you’re looking for the best ideas, if you get ten of them, you can come back and there are going to be. Investment ideas, and they’re going to be giving opportunities. That’s right. Let’s start off with the cause and the passion you have first, and that’s the top down approach.

Daryl Heald: I like that as well said. Yeah, it is.

Luke Roush: Whatever. So, Daryl, just to kind of ask a follow up to something that we let off with, in your experience, what’s kind of the number one thing that keeps people from being generous?

Well, I think it’s fear. I mean, there’s a number of different other issues, but I would say at the base, a lot of it, it’s fear and it’s almost like fear of the unknown.

Henry Kaestner: Maybe you could share some stories about some of the people that you’ve worked with that have given too much money away and are now living despondent and homeless. Paint the worst picture for us. How many times have you seen that happen where people say cash gave away too much money three years ago? I really regret that.

Daryl Heald: Yeah, well, I do remember actually being in Northern California, guys. I do remember being there in Silicon Valley in the late 90s. And for those, they’re all still old enough to remember that time. I mean, everything was just going crazy up, up and up. And I remember I met with a venture capitalist, a young venture capitalist, and, of course, everything he’d been given, which is multiplying like crazy. But I had been in this conversation with him about his giving. And so I said, well, OK, great. So you’re making all this money, has your giving. And he goes, have you not heard me? He goes, I chilliness, I’m killing. I’m making 70, 80, 90 percent on my money. Why would I give it right now? Why would I give it right now in an badami in these early days, I was like, well, OK, but I said, here’s the risk you run right, is what we think is one since the great temporal investment. Right. And he was making a good point. Hey, how much do I let this kind of run before I do give it? And I said. You know, that’s legitimate, right? So I get a bigger number to give later, and I said, yeah, the only risk I see in this is that we are at once competing against maybe what a kingdom return is, which we know from a biblical size thirty six to one hundred forty three thousand six thousand ten thousand percent. So when he was, I think, very confident about what he had, but I do remember a follow up conversation. And as you all remember what happened in two thousand. Right. The incredible intimately crash. And it was a very interesting, sobering conversation. But to his credit, he’s like, all right, I get it.

I get it. Now, he said, look, maybe I was riding this a little too strong. And he said, I do regret not giving.

Henry Kaestner: No, because is interesting, you said the thirty six hundred fold and that is that OK, so you are so confident in your ability to make money that, by the way, that’s probably the first sign that the wheels are about to fall off in the market or whatever you get going on, number one. But number two is that that presumes that the rate of return that you have in human or earthly terms is greater than the spiritual return of what that money or that investment might mean in something that’s more attributed to the kingdom of God. So if it’s at school that you’re investing, that you might otherwise give a donation to in Ghana. Were that a new class of high school seniors might come to know that there’s a God who loves them and transforms the trajectory of their life, they’re just different types of spiritual returns. And you miss out and it’s what you’re doing is you’re missing out. And it’s not the obedience, it’s the opportunity. Yeah. You think that the opportunity of making the money in the market is greater than the opportunity of participating in what God is doing the world? Now, let’s come into a related and very important topic, which is, does investing with a kingdom mindset necessarily mean that we need to get ready for just mediocre returns and we’re just cash? We need to just prepare ourselves for single digit returns, lots of losses. What does it look like to have a when you go ahead and you talk to the and they find the problem that they want to solve or they see the opportunity in a particular region in the world, how do they invest that with excellence? What does that look like? And can it include the spectrum from philanthropy all the way to market returns or market returns? There’s just no place for that, because if you’re doing market returns, that means you’re exploiting something and that necessarily is bad.

Daryl Heald: Now, I think it’s part of what we’ve been discussing here is I think we have to broaden our spectrum here and realize in one sense, what are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to solve and creatively figure out how that’s going to be done. And that’s that’s in all the different ways. Right? We’re looking for great people with great ideas. And then irregardless, however, they’re incorporated in what they’re doing and how we allocate those, whether it’s philanthropic capital or investment capital.

Henry Kaestner: Well, you’ve been involved in deals like Grab and CloudFactory and in others where you’ve seen where somebody comes out and says, I’ve got a mission. I want to be able to bring safety and transparency to a vulnerable population in Southeast Asia. Know, Anthony Tan starts off his business not as a business. It was a ministry. It’s going to be five Wannsee three. It just so happened that the easiest the best way for him to accomplish his mission after some counsel from some others ended up being a business. And it’s a business worth 14 billion dollars plus. Right. And so when you look to solve a problem with excellence, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not going to be able to deliver financial returns to. I think about Ashoka’s Kandarian wanted to be able to love on single moms that were trying to get their cars serviced and being able to provide software to auto shop owners. And he just took in a fifty million dollar investment from Bessemer. Right. Then maybe that’s a sign for us, too. So coming back to what you’re saying before, start off with the idea and then be open to work out what leads you. Then you talk to these entrepreneurs that say, here’s the problem I’m trying to solve, then you can come alongside them and in the marketplace you can actually get good financial returns.

Daryl Heald: Right? Absolutely.

Luke Roush: How do you think about so if what you’re really looking for, Daryl, is people who have passion, incompetency about tackling something, then you’ll figure out kind of how do you blend the right mix of at market capital and concessionary and or grant capital? But part of what we’ve seen make really good relationships is where when we as an investor fall in love with the entrepreneurs idea of where they want to go. Let’s make sure we don’t fall in love with our idea. Make sure we fall in love with their idea within the context of an investor really sensing a call from the Lord about where they might be called to engage or how they might begin the process of engaging in things that the Lords put on their heart. And they go out and kind of find the right people who are also called in that direction. Any tips maybe from when you talk to first time to Henry or others about kind of discovering their passion for why they give? I know there are some specific kind of missional focal points that came out of that discussion between you and Henry, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it was. Any kind of tips for how we might individually discover that with a Lord? You mean what a particular focus or passion would be? Yeah, because, you know, you can go everywhere, right? There’s a million different there going on in the world, the thousands of deals. How do you decide kind of how does someone individually discern where they might go?

Daryl Heald: Yeah, that’s good. Well, maybe one of the simple things that I’ve always used to help me discern. God, what are you asking me to do? And John Scott talks about discerning the will of God in a calling, has two components to it. One is a push and the other one’s a pull. And so he’s saying you need to be aware of contextually aware that if God is pulling you into particular conversations, you’re meeting these people and then all of a sudden some of the dots are connecting. Be aware of that. Right, because none of these things are by accident. Right.

It’s not randomness and it’s not by accident, but it’s is God’s sovereignty operating to either push you out of a place of comfort and pulling you into this new place and then obviously with prayer and then with the word of God and then the Council of Peers and some friends that can help you discern that, too. But I think to me, one of the things that’s been helpful has been those two components, like internally just being aware. Well, you know, I’m getting this pull and I’m seeing not by accident that this person’s about this this person is about that. It seems like we’re all having the same conversation. Then I should be really aware of that. That’s good. So, Henry, at the beginning of the program, you were saying that you have this transformational experience. When I ask you the question, can you elaborate on that a little more?

Henry Kaestner: So today came to faith and I knew that there’s a God who loved me and that changed everything, but when I started thing, when I thought about money, money from me was something that was a requirement of me. OK, so God has blessed my business should probably be more generous because there are other people who are not as successful in business and they need finances to run the orphanage or whatever the case is and so can win. I should give more money away and maybe the tide is the right level for us. And then we started getting more generous. We saw some more needs and we thought, gosh, you know, God bless us a lot. We probably should give more. It was a responsibility and an obligation and it was a way of us giving back. If you had asked me at the time what you did, why do you give? I may have even said I want to pay it forward or something like that. Would transform for me, and I think that it does have everything to do with the way that I think about things as the fate of an investor now is that my motivation for giving became one of a sense of gratitude. So when you ask me that question, it wasn’t like this all sudden, this light bulb and everything, just like, oh, my goodness, that changes everything. It was over the next six months, every passage in Scripture having something to do about money. It was amazing. It’s unbelievable. And listen to this podcast probably can identify with some of that and those passages like God taking five loaves in two fish and feeding five thousand. What does that have to do with money? Well, it had to do with the fact that up until that point in time, I thought that God actually needed me to underwrite the five loaves and two fish. Wait a second. He can take something out of nothing. He doesn’t need my lousy money. He just wants me. And then it would be messages just simply about just the gospel and the fact that I came to realize that, you know, why I might give is out of gratitude, not an obligation. And, you know, it took me from this life where faith was important, the real ramifications to just being alive and having a sense of joy. And I get a sense of gratitude. But, you know, with time and over the course, the last 10 or 15 years, especially as I’ve looked to invest more and more, it’s really motivated by the sense that you mentioned before, which is opportunity. And it’s it’s a special privilege. It’s a special, amazing thing to participate in the work that God is doing in the world, not because he needs my capital, but he invites me in. And it’s an opportunity to commune with the living guy doing some things that are really, really important. I love the stories of the entrepreneurs we get a chance to invest in, and I love the stories of the funds we get a chance to participate in. It gives me great joy. You know, I’m an investor. Luke and I are both investors. We invest in pattern recognition. OK, so there’s a good amount of selfless ambition that drives me now with how I think about generosity and more specifically, faith driven investments when I invest in something has some level of spiritual integration in it, and even better yet, a gospel proclamation element of it, particularly overseas. When I do that, I feel joy. You know what I’m all about getting more joy in my life. And I find that when I’m in line with God’s plan for my life and so I want more of it, I get more joy from participating in some of these funds, particularly some of the ones that are emerging now in frontier markets that have got spiritual migration and really making a difference overseas. I just get 20 times more joy than I do for my Vanguard index fund. And so, again, I invest in pattern recognition. I’m going to do more of that. And it’s just that’s the difference. It’s the first way is out of an obligation and now it’s an opportunity.

Daryl Heald: I love it. I love it. Yeah, it is is. I mean, joy. Yeah. We’ll keep moving into joy. Right. Everyone wants a little bit more of that. See, that’s some of the fruit.

You know what I think sometimes to how we kind of misunderstand giving because we think what we’ve given is gone and like there’s no inurement in actually the way God has his designed it is that there’s actually there is some future sense of however he’s doing the math of laying up treasure in heaven. Right. For Matthew six. But there’s actually a Daubert, you know, force here even presently to even described. This is part of, you know, this gratitude and this joy. Right. But so there are some other things that when you look at the grace of giving and we look at the and what’s doctrinally what that means, some of the other things that are new to us when we’re willing to invest in the things that are unseen, which are eternal, when we’re investing in the kingdom, then, you know, things like favor, things like rest, things like lack of fear, lack of anxiety, grace, you know, reward worship, all these things.

These are like true promises in scripture. And that’s why he said, you know, move into this. That’s why he says it is more blessed to give than receive. That was awesome, dude.

Luke Roush: That was very good. Very good. That was brilliant. That was really awesome. I want to ask a question, Dara. So one of the first times you and I really actually spent some time together was when you brought the journey of generosity to Indonesia. And I had a chance just to kind of see a number of people that I knew well really transformed through that experience. And then, of course, you know, the journey of generosity is really taken off since then in Indonesia and in the region. I’d love just for listeners to be able to hear and get a sense of the scale of how God has worked through those events to be able to just convict people on their hearts, what generosity means to them, and kind of a reframing as you’ve done with us. So, you know, how far is gone, how many people have been touched. So you’ve got to be an encouragement.

Daryl Heald: Yeah, thanks. I still remember that that was the first one we had done in that country. And as you know, because you lived there, the Indonesians are fun, man. They love to talk you. So when you’re facilitating this, I mean, sometimes you’re wondering, OK, or people are going to talk, are they going to share and so on. I mean, every time we threw a question out there, every. And around the table wanted to share, everyone wanted to talk, but the scope of the movement now, so we started generous giving in 2000, the global work started in 2012, and we’re in seventy four countries in thirty two languages now. So it’s just a testimony of God’s word. This is God’s message and his movement is how we’ve always seen it and what I’ve always stated and what he intends for his church. Right. Because here’s the other big idea of, you know, a lot of times, too, we have talked about bifurcation. Sometimes that investment and, you know, the difference between for profit, not for profit investing versus giving. And we also think between the West and the east and, you know, the developed countries and the developing countries. Right. And socioeconomic status and so on. But ultimately, we all have been created and designed to be givers and receivers. And one of the most exciting things that we’ve seen in this movement globally has been generosity, stories that I could share with you from Venezuela and Zimbabwe and Romania and India and Nepal and places that we would normally think, OK, wait a minute. Like I just got a letter the other day from a guy from Sudan and he’s been taking the journey of generosity to Syria and Yemen and in Iraq. And I was like, OK, those I never thought we would have, you know, the generosity movement, OK, might go, you know how many countries you like. I just unfortunately, I typically was thinking we go to the more Western wealthier countries. And I mean, my mind has just been blown the last several years, just seen how guys like my messages for everybody. And this particular the generosity message is not about, you know, socioeconomic status for everyone because we’re all givers and receivers. If we understand this, then we all, again, have the opportunity to not only be givers. And so we shouldn’t have these kind of hardening of the categories between people that are you know, they live in this country and they have this type of GDP or something like that. Certainly they receivers and I just been blown away with that. That’s the fun part. That’s the fun part. Again, it just kind of flips the whole deal on its head.

Luke Roush: Yeah, well, you know, something that clicked for me is that we might have something to learn actually from the marketers of the world. The marketers of the world aren’t focused on old rich people and younger people who are potential customers for the next 30 or 40 years. And maybe there’s something to be learned from that. As you think about let’s really invest in the next generation and said demographics are destiny. And there’s some truth in that. In a country, like you said, you know, if you can really see something with younger women in a country that’s as young as Indonesia is, is just one example. The legacy of that is multi multigenerational and it’s not counting down in terms of population, the way Western Europe or Japan or maybe even the US would be net of immigration.

Luke Roush: That’s awesome. Thank you for. Yeah. Yeah. Like 60 percent of India’s under the age of 35.

Henry Kaestner: Now they’re going to be more entrants into the job market in Africa over the next 20 years than India and China combined. So there’s something really promising about this next generation. I love the way that you’re investing in them. So tell us if you’re trying to figure some more of this out, what are some ways for people to get plugged in to this generous journey?

Daryl Heald: Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, we’ve had to pivot this year and develop all of our experiences online, so typically when we you know, I’ve mentioned the word journey of generosity that we commonly referred to as a jog. And we’ve also developed the giving plain retreat coming out of the journey, transformational experience to be able to apply it. So we’ve developed those online and we’ll be happy to to help guide through one.

Henry Kaestner: They’re really, really good. I did want the fact that you’re now doing them online aloud, Kimberly, I because we get kids at home. Otherwise, typically a journey of generosity happens at a really nice hotel. Somebody pays for it. This is always a very safe thing. Nobody ever asked for any money. And it’s really usually at a really nice hotel. But Kimberly’s never been able to go to one before. And so this actual format allowed us to do it as a couple. And it was really awesome. And I’d say it was every bit as powerful as the in-person version.

Daryl Heald: Great. Well, that’s exciting to hear. We are going again. Holy Spirit does the transformational work. But, you know, you can go to the Generosity Path ERG website and you can contact us and we can help you get into a journey, generosity, experience. So we love to do that for you.

Henry Kaestner: Excellent. We close every one of our episodes off, as you may know, by asking our guests something that they’re hearing from God through their time in his word. And it could be this morning, this week, this month. But what’s something that you feel that God is speaking to you about right now?

Daryl Heald: Well, I mean, one of the unique things is, you know, you and I do a reading group together. And so we’re in the New Testament.

We’re actually in second Timothy right now. Second Timothy, one second, Timothy to both. Paul speaks about sharing in the suffering for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of the ELAC. And he speaks in suffering a lot. But that’s just jumped out to me again, is to in a convecting way. I love buying into, again, all the things that seem good. Am I also willing to buy in and take a share of the suffering? You know, this is really convecting for me, you know, and as I’ve had opportunities to interface with a lot of our Christian family around the world, I mean, there’s there’s a lot of suffering and I see them sharing in that. Well, I’m just personally convicted in my own heart that I need to have more faith and be willing to share in that. The second thing is, is I’ve been convicted on my motives in whatever I’m doing. I guess back in Thessalonians talks about, you know, did you nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit. Mm hmm. And so I’ve found myself now using that as almost like a daily mantra. OK, what what is asking myself, why am I doing this? What’s my motive here now? Is their pride? Is there you know, is I after something that is just temporal? Right. I need to use that as a check and my spirit.

Henry Kaestner: Sorry, sister versus so obviously both of those are great. I will mention that people that might start off in second. Timothy, go back one chapter before the first Timothy six, which is probably my favorite chapter on giving in the Bible. Second Corinthians eight nine are awesome. But first Timothy six. But I’ll tell you, starting to go back through Proverbs with my boys. I’ve got three teenage boys and Proverbs 16, two and twenty one to speak to exactly what you talking about with this Linton’s. And it’s almost haunting to me. It’s all the man’s ways impure to him, but his motives are weighed by the Lord. So gosh, even if I’m conscious of vain conceit and try to steer clear of that and I think that my motives are pure, God really understands how sinful I am, deeper, and it just needs its convicting. And and yet, in a strange way, it’s also encouraging that there’s a God who knows me that well, who must also love me that much.

And that’s a great encouragement for. Thank you, guys.

Daryl Heald: Thanks for having me. I was a real pleasure.

Love, love, love all y’all. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on today’s show. We’re very, very grateful for the opportunity to serve the larger faith driven investor community. Hey, the best way for you to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at faith driven investor Doug. And while you’re there, we, of course, want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it’s been very rewarding to see people join the discussion now from all around the world. But it’s also very important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you’ll help make it something that best equips you on your journey, one that you’re proud of and one that you’ll share with others.

Host: This podcast, it wouldn’t be possible without the help from many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman, program director Johnny Will’s music by Carl Chigwell. You can see and hear more of his work at summer drag’s dotcom and audio and editing by Richard Bahle of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.

Host: Welcome to the feature of an investor podcast, if you’re a fund manager, investor or financial advisor driven by your faith or want to be driven by your faith, then you’re in the right place. The best way to stay connected in the faith driven investor community is to sign up for our newsletter, Faith Driven Investor ERG. This podcast doesn’t exist without you, our community. One of the things we’ve heard the community asks for is help in finding great deals to invest in. And so we’ve launched Marketplace. It’s a new platform of funds and direct deals, everything from private equity and real estate funds. That’s from philanthropic to market rate deals made in the U.S. in emerging markets. Check it out at faith driven investor ERG Ford slash marketplace. While you’re there, please send us any thoughts you have about how this podcast might better serve you or any questions you have about being a faith driven investor.

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including your team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guest may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back everyone, to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. While Chip Ingram, CEO and teaching pastor, was Living on the Edge, Ministries has been a two time guest on the FDE podcast, this is the first time we’ve had him speak to faith driven investors. Today, you’ll get to hear his talk from the faith driven investor conference. In it, he shares what the Bible has to say about investing as he challenges the bifurcation between giving to Kingdome causes and investing in faith driven ventures. Hear him ask How might God use you to make a new paradigm so that you build businesses? You realize that this is an opportunity to also give generously and invest in Kingdome impact. Let’s listen in.

Chip Ingram: I’m not really an investor, been a pastor for the last 30 years. And, you know, I’ve written a few books and invested a little bit here and there. But I’m here, first of all, to welcome you and kind of kick this thing off. And second, to commend you. You know, there’s a lot of investors that invest well and then they take their profits and are very generous for Kingdome impact. But there’s not many investors who really get that. What you actually build in terms of the marketplace, what you invest in and how you develop that can have as much Kingdome impact as even your philanthropy or your generous giving. And so what I want to do is three things. I want to give you a little biblical precedent for what we’re going to do. I want to challenge that whole bifurcation that, you know, when we give money to Kingdome causes, to church and to projects, that’s the work of God. And over here, it’s you know, we do a marketplace ministry to make money. I’m going to really challenge you to rethink that. And then third, I have a story. I’m not much of an investor, but recently I got to make an investment and everything that you’re going to talk about. I think my story might be a parable for the entire conference. So biblical precedent, a very familiar passage. But I’m going to look at it a little bit differently. Follow along, Matthew. Chapter twenty five. This is the third parable about being ready for the Lord’s return. Verse 14. It says, Ford is just like the man about to go on a journey Jesus is speaking who called his own slaves and entrusted them with his possessions to one. He gave five talents to another two and another one each. According to his ability, the one who received the five talents, put his talents to work, traded them, worked in business and got five more talents in the same way. The one with two talents put his to work and gain two more talents. But the one who received the one talent dug a hole, put his money in the ground for his master’s money. Now, after a long time, the master came back to these slaves and he business term settled the accounts. When the one had come and received the talents, he said, I have five counts, master. I’ve invested them and I have five more. And notice, he says, the master says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Very interesting. I want you to catch this. I will put you in charge of many things and enter the joy of your master. Most of you know the story. The two talents received the same commendation and the one with one talent is sharply criticized and his one talent is given to the other because he’s irresponsible with it. Now, I don’t want to teach this whole passage, but there’s a handful of observations in this passage that I think are of biblical precedent for Faith driven entrepreneurs. First of all, a talent here wasn’t coinage. It was a literally like a block of metal with value and. Probably the best way to get it is talentless, usually about 6000 denarii, and that would be are you ready? The one talent person basically got what it would a daily wage for 20 years. Sometimes I’ve heard this Totò and people think, oh, I only have one talent. Now think about not having to work for 20 years. That’s a lot of money. The two talent would be someone who said, how much do you make in 40 years. There you go. Here’s a block of money. I want you to invest it. And the five talent son was given literally enough money that if he worked every day, he wouldn’t have to work for one hundred years. Here’s my point. They all have very significant amount of money. Second, it’s each according to his ability. You know, it’s not egalitarian. God intrust different things to different people, according to their ability. And then he evaluates and rewards them. Not based on how much, but what did they do with what he gave them. Third, there’s a dual role in the ancient Near East. During this time, when Jesus is talking, a slave would almost become like a partner. Yes, he’s a slave. Yes, technically he was owned, but there would be a very familiar relationship. And so as he goes off, he has two roles. One, he’s a steward. This is your money master. But you’ve entrusted all this to me. Second, though, he’s an investor. And don’t think when he says he invested the five talents, don’t think like he he put it in a 401k or he put it in some financial institution because of the way this is written and the time and the group. In other words, he created a business. He had to invest in a business. So he had the dual role of steward and investor for the observation is notice the reward. His reward isn’t, wow, you had five talents. Here’s five more. Here’s more money. He says, I’ll put you in charge of many things. In other words, you know, when you’ve built a business, when you invest and when it grows, the reward is the impact, the platform, the extent. And what he’s saying to them is your trustworthiness has allowed me to give you an extended impact. And, you know, if you when you invest just like all of us and whatever we do, when you’re made for it, when you think you pray, you invest in this person, you help them along the way. You give insight here. When it grows, there’s great reward. But then notice, not only is there a horizontal thing that happens in terms of extent of impact, more responsibility, but there’s a vertical one now enter into the joy of your master. What I want you to get here is that investing, building a business, taking money that God has given to you and creating it in businesses with people that can really make a difference, that provide goods and services, that create jobs that make an impact on employees lives that are goods and services that that blessed the common good of other people. That’s very significant impact. By contrast, I’m a pastor, and so my only investments are, you know, most workers are like me and say you have A 403 B, right. And so I’ve put a little money out of my paycheck for 30 some years. And, you know, it’s a fidelity or a principle or this or that. And they send me a bunch of papers. And yes, by now I do have a financial planner. And I by the way, we need you to go into your website in Large-Cap SmallCap. I have no idea really what I’m doing. And I don’t know whether fidelity or principle or any of those groups, you know, I know that we’re not investing in immoral stuff, but I’ve seen investments in my life just as I need some money for later. I’ve never thought ever in my life, where are you putting that money? And could your money in investments have a kingdom impact rather than just I’ve taken my money and I’ve had a great chance to give an Kingdome causes. So I want you to really think this. How might God use you to change your whole new paradigm so that as you build businesses and as you coach people and as you develop people, you realize this is an opportunity not just to make money, not just make money even to give, but both in. Yes, make money so that you can give generously for Kingdome causes. But what if you invested in things that had Kingdome impact by the virtue of the actual investment? Now, here’s the story I want to tell you. And you know, many of you, obviously, you’ve invested lots of money and millions of dollars and and I’m a pastor. Right. But over the years, I’ve been debt free and and I’ve written a few books and I made some pree decisions about what to do with that money. And probably like many of you, when I was young, I learned to tithe and then I learned to do kind of proportional giving. And in the last maybe eight or 10 years, I’ve had a handful of times where God has allowed me to make a six figure gift and to the church building program missions living on the edge. And it’s been just an amazing joy to see God provide resources I never dreamed I would have and to see it invested in books in China or missions, things. And, you know, it’s been really exciting because I never saw myself ever as a major donor. And yet over the years, I’ve gotten to be a bit of that here and there. Well, about must have been, I don’t know, two, three years ago there was a young man who I really believed in. And it’s a long story, but it was an investment in a group. And my wife and I, as we prayed about it, had it prompting from God. Now, I’ve never invested in a company. I’ve never invested in a startup. And if you knew the whole story, you would know maybe why we were prompted. But I won’t go into that. And so I’ve kind of come to at this stage in my life where, yes, I want to put some money aside. But at the end of the day, it’s numbers on a piece of paper. I don’t want to die with a bunch of numbers on a sheet of paper. And this young investor that I really believed in, I took one hundred thousand dollars out of my savings and he couldn’t go full time on his startup. And that allowed him to go full time on a startup. Now, because he was related to Henry and got coached and mentored by Henry, he was going to be a faith driven right entrepreneur. And so built into his strategy was, we’re going to have ministry, we’re going to have a kingdom impact built into his concepts, for these are our values. Every time he does an off site, he tells the story. This is what God has done. These are what our values. He’s hired both Christians and non Christians. Another part of his story was it has to do with cars and repair and software and stuff that I don’t really understand. But part of it was we want to help people as a part of our you know, we have a dashboard of success and one of our dashboards is maintenance for moms. We want we want to help moms, single moms in desperate situations. And whether that’s repair, well, OK, so he got his first round of funding and that did really well. And and I was glad because there was a big part of me that thought, well, you know, I really believe in that guy. And if I never see that, it’s not like I have a lot of money laying around. But I thought God told me to do it, so I did it. Well, then he got a second round of funding. And it just what you know, like off the charts. Well, here’s what I want you to get. I got to be a part of his first emails. You know, when it’s family and friends, we would meet over coffee and he would talk about, these are my dreams. I got to do a little coaching just just now and then from a distance. Not the business side, but just the heart side. And then little by little by little, I watched him as he just championed his faith every month for, I don’t know, the last six, eight, nine months they have given a car, given a car to a single mom, but not just the car, but with discipleship, with meeting with her friends and family every time it’s actually in this building that I’m in right now. When they do the car, all the employees come out and they gather around and they give the car and then they pray for, well, now he’s got a group of people and one of the Eastern European countries and 15 or 20 or 30 people there. And it was a lady there. That’s a part of that company that had one of the only one or two outreaches of there’s all more abortions happening in that country than anywhere in all of Europe. And so now there’s ministry there. I’ve looked at first it was 30, then 50, then 70. All these people now have jobs. Here’s the virus. All these people, they have jobs, they have a ministry, and then he has these off sites and he keeps championing. This is why this is what God says. And you know what I realize I’m really glad when I’ve been able to give a six figure gift to ministry in China or ministry to help build a building at a church or ministry over in this place or that place.

But when I look at the investment that I made, I’m looking at all these families being changed.

Now, one of his employees lives very near to me, and I’ve seen the evidence in his life. I’m seeing moms get minister, too. I’m seeing international ministry occur. I’m seeing a whole group of people with a testimony to all their clients all across the country. And by the way, when needed, did that second round. I just thought to myself it’d be kind of nice to at least get my money out of it. I’m not sure where it’s going to go. The return on my investment was unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

And what I want you to know is that as you all start this conference, I want you to really be thinking about not just here’s my investments, how do we make money? And to be generous with it, I’m going to challenge you and you’re going to have great speakers to know all about this. I want to challenge you to be that kind of servant who says I’m going to give generously out of my profits, of course, but I want to be a part of marketplace ministries with faith based entrepreneurs that have a kingdom mindset so that the impact in the marketplace is not just money, it’s not just a return on my money, but I mean its lives and it’s transformation. And you invest your money in people. You know, when I read this little parable, I thought to myself, you know, think of the Jewish culture. Do you think the slaves went out and cut a deal with Rome in a business or with some gentiles? What did they do? They met some other Jews, people they trusted. They built a relationship and they built a business. And pretty soon he had one hundred years worth. Right. Big, big money. Now he’s got two hundred years worth of in. All right. And he did that because he built relationship and ministry and investment in people and saw the kingdom impact not just in the profit, but in the actual process.

Host: Thank you so much for joining us on today’s show. We’re very, very grateful for the opportunity to serve the larger faith driven investor community. Hey, the best way for you to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at faith driven investor Doug. And while you’re there, we, of course, want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it’s been very rewarding to see people join the discussion now from all around the world. But it’s also very important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you’ll help make it something that best equipped you on your journey, one that you’re proud of and one that you’ll share with others. This podcast, it would be possible without the help from many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman, program director Johnny Will’s music by Carl Chigwell. You could see and hear more of his work at summer drag’s dotcom and audio and editing by Richard Burley of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.