David Green (CEO of Hobby Lobby) and Bill High (Co-author)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back.

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Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it. Highly recommended.

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Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.

I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the Gospel influence the work of mere Christians?

Those of us who aren't pastors or.

Religious professionals, but who work as database Architects, crossing guards, and merchants. That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to David Green and Bill Hyde. David, of course, is the founder and.

CEO of Hobby Lobby, the $8 billion.

Retail giant, the most profitable retail chain per dollar in the United States, with more than 40,000 employees. Bill High is David's longtime friend and co author of a new terrific book called Leadership not by the 12 unconventional.

Principles to Drive Incredible Results. Guys, I love this book. I was highlighting it like crazy. I was like, oh, my word.

There's so many things in here that.

Are so relevant for my fellow Mere Christians. Hence why David and Bill are here today.

Bill and I recently sat down with David to talk about why David has recently started giving less to missions and more to his employees. We talked about what Jesus might have told the five and two talent servants.

If they hadn't doubled the master's money. And then David gave me the best answer I think I've ever heard for why Christians shouldn't retire. And the 80 year old was able to put it into four words. It's perfect and worth the price of admission of this episode. Please enjoy this great episode with David Green and Bill Hyde. David and Bill, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.

So glad to be here with you, Jordan.

We're glad to be here. Yes.

Hey, so, Bill, you and David just published this book. I was telling you before we started recording. I loved it. Leadership. Not by the book.

But I'm curious, why now?

Why did you and David feel that this is the right time to share this message with the world?

Yeah, Jordan, great question. So over the years, David and I have hosted events for leaders from around the country. In fact, we're just coming off two days of that. And as those leaders have come into the offices of Hobby Lobby, they inevitably ask this question. Now, some of them, mind you, are from Harvard and Stanford, and they come in and they hear the story of David and how he founded Hobby Lobby. And over the years, and they hear this crazy story of a retail store that's closed on Sunday, only open till 8, gives away half of its profit, pays a minimum wage of 1850. And they say, how does this work when it shouldn't? So that's one of the big reasons, is that's why it's leadership. Not. Not by the book.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense on paper, but it makes sense to God, Right? He's using the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. David, I loved how in the book, you talked about how both your parents and all five of your siblings worked in church ministry of one shape or another. You didn't, of course, leading you to feel like a black sheep for a long time. How did you eventually come to embrace your work as a legitimate calling from God? David?

You know, there was a particular experience in my life where God asked me, for instance, to give $30,000. And I didn't have $30,000. And so this was really a change in my life when I didn't have it. So my wife and I decided to write four checks, $7,000, seven, five a month for four months. And so we sent this money in and we found out the day that we postmarked it, it was the day that four missionaries was helped over to a big convention to pray because they didn't have the gospel or literature for their gospel. And so I knew from that point that God could use me. He was using me. And so from that day on, I feel real comfortable in the fact that my brothers are called by God and they're anointed. I feel like God anoints me to do what I'm doing. So I think us in business can be just as anointed as the pastor in the pulpit. And so as we come along and walk besides him and we're praying and asking for him help, his help, I believe we are anointed. And so I feel real comfortable where I am now.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And it's so clear. Watching God's call in your life, I find your use of that term anointing really interesting. And you talked about in the book, you don't just describe your work as a calling. It's an anointing.

Unpack that word for us.

We don't use this word a lot. What does that mean to you to be annoying to this work?

To me, it means that God has given us all gifts and we can come along in life and accomplish a lot with our gifts. But I don't think we accomplish what he wants us to accomplish if we don't walk with him daily. The scriptures say pray without ceasing. So that's really important to me. And one of the ways it helps me to pray without ceasing on a daily basis is to know that he's not in some faraway place. He's right there with me. He says he will never leave or forsake us. Yeah.

And he's anointed the business. But you said in the book that you feel like he's anointed you. Specifically in your quote, unquote One thing of being a merchant.

Yes.

You feel like you got a very clear call, like, man, this is the thing God put me on earth to do. Talk a little bit about that.

I think God gives us all gifts, and in the Bible he gave some five and someone. And I tell people I think he just gave me one. That's it, you know, so my talent is. God has given me the talent, I believe, to be a merchant. And so because of that, I like to spend a lot of my time in the weeds as a merchant. But to do that as CEO, you also have to have great people in all the different areas, whether it's accounting or IT or store operations. All the different areas. We've really, really got great people there as leaders. And most have been here over 25 years. So God has given me such a great. I'm able to not only be the CEO, which doesn't take a lot of time, but I'm able to come here and get in the weeds. And I think that's what God has anointed me to do. Because we carry tens and tens of thousands of items. And you know how you have to know which ones to buy, which ones not to what the retail is literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of decisions.

Yeah, I love it. God's gifted you in that regard. Bill, you know why I'm asking about this, right? You know my book, Master of One that I wrote a few years back, making the case that we Christians ought to pursue excellence in all things for the glory God and good of others. And I believe personally the strategy for doing that is just intense vocational focus. And you pointed out something in this.

Book that I had never thought about before.

I can't believe this has never crossed.

My mind that the Apostle Paul had.

A quote, unquote, one thing of sorts. Bill, would you mind sharing your perspective on this?

Yeah, absolutely. And which, by the way, I loved your book, Jordan. Master of One loved that totally. But the idea with Paul is that he was really called to be sent to the Gentiles. And if you think about a guy like Paul, he was so multi talented, incredibly educated, intelligent, smart, obviously a good writer, wrote the epistles. A guy that's a theologian, you know, really helped set the tone for the New Testament Church. And yet he could have got caught up in that. You know, you could imagine that he could have been the guy that's in the university, could have gone anywhere. And yet he said, and throughout his life he was focused on this one idea. I have been sent to the Gentiles and so that's what you continue to see him do, even at great cost to himself. And of course, the world has been changed because of that focus on that one calling that he had.

Bill, what's, what's your one thing, man?

My one thing is this idea of. So you see it in the book, by the way. It's this idea of the 150 year family. So we just feel like that we are called to help families succeed for generations. We think that's a big idea that we've lost in our culture. We've allowed culture to define family instead of the Bible. How did God change the world through one family? One family, like Abraham, so they would become the descendants, like the stars and the sky. And David Green and his family are an example, a model of a family that's trying to live this out on a generational basis. So we just feel like if we can come back to a biblical definition of what family looks like, we change the trajectory of family, we change the trajectory of communities and our country and the world.

Ultimately, David, one of the more memorable stories in the book was about your family going to them in 1985 when things weren't so rosy at Hobby Lobby. In admitting that, hey, things are really bad and I don't know what to do. Can you give our listeners some quick insight into the state of the business back then in 1985?

In 1985 in Oklahoma, there was really a oil bust, as you would call it. And we had prepared ourselves by borrowing money that it was okay and we didn't borrow too much. If we were looking at the trajectory we were at, we were going to do X amount of sales, but it just, just didn't happen. So it's not as though that we wrong in our projections. It was just we were wrong in not knowing the future. So the future came and things. Sales went down. We couldn't make our payments, we couldn't pay our vendors. And the bank sent us a letter that they were looking to foreclose on Hobby Lobby. So I just had to pull the family together and say, guys, here's. Here's where we are. The family, all of our employees. We just may not. We may not make it. But a couple, three things really happened from that time. And one of them is my oldest son says, dad, we're not, we're not relying on you. We're relying on God. And of course, that was a big thing for me to take the weight off of my shoulders, to know my family were not relying on me. And Hobby Lobby, they were relying on God. Another thing happened in that was my younger son right after that said, hey Dad, I want you to come over for dinner. I want to ask you some questions. And I look back on that and I really don't recall any questions he asked me. He was just telling me what the Bible said of borrowing money, you know, that we shouldn't be in debt. And from that day we started working towards no debt. Hobby Lobby has no long term debt now because of that particular experience. And the fourth experience that happened there is I think God wanted to work with me on my pride. There was no question that I had always been successful. Everything that I touched, you know, did well, and he just let me know. In fact, I sensed the Holy Spirit telling me, well, you're just so smart, I'm going to let you have it by yourself. So I found myself by myself without God's blessing, literally, physically under my desk every day, just crying out to God and asking him for forgiveness and asking him where would he want us to go from there. And within a year or two, we saw ourselves back to where we needed to be.

Yeah, you said in the book, God must destroy our arrogant pride if he is to bless the work of our hands. I thought that was so good. It reminds me of Nebuchadnezzar. I can't remember what chapter of Daniel this is in, but Nebuchadnezzar is really proud of his kingdom, right. He's looking at, on, he's like, look at these things I did with my own hands. And God says, no, no, no, no, no, you're going to go eat grass in the field like the oxen. But, but God used that circumstance for Nebuchadnezzar's good. And the good was it led him to praise the one true God. David, can you look back on those circumstances now, 1985, and say, man, that crisis was a gift from God.

Would you call it a gift?

You know, I speak about it as one of the worst times in my life and the best times. So the gift, I think you say would be correct. And that is, I'm glad that it happened because you don't swallow your pride forever in one episode. It's something that I think the Bible tells us that we need to die daily. And so I want to die daily. But I do reflect on this time very often to say, I just don't want to get up there again to where I have to fall. Because the Bible tells us we're going to fall if we get ourselves up on A pedestal, so to speak. We're. It's just inevitable that we are going to fall.

We're a long way away from 1985, both in time and in the state of Hobby. Lobby.

You guys are celebrating 50, 50 years.

Of business this year in 2022, right?

We did. August, yes. Is 50 years.

Congratulations. You're the most profitable retail chain per dollar revenue in the US and yet I didn't know this before reading the book. Your salary is about 5% of the salaries of most CEOs, but the size of company you're running, you haven't taken a pay raise in 16 years. Talk to us a little bit about how you've thought about your personal income.

I think about my mother when I think about my personal income because we didn't have a lot when we grew up. And I think, you know, if you gave my mother a million dollars, I don't think she would spend more than maybe she might buy a dress. But the thing is, she was. The Bible talks to us about being content. You know, wherever we are and wherever in circumstances we are, Paul was content in places that we wouldn't be content or would be. Well, let's say it'd be hard to be content. So I really want to try to do what Paul would do, and that's to be content with what I have instead of wanting more and more. Because you can never get enough. If that's what you're after is stuff, you can never get enough stuff. So I think my wife and I and most of my children are content with making a reasonable salary. And that's why I haven't had a raise in over 16 years, is because I just don't need a raise. In fact, I make less because of cost of living. But we're good. We're good and we don't need anymore. But what we do get a joy out of taking what God has given us and seeing people come to know the Lord.

Yeah, that's awesome. Bill, you've worked with a lot of wealthy founders, CEOs, families. Is this one of the primary tools you've seen people use to cultivate contentment in, like, a real practical way? Is. Is setting a somewhat arbitrary cap on their income.

Yeah. Ultimately, one of the big thoughts in the book. So twofold answer to your question. Jordan is one. Everybody's got to get to that point. Regardless of the size of the organization, whatever you do is to recognize God's the owner. Everything that he has put in your hands, he is the owner. And we're stewards and that is a noble task, to be a steward, to be a good manager of what God has given us. And so just that recognition of God as the owner changes everything. Of all the people that I've worked with, that's the number one breakthrough moment, is to realize God's the owner. But then the second thing is then to realize it is to establish finish lines. When do I have enough? It's like what David just said, to be able to say I'm content with where God has put me and I'm good with that in the rest of my life. Everything that I have is devoted to bringing people to know Christ.

I love that. And go, go a little deeper because you guys talked a lot about this in the book, right? The distinction between ownership and stewardship. Bill, go a layer deeper on that. What's the difference between these two things?

Yeah, there's actually in the appendix, there's a little chart talking about the differences of ownership and stewardship. And one of the things that David talks about clearly is this idea is that when you are an owner, you start to think that, hey, this is mine. And you start to look at what do I get out of it? What's the benefit for me? And it creates all kinds of money problems, particularly inside of family owned businesses. There's the issue of entitlement. Wealth becomes a curse. People sit on the sidelines just waiting for their dividend. It's that, right, entitlement. But when you go to the level of stewardship, you experience freedom because it's not yours. You're just trying to do what God calls you to do. And David, you call it the idea that you're business as a ministry. Maybe you want to talk about that, David?

Yeah, I think probably if there was only one takeaway from this book, only one. I have my two and three. But number one is you don't own that business. Okay? Not because I say so, because God says so.

Deuteronomy 8, right? Wealth and honor come from him. Well, this is first, I'm quoting first Chronicles. But wealth and honor come from him alone, right?

And then also he says, I own everything. I own everything. So how can you own what God owns? And so that's the. Here's the thing. Almost every Christian person, businessman will say God owns it. But what they do with it is exactly, in almost every case is what the world would do, the secular would do. They would do the almost the exactly. So I think that's the biggest takeaway from the book and that is to say, what does it look like when God owns it. And that's what we had to come to, is we had to say, what does this really look like? So I had professionals come in here that work with businessmen, Christian professionals, to tell me what to do with the business. And they told me the same thing. A secular person. Is there one. They worried about taxes. And you pass this on to your children and then their children. What they were asking me to do is make millionaires, if not billionaires, out of my great grandkids before they were born. I couldn't sleep. It was the most restless time in my entire life. It's for us to get to the point where we're so stewards and not owners. And so we developed a situation where that we are only stewards. We have no right to Hobby Lobby because it belongs to God. We owe it. If you're in a ministry, you own the. You owe the ministry. But if you're in a family business, most people think, well, the business owes you. We don't have that. We don't have that mindset here. It is a ministry. God owns it. And we're here to get a salary that we earn. And of course, our children and our grandchildren only get what they earn. So that's not a bad idea, is get what you earn and only what you earn. So those are the things that we. We decided to do, and we just feel like that. That the Christian world and businessmen needs to know and understand that they do not own that business. Because the Bible says so.

Yeah. And I want to. I want to put a finer point on something, because I think this is a big idea. None of your family members get money from the business unless they work in the business. Right?

That's exactly right. And we have never. Here's another problem is paying dividends. If you want to mess up a business, there's a lot of ways to mess it up. About a hundred times more ways than to do it right. And that is to pay dividends. We've never paid a dividend. No one owns this company because all the voting stock is in one trust. That is a stewardship trust. And the only one that gets paid at Hobby Lobby are the ones that work here. And we have a committee that comes together and says, this is what you earn for what you do. Now, you can be different because God owns the tree. And if you pick a bushel of apples off that tree, you get paid for a bushel. But if you pick five bushels, you get paid for five. So we have a committee that the family. The Committee that comes together and says, this should be your salary. They set my salary as well.

Bill, I'm curious if you see a connection between this idea of stewardship and risk. Right.

Because in my mind, a willingness to.

Take smart risks should increase if we view ourselves as stewards rather than owners.

Do you see this connection?

Oh, totally. I mean, if you go back to the parable of the talents, you know, there's the five and the two and the one. And what you see is, is with all of them, they all had equal opportunity. But how did they steward it? They stewarded it differently. The one, the guy with the one took no risk, but the guys with the five and the two, they took all of the risk. Now, one of the things that I think we don't realize is what would have happened with the guys that had the five and the two if they would have came back to the master and said, master, man, we went out there and we took a big, big risk and we didn't earn anything. I don't think the response of the master would have been any different. I think he would have said, well done, way to go, you risked for me. And that's some of the the idea in that chapter. Maximize the risk, man. When God puts something in your hands, take the risk to grow it. Make it bigger, more beautiful, better for the sake of the kingdom. And that's the big difference. Yeah.

And I love this chapter, may have been my favorite chapter in the book. And David, you guys talked about one of those risks. One of those risks you guys take for the right motives is sharing the gospel unashamedly with your tens of thousands of employees. I was really struck by the story.

You told about the first time you.

Did this in an intentional way at one of your co manager meetings. Would you mind sharing that story with our listeners?

Yeah, I think it was about 10 or 12 years ago that we started actually witnessing to our co managers. So we bring in about 300 co managers. We've got about a thousand stores and we have three managers in each store. So some make it, some don't. They get promoted, we add more stores. And so that's about the number we bring in here. And so every year, every one of those co managers are here and we just pray the sinner's prayer with them. And we do it in such a way that they have a little piece of paper in front of them and they can say whether they accepted Christ or not. We don't do it where we get in problems legally. We just say, hey, guys, this is what works for us. Jesus loves you. He cares about you. And if you want, you can put on that piece of note whether you accepted Christ or not. And every year of these 300, approximately 100 of them accept Jesus for the first time, and another hundred rededicate their lives. So we just think that we should take that risk. I had my attorney come running in my office the first time, and he says, you, you can get into a lot of trouble here. Do you know what this could cost you? And I said, you know, we just had 15 people accept Christ. Their life has changed eternally, you know. And so I saw a little tear in his eye after a while, in a second or so, he didn't say anything else. And I tell people I haven't seen him on that subject in 10 to 12 years. So we need to take the risk. You know, we go out here and take a risk every time that we open a store because someone could stumble. And we get lawsuits, all kinds of lawsuits. So we take a risk to earn profit. So why would we not take a risk for something that had to do with someone's life for eternity?

So we.

We hope and to do that.

Yeah, it's not that there's. It's not risky. It is risky, but we're called to do a risky thing.

That's right.

For the sake of the Kingdom of God. Another risk you guys have taken, David, very Recently, as of December 2021, is significantly increased pay for your team. So today, wages at hobby lobby started 1850. As Bill said before, cost of about a hundred million dollars to Hobby Lobby. What was the genesis of this significant pay increase for you, David? What. What got you. What got you convicted on this issue?

I think what convicts me is there was a particular time that I felt the Holy Spirit, because I have these six or eight times in life that I feel like the Holy Spirit talked to me. And every one of those times, they've been pivotal. This was one of those pivotal times when I just knew the Lord was telling me, you know, I'm putting these people in your charge. That's a big responsibility. So I have to think about them, I think how important my family is. It's such an important thing for me. Well, how can I be selfish and make sure that the family has everything right for them, but not for everybody else's family? So that's when we really wanted to do everything we can for the employees that work for us. Like, not having them working 60 hours or 50 hours a week and being closed on Sunday was all about Families and also just their pay. We've had, for instance, single moms, when we started giving these raises, tell me they didn't have two jobs. And so it's been a really, really positive thing. I like to tell people or think to myself, we do it because it's the right thing to do. But by the way, it's really, really good for business to care about your people 100%.

Yeah, no doubt. You know, David, you and your family have a long history of giving exceedingly generous amounts of money to ministries, mission organizations. But in the book, you said something I really appreciated and found fascinating. You said, quote, if I have only $1 today, I'm going to give it to our people and not to missions. End quote. And you said that you would not have said that years ago. Go a level deeper.

How did this change come about in your heart?

How are you. Maybe you're still processing this, but how are you thinking about the purpose of profit outside and inside the four walls of Hobby Lobby?

You know, because of my background as a preacher son and a parents that really loved to witness and do missionary work, I came over to the company and that was where I was sure. Yeah. And I think that the time happened when, as I said, when God says he put them in my charge and that's when I had to start thinking differently, that I am first responsible for those that are working here. We have about 50,000 employees. That is my first responsibility. And so I think that's when it happened, when I knew God says these people. You're out here sending missionaries all over the world and doing missions all over the world. But right here is your mission as well. And you take care of these people. And there's a lot of scriptures relative to taking care of the people and give them what they have earned. And so we really want to do that.

I love it so much. You know, I think a lot of times we think that the only God honoring use of profit, be it in a business or personally, is to give it outside the four walls of that business. Right.

And that's great.

I think the Lord's honored by that work. But if we believe that the work.

We do inside of our businesses and.

Places of work is ministry, then surely that's an equally God honoring use of profits to pour back into those people.

Right.

That God has entrusted into our care. I love that. Bill, I want to go back to something you touched on before because I think this is really fascinating. You do a lot of work with the Greens, with other people, on planning for the next 150 years.

Why that timeframe?

And what in the world does that process look like at a high level?

Well, the time frame, first and foremost comes out of Psalm 78, verses 5 through 7. And if you read that passage of Scripture, it really basically says, hey, take these commands, take this law, this code, this way of living, and the ancestors are to pass it on to their kids, their kids, their kids. And it talks about five generations. And so, if you will, the model. Now, by the way, the whole concept of generational family doesn't limit itself to 150 years, but that's a good start. 150 years. Well, five generations, depending on how you quantify a generation, that's 20 to 30 years times five. There's your 100. But that's the biblical model. Is that family God really intended for family to be multi generational. Again, you take a look at Abraham and the whole idea that from Genesis to Revelation, Abraham is mentioned. God was going to bless the whole earth through Abraham. But the process of working with families really has three big building blocks. And so you see it in the book. It's the idea that you've got to work on the relational components, the health of the family, put the family first, all those kind of ideas on how you live that out. But the second big thing that we see from a process standpoint, Jordan, is that you gotta put the structure in place. There's a governance system on how you do that typically, and this applies whether you're a hobby lobby or you're a guy that's trying to make it work as a construction guy. You've gotta define your mission, vision and values as a family. It's the same idea of living by the code, the law, if you will. The idea that, man, we have a set or a way of life that we're going to live by that is different from the rest of the world. And as a result of that, the world's going to be attracted to us and say, what's so different about you? And then the third big component of the process is once you put that structure in place, how do you do that from a training standpoint? How do you train generationally so that you will affirm the covenant from one generation to the next? We say oftentimes that we won't know if a family is going to be successful until you're into that fifth generation. By the time you get it to that level, it's going to stick and you're going to see that family succeed from one generation to the next. We don't see a lot of great families modeled in scripture, but you do see some, and you'll see them last hundreds of years. And when you do that, you have this huge opportunity to impact the world truly on a generational basis.

Bill, you've worked with a lot of wealthy people. Why. Why is it so important to not aim for financial independence, as we typically think of that, and keep your nose to the grindstone, because that's a lot of what you guys are talking about in the book is like, yeah, just keeping at it. Keep working hard, because sloth can be disastrous for our families and for our souls.

Yeah, it's a. It's a bell curve. It's a cycle. So what you see is families start out as highly interdependent, but they start out interdependent by necessity. They need one another. You know, you start a business and you're just trying to figure out how to make it work. Everybody's got to wear a different hat. You know, you're fighting for survival. And that's what David and the family did. You know, he had his kids making picture frames and Barbara working for free. So you start out very interdependent. But when you hit the peak, if you will, of financial independence, man, you can send those kids off and they can go do whatever they want. They don't need one another. John Adams said it something like that, I go to war so my children can be the mathematicians, the engineers, the lawyers, the doctors, and they go do their practice so their kids can be the poets and the artists and the like. And so you'll always see this generational diffusion. But what you have to get to, ultimately, is this place of interdependence by choice, that we choose to follow a set of values together. And that, frankly, is the idea of the church. I always say that the family is the microcosm of the church. So in the same way that Paul talked about, hey, you can't have just a foot or a leg. You need all the parts. And so inside the family, man, we need one another because we model the church.

David, there's this theme of diligence that runs throughout the entire book, urging senior leaders to pursue vocational diligence and those who are earlier in their careers. I love that you pointed out Joseph as kind of this ideal case study on diligence and faithfulness.

Can you talk for a minute about.

How you see this theme of diligence before distinction in the life of Joseph?

Yeah, I think so. I think one of the ways that I tried to speak about this is, you know, I have a lot of. What do we call them? Of Jen, they're not millennials. I got a lot of grandkids that fit in that category. And so all of them want to know where they fit in life. And so they're asking me for advice. And I don't know that I have a lot other than the fact that I look at my own life. And I think what really worked for me is just the scripture that says, whatever your hands finds to do, be diligent, do all you can, be the very best. And you already said it earlier in this, the fact that God wants us to be the very best. I don't want to be. I want to be the very, very best craft store that's ever lived. And I never want to stop not improving it. I keep going back and back and re looking, re investigate, study, study and really look to see how that I can make it better. But that's what God requires about. Think about one of your kids that's in a flipping hamburger someplace. I just say, you need to be the best hamburger flipper in the world. Because think about if you're there saying, this is not what God wants for me. You're starting out in life. You know what? The guy that running that store, that owns that store doesn't want you. And neither does God because God has asked you to be obedient. And being obedient is finding whatever we have to do, whether it's in McDonald's or wherever, be really, really, really good at it. And that's when God sees you, notices. It's God that gives you the. The increase. It's God that gives you that promotion. It's not man, it is God. And he will take you where he wants you if you're diligent in terms of being the very, very best at whatever your your hands finds to do.

Amen. And Bill, this is what we see in the life of Joseph, right? He was an excellent slave. He was excellent in prison, he was excellent when he was serving, serving Egypt, right? Isn't this the theme we see throughout his life and others throughout Scripture?

Every position that Joseph had, he excelled. Now, of course, when he started out, he had some pride, and so God was breaking of that, but he excelled at every level to the point that the head of the country would say, who else would I look to to run these next 14 years of trouble coming in our country? So what a great testimony. I love too, by the way. David will say it too. Speaking about the life of David, that You may be called to be a king, but unless you're a great shepherd, you probably won't get there. And what lessons did David learn in the wilderness by being a good shepherd?

Yeah, I was thinking about this reading.

For Samuel 17 a couple weeks ago. When David shows up on the scene, is like, I'm going to slay Goliath. And Saul says, you're crazy, kid. You're totally unqualified. David doesn't like, flex his muscles. He doesn't talk about his killer slingshot strategy. He points to his history of diligence and faithfulness. He says, no, no, no, you'll get it.

I've been doing a great job taking care of my father's sheep.

I killed the lion, I've killed the bear. And so this philistine will be like one of them, right? But it was, it was this track.

Record, I think, I think, you know.

Hundreds of years before Jesus comes onto the scene in Bethlehem, in the town of David, David understood what Jesus would. They say that whoever could be trusted with little could be trusted with much. Right. And that's been the story of Yalls careers.

Yeah, totally. And that, you know, the same kind of takeoff on that life of Moses. 40 years in the wilderness taking care of sheep. And David would tell you too, here at Hobby lobby, it's been 50 years of one brick at a time.

Yeah. David, I love that you said in the book, if it ain't broken, make it better. I don't know that I've ever heard anybody argue this. Usually we pour all of our attention on the things that are broken and fixing them. But talk a little bit more about this philosophy and just always plusing, always getting better within the business.

You know, you can either do that or you can leave well enough alone. And time makes what was good yesterday not good tomorrow. Time itself. And so, so many times I do something and I thought through it, it was a right for today. And then I look at it some years, maybe later, with our buyers, with our, with our officers, and I see that it was right for then, but not right for now. So even without time, sometimes you have better knowledge, sometimes you have more information. But I think we always should go back and try to make it better and so leave well enough alone. I think you keep that philosophy forever, you're just going to go downhill. Things are going to get worse and worse. But I think it's up to us. When we have something that God has entrusted on us, why would we not get in there and scratch around and do the very, very best we can and ask all of our people to do the same thing and see if we can't make it better than what it is already. We could rest on our laurels right now because God has blessed us where I think we're way ahead of our competitors. We could rest on that, but we don't. We constantly say, this is God's. Let's do it better. Because if we do it better, then we have more profit, and we. And more profit means that we may be able to tell more people about the good news.

Yeah. I can't imagine that Jesus the carpenter left well enough alone. Yeah, I. I just find that hard. I just find that really, really hard.

Yeah.

David. David, you're 80, is that right?

That's right.

I'm sure. I'm sure a lot of your friends are retiring, have retired. How are you thinking about the concept of retirement?

One of the things I think about is what the Bible says. The Bible says if you don't work, you don't eat. I want to eat. And so I. So that's why I work. And the other reason is, unfortunately, and I don't recommend that for anybody, I don't have a lot of hobbies. And so my love is coming down to your work and working with different individuals as a team, not as the boss, because that's not so good, but as a team working with merchandise and trying to make this thing better. And I love doing it. So I do it six days a week. I tell my wife on Saturday, if you feel like a widow, you call me. I'll come home. I don't have to be here. But she always has something to do. She's good with it. And so I work six days a week. I ask no one else to do that, but I do it because I love what I do, because I know the results of what we're doing is going to be ministry. And that's what is. Gives us joy.

Who needs a hobby when you're CEO of Hobby Lobby? You know, I mean, yeah, gosh, the work is fun. The work is joy.

Right, Exactly. No, it's. It's great. I can spend all day working on pony beats, you know, and I can spend. I can spend two days on scissors and another week on ribbon and on and on and on. So there's great people that have all those departments, but together we come up with new ideas and make it better.

I literally laughed out loud in my. In my living room when I was reading the book and I heard you talk about pony beads, because I've got three girls under the age of eight. And so my house is littered with pony beads.

Yeah.

And you were saying that you can sit in bed, lay in bed at night thinking about pony beads. And that's how you know God made you to be a merchant, right?

That's right.

I love it so much. Hey, Bill, this podcast is all about how the gospel influences the work that mere Christians do in the world.

And I think it's.

You have such a unique perspective, getting to know David so well. From your perspective, what would be different about Hobby Lobby? David Green wasn't a serious follower of Jesus Christ.

You know, we've had the opportunity to be around this family for a lot of years now. And the thing that people see number one is that they are still humbled by the work of the gospel. The idea that there are people who don't know the person of Christ still motivates them. It's what keeps them going. And it's hard to imagine even them having a different posture, a different view. So it's humbling to be around them, but it is so motivating at the same time to see their care for not only the people in their company, but the gospel going out to all parts of the world. With what David just said, the motivation of why they do this business, it is to be the best merchant, so they can certainly make the best profit. To be able to give the maximum away. It is life changing. And that's why we do these CEO events where people come in from all over the country just to hear some of the story to be changed. We have people that come in here and they say, best day of my life. Crazy guys.

Three questions. We wrap up every conversation with Bill. You first. Which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others?

You know, I am still that guy, of course, because I'm in the family legacy space. I am encouraging people to read books about family. So there's a handful that I look at, but always that idea I'm trying to. To keep growing. So one of the ones right now I'm reading about is the prodigal. There are so many families that are experiencing the loss of kids who walked away, turned away from the faith. So that's one of the areas I'm deep into right now.

Yeah. How about you, David? Which books do you tend to recommend the most?

I'm glad you asked Bill that question first. I don't read as many books as Bill, so I'm going to leave that one for Bill.

That's good. That's Fair. All right, David, how about this one? Who would you like to hear talk publicly, maybe on this podcast, about how the gospel influences the work they do in the world?

You know, one of my heroes is a guy named Alan Barnhart. In fact, he's one of my heroes. So everybody likes to watch someone that really influences their life. And Alan is one of those that owns a really large business, and, you know, he has people telling him what his salaries are going to be. And I. I admire him because it's a lot less than my salary. So I really admire him of how he handles money, which belongs to God. And so I kind of watch him to try to emulate him and what he's doing because he's really into God's word and understands how much the finance can really mess our lives up. So he's really spent a lot of time on that. So Alan Barnhart is really, really one that I would suggest that, you know.

I know Alan's story a little bit, and I think he's fascinating. I love his perspective. And we've never invited him on, so we'll do that. How about you, Bill? Who would you like to hear on this podcast?

Frank Harrison, Coca Cola Bottling, one of the largest public companies out there in the bottling world. And Frank is, I think, third, fourth generation in his family running this company, but it's a public company. And so immediately you. You raise that question, like David, which is, how do you take some risk for the sake of your faith? And so Frank has really lived this out, written a book even called the Transformation Factor, run something called the T Factor, where he teaches other leaders about how they incorporate faith into the workplace. So I really love Frank.

I love that. Bill, what's one thing from our conversation you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?

Man, the big thing, I would say, because I realize, Jordan, you have a broad swath of listeners, is no matter whether you're the CEO of a big company, public company, or you're the guy flipping hamburgers, or you're somebody just still trying to figure it out, man, just turn and look and say, God, what have you put in my hands? Let me be a good steward of whatever you put in my hands, excel with that, and then wait on you to bring the next chapter, the next story, because it's going to be good. Amen.

I would say it's not to you. You say, God owns it. We all say God owns it. But take a serious, serious look. Look to see what does that look like? It looks different than maybe we think it looks. And then the other thing is whatever your hands finds to do, God tells us whatever it is. I think it's when we're obedient in that that that's where we find out where God truly wants us.

That's great. David Bill, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you guys do every day for the glory God and the good of others. For showing us what it looks like to lead by the book God's Holy Word and for reminding us of just how power powerful a vehicle work outside the church can be for advancing the Kingdom of God. Guys, I loved this book. It's called Leadership not by the book 12 Unconventional Principles to Drive Incredible Results. I highly recommend it. You can pick it up today. David Bill, thank you again so much for joining us today. Thank you so much Gold. So many great one liners in that episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.

Hey, if you did, do me a favor and go leave a review of.

The Mere Christians Podcast on Apple Spotify wherever you listen to the show. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week.

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