I found that money or mammon, because it goes beyond money, can get a grip on you. And for me and for others that I know. The way to break that grip is generosity. Anonymous generosity. So that's helpful to me is the joy of giving it away rather than accumulating.

what did losing a million dollars, a failed marriage and a botched business exit have in common for Harry T. Jones, they were all divine wake up calls. In today's episode, I sit down with Harry, entrepreneur, author, and creator of the Cultivating Impact succession method about how struggle can lead to significance. We explore how faith, and legacy collide in the lives of leaders who are ready to move from shallow success impact, from walking away from profits, to preserve community jobs, to mentoring leaders through transition and breakthrough. Harry's journey will challenge the way you define success and help you finish well, Harry, welcome to Seek, go create.

Thanks, Tim. It's great to be here.

I am, I'm excited you're here too. I'm excited. I just wanna give a shout out to our, our buddy Michael Bear, who connected us. I always know if Michael tells me to get together with somebody, it's gonna be good. So I'm expecting this to be good. We got a high bar. So, first question, let me fire away at you. I gave you the choice between answering what do you do or who are you, would you choose? Go ahead and pick it and answer it.

who are you? I'm a fallen broken mess. I'm living a life of second and third chances, and it's taken me 40 years to understand that business can have a powerful impact in the lives of all the people it touches. I've tried to learn through that and I learn as far as the who you are, you, we learn through the relationships that we're allowed to be in.

So, something that I picked up on when I was checking out some of your stuff is I saw the word identity a few times. I think I told you, that your succession planning for Impact book I'm about 25% in is what my Kindle tells me. So sure I've gotten to some good stuff, but there's probably a lot more in there. I did see the word identity pop up a couple times, which kind of feeds into or out of the question I just asked. What's been your journey far as identity over the course of your I For those that are listening, neither one of us would be considered young, young dudes for those that might be looking in, what's been your journey as far as identity over the course of your life? Is that a long story?

Oh, I started working when I was six years old and I was rewarded for working and recognized for working, and I thought I had to work when I. got outta college and I thought I had to work a hundred hours a week in order to be significant. And we did have a good team. we were in the fresh food distribution business, and we had a great team of people. We built it up over 20 years, had an exit to a public company in the eyes of the world. We had it all. It was glorious, a glorious financial deal. But then I recognized that was the only identity I had was being CEO of a great business. And I crashed. Nobody knew it. I hit it well. and when I came out of that, I went and talked to my pastor. I said, bill, I think I'm being called into the ministry. He said, you are called to be in business and we need Christians in business. And they go back and get into another business. So I did and I approached it differently, recognizing that was not gonna be my identity. My identity over time has evolved and through some trials has been my identity is in Christ, and it's a daily struggle to live that. But in our process, we have a seven step process for succession planning for impact. The first step is confronting your fears, and those fears tie back to that identity. Often they're three different categories. The first is fear of loss of identity. as business people, we hold our title and our esteem based on, what we are in the business world. and that's one of the things that keeps people from doing succession planning, fear of loss of that.

Hmm. there's something you brought up I wanna circle back to because it seems like it was a few years ago, so you could maybe tell a little bit more of the story. is it about business people that when their hearts begin to soften and they begin to maybe get more focused on the Lord sometimes it's a struggle that causes that, that's what it was for me. Why is it that they think that ministry or full-time ministry is the answer? When God had called us. your pa I, I appreciate your pastor being blunt. 'cause he could have had you, you know, sweeping the floors or, working in the parking lot and maybe he did, I don't know. But, uh, what, what is it about that Mike, our buddy Mike, we talk about this a lot. You know, what is it that, someone who's talented in business, makes them think that their impact is going to be, going and doing something in a full-time ministry world.

Well, we're in a better shape today with faith driven investing, faith driven entrepreneur of the business' mission world, but we're playing catch up with that. Identity and pastors are lauded. Business people are not necessarily. And yet today when we recognize that there is a purpose for our business, an impact in our business that will go to the marketplace, it'll go to places that,

I.

that most people who don't know Christ will not be going to church, but they're doing business with someone and it's our opportunity. So I see that the businesses mission movement, it's such a positive effect. It affects all types of relationships in positive ways, the way we treat our employees, the way we treat our customers, the way we treat our vendors. That doesn't mean we have to be soft, but we have to be, honest, trustworthy, and be prepared to share the hope that lies within when those opportunities arise.

I mean, 'cause truthfully, we're probably in our work setting much more than we're in a church and or ministry setting. And, and I, my observation is that's when you can really someone's true character, true nature, true integrity or not. were you, I always joke with people in the south about this, 'cause that's where I'm from too. Were, were you a Christian from birth or did it something you work? What, did you work yourself into it later that, I know that's bad theology, but, uh, tell me a little bit about your, your spiritual journey, because I think it relates to your first business iteration a little bit also probably.

Well, there's the talk and the walk. So I was born into a Christian family. We went to church every week and that was what I considered being a Christian if you went to church, but only through trials. loss of identity a failed marriage and, financial losses were the hubris, refined away. And I had to be dependent on God. And only when I got to that point where I had to depend on God did I give my life to Christ? So I was a good Presbyterian for a long time, and Jesus never gave up on me. He still pursues me today, the mess that I am.

So one of the things that I'm always fascinated, I, my, we kind of popped in and outta church, but you know, growing up in the south, you just kind of are in this, I don't wanna say church atmosphere, the Bible belt. There's a reason they call it the Bible Belt, of course. folks like you, I think something that's intriguing to me is that you grew up in a church family, you went, but my observation is there's some point along the way where your faith becomes your own and you're not piggybacking on your parents or relative or something else. you mentioned some failure and some things like that, but can you gimme some more detail about. Was that an event or a timeframe that you could recall or a season in your life that you, your faith became your own? And I'm not talking about a salvation thing here. I'm talking about you owned it.

Well, it happened while I was going through divorce and I moved into, a rental house and my kids had gone back to school and, and I walked into that dark, cold, lonely kitchen late one evening and something overwhelmed me, and the message was, if you'll just let me in, you'll never be lonely again. It wasn't Damascus Road, it was the turning point. And the next steps were writing a list of my blessings. I can remember where I was making. I had a 300 mile trip and I had my legal pad on my console and my truck as I drove down the road making a list of all the things I had to be grateful for, and the next step was getting out of the self pity and turning outward, and making a prayer list of all those people who needed prayer. Those people that I knew in my network who needed prayer worse than me.

Hmm.

I'm still a work in progress.

well, isn't it a shame? Harry and I, this is a, I don't have data for this other than observation and conversations like this. It appears as if. That bright people, business people, yourself, leaders that are listening in myself that we know when we need to probably make some changes or adjustments or things like that. However, we rarely do it on our own, even though we know the steps. We've got the, whatever, you know, the five steps of this, the seven steps, the, all the stuff. But it usually is some kind of, significant event. And usually it's a detrimental event, health challenge, marriage, business failure. For me it was 2008 and becoming homeless and bankrupt and all of that. But why is it, and I'm sure you've put a little thought into this. Why is it that we're that way? Because we're not, we're fairly bright people. Why couldn't we figure out to make some of these things work ahead of time instead of getting the proverbial two by four to the forehead?

Well, I think it goes back to the fall,

Blame it on the fall. Blame it on in the garden. Good gracious.

I disqualify myself as a therapist, but I do occasionally get into conversations. Like today, I was introduced to someone who was struggling with, their CEO of a fast growing business. I just, we prayed together and I asked if they were in the word and how they're praying. they told me about a situation. I said, well, what is God teaching you through this situation? And with that, it all came out. I just say we're all, anybody I know with any depth is a mess. the groups that we have, we call them breakthrough groups, Tim, in these groups of seven or eight CEOs, we have a code of confidentiality. We have a commitment. We're gonna show up every month and a commitment. We're going to engage and invest more than we expect to get out through this. And you don't have to be a Christian to be in our groups, but you're gonna hear from the various members about their trials, their struggles, their joys, their growth in their faith, Everybody's got some struggles, they've got something going on. It's more of our response to them. Do we try to handle it by ourself or we finally reach the point where we let God help us?

Yeah, so it's interesting. So we get to a fall. I wanna circle back 'cause I wanna have a little bit deeper conversation about mastermind versus mentoring a little bit later. But, so your journey, if I'm reading correctly, you went through few. One of the things we don't shy away from here at Seek, go create, Harry is talking about things that the world would consider failures.

Mm-hmm.

most of us, as we walk through it, look back and go, you know what that was. What started me down this path to significance because I understand, understood things more. I mean, I look back and go, wow, but tell me, let's go a little bit deeper into a couple of those situations, because if I'm reading correctly, you had a few, what we'll call seven figure, seven figure losses. So I'd love to kind of know a little bit more. You just mentioned a marriage situation, which is, which in a, in any situation is challenging, but when you're a person of faith and there's been a standard that's held up about marriage, I'm guessing that that probably took a chunk out of your soul probably. But, talk about some of the business, what the world would call failures. I call it the journey, but let's talk about those and, share what we could all learn from that you've gleaned from that. Because I believe a lot of us can get some wisdom from hearing people talk about things that might be not pretty pictures.

Well, your timing and my timing in 2008 was, costly and I had two investments in financial institutions, both of which I was close. I was practically an insider with both of 'em, and they melted away. It just showed me how I cannot depend on both financial assets. Because they can rust, they can blow away overnight. and I'm, you know, God's blessed me immensely. I weathered those storms but it was a real learning and real test and a refinement period.

And one of the things, this is what I learned. I'm gonna mention this and then you can respond. I thought I was well grounded and I think I also had a little bit of, maybe we'll call it. that the Lord I was just blessed and highly favored in a way that others weren't because I was super smart and great in business or whatever. But as I've kind of thought and meditated on it, I've gone back to, you know, the Sermon on the Mount in the middle of Matthew. Matthew six. Jesus starts launching into this, you can't serve God and the correct thing is mammon. We insert money, mammon includes a lot of things. And I realize that part of my business journey that I was addicted not to money in cars or anything like that. That was a spinoff. was addicted to more. That if I had one company that was moving along well, I needed to grow it. If I had X employees or revenue, you know, and if I had one going along, well, I would start another thing, you know, let grow it. I just had an addiction to more, and I believe that that is baked into a lot of business people. Do you observe that also?

Yes, and I can judge it more about myself. one of the things I did is I took a course by Kingdom Advisors called Biblical Principles, principles of Financial Stewardship, and I wanted to learn myself and to teach my family, and I found that money or mammon, because it goes beyond money, as you said, can get a grip on you. And for me and for others that I know. The way to break that grip is generosity. Anonymous generosity. So that's helpful to me is the joy of giving it away rather than accumulating. and I've accumulated some plenty too, but I have the joy of giving.

That's interesting that you bring that up. 'cause you, you know, earlier you talked about gratitude and how you counted your blessings when you were in a tough time. And generosity and gratitude are, don't, I don't know that they're siblings. They might be cousins. there's a tie there to those and I think what it does is it takes. Or for me takes my eyes off myself. but you brought up something that's key there that I think some people may have missed. 'cause you said it kind of quickly, you said anonymous giving. Talk more about that and why anonymous giving is important versus, boastful giving, but, anonymous giving. Why did you word, word it that way?

my wife Holly, and I believe that we're just entrusted, we're stewards of these resources to handle well while we're here and they're not our own. So we typically give anonymously any major gift. we're gonna give anonymously. We don't need credit for it.

but I mean, you've interacted with other people, you've probably been around some people that are generous, and I'm not asking you to name names or anything, but they're generous publicly. And, I can look back on my life and I know there were times that I probably wanted people acknowledge that I gave you know what I'm saying? It was a little bit of a, don't wanna say arrogance and all of that, but what do you notice about others and the way they give, I'm not asking you to throw anybody under the bus or anything, but that anonymous giving talk. tell me more about that. I'm intrigued by that.

Well, each person is different. That's, that's our preference, is to give anonymously. you can see how important having names on buildings is for raising money. So it really turns some people on, but that's not our style.

Right. Okay. so now let's go back to, alright, you had some struggles in oh eight coming out of that. How did you regain your footing? Gimme some specific, some details. for me it was quite a season. We had bankruptcy, homelessness, ugly stuff. and the Lord really pruned me a bit during that process. But financially I look around and we're better shape than we even were. I'm not asking for, your bank balances or anything, but give some people hope or some instruction on how you went through that journey. I think it's important.

We were diversified in our investments and, lean on low, low, low to no debt. And, those. Those two things allow you to, to survive having that financial strength. Matter of fact, that ties into businesses too often. I'll get called into a business working sometimes on succession planning, but they are overextended and so I think we were both diversified in our investments, had income, we had a good food business that provided us an income, so we, it was investments that we lost, but we we're low to no debt. Makes a big difference.

I think often people will underestimate the grip that debt has, and especially those ebbs and flows. I think debt is something that can, have impact more than just the. Tangible impact. I noticed that it actually does something to my soul.

Well, we, you know, I'm personally debt free, have been for years, but it took a long time to get there, then became business debt free. So I think it's okay for a business to have a appropriate levels of debt. but I'm working with a business right now. It's a, apparently a good business, but it is not generating enough cash flow to fund its capital expenditures and they are continuously strapped and they don't have the cushion to survive a major blow. So debt can be used appropriately in business, but I believe in zero personal debt today.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of that and I can't say that I always was. I think that was one of the lessons that the Lord, wanted me to gain because one of the things that I kept doing is I kept thinking that I'm so awesome that I could spend money that hasn't come in yet. that's a bad formula. so are you still actively involved with your current businesses or have you moved more into a sharing teaching, mastermind mentoring business? I know you've got your book, we're gonna talk about that in a little while, but what's your daily, monthly rhythm now? Are you in business or are you sort of moving in another direction?

Well, let's say my wife thinks I work a full schedule

I.

But I pick and choose. when I work, I love what I'm doing. And today, so in each year at New Year's, Holly and I get together and look at our coming year, we celebrate our anniversary. Matter of fact, we're about to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. and I do a reset and our actually taking our groups to Thomasville. in October to go through this process of writing your obituary and epitaph and 10, five and one year vision. And this year I realized that I had accumulated a lot of things. I needed to get rid of some things so I could do better. So I said I'm only gonna do three things. I'm answering your question about how I'm spending my time today. Or January the first. I cut it to three things. I wanted to grow gr deeper in my relationships with Jesus and my wife and those closest to me. Secondly, I wanna be a good steward of the resources that are entrusted. So I spend time with, investments, space driven investments. I'm involved with several businesses, but I'm not operating any business on a day-to-day basis. And the third area. So, relationships, stewardship, and engaging with entrepreneurs. And that's where a lot of my time is spent. So tomorrow I'll have calls with four of the members of our group. We meet monthly, online. Both groups are international. Have four time zones represented in each, and then I'll have a one-on-one with any member that wants to meet in between meetings. So that involves some time. And then I just get calls. Somebody knows. And they'll call me and say, Hey, my sister's having a struggle with their business, or my brother's thinking about going into a new job. Would you be willing to talk to him? So I get those calls every week, and I'm so honored. Somebody wants to talk to me and learn about my cuts and bruises.

But isn't that how you learn? Isn't that how you gain wisdom by messing up and making those mistakes?

I've started drafting a book called Learning Lessons and the intro is. When I had an accident when I was 15, and I had one when I was 16, and my father said, you didn't learn the first time, so we should learn our lessons the first time around. I'm a little slow sometimes, but if we embrace our experiences, our good and our bad, we can grow through life and our life become richer. I've observed, and I hope that I'm on the latter part, through life, people become either more bitter or sweeter, some say bitter or better, and it's our response to these consequences and these circumstances that determines whether we're more bitter or sweeter.

Harry, what you, we talked identity and. Whittled some things away, I guess, from what you're doing. And part of that is you're not really in an operator role anymore. A, as you transitioned, I don't know if it was abrupt or if it was a gradual over time as you transitioned away from that, we'll call it an operator role. I think people will know what we're talking about, you know, where you're hands on doing things in business. Did it impact your identity at all as you moved away from it? Obviously you had done that years ago when you made some changes, then you've cycled back in. me about what it was like this last time as you moved away from being an operator

It was unplanned.

again.

I went to Central Asia in 2018 and I was with two veteran businesses mission guys. Some of your listeners may know Hans and Gary. There were six of us total. We spent 14 days in three countries that end in STAN, and I saw their Christians in business where they could not pray or quote scripture, but they treated their employees well. They loved their customers. they paid their taxes and did not pay bribes. And I came back and I talked to my pastor and I said, Tim, I have squandered 41 years of being in business by failing to live my faith. and he said, before you beat yourself up, what are you doing in your business to demonstrate Christ and double down on it was so clear. My business partner, 21 years, Randy Harvey grew up tough. we built a great business. He ran the business. I tried to stay out of his way. Randy would hire people that nobody else would hire. He'd hire 'em outta jail, he'd hire 'em out of drug rehab. There are times when people just have a streak of bad luck. he'd give them a chance and it often doesn't work out. We use the boxing metaphor. He would wipe their face and stitch up to cut over their eye and he'd put 'em back in the ring. When it works, they make you a valuable employee. That was the impact that made our business worth growing and continuing. So I started working, getting involved with other businesses. We started a business incubator for the underestimated in our town. And in 2020, God was stirring in my heart and Holly and I went to the mountains that spring ring brought two weeks sabbatical and we'd pray together and we'd spend time apart and back together. And I finished a course by Darren Sheer called Theology of Business, and here it became so clear to me. I was supposed to leave, I was in my comfort zone. I thought I'd be there the rest of my life. We used to laugh about my being 90 and being able to roll my wheelchair in the floor level entrance, the parking lot level entrance. And I went back and told my partners, Randy, who we'd met with 21 years, and I'd recruited my successor, who was 30 years younger. And I said, guys, I need to meet with you. He said, I'm giving you 12 months notice. I love you, but I'm leaving. I don't know what I'm gonna be doing, but I'm supposed to be leaving here. And the next day they said, can we get together? I said, yeah. Said, can we buy you out? I said, I think that's a great idea. And we had a buy sell agreement. So I was gone in six months but I did not know what I was gonna do. I have, again, I just mentioned earlier, I'm an accumulator and, one of the things I have accumulated is farms. And so I worked at the farms around the state and that took a few days and, I just started praying about it and writing stories. I'd been wanting to catch up on my stories and I started writing about my screw ups. And a few months later I started sending these stories out to everybody on my email list, and that went on for a couple of years and gave me something to do. And, when I started writing about succession planning, man, it really hit a nerve. And so that's where my focus became, was succession planning for impact. Wrote the book and now I'm practicing with these groups. I did not plan to leave there, but we had a plan in place so that if somebody chose to leave, there was a buy sell agreement for them to leave.

Well, it sounds like it was a bit of a journey. I mean, it started when you were Gary, with Gary, probably Gary Christopher, I'm guessing. Is that who it was? somebody else. Anyway, so you were over, so you were, you know, traveling and there was a seed planted and then you came back. Probably the Lord had been working with you. And if I'm hearing the timeframe right, it was a time in, you know, 2020 or whatever, when were really starting to happen. Some odd things in the world were going on too.

yeah.

it got a lot of people thinking. I think, you know, all of us were probably going, you know. What's my purpose? Why am I here? You, you know, not that I think we were living in fear. Some people were, I mean, there was some, you know, pandemic and things going on, but it kind of got people thinking. And so, and, and it seems as if you were sort of down a path in a divine way you were just in tune with what you were doing and sharing. And the Lord sort of opened up doors. What do you think makes you uniquely qualified? Had somebody ask me this once and I didn't have a good answer. I hope your answer's better. qualified to speak and talk and work with people on succession planning.

I have the experience of succession planning well and not so well. I have the experience of selling for financial reasons, and I have the experience of building something to carry on for the partners to carry on. I had the experience of working with family. We went through three rounds of family buyouts in my first business. That was tough I did not wanna be in a family business. I agreed to be in a management owned business, and we all get along fine now, but it was tough

Right. and I love that you started writing and then you just noticed and observed are responding to this. Why is that topic so important?

Well, 70% of all businesses never make it to the second generation of leadership. And often it is because the CEO or founder fails to initiate the process. unfortunately we lose a lot of businesses that are good businesses with some planning could be carried on. And our ideal client is a founder or CEO. Who recognizes they have an impact through their business that's worth carrying on. They don't want to hang up their spurs. And that role is something that where it may be in the business or it may be in a new platform. But it's a way for them to continue to be engaged and have an impact taking all their experiences and relationships and gifts and talents that they've been blessed with, and use it in some type of, of positive influence, positive ways. And, you know, if you look at businesses and their impact, a question in the book, it has discussion questions at the end of each of the seven chapters. And one on step three on impact is, so why don't we go ahead and wind your business down in 90 days? Why would that be bad? What would the consequences be? How would that affect your family and your employees and your customers and your community? What would happen to the leaders that you provided to the community? All that would be gone, and it happens every day. So that's our joy is seeing people embrace this concept and making a commitment to move their business forward for someone else or another group of people to carry it on. And it doesn't have to be family. that's another fallacy. So.

Right. So you kind of mentioned ideal client, and I'm sure there's all kinda variables and things like that. I think this is actually a bit of a myth. Maybe you could either bust it up or affirm it many people think that this is for the wealthy for, the people that are in extreme wealth situations. I don't agree that I don't adhere to that. in fact, I think it's powerful for people at all stages to consider this. But how would you respond to someone if they say, you know, oh, that's just for rich people. I don't need to consider that. I've just got a, business Just respond to that. This is just for wealthy people.

it is for all stages and all phases of businesses and their owners. one of the things that's been surprising is we have some professional groups that we work with where there may be a smaller number of highly qualified professionals who also have contract people and they are building teams to carry on that business. That has been a surprise to me. one of the best businesses I've seen. One of the most lucrative businesses I've seen only had five employees. And I won't go into details on what it was, but it was a great business. So it does not have to be a great big business to be worth continuing. And when you add up the impact of contractors and vendors. A small business can have a lot of impact on many lives. You know, we work with businesses with hundreds employee also. That doesn't even necessarily mean that they're wealthy. That just means they have a lot of employees, but do they have an impact that makes it worth continuing? so yeah, a range of people we worked with. And, you know, listen, Tim, if you or one of your readers says, I wanna put somebody in touch with you, give me a referral, I'll talk to anybody and just to see if I might encourage them in a direction. you know, one of the things that I think each of us are gifted uniquely in being able to discover. What makes us where we thrive, is a process that a, a friend of mine, Don Ankin Brandt, wrote a book about, it's called the two 10 Project two one oh project.com. And when you recognize your spiritual gifts and you can stay in those islands of strength, that's where God, that's where God wants you. He delights in seeing us flourish where he has give us experiences and, and, and talents and, and spiritual gifts to use for, for His glory. He wants us to delight in that. That doesn't mean we can only do those three, those things, but you know, for me it's generosity and hospitality and encouragement. And when I stay in those areas, I'm thriving.

One of the words that I saw a good bit when I was kind of reading through is the word impact, and I think that word is, I don't wanna say it's an odd word, but I think that words thrown around good bit and what I've observed is that a lot of people are craving impact. there's a lot of people that are probably having an impact and they don't even recognize it. I'm guessing you see maybe a little bit of both talk about the word impact and maybe gimme some examples of, businesses. 'cause I think there's some business owners that's probably listening in that they may not realize amount of impact that they have, all the way in their communities, their towns, whatever. Just talk about some examples you've seen of some big impact that people may not realize.

One of my favorite stories about my buddy Gil. Gil got up in the middle of the night. He was trying to sort through some problems. Two 30 in the morning pulls in the parking lot of his business. There's a car running in the parking lot and his business. he calls the police and they arrive. It is Cynthia, one of his newer employees who has been sleeping in her car. She'd come back every night after everybody left 'cause that was the only safe place. And she confesses that she's homeless. Her husband died and she's, she's homeless. So Gil helps Cynthia find a furnished apartment where she can pay by the week. He goes to the supermarket with her to help her buy affordable, nutritious foods. Helped her repair the tire on her. And with the agreement that she would develop a budget. three weeks later, he was walking through the plant. this is several hundred employees in this business, and, he does management by walking around. what he realized was that she hadn't given him budget and she got a budget with a tithe for the company in, Helping Hands fund. What he realized was he had segregated his faith from his business. It dawned on him the purpose for him being in business was caring for his people, and that integrated his faith and his business. It put it all together for him. Now, he has a group of people, a group of his employees who administer the Helping Hands Fund to do. Mostly zero interest loans, but sometimes they'll just give somebody a check to pay for a doctor or whatever. his purpose is caring for his people. In order to care for their people, they must make a profit. They must hold people accountable. They must provide excellence to their customers. They must provide great value to their customers. They have to pay their bills on time, all so that they can achieve their calling, their impact, which is caring for our people.

and you know, I think some people believe that impact is, some big world stage type situation, or getting on a plane and traveling to the other side of the world and ministering or interacting or sharing the gospel when that you described was right in front of him the whole time. Correct.

Yes. And recognizing that, kinda like with Randy Hart recognized the purpose for Blackberry Patch was providing employment to people, others had rejected. Once you recognize what the impact of the business is, you have a reason to get up and go in the morning. You have a reason to grow that business beyond just your financial rewards, and it carries through to the culture of your people.

Hmm. there, so, so there's another big word called significance, and I, and I kind of saw where you were sort of, comparing, contrasting possibly success versus. Significance. So a lot of people that are in the business world, and maybe even in ministry too, we've got people that listen in and that are in ministry, but let's just say business, they, they look at success and it usually has some dollars with it and maybe some size and scope of business, but, but significance may or may not tie into that. Talk about both of those words. Compare them or, or, or whatever. I'm sure you've seen a lot of it in your life and you probably see it a lot with some of the people you interact with. So success versus significance.

I first saw the delineation. In the book Halftime by Bob Buford, and it helped me recognize I needed to make a pivot. It took me a long time to work through that, but that's where I first saw this. And it's really, are you going to fulfill the expectations of the world or are you gonna do what you're called to do here on earth? And that's where the success versus cigarette, the measurement of the world is money and fame. And I enjoyed that and I, you know, still flirt with it. But the significance, it may be one life that you affect. It may be that people don't even know what you're doing, but you're working to help somebody make a difference in their life. through interacting with business owners today. Hopefully there's a, cross fertilization of ideas and how people are making an impact. One of the things about the significance is you may not be expected or your business may have a unique impact. That, and, and, and sense of significance through that impact. That's not just like everybody else, and so don't get caught up on following somebody else. You may have a significance that you hadn't recognized. Just need to recognize it and pursue it.

Yeah, that is good. how, and this could be a trick question, I'm not sure 'cause I'm not sure how I would answer it, but is it possible to measure or are significant.

Yes. I'm gonna answer this in, in quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative. I volunteer with an organization that invests in Christian entrepreneurs around the world. And with every loan application there is a Kingdom impact assessment considered equally you have to achieve in both of them. that Kingdom Impact assessment is used along with the financial results to measure by the mentors of that business, how they are progressing. so you have a scale of like one to five and you try to encourage people to move along the spectrum in each of these areas of kingdom impact that they're being measured. Now there's a really wise guy named Al Capna. He's in the printing business in Ohio, and I heard him speak and they were talking about, he was on a panel and they were talking about metrics and He said, why don't you try this? Why don't you try, in your weekly meetings, ask your leadership, where have you seen God at work in your business this week? how has God working in the lives of those people that are interacting with your company? So that may be a more qualitative measurement to get us thinking about the intentionality of our business rather than just a rubric.

Yeah. I like that. And I think one of the things maybe we need to do also is change our paradigms to metrics that aren't as, I don't wanna say even tangible, they're just different. They're different than the metrics that we've used to measure other things. One of the things, and I'm kind of watching my time here, but one of the things that I love about what you've done is you've migrated from who was doing, we were joking before we kind of hit record that I was. Coach, mentor, coach, leader, mastermind, and all for a while. But then now I'm a COO and I'm actually doing work again, which you, I joke you, you actually don't do work, but I don't think that's the case. It's just different. You now are running masterminds and I've got an article pulled up here that, you have here that's four signs. You need a mastermind, not just a mentor, so you're contrasting mastermind and mentor. Some people don't understand mastermind, some people don't understand mentors either, but talk about those two and contrast why you might need a mastermind, not just a mentor.

Great question, Tim. I'm in a mentoring role with four businesses internationally in clearly defined that way. And as a, putting the article, having a mentor, like having a flashlight to get you along the path, having a breakthrough group or mastermind is helping you build a new path or a new road to where you want to go. what we've observed in these breakthrough groups is. each person identifies at least one desired breakthrough they want to achieve, and then we focus the group on that desired breakthrough. The reason it works is these people are committed to help one another, and typically the answers lie within the individual, not within the other members. But it's the wisdom and experience of the group members in asking the questions to help clear the fog so the answers become clear to the individual. And shared experiences can help do that. having one thing to focus on. Now, several members have, you know, often as entrepreneurs, they'll have several different desire, praise, but having one thing that they want to accomplish. Really crystallizes the way the other members can rally around and help 'em. the sauce is the attitude. We only take about half the people who apply to our groups, and we want them committed to investing in other people to help others. And if they're not there, the sauce doesn't work.

Well, I think that's powerful. You have to get the right people around the table. They have to have the right heart, the right mindset. But to me seems to be, and I've actually studied this some too, something quite biblical about getting 8, 10, 12 people around a table having them, you know, not necessarily focus entirely on themselves, they gain from it. I think there's some scriptural foundation to that too. Would that be correct?

Yes. and their lives are richer as a result of this engagement. I have a number of friends who are involved as chairs of C 12 and Convene and other peer advisories that are really good. Our work is a little different. Our work starts with succession planning for impact, but we are now working through the process. We thought it was gonna go for seven months. First group went after seven months, they said, no, we don't wanna stop. We want to keep going. So we now have years worth of curriculum, and we get the members to provide input at this retreat we're having this fall. we will go through these exercises and it's gonna bring on new resources. It's gonna bring on new topics. So we're excited about having people come together face-to-face.

That's good. You mentioned earlier that you started writing some articles and that led to your book succession Planning for Impact, seven Steps to Build a Significant Life and a Company that Will Outlast you. Tell me about the book real quick and where people can find it and I wanna mention a couple other things before we finish up here.

It's easy to go to Amazon. you can go to my website and buy. But it's just gonna direct you to Amazon it is 20 bucks. our experience is people will take that and do part of it. if you've got questions, reach out to us. We'll be glad to. I'm in the middle of a second book right now. It's gonna be a workbook format to be ready this fall as planned that it'll have checklists and discussion questions, key points. it all starts with conversations and in succession planning for impact. The book in the seven chapters, covering the seven steps there, at the end of each chapter, there are discussion questions The conversation going. Founders often don't like to talk about succession planning. We give you some, we give you some suggestions, and yeah, we do have a, a, a weekly email that we put out. You can go to a website and subscribe to the email as a private email list. Be glad to add it to you, if you want, there's a connection tab on our website. Just put in there, you're a friend of Tim Winders and I, I'll be glad, we'll set up a call to, to, hear you out and see if we can direct you in a way that we might have run across what you're facing today.

So who's the book for? The person that's listening in that says, you know, you need to get this. Who would it be for?

I thought it was for founders and CEOs, Jim, but about half of our engagement comes from people in the next generation saying, how do we get him just to talk about it? how can we get him to turn over the reins? So it's for those people. Both the founders and CEOs who have not yet recognized they need to develop a plan, and it's for those people on their team or in their family who want some ways to engage the founder or CEO in these discussions. ideally the impact of the business will continue and the founder or CEO will be elevated where they flourish. They'll have a place, but in the handoff, we also stress to 'em handoff at maximum speed. You've gotta have a clean handoff, firmly let go and firmly receive. Stay in your lane, get out of the way, and cheer on the next runner.

Hmm. good. That's good. Final, message there. If someone wants to get more info, you've already mentioned the book. They could go to Amazon, but if they want to check out these, you know, breakthrough Masterminds and things like that, where do they need to go? Go ahead and say it. We'll include links. I've got your website pulled up here, but go ahead

Yeah,

let people know that might just be listening in on the audio.

cultivating impact.bz biz, and the background on that is the delineation between creation. We're not creating anything. We're taking what's already been created and making it better, cultivating it. So cultivating impact biz.

Very nice. We'll include that down in the links and, man, I appreciate you, Harry. I enjoyed this conversation and, I recommend, I'm gonna hold it up here that's on my Kindle succession planning for Impact. is the book kind of hard to see there, but for those that might be watching in on YouTube, seven steps to build a Significant Life in a company that will outlast you. I've seen this too. I recommend, at all and various places for people to begin thinking about succession planning. May not be business or company and all that, but we're here for leaders. And so, I recommend that leaders be thinking that. I appreciate this conversation. Been a great conversation. We are seek go create here. Every week we're on YouTube, we're on all the podcast platforms. are just growing like gangbusters over on YouTube. It's very exciting. Thank you for all of that. And so we appreciate you and we'll see everyone next week here at Seek. Go Create. Thanks for joining us.