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Bill High

Episode: 52

Today on the Servant Leadership Podcast, we welcome Bill High. Bill’s journey took him from poverty… to becoming a partner in a
major law firm… to guiding some of the most influential families in the world on how to build a legacy.

Through his work with high‑net‑worth families at Legacy Stone and co‑authoring books with Hobby Lobby founder David Green, Bill has helped leaders see that the greatest measure of success isn’t net worth—it’s how well you prepare your family to thrive for generations.

Join us, as Bill shares why family vision, mission, and values are the foundation for a generational mindset—and why true legacy is about what you set in motion, not just what you leave behind.

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Bill High's Intro

0:07
Today on the servant leadership podcast, we welcome Bill Hy. Bill's journey took him from poverty to becoming a partner

0:14
in a major law firm to guiding some of the most influential families in the world on how to build a legacy. Through

0:21
his work with high- netw worth families at Legacy Stone and co-authoring books with Hobby Lobby founder David Green,

0:27
Bill has helped leaders see that the greatest measure of success isn't net worth. It's how well you prepare your

0:33
family to thrive for generations. Join us as Bill shares why family vision, mission, and values are the foundation

0:40
for a generational mindset and why true legacy is about what you set in motion,

0:45
not just what you leave behind. Bill, thank you so much for being on the servant leadership podcast.

Welcome Bill High

0:51
Man, I'm glad to be here, Chris. Heard a lot about you and finally here. This is so exciting. Uh, you've had a a

0:58
very unique vantage point over the years and a unique story to get here, but you come alongside families and help them

Bill's "Crazy" Background Story

1:06
think about wealth differently. How did you get into this and what does this actually look like? Yeah, it is a crazy

1:12
story, Chris, because I got to back up a little bit because I grew up extremely poor.

1:18
So, here I am, a kid growing up, a welfare kind of family, and here I am

1:24
now being able to consult and work with families all across the country, sometimes around the globe with great

1:30
wealth. So, God's sense of humor, I think. But I grew up, as I say, poor,

1:36
but uh by the grace of God was able to go to law school, practice law with a

1:42
big law firm. 12 years there, become a partner. It was a great gig, but it

1:47
wasn't my endgame. And always felt like I was called to be able to go out and to

1:52
serve people in a broader way. So, helped start a foundation uh that was

1:57
tied to the National Christian Foundation. We began serving families, helping them in their charitable giving,

2:04
a lot of charitable tax planning. So that was my doorway in.

2:09
Wow. So that's a big jump to go from partner at a law firm. That's kind of

Bill's Jump From A Law Firm To A Start-up

2:15
what most people achieve and then they're set. You know, there there was something nagging on you though that

2:20
kind of took you in a different direction. Why make that jump? It it was kind of crazy cuz we had four

2:26
kids at the time. I was partner in a law firm. had my best year ever. Had one of the biggest and best clients in the

2:33
firm. And this was no small firm. I when I left, we had 330 lawyers.

2:38
So, it was a huge firm for the country at that point in time. But I always felt like that my call was to take care, tend

2:46
the flock of God. That's my charge. And so, for me, it was a great way, but

2:51
it was a startup. So, I left the law firm and literally had my car, a cell phone, a legal pad. had to go create

2:58
incorporation documents, the whole bit, and then go start knocking on doors, start talking to people about their

Getting People To Think About Charitable Giving

3:04
charitable giving and how to give away money. How about that for a great startup? So, sometimes that's an awkward

3:10
conversation to talk to somebody about parting with what matters most to them. What was it like when you got into this

3:15
world? Uh, and why did that even interest you? You know, we felt like that we could change a city and change a

3:23
country if we could get people to think differently. But the way we started those conversations, it wasn't like a

3:30
big sales job. It was really just like this. It was tell me about your story. Tell me who you are, what you care

3:36
about. And we just listened and listened really hard for what people's interests and passions were and f found out how we

3:44
could connect with those and to serve them at their point of need. So over about 20ome years it was about $6

3:50
billion that came into the foundation. We had clients in 48 states. Uh we were

3:58
really working hard on Hawaii for obvious reasons. But anyway, 48 states

4:04
and uh I I forget how many different cities. So it was a wild run. But while

4:09
we were doing that, we did have some families come to us. One of which we've

4:14
talked a little bit about, the Hobby Lobby family. And people were asking this question, hey, the charitable

4:20
giving is good, the estate planning is good, but we need more help with our family. And that was when one of those

4:26
light bulb moments went on for me. It's like we're helping people with some of these very maybe you'd think generosity

4:32
is a big thing, but we were helping in some cases with very transactional issues, but this core issue of family

4:39
and helping the family succeed from generation to generation, we were missing it.

4:45
So on this podcast we've had some interesting notable families who are in third generation uh business and one of

4:52
the things that comes up is that by the third generation a lot of businesses are failing especially when you talk through

4:57
companies and families that have multi-billion dollar net worth. I know it's not just like secret sauce there's

5:04
like actually process that goes into this uh and really hard work. Talk about how you help people think through

Process For "Building Something That Lasts"

5:11
building something that lasts. Yeah, the the proverb is true. Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations. And

5:17
that's a proverb that's repeated around the world. So Australia has a proverb

5:23
and theirs is from goon to graange to goon. Uh bad wine to good wine back to

5:29
bad wine. Italy is from stalls to stars to stalls. So it's a it is a truism

5:36
that's repeated around the world is that your family will not carry on its family values from one generation to the next.

5:44
And it's really important for the listeners here that they understand this that it's not just the family business

5:49
but it's the family. Your kids and your grandkids are not likely to remember all

5:56
your stories, all of your values. And there's nothing that grieves you more than that. Yeah.

6:01
So ultimately just in going down that road, we saw that and we saw that there

6:07
was actually and the the doorway that I went in initially is there's been a lot

6:12
of research that's been done. Uh so from a historical and a sociological

6:18
perspective, we know why a family can succeed from one generation to the next.

6:24
I come from a a background of faith. So, I believe in the Bible, and the Bible

6:29
speaks very clearly about generational success, and that's the goal. I mean, why would anybody uh go start out and

6:36
think, "I'm going to have kids, and I'd sure like to ruin them." You know, do you know anybody that's come on this

6:41
podcast and said, "That's my aim." Of course not. So, with this, I mean, are what is the

6:47
first steps? Because one of the things that you said uh just there which is different is my question was a little

6:54
bit more about how do you handle all the wealth and you talked about and brought up the value side of it. Um I don't

Family Values - Family World View

7:00
think that comes naturally for people to even think about family values. I don't hear that as common language. What does

7:05
that process look like to start making that common language within a family? So the first thing is it's actually a

7:12
world view that you have to adopt. So I'd call it family world view. If you want to put it in the biblical context,

7:19
you have to recognize there's a theological context is another way to say it. But you have to recognize what's

7:24
the purpose of family. And here in the US, we have a very very western view of

7:30
family. So this is first step. The first step is to recognize is that the goal is

7:35
not to raise your kids in this protective little nest and then at 18

7:40
you kick them out and say, "Go do your own thing." That's what you'd call the raise them up and kick them out theory

7:46
so I can retire and play golf. That is a highly individualistic approach, which

7:52
is the needs and wants of the individual are greater than the collective.

7:58
So that's the western view. But from a historical sociological view, from a

8:04
biblical view, the view really is that family's a collective. Family's a team.

8:10
Every family starts on the farm and so the farm is the economy. It is the socialization. It's the school. It's the

8:17
church. So we all start out in this collective. And that means we need one another. We work together. And so if you

8:25
start with that right world view that hey we are meant to be a team then you

8:31
don't end up with all this disperate uh collection of things. The idea of spread your wings and fly is actually really

8:38
built around a Chinese proverb that you're you need to give your children roots and wings

8:45
and not just say go off and fly. What's a kite without a string? So, it sounds good, but it's not an easy

8:52
process to do what you're talking about. I see families that try really hard to pass on values and and work ethic and

Guidance To Families - Vision, Mission, Values

9:00
various things to the next generation and from the outside you look and it's just all falling apart you know what

9:07
guidance do you give people listeners especially where it's uh something that they can take away and think through

9:13
here's how I should be thinking about this for my family yeah so it really boils down to a few things uh James Hughes is a early writer

9:21
in the space there's a PhD guy named Dennis Jaffy He's written about this and we can tell you Chris, you can your

9:27
family can succeed for the next hundred years. Your family, not just a business, but what it boils down to is you have to

9:34
acknowledge this is my responsibility. And you have to teach vision, mission, values. That's the core of what you do.

9:41
The vision being what's the long term? What's our hope for our family for the next 150 years? And so we help families

9:49
craft that. By the way, you understand this because you're a marketing guy, five to seven words.

9:55
Our family's vision statement for my wife and I is disciples everywhere for generations.

10:01
Four words. Pretty simple. And so, you get a vision statement and then you got to have a mission statement. What do we

10:07
do every day? What's the thing that we're going to try to live out every day? And so, we see people come up with

10:13
very simple ones, whether it's to uh love God, love people, serve the world.

10:19
Uh that's a common one sometimes that we'll see. But simple mission statements. Here's what we do every

10:24
single day. And then you got to have your values. Three to five words that define the values that provide the guard

10:31
rails because values are protective and they're attractive at the same time. And

10:37
then the hard work really begins which is you have to repeat, repeat, repeat.

10:43
In the Jewish world, you know, they still practice Sabbath. If you go to

10:48
Israel, they practice Sabbath. And here it is in their timeline a couple thousand years later still practicing

10:55
Sabbath. And what they would tell you is that by theund first time of repetition,

11:00
you might have it down. Wow. So you're bringing in these extra new generations into this vision, mission,

Do Vision, Mission Values Change?

11:08
values. Do they change as it gets handed off from generation to generation? Do they stay the same? What does that process

11:14
look like to bring a new generation? So there's there's if you will the big tent and then the small tent. So the big tent

11:21
is you have everybody subscribe to here's the big family vision, mission, values. Uh but like for instance, if you

11:29
step into a family, you and your wife may have some tweaks on the values and

11:35
you're going to subscribe to certain things that we agree to generationally at the big family level when I

11:41
participate in the big tent, but then at your individual family, it does allow

11:47
for freedom within the form. So practically speaking, for instance, the reason why you want to have agreement at

11:53
the big tent, if there's a family-owned business, you you got to agree about how

11:58
do we keep this business going? One of the great dangers in so many of the

12:03
family-owned businesses, they keep splitting up stock. And you have people who work in the company and those who

12:09
don't. Well, the people who don't work in the company have a very different interest for when they should get their

12:15
money. Yeah. So those are agreements that you have to make. And then likewise, frankly, one of

12:20
the places where we see lots of disagreement is around family giving. Where do you give your money to

12:27
because it tends to change over time. But if we find if the founders articulate what that is, the following

12:33
generations are likely to say we agree with that. So you've seen so much go

Developing Curriculum and Books

12:39
good and bad. You've seen a lot of good. Even though there is a lot of bad, you've seen a lot of good in the process. and you started writing and

12:46
co-writing some books to talk about this. Talk about how you got into bookw writing. Talk about what you have going

12:52
on recently and what you're doing coming up in the future. Yeah, so we're pretty excited. We um

12:57
we've created so our ministry is called Legacy Stone and that's where we've created content for families, every

13:04
family. Uh you don't have to be a billionaire to use our content. And so

13:09
we have a curriculum. It's a small group curriculum, seven awe curriculum, and families walk out of that with their

13:17
vision, mission, values, and frankly some giving guidelines. Our next curriculum is built around family

13:23
conflict. I brought that one with me. So, the family conflict blueprint, and that's really built around this idea

13:30
that if you're you're going to be if you're a family, you're going to have conflict, and you need a process on how

13:36
you deal with it. And if you have a common process, you're more likely to handle it successfully. But it we always

13:44
recognize from the beginning that if you were going to have a message that at

13:49
some point in time you needed to to write it down and be able to have a simple way to communicate it so others

13:55
could do the same. So that's been the journey we've been on. Uh we've written a few books, of course. I've written a

14:01
few books now with David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby. He's been a great leader. We host leadership events

14:07
and we bring in people from all around the country and of course people would scramble furiously writing notes and

14:14
people would say I've got all these pages of notes. I just met a guy and he'd come to an event like nine years

14:20
ago and he still had all of his notes. He says one of the great days in my life and that's when we said boy we've got to

14:26
write a book. We've got to actually take and write this stuff down so others can

14:31
uh grab a hold of it. We've had some great stories of people who picked up a book and you know we literally people

14:38
sometimes will come up to me uh even just recently I had somebody's like I've seen you I've seen your picture but the

14:45
profound change in the lives of people sometimes that uh we've never we were

14:50
talking about planet shakers and I was in Australia about a year ago

14:55
and from the stage there's a guy preaching and he starts talking about the first book that we did with David

15:02
Green called Giving It All Away. And he's talking about how one of his the guys in his congregation sold a

15:08
business uh sold Yeah. one of his top businesses for like $100 million to give

15:15
it away. And I had no idea. Those are the kind of stories though that we've seen. Those are amazing stories. One of the

15:22
things that I really like that you've done because obviously for many years, more than multiple decades, you've been

15:28
dealing with high net worth families and helping them do that. But really with some of the stuff you're doing with Legacy Stone, you've also turned that

Helping Families Get Better

15:35
into this is for anybody, right? And and it's the goal is help families get

15:41
better and therefore be able to make ripple effects in generations and make change regardless of where they're at.

15:46
If you're going to be a um uh have a business, you're going to have a church, you're going to have a nonprofit

15:52
organization, the first key to success is not the numbers on the bottom line.

15:57
It's the healthy families that you serve. And so I recognize with some of the high net

16:03
worth families that I was working with, that's great. But in many cases, some of those families call me really late and

16:10
there's some messy, messy stuff that I've had to deal with over the years. Not fun. And so I recognized that we

16:17
needed to start earlier. We needed to start with the families that were pre-married uh thinking about it uh or

16:25
married with a few kids. And that's been our greatest success. I mean, when we first piloted some of the small group

16:32
curriculum, we had a a young couple. They actually weren't engaged yet. They got engaged during the course of the

16:38
study and then later they got married. But they will tell you that one of the most profound things for them is on the

16:45
wall of their home is their vision, mission, values, and code of conduct. So

16:50
sometimes they argue and they'll say, "Hey, how are you living out our value of generosity?" And it's making a

16:56
difference on how they live. So that's our goal, global families. How do we help families

17:01
thrive for generations to come? Changes the community, the company, the churches, the organizations,

17:08
makes the world better. So, we talk a lot about leadership on the podcast and a lot about servant leadership

Bill's Perspective On Servant Leadership

17:14
specifically. When you hear servant leadership and think about it in your world, how do you see it play out and

17:20
what does it mean to you? Yeah. So, we wrote a book with David Green, too, called Leadership Not by the Book. And

17:26
there's a great premise uh coming out of that book because here's David Green, a guy that um starts a business with 600

17:35
bucks and you know his kids and his wife are working to make the business work.

17:41
And today that business will probably eclipse 8 billion in sales, 50,000 employees and they give away half of

17:48
their profit. The business seems to work when the Harvard guys would say what they're doing doesn't make sense. I

17:55
mean, how many retail businesses are closed on Sunday, close at 8, and give away half of their profit and still

18:00
survive? But ultimately, one of the things that you see uh getting to your point about

18:07
servant leadership is David Green talks about the idea that I hire great people

18:14
to do their jobs. So, he defers to them. He doesn't just delegate. Sometimes

18:19
they're walking in with, "Hey, I got this idea or I'm thinking about this." And he's like, "Hey, you're the one.

18:26
Go do that. Make that happen." And the greatest moment, I don't know if you'd

18:31
call it the greatest moment, but one of the most difficult moments is, you know, their company went all the way up to the

18:36
United States Supreme Court to argue a case that could determine the outcome of

18:42
the company. and the general counsel came to David Green and said, "Hey, you

18:47
know, I think we need to hire this lawyer to argue that Supreme Court

18:52
case." Kind of a major decision, right? And David's response was, "You're the guy. It's your decision."

19:00
Wow. That's servant leadership. It's not just the idea that you delegate, but that you defer. When you give somebody authority,

19:08
you let them operate under that authority. Wow. That is extremely powerful. I mean

19:14
when you think through that kind of level of um empowerment, it probably

Empowerment vs Losing Control

19:21
makes the organizations thrive significantly better. But at the same time, it it also sounds like you're

19:27
losing control. How do you help empower people and help an organization thrive and then also not lose control and

19:33
direction of where you really want it to go? Yeah. the the general counsel by the way

19:38
of Hobby Lobby is the guy that came to when we did that book we actually interviewed all the top level leaders

19:45
and we'd always ask them the same question which is what's the secret sauce why does this thing work when it

19:51
shouldn't I mean it really doesn't make sense how they run some of their business you know they have one

19:56
distribution center as a for instance they have no POSOS at the register they just do things that don't seem to make

20:03
sense but ultimately uh the other point that where you're going to is okay so

20:09
how can you defer and give authority to but still know that you're paying

20:14
attention and David Green again talks about this idea is that they actually he

20:20
he wants to uh understand the big picture but he also wants to be in the

20:26
weeds enough now that seems counterculture because usually as we rise in leadership it's

20:32
like hey you got to stay at the 30,000 foot. David wants to know how much are we selling pony beads for.

20:39
Yeah, he's enough in the weeds to pay attention. And for him, it's I need to know what am I best gifted at and keep

20:46
the main thing the main thing. And I think that's that's really why so oftentimes we started a business because

20:53
we're a great technician. We understand something really well, but then as a business grows, we move too far away

21:00
from that. And so we lose actually some of that ability to serve really well because we don't understand the

21:06
heartbeat. Yeah. Well, in in some families, in some businesses, they're bringing in other

Bringing Family Into The Business

21:11
generations like we talked about. Uh often that gets sticky when you bring in other generations and doesn't have to be

21:18
with Hobby Lobby. It can be just general from what you've seen with a lot of organizations. Where do people go wrong

21:25
when they bring in family into business? And then where do they go right? The number one thing that we see for

21:30
families trying to bring in whether it be their kids or grandkids or in-laws uh

21:37
is you've got to actually prepare them well. So the the research says what is

21:42
that it's usually the failure is family communication but the next big failure

21:48
is how well did you prepare the next generation. So, we always recommend the idea of a family employment committee.

21:54
Even if you're a nonprofit, by the way, is if you're going to bring those kids in, create a family employment committee

21:59
and have on that committee uh people that whether it's HR, legal, people who

22:05
know the family well, maybe yes, you'll have a family member on there, but actually give that kid a sounding board

22:12
to be able to say, "What am I doing right? Where do I need to prove? Where do I need to grow? Are there education

22:18
classes? How do I compensate you? And what it does is it'll take away the

22:24
founder or that kind of father mother patriarch matriarch kind of syndrome

22:29
where you feel like your livelihood is dependent upon them solely. We usually see the parents either underpay or

22:37
overpay and that's where that family employment committee can be really really helpful

22:44
about setting compensation but also providing that window of feedback to say

22:49
hey Chris you know you're really not cutting it here uh or Chris you're doing a great job let's go see if we can't get

22:56
you paid more uh and then here's what steps look like for you to be a leader

23:01
inside that company or Chris, you know what? You're probably gonna be really well suited to not be here.

23:10
A lot easier for a committee to make that statement than a mom or dad. Yeah. Wow. That's so good. As people

23:17
listening are thinking about how they get involved in different businesses, uh there's so many good takeaways. If

Flexing The "Generosity Muscle"

23:24
people who are listening aren't necessarily thinking about philanthropy uh at any given level just because they

23:31
need the money they they need to keep it's their money they worked hard for and they need to keep it. How do you help people start flexing the generosity

23:38
muscle uh if it's almost non-existent? Yeah. I mean the the reality is if you

23:45
want to be successful uh as a business and as a family, the best practices are

23:52
you'll have vision, mission, values, you'll have a code of conduct, and you're going to be generous.

23:58
So, one of the oldest family-owned businesses around the world uh was a construction company in Japan. They made

24:04
it like 44 generations before they finally had to sell the private equity. Well, part of their mindset was this

24:12
generosity kind of mindset. Uh, another family, of course, sometimes they get a bad rap, is the Rothschild family. Uh,

24:19
they're a Jewish family, but because they came from those Jewish roots, there

24:24
was always the mindset that were tithers. We're going to give 10% of our income into the community. And just if

24:32
you if you recognize that if you don't have some kind of outward expression of

24:37
who you are as a family, then you're going to become internalized. And frankly, it's that internalization

24:43
that's going to kill you. So stop it. Get out there and be generous.

Starting Conversations With Families

24:49
You get to go around the world and speak on a lot of different topics. when you're going into different groups and

24:55
you're speaking to these large crowds of people, uh it's probably different conversation than when you're you're

25:00
sitting in a boardroom and helping consult or advise or even one-on-one. When you think through the key things

25:06
for a large audience, for just like a company audience, and for a one-on-one conversation, where do you tend to start

25:13
with those people? Because I know a lot of it starts with listening, but but where does it start in terms of where you think the conversations will go? So

25:20
it's by the way the size of audience actually doesn't really matter or the

25:25
whether it's boardroom or one-on-one ultimately what it really comes down to

25:30
is what question I I typically say what's your framing question. How do you

25:36
want to frame up the conversation? So if I'm speaking to a thousand people or I'm speaking to you it's like hey Chris

25:42
what's on your heart what's going on? And even in many cases, I'll start out a talk by saying, "Man, I'd like I'd just

25:48
like to talk to you guys. So, tell me what's going on in your lives." And I want to ask questions. So, that's really

25:55
the key is to start with questions and those questions frame up where you

26:01
should be going in that conversation. So, the abil the the scriptures tell us that the purpose in a man's mind is like

26:09
deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. And so if you ask those good questions, you'll eventually

26:15
find out the purpose of a person's heart and then from that you can provide

26:21
direction to where that need is. Wow, that is so good. How much of that

New Book - "The Legacy Life"

26:27
comes out in the new book? You know, how in the new book, what all do you get into that you think these are the

26:33
biggest takeaways that people will need to get from that book? Yeah, the the book coming out in October, October 14th

26:39
is actually the launch date, although people can go pre-order now. Yeah. Is it's called The Legacy Life: Leading

26:46
Your Family to Make a Difference for Eternity. There's a 90day devotional

26:52
study guide that you can order with the book as well. But ultimately, the book

26:58
is really a reset or a reframe. And it asks, so I told you we start with

27:03
questions. What's the purpose of family? Why do we do this thing? What's the big deal here? And then, frankly, why should

27:10
we be more intentional about our family than we are today? And so, it gets at what I call the

27:18
eternal ache. Every single one of us wants to live a life of purpose and

27:23
meaning. Uh we want something that we're that we're built for, something that

27:29
drives to significance. But our problem is we have a lot of short-term thinking.

27:34
And that short-term thinking leads us to a place that boom, all of a sudden it's

27:39
like raise those kids and they're off to they're graduating from high school and

27:44
they're into college and they're off doing their own careers and we don't know how to put the toothpaste back in

27:50
the tube. And so it really tries to drive towards let's reframe this idea of family to something that's a

27:56
generational kind of mindset. we really can operate and think as a team and then

28:01
what are the practices by which we get there. I know a little bit of your backstory

Bill's Early Childhood Impact

28:07
more from just what I've seen online and read about and and heard you talk about, but you had a really unique family

28:14
upbringing that it's interesting to see how that has shaped you and then also how important family has become on the

28:20
flip side. How do you think your early childhood years have affected kind of how you're helping families now think

28:25
through this in their family? Yeah, every family I ha comes from a story.

28:31
I'm not an island. I can't divorce uh where I came from. But I think the adage

28:37
really drives around the idea is that your family past informs you,

28:42
but it doesn't give you your identity. It's not what's going to give you your ultimate purpose. Only God can give you

28:48
your identity and your purpose, but your past can inform you. And so my case, I grew up very poor. uh my and one

28:56
of the things by the way that we'll tell families to do is go back and understand your family genealogy. Again, if you go

29:03
into that collective kind of mindset, family history is extremely important

29:09
because it tells us where you came from, what your family did, the influences

29:15
geographically that would shape you. All those things play a factor in who you

29:20
are today. So my family story influences how I think about the world, the the uh

29:27
the poverty kind of mindset, the humility uh that come from living in

29:33
that kind of environment, I think actually helps give me a broader appreciation for the family members

29:40
across the board and frankly some of the pain that that might they might be experiencing and it gives me a great

29:46
heart for the idea of family unity. So even in the midst of some of my very rough growing up years, my brothers and

29:52
sisters, we had to band together. Uh life was tough and so we had to go work in the garden together and do chores

29:59
together because we needed to we needed to make it work. So I experienced both some of the pain of this

30:05
hyperindividualistic world coupled with the power of a collective family working together.

100 Year Mindset

30:12
It's so interesting because earlier you talk about the families don't go in with this hundred-year mindset and uh in some

30:20
of what you're talking about and what you produce, people might think, oh, I'm just going to do this and then it's all

30:26
good. And what you've seen is it takes tons of hard work and tons of repetition and tons of engagement, very intentional

30:33
engagement. But as people are thinking through uh most of them are living very

30:39
short-minded. You know, we're thinking about what's going on next week. How do I make sure next year I'm set up well?

30:45
How do I make sure I retire? Okay. I've never heard people talk about this 100red-year mindset, you know, and how

30:51
they keep thinking about it. Uh how do you help people shift from that shortterm thinking to really long-term

30:59
and eternal thinking? Yeah, the the book we talk about what is the definition of

31:05
legacy and that's again something that we're trying to reshape because the problem for most people is it's what you

31:12
just described. It's that I'm working towards retirement, you know, and I make enough so I can go sit on a beach

31:18
somewhere. Retirement is a pretty new concept. You know, it used to be that people had to work their whole lives and

31:25
it wasn't really until really the last 50 years or so that some of this prosperity mindset has come into being.

31:32
But the idea of where should we be on some of this longer term thinking? It's

31:39
the idea that man, legacy is what you set in motion. It's not what you leave

31:45
behind. I've had guys that if I come in and say, "Hey, we need to talk about your will or trust." are like, "What do

31:50
I care? My kids will figure it out, and if it's trouble for them, I'm gone." And that's lazy.

31:57
But this idea of actually pulling the family together and saying, "Hey, we're we uh the Lesnar family or the high

32:04
family, we're part of something great and we're setting in motion something really powerful that someday in heaven,

32:10
we're going to get to see the results of that work." And that's the long. You

32:16
want to live for uh what David Green calls the vapor life or do you want to live for the eternal life?

Legacy: Setting Thing In Motion

32:22
I love that. I've never thought of legacy as something that it's all about what you set in motion. Is there

32:28
quantity to that in terms of can you be setting too many things in motion or is part of then leaving a lasting legacy,

32:34
setting as many things in motion as you feel you can? the idea of uh what you're

32:40
setting motion simplify it and you just drill down to the idea of vision,

32:45
mission, values because even you here with the businesses that you operate and they

32:51
represent multiple things but at the same time they represent a core of who you are.

32:56
What do you care about? What do you value? That's what you're trying to set in motion. And at the end of the day,

33:02
uh, you know, I come from faith, of course, and so God's word, man's soul.

33:08
It's that day that who are the relationships that I've invested in that will make an eternal difference.

33:14
Wow. This is such powerful stuff. Bill, I want to finish with 10 rapidfire

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

33:20
questions where I'm just going to throw things at you and you say the first thing that comes to mind. Fire away.

33:26
Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership?

33:31
First person I would say David Green. Five words the most describe you.

33:38
Five words. God's word, generosity, adventure, story, and restoration.

33:43
That's our five family values. So that makes it easy. So for a future guest, we have to think through, hey, do

33:49
you have your family family values? Maybe that's what we change it to. Um, all right. Favorite book or movie?

33:55
Favorite book or movie. Of course. Favorite movie that I love. I'm going to

34:00
do both. Okay. Yeah. So, favorite movie, Field of Dreams. Oh, wow. Okay. Love that last scene, Father Son.

34:08
And favorite book is Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. Wow. That's a good one. Uh, favorite

34:15
food. Favorite food. My mom uh is was always a

34:20
great cook of fried chicken. Wow. All right. Favorite thing to do in your free time. Favorite thing to do? Oh

34:27
man, I love to read and to write. Journal. I've been journaling for 50 years. Wow. Pause on the 10 questions because I

34:34
I need to hear more about that. What have you found are the benefits from journaling? Journaling is like cheap therapy.

The Benefits Of Journaling

34:42
[Laughter] It is really a way for you to process

34:47
what's going on in your world to have reflections and some and the benefit of long-term

34:54
journaling is there are things sometimes that you struggle with for decades. Uh I

35:00
mean literally I mean there's a passage a story in the scriptures I didn't understand for 20 years and finally in

35:07
the 20th year it's like oh that's what it is. So, the wrestling is really good

35:13
in journaling. That's good. All right. Surprising fact about you. Surprising fact about me, uh, I've

35:21
actually written quite a bit of poetry. All right. Uh, favorite place you've been?

35:26
Favorite place? Uh, Switzerland. Wow. Place you want to go that you have

35:32
not been? Iceland. All right. Best advice you've ever received?

35:40
Keep a humble posture. And that is literally posture. It's, you know, when

35:46
we get proud, we tend to rise up, but sometimes you need to lower yourself. Philippians 2.

35:51
That is so good. Well, for everyone listening, we're going to throw a bunch of information in the description,

35:57
places they can go check out your content. What would you say is one action step out of this that you hope

Two Action Steps For People To Take

36:02
people take and how they can best engage some of the stuff you're doing on the family side? Two action steps. go by the book, The

36:09
Legacy Life. You can pre-order it now or I don't know when this will release, but they can get it at release time because

36:16
it will change the way you think. But go to Legacy Stone website and check out

36:21
some of the content so you can live intentionally with your family. Wow, this is so good. Thank you, Bill,

Closing

36:27
for your willingness to be on the podcast. This is such a treat. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode

36:32
of the Servant Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment

36:39
below. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell to never miss an

36:45
update. Be sure to check out the servantleershippodcast.org for more updates and additional bonus

36:50
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