Reading: Persistent Generosity (Ron Blue) Transcript

Mike Cook:           I don't have to introduce Ron Blue. Ron Blue needs really no introduction. I always like to say that Ron Blue, at a very precipitous point in my wife and I's young marriage with a baby, we had a Toyota Camry, which is perfectly fine for one car seat. Then as things go, there was another car seat. Then as things happened to go, there was another car seat. So we knew that the Toyota Camry was no longer sufficient. When we went car shopping. We became prey to the salesmen who sale cars, and my wife had no clue in what we were doing. We were sold a big package of goods. We were two inches away from signing and one night, my wife said to me, "Do you think we can afford this car?"

I said to my wife, "The salesman said we can afford this car." This was the early days, believe me, of the Internet - circa 1990 something, early 90s. I'll never forget, I put down Christian Advice Financial and Ron Blue came up. My wife and learned about what a budget is meant to do and not do. And we went back with a lot of informed power and willpower. And we actually negotiated what we needed instead of what we wanted. So Ron, thank you for saving our marriage very early on.

But before there was this Dave Ramsey guy, there was Ron Blue diligently, faithfully, methodically helping Christians learn how to be better stewards with their resources. And he's helped literally thousands of people. So please join me in welcoming Ron Blue.

Ron Blue:               Thank you, Mike. We had five children. We had three girls then I became a Christian and we had two boys. That's just a fact. I don't if there's any cause and effect, but I'll never forget driving from Atlanta to Denver for a family vacation. We had five kids and they were probably all below the age of 12. If there had been car seats, we'd had one. There's no way you could have had five kids with five car seats in a station wagon with kids climbing all over, not strapped in or anything. So it brought back memories, Mike.

I asked Mike what my job was tonight. He said, "You're the principle speaker." I'm a money guy and I looked up the word principle. That's what's left when all the interest is gone. So I'll cut it short and we can have some questions, and we'll see where it goes from there.

I'm at a stage of life that is really good. I'm 72. I've been in the financial services world for almost 50 years. I've seen a lot in 50 years as you can imagine. Two years ago, I had open heart surgery and that was a renewal of life. It was kind of an unexpected thing. All I'm saying is, if you want to feel really good, have some open-heart surgery, because it opens up everything and you feel good.

But I am reminded of a story of old people down in Florida in a retirement community. Every night at dinner, they would sit around the same round table. One night, this elderly gentleman got up his nerve and looked across the table, and said to the elderly lady, "Would you marry me?"

Right away, she said, "Oh, yes. I would be delighted to marry you."

He said, "Great." They went on and had their dessert and went back to their respective rooms. The next morning when he woke up, he couldn't remember what she said.

So he called her and said, "Do you remember me asking you if you would marry me last night?"

She said, "Oh, yes. I did."

He said, "What did you say?"

She said, "I said, 'Oh, yes. I would be delighted to. And thanks for calling, because I couldn't remember who asked.'"

I have been around a while. I've been, as I said, in the financial services world. I started on Wall Street with, at that time, the world's largest CPA firm - Pete, Maravich, Mitchell. Then I headed my own CPA firm in Indianapolis then went into full-time ministry for a couple of years and then started a financial planning firm in 1979 that has grown and grown and grown. Today, that firm is the largest [inaudible 00:05:07] financial planning firm in the country. I retired 11 years ago in order to work with financial advisors and teach and train them what I had done over my career in that 25 years.

I've had a lot of experiences. As I've thought back over it, Judy and I were talking the other day about the types of people that I've talked to. I've talked to young, I've talked to old, I've talked to those in debt, I've talked to billionaires, I've talked to widows, I've talked to divorced, I've talked to all kinds of people over time. I've answered thousands and thousands of questions. And I've had this time now to kind of sit back the last three or four years and do some reflection. The Lord, with that open-heart surgery, took me out of the game for a while. And yet, at the same time, he established a relationship with Indiana Wesleyan University, where they set up their own Blue Institute for Financial Planning.

So I've had a chance to kind of think back. Even within the last two weeks, I've met with publishers and talked about how could I summarize what God has shown me over the years. I want to share a couple of things and then, I want to share my passion with you. I was talking to my wife tonight on the phone, and she referred me to Proverbs Chapter 8. I want to read it because it summarizes where I am, if you will, what I have learned. It's Proverbs 8, beginning with verse 11. It says, "For wisdom is better than precious stones and nothing desirable can compare to it. I, wisdom, share a home with shrudeness and have knowledge and discretion. To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech. I possess good advice and competence. I have understanding and strength. It is by me that kings reign and rulers enact just law. By me princes lead as do nobles and all righteous judges. I love those who love me and those who search for me find me. With me are riches and honor, lasting wealth, and righteousness. My fruit is better than solid gold and my harvest than pure silver. I walk in the way of righteousness along the paths of justice, giving wealth as an inheritance to those who love me and filling their treasuries."

These are phenomenal promises for wisdom. I testified before a Congressional subcommittee 20 years or so ago. Senator Dodd from Connecticut was the questioner. He said, "What would you tell the American family about finances?"

I thought, "When I tell him what I'm going to tell him, he's going to laugh." Because the only thing I knew to tell him was some biblical wisdom. So I said, "I would tell the American family, Senator, to spend less than they earn, avoid the use of debt, save or build liquidity or margin into their financial situation and set long-term goals so that they can prioritize their spending between the short-term and the long-term."

I looked up, and he picked up his pencil, and he wrote them down and repeated them back to me. And he said, "It seems to me that that would work at any income level."

And I said, "You're right, Senator, including the United States government."

That was four biblical principles of financial management. I would add a fifth and that was to give generously in terms of a principle to follow in terms of managing money. That's not real hard. There are just five things to remember there, and I would add a sixth even. And that is to understand that God owns it all.

That's biblical wisdom. And biblical wisdom is timeless. My passion today is to communicate and to help others understand that God's word is authoritative and timeless and transcendent when it comes to all financial planning and all financial decision-making, because it gives wisdom for the process and principles for the decisions leading to contentment. God's word is authoritative. It speaks to every financial situation that anybody will have.

Now, God's word speaks to people, but it's always uniquely applied. So you can't just make up a rule and say everybody has to follow this rule. It doesn't work that way. God says, "Without faith, it's impossible to please him." So he's always building my faith. What he wants is for me to look at his word, to search out the wisdom, and make the decision. But his wisdom will guide those decisions. It's authoritative.

I've been on Wall Street. I started on Wall Street. I've been in Wall Street. And I can tell you what. Any good advice coming out of Wall Street - and there's good advice coming out of Wall Street - will find itself in a biblical wisdom principle.

We've got a fellow that we work with, with Merrill Lynch. He works on Wall Street. He spent years walking the halls of Merrill Lynch, praying for Merrill Lynch. He's a relatively young guy. Of course, everybody is, but he went through the training that we do with the organization I started 11 years ago, called Kingdom Advisors.

He said, "I really resented going through that training, because I had to pay $1500 to go through the training. Merrill Lynch gives us world class training, and they don't charge us anything. But I felt an obedience I should go through it."

So he went through it and he called me afterwards and this is what he said. This is one of the top advisors in the country working with the most wealthy people in the country and the most significant advisors in the country. He said, "I found that my advice didn't change, but now I knew the source." He was a believer who was in God's word. He didn't tie his advice and biblical wisdom. And our training helped him tie those two together. But the point was God's word works at all levels of finance.

I could quit right there and say, "It works. Trust it. Believe it. He is very, very faithful." I've been in this business, as I say, for quite a while, and I've begun to get telephone calls from about or from clients that I had 35 years ago. Many of them are passing away, and some of them have long been in retirement. And I got a call-- one of the most significant calls that I got was from a widow, who I met with her and her husband. They lived in Sacramento. He was a CEO of a large grocery chain. I'll never forget meeting with them. When I went to their place, they lived in a-- I call it a mobile home park, but it was a little upscale from what you would think of as a mobile home park. When I met with them and looked at their finances, I said, to them, and she reminded me, "I think you could give away a million dollars over some time frame."

She said to me, "That absolutely stunned us." But I want to tell you that over the last 30 years, we've given away multimillions. Because they planned to do it, they made the decision to do it. And I thought there are three characteristics that I have seen in people that have-- I'll call it financial security. And the three characteristics are this: contentment, confidence, and communication. I may kind of build on that for a second.

If I have the right perspective on economies and on wealth, which the bible gives me, I will experience contentment. Paul said, "I've learned to be content," And whoever wrote Hebrews, those of you who are theologians-- Hebrews 13:5 says, this, "Your life should be free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.'"

If I really believe that, I am content in all situations. Because he says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

In 2 Corinthians 9:6 - 8, he says, "I will always provide all that you need." Because the greatest barriers, I think, to financial freedom and financial security-- this is not an all-inclusive list. But what I've experienced over time is that people are generally fearful. They're fearful of the unknown. It could be health, it could be the economy, it could be family needs, it could be the loss of a job, it could many things that cause people legitimately to have fear. I'm not criticizing people. I'm saying there's a reason to have fear and it's kind of built in. Another reason to be fearful is 80% of women will experience widowhood. And the average age of the widow is 55.

So men, if your wife is approaching age 55, you're in big trouble. There are a lot of reasons to have fear. There are a lot of reasons to be confused. As you watch television for example-- I watch a lot of sports, and it seems to me that all of the sports are accompanied by a multitude of financial services advertising. So who's right? What product is it? What service is it? Who can really deliver peace of mind or peace of heart? There's doubt. What are the right decisions to make?

And another biggie is spousal disagreement. We know that 50% of all marriages that end in divorce say money is the reason. I know this - that my wife thinks differently than I do, and I've got a little story about that.

There was a French teacher who was teaching French to English people, and she said that all nouns in French are either feminine or masculine. One of the students raised his hand and said, "What gender is computer?"

The teacher looked and couldn't find the answer to what gender it was, so she divided the class into men and women and she gave them 30 minutes and said, "You come back and tell me whether the gender should be feminine or masculine.” The men's group came back first and they decided that computers should definitely be of the feminine gender - la computer - because of four reasons.

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to the rest of us.

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval.

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine - le computer - because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

2. They have a lot of data, but they're still clueless.

3. They're supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem.

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you'd waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

Dr. Howard Hendrix, who was really a mentor to me, said that God did not give you a spouse to frustrate you but to complete you. But the reality is that when it comes to money and money management, very few couples find it really comfortable to communicate. Because you put two people in checkbook and you've got different values, different goals, different priorities, different personalities, different training, different experiences, and I think that's God's intention, especially in the money area, to make a husband and wife communicate. It's an opportunity. It's not a problem. And believe me, I understand the difficulty in husband and wife communication.

My wife says, "Don't ever put me on a spreadsheet." The thing that's frustrating is that she makes her financial decisions intuitively and they're right. You can't make a financial decision intuitively and have it be right, but she does.

Well, here's what has to happen, I think, to drive:

1. contentment

2. confidence

3. communication

I think those are the three things that we're looking for. Contentment, confidence in our financial decisions, and the ability to communicate reasonably and well with our spouses, with our children, with our advisors, with other people. How do we do that? How do we communicate well without it becoming a conflict or a battle?

I think you have to answer two questions and you have to make one decision. I was consulting with a fellow from Indianapolis. He was a heart surgeon, and he called me back in about 1980 or 1981. His question to me was, "Is it okay for a Christian to live in a million-dollar home?"

That's a good question. We were sitting in his living room, and to tell you the truth, it was a home that I lusted after. It was really nice. He had built it, and then he was feeling guilty. So I was giving him some financial advice, and he said, "Is it okay for a Christian to live in a million-dollar home?"

God gave me some wisdom at that particular point. I said, "How much time are you spending asking God that question?"

He said, "I don't have a lot of time. I'm in surgery, typically, by 6:00 in the morning. I may have a call at night and be home late."

So I said, "What are you doing at 4:00 in the morning?"

He said, "Well, generally, sleeping."

I said, "Then you don't have anything better to do. Why don't you get up and spend 10 minutes having a quiet time and asking God that question?" And he started. He was a very, very successful man, and he was spiritual. But he wasn't necessarily fully, 100% committed.

Well, he started, and we were on vacation with them later that summer, and his wife said, "He's spending two hours a day reading God's word." And you know what? He never asked me that question again.

He sold the home five or six months ago. God used that home as an evangelistic outreach. This guy's on multiple boards of directors. He's an evangelical leader in America. Because he had to ask the right question. The right question when it comes to financial planning is "What would God have me do?" That's the right question.

It's not a question of what the advisor says or what television says. And I can find out typically what God would have me to do by looking at scripture. So I would say the first two questions are:

1. Who owns it? If you think about it, when you ask that question, if you answer the question with, "God owns it," there are a lot of implications to that. One of the implications is that I hold everything with an open hand, because it's his. He can put in what he wants to put in. He can take out what he wants to take out. Because I lose my financial freedom when I [close my hand]. Now, it owns me. When I hold [my hand open], God owns it. And it's up to him to put in what he wants to put in and take out what he wants to take out.

Now, think about this. The implication of that is God's always in control. So when the stock market crashes, when the hurricanes of life come, it's okay. Because I can't lose something I don't own. That's big. When you say God owns it all, then he can take whatever he wants whenever he wants, because it's his. That gives you freedom, because the ultimate conclusion of that is he will meet my needs. And that's what scripture says. It says it in Hebrews 13:5 that I just read. It says it in 2 Corinthians 9:6-8. All fear is gone when I don't own anything.

Now, I've got to tell you that's not a question that's answered once and for all. That's a question in my life that is being answered on almost a daily basis. Because I want to take it back. I want to be in control. But then I come back and I say, "No. Wait a minute. He owns it."

So if I deal with that question of who owns it, it changes everything.

Let me share a funny story with you to kind of make that point. This is Sherlock Holmes on a camping trip. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip, and after a good meal and a bottle of red wine, they lay down for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes woke up, nudged his faithful friend, and said, "Watson, I want you to look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson said, "I see millions and millions of stars."

Sherlock said, as a good detective, "And what does that tell you?"

After a minute or so of pondering, Watson said, "Astronomically, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three in the morning. And theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect, we'll have a beautiful today. What does it tell you, Sherlock?"

Holmes was silent for about 30 seconds, and he said, "Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent.

Now, here's the point. They were both looking at the same thing, but they had a different perspective. So when my perspective is that God owns it all, it changes everything about what I see and what I hear and what I take in. That's why that question is so dramatically important. Because behavior always follows belief.

I would challenge you to read 1 Chronicles 29:11-12. Any of you who have been through a Crown bible study would have memorized that one. It says, "God is the owner of everything." It's the answer to the fear question. When you answer the question, God owns it. I want to tell you again, it's not a once-and-for-all decision. It is an ongoing challenge to your faith.

2. How much is enough? What's the finish line? Because if you don't know what the finish line is, you'll never know when you've arrived. In America, how much is enough is always just a little bit more.

It's interesting. I traveled to Africa a lot with Campus Crusade in the late '70s and I had gone to Nairobi, and there were several us that took a trip outside Nairobi. We were about four hours outside Nairobi, and we were sitting on a hill at an African pastor’s home. Looking down at his mud hut with a thatch roof-- he had five children and lived in this one-room mud hut. He and his family were kind of the picture of contentment, which was really interesting to me.

I asked him the question, "What's the greatest barrier to the spread of the Gospel in this part of the world?" I would have expected the answer to be money or communication or transportation or tribalism or something like that.

But what he said was, "The greatest barrier to the spread of the Gospel in this part of the world is materialism."

I said, "What do you mean - materialism?"

He said, "If a man has a mud hut, he wants a stone hut. If he has a thatch roof, he wants a tin roof. If he has one acre, he wants two acres. If he's got on cow, he wants two cows."

The answer to the question of how much is enough is really important at any income level. We somehow have the idea that if I have more, I'll have enough. I want to tell you what. This is from my experience, so you'll have to take it on the basis of faith. You can never accumulate enough to feel significant or successful or secure, which most of us are after - significance, success, or security. You cannot accumulate enough money to feel those things.

I say that on the basis of having visited with a lot billionaires and say, "Do you feel rich?"

The answer is always, "No."

You can't feel rich. You can only believe rich. No amount of money will make you feel what you think you will feel. As a matter of fact, the more that you have, the more choices you have and therefore, the greater the complexity of life and the more confusion there is. So the more you have, the more confusion there is, not the more freedom that there is. Yes, you can make decisions differently, but the more and more and more will never ever satisfy the significance, the success, or the security.

When Judy and I got married, we lived in a 28-foot long trailer that was eight feet wide, six feet tall. You could sit on the pot, do the ironing, and cook dinner without moving. When Judy did the ironing, I either had to get out of the trailer or go to the back bedroom of the trailer, because the ironing board and me could not fit in the living room. We didn't have a lot of choices to make. We didn't decide where we were going to eat. If there was food in the pantry, we were going to eat that.

We didn't have to decide how much money to put away in a 401k. We didn't have to decide how much money we were going to spend for college. We didn't have to decide where to invest money. We didn't have to decide what kind of car we were going to buy, what kind of clothes we were going to buy. We didn't have to decide any of those things.

Well, almost 50 years later, five kids, 13 grandkids, multiple college educations and cars and investments and homes and so forth, I enjoy life. But it's not less confusing because I have more. If anything, it takes me a lot more time to manage it. I'm not saying it's wrong to have at all. But what I am saying is that it is not the satisfaction of everything that you think - that there's not a finish line that says, "Once I get there, I'm going to be okay." Because you won't. Because it's not a matter of money. It's always a matter of a belief system.

It's also a matter of wisdom. Again, my wife and I were talking on something over the weekend. You all remember Enron. She was reading something about Enron. And when Enron folded, there were $6 billion of market value that was lost, and $2 billion in pension funds that was lost. $8 billion was the loss.

At my old company, we had an office in Houston. We had a lot of Enron executives as clients. We had to make a decision. This was in the '90s and Enron stock was going [up]. And everybody was re-investing in Enron stock, so our council was, "Look. It's going up, but I want to tell you what. The bible would say, "Diversify your portfolio." You're going to go against conventional wisdom, you're going to look foolish.' But that's what the bible would say." And you know what happened to Enron. The executives that we worked with were very fortunate because they didn't. It was biblical wisdom that went against the conventional wisdom.

I had another client who heard me give a talk on how much is enough. We were on a cruise. He said, "I'm going to go home and sell my company."

I said, "Really? Why?"

He said, "I've got more than enough. My company's worth $30 million. I'm going to go home and sell it."

I said, "Well, let's talk about that before you do it." So I spent about two years working with this couple. I said, "What are you going to do if you sell your company?"

He said, "I'm going to go to work for a ministry." He was a contractor-type entrepreneur.

I said, "You could ruin a lot of good ministries."

He was in the demolition business - big demolition. This was in southern California, and the economy in southern California was on an upward trend. I told him two things.

1. "Why don't you and your wife set a giving goal?" And they did. They set a giving goal of $1 billion. I said, "God's given you the gift of making money. Why don't you use that gift to give." In other words, "Earn to give. You don't have to earn to live. You've got all that you need there. Why don't you set a giving goal?" They set a giving goal of $1 billion.

I also said, "Because you're generating so much cash flow out of your business, why don't you pay off all that equipment debt?" That goes totally against business sense, if you will. You want to leverage up. But he followed the biblical wisdom just like the Enron executives did. He paid off all of his debt in the late '80s and in 1990 or 1991, the California economy collapsed. He was the only survivor in that business west of the Mississippi. He bought out every competitor for pennies on the dollar. Then he had no competitors.

I was in his home the night of the San Francisco earthquake – at the World Series. His equipment is what showed up to take down those bridges and do all of the demolition work. He made a lot of money. A few years later, there was a quake in Los Angeles. I said, "Do you know what? God sends an earthquake every time you need some more money."

Here's what happened. He eventually sold his company for $160 million, I think. And he put $100 million into the National Christian Foundation. This was 1992 or 1993, something like that. Well, we had one part-time employee when he did that. But he said, "You can have the $100 million and you can take all of the earnings off of that and build your infrastructure for this foundation."

This is 20 years later. Randy, how much money has NCF given? $5 billion out. This guy's the guy who really started, financially, the National Christian Foundation. And he has seen through other people's contributions $5 billion going out. He set that goal, and he went against conventional wisdom. That's why I say, "God's ways are not our ways." If you listen to what he has to say, he has a lot to say about your attitude towards money. And you can make decisions differently when you're listening to what he has to say.

If you're dependent upon money, you're never going to have enough. If you're dependent upon God, you'll always have enough. You will never ever not have enough.

The one decision that I would, then, suggest - Matthew 6:19 - 24 - "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." If you want to break the power of money, you've got to give. You go like this [opened hand] and that breaks the power of money. God doesn't need the money. He's not interested in the money. He's interested in our hearts. And he uses money as a tool to get to my heart and as a test to get to my heart.

I've been in this business almost 50 years. Those are the big rocks of what I've learned. I think I've already told you more than I know. So let's have some questions if we've got any.

Ask any question. My kids say, "Dad, you may not understand, but you can explain it." So ask a question.

Question 1:          My wife and I have been truly blessed financially. That doesn't mean we're wealthy, but as we retire, we're comfortable. I thank God for everything we have. I think of the verse where the young man came to Jesus and said, "What else do I need to do?" Because he's been obedient and he follows the 10 Commandments.

And Jesus said, "Sell everything you have in your possession and follow me."

Of course, he walks away sad, because that was real tough to do. That would be real hard for anybody to think of that. But I think that continues to haunt me for a lack of a better way of saying that. You've been good in terms of how you communicate that God owns it. But I'm still struggling with how can you come to a decision as to what you part with and you've got to still provide security for your family, for your wife if I pre-decease her. I don't know if that makes sense.

Ron Blue:               Oh, yeah. It makes absolute sense. It's a great question to wrestle with, and not very many people will have the courage to wrestle with it. Because it's a significant decision.

What I found in terms of biblical principles and wisdom is that God doesn't set up rules. He sets up principles. If God said, "Give everything away at age 65," we would give away at age 65. If he said, "The Christian lifestyle is 37 1/2% of adjusted gross income," we would spend 37 ½%. We would follow the rules. Because what he wants to do is to build my faith.

So even in this decision, it's not about the money. It's about your faith. What you have is you've got multiple principles. And here's a principle also. It says in I Timothy that a man worse than an infidel that doesn't provide for his family. And you've got the rich, young ruler. So which one governs? I think that what he does is he wants to drive me to my knees to answer that question.

I'm always cautious about-- I won't say extreme positions because I've seen a lot of extreme positions work out. But I would say if you're sincerely looking for the answer to that question, God will give it to you. But don't forget that providing for your family is as strong a principle. The rich, young ruler was an illustration and he was illustrating something. But providing for your family is much more of a principle to follow.

I'm 72 years old and I've wrestled with that question too. How much should I accumulate for retirement? And how do I provide for my family? It's a constant tension, but I would be really cautious about somebody ever not making sure that their spouse was taken care of. I wouldn't give you an answer except to drive you back to, "God will give you the answer." And he will. Don't be anxious to make that decision either. Let him show you. He will.

Question 2:          Over the last 40 years, in your business and communicating with people, how have you seen the characteristics of people change, if at all? Is it more involved? Easier? Harder? Just as you look at the spectrum?

Ron Blue:               I was born in 1942 right after Pearl Harbor. If I follow my life, I've lived through an awful lot of economic ups and downs and wars and recessions and so forth. Yet, 40% of the world's wealth is in America. And 2 1/2% of the world's population is in America. What I have observed is that people are much more cognizant of the fact that wealth is not the answer. Materialism is not the answer. I think that that's a good thing. I think that people are looking around and if wealth were the answer, professional athletes would be the happiest people on earth. And we don't see that. We see unbelievable amounts of money paid for entertainment. Yet, you see divorces, you see money is not the answer.

So my observation in my life is that people have looked and said that money or wealth is not the answer. Therefore, I think we have a window of opportunity as believers to tell them what the answer is.

Question 3:          You talked about conflicts and relationships with your spouse. My wife and I, have been married 59 years.

Ron Blue:               Congratulations.

Question 3:          It's been a struggle at times. But just a reminder for those of you who haven't been married that long, when we were first married, the pastor said that the two will become one flesh and now after 59 years, the two have become one brain.

Ron Blue:               I've already found that the problem is deciding which one flesh you're going to become.

Question 3:          My other comment was that I wanted to talk about the parable of the talents. It says in there that one was given 10 and one was given five and one was given one. It tells you how many talents are returned to the man, but it didn't really say how many were earned by these people. But I can tell you the poor guy that buried his got nothing. So when you're given talents, use them, enjoy them and return them to God.

Ron Blue:               Yep. Here's a question on that, which I find really intriguing. Why did the master give the one talent to the one who had 10? He said to both, "Well-done good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with few things." Why did he give it to the one with the 10?

Question 3:          That is a good question.

Ron Blue:               That is a good question. I think the answer is, it's his talent. He can do with it what he wants to do.

Question 4:          Hey, Ron. Can you talk a bit about family legacy? What have you intentionally done to pass on the wisdom that you've picked up in 72 years to your kids and your grandkids?

Ron Blue:               You need to start early. Probably, the biggest thing that happened in our family and family legacy, our kids would not have even been aware and that was when Judy and I had the opportunity to go back to Indianapolis and take over the CPA firm that I had started. When we went through the thinking and decision of it, we said, "If we go back, what's likely to happen is we're going to get into the same lifestyle we came out of when we wentt into ministry, and that was a materialistic lifestyle. If we do, with five kids, we're likely to lose one or more to that materialism." So we made the decision to start the financial planning practice as opposed to going back to something that was secure because of our kids.

I also made a commitment as a lot of-- I've built several businesses, but the financial planning firm that I built is a big firm. But I made a commitment that I would never bring work home at night and I would never work on weekends. And when I traveled, I always had rules on when I would travel. So if I was gone on a weekend, speaking or something, then I didn't travel the week before or the week after. I was always home for dinner and home for breakfast. These were rules that we set up.

Judy's 70th birthday was this last week, and the five kids each filled out 14 reasons why they appreciated their mother, which made 70 - 5 x 14 is 70. It was really fascinating, because some of the things-- the dinner table was really important. We never left the dinner table until the last kid left. We laughed a lot. They saw generosity. We entertained missionaries. So we didn't follow rules as much as we tried to live a life.

God honored that. The five kids are all doing well. They all married well and raising their kids. They don't raise their kids like we did. And anybody here who has adult children knows exactly what I'm talking about. And they don't ask your advice about those kids.

So it was more a lifestyle than it was-- I did things with my kids. I always took the oldest one out for breakfast every week when they were in school. Then they would leave and the next one would get that. I took them on trips. So it was a lifestyle over many, many years and they've done very well.

It's kind of late to start when their gone.

Question 4:          [Inaudible 00:46:27 - 00:46:31]

Ron Blue:               Yeah. They are and they're aware that you all are doing fine. We're going to give it all away.

Question 4:          [Inaudible 00:46:40 - 00:46:41]

Ron Blue:               Very well. I haven't seen wealth transferred well. I interviewed David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby, several weeks ago. I don't even remember the question I asked him, but the answer he gave, I remember. He said, "We realized several years ago that we were creating something that was going to have immense value - billions of dollars of value. So my wife and I had to ask and answer the question, “If we have 20 heirs - children and grandchildren - and we've done a phenomenal job of raising these kids and they've raised their kids - and 19 of them can handle the wealth, but it would ruin one," they said it wasn't worth it. He said it wasn't worth it. So he said, "If we sell Hobby Lobby, we don't get a penny. We don't want to take the chance of ruining a kid."

Now, I'm sure they're taking care of their kids when they're growing up and so forth. But it's a really tough thing. I say this with kids, "If you love your children equally, you'll treat them uniquely. Because they're unique individuals." That's in that book Splitting Heirs if you want to buy it. Acton makes all the money on that. I don't make any money.

Question 4:          The agent makes all the money.

Ron Blue:               The agent makes all the money. That's right.

I know many of you are affiliated with NCF, but that is a phenomenal success story. Larry Burkett and Terry Parker and myself were the founders of it, but it didn't get started until that donor put that $100 million in there. And Terry went full time and has really built that thing significantly. It's a great, great tool.

Question 5:          Could you expand a little bit more on what you just said - "Treat them uniquely." I use the phrase, "Fair isn't equal and equal isn't fair." I could use a little more on that.

Ron Blue:               Let me give you an example. I wrote the book, Splitting Heirs, because Judy and I were going through the estate planning process, and I had worked a lot with clients, so we were applying it ourselves. The first thing we did was ask ourselves the question, "If we left, say $1 million to this particular child, what's the worst thing that could happen?" We had five different answers with five different children.

In one case, he'd give it all away. You say, "How serious is that?" The answer was, "Not very serious."

The third question was, "How likely is that to occur," and the answer was, "Probably 100%." Because he has a real giving heart.

One of our daughters married a man who grew up in a 600-square-foot home in Moody, Alabama. They met at the University of Auburn. His intense need was to provide for his family. His dad had drilled that into him. "It's your responsibility to provide for your family."

So we asked ourselves the question, "What's the worst thing that could happen if we left $1 million to them?" The answer was, "We would take away his opportunity to provide for his family."

We said, "How serious is that?" That's really serious. That's a real significant consequence. And we said, "How likely is that to occur?" And the answer was, "Probably 100%."

That was almost 20 years ago, and today, things have changed. And incidentally, all of this estate-planning changes over time. Your kids change, the marriages change, the grandkids change. It's not something that is set in stone and is forever. We've seen so many changes. And now, our oldest is 47, the oldest is 36. They pretty well made and so it's not like we need to provide for them anymore.

But while we were doing this, our third daughter went through a divorce and she was a single mom for six years. And we were providing for her a lot. But when we said, "What are her needs?" Her needs were significant compared to her siblings. So we said, "She's our number one priority when it comes to whatever happens with wealth."

It was an agonizing decision, but her needs were unique. And we've taught our kids all along that, "We love you equally, but we are not going to give,"-- my wife gives away a lot of money-- "it doesn't mean we're going to give it to the other four."

One son-in-law lost a job. We provided. We didn't feel any obligation whatsoever to equal that out with the other kids. That's kind of what I mean. I think it's a great principle.

Now, most people when they go through that process will end up ending with equal, but they think about it a lot differently.

Boy, that shut it down.

Question 6:          How important is it to include your kids or inform your kids of what is in the trust and how they would benefit, not benefit, or what the thinking is behind this?

Ron Blue:               I'll tell you what we have found. This is our personal situation. We've not shared dollars with them, because it's changed. When they were younger, we were leaving quite a bit of money to them. But as they've gotten older, we've realized that the money that we leave-- when your kids are in their 50s, they've made their life. So the money ends up in the third generation. We're uncomfortable with the money ending up in the third generation. We've wanted to provide for our kids, but we have not wanted to make our grandchildren wealthy.

So we've not shared with them dollars. We've shared with them that we have a giving heart and we want to provide for them, but our goal is that all the money is allocated to the Kingdom one way or the other.

A lot of people will share the specifics. I've sat in on those conversations and they're okay, especially when they're in concrete. But the way we've worked out is we've decided we're not going to tell them specifics, because the specifics change in our case.

Question 7:          You've done some great work with Kingdom advisors. What would you suggest the considerations be when selecting advisors?

Ron Blue:               Was that the question I gave you? I feel pretty strongly that advisors should share your value system. If they don't understand where you're coming from, they can't ask you the right questions. And if they don't ask you the right question, you'd never get the right answer.

I've spent the last 11 years training Christian advisors to integrate biblical wisdom into their advice and counsel. God has really honored that. We've got 1500 advisors around the country, and we're getting ready, I think, to really explode with the opportunities that the Lord has brought. My counsel would be to certainly interview an advisor before you hire them and find out where they stand spiritually. It doesn't mean because they're a Christian, they give good advice. I'm not even saying that.

You want a believer who has some wisdom with them. I had a friend who was an air force colonel. He was a caustic guy. He said, "You know, if you were stupid before you became a Christian, when you become a Christian, you're a stupid Christian."

So being a Christian does not mean that you give good financial advice. So don't hire an advisor just because they're a believer. But test them. And there are some good ones. Right over there's one. That's Kevin Cusak.

Question 8:          [Inaudible 00:56:00 - 00:56:18]

Ron Blue:               Okay. I spent an hour with Dave [Ramsey] last week incidentally. Dave's a friend of mine. I think the big difference is that what God has shown me over the years is that financial advice should begin with a biblical world view. So all that I've done over time has been to take what God's word says and try to make it work in the advice area. It's never prescriptive. Because I don't think God's word is prescriptive. He wants me or you to operate on a faith basis.

I think Dave's advice is very prescriptive. That's not wrong. But that's where he comes from, and it kind of tacks the bible on as opposed to begin with a biblical world to you. Again, I don't criticize that. Dave's got a real evangelistic heart, and he gives good advice for the most part.

But I have trouble with black and white advice. Because I find that it's not always black and white. For example, our approach on debt would be a little different. I don't discount what he says. But I think there are some principles that govern debt. I don't believe debt is wrong. I believe, in many cases, it's stupid. But it's not wrong. It's not a sin to be in debt. It's just foolish.

But there are instances on debt that I've seen that are necessary. I've seen an awful lot of people with illnesses, unexpected loss of jobs, things like that where it comes down to a debt situation. I don't believe in debt for funding lifestyle - be it consumer debt or be it even mortgage debt.

So we would agree on almost everything probably if you sat us in a room like we were a week ago. But his approach is totally different. And he's much more confrontational than I am. He loves it. He loves to be confronted.

I was on Gary Ballard's board for a while, and one time, Gary was going to be interviewed by somebody that was going to try to kill him. And he said, "Ron, I think I have a character flaw. I love this stuff."

I said, "That's just not me."

So Dave's not me. And I think mine is much more what God has taught me as the financial planning and decision making. It's a holistic approach to financial advice. But that's a good question.

Question 9:          Many of the people I deal in my corporate clients, if they had children, they make kind of an automatic assumption that they will split their wealth evenly with two kids, three kids, four kids, whatever it is. What do you say to someone to plant the seed that, "Let's think beyond that and think about some sort of charitable gift," whether it's percentage, whether it's a particular asset, whatever it might be? What do you say to somebody to really plant that seed and start aggravating their thinking?

Ron Blue:               The best advice is typically the questions you ask. It's not the advice that you give. What I would say in a situation like that is, "What do you think you would happen to _______ if you do this? Do you have any risk of the marriages? What's going to happen with the grandkids?"

I would ask a lot of questions like that and I probably wouldn't give them one of my books. But I have written a book that, as an advisor, I would give them that book, because it confronts those issues head on and you don't have to confront them. You can just counsel with them. Because it asks those questions.

I think that the greatest mistake made in the whole wealth transfer area is that people go right immediately to the tools and techniques without answering the questions. And the tools and the techniques are to accomplish the objective. They are not the objective. A tool like that book, Splitting Heirs, would be helpful. I would say that.

Mike Cook:           Okay. Thank you.