Faith + Business: Kyle on The Generous Business Owner

Kyle Hunt: So today's episode's a little bit different. It is a replay of a podcast that I recorded ⁓ for the Generous Business Owner podcast. I think the way I was trying to reflect back on how I got connected with them, think AJ Ballantine, a wonderful remodeler in the DC area, also the owner and founder of Render, connected me with the gentleman from Homes for Hope, which is an amazing nonprofit that's doing amazing work across the world.

speaker-0: Welcome everybody this week's generous owner podcast. name is Jeff Thomas and we have a very special guest with us today. Kyle Hunt, who's the founder of Remodellers on the Rise, which is a consultant to that particular industry. You'll learn all about that, but Kyle just want to welcome you to the program.

Kyle Hunt: And they kind of connected me in with the gentleman who you'll hear interviewing me on the Generous Business Owner podcast. Recorded this back at the tail end of 2025 and it's different. It is kind of talking about my faith, talking about business and faith, how we kind of protect our hearts from kind of what I got into of just the love of money. And how do we

speaker-1: when you say very special guest, do say that to all of your guests or just this one?

speaker-0: But maybe they're all very special, Dial. I mean, that we only invite very.

speaker-1: Well, there we go. am honored to be here, my new friend.

speaker-0: Well, it's great to have you and I know you do a podcast. What's the name of your podcast? There you go. So if you're a remodeler, check it out. But we always start, Kyle, with kind of just some context. This is really just about your story and maybe what we can all learn from it. But where did you grow up? What was your family like? Was there any faith stuff going on? Any entrepreneur stuff going on? Were you swinging a hammer? What was going on?

speaker-1: Remodellers on the rise.

Kyle Hunt: overall, amongst other things we talked about in the podcast, how overall can we set up our businesses and frankly ourselves to be generous, to be giving, to serve others well. And I appreciated the interview. I appreciated kind of the questions and the path it took. And frankly, it's a lot different than, uh, than most remodelers on the rise podcasts. And I hope that you enjoy it. And I hope the result. I want to tell you about something that we see all the time in our coaching work. A remodeler joins, remodeler's on the rise, feeling overwhelmed. Projects feel scattered, financials feel fuzzy, systems feel patched together. Then they implement JobTread. And over time, things start to change for the better. Their estimates get tighter, their schedules get clearer, their job costing gets more accurate, their invoicing gets more consistent. We've watched JobTread help our members move I want to tell you about something that we see all the time in our coaching work. A remodeler joins, remodeler's on the rise, feeling overwhelmed. Projects feel scattered, financials feel fuzzy, systems feel patched together. Then they implement JobTread. And over time, things start to change for the better. Their estimates get tighter, their schedules get clearer, their job costing gets more accurate, their invoicing gets more consistent. We've watched JobTread help our members move

speaker-1: kinds of well from being from Michigan I can use my little trusty

speaker-0: Yes, for the YouTubers, make sure you go on YouTube. He's got the hand of Michigan.

Kyle Hunt: Is you thinking a little bit differently or a little bit more about what generosity looks like in your life and in your business? Enjoy today's episode.

speaker-1: Lower peninsula for those of you paying attention. So I grew up down here more towards that border and then, ⁓ live a little further just north of Ann Arbor now. So I grew up down off a dirt road down in, ⁓ in Maycon, Michigan in particular, we had four corners and we had a little Methodist church and we had a little party store and a nine hole golf course. So I did a lot of working at the golf course and golfing growing up. And then my family and I went to the Maycon United Methodist church. Still going.

Kyle Hunt: from chaos to control, not overnight, but in a sustainable way that supports growth. It's an all-in-one platform built for remodellers who want to run a real business, not just stay busy. If you're ready for a better system, better decisions, learn more at jobtread.com. from chaos to control, not overnight, but in a sustainable way that supports growth. It's an all-in-one platform built for remodellers who want to run a real business, not just stay busy. If you're ready for a better system, better decisions, learn more at jobtread.com.

speaker-1: Wow. wouldn't say quite as strong as it was in the past, but I think there are 150 years or so in. So kind of grew up out there and always from a faith standpoint, just always went to church. I would say when I started dating my now wife, when I was a junior in high school, found my way kind of scooting to the big town, which was 10 minutes away and going to church with them quite a bit as well. And I can share a little bit more of kind of my faith journey as we go. But yeah, that was kind of early. Yeah, I guess young in and then always been on the business side, always been bent towards being an entrepreneur. ⁓ Just always kind of had that itch. took a website design class in high school and quickly made the connection of going, ⁓ I collect a lot of baseball cards. Alan Trammell in particular Hall of Famer, Alan Trammell for those keeping track at home. And I said, wait a minute, if I set up a baseball card website. I could trade for other trammel cards and all of a sudden I set up majorly cards.com and a PO box, PO box 162 and Decompsey and really learned a lot about business just from early buying and selling and packaging and shipping and all of that online. And that kind of just started a little bit of my entrepreneurial journey. How old? 16. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I was making.

speaker-0: were you when you were doing that? Yeah. Did you make a little money doing it?

speaker-1: You know, I also had a website called earn hash online.com affiliate marketing and all that fun stuff. And I remember getting a couple hundred dollar checks. And then on the baseball card side, just, you know, I'd make 20 bucks here and make 30 bucks here and kind of did that even through college. And then when my wife and I were getting ready to get married, I sold that majorly cards.com domain name and kind of said, all right, I've had enough of that. Yeah.

speaker-0: That's a good domain.

speaker-1: Yeah, and all of sudden baseball cards are having a resurgence, I guess, over last few years.

speaker-0: card just wait for the most money ever.

speaker-1: Yes. So kind of always had that the business itch. I was an advertising manager for a student newspaper. I went to Western Michigan in college and it was actually through another entrepreneurial thing I did. Back in high school, I created some Excel spreadsheets for my baseball coach. Shout out Mr. Harsh. And it basically tracked the team statistics. And when I was a senior in college, I thought, you know what, I'm going to write a little sales letter. and send it out to all of the high school baseball and softball coaches in Michigan. And I'd registered track the team.com and sold this little set of spreadsheets where baseball and softball coaches could track their team statistics. This was back before apps. All you young whippersnappers listening to this, we used to have to do this by Excel spreadsheets. And I ended up, I kind of figured I'll sell enough of these to take my fiance out to some nice dinners. And I did that. But one of the gentlemen who bought it was a guy named Jim Long in Northville, Michigan. And he had some questions on how to get the spreadsheets working. And he reached out to me and said, Hey, I saw that letter. It sounds like you're student at Western Michigan. We're actually looking to create a position at our company. I wonder if they're teaching this stuff at school. And he was a kitchen and bathroom modeling company and a plumbing and cooling company. And he needed somebody to take care of his marketing, his advertising. And I said, man, you're talking about me here. Like that's what I've been doing. I majored in finance, but I was, you know, applying for banking jobs and I was already starting to yawn by going, ⁓ am I really going to like that? So we actually did our interview at his, ⁓ at his country club. I whooped his butt and at the end of it, got a job offer. ⁓

speaker-0: Okay, now wait. Sorry, I think I missed a piece of that. So this is while you're in college or you're...

speaker-1: I'm getting ready to graduate looking for my first job out of college.

speaker-0: Yeah, and he saw that you were doing this for.

speaker-1: Track the team. was the assistant softball coach for Northville High School. So he got one of those letters and bought the $50 deal I was offering.

speaker-0: But somehow he figured out that you weren't just a baseball sort of programming nerd, that you had some kind of marketing chops.

speaker-1: Yes, because the letter that I wrote said, Hey, my name is Kyle Hunt. I used to play baseball in high school. Now a student at Western Michigan studying business and finance. And I created these spreadsheets and I'm offering it to, you know, you as a softball coach here in Michigan. So we, I see it very providential as I look back at it of going, huh. So if I hadn't done that, if Jim hadn't bought that, if Jim didn't have very, very solid computer skills and didn't have questions on how to get it working. Chances are my whole career path would have been totally different. So I look back at it see the Lord at work in it.

speaker-0: 100 % because I'm sitting here thinking if I got that letter, I'm just stereotyping you as the programmer guy and I have a marketing need and I would not have necessarily put that's actually amazing to me that he sort of put that together. I think he was impressed with your ability to market. Yeah, it's a tough, you know what mean?

speaker-1: Yeah, potentially. think there may have been a little bit of that. It goes back to just storytelling, right? If I hadn't kind of told a little story, made little connection there, that's always important as we navigate business and life.

speaker-0: Okay, and so you're at Western Michigan. Where was he located?

speaker-1: I happen to have map on my left hand here. So I was over at Western Michigan for college and then he was actually back on the east side.

speaker-0: for the part. My wife. So you had to move!

speaker-1: Did you move to this job? Well, I mean, we were already kind of trying to figure out where we were going to land. So I landed that job. I graduated in December. We got married the following June. My wife graduated in May right before we got married. So that kind of brought us back towards home and she got a teaching job in Lansing and I had a job in Northville and we kind of just picked a middle point of the Howell-Brighton area where we're still at.

speaker-0: Okay, so how did this first job go? How did this first advertising job go? That's how you got into remodeling. it's been the same for 20

speaker-1: 20 years, right? Yeah, 20 years. So I ended up kind of handling their marketing and advertising work. And then through that got involved in the financial side of the business and then started managing their bath and kitchen designers. So it got a little bit of a well-rounded view of our modeling business and ended up probably about three years into that young whippersnapper 25 year old Kyle came home one day and said, Sarah, my sweetheart, I know we have one kid, we have another one on the way. It's a crappy economy here in Michigan, 2008, auto, et cetera. We have no money in the bank to fall back on and I want to quit my job and start my own business.

speaker-0: But I have a feeling even though she probably had a little bit of shock, she knew who she married. So what was her reaction?

speaker-1: I mean, I feel like there's some revisionist history in her story where she's like, oh, like early on, was, there was a little bit of, ah, you sure about that? But she, to our credit, yeah, she was always supportive. And I turned my first, I kind of turned my employer into my first client. So I kind of weaned off of them where it's like, they were very kind to work with me. And, you know, I started working for them three days a week and then two days a week, and then one day a week. You know, I was only making, you know, $42,000 a year. So it wasn't a huge undertaking. I would say also I had a mentor of mine who said, Hey, the longer you wait, the harder this is going to be for you to take the leap. And I was young and naive enough to think this is going to be easy. So I kind of the trigger on it.

speaker-0: So how long did it take before you kind of thought, okay, I'm gonna make it.

speaker-1: I would say back to my wife, I would say that there was a lot of, Kyle, wasn't this just easier when he had a regular job? Right, right, right. And that happened for the first year, maybe two years. And then I remember thinking one day, huh, she hasn't asked me that in a while. I might be onto something here. But building a business takes a long, I mean, I think there's several things that I don't know who's listening to this or where they're at in their journey. One is God works in mysterious ways sometimes.

speaker-0: Hey

speaker-1: But what you also heard there was I had some ideas and I just kind of said, you know what? I'm going to try them. I mailed. It was weird to fold up letters and mail it to 500 high schools in Michigan and spend, you know, $372 doing that. But I just had an idea and I'm like, ah, let's give that a try. So I think there's something to be said for trying new things and saying, you know, I don't have a lot to lose here. Let me give this a shot. I would say there's something to be said for, you know, feeling a little bit of a nudge and also having some self-awareness that. You know, if you're bent towards being an entrepreneur, maybe that's also something to take a little bit of a risk. Be wise in it, but take a little bit of a risk. So there's a little bit in there. then building a business is just really hard work and it takes time and there's no magic bullet in it. It's a combination of doing a lot of little things consistently over time.

speaker-0: Yeah, such a so true and what was the original idea? I mean, you said you mailed some stuff to schools. What was the?

speaker-1: I mean, that was once I started my business, it was, hey, small business, you need proven, practical, effective marketing help. Yeah, I can offer you proven, practical marketing help. My business was called Remodel Your Marketing at the time. And I just kind of shortly after I started my business is when I kind of stuck my flag in the ground and said, you know what, I'm just going to work with remodeling companies. so it started in marketing, started picking up some clients, remodelers where I was doing the marketing work. And then Over time as I worked with them, it really started going, ⁓ you need some help with your sales process. ⁓ you don't know your numbers. You need some help on the financial side. So I'd say over the course of six, eight of my first years, I really developed from, I can help you with your marketing to, hey, I'm a business coach for remodelers. Remodelers are really good at what they do as far as swinging the hammer, as far as making the projects beautiful. But as far as the business and the marketing, the sales side, that's where there's a lot of work. So my job is to kind of help them elevate that up.

speaker-0: Okay, that's a good picture to paint because the word I thought of when you were describing that as craftsman, you know, I think of the people who can come and build cabinets or whatever. I think it's amazing what they can do. But I'm like, yeah, so how do you market yourself? How do you get new jobs? How do you keep the finances? What are some of the other unique things about that particular industry?

speaker-1: I'm a little jaded because I've been working with remodeling for a long time, but I would argue that it's one of the hardest small businesses to run. You're dealing with, you know, going into people's houses and disrupting their day in and day out and inspections and permits and, ⁓ I still have to market and I still have to sell and we're ordering materials and we're relying on employees, we're relying on trade partners. It is a really complicated business. At the same time, there's knuckleheads that run remodeling companies and you hear about them on the news and they don't. take care of people and they don't do a good job and they disappear. But what I found is that there's also a lot of really high quality people that run remodeling companies. Some with a college degree, some of them without a college degree, but the good remodelers care about delivering a great experience for their clients. The challenge is to do that in a profitable way as well.

speaker-0: Right. Well, since you've had a pretty good survey and we were talking before we started recording today a little about that kind of survey you've gotten to see after 20 years of doing that. And of course, this is the Generous Business Center podcast. So how do you think about kind of the correlation of maybe your faith or just being generous in general to I mean, there's lots of ways to do that in the remodeling business, right? There's a lot of constituents, as you just pointed out. customer, you're in their home. You've got these subs, you've got all kinds of things going on. It's a pretty intimate process. With people, what are the opportunities that you see for remodelers to kind of use that platform for generosity and how they do it well and maybe not so well?

speaker-1: Hmm. Yeah. I actually happen to have a shirt. This wasn't even, so I wasn't even planned, but I have a shirt here. Um, so when my clients MJ kitchen and bath, I may have been wearing this shirt earlier and then I thought, Oh, we're recording. I should probably put a collared shirt on. That's why I happened to be right here, but this is kind of a good example. Um, these are their core values on the back of their shirt. Love others be humble, do the right thing. Get her. Those are their four core values. More and more. Yeah. More and more over the last number of years in my coaching and my own business. the power of kind of saying, hey, this is who we are and this is what we stand for. And having a set of core values is a great way to start to set a clear expectation amongst the team of this is what we're about. And once you have that documented, starting to live that out, for example, in their case, love others, there's a lot of ways that they can employ that. There's a lot of companies who, once they have their core values really clear, can start to talk about them at every team meeting can start to brainstorm. How am I going to, how are we going to integrate this, this month? And also on the flip side, when we're not adhering to some of those core values. So in my business, a few years ago, we created our core values around R ISE, the rise Vermalers on the rise. So R as results, I is improved S is serve and E is engage. And I have been very pleasantly surprised to see how that has allowed us to, I would say, be more generous to our clients. When I see that, the Serve one, especially for me, there's a way that we can go about our day and go, ugh, I got four one-on-one coaching calls today. I'm already tired and I've got other emails to reply to and I've already got a podcast to record, And I look at those core values and I go, Serve, the Lord has blessed your business. The Lord has you in a position. where you can speak and help and teach and guide and encourage people that are paying you good money to serve those people, serve those people. So that to me in my, frankly, in my life and in my business, being a generous business owner is having a very much a serve service first attitude. I've also noticed that the more I give, whether it's free advice, whether it's good ideas, whether it's a template, whether it's example, whether it's hopping on the phone. Jeff Rutt. I didn't know Jeff Rutt. I talked to Jeff for 30 minutes with two of his team members today. They somehow we got connected. They asked if we could talk for 30 minutes. I didn't talk to them at all about what I offer my services and I gave them a lot of really, really good advice in my little 30 minutes. And that's the way I like to approach business. The more we give, frankly, the more it'll come back to us. And it's a really fun way to be in business is if somebody reaches out to you, be generous. No. Don't let them take advantage of your time, but have a service first attitude. Help them, guide them. And guess what? The more you do that, the more people refer you and the more people want to do business with you. So those are a few examples. The E and R core values also is engage. And we talk about like, we lean into hard and difficult situations. When one of our clients, we're noticing that they're off, they're stressed, they're this, they're that. We lean into that. We engage in that. I think that's another example of a vein of generosity.

speaker-0: Hey, we're on a roll. We did serve, we did engage. What about improve? that? I mean, obviously there's a little bit of play on words there maybe, but.

speaker-1: Yeah, no, mean, results and improve, would say are the other two. And those are a little bit more just making sure that we're focused on delivering results. tangible results. And then the I improve is, is an example of, yes, we're aiming to improve the lives and the businesses of our clients, but we also are ⁓ really leaning into how do we get better kind of week in week out. I have two full-time team members and I have three coaches that are managing some of my peer groups. So as the team is building over the last number of years, you know, that improve and how do we continue to fine tune things is important for us.

speaker-0: One thing that really stood out to me about what you were talking about is talking about who we are. I really like that sort of question. Like, who are you? I like sort of starting with that. I do not have a marketing brain. I mean, I'm OK at sales, but I'm really not good at marketing. I think they're kind of two different skill sets. And so we have a new marketing company that's really helping us with exactly like a brand book. And they're like, well, that's who you are. I'm like, I thought we already knew, but we don't tell that well. And was really interesting to have somebody come from the outside and kind of look at it and hear our language and reflect that. Is that something that you kind of try to do for people that maybe get a little stuck because they kind of do the thing that they're good at naturally and they don't know maybe how to put the words to it to define it?

speaker-1: early on in my business, did a lot of that. would say in particular with the core values, it's amazing when the business owner or some of the leadership just sits down and thinks for an hour and slows down enough to be like, what is it that we're about? And then brings the team around and kind of says, hey, here's some of the words that we're coming up with. Does this resonate? Does this where we're either are at or what we're striving to go towards? And I think as far as being a gent to play off of your podcast name of being a generous business owner, I think it's very, powerful to get really clear with that. It is amazing for holding employees to a certain standard, ⁓ kind of on the negative side. It's a great way to praise and recognize team members. It sets a tone. It helps in your recruiting and interviewing. And frankly, when you don't have that in place, you know, it's just going to kind of bob and weave like, what are we, wait, are we all about making money? Is that, the bottom line what we're all about here? Well, if not, you better document it and tell me if not, what is it?

speaker-0: Yeah. What are some other things that you've seen people do well in this where you see, wow, man, the way they serve people, that was really a creative way of serving people, either internally or externally.

speaker-1: I would say what comes to my mind a little bit is on the employee side. I'll use my own business as an example. If you would have asked me, I guess I've been in business for eight, almost 18 years. I would say seven years in, if you would have said, Hey, Kyle, you're gonna see you're kind of building your business a little bit and you got more clients. Okay. That's cool. Okay. You got some stuff going. Do you think you're ever going to want employees? I would have said, no, I don't want the cost and the expense of that. I don't want the complexity of that. And then I got somebody part time. And then all of sudden that turned into Bailey who's on my team. She's been on my team for over six years. She's full time. And it turns out more mature business owner, Kyle absolutely loves having team members. I love it. I love creating an environment where it's very, very difficult for them to want to go anywhere else. I think that's part of being a general, that's a good goal for business owners to have, because if that's your goal. It's not just going to be about the compensation you give them. It's going to be about the way you recognize them, the way that you train them, the way that you encourage them, the way you appreciate them, the way that you give their them their day off on their birthday, the way that you pay attention to what they like and what they value. You pay attention to their stress level and their workload and you surprise them with a little gift card because they don't want to make dinner that night. And it just shows that you pay attention. You wanna pay them as good as you can possibly pay them compared to any other similar type of role. I wanna be the highest paid person. I wanna pay the highest. I wanna be the highest paid employer for that type of skill level. That's just a different approach. And I would say early in your business when it's like, I just need to make some money so that I can bring some money home. I just need to make some money so I can bring a little more money home. Well, that can keep going and going. You have to pay attention to when you get to a certain level of success in your business where you go, okay, we're very well taken care of at home here. You know, how else can we share this profits and how else can we share some of this growth and man, your team members and really taking great care of them is a wonderful place to do it. It's part of my ministry work. I see that as part of my ministry work is caring really, really well for yes, the employment of my employees, but also making sure that work-life balance for them is not hindered, that they're feeling encouraged, that they're feeling motivated, that they feel like they've got future and some excitement at my company. think as business owners, we want to keep that as a big goal of ours.

speaker-0: Yeah, and I think we were talking before we started recording about some of these obstacles to generosity, you know, like, you know, there's something about, you know, what you were talking about as the business grows and you sort of get to a sort of a level where I think there's always that moment for entrepreneurs where you're just like you were talking about it somewhere between year and two and three, my wife stopped asking is, you know, can you go get a real job? You know, so when you start to kind of at least get the basics covered. Can you talk about what are some of those obstacles you know that you could try to just absorb it all but sharing it you know you want to just talk about some of those obstacles is it you know sort of pride is a heart level thing you were talking about.

speaker-1: We weren't even recording there, Jeff. And now we're going to talk about idols and my heart and where that's at. ⁓ I would say that the money that I'm making in year 18, I would have only dreamed about 10 years ago or 12 years ago or eight years ago. And the way that my heart works. And I think the way that God designed a lot of our human hearts, there's a pretty famous quote. can't remember who it is. Our hearts are idol factories.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, let's get into it.

speaker-1: There's definitely that. And I can say that if you say, Kyle, what's one of your main recurring sins? We won't list them all out here on our little recording, but I can say the love of money and making an idol out of money and finding comfort in my life out of financials is something that has been prevalent in my head and heart for as long as I can remember. It's amazing that when things are going great, I kind of forget to talk to God about that. When things are a little tough. when things are little challenging, I remember praying a lot about that. And I remember years ago asking my buddy Terry and said, you know, Terry, what's the proper percentage of our income that we should be giving? I just wanted my boy Terry, he's experienced, he's been successful, he's a follower of Christ. I wanted him to give me an answer and he gave me this answer. I still don't like it. Well, Kyle, it's a matter of the heart, my friend. What percent is that though, Terry? Just tell me the percent so I can put that in that bucket and then do the rest with whatever I want to do. We have to... How much is enough? Kyle, let me ask you that. Let me ask myself this, Kyle, how much is enough? How much is enough? Yeah. I got my boy, Aaron Gortmaker down there doing missions work down in Costa Rica. I added a little bit to what we pay him every month. They're still struggling down there. I could double that, triple that even. There's missionaries all over the place. There's causes all over the place. There's things locally, there's adoption clinics. There's just a plethora of things. And the more that we I'm just preaching to myself, Jeff. I don't know if it's relevant for you.

speaker-0: Keep it rolling, baby. You're on a roll.

speaker-1: The more that we start to take our eye off of ourselves and our comfort and all of that, ⁓ probably the more righteous and God-honoring we're being. Yet I'm also sitting, I came home because I have to run some kids to and fro. My wife works full-time at church, so I'm juggling things. But I'm in a beautiful house, Jeff. Beautiful house, we bought it three or four years ago. We didn't need to move, for some reason we moved. I remember saying a year before we moved, we should just stay in this house for a long time. This is big enough for us, it's fine. But it's always more and more and more. We have to guard against that. I need to guard against that. And that's done through prayer. That's done through proper recognition of where the blessings are coming from in the first place. That's a proper recognition that the dollars that I have are given to me as a resource from God. It's not my own doing over and over again. I need to be a good steward of those dollars. And I do so with a pure heart and motive.

speaker-0: think you said something really important there, which just starts with understanding who owns it all. your buddy, I think it was Terry that was, you you're asking him, what's the percentage and you know what I thought you were going to say. He had a great answer, which it is a hard issue. But another great one is, well, how much is he? Is the owner saying you can keep that one kind of wrecked me? I was like, we mean, I'm to ask you how much of mine am I supposed to give? First of all, you got it backwards. None of it's yours. So. get that wrong. you so it's this heart position to begin with of kind of humility. And then, you know, like I was reading something yesterday about the incredible story of an African homeless kid that basically got adopted and now he fosters 47 kids. And it's just it was just a I was like, wait, now where am I spending my money? Yeah. You know, like, so how do you keep fighting against what the world because the world really I mean, man, just turn on your computer or your TV and It'll tell you you need more stuff. The world kind of works against us for this idea of not just continually pursuing more and setting. We call it setting a financial finish line. That's kind of a not a normal. How do you try to battle that?

speaker-1: you tell me Jeff. No, I would say the first thing to do, and this bugs me when I listen to sermons, this bugs me when I listen to people pontificating about it, of everybody pointing this way, you know, the world, the world, this person, that person, that person. The way that I would answer that is stop thinking. Yes, the world absolutely is advertising and trying to shape my heart and shape my affections towards more and to buy things. Absolutely. So I do need to guard against that, but way more prevalent is just how well I am aiming to stay in tune with what God wants me to do, listening to the Holy Spirit, slowing down enough to recognize that I am a created being in the image of God. I am to be Christ's ambassador. I am to do his work here on earth. So if I am to change and shape my heart and my affections, I need to be in his word. I need to be in community with other believers. And I need to be, yes, pushing back against my own desire for more. Now the world's, I'm not gonna blame the advertisers, I'm not gonna blame the marketers. I'm gonna blame myself and my sinful nature for just wanting a little bit more. I'm to the point now where after, I would say after late start in retirement, we've been catching up a lot lately. And I think that's good, I think that's wise. I think it's biblical to desire to leave an inheritance for my children, or even as scripture says, for my children's children. But again, you said financial finish line or how much, you know, I could be giving another thousand dollars a month and have a thousand dollars less going towards a retirement fund today if I wanted to. Maybe I should. Because when I add it all up and I say, if I keep putting this amount in for the next X number of years, it's going to equal this number. That number is well more than what my wife and I are probably going to need in retirement. Now let's assume in some things we got a late start. We pretty much had nothing in retirement at the age of 36, 37. You know, I can justify why I need to really pour it in there. At the same time, I could be amping up the giving. So it's something to be in continual prayer about. It's something to continually be evaluating. And I think the first part of it is, hey, do you even care to talk about it, Kyle? Do you even care to slow down enough to evaluate that? Are you praying about it? Are you considering that? So those are some of my spaghetti of thoughts.

speaker-0: I think you're absolutely on the right track here because I was sort of thinking about, you know, which world do you want to live in? You know, and let's just make it like super practical. Hey, if you want to speak French, you probably ought to live in France and speak French all the time. If you want to speak English, OK, live in America or or England. So what world do want to live in? You need to sort of immerse yourself in that language. So if we're trying to speak the language of generosity, we've got to surround ourselves. We got to keep speaking it to stay fluent. and stay in that community. Not that we don't go outside and share, but we got to, like you said, spend time in the word with other believers in prayer and that kind of thing to kind of keep filling up that, you know, practice that stuff. Yeah. So we get out in real world, we don't just to mix metaphors. know, our swing is OK. Getting back to baseball, you know, you to practice to swing before you get in the box. But it's true. All right. So this is so fun. All right. So we're kind of getting the end of our time. I'm just thinking of somebody we were talking about this earlier. behind you on the journey. Maybe it's, you know, one of your remodeling clients is just starting to have some pretty big success and they're saying, man, I'm really feeling blessed. What direction should I go with this? What's just a practical tip you could give them or to whatever comes to mind ⁓ on their journey towards trying to kind of move in this direction.

speaker-1: generosity?

speaker-0: in their business, or in their life.

speaker-1: or all, all of the above. Yes. I would say as a business owner, start with your employees and your team. Yeah. And that shift in mindset of saying, I want to be the most generous employer that I can possibly be is a great posture and a great goal. Cause really happy employees also work really well, I think. And employees that don't leave and reduces turnover is also really good for long-term business. And I think oftentimes that's right there. Something we do in our beer practical idea is one of our little revenue streams is something called remodelers autopilot. It's a little done for you email and social media marketing tool. And there's a percentage of that revenue every month, just one line item out of the business. There's a percentage of that revenue every month that goes towards some cause and Bailey on my team or Cassie on my team, or I have something in mind and we, kind of give that they would say that one of the great Bailey in particular, one of her favorite benefits is getting to choose a cause that she loves and that's near dear heart. that we can give some of those dollars to. So starting with something like that and integrating that into the culture is a very practical approach to have. would say also for somebody that's kind of coming up and starting to get their stuff going, ⁓ try to avoid debt. If you are full of debt from car loans and getting ahead of the skigies and using credit cards, and I had to do a line of credit for this, most likely that means you might not know your numbers very well and need to dial in that. And maybe you were a little too aggressive. I approached my business very much. I think I started this way because it was like, we got no money. My wife's a stay at home mama and I'm taking this big risk. I am going to be very conservative with spending dollars. But if you can build your business without a lot of debt that frees up your ability to be more generous. So I would encourage people to focus on that a bit and aim to, to err on the side of caution there.

speaker-0: Well, I think the yeah, you're right on the money borrower is the lender's slave. just being really judicious about that, especially early days when maybe the model in that proven and you're swinging a little too. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, I would encourage people to find an opportunity in their business where them and their team can serve locally, even with their time and not their dollars. As much as my boy Terry said, you know, it's a matter of the heart. I think it is a good goal to set a certain percentage aside. One of my goals over the years has been that I want our giving line to be the biggest line item in our family's budget. And that allows me to. As revenue comes in and income comes in, the giving budget goes up. And I think that helps guard against, for me, it's kind of a built in guard against me letting other areas kind of take over the giving line item.

speaker-0: That's an interesting idea. I like that idea. It sort of regulates it. somebody sort of famous line, know, God doesn't increase your standard of living so you can spend it, he does it so that your standard of giving can rise, if you will. So yeah, I love that.

speaker-1: Yeah. I would also, it's interesting not to, I don't want to sound prideful or whatnot, but I, I've seen a lot of, I've worked with hundreds of business owners at this, at this point, whether believers, non-believers, ⁓ but the amount of giving or lack of giving just straight up dollars, personalized, I think you can go to chat GPT, you can do some searching. It might surprise some people out there and God loves a joyful giver. We are to be generous. He is blessing us with these resources. We need to make it a bigger priority in our lives. I think it's a blessing for us to give. It's a good heart posture to be in that, to be generous there. And yes, that can come in how you're treating your team members. That can come in giving to causes that you support. But aim to have that be the biggest line item in your budget.

speaker-0: I like it. Have you seen a correlation between what you view as the most generous people you meet and the most joyous people you meet?

speaker-1: Hmm Jeff the answer you're looking for there is yes But when I think about in particular, you know, some of the most joyful people I meet are very generous with their time, right?

speaker-0: Right, doesn't mean just dollars, yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, I was thinking dollars as you were talking about. But yeah, there's so many sweet people that I know that it's like, yep, obviously they're there because they volunteer for everything at church. They volunteer for everything through that cause. And yes, they've made more of their life be about service instead of self. there's definitely a correlation.

speaker-0: depends on your definition. Yeah, I think to your point, the you know, we don't know a whole lot about the woman with the widow's might, but it wasn't about the absolute dollar amount. It was again back to Terry. It was the heart. I have a feeling she was a cool person to hang out with.

speaker-1: Yes. I agree. So those are some practical.

speaker-0: That's really good. That's good. Well, listen, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much, Kyle, for joining us and we look forward to another conversation down the road. Hey, and thanks everybody for joining us on this week's Generous Business Center podcast. Share it with a friend, subscribe and see you next week.

speaker-1: Excellent, thanks for having me.