iRetire4Him 162: I Never Got the Memo About Retirement
Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years could be 30 years filled with meaning and purpose as long as you connect your faith and your retirement days.
Martha Brangenberg: Welcome to iRetire4Him. We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Check us out online at iRetire4Him.com.
Jim Brangenberg: Growing up in a junkyard teaches you a lot about life. There's always an analogy to be made about something discarded that helps bring something else back to life. Recycling is a powerful analogy. God making all things new out of something that was dead. Roy Goble grew up in his dad's junkyard and released several books over the past decade, all based on his upbringing and the incredible wisdom gleaned from his junkyard.
Today, Roy is closer to 70 than 60. Those are his words. And is still active in running Global Properties and releasing devotions and books to encourage believers with their everyday walk with Christ. We interviewed Roy on iWork4Him when his book Junkyard Wisdom was released. I decided to follow up with Roy to see what he's doing now in his quote unquote retirement years.
And lo and behold, he's not retired, but running hard and finding meaning and purpose in his late sixties. Inspiration for all of us. Roy Goble, junkyard wisdom and all, welcome to iRetire4Him.
Roy Goble: Hey, thanks for having me. It's so fun to reunite with you after a while and I know we've stayed in touch through emails and social media, but it's fun to be on this call with you. Thanks.
Jim Brangenberg: I look back, it's almost seven years since we interviewed you the last time. And so it's fun to see what's going on in your life. And I got this one question, just, we're gonna start us off this way. What's the deal? Didn't you get the memo? You're supposed to be retired and on the beach in sunny California by now. That's where you're supposed to be. What gives? Why are you still working?
Roy Goble: I didn't get the memo. (laughter) Nobody told me that. Nobody told me that. We have that conversation every now and then about slowing down, but actual retirement to me, I don't understand why. I really don't. It's not that I am a lover of work.
It's not that I just to have this passion to get out of the house in the morning and go do something. I think it's really just I have this joy in seeing beauty created. I have this joy in seeing people love each other. I have a joy in actually serving others. And that's why I work. I will admit, maybe a shift is away from quite as much drivenness as when I was young and maybe not as much ambition to achieve financially. Because I've done okay. But there is a sense in which I still want to go make a difference in the world.
Martha Brangenberg: That's so powerful. And I think it's so important for our listeners to hear that because for everyone, it looks different, but just that mindset that there's so much that God's created us to do, that we keep on being able to do it and it just may look different. We may not have the energy. We may not get up quite as early in the morning, whatever that might be for everybody listening. But just thinking about that differently.
So Roy, you run a family enterprise and an encouragement ministry that's called Junkyard Wisdom. So what are some of the miracles that you have seen and experienced recently that show you that you're not done with this current mission that God has you on?
Roy Goble: Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of people ask if we're ever gonna sell the company and it's tempting sometimes, but I also have unique experiences where... we have a young woman that works for us. She is a single mom of two, and she recently remarried actually to her ex-husband, which is a fun story. And she had a new baby. But there were a lot of complications.
And I was so proud of our team. This isn't a miracle in the sense of anybody walked on water. It's a miracle in the sense that people at work surrounded her with love. They helped cover for her. We had some people say, I'll give up my vacation time if she needs extra time out. That kind of thing. And it was a joy to be her employer. It was a joy to help in the way that I could through her time of crisis.
And you mentioned the Junkyard Wisdom. I send out these daily devotions. It's for free, it's for fun. I don't make any money at this. It's just because I enjoy writing and I wrote a story about Lazarus. A woman wrote back to me and said, my son died 12 years ago. And this whole idea of coming back to life has almost haunted me.
We just had this wonderful, beautiful email exchange about her experience that way. Now again, is that a miracle? I don't know. But she was a mom who was still broken, and she had a brand new friend in me, a third party, that actually would respond to her. So it was good. I love those kinds of experiences in life.
Martha Brangenberg: And God has really used you in a unique way with your writing because you have a great sense of humor. You see the world through a different lens. I know sometimes you'll send out an email and you'll say don't get mad at me or don't whatever. I'm taking some liberties here to have some fun with the story to make it more real and really, we often don't put ourselves in Jesus's shoes or the disciple's shoes and see things from the real world perspective, like you have fun doing.
And so we'll put a link in the show notes for people to be able to find that, Roy. I just love that you are continuing to use one of the many skills that God has given you and the love of writing and the love of scripture and putting a new lens on it for people. And you get to hear these responses from people that read it and those are miracles.
Roy Goble: Thank you. Thank you. It's very kind words.
Jim Brangenberg: I can't remember the answer to this question 'cause I'm sure I asked you seven years ago. Is the junkyard still in the Goble Family Properties portfolio?
Roy Goble: No, we either developed them into industrial parks or \ we sold them as actual operating centers. That whole industry has been centralized. There's two major operators around the world. There's still a handful of small, independent people, but it's a tough business now with environmental regulations, and the cars aren't the same. They break and they're done. Back in the days they break and you could still pull a lot of parts out of 'em.
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.
Roy Goble: So the whole industry's changed.
Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. But it's so cool walking through a junkyard.
Roy Goble: Yeah it is.
Martha Brangenberg: I wanna say, Jim, it was our GMC Safari that we had to go, we trying to get a seat or something off of it in a junkyard? And I remember, 'cause there were enough of them out there that you could find what you needed or whatever. Yeah, I can't imagine how much that industry has changed.
Jim Brangenberg: Hey an idea for a devotion. Speaking of Lazarus. Come up with, imagine the conversation Jesus and Lazarus had after everybody left and they're having a conversation like, yeah, I know it was really good for you to raise me from the dead, but you know how cool heaven was? (laughter)
Martha Brangenberg: Why did you do that? (laughing)
Jim Brangenberg: Alright, so tell me about the Goble Family Foundation. Why did you form that? Because I see that you have Rachel, your daughter, as the executive director. That has to be exciting to have another generation involved in the mission that God gave you and your dad, and now passed on to Rachel. What's the Global Family Foundation all about?
Roy Goble: Yeah we formed that a while back and it was meant to be as just a placeholder for future activity. And I was pretty young when I formed it. But over the years it's grown and you can think of it as we tithe from our company toward it.
So the money goes in there and it's been building and growing. We're still no mega foundation by any means, but it's an opportunity to serve both our local community but also internationally. So we actually operate, it's a jungle lodge. We actually operate a jungle lodge in Belize, and all of the profits from the lodge go back into the local community in a community where people are living on about $4 a day.
We do things like that. It's fun. It's energetic. It brings new life to all of us, the entire family. And then a few times a year we get together and I have two kids and a son-in-law and they come over and my wife and I sit down and we just talk about, what are our priorities? What are our giving priorities? Everybody has very different opinions, which is actually part of the fun. Yeah.
Jim Brangenberg: I love that. It's so neat. And that'll keep you busy and your grandkids busy off into the future. It's an investment in the kingdom that keeps on going and going.
Just a sideline, if you need help explaining the biblical principles of retirement, try sending the book iRetire4Him to your friends. It's all recorded, even got my voice in it, even got Martha's dad's voice in it. You could choose audio, digital, or paper copies as well as a PDF format. Go to iwork4him.com/bookstore for all the details.
IRetire4Him is a practical guide on how to get the most out of those quote unquote retirement years, living those years with purpose, whether you have money or don't have money, whether you gotta go back to work to pay your medical bills or not. It's got all kinds of ideas. Martha's Dad's stories of him living out his faith in his retirement.
So Roy, how are you preparing Global Properties for the future with or without you? Who's gonna carry on the vision and the mission when you decide, or God decides, you're done.
Roy Goble: Yeah, it's actually a funny story. It goes back a few years. We were approaching 60 years of age and we started talking about what does this look like? How do we wind this down? And neither one of my kids had any interest in going into the business.
My son's in the tech industry. My daughter was running a nonprofit that was serving at risk children in Southeast Asia. And we are like, how are we gonna do this? I'm the end, right? My kids don't wanna do this. So we came up with a very expensive plan. We put lots of accountants, lots of attorneys, lots of insight into the best way to wind this thing down, both from a tax perspective, but also how can we maximize our generosity?
And it was a 10 year plan. We said that way by the time we're 70, we can wrap this up. We were two years into that and my daughter came to me and said, I actually do have kind of an interest in joining the family business. And it was like, okay, I just wasted a lot of money.
(laughter)
Jim Brangenberg: No, 'cause it was planning.
Roy Goble: Yeah. But it was also, it was also joyful, right? To just say, absolutely. And so she will take over and we have a training program that we put her on when she first joined. And our COO was very involved in teaching her, still is actually. I work side by side with her at least one day a week.
And she comes into my office and we talk and we look at plans and we look at opportunities and talk about the challenges that she's facing. So she's growing into it and loving it, and I'm really proud of my son as well. He's applauding this, he's going, this is fantastic. I want my sister running the family business. So, they get along great and it's fun to see how this is working out.
Martha Brangenberg: I love that because I feel like it's not the first time I've heard where, when the pressure's off of a kid that says, you know what? You don't have to take over. If this isn't your thing, and she obviously got time to think and pray about all that and then be like, yes, I do wanna do this.
There's that intrinsic pressure that probably a lot of kids put on themselves without knowing that they are. Or maybe , just everybody around you assumes that one of the kids is gonna take over. And to see that decision be a real decision as opposed to an obligation probably thrills your soul because, you know, she's in it for the right reason.
I think that there's a lot of people that may be in that phase of life as they're thinking about the next and looking at what that might be and also looking for what those opportunities are, so just just an encouragement to everybody listening that everybody's plan might look a little different, but God's got it.
Jim Brangenberg: Might be less expensive.
Martha Brangenberg: Might be less, you might spend less time with lawyers. (chuckles)
Jim Brangenberg: There's no way that God had you do that. There's has to be something in there that you absolutely needed to go through in order to be prepared for where you're at today. There's no way that was a waste of money, 'cause you sound like you're a pretty good steward of money.
Roy Goble: Yeah, I actually, you're absolutely right. And if we had a lot more time, I could explain all the intricacies of that, but you're absolutely right. We learned a lot in the process and we're in a better place now. And Martha, you said something about my daughter. I gotta tell you one quick story. And that is when she was in college, she was a business major.
And we thought, okay, she's gonna either go on to get her MBA or she's gonna come work. She actually had a really great internship signed up with a design company, and two months before graduation, she came to us and said, I don't think I'm on the right track. I want to go into ministry. And she ended up going to seminary at Fuller Seminary and getting her master's in that, and we're like, wait a minute. We had this plan. And so I've done this twice now with her.
Jim Brangenberg: But how much better, Roy, that she's equipped because she went to Fuller, which they've got a whole center on that it mixes business and ministry at the same time. Mark Roberts is in charge of that. I can't think of the name of the center right now at Fuller.
Roy Goble: Yeah, the De Pree Center. For Faith and Work.
Jim Brangenberg: That's it.
Roy Goble: And the current head of it is Michaela Long, who actually was Rachel's classmate at Fuller.
Jim Brangenberg: Wow. So would you look it? She's better equipped, because she went to seminary and got that MBA and MDiv at the same time, to run your organization. 'cause you run your heart, your business from a heart of ministry. So she's better equipped. That's a great story.
Roy Goble: My father used to say we want to be a for-profit ministry.
Jim Brangenberg: We call that a biznistry.
Martha Brangenberg: Amen.
Roy Goble: Yeah. And he was saying that in the fifties, long before this movement.
Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. He was running alone there. 'cause Stanley Tam didn't even come up with that idea until the early sixties.
Martha Brangenberg: That's so fabulous. And what a wonderful legacy for your family and that it's looked different for every generation and yet is still on that same trajectory. So Roy, I wanna talk about the peer pressure that you might get from people, your age, family, friends, or whatever that are, that are saying, Hey, the beach is great. Why not just, be done with that work stuff? What kind of conversations do you have with people about that?
Roy Goble: Yeah, I do get that where people come and say, why are you still working? And over and over again, the people that ask me that didn't actually enjoy what they did in their vocation.
Martha Brangenberg: Oh, interesting.
Roy Goble: It's not always that's the case. But it's often that, and they just look at me and go, how in the world do you still go to work every day? Why do you go to the office every day? And I go, because I find joy in it. I find actual love in it, love for my neighbor, love for God.
It exists in that setting. They didn't have that. And so when they say that to me, go to the beach or go on cruises or play golf every day, whatever. To me that's yeah, I could probably do a little more of that, but that's not what I want my for life.
Jim Brangenberg: Dion called right before the show and said, could you please help Roy to understand we could book a few more vacations a year? (laughter) Because we're not getting any younger. That's what she said about you, of course.
Roy Goble: Yeah.
Jim Brangenberg: But the point is that, and we write about that in our book. And I'm not trying to do that just to plug our book, but why not buy a copy of iRetire4Him, for all of your friends, Roy?
Because the point is, fine, retire from your job that you've just done because you needed a job. Go find some work that brings fulfillment, whether it's a volunteer position, a paid position, go do something you love. 'Cause my father-in-law who's really great at saying this, if you get a job you love, you'll never go to work a day in your life.
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.
Jim Brangenberg: And that is true.
Martha Brangenberg: And Jim, you often talk about it o n iRetire4Him that it's not that we're anti leisure. It's not that we are against having fun and maybe slowing down and not getting a paycheck for the work that you're doing, but everything you do in your life, God calls us to be intentional, to be on mission.
If you are on the golf course and you get paired with somebody in a golf cart that you don't know, what's the conversation you're having? Are you just talking about the weather or are you talking about deeper?
Jim Brangenberg: They're talking about the placement of the ball. (laughter)
Martha Brangenberg: Okay. But in between the placement of the ball, everything can lead to the Lord in one way or another. And we just wanna encourage that no matter how we're spending our time, that there is intention and love of the Lord that really oozes out of the conversation.
Jim Brangenberg: All right. Roy, you're in the final quarter of life, assuming you don't live past a hundred.
Roy Goble: Yeah.
Jim Brangenberg: What is God showing you about how he will use what he's already given you, what he's placed in you to bless others in your final race to the finish?
Roy Goble: Yeah. There's a lot of different streams of my life that have all kind of begun to dovetail in that answer. And one of 'em actually was that whole process of estate planning and working through how are we gonna sell this company? Because some of the things that came out of it was how to maximize generosity in the midst of it.
And so we want to build up our family foundation, but even beyond that, we wanna move more and more towards generosity. Another stream that keeps coming up is we became grandparents recently, and I'll tell you what, you bounce your grandchild on your knee and you have a totally different reaction than when you did the same with your own child.
And I realized that with my child, I wanted to protect, I wanted to prepare. I wanted to give them a better life off in the future. I want all those things for my grandchild, of course. But when you're holding your grandchild, all you're really thinking about is the present. It's that moment. It's that moment of joy and of love, and I want my last quarter to be focused more on the present, more in that joy of love. That's the other stream that's come through, and it's actually surprised me.
I don't think anybody in the first 30 or 40 years of my career would say, oh yeah, Roy, he's a really loving person. But I want to be, and I want my work, my writing, our investments, our generosity, to all revolve around this idea of - it's a simple mandate. Love each other. Love your neighbor. And love God. And if I can stick to that, then the rest is details.
Martha Brangenberg: Wow. That's powerful. Love it. Thank you for sharing that.
Okay, final words to everybody that's listening that might be struggling with that decision to continue working or starting something new or searching for seashells on the beach. And listen, I have glass jars full of seashells. I have nothing against seashells, so I find calm and peace at the ocean.
But any final words of wisdom, junkyard wisdom or otherwise, that you can share with our listeners?
Roy Goble: Yeah. You have an opportunity, you've prepared your whole life for this, and maybe you have an opportunity to pursue your dreams. Maybe you have an opportunity to try something new. All of those things can be equally true. There's a life mantra that I have, and that is that it's not my job to make you like me. It's my job to figure out how to love you. And if you think about that in your retirement, you just say, okay I'm done putting on airs. I'm done putting on a show for people. I'm just gonna be the genuine me, but the genuine me is gonna be focused on how to love you. I think that would be just a wonderful way to spend your last quarter.
Jim Brangenberg: Those are great words. Wow. Okay. Just settle right in on that. Roy Goble, thanks so much for being on iRetire4Him. That was like a sermon, that last sentence was great
i'm in the middle of something in my own life and that is a great reminder, a very great reminder, Roy. Thanks for being with us today.
Roy Goble: It's an honor. Thank you.
Jim Brangenberg: You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. In this retirement phase of life, we all want our lies to be full of meaning and purpose, so we can say, iRetire4Him.