3/4/22 - Radical Generosity: Bill High with The Signatry

Producer: Welcome to the, iWork4Him podcast. I'm Michael Miracle producer of the, iWork4Him radio program, the voice of the faith and work movement. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: This episode of iWork4Him was previously recorded for the Christian leadership alliances outcomes conference podcast, where leaders come to invest the best of what they know into other leaders.

Martha: Remember, if you have influence over just one person, you are a leader together. Let's listen to this podcast and learn more about leading God's way.

Enjoy.

Jim: Martha, and I are excited to host the outcomes conference podcast. Every podcast is dedicated to you. Our outcomes conference podcast listener. We have an incredible conversation coming up today with Bill High, he's from theSignatry.com. That's theSignatry.com. We'll be focusing on leadership, thriving and related outcomes.

Bill High, welcome to the outcomes conference podcast.

Bill High: So glad to join you all.

Jim: Now, we're excited to have you. Before we get started talking about your leadership role and the perspective of what God is doing through you to lead a thriving environment at the Signatry. Tell us how you personally keep your faith strong and your leadership Christ centered each and every day.

Bill High: Yeah. One of my favorite things to do, Jim. I, I like I have a daily Bible that I read a daily chronological Bible. And so I try to read through the Bible every year. And I just find that by reading the whole Bible from cover to cover, it gives you context. And I think that when you're a leader, the power of context is so critical.

So you don't just focus on the immediate fire, but you think about what caused the fire? What were the events leading up to it, but also it gives you context to be able to say, man, here's what God's done. And so when those moments of crisis come that you don't have to fear. The Bible says you've heard this do not be afraid 365 times. Well, the do not be afraid is because God goes before us. And when you read the Bible from cover to cover, you're reminded about time and time again, how God truly goes before us. I'm grateful for that.

Martha: That's so good. So, you know that's something just to the fact that you're reading the chronological, you know, we have done that multiple times as well, and just seeing it in story form in order, because we, we are people of order, you know, just to understand the history is so great.

So. What does thriving mean to you personally?

Bill High: I've always referenced the, a, that verse in John 10, John 10, 10, where Jesus said that I've come, that they might have life and have it abundantly. And I think the picture of that is the idea that you put your cups under the fountain, under the faucet. However you want to look at.

And the cup starts to fill and fill, and eventually it starts to overflow, but you can't take it away and it just keeps overflowing. And I think that's the idea of thriving. The fact that your life is just overflowing. And that's where I think if you are rooted in God's word, you're rooted in prayer and the holy spirit.

And that's where that opportunity really does come to have your cup overfill overflow. And to have that sense of thriving, no matter where you are and where, where you're at.

Jim: So let's connect the two thriving in your work at the Signatry. How does your work at the Signatry enable those that you serve enable those to serve those that you serve to thrive?

Bill High: Great question. So of course, one of the big problems that you have obstacles to thrive really is, you know, if you go back to the parable of the sower or what's the seed that gets choked, it's the seed that got, got planted, but it's choked by the cares and desires of the world. And so, so often you see people who go out and start businesses and they seek to grow and they get caught up in the moment they get caught up, frankly, in the greed and the pursuit of riches riches become their God.

And so the the Bible is full of these paradoxes, but it's only when we begin to let go. And we begin to learn to be generous, that it becomes that great antidote for fighting that curse of where wealth and riches might have in our heart.

Jim: Hmm. And, and really wealth and riches can become a big ball and chain.

If you kind of hoard them all for yourselves, it really starts to be not only a God, but a real drag too,

Bill High: well, as you know, I mean, the Signatry is a, one of the handful of the Christian donor advised fund organization. So we have people come in and create accounts, put their money in, get a tax deduction and use it to support the charities that they want.

As a result, we get to work with a lot of wealthy individuals. We get to work with a lot of Christian business owners, but what we see time and time again is that you see people who get caught up. And well in you see families destroyed in it. We've heard the adage that it's shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.

It's a 70% failure rate in generation two. So it's just a fact of life that not many people make this transition of handing off wealth very well. And so that is why this emphasis on generosity becomes so critical. It really does free our heart. Martha, as you said, to be able to get to that place of thriving.

Martha: So let's talk about thriving a little more because, you know, we don't always figure it out right away. And I think you have a great platform of generosity that really lends itself to that. But a lot of companies have to try things out before they figure out what's really going to create this a thriving.

So, is there something that you guys are doing at the Signatry right now? That's having great impact in that area?

Bill High: Well, one of the things, of course I could talk about the business owner side of it, but I want to talk since so much for our audience, our Christian leaders. Is the emphasis on equipping the Christian leader with recognizing who their key donors are and these key business owners and how they can serve them.

Because what I tend to see so much as this kind of parallel universe, where we have the ministry leader thinks I'm focused on my ministry. And then they go talk to donors about how to fund it as opposed to, how do we actually go talk to that business leader and help them in their business and make the transition and to recognize who those people are with the right conversation, the right questions.

I mean, sometimes the simple question. Okay. Hey, Jim, Hey, Martha, you look like you built a great business, but how are you going to transition it? Who will your successors be? And are your children prepared to handle your wealth? So we try to equip the Christian business or the Christian leader, the nonprofit leader with the right way to serve so many of the families that they're working.

Jim: And what a great effort that is because so much emphasis needs to be put on protecting the next generations from the money that may be passed on and teaching them to be a steward of it in a recognized. Ownership of those assets. We're talking today with Bill hi from the Signatry, love free to check them out online.

You don't have a donor advised fund set up, be a great place to do it. The Signatry.com the Signatry.com. We'll be right back with more from the outcomes conference podcasts,

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Jim: Hey, welcome back to the outcomes conference podcast. We're talking about thriving today with Bill high from the Signatry Bill. Can you share what God has shown you about your leadership personally in the last 18 months?

I mean, there's been so much, so much has happened to us over the last year. What changes have you made personally or professionally that helped you keep focused on your mission as a.

Bill High: Well, one of the simple things that we did early on, we realized, and you've heard this Henry Blackaby always said that whenever you see a great disruption, you need to pay attention to the activity of God and adjust accordingly.

So as the world was shutting down March 17th and on and on, as you started seeing all these things, Take place. One of the things that we recognize as a leadership team is that we needed to adjust accordingly. So every Monday we have a devotional, but we added into the week for the rest of our team, a prayer time.

So we added on a brand new prayer time. Now we already did prayer on Mondays, but we added a separate prayer time where people could come in and share their concerns and their fears and pray for one another. And that was one of the simple changes that we made. But we didn't want to just make it about fear and concern either.

We also wanted to celebrate the activity of. And so we added on at the end of the week, a celebration. So just a half an hour celebration and we can do it popcorn style. We can move pretty fast. And we can just say, Hey Jim, what was great for you this week? Where did you see God show up? Martha? What did you, and just by adding those few things was one of the simple things that we could do to continue to build a thriving culture.

But from an outreach perspective, one of the things that we told our team early on. As a way to continue outreach again, you weren't able to travel like you had been, you hadn't been able to have some of the in-person meetings. So we just established a rule called the 5, 10, 10 rule. And the 5, 10, 10 rule meant that you would send at least five text messages a day.

You would send 10 emails and then you would send try to have 10 phone calls a day. Again, you could do that when you're not out and about as much, you're not losing time, travel time in the life, but just that regular activity out there. And then the opportunity to convene as a group and say, man, here's what we learned.

Here's what we saw. Let's pray for this. We had people that would respond to us on an outreach basis who would say. Thank you for calling me. Thank you for reaching out. I just needed to talk. And of course, one of the common questions early on in that process was, can you tell us what's going on? What is going on?

And we could share some of the similar fears and concerns with them. Hey, we don't know all of that, but here's what we do know. And just as we could give some clarity around what was happening, it made a tremendous difference in our audience. The other thing that I would add is. Early on, in that I heard a message from Andy Stanley talking about what was going on.

And he talked about the fact that, you know, this was one of the first times in the history of the world where everybody was facing the same thing. It was a global pandemic. So there was global fear. There was global uncertainty and that was one of his key points. Everybody was facing uncertainty. What's going to happen on the markets.

What's going to happen to the economy. What's going to happen with my health, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So global uncertainty. And the question is what do you do with uncertainty? And his point was you just provide clarity about what you do in the midst of uncertainty. And I think that was tremendous wisdom on Andy Stanley's part to just say, as leaders.

Man, we share an empathize with uncertainty, but what we can do is provide clarity about what we will do you remember when Moses and the nation of Israel were backed up against the sea? And of course they had the mountains on one side and the desert, another and the Egyptians coming and attacking them and the Israelites were crying out and God says, why are you crying out?

Tell the people to go for. And God's pointing all that is, it may look all uncertain around you, but you do have a clear path of action. Now that clear path of action means you got to dip your toe in the water, but you do have clarity. And so I think that's just great wisdom as we think about our times. I think, you know, let's face it.

The uncertainty hasn't ended, maybe it's less than a little bit, but the key for us as leaders is to continue to provide that clarity going from.

Martha: So as a leader, what do you think has been one of your biggest challenges during this same time?

Bill High: You know, the, it is, for me personally, it is much as I reminded you a little bit ago is to remind myself in scripture, all those places where God truly has gone before.

Because you see that consistently in scripture, I think I counted the number of places where God goes before us. And, and I it's like a hundred places where you'll see God go fight a battle, you know, rocks come down from heaven, et cetera, et cetera. And so those are the kinds of things where you're just reminded that it's really not about you.

It is about how God's going to show up and how we need to lead in that.

Jim: It was great to look at, you know, the, the pandemic brought a lot, a lot of challenges. I mean, a lot, a lot of people lost family members, but there was also this great freeing of the church, the body of Christ from the walls of the church and the spreading them out of the community all over the country, which has been a fantastic thing that a revelation of, wow, the church has been spread.

It's been extricated and sent out to the community. It's been so fun to see. What does that look like? Because we've been challenged, everybody's been challenged. What do you consider your biggest breakthrough Bill over the last couple of, of almost two years now, 12 to 18 months? What's your biggest, great breakthrough?

Bill High: Well, we certainly learned that you didn't have to be as many places physically as we thought. So we've done a lot more, certainly online. You've probably heard this, the online education space probably accelerated by five to seven years. The online donations space accelerated by five to seven years, one of the companies we help found, I donate.

They ended up offering their giving platform to churches who didn't have giving platforms, which was kind of astounding to think that there were churches who didn't have giving platform. So the virtual world accelerated dramatically, even things like this, that we're doing here today, we're going to continue to see this grow the acceptance of it.

And the willingness of people that used to say, now I've got to meet you in person. I got to look you eye to eye your ability to build relationships just through the virtual world and real relationships, real meaningful relationship. If you're willing to get down and say, yeah, man, I have that same uncertainty, but there's where I think we.

Jim: We're talking about Bill high today from the Signatry for talking about leadership and thriving, and really the challenges that Bill faced we'll be right back with more from Bill, want to build a profitable side hustle that impacts people with truth and healing in themselves and in their leadership.

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We've talked to him with Bill high from the Signatry, and we're talking about thriving and we're talking about leadership and Bill. It's not always without it's challenges. Leadership's always got its challenge. For you personally, what's one thing that you learned that you want to make sure that everybody in your team learned as well?

Bill High: Yeah. At the end of the day, Jim, I think the biggest lesson that we learned and are continuing to learn through the process of going through the pandemic is to be able to say kind of three big phrases and the three big phrases are saying it's okay. And the second phrase goes right along with it, which is, I don't understand.

It's okay. I don't understand. I don't know what's going on. And the third phrase is, but I'll still trust. I'll still believe. And I think that's been my biggest lesson and it, you know, these are things that I will talk about with the families that I work and the nonprofits that I work, but I think that lesson became even more ingrained because the idea of saying it's okay, It's just saying I don't get it all.

And I release it. I let go of those fears, worries and concerns. And I truly am going to say, I don't understand. I don't know where it's going to go. I don't know where the future's going to go. There. There are a lot of needs in the nonprofit world. No doubt. Not withstanding the fact overall that giving was up last year.

There are some dangerous things out there that, that whether it's things like the passage of the equality act and what that could mean for Christian ministries, Christian universities and the life. There's a lot that we don't understand, but we can still believe we can still trust that God's got it in his hands.

And I think as we continue to do that, it kind of amps down our anxiety and it amps up our peak. So that's what I'm continuing to learn as we go through this. That's a

Martha: great lessons. So let's talk about the fact that you Bill with the Signatry. You go around with David Green, founder of hobby lobby, and you help people to understand the power of intentional generosity.

What have you learned from what is one of the biggest lessons you've learned from David's.

Bill High: Yeah. The, one of the fascinating things about generosity is neurologically there's an accelerator and a brake. And what you see is that the accelerator side of it says, man, that felt good. It felt freeing.

Wonderful to do the brake side of it is. And this again happens right side left side of the brain. The neurologic part of it is the protective side kicks in, which is. What if I don't have enough or what about that house I need to get, or the car payment, whatever it is. And so you've always got the accelerator and the brake going on at the same time.

And so one of the couple of things that we've seen is that in order to unleash world changing kind of generosity one of the things that David Green talks about is you must resolve the ownership versus stewardship question. Once you release ownership of all that you have then and recognize I'm just a steward.

That's the first step we've done all kinds of interviews, much like you have. We wrote a book actually a few years back called the generosity. Bet. We interviewed all kinds of Christian business leaders from around the country and the number one factor to unleashing that great biblical generosity was the ownership question.

There is a second thing. And the second thing that we found, and this is in the book that we wrote with David Green, giving it all away is the idea of family. Family is the only thing that has that same kind of a protective element. I'm going to protect my kids. I'm going to go move by my kids and grandkids.

You guys understand that story, but it's also the side that has that warm feel, good side of it. And so when you and gay. As a nonprofit leader with people about their families, you hit both sides of the brain. And it's the family. When you start talking about how to use your wealth, not just to preserve wealth, but to use your wealth, to preserve the family.

The first avenue where that really begins to be unleashed is okay, how do we give as a family? How do we change the world? Because now you're talking about. The side that says we feel good about our family, but also the side that says we're going to protect our family from the possibility of greed from becoming impoverished, spiritually, but using money to be generous.

So those are the couple of big lessons that we've learned as we walked witness road, with David Green.

Jim: Yeah. And you guys seem to have so much fun when you guys are up on a stage, you know, a Bill, as we close out this outcomes conference podcast, the Christian leadership Alliance is a place where leaders come to invest the best of what they know in other leaders, Bill, what leadership idea or thinking would you like to share as an investment with our outcomes conference podcast listeners?.

Bill High: Yeah, it's actually what I shared at the very beginning. Jim, I think any Christian leader should be trying to read through the Bible cover to cover every single year. And again, mainly it's because of the power of context and through the holy spirit every year, if you do that, God will reveal things to you.

New and different. There have been stories that I've tried to read 20 years. Yeah. It took me 20 years to understand Joseph and his brothers in the old Testament. Those are the kinds of things where as you do that, the Bible gives you wisdom and the wisdom to be able to operate not only in how you leave.

But how you interact with others and people see that same context and you, that you understand a little bit more of this idea that God has a plan. That's not just in this moment, but that's all the way from Genesis to revelation. And that we're just a bit character in it. It truly is the divine drama of which we just play a part.

Wow. Great

Jim: words, Bill. Thank you, Bill high from the Signatry for joining us today on the outcomes conference podcast. Thanks. And do you, our outcomes conference podcast listeners. Thanks for joining us today. We pray this podcast inspired you to a higher and deeper thinking about thriving for greater kingdom impact.

Martha: Be sure to visit Christian leadership alliance.org, where you can stay up to date by subscribing to the outcomes online newsletter and the CLA higher thinking blog.

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