Hobby Lobby founder discusses religion and household in ‘The Legacy Life’

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Hobby Lobby founder discusses religion and household in new e book

“This is not a book about business. This is a book about your life and your family.”

— Hobby Lobby founder and chief govt officer David Green in “The Legacy Life.”

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On a whim, the preacher’s son challenged a “Frankie Valli” lookalike to a combat after courses have been dismissed at their native highschool.

Both college students have been in band, however David Green stated he was ranked moderately low within the clarinet part, whereas the older pupil he’d singled out performed the trumpet so effectively that he gained solo elements, and ladies “swooned” when he smiled.

Green, founder and chief govt officer of Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby arts and crafts retailer, bought “thrashed” by the suave heartthrob. His reminiscence of that short-sighted determination to choose a combat and the early lesson it taught him is shared in his new e book with Bill High.

“The great enemy of legacy is our short-term thinking,” the pair wrote within the new e book “The Legacy Life: Leading Your Family to Making A Difference for Eternity.”

Green, with High’s writing experience, shares different tales and anecdotes in “The Legacy Life” and a companion e book “The Legacy Life Devotional” to assist deliver Green’s concepts on legacy, religion and household to life.

Green, 84, spent a few years making a enterprise mannequin that led to success.

However, he stated his final aim wasn’t about enterprise however about constructing a faith-filled basis for his members of the family — one that would information them through the years and one they may cross on to future generations.

It’s what his mother and father did earlier than him and Green is passing on this idea to his youngsters and grandchildren. With his newest e book, he is hoping to encourage others to do the identical.

“What we thought about for a considerable amount of years is doing something that when we’re gone, it’s still in place,” he stated.

High stated the e book’s premise was borne out of curiosity that folks expressed whereas attending management occasions at Hobby Lobby headquarters through the years. He stated some attendees have questioned aloud how Hobby Lobby has been profitable with varied enterprise insurance policies adopted by the Greens.

“They say ‘We don’t know why this business works — you pay the highest minimum wage, you close on Sunday, you close at eight o’clock and you’re a retail business, you give away half of your profits — it doesn’t seem like it should work, but it does,” High stated.

He stated these queries prompted him and Green to collaborate on a e book referred to as “Leadership Not by the Book,” however each males felt there was extra to be informed after they accomplished that venture. So, they determined to write down a e book expounding on a chapter referred to as “Build for 150 Years” that was featured in that e book.

“In today’s world, most people think about starting a business so they can sell it,” High stated. “David and his family really set up the business so it could keep going for 150 years.”

Green stated alongside the best way, he and his household have positioned heavy emphasis on sustaining their familial ties and guaranteeing that every successive technology develops a relationship with Christ and want to share the gospel.

He stated Hobby Lobby emphasizes the importance of household bonds by telling co-managers, who’re the corporate’s future managers, that their households are extra essential than the enterprise.

“We tell them it’s more important that they have their family right, their marriage right and their children right, than Hobby Lobby,” Green stated. “We don’t concern ourselves so much about Hobby Lobby as we do the individual that’s working for us.”

High agreed that household, and religion, too, are important to a legacy life.

“It’s really about how do you keep your family together? How do you keep them focused on a vision that could last beyond your kids and grandkids?” High stated.

“What are the ripple effects of your life? What are you putting in place now that you’ll continue to see the impact and the influence for that next 100 years?”

Ownership verses stewardship

Chapters within the “The Legacy Life” embrace “Living by a Code of Conduct,” “Setting Your Course,” “Short-term Thinking” and “Change Your Lens to a Generational View of Life.”

High stated one of many themes that run all through the brand new e book is the concept that dwelling a “legacy life” entails understanding the distinction between possession and stewardship.

“The idea of stewardship is that we’re just managers for what God puts in our hand for a season and a time,” he stated. “If you’re an owner, you’d say I’m going to make all I can. I’m going to sell it, and then I’m going to go sit on a beach somewhere.”

By distinction, High stated a steward says “God put this in my hand and I’m supposed to manage it well and ideally, I’m going to manage it so future generations can be part of it, too.”

Green stated Psalm 24:1 says “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” He stated it is essential that folks notice that everybody is a steward, not an proprietor, of what God has entrusted to them.

“Are we acting like stewards or are we acting like we’re owners?” he stated.

The businessman stated his members of the family’ determination to open the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, is among the ways in which their stewardship led them to fund a venture that will probably be used to share God’s phrase with others for a few years to return.

All in all, Green stated he hopes his e book encourages individuals to contemplate what they “have put in motion” all through their lives.

Going again to his mother and father, Green stated that they had six youngsters who served the Lord and their youngsters serve the Lord and the subsequent technology serves the Lord, as effectively.

“Right now, they have a lot of great, great grandchildren that are serving the Lord,” Green stated. “I think that’s a huge legacy for two people. That’s what we all want to do — to leave something that tells other people the good news about Jesus. That’s the greatest legacy that I could leave.”