How to Have a Fulfilling Retirement

In this episode, we hear an inspiring story about the impact of generosity. Host Layne Hoekema, a senior private wealth advisor in the Indianapolis office of Ronald Blue Trust, speaks with special guests and clients, Tom and Jan Thomas. After an unexpected stroke, Tom sold his business and went into early retirement. Soon after, they found themselves living a different life marked by philanthropy and generosity, letting God use them to transform the lives of others.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast. Let's bridge the gap between your faith and your finances. At Ronald Blue Trust, we apply biblical wisdom and technical expertise to help you make wise financial decisions. Our goal is to help you leave a lasting legacy.

 In this podcast, you will hear inspiring stories, practical tips and encouragement from the Ronald Blue Trust family with special guests along the way. Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast.

The information in this podcast is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended as specific individual advice. The client's experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients, and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust. 

In this episode, we hear in an inspiring story about the impact of generosity. Today's host is Layne Hoekema, senior private wealth advisor of the Indianapolis Office of Ronald Blue Trust. He speaks with special guests and clients, Tom and Jan Thomas. After an unexpected stroke, Tom sold his business and went into early retirement. Soon after, they found themselves living a different life marked by philanthropy and generosity. Letting God used them to transform many lives all around the world. Let's listen in.

  Thanks for a. Thanks for being here. I just can't wait to get into the story that we were going to talk about today. Tom and Jan have been clients for a long time. 1998, I believe, was when this first started. And it's just a great story for us to be able to talk about because I learn something new every time I hear it. It's very inspiring for me to hear what you guys have to say, and I've seen it inspire others that are around you. When I'm in meetings with you and things like that, and it's just it's just such a privilege to be here. I thank you.

Thank you so much.

So Tom and Jan are from Michigan originally and spend much of their time in Florida now. But if they're not traveling the world, that would be meeting all kinds of different people. I was talking to them today about their Rolodex. It's it's quite expansive. So I'm glad to have you here to tell your story a little bit.

Tom, your career started in the automobile industry, I think it was with Ford. If I'm not mistaken. 

That's right.

There were a couple other executive positions that you held and ultimately ended up running and owning a tax software firm. Correct? 

Right. It was more than tax, but yeah, CPA, CPA services for CPA firms. That was my my final entree. In my mid-life.

Tom, we can say you had a little bit of a unique path to deciding it was time to sell the business. I don't know

if we want to call that unique or not. Why don't you tell me about that a little bit?

Yeah. And 26 years ago this month, I had just a few years before purchased the software company. I'd been CEO for six years and bought the founder out. So finally I was it was my culture, my opportunity there to really build the kind of company that I wanted to have and in April of 1996, I had what later was diagnosed

as a very severe stroke. It took him several weeks to figure out what had happened, but the result was that part of my brain, that controlled balance and several other things was destroyed in a vascular incident, as they would call it. And I was faced with a challenge that I had a a company with 35,000 CPA firm clients

and hundreds of employees. And I might not be around. And it wasn't clear how long or if it would return or if I'd have another incident, etc..

So I decided I had to sell the company to my strategy. I developed was to sell it to what we call a strategic buyer, and that's someone who really needs what our company did and therefore would have great incentive

to protect the things that made our company special and successful. So that was the decision I was faced with and I was able to find a strategic buyer and made that happen in 1998.

98. Yep. Okay.

And do you remember being a part of like deciding that Jan were kind of. What kind of interactions did you guys have at that time? 

Well, I knew that he felt that this is what he needed to do. He did it very reluctantly because he loved what he was doing. And it I knew that he would pursue whatever it took to leave the company in good hands. And it was very it was a very scary incident to have him unable to walk, which he had to relearn. And fortunately,

there are backup systems for balance. So we just we were a unit and we went forward together.

Mmm hmm.

That was your first, maybe, well, not first, but biggest stewardship moment right there. What do I do with this? With this entity and these employees and this cause that we've been given?

Yeah. So, I mean, the goal was to protect the employees and protect the customers so that they weren't subject to all the vagaries of a deceased sole owner, private company, etc.. So, so it was the fact that we just faced the fact and said, okay, here's what we got to do. Here's the game plan.

And with God's help.  

Yeah. Mm hmm. Very matter of fact. While because of that transition, if I remember the story. Right, you guys needed to redo your estate documents. And I think that that discussion or that's what led to a discussion with Ronald Blue Trust. Is that correct? How that all worked? Or how did the estate documents relate to engagement with the Ronald Blue Trust?

The estate documents was our first project with RBT, and that came actually before the stroke or about the time of the stroke where we knew we needed it. We needed an estate plan, and I had tried on two occasions to do that with professionals and the business attorneys who were specialty was estate planning. And it was a disaster. And I'm not used to disasters. It was like I was an incompetent. This is before the stroke because all they could talk was acronyms. But I never had any concept of, well, what are we trying to accomplish here? What's the framework? What's the process? What are the pros and cons of all these many options that you're providing?

And I was describing my frustration to a friend, a neighbor of ours, and they said we had to do something similar with I think it was one of their parents. And they said, we use this firm called Ron Blue. I said, How big is Ron Blue? It's a person? They said, no it's an organization. And so they put us in contact and we called, I think probably Atlanta at the time, and they said, well, your offices nearby in Indianapolis. And so we set up an a meeting and I thought, well, here we go again. Let's see how this works. John Miley, who was still involved, helping us with you Layne, came to our house. And in 30 minutes he asked about five or six questions. And in 30 minutes he laid out, well, I don't know if this is the optimum plan, but here's an example

of how we would approach this problem, and it made total sense. Here are the options here. Here's the benefits of these. The benefits of these. We'll discuss these in more detail. But does this concept make sense to you? What we're trying to do is that absolutely. Thank you for speaking English. So that was our first connection.

And and within months, we had an estate plan, which has been the foundation that we still have today. It's been obviously updated for various situations, but yeah.

Yeah.

So that was the the foundation of the Ron Blue connection. And it wasn't from an investment standpoint, it was estate planning.

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

Did you work with a financial planner or any financial professionals before that time?

We tried besides the two attorneys that didn't speak English. We had a stockbroker. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And we had a tax practitioner. But before I sold the company, Jan did the taxes for many years. And then as it got a little more complicated, we had a semi-pro. But other than that, no. Jan managed all the finances. I mean, we she said she did everything, she did everything.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I think she bought and sold bonds like buy sell. Yeah. It was just like that really.  And hold the maturity.

Yeah.

We didn't have to worry about interstate fluctuations.

If municipals were my friend.

Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

And the ladder became her mechanism. The bond ladder.

Yeah.

Well, what was your mindset as you made this transition? What what specifically in your mind was retirement going to look like? What were some of the maybe preconceived notions of what that was going to look like? Well, to be honest, I absolutely never thought about retirement. I was 53 when I had the stroke, and I thought I had at least 20, 25 years left. And I had a lot of plans for the company. So I never even considered retirement and I had to face it within weeks. So like I do for most everything, I said, okay, then I need a plan. So I built a four step plan. Of what my vision of retirement. I don't know if I even called it that. But the next life was going to be like and I said, well, the first thing is I'm going to have more time because I worked very hard for 30 years, very long hours, and I'm going to have more time. So I've got a little more flexibility. I'm going to learn some brand new field, something to do with computer technology and the intersection of that with medicine. I'm going to like to do some traveling with Jan. We had just a taste of it and liked it in business. I never had time to do any of that kind of that kind of thing. And the big assignment

I was going to manage, the investments that were going to be required, more complex because of the sale of the company, which put us in a category that we'd never dreamed of being in. So, so that was the game plan that this is what it's going to be like.

I never had golf on the radar and I never had cocktail parties on the radar. It was like, I'm going to I'm going

to get knowledgeable about something else and see where that goes. Mm hmm. Well, I don't know if you're going to ask, but the plan failed miserably.

I wasn't going to ask.

The travel part didn't fail. Travel part was the one we were successful at.

And we've had a very interesting 25 years of being able to see a lot of parts of the world. But I never really had to manage the investments because we found no other solution to that. And I can talk about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, my teams had the good fortune of working with a lot of business owners. Some like yourself. And it's it's a difficult transition to go from that owning, from controlling, from pushing a button pull on a lever. Things happen to not controlling and I've seen people do that. I've seen them do it well. I've seen them do it not so well. And you're my favorite story because I've just been inspired by how you guys have been able to make that transition.

What would you say has led to some of the success of that transition? I think it's successful anyway. I think you guys would say you've enjoyed it. Also, it's been an incredible ride. What would what would you say has been some of the leading indicators of that success?

Um, do you have a comment to start?

Oh, well, go ahead. I mean, it's it's not been retirement. It's been a fabulous second life and one that I never could have predicted. And basically and we can go into any branches or specifics you want, but we have spent for more than 20 years full time doing philanthropy, using the resources that came from the sale,

the unexpected sale of the company. And bottom line, I've realized that the joy and thrill that I get from help in other people and seeing the impact it has on their lives is just as exciting as building the best company in the industry than I was then. And I never would have guessed that.

People predicted when he retired from the company that they took bets on whether he'd be back in six months or a year. But they were wrong.

Mm hmm.

There's something more inspiring that captured your. Absolute. Imagination even more than that company. Absolutely.

And I never would have guessed that. Oh.

Wow. That's. That's fantastic. So. Well, as as many of our listeners know, that's kind of the area that Ron Blue likes to function in and of encouraging and catalyzing generosity. So it was an easy fit for us to jump into there and kind of encourage some of that. We we exist to help Christians live financially free. That might be free from anxiety and fear, but it's also free to know that they have incredible flexibility to do incredible things with what God's given them. And so it's just a that's the mission to free up those resources for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. And watching you guys step into that has been just one of the joys in my life, seeing you guys really thrive and in that aspect. So thank you for taking us along on that ride, if you will. So thank you for encouraging us because you've made a huge difference in helping us see what the possibilities are and what our resources are and how they can be deployed. 

You know, there are three or four key things, I think, that sort of convinced me that we were on a path that really could have could be pretty exciting. And one of the first things I remember is you guys recommended that we go to a generous giving conference, which was held here in Atlanta, uh, many years ago, very early in our transition.  And my big takeaway from that, I still remember that very clearly, that there were ordinary people there talking about amazing things that they were doing. Right. And it was like, Gee, if they can do that, and there were enough numbers involved, you could see, well, that's something we could do. And I got more confidence that we can actually make a difference. We could be like them and learn from them and learn what kind of things are doing.

And the second big piece for me, there are three, maybe four. The second big piece for me was your, uh, I guess you could call it education and encouragement.

That or my original focus had been less maximize this new financial resources we have. I'll focused on making those investments the best possible. I'll maximize this. Without ever thinking, Well, so what? What's the end of that?

Yeah.

Yeah, but you kept encouraging to think about it as well, you're in charge of this money, but where did it really come from? I mean, this is really God's blessing for you, but he has expectations of your stewardship. What are you going to do with it in maximizing? Is that really the goal? It's he has purposes for this. What are you going to do about it?

Yeah.

Uh, and then the third piece that of the four that for me that was significant and that was that you showed us how you could liberate a lot of the responsibilities that we had for managing the investments, consolidating all the various funds and things that we had to take over, the complex tax situation that we were faced with, etc.. And you would actually not only take that off our plate to the extent we wanted you to do that, but then you could encourage us on how to find other opportunities to deploy the resources we had. And I was not the fastest student on that, I realized. But once I figured it out, then Jan found a scripture passage that sort of nailed, nailed down for us. 

Which was Ephesians 2:10, chapter two, verse ten. You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which were ordained in advance for you to do. And it was astounding to me that this was our this was our scripture. This was this was what we were meant to do. We these works were already ordained, and we just need to listen and stay tuned in. So that was that. And I think the other part of that was seeing the joy of giving while we were still alive to see what what we could accomplish and and who we could help with the resources we had.

Right. Right.

That's been a real joy for me to even watch is to hear these stories and things like that. I suppose it was a stroke that made you realize that God created these in advance for you to do right. That this was like, wow, that's like, what am I sitting here for? Let's get to work. I got to get this. I got to do my part and actually, we came to believe as a result of those three or four factors, the stroke was part of the plan. Because I was certainly not listening for any other alternative path except build this business, hire more people, serve more clients, you know, make a mark in the industry. And it was like, okay, guy, you're not listening. I'm going to whack you on the side of the head so you're going to have to listen. And we really accepted that that point,

the stroke was that was part of the plan because we never would have had this second life. I never would have had this. I'd still be doing what I was doing, you know, 26 years. Still working awful hard. 

I know. That. Yeah.

But it's a different kind and it's just as exciting and just as much fun. And it's been interesting to look at God's long, long term plan. We go back. Our involvement in Kenya goes back to meeting some people that we met, an expectant parents class.

Our older son is 51. Is that right?

Anyway, it was a long time ago. And, you know, God had that connection in mind back then. And it just it was years before it came to fruition. And was part of what his plan was. 

Mm hmm. You've got a lot of stories like that. Maybe share a few others. You mentioned Kenya. I know you're very involved in Kenya. Tell me some of your favorite things. Well, first, why don't we set the. I know Tom likes to have a model. So what are the things that are important for you? What are the what are the things that drive your decision making for how you're going to get involved in a particular organization? What inspires you? Talk about that just a little bit, if you would, please.

Well, I'll give you a couple of pieces of it from my perspective. And Jan I know has, uh, has more. The inspiration for me comes in and seeing the impact that you can have on people's lives who are in situations that are very difficult for them but not of their own making. They just happen to be born or living in a place that's difficult. And I relate to that so much because I started in a sort of a tough situation, not nearly as tough as many of them, but I grew up in an area of scarcity and very hard work, and I had no idea whether I'd ever be able to go to college or do anything like that. Related to that is, over time. First of all, we got started with nothing, with nothing glamorous. Somebody said that here's a situation in our home town that is a clinic for people who can't afford to go to the doctor. And this friend of ours was very involved. And that said, I'd like to give you a tour and etc. and one thing led to another and they needed X and they needed Y. We can actually help with that. We can do that.

So you don't have to go to a foreign land to find something good to do. It just started and those opportunities

started coming to us over and over and bigger and more interesting and more challenging, etc. Over time, we have sort of developed what I think is sort of our model about which things appeal to us most quickly. We've done other things, but the central core of most of the things we do involve young people and helping young people in many different ways escape the confines of poverty or difficult situations that they're in. We also found great satisfaction in working with smaller nonprofits or smaller charities. Uh, partly because we can get confident we know what they're doing. We develop a relationship with usually the leader of that organization, and we don't require paperwork for our grants or anything. It's like we get to know the person

that we believe in, the person we believe in, the efficacy of what you're doing. We'll be your partner we'll help you. At some point you may outgrow us. You don't need us anymore. That's just fine. You can call on us for whatever you need. It doesn't have to be fancy or sexy. We're not into building names and all, all that kind of stuff. What do you need the most?

The question every time we meet with somebody is, what is your most urgent need? What's the most difficult thing for you to fund? We have learned that the typical answer is bathrooms and latrines and so we've become quite involved with latrine projects, but we don't put a name on those either.

Well, they actually did in in in Kenya.

Well, that's true.

I did have our name on the bathroom. Got that removed.

And so so coming from where I came from and I got it, I need to say that I am totally amazed that what I'm willing to do. I mean, I was a saver. I was a saver. Fortunately, so was Jan. I carried a three by five card in my pocket until I was 50 years old and I wrote down every single thing I spent every day. If I bought a candy bar, it went on the card at the end of the month, we turned it in, we put it in the budget.

All right.

The expenses. I was very careful. I was determined to be self-sufficient. My family would be self-sufficient as soon as possible if something happened to me. All right. So I relate to other people's challenges in that context, which is a little strange because that's just my my background. So those are some of the examples

of things that motivate this. Jan has about a better and longer list.

Well, looking at Scripture, it's very clear that we should be fulfilling the great commission, making Jesus known to as many people as we can do, introducing Christ to everyone who who should have a relationship with Him, and also feeding the poor and the hungry. That's that's very biblical as well. So those those principles are always as the is the foundation for what we do. And and, as Tom said, helping people that get out of the circumstances that are limiting them and limiting their future. Mhm.

So besides latrines, what are some of your other favorite projects that you've worked on? 

Fortunately, that's not the only thing that we. All right. Got a chance to dig out, put our hands around. A couple different things. You want examples of specific relationships or a couple of these that that we have? All of them have been exciting for me. I don't actually think of anyone. That's not exciting. A couple that sort of tugged my heart or my and my wallet early on.

Jan mentioned this 50 or plus year old friendship that turned into a connection to a woman who had founded an orphanage in Kenya. And that was really our primarily our first contact in Kenya. And so we she she couldn't fund the operation of the fund of the foundation or the orphanage. So we helped her get raise the money to do the operations, etc.. And in the process, we started hearing these stories about the orphans. I think there were like 35 orphans in this slum in Nairobi that was next to a school, a poor school in the slums. And one of the stories we heard about was these two boys who were in the eighth grade. This was after that.

This was several years later. But when they were in eighth grade and they passed around the list of a little Christmas gift, they would like that the founder of the orphanage gave for Christmas gifts. One boy said these were friends. One boy said he wanted a flashlight and the other boy said he wanted a watch. They said, Well,

no one else has asked for that. Why do you want that? And they said, Well, we want to study at night when the lights go out because we want to be a doctor, we're going to both be doctors. And they said, Oh, okay, why do you want to be doctors? Because we read Ben Carson's book.  Oh, wow. Somebody left that for us. And we were going to be doctors. They graduated from high school. They had no way to go to college. But the orphanage had promised. If you do well in high school, we'll try to find you a scholarship.

So Jan and I created a scholarship didn't have a name or anything but. Two young men. And those two are doctors in Kenya today. So seeing that that might not have happened if we hadn't known them and cared about them in a way we'd never met them. We met them at after their third year of medical school. I think in 2016 we were there and yeah, so we followed them. We're still in touch with with them. Are they at Tenwek?

No. No. No.

But they're both in management of hospitals in several places in Kenya. It's a it's a tough area. And the other one I'll talk about happens to be Kenya as well. And I talk about this one because I spent the last five years of my life working pretty much full time on this project, even though we have 30 or 40 other projects were involved. This is a school. The woman who created who co-founded the school by the orphanage where the doctors were came from, grew up as an orphan. We met her. She was an amazing woman, just so engaging and energetic and visionary, etc. had nothing. And she left that school and went back to western Kenya where she was from and wanted to build a school for the orphans like her. She had absolutely nothing. People said she must have built this shoe on a shoestring. We said, no, she didn't have shoestrings.

Yeah, yeah.

She didn't have shoes. She had a mud hut she found and a couple of a couple orphans and started a school herself. That was about eight years ago. Now she has now she has 500 plus students. She has ten permanent, mostly two story buildings. Uh, she has or the school has an academic reputation that I, I still cannot conceive of. But for six straight years, they have ranked number one on government wide tests in the 82 schools in her region that she competes with. She still has the same energy, vision, enthusiasm, etc. So but she needs someone to help her organize, coordinate and raise the money to build the buildings and operate the school. And we organized a few donors that had been helping her even before we got involved, and they asked me if I would be the coordinator, which is sort of the chairman of the school. So I've done that for five years, turned out to be much bigger job than we expected. But I am so proud of those kids and what they're able to do and the teachers that it's convinced me to keep on doing this.

So I really I really work full time by email and WhatsApp, etc., raising the funds, building the plans, helping her and do whatever is required to make that school, the school that it is. 

You're kind of hard to get a hold of these days and you're too busy. 

It wasn't what I planned, but it's obviously if I didn't love it, I wouldn't be able to. Absolutely. Right.

I wouldn't be able to. Those are a couple examples of mine. Jan, would you have any.

Yes. You'd like to talk about. 

The a woman, a young woman who was part of this, who grew up in this orphanage, was going to college because of the promise that the founders of the orphanage had made. She was going to college and she lost her sponsor. We saw a video of her.

She made with her phone holding it up in front of her.

And it was an appeal to somebody to help her go to college. And she had such a winning personality

 and such an appeal that we said, well, we'll we'll help. Yeah, that was the start of a relationship that goes on to this day is now married. She graduated from college. She's married. She has two, two children. And she started a foundation, an NGO in Kenya, in Nairobi in the one of the poorest areas in Nairobi. So she does a lot of work at this former school where she went to. She's a she's a mentor. She does programs. She does help at an AIDS orphanage in about two years ago, she started a training program for young women in this poor area. It's a 2, 2 pronged approach. One of the areas of training is in computer and computer graphics, and the other is in fashion and design and she has successfully trained a number of girls and she has big plans. My challenge is keeping up with her ideas and her dreams. She's probably the best one of the best leaders I've ever met. Bar none. And she's such a pleasure to work with. And I'm I try to be an encourager for her. And I'm sort of the interface between her and her, this foundation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that helps sponsor her for work. So she and I are on WhatsApp and doing emails and Tom is trying to help her figure out a financial plan for this this business that she wants to create, to employ the girls that are part of her training. And he's trying to give her an MBA, or at least a degree in accounting via the Internet with a seven hour time difference. Anyway. She's just she's a wonderful Christian, just loves the Lord and he and gives him all the credit for anything that she has done.

So she's just a great person to work with. And it's been it's been neat for us because even through COVID, we could continue to do this work because it was remote anyway and we weren't able to travel there since 2019. So our life didn't change that much during the COVID times when a lot of people had to make major shifts.

Well.

You know, all these are relationships, all these examples. Again, they're just everything that.

Oh, yes, we didn't mention that Young Life is one of our our major causes. Young life, for those of you who don't know, is a nondenominational Christian outreach for for young people. And it makes Christianity a exciting and it's very much establishing a relationship between you and God and and you and Jesus. It does it better than any organization that I know of because kids get it. It's easy to understand and it's one on one discipleship that really makes it work. It makes it contagious, too. It does. Yes, that's exactly right.

So they have a program for international young people that have been Young Life leaders, and it's called Developing Global Leaders. It is a means for them to go to college, which they would not be able to afford. And they continue to work as leaders in Young Life during the time of their college education. It's a bargain compared. You know, one of the reasons that it's a pleasure to work in in in Africa is that a college education

is is a lot cheaper than it is here. So that's been a great a great experience for us. We feel like it's going to develop leaders that are even if they don't work for Young Life, they're going to be moral and ethical people,

which is what what their countries need. They're in areas where there's corruption and graft. So they will be the the leaders of tomorrow. And we had the privilege of being with them in a at a Young Life camp for a weekend camp for Young Life College in in Kenya. And we were able to meet with these these leaders that we had sponsored in this DGL program, and they thanked us and they prayed for us and they sang to us. So that was a very special, very special time.

Mm hmm. Yeah.

You've spoken on that program several times, and it's really neat to see that education theme is something the relationships, the education theme that keeps coming up for you guys know.

As they say at Daisy school, education is the key. That's why we're so focused on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And a teacher, I mean, now go all the way back to that. And you know what? In some respects, you're a teacher too. I mean, I've seen that. For. Sure. And how you and how you function.

So on summary, I'd like to wrap up our time together unless you guys have anything else that you'd like to share, is there anything that's on your mind that you like? 

I think that we got to talk about somehow our kids have been involved.

Yeah, great.

We one of the things that we do in NCF in our donor advised fund, well we didn't get to talk really about the, the ease with which that has made us able to do our, our donations easily. And I think we introduced that to you back in maybe 98 or somewhere around there. And it's been sort of a tool in your tool kit to just have the funds like giving checkbook just kind of of the money sitting there.

Right.

And without all the complexity and administrative overhead and etc. of a family foundation, we essentially have that through a donor advised fund managed by NCF. Um, and it's because it's all electronic making donations is, you know, Jan does it all on a keyboard in 5 minutes you can do three donations to org to charities that we've already identified, etc., etc.

And the other benefit that I've found out is not obvious to a lot of people. A benefit donor advised fund is the ability to separate the tax deductible donation, which you put funds in the donor advised fund and you do that when that's optimal for whatever reason that some asset is being sold or there's a capital gains you want to to avoid, essentially by putting it into the donor one.

But the actual distribution of those funds through to different charities is separate in time. You decide when to do that, who to do it to, how much at a time. So if you had a large transaction of selling a business or some other major asset, you can put that whatever chunk you want to into the donor advised fund. But a lot of charities aren't ready to receive that much money, so you can later dole that out over ten years if you want. They do all the tax work, all the filings, etc. There's no hassle. It's just a keyboard, an accountant.

So they send this to their it's like writing an electronic check to them.

Yeah.

So that's been a tremendous help and simplification. One more thing we don't have to worry about.

I don't have to gather all those receipts, right?

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And one of the things that we try to do to help our kids have an attitude of giving is we put funds in NCF each year for them to distribute to their favorite charities. And then we we have a chance when we gather as a family to share ideas about what what they've been contributing to, what we've found, that is, we think, worthy of support. So it's been a it's been a nice way to encourage them in their in their charitable giving. Absolutely.

And as you know, you you and John work with our kids do. So that's they get a coherent approach to, what everything's all about.

Yeah.

Besides walking alongside you and your generosity journey, it's been such a privilege to walk with your kids to thank you. Thank you for. That. 

And it's really been a great a great relief for us to know that, you know, what our financial situation is. And when something happens to one of us or both of us that you can communicate with our kids who you already know, we feel, you know, a great burden lifted because of that.

Mm hmm. Yeah.

They're just a joy to work with. I mean, they're the really solid people, and it's just fun to experience life with them, too. Yeah. And encourage them in some of the same things.

Because all these principles apply, no matter what level you're at. Right, same same kinds of things. Right.

So. Right.

Well, thank you.

Really appreciate it. You're very welcome.

And I just want to thank you again, if if we could call this public, I will do it. But a lot of this never could have happened. You and John and Ron Blue, not only the technical parts of it, which freed us, whether it's the donor advice fund or the investment management. I mean, I went from monitoring all those investment managers valuation, the portfolios every week to a twice a year meeting. All right. Where you give us the results and we discuss of any tweaking that you recommend.

All right.

And if I were doing that, I if I had to do all that, I could never do the school and some of the other things. But the other piece of it is not just that expertise, but it's the encouragement that you guys do to get us to see the big picture and what it's really all about. And I wouldn't have made that on my own. I know that. It would have taken Jan even longer to get me to realize. But. You guys were very helpful. And to have financial advisors that you totally trust and know that they're not trying to maximize their fees, they're trying to get you to give away God's resources that he gave you.

A great business model.

That's yeah, that's that's like. How do you make money farming when you lose money every year? And he said, well, we're just going to get more land and we're more or less well, we'll lose it faster. No. So this is that's all been a terrific asset, which is given, at least in my case, a life that I never expected to have.

Right.

And I'm glad I didn't think that golf was the best course for me, because it's really turned out to be something so much more exciting and and and fun and satisfying. So. Yeah, well.

The fact that we get to do it together.

Yeah.

It's terrific. Absolutely terrific.

Yeah.

My kids ask about Mr. or Mrs. Thomas. It's. It's just a privilege to talk with you guys.

Well, thank you.

You're very kind and generous.

Yeah.

In summary, is there anything else you'd share with entrepreneurs that are making a transition? People that are gone going from a control spot to a you know, having to let go and grab on to something else, find another vision, anything else that comes to mind.  

I'm not big on giving other people advice. I like to do it by example, so I'll use that example. I guess. I think you have to it's important to really I'm sure that we all know people who've retired and sort of their life was over. So yeah, they were doing whatever they wanted, but it wasn't very exciting. I have a men's group in Florida that that meets once a week and during the season. And there are guys that play golf five times a week, which they dreamed of all their working life, but they admit it's not very satisfying. I mean, they have a conversation. Yeah. And I just I like to think, well man, if I had the money to spend on golf, I could send kids to college in Kenya. So I think it's important. And my suggestion would be to think about what's really gives you satisfaction in life. Okay. And see how you can capture some of that in retirement time. All right. And if you decide you want to really explore that, find people you can work with and trust, either people you know who are doing something you think you'd like to know more about. And I've had some discussions with some of the guys about that, or find people like Ron Blue who can encourage you to think about this. And is this really your money? What what could you be doing with this, etc.? Find people who can who can help you and encourage you guide you along the way.

Yeah.

The last thing is find a wife like Jan. Yeah. Because for sure, you know, you can't do a lot of these things by yourself. You got to have a partner team. And that's what that's what makes it work for us that we're doing it together. 

And. And the other thing is to remember the scripture that says there were good works prepared for you to do. You just need to stay tuned in. You need to listen and fulfill that part of Scripture. That way and bring it home. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. 

Thank you, Layne. Appreciate it. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast. If you're looking for financial advice, please contact us. Please visit ronblue.com That's ronblue.com. Thank you for listening and please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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