The Kindness Effect: How Compassion and Surrender Led to Leadership

In this episode, we sit down with the chief supply chain officer of Atlanta Community Food Bank and former district manager of the Home Depot, Kenny Hill, along with Ronald Blue Trust CEO, Nick Stonestreet, and founder of Be A Peacemaker, Dr. Michael Patterson. Kenny shares his story of growing up in poverty and how God placed certain people in his life who challenged him and gave him opportunities to grow. Don't miss this chance to learn from Kenny's story of how God brought him from a challenging childhood to a position and opportunity to care for his community.

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Transcript

- [Announcer] 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'll 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 these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended a specific individual advice. The client's experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients, and they're also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions express may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust. In this episode, we sit down with Chief Supply Chain Officer of Atlanta Community Food Bank, and former district manager at the Home Depot, Kenny Hill, along with Ronald Blue Trust, CEO, Nick Stonestreet and founder of Be A Peace Maker, Dr. Michael Patterson. Kenny shares his story of growing up in poverty and how God placed certain people in his life and challenged him and gave him opportunities to grow. Don't miss this chance to learn from Kenny's story of how God brought him from a challenging childhood to a position and opportunity to care for his community. Let's listen in now.

- Welcome to the "Wisdom for Wealth For Life" podcast. I'm Dr. Michael Patterson, and I'm here with Nick Stonestreet and Kenny Hill, a client of Ronald Blue Trust. Now you have definitely had and still have a very interesting life, and we're thankful that you're here today to share some of your life's journey with us. So we're gonna jump right in. Kenny, how did we even meet? I think that was the most unique experience I've had in a long time.

- Yeah, so yeah, we met in the community. We met out doing the work of trying to provide service to the community. We met because you're planting a church in the community that God has sent me to, to serve. And when I think about it, the actual meeting place was at the Governor's mansion, a mutual friend that we all know invited both of us to the Governor's mansion to speak with Governor Kemp. And it was at that breakfast meeting that as we went around the table to say, introduce who we were and what we were working on and what we're doing, that you mentioned what you were doing. And I was like, "That sounds just like the church that's in my community." And it was.

- Yeah.

- So yeah, God has a unique way of bringing people together for sure.

- Yeah, at that breakfast with Governor Kemp, it was an interesting time, but it also shows that when there are opportunities, you take them, you take the opportunities.

- Absolutely.

- You don't let the petty differences separate us, because if we hadn't gone, we probably would not have met each other. And you just never know how life works. But in getting to know you, Kenny, I have grown in my respect and admiration for your conviction about people. And I know you wrote a book that chronicled your life. You wanna share your title with us and what prompted you to write the book?

- Absolutely. So the title of the book is "Elevated" and it really just describes my journey as a young boy growing up in poverty, single parent home, the eldest of seven siblings. There was not much that looked like success in my early upbringing. As I look back though, my mom was sowing the seas of success in my life through prayer and engaging me and helping me understand that we serve a God who's able to do anything. It took me to learn that for myself. So I had to journey through the trials of trying to do it without God and then trying to do it through the constraints of I'm checking all the boxes of what it takes to be a good Christian and then finally to becoming ingrained in God's character and having relationship with Him that not just result in a list of things that I do, because I'm a Christian, but a lifestyle that I live and that He lives through me that reaches other people. And that is, those are the levels of elevation, the levels of transformation that happen for me. So I capture that in the book to be an encouragement to other people.

- And so, Kenny, with this, it's such a, the first 15 years and then the second 15 years, such a different story you went on to have a great marriage, children, God blessing you, but you didn't just take the blessings that God gave you and just hold onto 'em for yourself. That giving spirit, that you developed, that nature, that you talk about, that divine nature, that the way that you took on God's character, you continued to play that out in your community. And I'd love for you to share how instead of just holding onto those blessings for yourself, how you turned that back around and kept giving.

- Yeah, and it was so important to me to remember where I have come from. And so, as my finances were restored, and as God took me and my wife to levels in our finances-

- And Kenny, just to mention, you are a Ronald Blue Trust client.

- That is very important. So we looked for some representation, because the team you have is important. Who you surround you with is important. And we had a whole bunch of financial companies, financial advice companies wanting us to sign up with them and showing us how they could take our income and our small portfolio and multiply it. And it just isn't, after hearing it over and over again, there was something missing that was key to who we were. And that was focused on giving back. So we were invited by a friend to a church presentation of a financial advisory firm. And we said, "Okay, well let's go." And we sat there and listened to people who are about making money, about prospering, talk about, but what are you gonna do with what God has given you stewardship over? And that message just resonated and said, now that's what's missing, that's what we need. So we signed up that day. I went up front after the presentation, I said, "Hey, who do I need to talk to? 'Cause this sounds right." And yeah, so it's not just enough for you to be someone who's focused on God's character, which is love and giving, but you need to surround yourself with people who are like-minded, because you don't wanna go into your meetings every year when you're talking about your finances and have to fight your advisors over how much you're gonna give.

- We hear it all the time, and one of the places we hear it a lot is in our professional athlete space where they're making so much money and they're wanting to give, and yet there's this tussle with their advisors telling them, "No, you should set up a foundation and maybe just give the income from the foundation." And we've heard actually people that said, "My advisor made me feel like I was crazy for wanting to give this much." And I'm sure you have experiences, you and your wife have experienced going through and going through your cash flows and drawing your finish line and knowing where you're gonna end up and knowing confidently that you can give.

- Yes, and then, you do all the math and you set all the goals, but you can never factor in what God is gonna do, because you've made your life a reservoir, I mean, a river to flow to other people instead of a reservoir where you're just collecting as much as you can.

- Amen.

- And so, every year we're amazed at what God brings in. We're like, "Wow, we set a higher goal to give and wow, look what happened." So, and I'm not trying to force anybody to give or, because it really needs to come from your heart, 'cause if it's not coming from your heart, if you're not moved by what you are giving can do in the lives of others, then you're missing the biggest joy of giving. It's just, experiencing.

- And I think we need to hear more stories like yours, because we are taught you gotta get and get and get, and hold on and hold on. But you're saying the more you give, the more God gives to you.

- Start yesterday, just really no matter where you are... And then when I started, I didn't have anything financial to give, but God told me clearly, "Kindness is free." You don't need a bank account. You don't need an investment portfolio. Kindness is free. And when you operate in kindness, when He blesses you with finances, it'll be an automatic flow that you're now able to give financially as well.

- So powerful, Kenny, and I love the idea of how much time you spend in the community and the things that you do for others. What do you think drove you to that? A lot of people express their faith in different ways, but Jesus expressed His faith in working in communities, and it seems like that's a path you've chosen as well.

- Yes, He did. He served, He went out and sought the least and the lost. And for me, I was the least and the lost for so much of my life. And I can remember it just like it was yesterday. When I look into the eyes of the children that we serve through our literacy program, I see myself, somebody struggling with school and education being one of the pathways or one of the tools to alleviate my situation. But there was somebody there, God sent somebody to step in to encourage me and said, "Hey, you can do this. I see potential in you." So every day that I get up, when I look in eyes with my children, I love them, and I see the great potential God has for them. But as I look into their eyes, I can remember where I was when I was their age, and it looked a lot different. And I remember the people who I went out and served last week to try to encourage them, as young people to pay attention, because I'm here because I see greatness in you. So everything that I experienced day-to-day is a reminder of where I've been and where God has brought me from. And then He's just placed in me. And it's funny because my mom tells me the story that when I was little, whenever someone would visit us, if they had kids with them, when they got ready to leave, I would go get all my toys and try to give my toys to them as they were leaving. And so, I think there's just something in me that God has wired me just to be a giver and it pleases me to see someone's life impacted. I get more out of knowing somebody's life has been impacted than seeing another digit in my bank account or in my investment portfolio. Those things are important, but I think they're important as a means of being able to reach more people.

- [Nick] Amen. Kenny, aside from your mom, who else influenced you? Who else saw something special in you? And everybody kind of needs a break in life. And I think of two or three people that helped me at critical moments when it could have gone the other way for me. Who are some of the people that kind of helped you?

- Yes, that's so true. And without people, and you never know, it doesn't always take a lot, sometimes it's just a word of encouragement, it's just taking interest in what someone's doing to give them the encouragement to continue in the right path. And God sent people in my path and some of them were able to be an example where I can look at where they were and say, "Yeah, I wanna be like that." And then some of them were to give me encouragement and say, "Hey, you know, you can do better than what you're doing. There's more for you if you'll be consistent." So God sent me, my godfather was just a tremendous blessing in my life. And He sent him to me to show me what could be possible, because all around me was the evidence of what I didn't want. The poverty, the crime, people taking advantage of each other. But to have someone with a fresh perspective step in and say, every day doesn't have to be like today and everywhere is not like where you are now.

- [Nick] Where was that Kenny and how old were you then?

- So I was still in high school. I was in the midst of all the pools of trying to find my identity, which was really challenging, because I didn't have my father in my life. So I grew up with a lot of just anxiety about, why am I not accepted? And questions you don't have anybody to answer for you. My mom tried to explain it the best she could, but the person who had the answer to why my father's not in my life was not there to answer that. So just really having to battle with identity, which is a part of middle school, high school, everybody has that struggle. But when you have a key piece of what God has intended for your life missing, the enemy jumps in to try to exploit that. And so, it was during that time of me searching and wanting to belong and wanted to know where I fit in that God sent godly men to say, "Hey, what's around you doesn't define you and what you're dealing with today, that this is here for a season, but you can rise above it and God has given you what it takes to do that, and you have to use it." And that was the encouragement I needed to challenge myself to do more. I could have accepted what everybody else was doing as this is what life has presented and this is what I have to deal with. But God sent me people to challenge me to say, "You can do more."

- So, Kenny, what happened with some of your peers?

- Wow, I pray for 'em, because every time I go back to where home was then, I struggle to find them. But yeah, just at a early age, involved in gangs, involved in drugs and what happens when you're involved with them, a lot of lives cut short, a lot of lives spent behind bars, a lot of lives hooked and on irreversible damage due to substance abuse, things that it's amazing to look at. These are the guys we all played in the park with, I grew up with. And then as we grew, their lives just were torn from the path that I know God had intended for them, but by His grace, I made it, I made it out.

- Amen.

- And I'm forever mindful that the only thing separating me from where they ended up and where they struggled to this day is God's grace. There were times, I mean, I can remember times where I was about to get arrested and God opened the door for me to get out. I remember times where I was out of control in a car hanging off the side of a mountain with traffic coming the other way, it could have just knocked me off the mountain in the car to a certain death. I mean, there were just so many times where it was just His grace that was there just to watch over me.

- And you said something that's very deep and profound about your mother, how much she prayed for you, taught you about God, and that's a great reminder to parents that we really need to pray for our children. We need to talk to them about God. And I met your mom, she's a sweet lady. Something else we have in common. Her name is Miss Gloria.

- Yes, yes.

- That's my mother's name. And you're the oldest of seven? Come from a large family, I come from a large family. So it's really cool when God allows you to meet people who have a similar upbringing, understand what it's like to grow up in poverty. But your story in the book is so compelling, 'cause you talked about being in college, being in college and then finding the job you wanted to get. I believe that was Home Depot.

- Yes, it was.

- Yeah, let's talk about that, 'cause I thought it was very interesting.

- Yes, Home Depot was a great learning ground for my life. It was a company that had great leadership and core values. And that was good for me, because there were a lot of companies that the profit is king, that's all they focus on, and then everything else is subject to what is it gonna take to reach that number. But there was a company in Home Depot that placed how we treat each other and how we treat our customers as priority. And our founders had the firm belief that if we take care of each other and together we take care of our customers, then the bottom line will take care of itself. And it's just for me that was rare. And still to this day, I don't see that being a major focus for a lot of major organizations.

- Okay, now didn't you as a young man get on the plane and fly to Atlanta?

- Yes, I did. So my mentor challenged me. One of the ways he challenged me to write a letter to the CEO. I had been working about 3 1/2 years at Home Depot. I was in college, I think it was my junior year. And he said, "You need to write the CEO and let him know you're about to graduate and let him know what you feel about working with the company." And I'm just thinking I'm the last person that the CEO wants to hear from. But my mentor insisted. So I did, wrote the letter and just-

- Who was the CEO at the time?

- So at the time it was our founder Bernie Marcus. He was the CEO and I wrote the letter thanking him for the culture he created and that I was enjoying as an employee. And then I told him I was studying and about to graduate and just really look forward to how I could grow with the company. And he responded. It blew me away, because I was expecting that to just be something maybe his secretary got and threw in the shredder. But he responded, he wrote me back and said congratulations on your upcoming degree, I want you to reach out to our vice president of human resources and I was like, "Wow," and I did. So that's how I ended up coming to Atlanta for the first time was, hey, the company I was working for as a student invited me to come and meet with senior leadership.

- Wow, that's a bold request.

- Yes, it was.

- That's great it was, that's great, Ken.

- And that was another one of the ways that I had people to challenge me and 'cause if the challenge wasn't there, I would've never done it. I would've never written a letter on my own and I never would, maybe never would've ended up coming to Atlanta, which was truly God's plan for me. I'm sure that being here in Atlanta, experiencing the things I've experienced, developing the way I've developed and reaching out to the people that I've reached out to was all a part of God's plan.

- So your mentor challenged you, you followed through on it, came to Atlanta, Georgia.

- Yes sir.

- Now, how many years did you work with Home Depot? Because I know you're retired from Home Depot so.

- Well, yeah, 30 years. So when you started as a student-

- Okay, oh, you count your college years.

- Yeah, I started as a student and 30 years later I was still enjoying what I was doing, having experienced what it meant to do business God's way along the way, which was pivotal, because coming out of college I thought, I have an education and I know how to network and those are the things that everybody tells you is so important. Get your degree, know your business, and then know how to network. And that's your key to be able to rise in any organization. And so, I was prepared to do that and I went at it with all my energy and it got me nowhere. I mean, there were benefits that every associate got, and those were the ones I had. My college degree did not seem to move the needle from me. My hard work didn't seem to move the needle, my extra work and effort, my networking, all of those things that I tried just fell flat. And God was trying to show me that for me, there was a path that included His character and His nature being presented as the key to my success. And so, of that 30-year career, I would say it's about 15 years of it that Kenny Hill was trying to do it his way and show the world that he knew what was going on and it was not working.

- That's so interesting, Kenny, because so many times you hear, and it is good. I mean, obviously to have your college degree and work hard and go after it and do the networking, and sometimes we feel like something or someone is holding us back. I felt that way before. And then when I found out it's actually God holding me back using someone or something so I could learn the lessons. So where did that intersection with God really come in?

- Yes, yes. He's such a good Father that He's insistent that we learned these lessons before we moved forward. For me, there was a intersection at the time I was married, my first marriage, things weren't going so well there. A lot of it had to do with my career, because things were still not working in my career. And it all came to a head. It just came to my first wife said, "You know what? That's it, I'm leaving." And now here, Nick, I'm a Christian. I'm serving in my church. I'm volunteering in the youth ministry, I'm doing all, I read my Bible, I pray every day. I'm doing all the things-

- The checklist.

- Checking the whole list off. And now my wife's leaving and I'm like, "What do I do to deserve this?" I've been faithful. I used to work and bring the check that I did earn, I'd bring it and give it to her. Say, "Here's the check." And then she'd give me gas money to get to work for the next two weeks. And I did that, that was our agreement. She was better at the finances. So here you do what you do. And so, I was just caught so off-guard that how can this happen? And I got really frustrated with God. I was like, "God, what's going on? This shouldn't be happening to me." And the enemy tried to make me feel guilty. It's like, you can't even keep your marriage together. How can you be a minister? Because that was the thing, the gospel was so precious to me just because I saw how God had rescued me from what I grew up in. And so, the enemy attacks my message like, you shouldn't even mention anything. Look at, you can't even keep your marriage together.

- [Nick] And that's deep.

- So, yeah. And I found myself face down in the carpet of an empty house, because all the furniture was gone, crying a puddle in the tear, a puddle of tears in the carpet saying, "God, what did I do to deserve this? And you can't leave me like this." And just really crying out, 'cause I was at the end of myself, because all my Bible study, all my prayer, all my hard work, all my networking, everything that Kenny Hill knew had been fully implemented and I'd done it to the max and I was bankrupt. I was like, this is not how it's supposed to be. And I remember hearing God's voice through my tears, and He told me, "Love is the answer to your situation." And I said-

- Nothing that said you wanted.

- I said, "Love has nothing to do with this." I mean, I was always a nice guy. I treat everybody respectful. My mom raised me to be polite. So I'm thinking in my mind, "God, are you hearing my prayer or is that for somebody else? 'Cause love has nothing to do with what I'm going through." And He challenged me and He said, "What does John 3:16 say? For God's so loved the world that He gave." And He said, "Stop right there." He said, "Love gives and kindness is your key." And I was just, that was just to me like, "God, why am I even praying? Because you're talking to me about something that has nothing to do with my situation, but I'm gonna take what you've just given me and I'm gonna run with it just to prove that this has nothing to do with my situation." That's where I was. I said, "I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna show you that this has nothing to do, my love walk has nothing to do with my situation."

- [Nick] So you were kind of like Jonah, you knew best.

- I was, I was embarrassed. I felt like I was an embarrassment to God. And he was letting it happen. So I was like, "What's going on here?" But I tell you, Nick, I determined in my heart, I said, I'm going to go out of my way to be genuinely kind to everybody that crosses my path. So I work in a Home Depot location. There's 103 employees. There's about 8,000 people that come through there a day. But I said, I'm gonna do that. And I started investing kindness into the lives of my associates, investing kindness in every customer interaction. And two wonderful things happened. One, every act of kindness that I extended to someone else, it began to heal my heart, all that brokenness from my wife leaving me, all the frustration from my career, not elevating, He was just like, there was a stitch being put in place every time I was going out of my way to help somebody else. And He taught me, He's like, "Whenever things in your life are just beyond control and in chaos, stop focusing on that and focus on what you can do for somebody else." And that's what I did. And then because it was like therapy to me, I poured myself into it. So the second thing that happened, because I was genuinely going out of my way to invest in the wellbeing of others, it started creating a brand for me. Kindness became a brand. People would, so it started off, I was an assistant manager. So here I'm assistant manager, still more education than anybody in the building. More years of experience than anybody in the building, but I'm still just an assistant manager. But everybody in the store now wanted to work in my departments, because I was investing in the people who reported to me. And so, at some point it got to a point where now I could pick who I wanted on my team, because everybody wanted to be on my team. And so, I picked the best people and all of my departments begin to elevate not just at the store level, but district and region-wide. So it created a brand and people from the corporate office would say, "Well, you need to go see Kenny Hill." "Isn't he at that store that's kind of a mess?" "Yeah, but that's who you need to go talk to about your project." So God was sending people to me and challenging me to continue with all the work I have, the workload I have, here's extra people coming with something. "Can you help us with this? Would you take a look at that for us?" And being in His character is what He was teaching me. His character, not worrying about myself, my workload. But what can I do for somebody else?

- Well, excuse me a minute, Kenny, 'cause I'm thinking about the book. You were having challenges in your marriage and you were also working in one of the most challenging sections of Home Depot in Atlanta. The community that you were working.

- Absolutely. Yeah, it was one of the most challenging stores in the company, in terms of crime, in terms of operational inefficiencies, you name it.

- Yeah, employees were unhappy. Yeah, I remember reading all that. So it was like a storm in your life, but it was on all fronts.

- On all sides. And then again, everything I tried only made it seemingly worse. But God showed me that the divine nature, the Bible tells us to be partakers of the divine nature and investing in other people from a heart of love is God's nature. What did He do for us? But He invested in us His best.

- We know that's in the Bible, but that's the opposite of what most of us do. When we go through a hard time, we become very-

- Self-preservation.

- Yeah, we become angry, frustrated, we blame other people and the last thing we wanna do is serve.

- That's right, that's right.

- But you're saying the key to growing even in your career, in the secular world, is serving.

- Serving others. And that's something most people don't sign up for. And people come to me and say, "Can you mentor me? I've seen what you've done in your career." And I say, "Yeah," first question I say, "Who are you serving? Who are you pouring yourself out for?" Not so that it gets recognized. Not so you get credit for it, but who are you genuinely pouring into? Because it's when we pour out that God pours in and that's what He did for me.

- And Kenny, where did that take you from there as far as your career with Home Depot? How did your life get reset?

- Yeah, so I mentioned that first 15 years was all about what I could do and what I could produce. And it was just a pile of saw dust. But God took the divine nature being expressed through me and He's like, "I wanna show you now what I can do." And I received promotion after promotion. I received recognition on a company-wide scale that you just don't even think exists. I was handpicked to represent the Home Depot on "The Steve Harvey Show". So we did a five-year radio contract with "Steve Harvey Radio Show". When he went into television, they flew me to Chicago twice to be on his television show representing the Home Depot. Just things that it was like, how do you sign? You can't even raise your hand and say pick me for stuff like this.

- Wow, so you went from an empty house by yourself with no furniture to being on national TV.

- Yes, and that was great from God just saying, "Here I'm showing you that I didn't forget about you." But even to the detail, I remember God told me, there's a scripture that says that, that He has, He's engraved us in His hand-

- In the palm of His-

- In the palm of His hand. And God told me, "I have a detailed list of every pain you've ever experienced and if you stay connected to me, I'm gonna repay you and I'm gonna heal every hurt you've ever experienced." And He did it and so my first wife left. Because I was engaged in serving and pointing to others, the corporate office sent a gentleman to my location to be trained. Now I wasn't the one who was supposed to train him, the general manager was, but he said, "Oh, Kenny will train you he knows everything." So I could have said, "Here's something else on, I got a full plate. I'm not supposed to do this, it's known that the general manager's, the one who trains these people who come from corporate." But because I was operating in what can I do for others, it's not about me. I said, "Come on sir, I'm going to show you everything I know." He ends up being married to someone who went to school with me in San Diego. He's also a pastor. He had been divorced. So he started counseling me and helping me get over what I was going through. He was starting to say, "Kenny, you can make it through this. I've been through it, God restored me. I have another wife and my wife is pregnant with my first son." And I'm just thinking, "Wow," so sometimes you just need evidence that it can happen.

- Yeah, that's true.

- And God is so awesome that his wife delivered his first son, he'd had three daughters before. It was his first son. He said, "Kenny, I want you to be my son's godfather." And that meant so much to me. I mean, being fatherless growing up, not having any children at that point in my own, somebody saying, "I want you to be my son's godfather." Just you thought like I won the lottery. And that wasn't it. His wife introduced me to the doctor that delivered my godson and that doctor is my wife.

- Ah, okay.

- Wow.

- That's how you found her.

- It goes and now if I had blew him off and said, "It's not really my job to train you," I could have come up with whatever excuse that was appropriate, but because I leaned in, he ended up ministering to me and then his wife introduces me to my wife. And that's just-

- Wow.

- The levels that God said, "I'm gonna repay you for every area of hurt that you've experienced."

- So something you just said that I think is a powerful reminder to me. And hopefully our listening audience will grasp it. In difficult situations we lean into what we know is right.

- [Kenny] That's right.

- Even if we don't feel like it.

- You won't feel like it, you won't.

- But if we lean in, there's a blessing there.

- Every time.

- And I believe sometimes I have missed out and some of us may have missed out on blessings, because we chose not to lean into the pain.

- That's right. It reminds, so Jesus on the cross, He's dying. And what does He do? He prays for the people who are killing Him.

- Yeah, you're right.

- If you think about that picture that He wasn't worried about Himself, He didn't say, "God, take this pain away, but Father forgive them. They know not what they do."

- So Kenny, talk a little bit about that, 'cause that's kind of where we were going before is kind of what's your life look like today? And what does your giving look like? Not the financial part, I mean, that's part of it, but you're giving to the community, because that's such a great part of your story.

- So since I shared, I grew up, my mom was a single parent. When my wife and I began to invest in real estate, one of the things God put on my heart was use some of your real estate to be a blessing to people. And I was like, "Wow, that's unique. I don't know that there's a ABC, 123 script on how you do that." But I start sharing it with my friends, "You know what? My wife and I want to use our properties to be a blessing to people." And God connected us with just the right team of people. And started with my CPA, he said, "Hey, whoever you wanna help, I'll teach financial literacy to him for free." And then we had an attorney said, "You know what? I'll teach entrepreneurship." And we had all these experts join, commit to helping us with whoever we were gonna use our properties to help. So we reached out to homeless shelters and my mom being a single mom was near and dear to my heart. So we found a shelter that actually focused on mom with infant children. And we told them we want to use properties we own to be a transitional housing opportunity for motivated moms, because I had a full-time job, I didn't have time to be there and spend all day case managing, but motivated people who want to change their lives. So we had invested in a multi-family property and we set aside a certain number of units. We said, these are gonna be for people that we're gonna help get their lives on track. And like I said, single moms had just a place in my heart. So we surrounded the people that we selected out of the shelter with the team that we put together to help them. My pastor taught spiritual foundations. My CPA taught financial literacy. So anything we could think of that they would need to get their life on track, we provided. And we said, "You and your family are in this place that was fully furnished." One of the people who came up was an interior designer, she fully furnished unit. So they were walking into fully furnished houses or condominiums that look like they're out of the W Hotel and the look on those mom's faces going from a shelter and their stories, their back stories of what they'd been through before they got to the shelter. I mean, we had one who at 15, her mom deserted her. She came home from school, her and her sister and her mom was gone. She went on a drug binge and just left. And at the end of the month they were still there and the landlord kicked them out and they were on the streets. So when we found her, she had just, she had her first child was six weeks old. She was in the shelter. And the shelters, I didn't know the shelters give you six months before now you have to figure out what you're gonna do. So she only had a couple months left before I'm gonna be back to where I was. And we took her into our program, gave her the love, and God told me, "You need to first of all give them the love. You tell them that I sent you to find them, to show them God's love." And that's the key. This is not about Mr. Hill, this is not about my wife. This is not about these coaches who are, this is about God's love for you. And we were able to stand by them. That first group we stuck with, we stayed with them two years. Giving them housing, coaching, everything they needed to get on their feet. And now their stories are just amazing, amazing. This summer we had the first person from our program to become a homeowner, now owns her own home and our first one to graduate from college. So she's now a teacher. She's in her classroom now with an income that's 2 1/2 times anything she's ever made before in her life.

- [Nick] That's excellent.

- And it's because God put it on our heart to help people using our property.

- [Nick] So is this Launchpad?

- This is the Launchpad Foundation, it started in 2014. Didn't know how it was gonna work out. People say, "Oh, you're crazy, they're gonna steal the furniture and they're gonna leave." An all the things that could happen was like, "You know what, we're gonna do this." So you can always wonder what might go wrong when you give, what somebody might do with the money you give them or with the opportunity you provide, but give anyway.

- So Kenny, one of the things that fascinated me, and we still were yet to do it, but we'll be spending some time together talking about this for Ronald Blue Trust employees, how can a bike ride become transformational?

- Oh wow. Bike ride, I mean-

- You could talk about that whole journey and taking people on bike rides through the community.

- Yes, that is. And somebody exposed it to me. And I think that's just one of the beauties of having a giving heart, is God connects you with people, because you have the right heart. He connects you with people who are like-minded and yeah, I've been on, how many bike rides now? and I have some more scheduled, because being able to just go and look at different areas of our city, look at where it was and and where it's going and the people behind it. The stories behind the people is so empowering to know that, you know what? In some small way I'm a part of the story of people wanting a better life, people wanting an opportunity and somebody somehow stepping in to make that available.

- So talk about that a little bit, Kenny, because I love the idea of taking people from different backgrounds and even people from affluent areas and taking 'em on a ride just to show them, because we kind of live in our own communities. We don't always break through-

- That's true.

- And go into other communities and yet you're taking these affluent people and putting 'em on bicycles and taking 'em through to show how other people can emerge and prosper as well.

- Yeah, exposure's a powerful tool, Nick. It was powerful for me when I was in poverty growing up in a crime-infested area. It was exposure allowed me to see something else that something else was possible. And today, as you mentioned, people who live kind of in their own little world, no matter what your financial situation is, if your own little world consists of the same people in the same places, you're missing out on so much. And so, when we do the bike rides, it's an opportunity to just navigate through other people's lives almost, other people's existences and their realities. And then as you share and you talk about what's going on and things that people are hopeful for in their lives and in their communities, it just gives you such a much richer perspective. And it makes me feel that you know what? We choose somehow to isolate ourselves in our own little worlds, but God's plan is for us to be a family and to interact with one another and to be a part of, you know what? Sometimes it's being a part of somebody's solution and sometimes it's someone saying something that helps us, encourage us. Sometimes when you're dedicated to pouring out to others, it gets weary, you get tired and sometimes you start placing expectations on the things that you're investing in the people and you start focusing 'em on the expectation than the person. And God had to teach me that. We're housing people and I'm Home Depot background and I'm already charting. Okay, how many should we have housed by this year and how many? And when it doesn't look like it's adding up to that, I get frustrated and God told me, "Kenny, I told you to love people and sow the seeds of my love, but now you're out here trying to inspect the fruit." And it just really caused me to step back and say, "You know what? You're right God, I'm supposed to be showing them your love and sowing into their lives, not inspecting what the fruit is," 'cause fruit takes time.

- It does.

- But back to your original thought that yeah, exposure to our own communities that are right around us. Sometimes we just need a pathway to show where the connection points are. And when we do that, we're always gonna be richer for it.

- Well Kenny, you remind me of a proverb that, "A generous person will prosper and the person that refreshes others will themselves be refreshed." And your story's inspirational and it's interesting, 'cause it's unintentionally inspirational, 'cause it's about you giving and then seeing that. It isn't like you're going out to try to be an inspiration. It's like you're just living out God's love. And we're so grateful to have you as a client, to get a chance to serve you as you're serving others and just so grateful for you and your family and what you're doing.

- Well, thank you so much Kenny. I know you're a busy man and you got the Launchpad going and you have your family. And lastly, now you're working again, you left retirement. Just quickly tell us what you're doing.

- Yeah, so it turns out that a friend of mine is a CEO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. And he reached out to me a couple months ago and wanted me to consider joining his team. So I prayed about it and the mission is unbelievable. I mean, it's just incredible addressing food insecurity. And for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, they reached 29 counties. So with the heart to give, how could you say no to the opportunity to help a mission that has that much impact on families? So I remember growing up that there were food bank-sponsored meals on my table many, many times. So yes, since June 21st, I've serving there as a chief finance, not financial, but the chief, what do I do?

- Operational?

- Well, they supply chain now, it's Chief Supply Chain Officer.

- Okay, okay.

- And just helping source the food and get the food out to families.

- I love it.

- Yeah, so the Launchpad, God bless with the great director that we brought on to keep the day-to-day going. And when God's directing you, He provides everything you need. And we just have to be obedient and go.

- Amen.

- Well, thank you man. Well, you are truly one man making a difference and is honor to partner with you. And we look forward to seeing what God will do in the near future. So again, to our listening audience, thank you so much for being a part of this episode and we hope and pray you have been inspired by Kenny's journey. Until next time, thanks.

- [Announcer] 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. Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by Ronald Blue Trust Incorporated are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency are not deposits or other obligations of, nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate and are subject to investment risk, including possible laws of the principal amount invested.