An Army of Normal Folks - God’s Billion Dollar Company That Gives Away 50% of Profits (Pt 1)

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Alan Barnhart is the CEO of Barnhart Crane & Rigging, which gives away 50% of its profits and he believes is God’s company. His personal commitment to earn a normal person salary makes Alan one of the most unique members of the Army.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you go from 10 million to a billion in 35 years while giving away half of your profits? Sure, yeah. That's a lot, dude. It is. And I tell you, it doesn't seem like a valid strategy. And if you leave God out of the equation, I'd say it's a bad idea. Welcome to an army of normal folks.

I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis and the last part somehow it led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved

by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's just us, you and me deciding, hey, you know what? I can help. That's what Alan Barnhart, the voice you just heard, has done. Alan is more committed to being a normal folk than anyone we've ever met. In addition to Barnhart, Cranen, Rigging giving away half of every year's annual profits, Alan's personally been committed

to earn an income like normal folks do. And there's more that you're about to hear that you will not believe right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. sponsors. Have you ever wondered if your pet is lying to you? Why is my cat not here? Can I go in and she's eating my lunch? Or if hypnotism is real? We will use this suggestion in order to enhance your cognitive control. But what's inside a black hole?

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Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deep fake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Mississippi, Yazoo Clay keeps secrets. 7,000 bodies out there or more.

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host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. Listen to Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Alan Barnhart, I'd usually say to my guests, welcome to Memphis, but I guess I could say welcome across Memphis. Yes. A native Memphian. I'm a Memphis guy. He's only like seven minutes away, right? Your office is pretty close.

I'm very close, yeah. It didn't take much time to get over. Usually I also ask how'd you get here, how long you stay in, what are you doing when in town? But your answer is you're probably going home and having supper. Absolutely. That's it.

Everybody, Alan Barnhart is one of the strangest, weirdest men I've ever met in my life. How's that for an entrance? Okay, I'll take it. Actually, he's one of the most successful men I've ever met in my life. And his success is measured in lots of things that we often don't measure our success in.

Alan is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Barnhart Crane and Rigging. And if you've ever seen big, massive cranes rolling down the road that are red and white with big tires and big hooks on them, they've got 60 locations now across the country, that's Allen, that's your place, that's your folks working.

How many employees you got now? We have about 2,500. Is that all? And we pick up and move heavy stuff, that's what we do for a living. We're gonna get into all that because it's interesting, but why are we talking to a guy that moves equipment and drives big things around?

We're an army of normal folks. Most people that we interview are normal folks because they're just like me and Alex and Cassius over there in their body. We're just average normal people trying to fit. Very few people make as hard an effort as you have to in your whole life to remain average and normal in terms of the way you live your lifestyle.

And the story is phenomenal and it's inspiring. And while I don't think many of our listeners are gonna pick up and do exactly what you did, I certainly think your story will illuminate to us all that there simply is more we can do. So, would you just set the stage for us? And I know you graduated from Tennessee Tennessee and I know you came to work

at your small mom and pop family business and just take it from there and why you didn't end up in Saudi Arabia. Okay, fair enough. And coming out of college, came back and worked in the small family business. My parents had run this business for several years and International Corporate Headquarters was two bedrooms of the home I grew up in. The International Headquarters. Oh, it was, I mean, we had 10 employees and it was just a very small mom and pop business, but it was a fun business.

I had grown up every summer in high school and college. I'd worked in the company. I was a crane operator and an iron worker and I just grew up in fun business. I had grown up every summer in high school and college. I'd worked in the company. I was a crane operator and an iron worker. I just grew up in that business. Back then, what'd you all have? Seven, eight, 10 cranes? Yeah, about eight cranes. What would you do?

Just be lifting beams onto buildings and things like that? Not massive, massive stuff. No. Just typical crane and rigging. Smaller stuff. Steel erection, precast concrete erection, and then whatever anybody needed, we would do, worked in some of the plants. So your family's making a living. Yeah, yeah, good family business, fun way to grow up.

And it makes sense you went to school, go to engineering, because that kind of struck a chord, how this stuff goes together when you lifted up there. Yeah, and you know, as I was getting out of college, some of my friends said, you need to go to seminary, or you need to go into full-time ministry. You know, that's, that's where your heart is. And, and, and as I prayed about that, I came to the conclusion that all of us

who are followers of Jesus are in full-time ministry and that a few of us will get our paycheck from a charity or a church, but most of us are going to use our skills and gifts that God's given us in a regular job. And I felt that He had gifted me more in the area of business and engineering than He had in preaching or writing. So I just felt like I wanted to serve God, but I felt that my avenue for doing so would be in business.

So did you really consider going on the ministry at a point? Did, considered it. And actually later, when I got married, two weeks after I got engaged, my wife and I went to this missions conference and they were talking about parts of the world where missionaries weren't allowed to go, where there was no access to the Christian message.

Where they might get their heads locked off. They might get their heads locked off. And I think everyone deserves an opportunity to hear the Christian message. And so they were telling us about parts of the world where engineers could go and sort of be undercover missionaries. And so my wife and I got excited about doing that.

So we started. Isn't that dangerous, seriously? I don't think so dangerous. You might get kicked out. We were gonna go to Saudi Arabia. I don't think it's a place where you're gonna get your head cut off. I do think it's a place that you'll get kicked out.

You might get a radical person, but most of the government there would just send you home if they found out what you were doing. Got it. I was an engineer so I could do that. So we started planning to do that. To go to Saudi Arabia. To go to Saudi Arabia.

And work as an engineer for a Saudi Arabian company? Just for a regular, probably a US company, but working in Saudi Arabia. And then what, under the weather, have some Bible study classes, start inviting some folks? Just tell people, live our lives in front of people and tell them about Jesus. And there's nothing overt, you don't have to be

just totally radically pushy, just live your life. And who I am includes my faith, and to be able to speak that. And hopefully that would allow people to... I think a lot of people reject Christianity on bad information. They've had a bad experience or they didn't grow up as Christians and they just didn't...they just don't know the message. Like I did not know. I grew up the first 16 years of my life,

didn't really understand the Christian message, even though we did go to church some. So I think that was what we were hoping to do, is to be able to be an ambassador to communicate our faith. You married a cool woman that says, yeah, take me. In Saudi it's not a great place for a woman. That's what I mean. Oh gosh.

And she was very much anxious to go and really disappointed that we ended up not going. Well tell us why you didn't go. We got married six months after this conference and we started trying to learn Arabic and prepare to go. You were learning Arabic? A little bit. We didn't get very far. I'd love to tell you we were fluent.

We were not. But three or four months into that, my parents came to us and said, we've decided we're going to leave the business and we're going to get on a sailboat and sail around the world. That was their life dream. And so they, just the two of them, they bought a boat and they were gone sailing for most of the next seven years. So you and your brother didn't tear up their boat like on stepwise. We let them go. It turned out to be a really great experience, but we... My brother and I started talking about becoming partners, and we were also talking about going on the mission field, and so we were wrestling with what does God want us to do.

We ended up, through a process, becoming partners in this business after we put in some safeguards in our life. Part of those safeguards came from... When I got out of college, came back to work, I started reading through the Bible to see what it said about business and about money. And it said a lot. And as a believer, it scared me because the thing that wasn't scary was the whole concept of stewardship, that everything I have has come from God, belongs to God. I'm not an owner with rights. I'm a steward with responsibilities.

And that seemed great to me. But Jesus kept warning about the dangers of wealth. He warned about wealth ten times more than anything else. And he said wild stuff like, it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and don't store up treasure for yourself on earth, and be on your guard against all forms of greed. And he told these parables, and it was like scary, you know. I am really bad quoting scripture, so I'm paraphrasing scripture and you can probably clean it up for me.

But it's easier for a man to, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a man to enter the gates of heaven or something. And for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yeah, I mean, it's radical things like that. But that was not, as I understand it, that was really not about accumulating money. It was about the love of money.

Yes. Is that not correct? I think that's right. I don't think money in itself is evil. It's the love of it. The love of money is really dangerous. And you can't serve God in money. And if you're holding on to money,

it can be detrimental to your spiritual life. So you're reading this, you're studying this, and it's becoming a profound guiding principle of the way you're gonna conduct the rest of your life. It scared me. I mean. It really did scare you. Yeah, because part of business success,

I'm a competitive guy and I wanna win, and part of having a business, part of the scoreboard of a business is making money. Profits is a necessary measure of any organization. Absolutely. So I wanted to, I felt like we wanted to have a business that made a lot of money. I didn't want that money to mess up my life.

And I saw all these warnings about this and I said, I gotta, we gotta put some safeguards in our lives. Can I ask you, do you think it's sinful if it's about the love of money and not money itself? Like you said, money itself is not evil, it's the love of money. When money starts defining, you start worshiping the money above all else.

Do you not think that you can be faithful and a Christ-centered living Christian and also accumulate your own wealth? No, I think you can. I just think that there is a danger in it that we need to be on our guard against. So I don't think it's impossible at all. There were plenty of rich people in the Bible and some that their riches ended up being a downfall for them, but I do think it's dangerous. And I think it needs to be handled with care.

It's important. I don't want our listeners hearing you thinking, well, this zealot thinks if you make any money, you're doomed to hell. That's not what you're saying. Not at all. What you're saying is you personally feared that money, too much money, could corrupt you. Yes, that I had that in my nature to be a materialistic person and seek after money and have it infect me. And so I wanted to put some safeguards to make sure

that didn't happen. So those safeguards look like what? Well, two things. I mean, my brother and I committed this whole concept of stewardship that this company we were starting was going to be God's company. Everything we have belongs to God, including this company. And so Catherine and I and Eric and his wife committed that. We weren't sure if the company would even survive the first year.

I mean, it was a mom and pop business, really small. I'm a 25-year-old kid. But just in case, we said, God, this is your business. And do with it what you will, it's yours. Now, technically, my brother and I each owned half of it at that point. The second thing we did is we decided to put a cap on our lifestyle. We said, we're going to live a certain life, not a Mother Teresa. Once again, not a salad. Not a salad. We had air conditioning and vehicles and cell phones, and we had everything we needed. And your children were well taken care of. Yes, they have food and all that good stuff. But just have a relatively simple

life. And if God chose to prosper the business, we weren't gonna see that as a call to ramp up our lifestyle. Instead, we were gonna set a permanent, relatively simple lifestyle. And if additional money. Instead, we were gonna set a permanent, relatively simple lifestyle, and if additional money came in, we were gonna use that money to help others. So that was our commitment to God and to each other before we started the company. I have a question.

I've been dying to ask you this. Okay. I started my business in 2001 with $17,000. Okay. My father left home when I was four. My mother was married and divorced five times. I come from nothing. So when I was 30 and started my business,

a commitment to live that lifestyle wasn't really much a commitment because pretty much what my business was doing, I was there anyway. But when that company becomes really large and there's a lot of money come through it, that commitment changes in scope. It can, yeah. I got to ask you, as your company grew, and here's a spoiler alert, I think you'll do

what 250 million in sales this year? Probably getting close to a billion. How much? Almost a billion, yeah. B? Everybody heard that right. A billion. The pull on that commitment when it's that volume of money,

does it not get a little more difficult at that point? Because you've got to be looking at those dollars thinking, wow. Yeah, I actually think it's gotten easier as we've gone through. We've been doing this now for almost 40 years. And the cool thing is, we've seen a lot of money flow in and through the company.

Clearly. And we decided at the beginning we would give away 50% of our profit each year, which you think would be kind of a crazy thing for people in a- It is a crazy thing. Highly, you know, it's a very capital intensive business, we're buying equipment that costs millions of dollars. And we're

growing pretty fast. And to do that, and still kind of jettison 50% of your profit each year, you would think would never work. And yet, my brother and I each put $20,000 in in 86. No other money has come into the company since then. No other investors or anything. And God has just grown our business to the point where he attracted a lot of great people. So the company has generated all the money it needs to grow itself

and also to send out 50% of our profit each year. It's been a cool story. You or your brother or your wife or nobody never once looked at and said, man, 50% of where we started is one thing, but 50% of this is a whole other. No, it's never been, we're so glad we put those safeguards in before we started, because it's not been

a conversation since. Ever. Ever. Really? Yeah, I mean, my brother and I have been partners now for 39 years. We've never argued about money. Been married to my wife almost 40 years. We've never argued about money. And you see so many families that have successful businesses that get kind of ripped apart, not by too much money. I mean, not by too little money, but by too much. We just haven't had that problem.

too little money, but by too much. We just haven't had that problem. I mean, our life is wonderful. We have everything we need, relatively simple. We could have a whole lot more toys if we wanted to, but the toys just aren't interesting to me. And so I don't spend any time accumulating and maintaining toys. Instead, I enjoy what I do in my business

and I enjoy what I do on the side of trying to take the dollars that God is bringing in and using them to help others. That's, to me, much more fulfilling than any of the toys. At the top of the show, I said, we've never had a guest who's a normal folk because they absolutely have demanded and chosen themselves to be that

because with the type of money you're talking about, let's be honest, you could have not chosen this lifestyle and you could have private jets and houses on beaches and everything else. And I don't think my life would be any better. I love what I'm not, this is not some sacrificial thing. I love my life. I don't think adding those complications would make my life better. I don't envy anyone who has those things.

So you make this commitment, but then you also make a commitment to your income, which was I think the average cost of your Sunday school class. Something like that. Yeah. So it started out, I think we were making $40,000 a year and this was in you and your brother each each and that was in 86 So that long time ago the equivalent today that would probably be $100,000 I mean it was not a small amount we ended up with certain a nice living we had an upper-middle living but nothing crazy Yeah, we had no kids at that point we ended up with six kids and

And so that number changed over time from $40,000, I think we got up to a high of about $160,000. And so it's not some Mother Teresa. I mean, this is way above average. And when you speak globally, it's wildly above average. To talk about our life as being simple on a global standpoint, we're filthy rich. But just, so it's not been some vow of poverty at all.

It's just try to have a relatively simple life. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army at normalfolks.us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode, or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests. We'll be right back. Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok, you come across a video of a teenage girl

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think. The story is much more complicated and nuanced than that. I'm Larysen Campbell. Listen to Under Yazoo Clay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. So you capture your own income based on what you figured was just starting to stay kind of middle income folks. Yeah. And tell me about the growth of the company. Yeah, the company started growing.

I mean, first year, we actually made money. We couldn't believe it. And we had $50,000 to send out. To send out, to give away. To give away. Who'd you give it to? Well, we didn't know. You know, and we were thinking, how do we figure out,

what do we do with this money, you know? And so we didn't think we'd have that much. And so we got a group of us at the company together, and we said, let's together pray and see what God wants us to do with his money. And so we started researching groups, and we sent it out, and the next year the company grew, and I think we had $150,000 to send out.

Really? You tripled it the next year? This is sweet! We couldn't believe it. It was amazing. And so we started learning from others who are good at distributing money to help others and so we started learning from some foundations and other organizations and it got up to where it was a million dollars a year we were sending out after maybe six or eight years that we couldn't believe it. And so, and we started, that group of six of us became a group of about 20 of us by that time that were looking at groups and trying to figure out,

they were all people that- So you're bringing people in that work in the business and saying, hey, I want you to help decide where we're sending the money that's the fruits of your labor. Exactly, exactly. That's a beautiful idea. So motivational to them.

Yeah, they buy in now. They're part of that process because they really are part of it. It's not my money. To me, it's God's money and we together are trying to figure out what to do with God's money. Did you focus in on a specific type of thing you wanted to do or were you just shotgunning whatever sounded good and everybody agreed to it? The first year it was shotgun. Then we started putting some parameters in and some focus. We started focusing internationally because we saw a disproportionate need internationally. There's lots of great stuff to do in Memphis and we do things in every city where we have an

operation. But in terms of the major dollars, we tried to zero in on some hard areas in the world, areas with the poorest of the poor. Like in Africa or Southeast Asia? Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, India, and West Africa. Those are the four geographies that we've kind of now zeroed in on. Well, are you like supporting missionaries? We don't support missionaries and we don't support building programs, which is what a lot of people think of. But we support indigenous ministries,

indigenous organizations that are changing the lives of people in their area. And so there's lots of them. And we travel there. We get to know them. We're not taking requests. We are going and we're trying to find people we can invest in. If we were taking requests, we are going and we're trying to find people we can invest in. You know, if, if we were taking requests,

we would be saying no to probably 99% of those things just because they don't fit what we're doing. Plus the amount of time it would take to get through all the, yeah. Yeah. And so we, we just, we decided to try to get good at a few places. And so I go to India every year. I'm on the India team. We now have about 60 of us that are part of this 60, 60. And so get together to India every year. I'm on the India team. We now have about 60 of us that are part of this. 60. 60. And so get together and make these decisions.

Well, the 60 are formed into teams. And so I'm on the India team with about eight other folks. And so they're all either employees or spouses of Barnhart or one of the other group companies in our group. We have a group now of about seven companies. I can talk more about that. So they get together. Our India team gets together every month and we travel to India and we try to come up with a portfolio of things that we want to support

and then once a year we take that to our board of directors of Grove and say here's what we want to support. And the Grove, and then the board will say yes or no and are modified a little bit. Has the board ever told you no? I have been turned down more than anybody else. That is so weird. I promise you, I promise you. Are you kidding me?

Yeah, which I love. I'm so glad. Does anybody know your names on every one of the cranes? Well, I'm on the board, by the way. But so is my wife. Has your wife ever voted against your idea? Very many times. Are you kidding? Hold on, hold on, hold on. way but but so is my wife and she and she ever voted against your very many times are you kidding your wife is on the board of the board that you started

to give away the money you make and she has told you know many times because because we have a process and the process sets us free and I'm kind of a I'm not a guy for staying in the lines enough. And so when I, when I kind of bring something off the hip, some of the other guys may be more timid to do that, but she's willing to say, Hey, that doesn't fit what we're doing. Hey, let me ask something straight up. Yeah.

Talk ever make you angry. Yep. A few times. But most of the time I realized that I had to! It made me angry too! I'd be like, what are you talking about? But most of the time I realized that I had it coming. That's hilarious. That's, that's, oh my gosh. And nobody looks across and says no to Allen and thinks, well, I'm going to get fired tomorrow.

No, heavens no. It's a group effort and I don't want to, I'm not the owner, you know? God's the owner and we're together trying to be stewards of it. And so we've invited these people into our stewardship and they work hard at it. And so I'm very glad to have the help.

Where does that humility come from? I'm gonna tell you something, okay? I started my business, I'm proud of it. I know dadgum good and well without a bunch of really great people that I have been blessed with in my life to work alongside me, some outside my business to mentor me, some outside my business to help finance me. There's no doubt that I'm not one of these guys that I did this, it's a we did this and

everything else. But today, if any of those people came in and told me I Want to do my business I might lose my mind. I just know that about me I don't I don't have I think of myself as giving I don't think serving is a nice thing to do I think it's a requirement of my faith and the grace that my life is given having said all of that I don't have the humility to hear no in my own organization by the people that work for me that wouldn't have their job if it wasn't for me. I don't have the humility to hear that very well.

I have benefited greatly from it in this growth process, which is the giving process. I've also benefited greatly with my inner circle. I have two guys that were very willing to tell me no. It's funny, when I go to a ministry and we're trying to assess them, it's one of the questions I ask them. I said, you know, the leader of the ministry, I said, who tells you when you're being an idiot? What are you talking about? I said, who tells you when you're wrong? Do you have somebody in your organization that can tell you when you're wrong? Because if you don't, you're probably going to go off track. And so we're looking for…we want to…I've benefited so greatly for having accountability

like that, have people that are willing to tell me I'm wrong, and we want ministries that have a similar humility. We're not looking for rock stars. I have that person. I still don't have the humility to like it, but I still have that person I listen to. Oh, I didn't like it all the time. In speeches, I talk about it sometimes, actually,

and the metaphor is, do you know if you got on an airplane in Washington, D.C., and flew exactly around the world to land back in Washington, D.C., if your heading was off three degrees. Do you know where you'd be by the time you were supposed to be back in DC? Nova Scotia. Three degrees. Wow. Would set you off 1,600 miles. And gotta have a good compass. There it is. Yeah. That's it. Is what you're talking about. I call a compass. is that you have to have a compass to keep you headed on your true bearing.

And that when we're riding down the streets of life, we failed humans are going to test the integrities of the curb. But the goal is not to end up in the ditch. And if you don't have a compass, you're going to end up in a ditch or you're going to have a Nova Scotia or any other metaphor you want. And you better have somebody in your life that you know loves you enough, respects you enough and cares you enough to tell you when you're being an idiot. If you're not willing to listen and if you rebuff them enough, then they'll quit telling you and you'll lose all that benefit. Boy, that's also true. They will give up.

You'll be in Nova Scotia. He's too hard headed. I'm not talking about this anymore. It's not worth it. Whether it's your wife or your coworkers or my compass is my wife. For sure. There you go. She is the one person who told me no. And I just shut up. How about me? No, I often tell you no. Are you absent? Did she tell me? No, I said, I often tell you no or that you're on. Yeah, but I don't listen to you. I listen to Lisa. That's why I brought

Allen in today where we're going to say what I listen to Lisa. That's why I brought Alan in today where we're gonna work on it. You say what you want to in my car and Alex, I'm gonna do what I want to. Lisa, I say yes ma'am, but I don't go to it all the time. That's the way that works. All right, so go back. So sorry, told you it was gonna be squirrels up trees. So we're five, six years in the business. I want to hear about, at five years, what, 100 million in sales, something like that? No, no, no, no, maybe 10 million. How do you go from 10 million to a billion in 35 years while giving away half of your profits?

Sure, yeah. That's a lot, dude. It is, and I tell you, it doesn't seem like a valid strategy, and if you leave God out of the equation I'd say it just it's a bad idea, but but you put him in the equation God's just done miracle after miracle in our business and part of those miracles is bringing good people into our company But just all kinds of opportunities have come our way I'm not some great business guy. I've never took a business class

I just was able to attract a bunch of people that are a lot smarter than me and a lot better than me in its work. So I can't tell you that there's some secret sauce at all that revolves around me, but I think God has been the, I wanna give him the credit because I think that's where the credit belongs and the vehicle that he's used

is a bunch of great people joining us. Internal growth, acquisitions, I mean, how do you, I mean, that's a tremendous amount of growth. Yeah, now we've made about 35 acquisitions over the years, most of them relatively small businesses. Most of the growth has been organic growth and we just keep pushing hard, we work hard. I mean, it's a, we would say our goal is to be

the best company in our industry. We work pushing hard. We work hard. I mean, it's a, we would say our goal is to be the best company in our industry. We work really hard. We don't think work is a negative word. We think work is part of the good stuff in life, you know, and being good at what you do matters and we're not, we're not looking for, we're looking for people that want to work hard. One of our quips is the reward for hard work is more work. I mean, you know, when you do good work for your customer, they don't tell you to just take off.

They say, can you come do more for me? You know, and that guy that runs a small crane well, we let him run a bigger crane, you know? And so the reward for good work is to be able to do more work and work is a positive thing. It doesn't suck you dry. It's what gives you dignity. It's one of the good things in life.

I want to ask you something about prayer and miracles. There's a lot of people listening to us that are sitting on the fence in their faith and I'm not here to convert them with the show. But I'm also not here to lose them with the show. And a lot of people hear that stuff and they really do think hocus pocus. Would you agree and

If not tell me what you would agree with or if so expand on it that oftentimes the miracle in an answer to prayer is You arriving a conclusion About what you have to do to work harder, invest more, who to hire and all of that. In other words, you don't just pray and hocus pocus things come up.

Correct, oh yeah. The answer to prayer is manifested in the work you as a human being do. Absolutely. Talk about that. I don't want people to hear prayer and miracles and you just kind of thump on a Bible and everything happens.

That is just not what it is. No, flip a coin and God will tell me what to do. It doesn't work that way. I'm talking to God in prayer and I want him to give me an answer and then something in a white cloak shows up with an R around it and speaks to you. Well, I mean, people think we're saying that

when we say... No, absolutely not. So in human terms, maybe even a secular term, how that really works? Sure. I mean, I think Jesus was the greatest social reformer of all time. If he was not God, He was a former of all time. If he was not God, he changed a lot. Related to children, to women, to religion. He's a crazy progressive. He changed the world.

I mean, we're 2025 because that's when he lived. So he changed the world in some wild ways. I think the concepts that he taught work. And I think they are good for business. I think they're good for life. And so doing it his way works. And I would say it's that way because he created us, he knows how we work best.

Every one of his restrictions is for our benefit. That's what I would say from a faith standpoint. From a secular standpoint, I'd say this stuff works because it's just good teaching, it's good principles, good morals. There are people that are more Spirit-led than I am and listen to what, you know, try to ascertain what God is speaking to them. And not that I don't do that at all, but most of the way God is speaking to me is through other people, through my experiences, through my thinking, through what experiences, through my thinking, through what I see in the Bible, through the teachings of Jesus. All that stuff blends

together into what is generally common sense, and occasionally it's more radical than common sense. But it's not a flitting around. I do worry about a lot of people that say, God told me this, God told me that. That's what I'm talking about right there. Yeah, it's like, was this God or was this a bad pizza? I'm not sure. Did it have too much sauce on it? It's indigestion? Kind of like Scrooge. Yeah. When he did know if it was a bit of indigestion or really that goes to Christmas past. Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, there are examples, I think, where God really does speak to somebody, but I think there's a lot of times that that's lip service to try to justify something that somebody wants to do. So I'm... Can I tell you

that's what I think is one of the biggest downfalls of people coming into our faith? Yeah. I really do. I think Christianity as a religion itself in many times is its own worst enemy because of the way we talk without explaining it and other highly religious, I'm not saying faithful, religious people trying to impart their belief sets on an unsuspecting public. Yeah. What do you think about that? I agree. I mean, no one was harder on religious people and on hypocrites than Jesus.

I mean, he hammered them. Really tough language. He had a lot of... You brood of vipers. Yeah, you brood of... But he approached a lot of really sinful people with grace and mercy. And he approached some of these religious people with...

People talk about, I don't want to be a Christian because of all these hypocrites. Maybe that's why you would stay away from organized religion, but to focus on Jesus, he's with you. He believes that... He hammered the religious hypocrites, and he's still very unhappy with the religious hypocrites, I'm sure. And we all have some of that. I mean, I'm not a pure person. No, we all have it. But it's just important to me, people hearing how you grew your business and bringing people and answers to prayer and miracles

that we're not talking about some white winged feathery looking thing in the movies plopping down on the end of your bed telling you what to do. An answer to prayer is oftentimes work, experience, opportunity, those things. I'm with you. We'll be right back. Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok, you come across a video of a teenage girl and then a photo of the person suspected of killing her. And I was like, what? Like it was him? I was like, oh, my God. It was shocking. It was very shocking.

I'm Jen Swan. I'm a journalist in Los Angeles and I've spent the past few years investigating the story behind the viral posts and the extraordinary events that followed. I started investing my time to get her justice. They put out something on social media so I'd get calls in the middle of the night all the time. It's like how do you think you're going to get away with something like this? Like you killed somebody. It's the story of how and why a group of teenagers turn to social media to help track down their

friend's killer. This is their story. This is my friend Daisy. Listen to My Friend Daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered if your pet is lying to you? Why is my cat not here? Am I going and she's eating my lunch?

Or if hypnotism is real? You will use this suggestion in order to enhance your cognitive control. But what's inside a black hole? Black holes could be a consequence of the way that we understand the universe. Well, we have answers for you in the new iHeart original podcast, Science Stuff. Join me, Jorge Cham, as we tackle questions you've always wanted to know the answer to about animals, space, our brains, and our bodies.

Questions like, can you survive being cryogenically frozen? This is experimental. This means never work for you. What's a quantum computer? It's not just a faster computer. It performs in a fundamentally different way. Do you really have to wait 30 minutes after eating before you can go swimming? It's not really a faster computer. It performs in a fundamentally different way. Do you really have to wait 30 minutes after eating before you can go swimming? It's not really a safety issue.

It's more of a comfort issue. We'll talk to experts, break it down, and give you easy-to-understand explanations to fascinating scientific questions. So give yourself permission to be a science geek and listen to Science Stuff on the iHeart Video app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream.

It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting this series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deep fake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law

and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy and I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you Hey there, Ed Helms here, host of Snafu, your favorite podcast about history's greatest screw ups. It's the 1920s, Prohibition is in full swing, and a lot of people are mysteriously dying. Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrand is becoming increasingly desperate in forcing prohibition. She was a lone warrior. I mean how could Mabel not be feeling the pressure? Her bosses are drunks, her agents are incompetent, even Congress is full of hypocrites. So if Mabel is going

to succeed in laying down the law, she needs to make the consequences for drinking hurt a lot more. Which she does, arguably a little too well. Find out more on season three, episode four of Snafu Formula Six. Listen and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a type of soil in Mississippi called Yazoo clay. It's thick, burnt orange, and it's got a reputation. It's terrible, terrible dirt. Yazoo clay eats everything,

so things that get buried there tend to stay buried. Until they're not. In 2012, construction crews at Mississippi's biggest hospital made a shocking discovery. Seven thousand bodies out there or more. All former patients of the old state asylum. And nobody knew they were there. It was my family's mystery. But in this corner of the South, it's not just the soil that keeps secrets.

Nobody talks about it. Nobody has any information. When you peel back the layers of Mississippi's Yazoo clay, nothing's ever as simple as you think. The story is much more complicated and nuanced than that. I'm Larysen Campbell. Listen to Under Yazoo Clay on the iHeart radio

app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You start buying up businesses, you've grown, all of that, if limiting your income wasn't radical enough, which many would say is. I think it's inspirational. I haven't had the temerity to do something like that. And then if giving away 50% of every dollar your company made wasn't radical enough, you reached a point that you needed to think about the future of the company

and then you did what I think is the most radical of crazy nutty things you could ever do. But I think you will probably explain to us what it is and how and why. Sure. Yeah, the company continued to grow. And it grew about 25% a year for 23 years. Holy smokes.

You mean it grew 25% a year every year, like in year 15? Yeah, all the way up to year 23. So it went from this little bitty 10 people in Memphis to 1,000 people working in several states across the country. This was in 2008. From 2005 to 2008, we went from a $50 million company to a $250 million company.

That's where I saw the 250 number. In those four years. So it was. Gosh, I'm 14 years behind, or 16 or something. So, and the company became worth a lot of money. And as far as we were concerned, God owned the company. We had committed that back in 86. As far as the IRS was concerned, we each owned half.

You know? And this thing became worth hundreds of millions of dollars and we started going through this process of what if one of us dies? And the whole estate tax issues, and it could really hurt the company. And so we started. Yeah, because let's explain that a little bit.

I mean, it's kind of like the family farm out in Montana that has 70,000 acres. Yep. They're making a living with this thing, but if they die, now you gotta pay inheritance tax on 70,000 acres up against some ski lodge in Montana that's worth $70 million. Now the state's gotta come up with $20 million

to hold on to their family land. That happens. And for us, it would have been 60 or $70 million. That your heirs would have had to come up to keep the business. Which is why a lot of private-owned guys like us end up selling their business to avoid all that. And there's all kinds of ways that people have,

you can buy insurance or you can go through these generation skipping trusts. There's all kinds of methods to try to avoid that and really rich people spend a lot of money doing that and maybe they should because it's very expensive. I think it's over 50% of your estate when you have a large estate. And people lose their family businesses over it

because they can't afford it. They have to sell it to meet the tax burden. Yeah. It happens. Yeah. And so we looked at that, and we said, this is God's business. And these methods of managing this potential problem

are really cumbersome. Let's see if we can just give this company away. I can't hold on. It was always God's. Yeah, yeah. People are hearing us, and they just heard the bedroom international office of 10 people about, I guess I'm doing the math, about 16, 17 years later is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and your initial inclination is, how do we give this away?

Yeah. And we thought it made perfect sense. We didn't think it was radical. I mean, some people think of that as crazy. We thought of it as just a natural, as far as we were concerned, everything belongs to God, and putting the stock in a different vehicle, rather than in my personal statement,

made perfect sense to us. And so there was lots of advantages to doing it. And so we went to our advisors, and we said we wanna to give the company away and And they all looked at you like you're out of your like you're an idiot. Yeah You're in your 40s and this thing, you know, you can't do that. You know at that table. Yes. Oh, yes very much Yeah, they were like you're crazy and and so I connected with another group that had a different mindset

It's group called the National Christian Foundation and within 30 minutes they told us they said you can't give away 100% of the business but you can give away 99%. What? How? How does that work? Well we just took 99% of the company and put and we divided the stock where 1% of the stock had all the voting rights of the company. The other 99% had the vast majority of the value and so we kept the 1% that had the voting majority of the value. And so we kept the 1% that had the voting, controlled the company basically. They said, we can't take control of your business.

That wouldn't fit what they do. And so we put 99% of the company irrevocably into a charitable trust with them. And so now they basically own the company. And then later we took the 1% and put it in a voting trust. And I'm one of the trustees on that trust, we have eight trustees and we want the company to go on forever. And, and so now we can transfer the company to another generation or to a leadership team without a state taxes without

all the headache and right without the danger of handing something that's worth probably now a billion dollars to two people, you know, the money can do strange things to people. And so now people can take up the leadership of our company without having the to me the dangerous stuff, which is the money. And so, so this national what is what's a call National Christian Foundation. So, what is it? What's it called? National Christian Foundation. So, well, it's actually how I met Rick Jackson was through them.

So Rick, have you met Rick at all? Alan? So Jackson healthcare in Atlanta, amazing guy. Yeah, he's involved with them too. Yeah, he does a lot down in Nigeria, Dunny and I think are not not not not here. But he's the Ron Blue had convinced him, Hey, you need to set a financial finish line in your life.

And he said, I've made enough. And then 100% of the profits of his company have been given away ever since. Oh yeah, great folks. Yeah. All right, so this National Christian Foundation owns it, but they don't control it. Correct.

So you just direct what money that the company that the National Christian Foundation has to reinvest in the business, but then you also direct, as you did at the very beginning, how much it gives away. Unbelievable. Are you allowed to tell me how much money you gave away last year? I can.

It's before I do, though, I want to say people get so impressed with big numbers and I don't think God is impressed with big numbers. I mean when Jesus was around there's one story that he told, not story, a scene where he's watching people put a lot of money in the temple offering and this widow came up and put two small coins in. He said nothing about these big gifts going in. That widow made a sacrificial gift. He said, hey guys, check this out.

It was like the Hall of Fame giving story in the Bible. It is. So God is not impressed with the commas and the zeros. We've never given away a nickel that God didn't give us. It's not sacrificial giving. I made one sacrificial gift when I was in college. I haven't made one since. What was it?

It's kind of a long story, but it was not going on a ski trip so we could send the money to a famine in Ethiopia and it was canceling the ski trip. Really, you did that? Yeah, it was 350 bucks. And it didn't change that much in Ethiopia, but it changed me. No, it was a moment in my life where I just saw people

starving to death. Said, how can I live like I'm living when people are starving to death? And so that's what, and we said it just didn't fit right to go. Well, that's interesting that of all the stories you evoked that this deep into the conversation that feels like that might have been a benchmark in your whole thinking. It was.

It was. I mean I think generosity sets us free in some ways and I think it broke some connection with money for me at that time. It really helped. I'm very thankful for it. So I get you don't, I get what you're saying about the commas and that the widow given those two coins was probably a much greater sacrifice on her part

than the very wealthy guys putting gold bars in. Exactly. I get it. Yeah, yeah. Still I'm curious. Yeah, we last year we sent out 55 million dollars how about that that crazy God may not be impressed but I sure wow yeah and that's a year that was last year yeah and all together

we've sent out maybe 360 million dollars, something like that. So it's really ramped up in the last five or six years. Do you allow yourself to be proud of that? Or is that, or is in your mind that also wrong? I'm a human being, you know? And I mean, it's a wild story. And I'm, for the first 15 years we were doing this, we wouldn't tell anybody what we were doing.

It was like, I would have never... Because you were just bragging. Yeah. I mean, there's a verse that says, don't let your left hand know what the right hand's doing. Don't give to get the attention of other people. And so, I would have never come on a show like this in the first 15 years. But then people challenged me to say, you know, this is an amazing story that God has

done. It's not something you've done. God's done a really cool thing at this company, and you need to be willing to tell the story of what he's done. Yeah, and what if your story can inspire others to give a little more? Exactly. And I think it has. I mean, many people, I think, have heard the story and said, man, I want to be in on that.

That seems like freedom to me. That seems like a great way to live life. And I think it is. So it's... 55 million dollars last year, bro. Yeah, isn't that wild? And that concludes part one of my conversation with Alan Barnhart. And you do not wanna miss part two

that's now available to listen to. Together guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. And as a special note, I'm sitting next to George, Alex's son, and he really wants you to join us in part two, don't you, George? Ring the bell. Don't care. George wants to see you in part two. We'll see you there. Hey there, Ed Helms here, host of Snafu, your favorite podcast about history's greatest screw ups.

It's the 1920s, Prohibition is in full swing, and a lot of people are mysteriously dying? Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt is becoming increasingly desperate in forcing Prohibition. She was a lone warrior. I mean, how could Mabel not be feeling the pressure? Her bosses are drunks, her agents are incompetent, even Congress is full of hypocrites. So if Mabel is going to succeed in laying down the law, she needs to make the consequences for drinking hurt a lot more.

Which she does, arguably a little too well. Find out more on season three, episode four of Snafu Formula Six. Listen and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered if your pet is lying to you? Why is my cat not here? And I go in and she's eating my lunch.

Or if hypnotism is real? You will use a suggestion in order to enhance your cognitive control. But what's inside a black hole? Black holes could be a consequence of the way that we understand the universe. Well, we have answers for you in the new iHeart original podcast, Science Stuff. Join me or Hitcham as we answer questions about animals, space, our brains, and our bodies. So give yourself permission to be a science geek and listen to Science Stuff on the iHeart Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok, you come across a video of a teenage girl,

and then a photo of the person suspected of killing her. It was shocking. It was very shocking. Like that could have been my daughter. Like you never know. I'm Jen Swan. I'm the host of a new podcast called My Friend Daisy. It's the story of how and why a group of teenagers turn to social media to help track down their friend's killer. Listen to My Friend Daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos.

It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Mississippi, Yazoo Clay keeps secrets.

7,000 bodies out there or more. A forgotten asylum cemetery. It was my family's mystery. Shame, guilt, propriety, something keeps it all buried deep until it's not. I'm Larisen Campbell and this is Under Yazoo Clay. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.