The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Biblical Responsible Investing: Insights for Kingdom-Minded Investors by Darryl W. Lyons

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Biblical Responsible Investing: Insights for Kingdom-Minded Investors by Darryl W. Lyons https://amzn.to/3vp5yfN A large shift in financial resources is currently underway. Learn how to position yourself to make effective money moves that will have a lasting impact on America’s future. Biblical Responsible Investing is for Christians who want to become more intentional, resourceful, and collaborative with their money, as well as how to use the financial markets to increase their return. Additionally, it explores various ways to become involved in the latest trends in the money market. Originally designed as a manuscript for Wall Street executives to gain insight into Christian approaches to money decisions, Biblical Responsible Investing documents eleven principles that, when understood, will bring a fresh and essential perspective to the table. The revised manuscript is tailored to the needs of everyday people, providing practical direction on how the trends identified can be applicable to their personal financial decisions. Inside the shadowboxes found at the end of each chapter are the tools for Christians to confidently make their financial decisions with a focus on helping their own community and faith.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. Thanks for coming by. We really appreciate it.

As always, we love you coming by the Chris Voss Show. The family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harsh as your mother-in-law. Today we're going to be talking about investing, retirement, what you should be doing with your money, planning, all that sort of good stuff. And we've got an amazing gentleman and author on the show to talk to us about. A multi-book author, I should point out. Also, what we ask you to do is go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfoss, the big LinkedIn group of 130,000 people there. Subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter, the chrisfossfacebook.com, and chrisfossyoutube.com.

He is an amazing multi-book author, as I mentioned before on the show. Daryl W. Lyons joins us on the show. He's the author of the newest book, Biblical Responsible Investing Insights for Kingdom-Minded Investors. It comes out the end of this month, January 30th, 2024. And we'll be talking about his stuff and what he does. Daryl is an author, entrepreneur, community leader, and family man. He is a certified financial planner and behavioral financial advisor and co-founder of Pax Financial Group, a financial advisory firm

that honors Judeo-Christian values and helps high net worth individuals and families pursue their meaning of true wealth. He's an expert in the field of personal finance and is the author of several books on the subject matter, including his bestseller, 18 to 80, A Simple Practical Guide to Money and Retirement for All Ages. Welcome to the show, Daryl. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce. I think we're getting a little bit of air on your mic. You may want to pull up that mic a little, just a little. Yeah, there you go.

How's that? There you go. That's awesome. So thank you very much. Congratulations and welcome to the show. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Yeah, I think PAX Financial Group.

That's P-A-X, Paul Apple X-Ray, financialgroup.com. And that's it? Well, you know, I'm not a big person. So LinkedIn's good because I'm a business guy. And so I do a lot through LinkedIn. I'm not an Instagram. I'm not a Facebook guy. I'm not even an ex-guy.

I do business. And so LinkedIn's really the best place to connect with me. That's where I put a lot of my content out there. My marketing office, my chief marketing person does a lot elsewhere, but I only really respond to my LinkedIn stuff. There you go. So tell us a 30,000 overview of this new book that you're working on that's coming out at the end of this month, Biblical Responsible Investing. Yeah, my original intent with the book, I was on an advisory council for one of the largest investment banking firms in the world. And I was trying to convince them that it was a good business decision to think about creating their products and services to accommodate the Christian community. That's, you know, that's been a part of my community for a long time because of the economic impact that

could have from a business point of view, but that really fell on deaf ears. But as I was creating the case for why they should consider building out this extension of their business to cater to the Christian community and the unique needs in that community. As I was building out that case to these executives, the content I had created was sufficient enough to put together in a book. And so the book was really intended for Wall Street. I wanted to make a case to Wall Street, but when I put the content together, I did customize it so that the consumer can digest it and take a few pieces away that might help them apply some of these Christian principles. There you go. So what's different between

biblical responsible investing and just maybe normal Wall Street investing? Yeah. So it's actually gained a little bit momentum in the recent years, namely because of the polarization in our country. And what it does is there's screening mechanisms. And with today's artificial intelligence and the tools and the algorithms, you can screen out companies just by doing just a data search online of company behaviors. And you can screen out companies that are behaving antithetical to a biblical worldview. And that's defined in various ways by various asset managers in this space. So some will take out alcohol, some will take out guns, you know, they do it

differently. But basically it screens out a lot of these companies. So then you're left, you are left with companies that, you know, some people say, well, that screens out all of them. It doesn't really, there's plenty of companies left and those companies are what you would consider biblical You are left with companies that some people say, well, that screens out all of them. It doesn't really. There's plenty of companies left, and those companies are what you would consider biblical responsible investments. I suppose maybe it varies on people's interpretation of that and stuff. Denominations. Maybe different denominations, I think. I may assume.

That's a question for you yeah yeah it does you know there's there's like there's one called ave maria out there that's catholic and then there's there's different ones that are non-denominational there it's a values-based it's kind of a subcategory of what is considered values-based investing or social responsible investing. It's a subcategory. So, I mean, frankly, there's also a Muslim space for investing. Oh, yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. Mainly in the lane of the Christian responsible investing, there's a lot of wealth there. And so just, what's also interesting is the advocacy that takes place. So what happens when you invest in this space, you actually transfer voting rights to these investment firms.

Sometimes when you get investment statements, you get the proxy voting. And so you transfer those rights. And so then the voting on the corporate level happens through a biblical lens as well. I know there's companies and there's certain investment blocks. I think BlackRock's one of them that have have a kind of push, and I'm not being political here, folks, they push a woke agenda that they kind of want more social

what's the words? They want more social implementation. Basically, the company doesn't have to be only about just making money. It's got to have some sort of social impact and maybe make social statements. And I'm not going into the politics of what's right and wrong in there.

At least in my opinion, you're welcome to do what you want as a guest. But that is an agenda. And they've explicitly said that. So we're not having an imagination about it. So, yeah, I can see how that's maybe a concern for some people. It depends on what your religious values are. I know Muslim values are very different. You may not want to be investing in maybe a pork or company or something, et cetera, et cetera.

So, you know, hey, everyone's got their, everyone's entitled to their opinion. So they can do what they want. It's their money. So what are some other aspects that you kind of advise people on? I mean, how do they do, this is probably a really good question. Say I'm a person of a certain faith and, you know, I have certain applications I want to that to my invest in. How do I do the research? Because, you know, some of these companies are such huge conglomerates and they own so many different things.

You know, I mean, we live in this really kind of monopoly sort of world with some, some products, you know, you look at Procter and Gamble and, you know, all sorts of different things, you know, if I like, I think, you know, a lot of people who believe in veganism and they're very anti-products that might include animal, animal testing or animal substances, that seems like an almost impossible thing to figure out because it seems like that stuff's in everything at some minute level or macro or micro. So how does one do the research for a lot of this? Yeah, you just try to do your best. Obviously, there's going to be some residuals in some places. I mean, when I first went down this road,

I actually put together a kind of a list of everything that was important to me in terms of my personal values. And then I sought out a methodology that would support my personal values. And I couldn't find 100% alignment. So you have to be willing to say, look, I'm going to get it mostly right, but not 100%. And so you started with the good question, which is how do you, how do you even, you know, how do you do this? There's some pretty good tools. I mean, technology today is allowing us to do this in an incredible way. It's really put the power back into a lot of the people's hands, so to speak, but like there's a tool, there's several tools online that will actually screen for free. I know one's called inspire investing. You can go on

there and you can just say, anything that hurts animals, I want to screen out and see what I'm left with. And so they're out there. And then some people who do it themselves, like they're do-it-yourself investors, they might use the direct Robinhood investing. They will do their own screening. And then some people who are busy

and who may have too much wealth to risk, for lack of a better phraseology, they transfer that research to us and we do a lot of the screening for them. Now, do you run portfolios or do you do stuff online to help people invest where you control the investment portfolio and help people accomplish that? Yeah, a lot of people transfer the investment decision-making to us and we go out and find managers who can accommodate people's goals and then align it with their values. And that can be everything from private equity to publicly traded stocks, to bonds,

to cash. But a lot of the value that we really bring is just walking life with people because the majority of this money world, there's a big chunk of it that has to do with investment performance, but a lot of it has to do with just helping people to stay the course because it's so stinking scary. I mean, last year, we're 2024. Last year, I mean, we thought the world was going to explode and World War III was going to happen probably once every other month. And so I'm walking people off the ledge all the time. And we end up the year those people that stayed the course ended up doing well. But along the way, people were like, I'm out.

I can't do this anymore. So I feel like half of my job, if not more, is just kind of being rational in the midst of noise. That's kind of what you have to do in financial markets. You can't make emotional decisions. You've got to make logical decisions. And where people usually fail is making the emotional ones, right? Yeah, exactly. I did this whole field of study for four years called behavioral finance. And it's this collision of finance, academic nerdy stuff. It's a collision of neuroscience, psychology, and finance in this one area of study. And now there's PhDs in it. I did about three years and really tried to understand how can I better equip myself with tools and resources and understanding to guide people through that these biases and these decisions that we make with money are, I'd say, 95% of the time rooted in our childhood.

Really? Yeah, like really interesting kind of daddy stuff. And kind of unwinding that, I have had so many tears in my office, not because I'm trying to evoke tears, but I'm just trying to help people get to the root of why they're making decisions so that I can help them on a go forward basis. It is interesting how much that shapes us, our mother and father influences us children, childhood trauma, how it shapes a lot of our decision making through life. But this is the first time someone said that on the show. I think it's been implied. We've had lots of advisors on the show, but that's interesting to me. that's interesting to think about how we make those decisions probably whether we make them emotionally or logically i know that men that grow up in a

home without a father they usually think from more emotional basis than than logical or reasonable that you would find with an alpha father in the home and And I see that. I usually want to meet men. I'm like, I can tell what your childhood was like. The, you're probably already judging me. I'm like nervous now. I'm like,

Oh no, you already saw my bio. So, you know who I am, right? Yeah. It's, you know,

you, you, you'll monitor the decisions they make in their life or you'll hang out with them. And, and you're like, yeah, you,

you, you didn't have an alpha father in your home, i mean people can overcome it and and once they recognize that they can move from a logical basis some people have to do it as survival meccas because how they're right because they have to be the father in the home but yeah it just kind of depends on how that plays out but yeah that's really interesting to think about people you know they're probably the reason they're crying in your office is they're thinking about how much money they lost because of it i know right exactly but this is interesting inspireinvestings.com and people can go on there and figure out all this stuff yeah i mean these companies now you know they own like so many product there's procter and gamble there's i i

can't think of any off the top of my head right now but there's a whole mess of them that they must own like hundreds of companies underneath them. And it's a different world than when I started investing in 18 where it was just crazy there. What other things or aspects of your book have we talked about? Well, I think you rooted on something that I just like to double click on real quick. And that's kind of like the root of money decisions because I wouldn't mind unpacking it for a second. You know, I, I remember I was, I grew up in a little trailer park on the side of a highway in Castroville, Texas, and I was edging the side of the trailer. And when you have a mobile home, you have like

skirting and you've got to, if you're edging the skirting, you got to be careful that that little blade doesn't crack the skirting. And I remember sitting there going, man, how in the world do people have houses with foundations? Like, I just want a house with a foundation. And so I remember my friend in town, her dad was a banker and they had a nice thick concrete foundation. I go, how do you get that? And at that moment in time, I started to become curious. This was 17, curious about money and it's never stopped. And so even myself, I reflect back on my childhood and how just these microcosms of events that seemed immaterial at the time have impacted me of who I am today. And so I just wanted to kind of double click on that personally. Definitely. I'll match you there. When when i was growing up i grew up in my

first years of my life was in hollywood my parents weren't rich they managed an apartment two blocks off of from the charles man or from the for the man theater charles man i don't think it was charles man but the man theater yeah at least that's what it's called at the time people i think it's kodak now or whatever it is this week we We were right off of La Brea and we lived next door to a barker. So we walked the dog with him and I tried to figure out how he got in the TV every day. That was my

first impressions of life, being at a intersection, seeing Rolls Royces, BMWs, Mercedes, and expensive lifestyles. My parents, I mean, we did okay, I guess, but they managed an apartment right there and and but you you i lived in a world without us expectations well my dad was a survivalist type of minimalist sort of man so he drove all vws i mean we had like three of them i think two vw buses and a vw station wagon and i I remember asking him, like, hey, dad, you know, there's those nice cars.

Like, why does that guy have a Mercedes and you drive a VW? And he'd get all negative and he'd be like, well, the bank owns those cars. And for a long time, I didn't question that because, you know, you're a kid. You don't question what your dad tells you. And I'm like, oh, those are people. He's like, they own a lot of money to the bank, and the bank owns those cars. Well, one day I asked him, or somehow I figured out that he makes payments to a bank for his VWs. Interesting.

Interesting. And you're just a kid, man. You're trying to square the world in your head. And so I remember asking him, I go, well, dad, don't you make payments to the bank with these cars? Doesn't the bank own your cars? Shut up, kid. Is there any way that that environment affected the way that you've made money decisions today? Yes. Yeah. That's why I bring that up. Just as you, with your story, had that that happen it made a decision to me because i started looking at my dad and his rules of life and and his attitudes and you know

so then i started questioning why my dad believed that and i'm like so my dad's full of shit he's obviously a hypocrite the bank owns both cars sets of cars for both sets of individuals so what differentiates this guy with a mercedes and his decisions in life or how he's living his life from my dad and and why are they different and of course my dad didn't want to explain that to me because he didn't want to face the truth of what kind of person he was and and you know if you're a minimalist or if you like driving vws no shame you know live your life the way you want to, but it may be questioned, you know, wealth and poverty. And my dad struggled most of his life. We had welfare cans in our, in our thing when I was growing up in T I couldn't bring

friends over as a teen because we had welfare cans in our refrigerator and my friends would see it and go, what a joke. And, uh, you know, he was a good father. He tried his best. That's probably all most people can do. But it shaped me, like you mentioned, and like your thing did, where you started looking at the world and going, how come there are people in different places than others? It does shape us. It's unbelievable. I'm 47 years old, but I've spoken to, I don't know, tens of thousands. I've been doing this since 1999, tens of thousands of people. And I have just absolutely enjoyed learning from others on this

journey of money. And you know things, you read things, I have a bunch of degrees and all that, but just sitting down and learning from people and just realizing that we try to make this, America is difficult because we try to make this America's difficult because we try to make this thing work and we try to build up this wealth and the facade. And I've just seen some really unhappy rich people over the years. And it's just put me in a level where, you know, I just want to live out of a place of purpose. And of course I want to have a fair shake in life. There's no doubt. I want to make sure that my kids have a good shake. I've got four kids. And by the way, all proceeds of the book sales go to my four kids. So just to make sure that that's... There you go. You're

making a contribution to the... But I say all that because it's been a blessing to be in this job. It really has. I've learned a lot. Just a joke aside here, most of my friends or parents tell me that having kids is basically throwing money out the window. Bank of Dads is always open, so pretty much any money you make goes to your kids really when it comes down to it. Yes.

I've taught that all my kids are different. I've taught them stuff. I have spreadsheets. Hey, look. Business is so much easier than being a dad. I can att them stuff. I have spreadsheets. Hey, look, business is so much easier than being a dad. I can attest to that. Definitely. Well, good for you. You're changing the future of the world and you're doing your part because I didn't do any of it. I skipped the whole kid thing. So guys like you who'd have four kids and are overachieving, thanks for carrying my weight. Plus you're probably a better father than I would be. I think we all know that.

My audience right now at 15 years ago, yeah, yeah. They would agree. I'm not shaking my head on that one. Yeah, there you go. You couldn't be more right. But the thing you mentioned before, our little joke there, my little joke there is, you know, people can be successful and rich and be unhappy. And I think that was another one of my dad's excuses.

Well, those people aren't happy. And, you know, I went through the thing. I grew up poor. So I thought, okay, if I buy the Mercedes, the BMWs, the houses, the cars, I become ultra successful building companies and I'll be happy. And I'll be probably happier than my father was and more complete. And the opposite was true. I went through that thing that I don't know how many guys go through it, but I went through it where you go on a rocket ship space you build a lot of companies and empires you go right to freaking rich and you're miserable as hell you have all this stuff and i and i filled my house my house was like a giant arcade we throw parties every three months

i could have 300 to 400 people at my parties in my house until the cops giant arcade we throw parties every three months i could have 300 to 400 people at my parties in my house until the cops eventually said we're not doing this with you anymore in an ultra rich neighborhood and i was miserable like everyone hated me even though they they loved you know as long as i was buying they were they were enjoying life but all all everyone around me just basically hated me and demanded more. And I hated myself. And I started drinking. I was just miserable. And I remember watching Fight Club and having an epiphany watching that movie where, you know, I realized the things you own end up owning you.

And I realized what I'd built. I'd built this gilded cage that I was so miserable and unhappy with. And, you know, I thought that by working hard for other people and giving them things and taking care of them, that was showing my love and it never was enough. And, and so I had to like reassess everything. Like I bought all this stuff. I bought all these things that I didn't have growing up that I always wanted. And it didn't complete me. It didn't make me happy. And so, you know, you bring up a good point with the happiness thing that, you know, people think wealth and success will make it for you.

And it often doesn't. Yeah, it's a great point. There's some good data on that. There's a certain like number, you know, there's the poverty number and then there's a great point. There's some good data on that. There's a certain like number, you know, there's the poverty number and then there's a certain number. I don't know what it is. It changes. It was like 150,000 at one point for a certain family. At that point, anything above that, the marginal improvement in happiness is de minimis. But, you know, I'm, you know, I'm a kind of a Bible beater. So as I've gotten through this academic world, there's 2000 scriptures, like, like 2,000 scriptures on money.

That's more than prayer, and that's more than faith combined. And I have got to tell you, the wisdom that comes out of that that's applicable today is unbelievable. One of them that's really interesting, it's a paradox that I've really tried to, and I'm still trying to digest it and understand it. It's really hard to understand, but it's a complete paradox. Notre Dame has a department on this and they've been studying it. And it's the paradox of giving because there has been a direct correlation between those that give, not just like a better tiptoe waiter, but like a commitment to giving, usually it's measured by about 10%. And so those that give on a consistent basis and are engaged with that giving, according to Notre Dame, they're actually happier people. Now there's subsequent studies that

support this. There's actually also been studies when we talk about the neuroscience piece that giving actually activates parts of the brain that are the happiness parts of the brain. So the paradox of money rooted in the scriptures that I've been reading, supported by science, say that actually giving makes us happier. So that's something that we have to contend with because it's not an easy thing to do. Yeah. And a lot of spiritual texts, because there's a lot of them in the world. I mean, the reason that I think people still like them, I mean, it's the same with a lot of, you know, it's a lot of people like Aristotle and Plato and people that wrote stuff. There's truths in life that are just as applicable

as what they were thousands of years ago to now. And the reason they are applicable is because they're kind of obvious and they're binding in that way, I suppose. I can't think of the right word, but they're binding in a way that they make the human life or the intent of human life better. And those axioms don't change. I mean, human nature does not evolve much over millions of years. It just doesn't.

We still operate like cavemen. We're still cavemen hunter-gatherers, really, when it comes down to it. So, yeah, I can see how that applies. You know, one thing I've found is part of, you know, gratitude is like a really important axiom to have in your life really part of your foundation you really need to have and a lot of scriptures i think teach that and and part of it is just number one recognizing what you have and being happy and so there there's your happiness part but also part of gratitude is giving back because if you see what you have and you realize

that you have an abundance of it you can give it away whether it's whether it's tangible or intangible so you know i love to entertain people i i to make them smile i like to i like to make people happy or i like to inform people or a lot of times we do informal entertainment we make people happy through informing them and telling them jokes and talking about serious subjects on the same time and it makes it more palatable and and go people by people's filters so you know to me that's a way of giving back educating people improving the world i'm transparent talk about everything and and i think that comes out of gratitude that that giving back. And you just feel better because I think we're communal in that way as human beings. You know, we're not monoliths unto each other, unless you're a real big narcissist, I suppose.

Yeah, you know, it is a paradox of being able to give back both, you know, with our time and our, you know, emotions, like an emotional give back. And then of course, financially and just kind of assessing and taking inventory and being honest with ourselves. Are we really doing that? Sometimes I feel like I'm giving back because it gives me, it makes like, it's a big pat on my back. I just have to take an inventory and say, okay, I got to give back out of, at least I was talking to pastor once I go, you know, I give with my time and money a lot. And I said, pastor is a real famous pastor. I go, hey, I got to sit down with you because like a lot of times I'm doing it and it's kind of selfish.

He goes, he goes, bro, as long as you're 75% unselfish and there's a little bit of self, you're okay. I go, you'll never be a hundred percent unselfish and there's a little bit of self you're okay i go you'll never be a hundred percent unselfish and i said look i just need that little out because i i there's always this like this vacillation between trying to be a good person and then also you know recognizing that there's something that i want out of it as well but i do live in a place of constant gratitude. And what's interesting, just an interesting kind of on that lane, I've been poor. Like, you know, I lived in a trailer park environment with people that are just kind of redneck kind of people. And I've seen greedy people in that environment.

I've seen ungrateful people in that environment with nothing. And so I don't think these, what you had talked about these kind of caveman attributes, I don't think they distinguish between rich and poor. You can be greedy and poor and you can be complacent. I've seen people walk in my office, a husband and wife, elderly, only social security to their name, and smiling from ear to ear. Next meeting, this is a true story, next meeting, multi-multi-millionaires, and I thought they were going to kill each other and they were going to get divorced. They were so unhappy. And it just hits me. After those kind of days, I just sit back and I go, God, what are you telling me here?

I take inventory. I overthink. I go, God, what are you telling me here? Like I take inventory. I overthink, you know, just that's the, you know, I go, God, what are you telling me? This is, this was amazing. The paradox of these two meetings, one that was just completely happy. These, they had nothing in the other one. They're going to kill themselves. I'm like, this is just crazy. So, you know, it's, it's more of a perspective versus your, your, you know, your net worth.

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the fallacies of living in a highly capitalistic society that we do and being Americans, I mean, there's a great thing that we live in a society and a freedom-based democracy experiment that bets on the human spirit. When I was growing up as an entrepreneur and looking at what the difference is between the ussr and those of you gen z can google that or millennials yeah yeah because i grew up cowering under a desk as a child from the you know the nuclear bombs remember yeah i remember raining down from the ussr but i would look at communism and capitalism and really when you look at the differences between them, the capitalism is a capitalism and freedom is,

is about the human spirit, the human condition of, of being able to fulfill itself, its potential, what it wants to do. And communism is very limited. You know, it doesn't matter how hard you work,

how many extra hours you put in, you're getting the same pay as everybody else. It doesn't mean, it doesn't matter how inspirational you work, how many extra hours you put in, you're getting the same pay as everybody else. It doesn't mean it doesn't matter how, uh, inspirational you are. It doesn't matter if you're Steve jobs. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, Bob, whatever guys who doesn't care about working or something and enjoys, I don't know, just sitting around all day. Wait, don't describe me. And, uh, you know, it doesn't matter who you are and, and the limits of that affect the quality of the country and the environment, the government, the culture, and the community. And that's why the USSR ended up eventually failing. And America seems to have gotten this far.

Let's put it that way. And to me, it's the real human spirit. You know, you can look at the, you can see that inspired in the Statue of Liberty. Give to me, you know, your peoples that want something better. And so to me, that's really what it comes down to. And so I learned the hard way that happiness doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank. It doesn't, you know, this little fight club line that I'll fall back to that, you know, you're not your car. You're not your wallet.

You're not the contents of your wallet you're not you're not you're not any of the crap and consumer shit that you buy you're not any of that i mean and like you say people can be happy having nothing and they can have all the money in the world and and i think our assumption of american capitalism is we believe that people that are highly successful in their studies on this, especially how people look at ultra-successful people like Elon Musk or Hollywood stars, they think that since they've achieved the money part, they've achieved the human happiness balance part, and that they have these perfect lives. And if we could just all become Hollywood stars or Elon Musk billionaires,

that our lives will be perfect and balanced in both sides. And it's not the way it works. No, it's not. And it's really good points. You know, the capitalism piece is obviously important to me because I'm very much in the thick of it. And I find this financial framework that we have understated. It's a really brilliant system. I mean, we started a ministry in Moldova in Ukraine 10 or 15 years ago, me and some friends, and it's called the Admirals where we get kids off the streets on the basketball court, teach them about God. We teach them about leadership. And so I've got to engage with many people in that area of which some of them remember and were part of the USSR. And then some of them I'm nervous for right now because of the war, right? I've gained over the last several years from that relationship for our sophisticated financial

system that's not only rooted on intelligence, but is also rooted on trust is really worth appreciating, even in its flaws, appreciating and being a part of. As an example, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, maybe, for somebody like me, without a silver spoon, I would have been a serf or somebody in poverty working in the fields. And there's no way I would have accumulated wealth because I didn't have land and I wasn't going to inherit land. Now, I could invest in this economic system. I don't have to be too smart. I just save a little bit of my money each month. And before you know it, maybe 20 years, 30 years, I can literally be a multimillionaire.

And I've seen people on $40,000 a year, squirrel away money and become multimillionaires. And I know it works. And it's a fascinating system because then that's able to fund these companies that manufacture drugs and toothpaste and tires and toilet paper. And this whole system works and jobs are created. So I'm really fascinated by this system. I want to make sure it keeps going and it's rooted not only in intelligence, but also trust. And so I do appreciate that. And I appreciate the reference to the USSR because that would go away because the government would replace it. Yeah.

And sadly, it was replaced by an oligarchy or basically really is the kleptocracy and mafia rule, mob rule, authoritarian rule. And so it did kind of switch to a capitalistic kind of system, which is capitalism for the oligarchy and the yeah optocracy which is you know how it's run we've had people on the show that study putin and and his government and a lot of you know when they moved a lot of the companies to state-owned companies they just basically created a mob where you know everyone's takes parts in it a lot of putin's money is hard to track because a lot of the oligarchs are technically holding his parts and his pieces and you see when he calls those pieces back in because somebody seems to fall out of a window on a balcony or uh somehow they're mysteriously poisoned and yeah shouldn't laugh but you know i get it yeah it's it's a really sad

real system that exists in china too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're very fortunate. I don't take it for granted that I was born in the best state. I'm just kidding. In Texas. So you have to say the best state and the best country in the history of the world. Regardless, best country in the history of the world. It is a blessing. Now if we could just get you guys attached to the electric grid so your power doesn't go out all the time.

You guys got to fix that whole power situation down there. Yeah, we got a winter storm coming, so we'll get it tested again, I hope. Hey, I bought a generator just in case this time. Jesus, I saw the bills that came out of that one crisis you guys had down there. And I always thought you guys were attached to the power grid. And I was like, what the fuck? And you go, girls. I guess how many power i mean i guess there's thousands of power providers there are providers or people that really aren't providers they're just kind of there's some sort of third party

ride-on system yeah they're they're quasi municipalities quasi municipalities yeah well you know it's it's yeah i don't even know really but yeah there's their municipal so some municipalities you can actually invest in but some of these you can't because they're city-owned so but yeah they definitely fumbled on that one well we do love texas for the barbecue although i think st louis is gonna send me hate mail no the there's some sort of variation of whatever that i don't care it's's not even a competition. I mean, frankly, it's not even close. Barbecue is barbecue.

I think, I think we're going down there for Southwest again. And I eat so much barbecue when I'm down there. I sweat like I sweat meat and barbecue sauce for like three days after. Well, I'll take, I'll host you. If you come down to your Bronfels,

San Antonio area, it's good stuff. There you go. So there's the Alamone in San Antonio. Is there Alamo in San Antonio? Yeah, it is. As long as you don't go Ozzy Osbourne near it. Oh, yeah.

You remember that? Yeah. That ages us, man. Because, I mean, not a lot of people would know about that. I've lost the whole Gen Z crowd that listens to the show at this point. They're off Googling everything. Or they're just like, I don't know. He's not Riz. I'm still

trying to figure out what Riz means. Is it Riz? I'm not even sure I'm saying it right. Anyway, so what are some of the other services and things you do on your website for your clients? How can they reach out to you? How can they see if you're a fit, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah, thank you for that. The biblical responsible investing, we unpacked pretty well. So if somebody wants to consider using us for that purpose, we'd be honored. And I touched on giving. I mentioned that in the book as well. I unpacked the giving, interesting commentary there. The other thing that we do that is worth unpacking is donor advised funds. So sometimes people want to make a tax deduction in their calendar year, but don't know where to give that money to. So it's like creating your

own foundation. So you give money to the donor advised fund, you get the tax deduction in that year, and then later you give it out to charities whenever you're ready. That's a unique strategy. And we like actually doing that through specific Christian donor advised funds because we have concerns and reason for concerns that the distributions that go from donor advised funds to certain charities, those charities, because of the polarization, could be considered hate groups. As an example, Focus on the Family, it's a radio station that really focuses in on teaching dads and moms how to be good moms and dads. Obviously, there's certain groups that think that they should not exclude certain types of moms and dads. And this station has been around a long time. They focus on moms and dads. And so there's a group of people that don't like Focus on the family. I think you know how that would all play out. So they've deemed them, these third parties have deemed them hate groups. So if you give charitably to those hate groups from a donor

advised fund, if you use a secular donor advised fund, that distribution to that charity could be canceled. You might not be able to make that distribution because it's considered a hate group. So this polarization in the economy is something I keep an eye on for the Christians in our community and in America, and just pay attention to where the puck is going. So we like to use Christian donor advised funds so the distributions can go to the right place without any consequences. There you go. Yeah, I'm kind of familiar with the different variations of, you know, religious denominations in the Christian community. I remember when I was young, I worked for a company that was,

it wasn't very cool with Hollywood. In fact, I think there were some suits over it, but they were making videos where they were editing out swear words, violence, and sex in movies and providing them to a lot of christian communities across the nation they're basically censoring or editing the movies well hollywood wasn't happy with it because they were reselling them and making money so there was kind of a copyright trademark issue there but they sold really well for a lot of years and i remember my i remember my uncle who since passed was a preacher for southern baptist in georgia and led a church there so i thought i was really proud i sent him one of these videos and said hey you know i know that you're sensitive about this stuff

you know here here's one of these videos and i got yelled at because there was dancing in the video oh there was like a school dance. It was nothing sexual. It was a school dance that got chaperoned. And some lesson in the story. And I got yelled at because there was dancing in it. And how dare. And here I'm trying to do the right thing. I saw that on Footloose, by the way.

I saw that on, was he the same pastor? Might have been, yeah. It was the same sort of concept, which is interesting because we moved from California to American Park, and that's where Footless was formed. And that was my whole teenage experience, actually, was Kevin Bacon. You lost more of your audience in that generation, right? I think so.

I don't know. They've heard that story a few times. So I think they've just kind of, it'll gloss right by them over the years. But everyone's heard my Kevin Bacon story, but it was the same thing. But yeah, I get it. Everyone's got a different thing. Everyone's got to entitle their opinion. Let's go for it. Give people your final

pitch out on the show, on picking up the book, reaching out to you for your services and onboarding with you or seeing if you're a good fit with them, handshake, etc. Yeah, thank you. So you can go, the book will be out. You can go to Barnes and Nobles to pre-order. So that's the only place that'll pre-order, according to my publisher. They're using Barnes and Nobles for the pre-order. Once it comes out

on the 30th, it'll be out everywhere, Amazon. You can actually get the Kindle version on Amazon now. So however you want to do it, pre-order on Barnes and Nobles, go to Amazon, whatever works for you. Go to PAC's financial group. If you think this type of environment, this type of dialogue is aligned with what you would want with your money, then you go to our website and I'd have one of my advisors reach out to you. They're an extension of me. They're all PAX people. They're not independent contractors. They're all part of the organization. So you would just go to the PAX Financial Group They're not independent contractors. They're all part of the organization. So you would just go to the PAX Financial Group and say, just talk to somebody.

And they have a 15-minute consult where they don't charge or anything. Just say, is it a good fit or not? Sometimes it's not a good fit. So you just have that initial conversation. So if you feel like you want to have that initial just kind of a fit conversation, then go to PAXFinancialGroup.com. Yep. I'm an atheist, so they'd be just like, get away, Satan. I'm just kidding. We've got a ton of atheists. We have a lot of clients that are different.

Yeah. It's just a matter of, hey, they're good people and we want to work with them. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you really just want people who can do your investing well and probably hold to your values. So it doesn't matter who those folks are. If they're good at it, damn it, that's all that matters. So there you go. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Darrell. We really appreciate it. It's been a great conversation. You warned me and you told me that it was going to be fun

and I did have fun, so thank you for having me. We tried. We put a gun to your head and said, you will have fun or else. That's how we roll on the show. Yeah, that's been great. Thank you very much. Folks, order up the book wherever fine books are sold

biblical responsible investing insights for kingdom minded investors out January 30th 2024 as always refer the show to your family friends and relatives go to goodreads.com fortunes chris foss linkedin.com

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Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.