A Different Kind of Investment
If one were to do any type of internet search for the meaning of investing, the most common definitions found center around the following:
expending money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial plans, shares, or property or by using it to develop a commercial venture.
Page after page holds a definition that has profit and material result as its main tenet. Yet, as with most things in life, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find another definition:
devoting one’s time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.
For nearly 5 years, I lived and breathed the first definition of investing in my various roles at a private equity firm. I spent hours analyzing financial statements, conducting due diligence, attending community events 2-3 nights per week, and meeting with investors. I was, if you will, fully invested in my work, sometimes to the detriment of my health and, more often than I care to admit, to the detriment of my family. In the summer of 2019, I decided it was time to take an intentional pause. I needed to regroup, re-strategize, restore, and recalibrate. But I fully expected that, after some time of rest and a quieted spirit, God would lead me to my next exciting role in the impact investment world. And He did…though not at all via the path I would have chosen nor to a role I would have ever dreamt of.
Shortly after announcing my resignation, I was met with the news that cancer had reared its ugly head again for my father and my father-in-law, this time with a prognosis that did not bode well for either. My desire for an intentional pause found itself facing off against circumstances that belied the rest I craved. Yet, this pause found itself a victor, for it had bestowed upon me the gift of time to invest in being a stem cell donor for my father in a last valiant attempt to save his life. As my father’s health improved, and as I began seeing the rewards of a life that was not so laser-focused on work, I decided to do some freelance consulting work and created an LLC. Little did I know that one week later, the great COVID shut-down would occur. My three young children (7, 8, and 9 years old at the time) were suddenly home. And so was I. Our school district had no online infrastructure to deal with the sudden closure, and my fledgling week-old consultancy did not yet have enough clients to fill a full work week. So, I took on a new title— “Mr. D.”
I was now officially a homeschool teacher, untrained in the art of primary education, with no relevant degrees to suggest I might be able to carry out this new assignment. I filled my time printing out math worksheets and creating fun school projects for our children, all the while trying to build a business in the remaining pockets of time. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of my deep dive into a new way of investing. In my mind, I’m not even sure I viewed it as an investment initially. Rather, it was both a risky stop gap and a circumstantial necessity, not a decision based on careful analysis and due diligence. Nonetheless, the investment seed had been planted and had started to grow.
The first signs of this growth revealed themselves in my relationship with my father who, by the time COVID had shut international travel down, was quickly declining, his body no longer able to accept my stem cells. While I thought my intentional pause was for my own restoration, God revealed it to be a gift of time that I could devote to investing hours in talking, worshipping, and praying with my father before he went to his Father on May 13, 2020.
The second signs of the growth of my investment came by way of my relationship with my children. Whereas I had previously been able to spend an hour or two each evening with my kids, I suddenly found myself spending 5-6 hoursper day with them. My wife and I longed for our children to grow up with strong Biblical literacy and a passion for God, but it often felt challenging to squeeze this into our busy lives. Now, with my new role, I was able to spend every morning in Bible study, worshipping and reading about great heroes of our faith. And while I taught them their math equations, I learned an important equation of my own:
Time + Devotion = Invested Relationship
As I continued to invest time in relationships, a new business investment opportunity presented itself, with a goal to give people back time in their lives. Over the course of a 75-year lifespan, the average American will spend 175-200 days grocery shopping. But he/she will spend less and less time at the dinner table together with his/her family. This new business aims to disrupt the current grocery shopping experience by providing an essential online grocery store through which every order is ready in 10 minutes. Our hope is that this disruption adds hours to individual’s and families’ lives so that they can further invest in their relationships.
There are two Proverbs that stand out to me when I consider the two definitions of investing:
“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.” (Proverbs 12:11)
God calls us to work—and to work our land. Therefore, keep investing in solutions to solve some of the world’s greatest problems. Keep investing in worthwhile pursuits in your businesses to “create plenty” and thus impact our world.
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)
When a runner trains for a marathon, it is not a one-time effort. It is a devotion of effort and energy on a daily basis. So it is with training our children, and I have seen firsthand the results of regular investment in them. And though Proverbs are not promises, we can enter into this investment with the expectation of the worthwhile result that our children will not leave this path.
We are called to invest in our work and in our relationships. Let us do so with diligence!
Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.