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6. Elders and the Pillar of Discipleship · Great Houses

• 0:00
  Gregory Treat: Hello everybody.
• 0:00
  Thank you so much for joining us for episode six of The Great Houses Forum.
• 0:05
  We're continuing to discuss what it means to join the Covenantal economy and the, the Great Houses Forum is designed to be a place where people that are concerned about great houses, folks that have the, the concern for a multi-generational business owning, stabilizing force in their world, uh, that those people have a, have a place to, uh, to talk about that and to think about that.
• 0:31
  In many ways, we are recovering things that are, uh, that have not been done.
• 0:35
  So in sometimes hundreds, maybe, maybe longer, hundreds of years.
• 0:39
  And, um, it's also a place where I want to, I want to have people share what they're, um, what they're doing and how they're working with.
• 0:51
  The folks that they, when as people try to implement these principles, I want there to be opportunity for people to talk about that and think about that.
• 0:58
  So that's the purpose of the Great Houses Forum.
• 1:00
  Um, my name is Gregory Retreat and thank you so much for being here.
• 1:04
  So we are continuing with our initial series, which I have, uh, Perforce decided I must extend to, to six weeks, uh, or excuse me, to seven weeks.
• 1:14
  Uh, so we are gonna, we started with seeing the covenantal economy and that was co They spent two episodes talking about what, what allows you to identify when you're interacting with a multi-generational, long-term, iterative of game, rather than kind of the, the normal corporate transactional games that we're used to.
• 1:32
  And then we spent a couple weeks talking about how to signal the covenantal economy.
• 1:35
  You, when, when you're wanting to, to join this, um, this type of community.
• 1:40
  And it is always a community you need to put out there in the world.
• 1:43
  Hey, I understand what you're doing, I like it and I'm interested in playing the game with you.
• 1:49
  And then for the last couple weeks we've been talking about how to satisfy the, the covenantal economy.
• 1:54
  So last time we talked about the pillars and the levels of the Great House and we'll continue talking about that today.
• 2:00
  Uh, but we're also gonna discuss.
• 2:03
  The concept of elders and the pillar of discipleship.
• 2:07
  So, so again, we start with, uh, with our image, our helpful AI generated image with, uh, a round table with, uh, medieval men with swords and armor.
• 2:17
  And off in the distance, off to the top right hand corner, there is a floating city grounded on vast pillars that rise from the clouds.
• 2:25
  And what I want to remind everybody is, is that in the ancient mind, those pillars supporting the great heavenly cities that we're all desirous to, to build and to live in, and the men standing around the round table, Arthur's knights or what, what have you, those are the same people.
• 2:42
  These are the same thing in some, uh, in some way, they would've seen a deep connection between the concept of the pillars upholding the city and the men that created this social environment.
• 2:54
  Okay?
• 2:56
  So again, um, there are four pillars in my, my concept of what, what makes a household.
• 3:02
  And there's, there's kind of this, this fractal in nature that I went over last week where every household or every great house is the pillar of a city.
• 3:09
  But when you zoom in to look at the, uh, the household, uh, then, then you see four distinct pillars for distinct functions that are necessary for that, that entity to, to serve its civilizational purpose.
• 3:23
  So the, there's also levels of this thing.
• 3:26
  So we start with a, a good house, that that's where you have a compelling vision.
• 3:30
  Then you move on to a household or a house that holds, which is where you're able to hold onto people and hold onto property.
• 3:35
  And then we finally, we get to the level of a great house.
• 3:38
  This is where your household starts to become politically relevant.
• 3:41
  You're able to, to confer status.
• 3:44
  So in the early days, a lot of people will, will struggle.
• 3:47
  They'll kind of work through these realities.
• 3:48
  We're joining this person's house.
• 3:50
  It it, it might improve my situation 'cause this person is doing good things for me, but it in the eyes of the outside world, maybe it might lower my status.
• 3:59
  I'm, I'm submitting, I'm coming under somebody that, that my culture says, well, why are you submitting to that person?
• 4:04
  Why, why should they have the right to tell you what to do?
• 4:06
  Only usually only these special people over here in this little box.
• 4:10
  They're the only ones that have the right to tell other people what to do.
• 4:13
  And the rest of y'all are just peasants.
• 4:15
  Um, so, but when you get to the level of great house, uh, you know, you've gotten there because that stops happening.
• 4:21
  That social stigma from joining the covenantal economy goes away and is no longer an issue that we have to deal with.
• 4:28
  And we'll, we'll, we'll talk more in the future about what, uh, what those things look like.
• 4:31
  So, um, but what I wanna note is, is that, that of those four pillars, there are, uh, there's method of wealth creation, there is evangelism and recruitment, there is productive property, having productive property, and then there is discipleship and training and.
• 4:50
  When I gave my examples last week, I, I spent a lot of time talking about, um, my examples of discipleship rather were all related to the church or to some like broader social function.
• 5:02
  And, and obviously I think that the church is a valid example.
• 5:05
  There's there's many examples of households and great houses partnering with churches or, or with individual institutions within a broader church.
• 5:14
  But there also needs to be a very clear discipleship training platform within the household itself.
• 5:22
  That, that needs to be a thing that we can do.
• 5:25
  And, and for many of us, that is the most challenging thing to think about and to grok when we're, when we're contemplating this, um.
• 5:35
  This structure.
• 5:36
  So, so focusing on the pillar of discipleship I, I, and, and continuing with our, with our three, uh, level structure, the three levels of discipleship, we start with a compelling vision.
• 5:45
  How do you raise good kids?
• 5:47
  This probably mean kids that, that can hold down a job.
• 5:50
  How do you raise good kids that can go out and be productive members of society?
• 5:54
  And this is, this tends to be the, the limit of what people are, are doing.
• 5:58
  Um, when you get to the level of a household, a house that holds, how do you establish a family culture of honorable competition and cooperation, which is necessary for your adult children in particular to, to work for you, actually, you have to be able to master incentive structures.
• 6:13
  You have to be able to reward the good and in some way punish the evil without damaging your relationship.
• 6:18
  Which probably has a lot to do with understanding the principles of the game of life.
• 6:22
  And then at the, the highest level, we think about generational feedback.
• 6:26
  How do you raise up elders who will guide the family to generational success?
• 6:32
  Okay.
• 6:33
  As we're talking about this, I wanna read you a quote from a, a, a helpful book that I enjoy, uh, called Your Meaning Legacy, uh, by Laura Roser.
• 6:41
  And she's quoting a book called Sapiens, a brief history of humankind, uh, by a gentleman named Harri.
• 6:47
  And they talk about this difference between objective, subjective and interest objective phenomenon.
• 6:51
  So an objective phenomena is independent of our consciousness or beliefs.
• 6:56
  I, for instance, don't have to believe in or know about gravity in order for it to exist.
• 7:00
  If I walk off a cliff, I'll still fall to the ground, despite my ignorance.
• 7:03
  That is true.
• 7:04
  This is true now and was true before gravity was named or discovered, right?
• 7:08
  The, uh, the famous there, there's a, there's objective truth, right?
• 7:11
  If I convince everyone on earth that I can breathe underwater, and I travel to the bottom of the ocean and step out without a tank, I will in fact suffocate because I cannot in fact breathe underwater regardless of what I've convinced people of.
• 7:23
  Okay?
• 7:24
  Uh, a subjective phenomenon depends upon the beliefs of a single individual and changes or revolves that person changes is or her mind.
• 7:31
  So if I believe that I manifest wealth by holding a blue rock in my hand, but then my friend laughs at me and I decide it's not true, when that belief changes, it only affects me because no one else had that same belief.
• 7:43
  And then he goes on.
• 7:44
  An intersubjective phenomenon is when an entire community shares the same subjective beliefs.
• 7:51
  If someone within the believing community changes her belief or dies, it doesn't matter.
• 7:55
  There are enough believers to sustain the ideology.
• 7:58
  When someone denounces capitalism, for example, it has very little effect on that ideology because there are millions of supporters.
• 8:05
  Maybe he was a little bit optimistic in that book, but you know, let's go on.
• 8:09
  But if the pool of believers is weak, a change made by a small number of individuals threatens the whole system.
• 8:15
  If someone invents a religion that believes donkeys are the great creators of the universe and they recruit 10 people as followers, and then half of them die in a tragic car accident on the way to church, and the other half decide this is all a little too kooky for them, the religion ends.
• 8:31
  And finally, this is the point that I wanna, I wanna get your family and I would say your household and, and ultimately your great house is an intersubjective system.
• 8:42
  You have joint beliefs and principles that guide your decisions.
• 8:45
  If you do not share your individual beliefs with your family or document, then they die with you.
• 8:50
  The key is to create a strong joint ideology that isn't completely lost.
• 8:55
  If one person stops believing or someone dies.
• 8:59
  Okay.
• 9:00
  And.
• 9:01
  You know, as one of the key differences, one of the key things that I'm, I'm gonna repeat this, um, several times I suspect as we move, as we move through this, is you can't build a system that requires unanimity, right?
• 9:14
  If, if, if you're like, well, it's not a success unless all of my children join in, it's not a success unless all of my children, you know, are, are, are co completely committed.
• 9:24
  And if any of them drop out, then, then, then that's gonna break what I'm doing.
• 9:27
  You have to be prepared for a certain level of people leaving abandoning saying, I want to go my own way.
• 9:35
  And, and you want that to, uh, obviously that'll, especially in a smaller family, that's not insignificant.
• 9:40
  It's not not a loss.
• 9:41
  It is a loss, right.
• 9:42
  But it's also, you, you need to have a plan that says, if this happens, it's not the end of the world.
• 9:49
  Okay?
• 9:50
  And, uh, so I, I've read all of that to you.
• 9:52
  I think it's, it's helpful to, uh, to think about, well, what, what, what are the, uh, the big brain people call these things?
• 9:58
  Intersubjective system or intersubjective phenomenon, but I wanna suggest that there's an older word, um, that, that perhaps more, more accurately and more emotively captures the reality that we're going for here.
• 10:11
  And that is a tribe.
• 10:12
  All right.
• 10:13
  Tribe is, I think the ancient word for this phenomenon.
• 10:18
  And, and the, the, the ability of people to form identity around tribe to have a common goal, to have shared loyalty is, is a critical part of history.
• 10:26
  It's a very deep structure in, uh, in human history and in and in human psychology.
• 10:32
  So you're, you're not gonna get rid of tribes.
• 10:35
  Um, so when we think about a tribe, we think about the household as a tribe.
• 10:41
  There are three roles in a tribe.
• 10:43
  There are members, there are el uh, heirs, and there are elders, and there are heirs can tend to be children, but then there are elders.
• 10:51
  And I wanna suggest to you that one of the problems that we have probably in, in society as a whole, but especially in this goal of being able to disciple people and raise them up well, is we don't know what elders are.
• 11:03
  It's, it's a missing role.
• 11:05
  I'm gonna define elder as those who have demonstrated their character and commitment to the house.
• 11:10
  They give wise guidance to the active members of the family, and they manage the initiation process into the unique intersubjective phenomenon of the house, which is likely, if we remember our discussions of aristocratic technology in earlier episodes, it likely the, the, the initiation ritual is related to an aristocratic technology.
• 11:29
  Okay?
• 11:32
  So.
• 11:34
  The main point about tribal identity that I, I, I wanna, I wanna talk about, 'cause people sometimes I think miss this is, is that it is really important to people.
• 11:41
  Um, it is not a, it is not a LRP, it is not something that people don't care about.
• 11:48
  Uh, similar to how people currently run the lens of their decision making through, will this affect my credit score?
• 11:53
  Someone who is a part of a tribe will care what the tribe thinks of their proposed course of action.
• 11:57
  Though I, I would say, in fact, I think your brain is actually more designed to work with something like an intersubjective system or a tribe rather than, uh, rather than being something that works with a, um, a, uh, more abstract concepts like a credit score.
• 12:14
  Okay?
• 12:16
  So people make plans expecting the help of members of their tribe, and they are conscious and, and of the obligations to remain in good standing.
• 12:24
  That such expectations create.
• 12:27
  So when we ask what, what does it mean to be in good standing?
• 12:31
  Who is the judge of those who are in good standing?
• 12:33
  And then who determines what benefits, uh, accrue to different levels of competence and loyalty?
• 12:38
  The answer to that question is elders.
• 12:41
  Elders are the people making that call?
• 12:44
  So.
• 12:46
  So what is, what is the qualification you might ask of an elder?
• 12:49
  Um, in the ancient tribal past, as far as we can tell, eldership literally just meant an old man.
• 12:55
  But it was, it meant old man in a, in a time and place where things were really hard.
• 13:01
  If you made it to old age, you were incredibly wise, probably extremely physically tough, and you'd probably inspired loyalty in a bunch of the people in, uh, in your tribe and in, in the, uh, in the space that you were in.
• 13:16
  Okay.
• 13:16
  Later on and, and kind of, I'm, I'm, I'm drawing from, uh, proto, you know, European history here.
• 13:21
  Um, the concept of elder is associated with the head of the household, which required among other things, you know, once a year you have to be able to, to string and draw a bow.
• 13:29
  Uh, you have to make a fire, uh, from scratch and not with flint and tinder.
• 13:33
  You can make it with friction, which boy, that requires quite a lot of, uh, upper body strength or, uh, you can use in certain, uh, certain Greek cities.
• 13:40
  Uh, you could use a crystal magnifying glass or some, some method of, of concentrating sunlight to make fires.
• 13:46
  And they didn't indeed have that, that, uh, that ability, certain households had it.
• 13:50
  Um.
• 13:52
  And I'll, I'll note parenthetically, you know, gi, given that we've talked about this, there was a time when the ability to make fire was itself an aristocratic technology and very closely guarded.
• 14:02
  It was something that people regarded as a, as a, as a mystical secret, a kind of magical power.
• 14:07
  If you could make fire, you were a special priest, class level person.
• 14:11
  Um, and then, you know, Flint and Tinder came along and this was no longer, this is no longer quite as mysterious.
• 14:16
  Um, but you see echoes of that in, in a whole bunch of cultures in, in India and in Greece and Rome, and even in certain parts of China, there are, there are stories about, uh, the, the person who invented fire and how they became the priest or the shaman of a, of a household.
• 14:32
  So very interesting stuff in ancient Greece.
• 14:35
  And during sort of the late aristocratic period, the qualifications for an elder in the, in the political sense, and there was always a political, uh, connotation to these things was set at 500 Madi Noy.
• 14:47
  Right?
• 14:47
  Uh, and I've got some folks from the classical society here on the call, so you can tell me, uh, tell me if I pronounce that correctly or incorrectly.
• 14:54
  Um, but that's enough grain roughly to support a household of 50 for a year.
• 14:58
  That's, that's what it meant.
• 15:00
  Um, to be an elder is you had to be the head of a household that supported, uh, about 50 people.
• 15:07
  Later as agricultural wealth became less important, uh, many of the Greek city states are moving more towards democracy.
• 15:14
  And when I say the Greek city states, uh, Athens wrote down a bunch of its stuff kind of more notably than the rest of these, uh, these folks.
• 15:20
  The, the, the standards were not nearly as restricted in, uh, in Sparta and some of the more, uh, conservative aristocrats in the, in the Greek peninsula.
• 15:28
  So famously, Athenian citizenship required your grandfather to have been Athenian and your father to have married a daughter of an Athenian.
• 15:36
  All right?
• 15:36
  So they, they, on both sides, they wanted three generations of, of Athenian, uh, presence.
• 15:47
  So this led to some implied requirements, uh, for eldership.
• 15:53
  So in, in kind of the, the, the late, the late Greek period ro leading up to the first century, which is important for, you know, those of us in Western society, because in, uh, that's when Christianity arises and Christianity arises in a very particular time and place, sort of interesting what's, what's possible and what's, what's desirable then.
• 16:13
  But there are these implied requirements for eldership.
• 16:15
  If you were gonna, if you were gonna become an elder, if you were gonnae to one of the councils that, uh, that, that actually, uh, ruled and, and held a bunch of agenda making powers in most of the Greek city states, they would do an investigation of you.
• 16:27
  Okay?
• 16:28
  And one of the things they would ask is, have you produced an heir, which is to say a son of your legitimate wife?
• 16:33
  Okay?
• 16:33
  Uh, uh, uh, and this is the wife that is a ritually linked to the God of your household.
• 16:40
  Uh, so they, they, Greeks might have had a number of, of children with a number of different women, but they had one wife that was very important to 'em.
• 16:49
  Now, there was a way of adopting around this.
• 16:52
  Uh, but, but, uh, you, you would have to be very, very careful in following the rituals to overcome the default.
• 16:58
  What they would want would be for you to have a child of your legitimate wife, and then your heir must demonstrate that he had the capacity to reproduce, right?
• 17:06
  That he wasn't sterile by producing a son of his legitimate wife.
• 17:09
  Right?
• 17:10
  And again, as I said, the wife's family had to be from Athens.
• 17:14
  Um, and depending on where you were, your then, and then in again, in order to be an elder, your grandson had to be enrolled in a freight tree.
• 17:21
  Right?
• 17:21
  Um, which is, which is the, the word from which we get the concept of fraternal, right?
• 17:26
  Um, the, the brotherhood, the whole brotherhood I ideas at which, depending on the city that happens somewhere between three and 12 years of age, you would be enrolled in this, in this public or quasi-public entity.
• 17:38
  Um, that, that, that did some level of testing of your, your competence.
• 17:43
  So, so to join a freight tree, you had to demonstrate physical, mental, and moral fitness.
• 17:52
  Physical fitness meant just not crippled, right?
• 17:55
  This is that, uh, that scene from, uh, from the movie 300, right?
• 17:58
  Where Leonis gives a thigh to neck.
• 18:00
  You gotta be able to hold the shield from thigh to neck.
• 18:02
  Um, and then obviously the, the, the, the point of the rest of the movie is, is that the, the crippled show goes on to show himself not just, uh, mentally, physically crippled, but mentally crippled and morally crippled.
• 18:13
  And in a, what is actually a pretty nice demonstration of the way that the Greeks thought those things go, went together.
• 18:18
  Okay.
• 18:19
  Uh, mentally fit usually meant to be able to speak Greek and in certain cities in certain times, and people, you know, differentiated on this, uh, potentially demonstrate some ability in mathematics.
• 18:28
  Um, and morally fitment, you were not a coward or a liar.
• 18:32
  Okay?
• 18:33
  And again, this was the ultimate demonstration of this fitness.
• 18:36
  The city that took this, the farthest was obviously Sparta with the Aje.
• 18:39
  Um, and they're, their, their emphasis on, you have to demonstrate that you are a pretty, pretty impressive kind of human to make it to adulthood.
• 18:48
  And that was also a prerequisite, again, for your father and grandfather to ascend to political heights.
• 18:55
  They had to produce someone, it didn't have to be every child, okay?
• 18:58
  But if they didn't produce at least one child who met these requirements, uh, they were gonna have a really hard time actually getting into the, the position of political power that their eldership would otherwise entitle them to.
• 19:09
  Okay?
• 19:10
  So again, they, this is proving you could reproduce according to your kind as the Bible says in, in Genesis, both genetically and memetically.
• 19:18
  And this is, and, and it still is in many ways, the minimum requirement to join a covenant economy if your, if your grandson cannot sing the songs and lead the warriors and string the bow and light the sacred fire.
• 19:29
  What good are you and, and what investment do you have in the future?
• 19:33
  Do you, you, you know, you might, you might care deeply.
• 19:35
  You might be a good guy and a good citizen right now, but if you don't have children and grandchildren, if you don't have a, some expectation that the, that your line will continue and that your decisions will affect people that you care deeply about in the future.
• 19:48
  And obviously in ancient Greece, this, they actually went further because they, they believed that, uh, your, your children had to continue offering, giving offerings to you, otherwise you would become a hungry ghost.
• 19:57
  This is, again, one of these things that is shared between Greece and Rome.
• 20:01
  The, the Hindu peoples, and then all the way over into, into China.
• 20:05
  They all believed this.
• 20:06
  If you go back and look at the, the traditional beliefs that they had, that if you didn't have a continuing lineage that would offer a food that would, would make offerings to a, to a, a family shrine, then you, the, the ancestor would experience some kind of ongoing, um, deprivation or torture or, or a, you know, bad, bad outcome.
• 20:26
  Right.
• 20:27
  And so, so you were, you were investing in the future and you had to know, um, that, that the people that were coming after you were going to, to hold the faith that they were gonna keep their city together.
• 20:37
  Yeah.
• 20:39
  So let's talk about, we're gonna, we're gonna jump forward and I'm gonna give you, uh, one of the, one of the, the best examples that I'm aware of, of, of the concept of an elder in some of the legacy families that I work with.
• 20:50
  So, elders and elders are called different legal, different names by different legal documents, um, are the ones who determine big picture strategy things.
• 20:57
  So things like in many, many legacy families will have, um, a basic necessities level of, of family stipend, which some sometimes called the starving artist level, right?
• 21:06
  Or the starving student level.
• 21:08
  So how much is the stipend?
• 21:10
  How much help is the family willing to give its children who have not yet accomplished very much in families that have significant investment portfolios, the elders tend to be able to say, well, we, we, we, we like these industries, or We don't like these industries.
• 21:24
  Um, I, I, uh, I have a strong suspicion, though I wouldn't, wouldn't care to, to, uh, to try to prove this.
• 21:31
  But I have a strong suspicion that, uh, a lot of the ESG, the, uh, environmental social governance, uh, restrictions that people have started out as various families, um, deciding what they were gonna do with their money and, and companies attempting to comply with that.
• 21:48
  And, and, and what it should be noted is this is a lot of power.
• 21:51
  Okay?
• 21:52
  This is a lot of power.
• 21:53
  So, so how do you decide who gets this in the modern context?
• 21:58
  Well, uh, and again, I'm gonna use the, the legacy family.
• 22:00
  Don't worry for all the, those of you that don't have this, uh, this kind of, of, of.
• 22:05
  Financial horsepower in your family there.
• 22:07
  This, this, there's an example coming for you, but I'm gonna start with with what I know the best.
• 22:12
  So let's say we have a, a legacy family and they're kind of doing what I call the, the family is private equity firm thing.
• 22:17
  So they, they give a member a $500,000 loan, $2 million of investment, and ultimately an exchange for 20% of their company.
• 22:25
  The member has a successful run.
• 22:27
  He gets a hundred million dollars exit, he pays back the loan, the family gets around $20 million, that's a 10 x return on their money.
• 22:34
  Um, they're very happy, right, with their initial investment, but the member now has $80 million free and clear or whatever, you know, in real life, he probably has, has had to give away more, uh, more equity than that, uh, to, to satisfy various people along the way.
• 22:47
  But what happens next?
• 22:48
  Um, now that, now that he's given that away, now he's got that $80 million free and clear, well, he could keep it for himself.
• 22:55
  He's now independently wealthy.
• 22:56
  He can go do whatever he wants, or he could contribute that newfound wealth back into the family structure.
• 23:03
  And if he does that, he has shown himself worthy of eldership.
• 23:07
  He's both competent.
• 23:08
  He took, you know, a, a relatively small investment and made it very large, right?
• 23:12
  He can take money in the most competitive realm in our world, private equity, venture capital, and he can go out there and, and, and 10 x your investment and make a bunch of money himself.
• 23:22
  And he's loyal, he's invested in the future.
• 23:25
  He is not just he, he prioritizes a certain set of ideological restrictions or ideological, um, goals over.
• 23:33
  Uh, the ability to keep the money in his own name and do whatever he wants at any time.
• 23:37
  Okay?
• 23:39
  So one of the things to to, to keep in mind is that when you're, when you're discipling, when you're building a family, everything is a test.
• 23:45
  Not in necessarily a bad way, not, not in a, if you fail the test to get kicked outta the family, but in, in, in the sense of we're always sorting people.
• 23:52
  We're trying to figure out what, what are people for?
• 23:55
  What are they good at?
• 23:56
  What are they not good at?
• 23:57
  Um, can you work alone?
• 23:59
  Can you work in a team?
• 24:00
  Can you follow?
• 24:01
  Can you lead?
• 24:01
  And, and when I'm, I'm doing this, I, I, I've got to, I've gotta give you the hind line quote, right?
• 24:06
  A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, um, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly specialization is for insects, right?
• 24:32
  And so we are always looking to say, well, what, what are people capable of?
• 24:36
  And, and, and we're, and we're looking for, ideally for those top level people that aren't specialized, okay?
• 24:42
  But the goal is to sift for leaders.
• 24:44
  Uh, one of the things when I, when I talk about, uh, you know, training children and how to train children and how to handle money, we talk about, uh, um, giving, giving people, uh, giving a kid a lot of money and taking them to a candy store, right?
• 24:55
  And the, the, the lesson is, it's much better to learn the lesson of unlimited gratification at eight years old in the candy store than at 28, uh, with cocaine.
• 25:03
  Right.
• 25:04
  Um, and, and, and giving your child the ability to experience that is, is a very important thing.
• 25:10
  Uh, likewise, when your people are learning to manage money, when they're learning to lead other people, when they're starting business ventures, it's much better to learn that a person can't lead with a hundred thousand dollars than with a million or a hundred million, right?
• 25:21
  If you give somebody a million and that's when you're finding out if they can lead, which is, which is what happens a lot in, in families with a normal estate plan.
• 25:29
  No control, no leadership, no exposure to the family business, somebody dies and boom, you are expected to step in and, and manage that machine, uh, from the get go.
• 25:41
  And, uh, and it's, it is rare that that has good and uh, and positive results.
• 25:45
  Yeah.
• 25:47
  Now when, uh, when a member has demonstrated competence, now he can demonstrate loyalty to his family again, by assigning an additional portion to the family, um, or even contributing virtually all of his assets to the family.
• 26:00
  If he believes that the family is well organized, that the money that the family can spend according to its purpose because the, the family money is still, is still available.
• 26:08
  It's just available for a specific set of purposes.
• 26:11
  And if you believe in those purposes, if that's what you would devote your life to anyway, then why wouldn't you put your money in what is frequently, uh, uh, an asset protection structure?
• 26:19
  Maybe there might be some, some tax benefits for doing this.
• 26:22
  Why wouldn't you do that if the things that you're allowed to spend the money on is what you would spend the money on anyway?
• 26:28
  And this sort of thing is a demonstration that the member is aiming for leadership for eldership, right?
• 26:35
  So, and, and the same thing was, was true, um, to a lesser extent in, in the Greek culture.
• 26:41
  Um, the elder role is, is a role in both the individual household and the larger society.
• 26:45
  And I'm using the term elder.
• 26:47
  Sometimes people will talk about, you know, Protestants and Catholics both interact with this principle in different ways.
• 26:52
  Um, another name for this is patriarch, right?
• 26:54
  But in any event, uh, both, both frames involve the person taking on the high calling of, of elder or patriarch, in many cases, divesting themselves of assets or, or putting all of their assets in into some restrictive legal vehicle.
• 27:10
  You see this in, uh, in, uh, the senatorial or, or congressional.
• 27:14
  Context in the United States where people put all their assets into a blind trust in which they're not supposed to have any, uh, any influence or control, though, uh, though a, a as recent headlines have indicated in the United States, this, this may not in fact be quite what is happening.
• 27:31
  Okay.
• 27:32
  So then I, you know, I asked the question, does some a family need to be an existing great house to have someone demonstrate the qualifications to be an elder?
• 27:41
  And I would say no.
• 27:43
  Um, can someone who demonstrates competency and loyalty be recognized as an elder at levels of wealth below $100 million?
• 27:50
  Absolutely.
• 27:50
  Absolutely.
• 27:52
  Um.
• 27:52
  The example that I give for you in, in that is, is the concept of the craft versus the profession.
• 27:57
  So, uh, in the ancient world, families, especially families who could not rely on the political power structure, uh, required their children to master a craft as well as a profession.
• 28:09
  So famously, this is the Apostle Paul.
• 28:11
  Uh, he, his profession, the thing that he was trained to do at the highest level and that he would do, you know, when, when kind of he was in favor with the power structure was he was a lawyer.
• 28:20
  He was trained as a lawyer, but his craft was a tent maker.
• 28:23
  And so when he was no longer able to practice as an attorney or as a lawyer, he went and, and, and mended tents.
• 28:30
  And that was typical throughout the ancient world.
• 28:32
  Um, the family business for a household is often a craft crafts are very good.
• 28:37
  They show a lot of good, uh, character qualities.
• 28:40
  Having said that, uh, they generally do not create the level of wealth to support legally enforceable structures, at least not in our current time.
• 28:48
  Okay.
• 28:49
  Now, a master craftsman can, by, by definition, if he's really a master craftsman, can support a business, and he likely has enough surplus that he can afford to hire a certain number of family members.
• 29:00
  Now, that does not mean that he needs to tolerate nepotism, but economically he could.
• 29:04
  The problem is that craft businesses are fragile.
• 29:08
  The whole structure hangs on the moral integrity of the elders.
• 29:12
  And, and, you know, even in the best case scenario, you really do need a, a, a powerful enforceable estate planning structure.
• 29:19
  Otherwise, people that are, you know, if, if you just have the default where everyone gets, gets things equally upon your death, uh, that's not going to be a structure that works because you have to reward competence and loyalty, and you have to at least shame incompetence and disloyalty.
• 29:35
  And this is gonna lead to inequality and distributions.
• 29:38
  Right?
• 29:39
  Um, that is, if I could, if there was one lesson that I, if I, if I could, that I would give to America and Americans, it would be this lesson, which is, if you are treating your children equally, you are not rewarding competence and loyalty, uh, because your children are not all going to be equally competent and equally loyal.
• 30:00
  And, and if you can't, uh, recognize that and say, okay, this person is behaving with more competence and more loyalty, and therefore I'm going to reward them more, this person is being less competent, less loyal, and therefore I'm going to, at a minimum have very hard confrontational conversations with them.
• 30:17
  Saying, you have to fix this.
• 30:19
  Um, and, and, and, and probably following that up with some level of, of, of monetary imbalance or financial imbalance.
• 30:26
  Some difference in how they, in terms of the level of access they have or, or what they can do, uh, with your money or how much money you give them.
• 30:35
  If you don't have that conversation, you are, you are not serious about playing this game, which is a shame.
• 30:41
  Yeah.
• 30:43
  Now, patriarchs, you know, one of the things that a patriarch again does is he rewards good and he punishes evil, and he takes a certain amount of the economic benefit for doing so.
• 30:52
  And this is gonna mean treating your children unequally.
• 30:54
  I, I, I, I say that I, I know I'm repeating myself, but, uh, uh, this is just a, a, a critical concept.
• 31:02
  You are going to treat your children unequally.
• 31:04
  That is okay.
• 31:05
  And we have to normalize that.
• 31:07
  Um, and, and what I'll say is, if you cannot do that for yourself, then you will need to either, well, I suppose you could just accept that your business and your family disintegrating, but you will need to entrust your business and your family to a guarantor who will make these sorts of discriminating choices.
• 31:22
  Okay?
• 31:22
  So, so that's the, uh, the, the conversation, uh, about elders that I, that I wanted to present those thoughts to you.
• 31:30
  Um, so again, we talked about.
• 31:34
  Having a good house with a compelling vision.
• 31:36
  How do you raise good kids who can hold jobs?
• 31:38
  Um, and then the next level up is a house that holds how do you raise up master craftsmen that kids can come and work for?
• 31:46
  Um, and then finally, at, at the Great House level, you're talking about generational feedback.
• 31:50
  You have elders who demonstrate their qualification by a profound act of contribution to the family, and this gives them the moral authority to lead.
• 31:59
  And, and, and what I want, what I want to emphasize for you guys is elders are a human universal.
• 32:04
  Every culture, uh, in history has had elders, um, you know, whether you're looking again at that, that ancient pro-European, uh, tribal past, and when, when just getting to old age meant that you were some something special, then later on, as people discovered agriculture, it's like, Hey, we need to reward the people that are creating economic surplus.
• 32:23
  And then as political systems, mature people, well, you gotta demonstrate generational loyalty to your family and to your city.
• 32:29
  That's what makes you an elder.
• 32:30
  We, we need elders.
• 32:32
  And, and, and another thing that I would say is we, we are, we are going to have elders.
• 32:36
  Um, and, uh, another, another critical point that I would raise here is the.
• 32:43
  If, if you don't have people that are trying to pass on virtue, um, if you don't have any incentive structure that says, okay, these people get to, um, get to wield political power or have some level of influence because they have demonstrated a generational mindset, then, then what you get is the boomers.
• 33:03
  You get the, the current breakdown in, in generational relationships.
• 33:08
  Um, it's so important to have an acknowledgement of, hey, number one.
• 33:12
  One of the other things I would say is it's super important to have an acknowledgement that this is hard, right?
• 33:16
  This is not easy.
• 33:18
  It's not easy to, to divide things between your children in an unequal way.
• 33:25
  It's not easy to look at what your kids are doing and, and say, okay, this person is actually competent and not just kind of blowing smoke.
• 33:33
  This person is actually loyal.
• 33:35
  They're the one who's caring for it.
• 33:36
  You have to have a really high degree of personal clarity.
• 33:40
  You have to have a, a deep commitment usually to some, some principle bigger than yourself in order to do that.
• 33:46
  Um, but it, it, it's just critical to have these people, it's critical to have these people.
• 33:51
  And I, and I think this is one of the big missing pieces that, uh, that we see in the conversation.
• 33:57
  So, so discipleship, um, the pillar when we're talking about the pillar of discipleship.
• 34:02
  Having el if, if you're not able to, to, to do discipleship, and you're like, well, I'm not sure what's happening.
• 34:06
  I'm not sure why discipleship isn't happening, look for elders.
• 34:10
  Who are your elders?
• 34:12
  Um, and, and that, and that can be true of you.
• 34:14
  Who are your elders?
• 34:15
  Who are the people that are pouring into you?
• 34:16
  Who are your mentors?
• 34:17
  Who are market makers?
• 34:18
  Who are people that you would, you know, potentially name as a trustee or that, that would have some level of influence in your estate plan, but also for the, for the people that you're, you're wanting to grow?
• 34:29
  Uh, you know, one of my, uh, one of my grandfather's phrases that I, that I think of from time to time, he would say basically that people don't grow unless they're forced to.
• 34:37
  Right?
• 34:38
  Um, no one, almost no one grows just because, you know, they're given time.
• 34:43
  Time does not actually create maturity most of the time.
• 34:46
  Um, what creates maturity is another human being who is intentionally involved in confronting the issues that you have in your life and saying to you, you have to change.
• 34:57
  And, and usually giving you some, some level of understanding of what that change would look like or how that would, how that would cash out.
• 35:03
  Okay.
• 35:05
  But, and I think, I think when we don't have that, when we don't have people who are devoting themselves to the hard and difficult work of becoming elders and, and learning how to disciple people, um, then, then you're not gonna have very much discipleship.
• 35:19
  You're gonna have to outsource your discipleship.
• 35:21
  Two structures like the church.
• 35:23
  Okay.
• 35:23
  Two structures like, um, you know, chambers of commerce and some of these, some of these, these external kind of, uh, intra household structures that, that, that, that stand in the gap when households don't do things well, which is, you know, and, and, and I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing, and it's certainly not a bad thing for the churches to do that.
• 35:43
  Okay.
• 35:43
  That's an absolutely vital thing for the church to be doing.
• 35:47
  What I'm saying is it's, it's so, so important for you as a head of a household, as someone who is focused on building a business, focused on creating wealth, to think about the fact that, hey, if you're, if you're gonna be dependent upon a, um, a pastor or a church or a priest or some external structure, understand that that's you being dependent, right?
• 36:10
  Which dependence is not the end of the world.
• 36:12
  Um, I'm not, uh, again, I think, I think hierarchies are, are, are a good and necessary part of what we're doing here, but.
• 36:21
  If you are, uh, just assume that, uh, that these outside structures are always gonna have your best interest at heart, and that you don't have to contribute anything, I don't think you're gonna get very good outcomes.
• 36:32
  So the, the, the goal here is how do you develop within your own household, within your own structure, the capacity to mentor and, and develop people who understand, hey, the goal of life is not to die with the most toys.
• 36:45
  The goal of life, um, is not to, um, to accumulate a bunch of wealth.
• 36:50
  And then, and then just hold onto it.
• 36:52
  Uh, for, for many thousands of years, the, the, the cultures that produced elite humans, right?
• 36:58
  Um, understood that acquiring wealth was something that you should do probably at, at a certain point in your life, um, if you didn't already have it from ancestors gone by.
• 37:07
  But, but there comes a point where, okay, you've, you've proven that you can make money in, in the marketplace Now put your wealth into, you know, divest yourself of your wealth.
• 37:15
  Turn over the day-to-day operations of your business, to your son, occasionally to your wife, and, and go be useful to your community.
• 37:23
  Um, you know, the, the, there's that, that passage in the Bible, the Proverbs 31 woman, one of the things about that woman is she enables her husband to go sit in the city gates.
• 37:32
  'cause she's managing all of his economic affairs.
• 37:34
  He doesn't have to worry if there's gonna be money.
• 37:37
  His wife is handling that, and that means he can go and devote time to being a part of the, the political decision making process in his community.
• 37:46
  Um, you know, in, in the Roman context, there's also these discussions of, of what, what makes a good general, what makes a good tribune?
• 37:54
  And, you know, you want, you want your, your, your general, your tribune.
• 37:58
  I mean, to some extent they're, they're able to have, they have access to the public purse, right?
• 38:02
  And whatever, whatever funds that, that are sent out by the city are, uh, are accessible to them if they want to use them to support themselves.
• 38:09
  But, um, at a minimum, they need their, their family affairs, their household affairs in good order so that they're not tempted to, uh, to take money from the public person, send it back to their family.
• 38:21
  And actually, the, the ideal, the thing that we would aspire to would be, hey, your household is doing so well that it actually sends money to help support, uh, the general in the field so that, so that his personal expenses are met and the public's funds can be spent, you know, equipping the men and taking care of the soldiers so that you can, you know, win the fight.
• 38:41
  Um, so, and, and, and the point of, of talking about that is for, for, for a very, very long time in the West, we did not view, essentially startup founder success, where you've, you've, you've made as much money as you could ever spend for the rest of your life.
• 38:56
  We didn't view that as the pinnacle.
• 38:57
  That was a qualification to then move on to, uh, to, to bigger and better things.
• 39:03
  Um, you know.
• 39:04
  My, my friends, Johann Kurtz and Joshua Sheets, who are on the call with me had a wonderful podcast that was released some weeks ago.
• 39:10
  And, and, and Johann talks about that, that the goal of, of one of the goals of, of having a legacy family is to convince your children that there are, are greater and higher things that you can aspire to in, uh, in, in moving forward.
• 39:25
  And, and, and, and things that, that only someone with the kinds of vast, uh, resources that your family has, uh, can, can aspire to.
• 39:34
  And I would say that, that that is absolutely true.
• 39:36
  It's so important to do that for, uh, for your family, for your kids.
• 39:40
  I think one of the reasons why we struggle with this is because the people that the, the, the original, the founders, the founding generation, they have not understood that in fact, the goal of life is not to, uh, accumulate a big pile of money and die with a bunch of toys.
• 39:54
  The goal of life, that's a great goal, right?
• 39:56
  If you accomplish that, you have done something and, and probably something quite impressive, but that once you've accomplished that, there are bigger and better things.
• 40:03
  And that step one to aiming for those bigger and better things, even if you're not legally required to, which depending on what tax jurisdiction you're in, in many tax jurisdictions effectively force you to do this.
• 40:14
  Um.
• 40:15
  But I think if, if we only view setting up trust and setting up legacy structures as a means of complying with government regulations or, or dealing with tax, um, tax obligations, then you're gonna miss the fact that this is the same thing that our ancestors have been doing for thousands of years.
• 40:31
  This is part of the developmental track.
• 40:33
  This is part of what it means to, to continue on in becoming a, a, a higher and greater, uh, version of yourself so that you can attain to the, the highest and most difficult things, the mighty tasks that, uh, that, that we need for our society to flourish.
• 40:47
  And once you've done that, then I think that's the, that's the time and place, that's the best way for you to communicate it to your children.
• 40:54
  And, and not that, not that, uh, you have to do this, right?
• 40:57
  'cause money can solve a whole bunch of problems.
• 40:59
  But if you're gonna decide, Hey, I'm not gonna be the person that, that, that ascends that height, I'm gonna hand that off to professionals and then, and then I'm gonna allow those professionals to, uh, to, to train my children to do this again.
• 41:13
  That, that, that's fine.
• 41:14
  There, there are people that do that.
• 41:15
  I'm one of the people that does that, does that from time to time.
• 41:18
  But understand that you are choosing that dependency.
• 41:21
  And what we would, what we would aspire to ideally is hey, be the man, right?
• 41:26
  Be the guy that climbs to the highest height.
• 41:28
  Um, so, and, uh, thank you so much, uh, for, for listening.
• 41:33
  That's, uh, that concludes my prepared remarks and, um.
• 41:37
  Alright, we are gonna move to the q and A now.
• 41:40
  So, uh, those of you who have, um, who have listened, uh, who are listening on the, on the public version of this, if you want to hear the q and a, please, uh, join the, the, the paid version of the podcast.
• 41:51
  And for everyone else, I'll see you on the other side of the paywall.