Good Investments

Up until now, my summers have been spent working at a local bank for my grandpa. One of my all-time favorite memories  from my job took place one day when I was chilling in an office, typing up a report. Grandpa walks right in and sits in the chair across from me, asking if he can take out a loan. I pretend to think for a minute and regretfully inform him that he just can’t be trusted to pay it back. After a little haggling, we worked out a deal with something like a 30% interest rate, making me think that maybe banking wouldn’t be such a bad career for me after all. After we shake hands, Grandpa looks me in the eye and says “Bethany, it’s time for your first accounting lesson.” Now my grandpa has been a banker for his entire life and he firmly believes that every man, woman, and child should study accounting. He grabs some paper and a pen and begins drawing a T-chart on the back. “In accounting, you have two different sides, assets and liabilities” he explains, labeling each side of the chart. “Anything you have goes under assets, so your house and your car and whatever money you have piling up in the bank. The other side is for things you need to pay off like loans or credit card debt. Got it?” “Got it.” And with that, Grandpa ended the conversations like he does with all conversations: by abruptly walking out of the room.

I think my grandpa is right about this whole accounting thing. I mean, we may not have piles of money to keep track of or complicated line budgets to fill out, but we do all have assets and liabilities. I can think of two pretty important assets that every single person in this room has: time and energy [these come up on the asset/liability chart onscreen]. Then we get to decide what our liabilities are, basically whatever we spend our time and energy on. This could be a lot of different things: school, work, sports, FFA, whatever [these appear on liabilities]. One of the biggest liabilities in our lives though, in terms of how much time and energy it costs, is other people. We pour our assets into them on a daily basis, but this liability is just a little bit different than any other one. See, the more time and energy we commit to the people in our lives, the more we get in return and it turns out that this may be the single most important investment we will ever make. We need to choose to invest in people because they need it, look for ways to intentionally invest in people, and make the most of those investments by training ourselves to look for nothing but good in the people around us.

My grandpa saw a need for investment in a young man in our church. He had struggled with a lot of different issues in his life—alcohol, drugs, debt, unemployment, you name it–and he turned to my grandpa as a mentor and friend. They had a weekly meeting scheduled in Grandpa’s office at the bank and neither would miss it for the world. This young man desperately needed someone to show him the value he had. My grandpa did so by investing time and energy into him every single week. It didn’t happen right away, but as time went on, we could see that his life was beginning to change. If anything, what changed most was his attitude. You could see just in the way he carried himself that he had begun to see his own value and his own potential. Life had beaten him down, convincing him that he had nothing to give or would never amount to much, but my grandpa didn’t buy into that one bit. Instead, he told this troubled man every week, “you are worth my time, you are worth my energy, you matter.” And he said all of that without saying a word, but instead by showing him through the investment my grandpa was making in his life.

I read a quote once by the poet E. E. Cummings. He said, “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.” He said it a lot more poetically than I ever could, but man, he hit the nail on the head. “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable.” Basically, we all have a need to be invested in by others before we can see our own value and begin to use it. The young man from our church? He needed that investment to see his own value. I know for me, it took numerous investments by people like my family, advisors, and mentors for me to believe in myself.  People inherently need to be invested in, and we can meet that need.

Maybe this means taking a Greenhand under our wing and offering to coach them for a CDE, letting them know that they are more than worth our energy. Or, we could schedule a weekly coffee date with a friend or classmate as a way to intentionally give them our time. Whatever it looks like for us personally, these seemingly small investments could make a world of difference in the lives of those we pour ourselves into. We can even take it one step further by seeking out one person who needs our time and energy more than most. Who would that be in your life? A friend who’s struggling with a broken family? Someone who just moved here from a different school and sits alone? A classmate who is struggling and falling behind in school? We have the opportunity to make a difference in that person’s life. How will you use your time and energy to invest in them?

We’ve got it settled that we need to invest in people and that’s great, but now what? How can we figure out what this investment is going to look like? I got to see an example of a carefully thought out investment this during this past Christmas morning when the entire Schifferdecker family was gathered together at my grandparents’ home. Family Christmas is always a festive affair with lots of food and noise and general chaos. We were opening presents and it was my grandma’s turn. My grandpa pulled out a simple envelope and handed it to her. She opened it and read what was inside, while we all waited curiously. As she finished the note, my grandma was suddenly crying and so overcome with emotion that she was not able to talk for at least two minutes. At this point, the family was very concerned. “Grandma, what was it? Are you okay? What did the note say??” Finally, my grandma gasped for air and answered with a cracked voice “Granite countertops!” That was the only time in my entire life that I have seen my grandpa, the frank but goofy banker tear up. He took the time and figured out the one thing in the world that would mean the most to my grandmother. Replacing aging countertops with granite is pretty simple to the rest of us, but it meant so much to her and he knew that would be the case. My grandpa made a pretty big investment that day because he made a point to tailor it exactly to her.

It means a lot to put time and energy into people, it means more when we use it in ways that are unique to them. When we make an investment into the life of someone else, we can make it worth that much more by taking the time to figure out this one person. If we can formulate our efforts into something that means a lot to one individual person, it will show them that we see them as being so valuable that we’ve searched to find whatever it is they need. For my grandma, it was granite countertops, but it’s going to be different with each and every person we meet.

This is a challenge and we won’t always get it right. Everyone appreciates different things. When we take the time to identify what will mean the most to that individual person, the result will be meaningful to both them and us. My teammate Nick loves to have someone listen to whatever story is on his mind. Chantelle, on the other hand, is all about words of encouragement. Either ask what it is that means the most to that person or observe how they show love to others, then act on what you learn. Focusing our investments this intentionally is an incredibly easy yet thoughtful way to show people just how valuable and important they are.

We know that people have a need to be invested in and we know that when we make the choice to fill that need, our and their lives will change, but if we really want to leave a lasting, life-changing impact on others, we need to take it a step further by completely changing our perspective on the people around us. My grandpa has a knack for seeing nothing but light in the people he meets. As a banker, he has a lot of different people come into his office, especially during times of need when they desperately need a loan in order to keep a roof over their heads, a vehicle to get to and from their jobs, or tuition for one more semester of school. Oftentimes, the people who need a loan the most are the least qualified for one, thanks to their history or credit. As hard as it can be on a banker to turn down these requests, he has to make good decisions for the business so that his current customers can be confident that their money in the bank is safe and secure, and so that his employees won’t have to wonder if their paycheck will come this month. So for most loan officers, the request for a loan has to be denied, but not for my grandpa. Over the years, he has decided that instead of turning people away in their time of need, he would continue to protect the business and still help those who need it by giving out personal loans when he couldn’t justify making one through the bank. I’m almost sure he is the only banker in the entire world who has turned someone down for a loan because they don’t meet the requirements like having a job or decent credit score and then turned right around and given them a loan from his own personal savings. These people usually had nowhere else to go. They were in a place of hopelessness, not knowing how they could make it through having been rejected by the rest of the world, but Grandpa saw the light in them. He saw them as people, in need of love just like the rest of us.

Sometimes the people in our lives make it really hard to focus on their good qualities, instead of the bad. But if we can train ourselves to get past that struggle and focus on their good, the investments we’ve been making in others will grow exponentially. Most of us know deep down that there is not a person you wouldn’t love if you could read their story, but, if we’re all honest with ourselves, we don’t usually live that out. Instead of being patient and giving grace, we get frustrated with people and let our relationships suffer or even disappear completely. Dr. Wayne Dyer once said “See the light in others, and treat them as if that is all you see.” This isn’t easy, but it is something each and every person in this room can strive towards and once we’re there, our lives will never be the same again.

What if we all lived like this? What if we got to a place where we could see the good and nothing else in those around us? Oscar Wilde wrote that “it takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.” He was right, it’s not easy to change our perspective and live with this mindset, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We can challenge ourselves every single day to look for nothing but the good, especially in the people around us. Whether it’s listening to a friend complain about the same problem over and over again, catching a classmate up after they missed class for the third time this month, or showing grace to a teammate with the lowest score at state contest, even if it did cost us a championship  If we can live with this mindset every single day, that’s when we’ll make the most difference, in others and ourselves. That is when our investments in the people we meet will reach their maximum value.

This past February, I got a phone call from my mom that turned my world upside down. My grandpa had passed away suddenly, with no warning at all. I dropped everything and hurried home to southeast Kansas. At the visitation, the night before the funeral, my family was visited by over 900 people wanting to mourn with us, some waiting outside in the freezing night for over three hours. These people had come from all over, driving in from Topeka, Kansas City, Yates Center, and even Bentonville, Arkansas. When so many people take the time out of their lives and respond like this, you have to stop and ask yourself why? Why did so many people come from so far and stand waiting for so long, just for a moment with my grandmother and other family members? The answer is simple: my grandpa had invested in them and now they wanted to pay that investment back.

I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of life I want to live and the kind of impact that I want to leave behind. My grandpa did it, and we can do it too. We have the assets we need, our time and energy, it’s just a matter of how we choose to spend them. Set aside time on a regular basis for those around you, whether it’s that weekly coffee date or coaching a Greenhand. Go out of your way to find what means the most to the person you’re investing in. Make a difference in someone’s life by showing them they are worth the energy you put into figuring out their unique needs. Work everyday to change your perspective of the people around you. Focus only on seeing the light in everyone you meet and treat them like that’s all you can see. Kansas FFA, use your time and energy, pour it into the people around you, and make those great investments.