Episode 245 (Jay Bennett)Podcast Intro [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm give it my all.Jeff Zaugg [00:00:39] Gentlemen, welcome back to dadAWESOME. Today episode 245, I have my guest, Jay Bennett, joining and I will introduce him in just one minute here. But I want to remind you guys, Fathers for the Fatherless, our second city of the year, the front range of Colorado. We're riding from Fort Collins, Colorado down to Boulder and back, this coming Saturday. So we're right at the end of September when I'm recording this and October 1st is our front range ride. Pastor Mark Batterson is flying in from DC to join the team. We've got about 26 guys riding for the fatherless, but I want to encourage you guys, if you haven't ever joined one of our prayer teams, join the prayer team and pray for us this coming Saturday, October 1st. We recruit a team to pray over all the guys riding, to pray safety, to pray for our local and global partners that we raise money for. We are at about $240,000 raised so far this year for the fatherless, which pushes us over $800,000 over the last four years. So we're just we're so thankful, we are so thankful. I just want to remind you guys, that side of our mission, we are we will always have both sides of the mission, intentional fatherhood, encouraging dads like you guys to be dadAWESOME for your kids. But we'll also have the other side of the mission of, man, we want to help generations to come. There is a fatherlessness epidemic and these kids who are fatherless, we want to help encourage them, help them receive a food, housing, education, mentorship, protection so that they can someday become awesome moms and dads for future generations. So we just believe it's both sides. Both sides of the mission are so important. Today's guest, Jay Bennett. Man, I've heard about this gentleman. I've actually known of him for almost two decades because of the work he's done in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Around the work of generosity and fueling amazing ministries that that are that are impacting so many different spheres. And Jay is a lawyer, also a philanthropist, also an author, also a dad, also a business owner. He brings such wisdom. You're going to notice his voice is a little bit raspy and that's part of his miracle story. So if you if you hear his voice a little raspy, just know it's part of the miracle. And then we'll share about that about halfway through the conversation. So guys, enjoy this conversation. This is episode 245 of dadAWESOME with Jay Bennett. Jay, thank you for taking time to have this conversation.Jay Bennett [00:03:12] My pleasure. Happy to be here.Jeff Zaugg [00:03:13] This is a gift. I have had friends of mine, mentors of mine mentioned you so many times. We both live in the Twin Cities here. They're like, have you have you sat down with Jay Bennett to have a conversation about fatherhood and it's finally happened. We're here.Jay Bennett [00:03:26] We are. Delighted to be here, Jeff.Jeff Zaugg [00:03:28] So in my in my reading about you and about your family and about your leadership, your wife has come up a number of times where I'm like, I love Sally, though I don't think I've met or have really briefly met the other night at that at that event. So Sally said this to you or prays this over you correct me if I'm wrong here as you leave the house, follow the cloud, let the mystery do its work. Did I get that right?Jay Bennett [00:03:54] Absolutely. Sally is a student of the word. A person of prayer, has an intercessory ministry.Jeff Zaugg [00:03:59] Yeah.Jay Bennett [00:04:00] And she's had to deal with me for 51 years. And she knows that my law business background hasn't always been to follow so much as to think I'm supposed to lead, and not so much to let the mystery do its work, but to dot every I and cross every T so I'm a work in progress. Sally's very much aware of that, but she does almost now, every day, tell me to follow the cloud as the nation Israel follow the cloud on the cloud of the Lord didn't move. They didn't move right. And when it moved, they move to and letting the mystery, doing the work, do the work is the creating space for the spirit to move in life to accomplish His purposes. And when we allow that to happen, the results can be far beyond what we thought they could be.Jeff Zaugg [00:04:46] Yeah, hustle and just leadership. Like I feel like a lot of the listeners, and myself included, like, we want to hustle, we want to get things done, we want to take ground in on the home front and career front following the cloud, like actually pausing and like trying to ask our Heavenly Father, what's the right way to go here? What's the wrong way? I don't want to go that way. And and being open to the mystery, I think is, I think it's a real difficult task, but but an important prayer. So to be prayed over by the person who matters most, your wife. Can you give of any examples, recent or ways back, of like this was a moment where I got it right? I actually followed God's lead versus my own my own path.Jay Bennett [00:05:27] Yeah. I think Jeff, a big part for me was just the immense conditioning I had over my education and 40 years of law practice to trigger my responses immediately in response to a stimulus. Whether it be a witness or a deal opportunity or whatever it might be. So part of my own process has been to kind of stretch the distance between these neurons in the brain where you create a little space, intentionally realize what's triggering you, and then just pause for a moment, even invoke the Lord to say, Lord, I'm just giving this moment to you so you can literally kind of train yourself up just to take a little more time than what you historically may have done. And over a period of time, you can develop a little bit more of that habit.Jeff Zaugg [00:06:12] That is, I'm immediately thinking about my little girls and how often I'll respond right away. So you can use that principle professionally, but very much on the home front or marriage as well. The pause to listen before responding. Is that what you're getting at?Jay Bennett [00:06:25] Absolutely. And just the gifts, a presence, silent presence, your countenance, your expression, the way you relate to people without using words communicates a whole lot. And from a position of love, you can communicate a lot without words, which gives you greater authority to influence people in life. So that idea of let the mystery do its work and don't get triggered every moment of the day are good tips from my dear bride.Jeff Zaugg [00:06:55] Yes. So incredible. Let's talk a little bit about your family. So Sally's your wife. How long have you guys been married?Jay Bennett [00:07:00] We're married March 30th, 1971. Spring break of my senior year in college. Okay, so we've been married for 51 years and have three sons. Andy who is 47 years old, remarkably, Tom, who's 43, and Rob, who's 39 years old, they're all married. Each of them has three kids.Jeff Zaugg [00:07:21] So nine grandkids?Jay Bennett [00:07:23] Nine grandkids, seven boys and two girls, ages 14 to 2.Jeff Zaugg [00:07:27] I read an old bio of yours when you wrote your books, so a long time ago and you had one grandchild at that point. So you've made a little progress.Jay Bennett [00:07:34] He's now 14and shoots in the mid to upper seventies on the golf course. So he gives me ten or 12 strokes when we play.Jeff Zaugg [00:07:40] That's amazing. You're sharing those moments of golfing together and what do they call you? What are your grandkids call you?Jay Bennett [00:07:46] Yeah, I'm Pops. Pops and my wife is Gammy.Jeff Zaugg [00:07:49] Gammy, what does Gammy come from? To see how it sounds?Jay Bennett [00:07:51] One of the first sounds out of their mouths, I think it was. I have a buddy in Atlanta who was expecting, with great glee , what his grandkids might call him. And they called him putts, which he spells putts.Jeff Zaugg [00:08:05] {utts? That's that's preciousJay Bennett [00:08:07] One of those future experiences, Jeff, for you that your grandkids will call you something and you've got little to say over what it is.Jeff Zaugg [00:08:13] I love it. My daughters will introduce me as shorty. And as you know, I'm six foot seven, so I'm pretty tall, dude. And they'll introduce me as shorty to their friends because they've heard me do that in fun before, and they think so. But I can't wait. I cannot wait to be a grandpa and have nine grandchildren. So fun.Jay Bennett [00:08:30] Well, the odds are pretty good with four daughters. You may have a considerable number of time.Jeff Zaugg [00:08:34] Let's go. Let's go. So you're three boys. If we could go back in time and like, they just got off to college, lets say. So they're just out of the house, if I cornered them in that chapter with a microphone and said, Guys, how did your dad get it right? So so again, of course, there's no perfect dads, but what do you think the three of them collectively would say, yeah, this is one or two areas that my dad got it, he got it right. As far as that fatherhood chapter is kind of pre-college chapter.Jay Bennett [00:09:01] It's a little bit of a tough question because I'm sure as you reference, their first thing would say, well, he really didn't get it right. They lived the full experience of the ups and downs. But I have been blessed to have a dear relationship with our boys. I think the first thing they would say is that they always knew they were loved, that was never in doubt. And I think they knew that authority was important. But Isaiah 11:2 talks about the Spirit of the Lord and the amplified, one of the components of the Spirit of the Lord is reverential fear of the Lord. It also talks about obedient fear of the Lord. Obedience, kind of a tough word for those of us that are go getters. We don't really like that idea. But reverential fear to revere someone is a big difference. And so I love and revere God, the Father. I loved and revered my own father, but reverential fear, meaning a respect for authority because you know you're loved and you desire to be in relationship is a powerful reality.Jeff Zaugg [00:10:14] And I want my girls to say that of me, to get both sides, to get both sides and model both sides because it's so, so important. Can you think of any beyond, kind of that that principal, any secondary or third, like like these are maybe another area that my boys would say, hey, I'm glad Dad did this.Jay Bennett [00:10:35] I would say glee, you know, fun.Jeff Zaugg [00:10:38] Yep.Jay Bennett [00:10:39] A sense of humor. You know, having good times, wrestling, giggling, you know, the intimacy of no agenda. Just we like being together because we're going to do something that we enjoy and we laugh together. So I think being silly, having some sense of humor and having a sense of joy in the relationship is key. And I, I, by nature, you know, I've got kind of an inner circle of people I'm close to. I'm not known as the world's most friendly guy or something like that. I think I'm relatively friendly, but I've always had and and blessed to have kind of an inner circle, people that know me best and that I seem to spend the most time with. But a sense of glee and fun and having a good time and laughing, I think is a key.Jeff Zaugg [00:11:24] I don't know if I've had many conversations about just using that word, glee. And I love it. I love it. I can see it in your eyes. There's a bit of a sparkle when you say the word glee. Can you describe even a step more what you mean by glee, even beyond the laughter and fun?Jay Bennett [00:11:40] Yeah, I think it's just not converting every message into something that's got to have meaning or purpose or is serious. But to joke about it, to put a spin on it, to look for ways to bring humor into the day so there's just opportunities to react and make light of things. And so I think it's just another trait that over time you can think about and train yourself into in terms of, you know, we don't have to resolve every issue immediately. Let's have some fun with it.Jeff Zaugg [00:12:08] That's what I was hoping you would go in that direction because purpose is so important, intentionality is so important. But glee actually it's like the purposeful lack of purpose. Like, it's like like I just delight in this moment and I, I don't need to make it like, so I want more of that and I think kids need more of that.Jay Bennett [00:12:27] Yeah. So at a Twins game last year with Tom and Sona came up to bat, I don't know what happened to him, I think he's long gone. But I said he's going to hit a home run on this next pitch. And what are the odds of that? It happens. So I want a buck from Tom, but we giggled over it for about 5 minutes. So that's one of those little episodes you remember.Jeff Zaugg [00:12:46] Father, Son in the recent chapter, there's still Glee. There's still Glee, right?Jay Bennett [00:12:50] Absolutely. Yeah.Jeff Zaugg [00:12:52] Yeah, that's amazing. Let's go the other side and your wife's perspective. So, Sally, if she's back at that moment of and you just launched your kids off to college, and she's like, man, looking back at this last chapter of junior high, high school, kind of the younger parenting years, what would she say of like, oh, this is an area that I'm I'm pretty sure like like Jay knows it. I know it. He kind of missed it here or wish he was had more intentionality there. So what are some of the kind of like the dad fail sides?Jay Bennett [00:13:17] Yeah, well, I believe the Lord's androgynous. There's a male/female component to the divine, and a husband and wife are meant to be one flesh to integrate their nature and giftedness. Sally is a much more loving, sweet, pleasant person to be around. Forgiving, doesn't take offense. People flock to her because she's kind. Those aren't all attributes of my nature. And so she, to our boys, and she raised three boys, and she was one of four girls. And she got me and then three sons and her first five grandkids were boys. So we dropped to our knees and prayed for a Y chromosome. And number six, thankfully, was a girl.Jeff Zaugg [00:14:01] Yes.Jay Bennett [00:14:02] But her nature, very, very different and tender and kind and sweet. Those are not attributes I have.Jeff Zaugg [00:14:10] To be that side. But you're blessed with the complimentary, which is such a gift.Jay Bennett [00:14:16] Yeah. Although, as she would point out, I remain very much a work in progress. So, you know.Jeff Zaugg [00:14:21] Same here, same here. Thanks for sharing that side. Let's go in the direction of your dad. So I believe he went home to heaven 16 years ago. Was that about right?Jay Bennett [00:14:29] Yeah, 2006. Thank you. Yeah.Jeff Zaugg [00:14:32] Yeah. Well, that's a marker for me, my dad went to heaven two and a half years ago. And, and I do think it marks us those points of of gratitude. But also then there's a there's a void when your dad's not here anymore. But he, your parents were married, how many years?Jay Bennett [00:14:46] 66 years. Yeah.Jeff Zaugg [00:14:48] Yeah, what a model.Jay Bennett [00:14:50] It was a model. And he was a dear, dear guy, the oldest of eight kids, born to a rural male, man night janitor. So he learned to work at an early age. But he and my mother were tight through the years. They were a great model of what our marriage can look like. And he was a man of faith. I'm aware of so many, many men that didn't have a fabulous relationship with their father. I was enormously blessed to have that. And through him, in large part, my mother as well, but through him, made it easier for me to connect to my Heavenly Father. So that whole issue of my relationship with the Lord through a model of a father was enormously influential in my life.Jeff Zaugg [00:15:33] Yeah, there's. Well, your book captured the story, but there's these two streets, Hugh Street and Lake Street. Did I get those, right?Jay Bennett [00:15:39] Yeah. Hugh street.Jeff Zaugg [00:15:40] Hugh. Thank you.Jay Bennett [00:15:41] Looks like Hugh.Jeff Zaugg [00:15:43] Hugh and Lake. Your dad rounding the corner and headed for home. And just you already mentioned Glee as maybe that was a launchpad to to that being a value for you. But would you talk about the return to home moment?Jay Bennett [00:15:56] Yeah. My dad worked downtown Chicago. He took the train from Burlington, Illinois, down and back, and it was a six or seven block walk from the train station to Lake Street, where we lived. And on many occasions, my brother, who's three years older than I and I would see him come in around Hugh Street onto Lake Street. And our relationship with him, my relationship with him was one of those joyful, often gleeful, realities where just the sight of the guy triggered happiness. And so we would run to him on those occasions, and I individually would do that. And again, it was it's the relationship where when you see someone and it triggers a sense of love and joy, that's a beautiful thing. And one day when he came around the corner, I ran to him and he picked me up in his arms and I said to him, This is going to be a little bit tough for me, actually, this is the way the Lord reaches down to us. And it was just a great example through him. Sorry, but that one is a trigger in my own life. A blessing.Jeff Zaugg [00:17:03] I wrote that quote ahead of time. I was already like the concept of I have a five year old, I have a five year old. So that moment of like looking in your dad's eyes but actually being aware that that's how much God loves and way beyond. That's what I want for my girls. That's what I pray for, the four boys are going to marry my four girls. Like I want their dads to express that love to those four boys because it's just like gives us this launching off point of I'm double loved by my dad and my heavenly Father.Jay Bennett [00:17:37] Amen. Doubling up is a good word for it. And, you know, the Lord invites us into His nature. He seeks intimacy with us. He's not looking for anything in particular from us except intimacy. He offers us Jesus to reconnect us to Him. And if you look in again in Isaiah 11:2, the nature of the Lord's Spirit and you look at the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22, they add they add up to 16 different characteristics of the Lord's nature, things like love and joy and peace and patience and kindness. And you can literally connect heaven to earth. You focus on those things and realize that the Lord would deliver those things into your life. So my dad was a student of the nature of the Lord and over a period of time became an embodiment of that to me in the flesh. And that's an opportunity that's available to all of us, is to become more like Him. And as we do that, the ease, the glee, the joy, the love, the authority, all those things flow in our lives more naturally, make us better husbands, make us better fathers, and take the pressure off our own tendencies and behaviors.Jeff Zaugg [00:18:49] Yeah. Now, when you look back at your career kind of launching in, you're young dad, you're running you're building a law firm, at like how you stepped into dad life and career and figuring out the balance. And you looked at how your dad did, so you talked about the come home strategy of your dad worked really hard, but when he came home, you looked forward to that. Was there any other principles that, like your dad helped you decide with purpose? This is how I'm going to the work life, kind of the young career, young dad, anything else that you either did similar or chose to do differently than your dad?Jay Bennett [00:19:22] Yeah. I was trained up by my dad with the solid work ethic, as was my brother. I, in turn, had to determine how I would apply that in my own career. I'm very thankful for my legal experience. I started with a big national firm where I worked extremely hard and along the way I said, You know, I want to I want to stay married and I want to coach Little League football and baseball. So and I was entrepreneurial by nature. So again, giving great thanks for that experience and training. At age 30, I left for the purpose of having a more balanced life and because I was more entrepreneurial, I wanted to practice law but do business deals as well. But I was always an early morning guy. My boys remember hearing my shoes go across the kitchen floor on the way out the door, but I prioritized dinner almost without exception, I was home for dinner with Sally and the boys, where they learned about manners, and we were together as a family. And then I had the freedom to, after they went to bed, not necessarily go back downtown or something, but to do the work I needed to do. So with three sons that were crazy little guys, I had to make a choice with Sally that we're going to do that together, and I needed to adjust and I created the freedom to be able to do that. So when I look back, I'll give thanks that I was able to kind of balance the whole issue of work ethic and the priority of of being a father and a husband. You know, a lot of things when we make money and accumulate wealth and we we are attached to things that have price tags on them, the real question is what's priceless? And my marriage and my relationship with my children was priceless. And therefore, I had to prioritize that in a way where I could honor it while still making a living. I never took an oath of poverty. I'm thankful the Lord's blessed me in that regard, but it was an intentional prioritization based on what was most important.Jeff Zaugg [00:21:19] Yeah, that is the framing of what has price tags and what is priceless. It makes you ensure that the priceless things take priority over the thing with, right. That's that's super clear. It's tangible and it's something that we know it, but we always drift in the other direction.Jay Bennett [00:21:34] Absolutely. Yeah. It's a real challenge to the world's allure is very attractive. So I'm sitting here today at age 73. You know, I'm not I wasn't 40 years old when I perfected this, but if I could suggest anything to people, it's there is that huge distinction.Jeff Zaugg [00:21:52] When do you see like the purpose of conversations? Maybe maybe this would even be helpful to jump into how you help leaders, businesses, men and women be strategic about giving. Would you talk just a little bit about what the National Christian Foundation does?Jay Bennett [00:22:07] A National Christian Foundation, 40 year old organization headquartered in Atlanta, operates through headquarters there with 32 offices around the country. It's the world's largest faith based provider of donor advised funds. We work with about 20,000 donor partners who use our door donor advice funds for charitable giving. So about $3.3 billion come into the organization last year and about 2.2 out the door to 40 plus thousand different nonprofit organizations. I'm privileged to serve the organization nationally and locally, but generosity is a journey. Money is a hawk on many of our lives, has as many of us kind of in bondage to it. But there's a generosity journey. It's almost like a restart on a light. Where if you just decide you want to think about being more generous, if you flip the light switch on. But then as you turn the dial toward increasing light coming into the room, there's a there's a journey where you can go through the idea of, are you going to tithe or you're going to give offerings, are you going to give appreciated assets? And so each one has their own journey. But generosity, Jeff, I have come to know, is a portal to intimacy with the Lord. It's not just about having money extracted from you. There's a joy and there's a freedom in becoming a more generous person, generous living, including generous giving. Because as we embark in that direction, as we ascend toward what he calls us to be and in how he calls us to serve, he descends to meet us. And so it's a mutual journey toward intimacy that gets better and better.Jeff Zaugg [00:23:47] I was telling a story to my girls and my my nieces and nephew over the weekend. We were in a cabin and my nephew wanted to be a superhero that can create portals and then like zip to a different spot. That's what he wanted for his superhero power. And that imagery of a portal to you said intimacy with God.Jay Bennett [00:24:06] Yes.Jeff Zaugg [00:24:07] I mean, of course not a, you do this and you get that, but a, when you do with the right heart, like the access to the closeness with our Heavenly Father. I'm picturing you running to your dad right now of, like, that closeness with your dad, who's in heaven so you can't run him here. But to run to our Heavenly Father and the access to that portal speeds it up. Right? You don't have to actually do the whole distance when you have a portal. You can.Jay Bennett [00:24:29] Yeah, well, the concept that he'll come to meet us, you know, Jesus tells us in the 14th chapter of John that, you know, he who knows my commandments and keeps them, he is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love him and reveal myself to him as Jesus through the Spirit reveals himself, his nature to us. It meets the DNA that God put in us originally, and we can blossom toward that intimacy in ways that bring a life experience that's much better than anything the earth provides.Jeff Zaugg [00:25:04] So when you're when your boys were my girls age. So oldest is not even nine years old almost nine, did you, had God already showed you some of these principles and these aha's around generosity and and purpose and intimacy with God? Did you know some of these things then, or is it been more of that learned in the chapter of your kids are out of the house?Jay Bennett [00:25:23] Yeah, I certainly didn't exist back then. I'm a slow learner and so I look back over the last 40 plus years and part of what I hope to do is to expedite the learning experience of next generation men in particular, but women as well. So no, when they were little, I had all kinds of other habits and things, but I did have a heart for the Lord and I was curious about it. And both Sally and I, at age 31, had an experience where we just came to better understand the price that Jesus paid for our life, and that caused us to embark on a more intentional journey toward these things. And the Lord has revealed them in His timing over the years.Jeff Zaugg [00:26:07] So was the experience a closeness with God, an intimacy experience that that sparked a generosity experience? What was the order? How did it how did it move into actually the generosity journey?