Great Houses

Gregory Treat: Hello everybody.

Welcome to The Great Houses Forum.

Uh, we, this is the final episode of joining the Covenantal Economy, which is an initial series that I put together to, to help people
think through what are the key, uh, the key pieces of information, the key things that you need to understand, uh, our project here.

And, and, and, you know, in, in brief, the, the project that, um.

That we are, we're working on is how to leverage these eternal principles, right?

There are certain internal principles that resulted in things like feudalism that resulted in things like the, the traditional aristocratic
houses, the great houses, um, and those eternal principles, those, those facts of human nature and, and of the, the way that the universe works.

Those haven't changed in the last a hundred, 150 years.

Now, we do, um, have, uh, new technologies which are very exciting and I, I actually think create some, uh, some opportunities that weren't present in the past.

So the goal of this is to leverage these eternal principles along with new technologies to build great houses.

'cause I believe that, that the great house and the, the household environments that it creates, uh, are the best way to live.

And this is what we should be aiming for, for ourselves and, and for our posterity as the line goes.

So for these, uh, initial weeks.

We've been talking through three things.

First, we've been talking about how to see the covenantal economy and the reason why I start there.

It's 'cause if you can't see what we're doing, if you can't, if you just sort of go through life with a very transactional mindset, you can always reduce everything that you're involved in to a transaction.

And what happens there is that people, certain people are gonna be successful, certain people are not gonna be successful, and you're just gonna
be kind of mystified as to how certain folks, some somehow seem to build these effective long-term relationships and accomplish great things.

Then, but, but if you can, if you can, if you can accept it, right as the scriptures say, there is a covenantal economy, there is this, this honor based, this long-term thinking based, this multi-generational framework that many people around you are playing.

In fact, I would say that if you are in any well ordered piece of society, if you are in a city that is not currently descending into a slum, if you are in a, a company that is not currently spiraling down, now some of us are, right?

Some of us are in cities that are spiraling into slums and in companies that are, you know, going, going to pieces as they say.

But if you, if you are avoiding that, if you have people that are, that are making the right long-term calls, that's because they are playing this game.

So once you see it, then you wanna signal it.

You wanna start saying to people, Hey, I believe in this.

I understand what you're doing.

I'm able to give you some honor because you're doing a great and virtuous thing, which is, is deserving of much honor.

And so I wanna signal to you that I know the game you're playing and I would like to play it.

Two, sort of that, that, uh, you know, you're catching the basketball and, and, and, and shooting it into the, uh, into the hoop to show that you could play the game.

And then finally, uh, what we've been talking about for the last couple weeks is how to satisfy the covenantal economy.

And, uh, so we, we've, we've spoken about a couple things in terms of what it means to satisfy the, the covenantal economy.

But in this concluding episode of this opening series, I wanna, I wanna start with the realization that it's, it's hard to talk about these things, and it's hard in particular to talk about satisfying the covenantal economy.

And I wanna start with, uh, with a story about why.

Um, and this story comes from a most excellent, uh, thread by, uh, by our friend, uh, will Tanner, who's a friend of the movement, and a, and a, a good thinker and a brilliant guy.

Um, and he posted this in, on November 18th, 2024.

The Atley years particularly stand out as a time when envy won out and countryside life and prosperity were destroyed in the name of envy.

The best example of this is what happened to the Fitz William family and Wentworth Woodhouse.

Now he's, he's talking about basically certain austerity measures, certain, uh, certain envy measures that people are doing.

You know, with Keyto is talking about bringing back some things that, uh, that Britain tried right after World War ii.

And, uh, you know, we, we kind of all know what's gonna happen to Britain if they do this.

Um, and it's not good and it's sad to see.

Um, but, but they're, the, the communists are trying again, unfortunately.

Um, so this.

Is the, uh, the west front of, uh, of Wentworth.

Woodhouse is the, one of the, the ancestral homes of the Fitz William family.

Their, their family seat.

And here's a, i, I believe this must be a, a helicopter shot or something of that nature, or maybe an early aeroplane shot from, you know, one of these old black and white cameras.

I mean, this is a magnificent house.

This, this is a great house.

You can see there are multiple courtyards, uh, actually within the, the house structure.

There's, there's, uh, clearly accretions, there's multiple generations.

And, and, and the grounds are just beautiful.

This is well kept land, right?

This is, you know, when you need, uh, you know, they talk about one of the things, they talk about, the low time versus high time per, this is infinite time preference, right?

Like, this is when you have, you have thought about how, how do we keep playing these iterative games?

How do we best position ourselves forever?

Okay.

And so I'll continue quoting from, uh, from Will Tanner's excellent thread.

The Fitz Williams grew under low tax, Victorian, and Edwardian years fantastically wealthy off their coal mines.

Unlike other landowners such as the marquesa buck, they didn't rent coal land out, but instead ran the mines themselves as mine owners and operators.

They contrasted with the plutocratic new man mine owners, in that they placed a heavy priority.

On minor safety and seemed to care a great deal about minor wellbeing.

They always had the best, most effective safety improvements in the mines, provided employment for mine workers during depression years when the mines were slowed or shut down, and generally treated the miners as people rather than industrial capital.

Okay.

Um, and this is a picture of the christening of, uh, Earl Fitzwilliams Air at Wentworth February 11th, 1911.

And these are the, the minors representatives presenting a cup, uh, presumably a silver cup to Earl and count as fitzwilliams.

Okay.

And one of the things that, that, that Tanner doesn't mention is, is that my, my understanding is that the fitzwilliams also ensured that there was high quality education for the children of their miners.

They, uh, they, they were, these were not people that were trying to kind of clamp their, uh, their retainers and they very much, I believe, viewed their, their miners.

This was just a, a, a modern.

Legal way to continue doing what the Fitz Williams had had done for almost a thousand years.

By that point, if I, if I'm rec, uh, recollecting the, the, the origin of their family correctly, and so they took care of their people, right.

This, the, the legal forms had changed, but their understanding of their family identity and their responsibilities had not.

Proof that their behavior wasn't just an act, is that the local miners liked them and stood by them even during the nationalization period.

That period came under Atley, the post-World War II Prime Minister.

He nationalized railroads, mines, and mills in the name of envy of the wealthy, explained away as caring about worker wages and safety.

Amongst those mines confiscated were those of the Fitz Williams showing the lie of at Lee's reasoning, the Fitz William miners were well paid and safe, but nationalized them at Lee did.

Despite an envy were put in clear relief by Manny Shinwell, the Labor Party's minister of Fuel and Power.

He ordered strip mining on the Fitz William family's Wentworth Woodhouse estate.

Despite the low value of the coal on it, the miners protested and threatened, striking over his decision as they were loyal to the Fitz William family.

But Shin will crush that, and the strip mining began.

It ravaged the cultivated capability.

Brown Garden, capability Brown.

You know, there's this, there's a whole, there's a whole sub genre of, of study that, that, that everyone listening to the sound of my voice, uh, should do on the difference between French gardens and British Gardens
and how British Gardens worked with the land and how they, how they were thought of, and, and how there were certain, there were certain types of, of gardens and certain garden designers that were particularly revered.

And, um, my understanding is that Capability Brown was one of those, one of those top level people.

Um, it also continued right up to the door of Wentworth and damaged the foundation of the house severely making it unlivable in the name of Spite.

He, that is a shinwell, destroyed a family's home and gardens, despite that family's kind treatment of their employees.

And this is another picture of, of Wentworth Woodhouse.

Um.

And then here is the, the picture of the strip mining.

And you can see those, those kind of long striations that's going down, going right up to the edge of the foundation and then going down.

So they didn't go under the foundation, is my understanding, but they went right up to the edge of it and then went down 10, 15, 20
feet in places, which of course means the next weather event that you're gonna get shifting, and the the foundation is gonna crack.

Okay?

And then, uh, Tanner, Tanner concludes There was no reason for that other than envy.

The miners had been well, well treated.

The coal was valueless, and the pet family paid it's unjustly high tanner know it's taxes.

So with the Wentworth story playing out across the countryside and sky high estate taxes, destroying landed estates and old families envy
as a political force, plagued England and culminated in Harold Wilson's 90% death taxes, currency devaluation, and economic stagnation.

And, you know, uh.

I'll say, I think in conclusion, my, my conclusion to that story is that, that, uh, there is a reason why we refer to pictures of strip mining as raping the land.

And if you think that a man who will facilitate the rape of his country man's land from envy will not also facilitate the rape of his country man's daughters from envy.

I, I you are badly mistaken.

Okay?

And it is this, this is the bleeding open wound in our civilization.

This is why it's so hard to talk about these things because we have not fixed this.

I mean, uh, I think Wentworth Woodhouse, they're, they're, they're, they've just now in the past decade or two, started to get some money and be able to repair
the grounds and repair the house and kind of start returning this, this alleged, you know, his historic monument that the British government has in a trust.

And it's a designated, you know, heritage site of, of, uh, you know, as, as, as the story goes.

And yet they, they left it in ruins for, for 40, 50, 60 years, something like that.

Okay.

And so this is where we are.

This is, we, we, we are the, the immediate heirs of this incredible breach, right?

This incredible destruction.

'cause again, the Fitz Williams, they kept their, their end of the bargain.

They kept the covenant and they were punished by their government for doing so.

You cannot understand the modern landscape.

You cannot understand what we are going through as a fam, uh, you know, as, as a culture, as a civilization, without understanding what was done to these families.

Okay?

And, and I would say, you know, this, this, this story is, is, you know, particularly well documented.

And, and there's some pictures.

I was, I was wanting a, a picture that, or a family that, that I could give really clear visual images, uh, for, for, for, so something like this.

And I encourage everybody to go look up Will Tanner's, you know, most excellent posts and thread on this topic.

Um.

But you could, you could tell this story a thousand times, right?

You could tell this story all across Britain.

You could tell it all across America, every, every place that there was a, a, a flower mill, every place that there was, you know, all over the rust belt.

You know, it, it happened 20 years later in America.

But the way that we changed capital gains taxes, um, again, there's a, there's a book called The Puritan Gift by the Hopper Brothers that really, uh, documents just the absolute stupidity of American tax policy on this point.

Um, and, and Trump has, has only just barely started to pull back from the consequences.

But I mean, for, for 50 years from the seventies until, well, very recently, basically until the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, it was economic suicide for a manufacturing facility to, to be built in the United States.

And so we had pre 1970s factories that got updated and updated and updated piecemeal bit by bit, where you could kinda sneak it past the capital gains rules.

Which got tighter and tighter, basically with every tax update.

But we didn't have an update in our industrial base for 50 years.

Right.

I mean, that's really what drove a lot of the offshoring in, in the 1990s was as soon as it was not economic suicide to offshore, everybody did it because they had to, because investing in America was a, a very poor decision.

Um, and, and now we didn't, uh, we very, very rarely did we actually nationalize, um, factories and, and, and, and minds of this nature.

We did nationalize a bunch of of farms.

There are a whole bunch of farmers that whose, uh, whose economics backs were broken across the United States.

And, and it's the same story, right?

You have a family who, despite the, the social turbulence and despite all the, the communist rhetoric, in fact kept their covenant, in fact was, was a good and worthy great house.

And the, and the power of the government was used to punish them.

Okay?

When we're, when we're trying to think about how do you satisfy the covenantal economy, how do you, how do you build relationships either, how do you become a great house?

How do you build relationships with the existing great houses and households that you encounter?

And so again, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to bring us back to this, right?

Remember in the ancient mind, these pillars, right?

This image of the city, uh, uh, the city that's, that's built on pillars rising from the clouds, those pillars.

And the men standing around, you know, kind of Arthur's quintessential round table are the same thing.

The men and the pillars, they are, they are representatives of the same kind of social construct.

This is what we're building and this is what we're rebuilding, okay?

And that thing, that thing that we're trying to rebuild is Covenant sa.

So satisfying the covenantal economy means keeping and helping others keep their covenants with God.

Now, when we say covenant with God, um.

There are Christian salvation, famously is an unconditional covenant, right?

And, uh, and that's the Bible devotes huge amounts of space to dealing with the fact that the, that the, the covenant of salvation is unconditional.

Its pure grace.

That, that, that if the covenant is breached, that the superior bends to, to restore the covenant instead of the inferior being forced to fulfill the covenant.

Um, I think in, in telling that story over and over again, and particularly since, you know, the, the American Great awakenings, you know, and, and then the, uh, the modern kinda Billy Graham, you must be born again.

Uh, we have forgotten that there are other covenants and that in fact, most covenants come with conditions.

That's in fact why the, in the Christian story, it's so remarkable that the covenant of salvation is so condition less.

And, and, you know, there is this verse.

Salvation is the free gift of God by grace alone through faith alone.

Um, and, and, and Protestant Catholics would disagree with on what that means, but all Christians agree that it's not earned.

Okay.

What I would also say is that there, but you know, we have to remember that there are other things than salvation.

There are other principles.

There are other eternal principles in in the world, and so the covenantal economy is built around the belief that there are certain covenants.

Uh, which are not basically any of them unconditional.

You might, you might enter them right as a, as a matter of grace, but in order to maintain them, in order to keep them, you have to do things in order to keep those covenants and that those covenants have economic implications.

Okay?

And so I'm gonna give you, for the rest of the time, a series of examples to try to drive this point home of what, what is the covenantal economy, what does it mean to keep these covenants?

So, um, I'll start with a literary, uh, example that that's, that's an interesting feature.

Kind of modern languages.

When we say guard this gate in English, there is an implied ending date, probably the end of the day, right?

Or the end of the shift, maybe the end of the week.

Maybe if you're, you know, in the military on deployment, maybe guard this gate could be interpreted to be end of deployment, right?

Uh, but there, there's kind of a shortness to the modern languages.

And this is probably part of, one of the reasons for the, for English success is because it kind of forces people to come back and check back in with their.

With their, uh, authorities to try to figure out, okay, what am I supposed to be doing?

But in other cultures, the default tense is longer.

Right.

Um, in particular, and, and, and I've, I've, I've heard, I was, I was trying to confirm this, but I wasn't able to confirm this, so I'll, I'll repeat it anyways.

As unconfirmed speculation.

My understanding is that in, in languages like Latin or Greek, that it would frequently be the case that there, there was a, there was a type of imperative, uh, tense where it communicated, Hey, this is your job for the rest of your life.

This is a commission that, that, that carries on, uh, for the rest of your natural life.

In ancient Hebrew, however, the natural tense is present perfect, which implies continuing in the present condition forever.

So when you say, guard this gate without, unless you use extra words, unless you condition it in some way, that means guard this gate for your whole life.

Make money from guarding it.

Make enough that you can marry and train your kids to train their kids, to train their kids, to guard this gate forever.

Right or until the world ends.

Um, or prob probably the better way to frame it would be as, as the angle can say forever, world without n. Right.

Um, that's, that's the connotation of these commands.

Okay.

And, and we have a hard time with this.

This is, this is difficult for us, this 'cause, you know, we have a belief that there is some moral imperative not to derive our income from our purpose.

We, we assume that for profit activity trademark is inherently rapacious and immoral being that it is of course right coded and that, and therefore this,
this, you know, rapacious and immoral for profit activity must be balanced by non-profit activity, which is good and virtuous as all left coded things are.

Now, I I, I'm a fan of having nonprofit wings and, and understanding the, the, the broader purpose of nonprofits in a, in any kind of great house structure.

Um, but we, I, I just kinda wanna point out.

Uh, if you feel this way, just you, you just need to recognize that you have internalized communism.

You just need to repent.

Okay?

The solution, as I've said, I think before in, in, in, in this series, is just be less of a communist, right?

And then, and then you won't have this problem.

Um, so when you talk about satisfying the covenant, you need to understand how successful legacy families think about what their family is and what is it for, right?

And so I'll, I'll, I'll ask you a question.

Do you know what your family purpose is?

Right.

I mean, a lot of people are struggling, I think in the modern context with, I, I don't even know what my personal purpose is actually.

As I, as I've found, as I've worked with families over the years, I think it is easier and more objectively verifiable to figure out
what your family purpose is first, and then from that we can then derive an individual purpose or, or a particular purpose, uh, for you.

Um, but, but you know, just ask, do you know what your family purpose is?

Okay.

And I'm going to tell you that successful legacy families do they know exactly what their family purpose is.

Okay?

Now, that doesn't mean that they all work in the same family business.

It doesn't mean they even like the family business or the family purpose.

They may even have great anger or frustration for who their family is and what they do.

But they all know exactly what their family is for.

Okay, so when you think about guarding the gate, that is not necessarily a job for a bunch of people.

Okay?

Likewise, there are certain family purposes.

There are certain, you, you think of these as as an outcome, right?

Uh, and, and, and it's your family's responsibility to, to create a certain outcome.

The descendants of the original gate guard may never stand a watch in their entire lives.

Right.

Many of them, uh, if, if, you know, let's say that takes five people to fully guard, the gate guy has five kids and then they have five kids, you know, presumably it's, it's a increasingly smaller percentage of the family that is actually guarding the gate.

Uh, they may, even if they're foolish and, and, uh, and, and probably advised by poor lawyers, they may even delegate the guarding of the gate to non-family members, to non-blood kin.

Um, and, and sometimes there is no option but to do that.

Right?

Sometimes you, you have no one that's qualified, no adults that are qualified, and you have to engage in some extraordinary measures, right?

Um, extraordinary means in order to, to, to have your family's covenant be fulfilled, which you, you know, which might look like, Hey, we've got money.

We don't have people right now, or we've only got some small children, and we need to hire someone to guard the gate for a period of time until the kids are, are old enough to do it, and we can begin to rebuild.

Okay?

And, and I wanna say, you know, before we, before we move on, think about the freedom that there is in this, right?

Make sure that the gate is guarded.

Does not mean that you personally have to guard the gate.

I think that there's a lot of people that they, they get very locked down in these discussions of purpose or these discussions of family vision and like, oh my gosh, am I constraining my children?

And, and, and making it so that, that they have to do this.

I'm, I'm, I'm cutting off all of their options.

What if they have different gifts, right?

And I say, well, what, what if they have different gifts?

Okay?

The family as a whole has to ensure that the gate is guarded.

This, this, you know, gives us a purpose.

And it also means, hey, if you're gonna devote yourself to that purpose.

Probably you're gonna stand a little bit higher in the hierarchy.

There, there, there needs to be, if you're gonna do these multi-generational structures, there needs to be some level of hierarchy.

We need to know when you're allocating whatever the scarce thing is, and, you know, legacy families that are successful pretty much get to the point where lifestyle is not usually the scarce thing when you're first starting out.

Lifestyle frequently is the scarce thing.

That's how, that's how it goes.

Um, but when you're dealing with well control and decision making, well how do we do this and how do we do that?

The closer you are to that purpose, the closer you are to being the, the, the guard fulfilling your family's covenant with whatever ancient sovereign gave you your identity, the, the higher you should rank in the family hierarchy.

Because if you mess up, then the family as a whole will suffer.

Okay.

And, and that's because the family is united.

The, the, one of the core pieces of their identity is that they all believe.

That their wealth, their power, their status all comes or is all downstream of the fact that this gate is guarded.

Okay?

They know down in their souls that if that gate were left unguarded, that something terrible would happen to all of them.

That their wealth, their power, their protection would be stripped away.

Now, I'm not postulating a particular theology right there, there, they, the family might, and many of them do frame this in mystical terms.

We have a deal with God or the gods or the universe or whatever it is that they believe in, in terms of a higher power.

They may frame it in psychological terms.

Keeping this promise is core to our sense of self, and if we don't keep this promise, then, then we'll self sabotage something in our internal psychology will cause us to make a series of foolish decisions until, until we're we're ruined.

They might frame it in conspiratorial terms.

If, if we don't keep our promises, they will get us.

Right.

And of course, you know, the, the most important thing about they is that you never define they right.

We don't know who they is.

Um, so, and, and, and a lesser version of the conspiratorial is, Hey, this is the way that the game is played.

And if, and, and we occupy our position in society or in this industry by means, uh, because everyone respects us.

And if we don't keep this promise, then people will stop respecting us and then we'll, we'll get hurt.

Okay?

And probably all of these things, um, are, are, are true on some level.

But regardless of why the family tells itself that this structure works, they have a structure and it's core to their identity.

If here's the base that if we do or cause to be done X, y, and Z, then we will enjoy unusual success.

Unusual success.

Okay.

Um, so what does, what does unusual success mean?

So, I, uh, I, I've been to a couple of legacy conferences and, and I've heard this basic story a bunch of different times.

Um, and so the, uh, the, I I actually think it happened multiple times.

I think that's why I've heard so many different versions of this story.

Um, but, but the basic terms are the son left the father on bad terms and was given $10,000 as a farewell gift.

Um, so the, uh, the, my, my favorite version of the story, basically, you start with, there was a, there was a, a logistics, a shipping family in New England, and, uh, the son and the father had a, had a fight.

And then the next morning, the family attorney showed up and handed the, the son a check for $10,000 and reminded, reminded the son that, uh, he, he was, he did not, in fact, own this family property at which he was no longer welcome.

So the son took his $10,000 and skid off to Houston and invested in almost exactly the same type of business.

Start built it up, was able to, to go from, from zero, from, from that $10,000 investment up and, and rebuild a similar sized operation down in Houston.

Okay?

And then as, as these things tend to do, you know, 10, 15 years, or five, it was five years later, the, uh, the father and son reconcile and they come back together and they go over the books.

And this is back in the days when you have, you know, these like 13 by 15, you know, um.

Or excuse me, 11 by 13, uh, account books, right?

This is before QuickBooks.

So you have to go through and, and hand calculate the net worth of the company, right?

So assets minus liabilities is, is, uh, is, are, is, is your net.

Um, and at the end of doing that, they value the company at $50 million.

And the father writes five years, 5,000 times, ROI, good investment.

He underlines good investment, slides back over the sun, and everyone is, everyone is happy.

And that's an incredible story of, of, of family reconciliation.

So if, if, if there's ever anyone that, that is listening to this podcast that has had that, you're, you're halfway through that story, right?

Either you're the son that was rejected, or you're the father who sent your son out.

Have some hope, okay?

Because there is, there, there are ways back, and there are, there are many, many stories, not just in, in the Bible or in a religious text, but in the real world of people coming back and, and, and reconcile.

But I want you to think about, I want to draw your attention to the fact.

That in a particular industry, this son was able to take money $10,000 and in five years spit out a $50 million company.

Right.

That's amazing.

Like if you had a machine that you could put money in and five years, well, I mean, some people are talking, they think that AI will do that, right?

But, but you know, if you had a machine that you could put money in and five years later would spit out a 5,000 times multiple, you would get as many of those machines as possible.

Alright.

That, that's, that's kind of the top end of unusual success.

And so, you know, one of the things people always ask, well, what if, what if I don't know what my purpose is?

And I see you in the chat, um, I see you anon and, and the answer is.

When you're looking for success, you, you're, or when you're looking for purpose, you're looking for, where are you unusually successful?

You're looking for gifting, you're looking for calling, you're looking for a place, a domain, a a, a type of thing where everything lines up, right?

Or you're looking for a person.

For whom all of those things line up and you're, and you're recognizing that, hey, maybe the way that I access this is through a person.

Because in fact, not everyone is called to found a great house.

I know.

Uh, the, the, the, the Disney lied to you.

Um, but our lives would be better if we recognize, hey, this is a, this is a rare and, and incredible gift.

And when we find someone, there's gonna be a lot more people that need to, uh, to surround the person with those unusual gifts that can build households and then great houses.

Um, and then in fact, probably the fastest way for most of us would be to form a group around somebody that has the capacity to build this level of unusual success.

Push them to the point where they're a great house, and then trust them how, you know, be, be.

You know, be willing to trust that they will help you build your house once they have attained success.

Right?

Remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Alright?

This, this is the, uh, is the play.

Now obviously, when you do that, you're, you're taking a risk, right?

There's no, there's no contract that's gonna be able to enforce that on somebody that has that level of success.

That's not what we're talking about.

But I want you to think about the fact begin to ponder as we're talking about what does it mean to satisfy the covenantal economy?

That the best chance for you and your family might be to find somebody who is capable of that unusual success Now.

That's a very unusual level of success.

Something more typical would be the chiropractor family.

So you got somebody that's got a new chiropractic or a, a massage, acupuncture, something to some, some, some technique where you, you're, you're dealing with humans.

So it's kind of an aristocratic technique, right?

So because it deals, it's something that humans are doing, it's personal services, it takes a long time to train.

There's kind of a heavy natural talent component.

And, and we're gonna see the technique is a net good.

A piece of productive property that improves the world.

You know, uh, they say that there are no solutions, only trade offs, but every now and then God kind of sends us something that is just a net good.

Okay.

So obviously when you see something like this, the founder is a chiropractor and he's, he, you know, he's gonna have unusual success compared to other chiropractors, I, I should mention, right?

Like, it's, it's not unusual success compared to a, uh, uh, a hedge fund manager, right?

Like, if you're, you, you gotta, you gotta look for better than average success within the, the rules of that domain.

Okay?

So now frequently the case will be, you know, the, the, the, as the story goes, whenever you have the, the founder father who's, who's got a particular gifting and they're,
they're something like a chiropractor or a medical doctor, somebody who invents something stereotypically, none of their kids turn out to be chiropractors or maybe only one, right?

So if they've got three kids now, well, I'll say this.

If they, if they had five kids, I've never known anyone to have five kids and not had at least one of their kids turn out to have the gift to do the original thing that their father did.

But the stereotype is you have three kids.

You have an artsy kid, you have an argumentative kid, and you have an OCD kid.

And these are of course, your marketing director.

Your lawyer, and your accountant.

And what I want, I want you to, to, to ponder is perhaps just perhaps there is a God and he gave you those children on purpose.

And, and that's because those children with those unique gifts are the things that you need to advance your business more than, more than you would be able to.

Otherwise.

What you don't need is you actually don't need just three more chiropractors to take your business at the next level.

You probably need 50 more chiropractors and you need them organized.

You need marketing to feed all those people.

You need a lawyer to, to, to set up the contracts and manage how you're recruiting them.

And you need a, an accountant to keep track of all of the money that that generates in all the separate locations that, that are going on there, right?

And that's actually how a family advances.

So, so think about that, that, that, that's probably a more, a more, um.

A story that's, that, that's more accessible to you guys.

Okay?

A healthy legacy family viewpoint is the one where the kids view preserving and advancing the technique.

The, the gift, the net good that that was given to you.

You know, and, and if these families, if they, the family believes in God, they'll, they'll frequently say that was given to us by God, right?

They view advancing that as their mission and as their source of wealth, right?

There's not a distinction here.

This is, this is the thing that you are gonna do and you're gonna benefit from it.

Okay?

So the progression was God gives you or gives somebody a net good, an actual solution, and you receive and steward the gift from heaven and that gives you unusual success.

Uh, you bless the world and are blessed in return, right?

Then you have children.

You entrust the gift to your children.

I mean, sometimes you don't have children.

Sometimes you're entrusting the gift to your heirs, and that's just kinda the way it is.

Um, but your children or your heirs keep the covenant and they're able to continue accessing that unusual level of success.

This is what builds pillars.

This is what allows people to, to start counting on your family being around because you have brought a new a, a net good, right?

And, and, and as we're thinking about this, you know, again, I just wanna remind us of, of the, or Morris, um, uh, which is, uh, manifested by the, the, the steak meme versus the avocado meme.

Right?

And the, the steak meme is, you know, you have the bulk of your care and your concern and your love for the people that are closest to you.

And the avocado meme is the, the, the, the people that have the bulk of their care and concern for, I think it was like rocks, trees, and plants or all, all animal life forms in the universe or something of this nature, right?

And, and we all want, if we're, if we're virtuous people, if we're covenant keeping people, we all want stake people, right?

And we want people to become more stake people, right?

Raw stake people.

Um, unfortunately, what often happens is as people interact with these principles, they will design systems where their children become.

Less and less steak people, more and more avocado people.

And that's because they are poorly taught.

They are not understanding that that, that, in fact, when you love people outside of your immediate circle, you are doing that because you have a covenant with a third party probably.

God, that's the healthiest way.

All you know, people that I know.

Uh, to conceive of it, you have a, you have a covenant with a third party that that means your family is gonna be blessed and protected because you have kept, you have done these, these good things in the world.

So there, there, there isn't a separation, right?

You believe, you know, there's that, that verse, uh, seek the welfare of the city.

The good of the city, because it's welfare is your welfare, right?

So if you really believe that seeking the good of the city is seeking your family's good, this is how you're linking the different levels of the or of Morris.

And we have to stop criticizing people for doing that.

This is the incentive structure.

Like, that's not a, that's not an anti-Christian thing to say.

All right?

This is, I think this is where, you know, people, the, the, the need she and objection to, uh, to Christianity and to Christians gets made a lot.

And I think it's just a misunderstanding of, of what Christianity teaches and has always taught, which is, hey.

You, you, you do these things.

You obey God out in the world because that is actually the best thing for you and your wife and your children, and the people that are closest to you.

And God will balance the scales.

Okay?

So this is how you satisfy the covenant till o you have a, a covenant, you have some, some arrangements, some deal, right?

With your, with the, the higher power or you, how you think the universe works.

And you believe if we keep this covenant, there will be enough economic prosperity for everyone.

Now, this means, this is, this is an implication, especially for inheritance.

Okay?

Um, and you know, one of the things that, that we often run into is, is there's a very destructive, uh, kind of chain of thought that leads to people not giving their children anything, right?

So the first one is, well, I, I want to give, I wanna give my wealth equally to my children.

I don't wanna distinguish between my children, I just wanna, I just want to give it all to them equally, which I. Remember when you do that, you're being a communist.

So just repent of being a communist and your life will get easier.

Uh, but then you move on to, well, my children don't deserve this, right?

My children aren't gonna manage it well.

Um, what do I do?

And, and, and then, and then you're kind of caught between, well, I need to give it to charity in order to, uh, in order to, to, to create some kind of positive good so that I can tell my children, well, I didn't give anything to you, but I provided for you.

Um, and, and that's because they think that that inheritance is something that you get for breathing.

Alright?

You get an inheritance just for being a, a child of the bloodline, right?

Just for, for being alive and, and, and having a, having a social security number and wandering around.

Right?

And obviously, you know, um, Johan Kurtz's book, uh, leaving a Legacy is an excellent refutation of the well, we should leave everything to Charity Mindset.

And, uh, if you haven't read that or haven't, haven't bought the book, please, please go buy the book and, uh, and read it and hand it out to, to a couple of boomers in your life.

Right, but your inheritance is for a purpose.

So one of the, one of the examples that I, I use when speaking to my clients is the, the, the magic kingdom.

Right?

Uh, so you have a, a kingdom, uh, you got giants on the northern border and you got dragons on the south, okay?

And on the northern board there is a, a marvelous castle.

It's great, it's glorious.

It's the nicest great house you've ever seen it, it is, it is constructed of incredible stone.

There's all of these battlements.

It is, it is a nice, glorious, rich thing to have.

It's right on the board with the giants.

So if you want the great northern castle, you are signing up to fight the giants.

Alright?

And, and then, uh, the best lance in the kingdom is obviously the dragon slaying lance, right?

Studded with jewels and maybe there's some magical powers associated with the lance.

This is great.

You want that, Lance?

That's wonderful.

And as a member of this family, you are first in line, but what you are signing up for is duty.

You are signing up to be the person who slays the dragons.

Okay?

And, uh, Joshua Sheets, uh, asks that, did anyone catch that book name?

That's, that's Johann Kurtz's leaving a legacy.

Um, which, uh, you, you, hopefully everyone's familiar with that book.

Okay.

So another way of thinking about this is, um, the story of Samson's hair.

So we all know the story of Samson's hair.

He got his hair cut and he was able to be bound.

Samson actually had three rules.

Um, don't eat strange food.

This is the Nazarite rules.

Don't sleep with strange women and don't cut your hair.

Right.

And famously, you know, he breaks, he, it's not until he breaks all three rules.

And, and, and some scholars would say he, he's actually breaking all three rules at the same time.

He's eating, you know, strange food.

He's sleeping with Delilah and he gets his hair cut.

And in that place then, uh, then the spirit of God, then the, the blessing, the thing that gives him his unusual success, abandons him.

Okay?

So Sam's had to bring all three parts before he lost his grace.

And so when we think about covenants, you know, founders, the people that have had unusual success, they'll have like a list of, of of things that you ought to do.

So many times the family will have a list of virtuous things that the founder did or said.

And, uh, and, and the best way, the best frame that I tell, I tell people is we think of these lists the way the liberals talk about scripture, in that it contains the covenant principles.

All right?

So if we're, if we're talking, if we're trying to build a family covenant, if we can narrow it down to five or six virtuous things we're, we're doing, uh, we're doing well, um, we're doing well now all five of those things may not be essential.

All five of those things may not be what you're required to do.

Um, but you, you, you want to know, you want to make sure that you are, um.

Are able to, to, to carry on the necessary aspects of the covenant.

And, and then there's gonna be certain things that, that are just common sense, right?

If you, if you have, if your business involves chiropractors, you need to have chiropractors, right?

You need the people that are developing your technique, that are using your technique.

You need those, those, uh, those things.

But you also probably need some things that are not obvious, right?

Unusual success tends to come from things that are non obvious.

Uh, connections that people make local, local features of the culture, right?

So there's a, there's a, uh, a feature of the culture there.

There, there's cer several families that they have a particular church that they have sponsored, and this is very important to their church, their, their family.

Um, and, and people are like, well, what, what does this church do for this legacy family?

We have, we, we can't figure that out.

But then when the family is in crisis, then when the family has a moral need, when there's something they have to figure out that church and the people that are there step in often in very synergistic ways.

And it's like, oh, okay, now I see that, that having this, this other institution that's very concerned with your genealogy, that
has all these books on what people did that that has some resources, some spiritual resources to support you in your time of needs.

This is, this is very important.

Um, you know, classically, there, there, there were, um.

Branch families.

There were, there were a number of families in, in, after World War II that took refuge with the, the, the people that they had supported often in ways that didn't, they didn't make economic sense, maybe
not even for generations, but when trouble came to your house, you were able to go and, and live in relative, uh, relative comfort and safety and, and be able to, to continue perpetuating your family.

That's why several of these families are here today.

So, and, uh, you know, to give some more, more examples, you know, a family covenant, and this is, you know, a a, I'm, I'm a. More or less reformed, uh, Protestant.

And so this is a, this is a very reformed, Protestant way of, uh, of talking about the question five points.

You know, like the old Calvinists straight stuff.

Um, and, and actually this, as I, as I recall this, this actually maps onto the, the five points of Calvinism rather neatly, uh, which is, which is fun.

But what I will say again, referencing that book, um, the Puritan Gift by the Hopper Brothers, it, this is, this is probably the discreet theology that actually built American corporate culture.

So it's very important.

And when you, when you study this, this way of thinking about the, the, your covenantal obligations, weird stuff will pop up.

That, that, oh some, somebody that built in this space was clearly using this.

So the five points are, you start with the transcendent purpose, the enduring why of the family.

Sometimes this is called the family name, right?

Um, then you have hierarchy.

What are the roles and authority structures in your particular household?

What, how, how do you, how do you determine, you know, when, when different people have different ways of, of, uh, of approaching a problem whose way wins?

Right?

And, and you, and, and this is more important, you know, in a marriage, right?

You people, that's only two people.

And, and even in that you, you need to have a husband, you need to have a leader.

But when you're dealing with a household, you're dealing with people that, you know, you might have four couples, you might have eight couples, you might have, you know, 50 people in different branches living in different situations.

How do you resolve the, the, the differences in opinion and differences in approach and just outright disagreements between people that ha are that different in terms of their experience.

So then three, you have your ethics, your code of conduct, your, your constitution, that, that, that God has called you live by you.

You have, these are the things that we would rather die than X. And uh, you know, this is the thing that if, uh, if I could get the, um, if I could get the.

Uh, the, the AI guys to understand, Hey, you, you, this is actually what you need.

Before you get into capacity, before you get into, uh, what you're, uh, what you're trying to do, you need to have a list of things that, that you're not allowed to do.

You need to know, Hey, regardless of what discrete thing I'm doing, I, I, if, if that leads me into one of these outcomes, it's, it's, it's barred.

And if we could, if we could get to the point where we were training a moral person first and then working on getting them to be high capacity, I think that you would have some, uh, some, some better, better outcomes on the AI stuff.

I, I, I heard recently that almost every AI will basically, uh, if you put them in charge of a, a nuclear scenario, that they will just immediately al almost immediately recommend, uh, nuking the other party.

So just, just, uh, just so that they win, or at least so that they would not lose.

Okay.

Um, then you have your obligations, right?

What territory are you called to steward?

This is always subject to expansion, especially if a child's gifts don't fit in your current conception.

And then finally the fifth is, is succession.

Right?

So, so rather than exiting, right?

Um, because if you're, if you're dealing in these multi-generational spaces, the goal is not to.

Uh, sell everything for a pile of money and then, and then leave, right?

With no connections.

The goal is actually to stay and continue to fulfill your role and continue to, to exercise authority in virtuous ways, right?

Your goal is to be the Fitz Williams, right?

To survive the transition from a landed aristocracy into an industrial, you know, tighten, but keeping their principles, keeping their virtues, and, and, uh, keeping their promises to their, to their folks.

Okay?

And then examples, and again, I'm, I'm drawing from, from my tradition, the, the reformed Protestant tradition.

You have guys like Joelson where he writes a family friendly farming, a multi-generational home-based business testament.

You got, uh, Jim Wilson, the father of Doug Wilson, who, who has this concept of how to, how to take the strategic spot.

And he's got a way of thinking about, well, how do you, where do you go and what do you do?

And what's, what's the goal for, for planting your family?

And, and you know, that family decided to take Moscow, Idaho, and they've been, you know, by following their ancestors.

Um, plan, they have been incredibly successful.

That book is called Principles of War.

And then, uh, Ellsworth McIntyre who, uh, who recently passed away, which is a, a terrible blow to the world.

And, and to, to Christen Dem, I actually believe, uh, to, to create profitable Christian daycares and educational centers.

Uh, which is, you know, how to start a Christian daycare or as, uh, Dr.

Marlene reminds me's.

Original title was How to Make A Million Dollars in Christian Education, which is a marvelous title, a marvelous title.

Um, the one thing that I would say you know about, about, uh, these, these men and these things, especially, especially, uh, uh, Ellsworth
McIntyre was he never quite was able, there was still this, this sense in which he just, he just wanted everyone to be just like him.

He wasn't willing to accept kind of the final piece that you have to accept and, and we'll see how his family goes right in the, in the future.

I have high hopes for them, um, although I'm not connected or serving them in any way, at least, at least currently.

But, uh, but, but they're, they're, they're doing very well, but what they need to do in order to survive as a legacy family.

Is to accept that they have unique gifts.

Elsworth McIntyre listed out this, this wonderful plan for how to start a Christian daycare in the United States.

He, he, he basically gave away all of his ip.

He just so desperately wanted this need in the marketplace to be met.

And I gotta tell you guys, literally no one that I'm aware of that wasn't, you know, related to Ellsworth McIntyre by blood or marriage, ever pulled it off in a, in a significant way.

You, you had a, a couple of people that had other sources of income that were able to help their daycare limp along for, for a period of time.

But really this appears to have been a gifting that is, is very unique, very rare.

It's, it's something that, that, that, that it was the kind of thing that again, would either, that would either be related to Ellsworth or they would like be the kinds of people that his family wanted to marry and they would marry in.

And that makes sense from a great House's perspective.

That is what we would expect.

That's what the framework that we're articulating here would, would expect.

But because they didn't, they didn't think in that way.

Uh, it it, it caused them some, some problems.

So.

And again, uh, we are, we're moving away.

One of the, one of the final things, uh, that, that I'll say on, on, on this topic is, you know, we're we, we had the land covenant, right?

That's what the Phil Fitz Williams exemplify.

So well, and the, the tens of the land covenant, this was a general idea, right?

You didn't have to be special.

You didn't have to, if you could get to the point where you own land, the deal basically was you're gonna hold arable land and you're gonna be blessed by reigns.

That's what God gives you.

And in, in exchange, you protect the land from des Spoilation, from marauders, from strip mining, right?

Um, and that in order to protect the land, you protect the people.

You give them hospitality, you give them employment, you give them education of children, okay?

Um, and this is, you know, interestingly noted in, in, in movies like Spirited Away, right?

So, uh, uh, Yaba, which is, which I, I, I constantly refer to her as Baba Yaga because that's, that's the, uh, the, uh, the stories in which I encountered, uh, this exact, uh, archetype.

Earliest, um.

She says at one point when the, the, the main character is, is asking her for a job.

And, and she doesn't say no, but she tries to scare her.

She tries to get her to, to do something, to break the laws of hospitality so that she can kick her out.

And when, you know, uh, the main character to Hero just says, I please, I just want a job.

Then, uh, then yo Obama kind of hoffs and, and she's mad.

She goes, I can't believe I took that oath to give a job to anyone who asks.

And that's because these, these covenants, they're universal, right?

This was the deal.

Everyone understood, Hey, you have this privileged position.

You're getting sublevel of blessing, and, and there is a requirement in exchange for how you handle your land.

Okay?

And this is deep magic, right?

Uh, from my own history, uh, I, as I grew up, um, on the, the ranch that I grew up on there was the nursery school house.

Um, and I remember, uh, my, my grandfather telling me about my great-grandmother, and I asked him, my grandfather, what, what is, what is the nursery school?

What is this for?

Like, why, why is it called the nursery school house?

And he goes, because when, uh, when your great-grandfather started the ranch, um, or not right when he started the ranch, but about 20 years later, uh, they were, they, they brought in some Brazilian hands.

Um, Brazil was going through, uh, the, I think it's the Brazilian Civil War.

It's whatever internal conflict Brazil was going through in the 1920s.

He brought over some hands from Brazil and many of them couldn't speak English.

So my, uh, great grandmother, and, and they didn't, they didn't know, they didn't know how to function in our society.

So my great grandmother considered it her social duty to teach the women and children how to read, write, speak English.

And then, and then she, she taught them their, their place in our household and our household's place in the United States and in like the story of the West, right?

Which included a pretty, uh, intense gospel presentation.

My, my great grandparents were United Methodists before that, when that term meant rigor and not, you know, what it's come to mean in these, in these modern depraved times, right?

And, and what I'll say is, you know, my, my great grandmother would've refused to associate with people who failed to provide education to all the children in their house.

There was no, there was no law about this.

It was just what you ought to do.

And, and they, and they knew that, and they believed it.

They, they had a deep conviction about it.

Okay.

So one, one final story and then, and then, and then we'll wind up.

So there was a, in my early in my career, there was a family that I worked with.

The father was unusually successful in real estate.

Okay.

Uh, key to the father's success was principles of safety and dignity.

So he started out in funeral homes, and, you know, the way he explained it to me was, you know, in funeral homes, obviously there's dead bodies.

So there are certain rules that could never be broken because of safety issues, but also the whole point of a funeral home, and the way it stays in business is by giving people space to grieve.

And, and the word that we came to, to describe that was dignity.

And then when he became a realtor, um, he moved over and, and, and, uh, you know, he would look at clients and say, what would make this client experience safety and dignity?

He would only show them these, those houses.

Then when he started remodeling, he would look at demographics and say, okay, there's these, these groups of people moving into my area.

What would make these people, these demographics, experience, safety and dignity.

He would re, he would prioritize that in the remodel.

And he had, again, unusual success.

So I got brought in 'cause the family was in a, in a crisis moment, the son wanted to do, uh, in-home hospice care for special needs children.

Now what connection is there between real estate remodeling and then in-home hospice care for special needs children?

So I, I I, I, I've had this conversation with the dad about, you know, what is it that, that, that, that you do, and how have you had your unusual success?

And, uh, the son walks in having not heard the conversation.

And so I just, I, I'm very positive, right?

Hey, I'm a, I'm a business attorney.

I understand that, that you're wanting to start a business.

Tell me about your business.

Right And over.

It doesn't always happen like this gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen.

But over the next 30 minutes, I actually got the son to say.

That he wanted the kids to be safe and he wanted to give the parents back their dignity.

See?

And the son had received his father's heart.

He had kept the covenant, or at least he hadn't rejected it.

Okay?

And once we had established that, once we'd gotten the point, that was kinda a big critical emotional moment.

Once we had established, Hey, you know, your son is actually driven by the exact same heart.

He's manifesting it in a different way.

He's monetizing it in a different way, but he cares deeply about the same things that you've devoted your life to.

And he cares probably for the same reasons that you do, he cares because you taught him.

Okay?

And that once we, we just, we established that that commonality, that we were able to sort everything else out from a legal perspective, which is often the case.

Um, so again, in conclusion.

When you wanna satisfy the econ, the covenantal economy, when you're moving in this direction or dealing with legacy families, everything is secondary to the covenant.

Okay?

Discussion of what the covenant is now, recognize very, very few people, if any, um, are gonna use these terms now, hopefully, hopefully in the coming years,
this, this podcast and the movement that we're starting is gonna be so big and grow so successful that everyone in the world is gonna start using our terms.

And this will get a lot easier, okay?

For all of us.

Um, but, but for now, recognize they might not use that term, but it's a vital importance.

What is our deal with God?

What is the thing that we're doing?

Which, which again, is gonna include some non-obvious things.

And then helping the by, by the same token, helping the family keep its covenantal obligations will often result in what seems to you and probably other people in the, in the, in the room, totally disproportionate rewards.

But the family cares most about keeping the covenant.

That is the thing they're worried about.

That is the core of their identity.

Okay?

And so I challenge you to ask yourself what if there was a method to the madness of the rich folk, of these legacy families that you know?

Okay?

And as you learn from them, perhaps you can learn how to find the gift God has for you.

Get some unusual success of your own and start teaching your children to keep the covenant for future generations.

Alright, thank you everybody.

That, uh, concludes my prepared remarks and, uh, we'll, we'll go into the q and a next.

For all of you that are listening to the free version, thank you so much for, for listening.

And, uh, I hope that, that you have benefited from this series in, in talking and thinking about satisfying the covenantal economy.

Um, we look forward to, uh, to future episodes with you.

Thank you so much.