Zach Barnett on Redefining Generosity

RJ Caswell: Well, hey, everybody. I'm super excited to have this guest on. The Cereal for Dinner podcast today, Zach Barnett is with me on the show. And I'm really looking forward to this for a couple reasons, because we have a shared love of... generosity but not just typical generosity. I love Zach's take on generosity. So I think we'll get to that, Zach, but welcome and I'm glad you're here. Zach Barnett: Thank you. Thank you for having me excited for the conversation and excited to be on with you today. RJ Caswell: Yeah, man. So... Before we get into this whole theme of how generosity has shaped you, because I just think it's such a rich view of people. But somehow I know that was shaped somewhere in your life. So what I wanted to do was go back and go like. Man, maybe it was your first job. What was Zach's... first job and tell us a little bit about what you were doing. Zach Barnett: Yeah, my first my first job ever was actually I grew up in the restaurant in the restaurant space and For me, grew up in the Chick-fil-A world. So my dad was... RJ Caswell: My pleasure. Zach Barnett: Yeah, my pleasure. That's right. So that's ingrained in me, which is which is funny like Everywhere I go, sometimes I'll just say it without thinking about it. And the question I always get is like, did you work at Chick-fil-A? RJ Caswell: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Instantly. Zach Barnett: Yeah, exactly. So it's one of those things. My first job, honestly. Working through the restaurant and seeing and caring for people. I even had a conversation yesterday with somebody about it was that. In the restaurant industry and even in like the quick service space like people are coming there in the middle of in the middle of their day, majority of the time, the beginning, middle, and end of their day. They're looking for something that they're not even asking you to take care of like and what I mean by that is People are coming there with struggles. People are coming there off of a bad meeting. People are coming there to celebrate wins that they might've just had in the middle of their day. And like, how do you get to be a part of that? How do you get to know them and serve them? Which was a really cool experience as a kid. Like growing up in the space, I say it was my first job, but like it's been a life experience for me for for pretty much my whole life. I remember like being in the drive-thru. As a kid, like probably, I don't know, probably around like seven years old, like helping like pass the food out of the drive-through before like we all know now like face-to-face service and the iPads and all the things but it was just a really cool experience just getting to one meet people right where they were at understand not just their order which is one thing that was awesome to be able to like know a customer who came in but I also learned that like hospitality in the form of generosity is not just around food. It's We all have this ability to do it. We can create an environment of hospitality. Whether that's like in our home, whether that's on our street corner. Whether that's In a restaurant, whether it's in a coffee shop, like I think look I look at hospitality a little bit differently. It's not just around a table of food. It's about the environment that you're setting like when you walk in the room. So that job, that I'd say life experience. Taught me a lot. Just in terms of you know, Are you looking to serve people wherever you go? You can be hospitable and no matter if there's food on the table or not on the table at all. RJ Caswell: Man. Absolutely love that. So going back to when you were actually formally working in that first job, it sounds like, right, you were working well before that informally at Chick-fil-A. And hearing like... some of your observations around Setting environments and hospitality, engaging people where they are at potentially a busy time of day or rushing or. How much of that was... when you actually formally stepped in caught versus taught. Like how much of that is baked into... the Chick-fil-A training for a new employee versus... Zach just is wired to... see things and notice things and observe things and put them together. I'm just curious, like what's the mix there that you experienced? Zach Barnett: I would say it's a pretty good mix. I mean, in terms of... growing up like in the restaurant like on the job itself I mean and I would say it probably depends on like different stores different operators different priorities but like the stores that I had worked in, I mean, it was. About the customer it was about the person Like it was yes, we serve. Great food and high quality food and food that people love but like I was even talking with my wife last night about it was like. The reason people come into an environment and keep coming. Is not always because the quality of the product, it's because of the quality of the conversation and the quality that they feel cared for. And. That's why people come back to you or come back to an environment is because they feel some type of way when they enter in that space. But from a. Leadership perspective. I mean, that was always like, go. And I think sometimes they might use this now is like, we always talked about like second mile service. Was like... the first mile like that's just standard when it's all said and done Like operational excellence. I could still quote off all these things. Operational excellence, speed of service, like all these things that we had talked about, like that's just like the foundation of like what we're so required to do, what we're supposed to be doing but Knowing somebody's name. Matters like I thought about that the other day when I was going through a Chick-fil-A the person in the drive-thru actually knew my name. And they were like, oh, Zach, like you came here came through with your daughter. Like they knew my order. Like maybe that says a little bit about me that they know my order. I go through there a lot and I all the things. But it is It is very much a... This is why. We are. This is why we do what we do. Like when it's all said and done and Everybody is expected to care about people. RJ Caswell: Well, the expectation to care about people, right? It would be a unique environment to train in because not everybody experiences that from either side of that, customer or of and employee. At times So to have that at a very formative time, I think is really important. Even coming back to your... story about going through and they remembering your name yesterday. My daughter worked for a season at Chick-fil-A between high school and college. And she relayed a story that one day, an older lady came through the drive-through and was really upset. I can't remember if they messed up her order or something happened. It was my daughter who was the one who... got her and she was just really upset and de-escalated. And the next day she came back through. And my daughter was there again. And she remembered this lady's name. And... She tells a story of immediately she went from agitated to calm. Because her name was uttered and she remembered her order and she goes, what else can I get you? And it's just almost a perfect description of what you talk about. And I think some of that was trained for her, my daughter, but I think some of it was. Right? Who she is and in that mix of that. So knowing that was... really important for your first job. What was your first job outside of that Chick-fil-A system that it sounds like you were brought up in from an early age with? You know only first job, but you were connected to... How about that ethos? If you will, before that. What was kind of your next one that was out of that system? and how did that compare for you when it comes to people and relationships? Zach Barnett: Yeah, the next one out of that system was actually in college athletics. I had an opportunity to play college football. Realized about three years in after I got hurt going into my senior year. I was like, hey you know, We're going to hang up the cleats, but I didn't hang up the opportunity to be in sports. So I shifted over my senior year and worked in everything I could get my hands on. Landed landed an internship, which at that time, this might sound really relevant for a lot of people who are probably like in their 30s and older of like unpaid internships. You are especially in athletics it was like at the time where it was like hey People just wanted to be in sport. Like they wanted to be with it. They wanted to be in the locker room. They wanted to be close to the team. It was something really fun and exciting. And my first job was actually at the University of Georgia. I had interned there for about a year and a half under Coach Richt, which was just... Absolutely amazing. I mean I would say anything that people say about him in terms of like how he carried himself was awesome. But the one story I would say is when I went to the University of Arkansas. During that time, I was working in... athletics development. And I came from football and went into athletics development so like very two different environments still under sport I'm still under college athletics, but like. Masculine, hyper-masculinity environment to... office meetings, like very different very different environments. RJ Caswell: And it a lot of And probably a lot of nuance. And. Zach Barnett: Very nuanced. Conversation with coaches versus conversations with corporate America like very different very different very different environments But I will say the one story that. I mean, in terms of me, that's impacted me. I mean, even 12 years later. I walked in I had moved from Atlanta to Fayetteville or from Athens to Fayetteville. And I walked in. I got there in about 14 days. I mean, at that time, like the transition between jobs, they're like, how fast can you get here? Like, we have no time. All those types of things. And so I'm moving. I start my job and about one to two days in my boss at the time who we're still great friends with today. Hands me 84. Stacks of paper. And you're thinking, okay, this is graduate assistantship work. And. I just got put to the grinder. And. We're about to just like grind it out is ultimately what I thought. And the cool part of it was is that he actually handed me – he's like, hey, come into my office. And so I come in. It's me, him. We're just chatting about like roles and responsibilities, all those types of things. And he goes, hey, before you leave, here's this stack of stack of papers. And. I looked down and I was like, I don't know what this is. Like, this is, I don't know. I have no idea. And he goes. These are the 84 applicants who applied for this job. RJ Caswell: Oh my word. Zach Barnett: And he goes in this quote, I literally will still carry it. I'll so I'll carry it with me probably for the rest of my life. He goes. If you don't think you deserve to be here, I want you to know you deserve it. And like. What I learned in that one moment was that he could have easily thought that. He never said it to me. Is that. I mean, I was coming out of environment where like compliments in the football world and like. Feedback was It was given, but it was given with. Hey you're doing great but you can always improve like that type of environment which is awesome But you need both kinds. But I had never had someone that I didn't do something for. Give me some kind of praise or some kind of a compliment. Or something that I could carry with me of like, hey, man, you deserve to be here even if you don't think you do. So that was just a really. I would say eye-opening moment in terms of generosity outside of just like starting to work with people about their philanthropy. Was like, he gave me that before I even did anything for the University of Arkansas. RJ Caswell: So those are... Both great stories. Look at early stage Chick-fil-A on just... setting environments and how important they are and how to engage people and how much you can contribute in that system. Then going to... or college athletics which I'm sure we can do a whole other conversation on, but into the development world of athletics from a job perspective and having that... influence really quickly on validating who you are. Even before you write to your point, before you've even done anything or proved anything or are you worthy or can you do this job? He'd already identified it... how was that How did that shape then? your your work in development, in raising money. Zach Barnett: I think for me, when I heard that. I realized at that point. What you do in development that the How much can never replace like the relationship? And. Because like I had received something that I had never given him. And. That really framed like my eyes of development and in even in fundraising was I would go into every conversation like looking for how can I serve you, or even how can we brainstorm together? Of like what you want to do with your generosity. Like that's the question I ask the most of the time is, is what do you want to do with your generosity? And. A lot of people surprisingly, a lot of people do know but a lot of people don't know specifically what they want to do. So that's really the question that I start asking majority of the time now. I frame it this way a lot of the time is. I have a I have a daughter And. So we. So we really try to like reaffirm her, even at like a young age of like telling her she can absolutely do anything. And I'm sure every parent can relate to like this, this conversation. Like you we tell our kids they can do absolutely anything. They can be anything there. They're smart, they're beautiful, they're talented, they're humble, they're confident, all of these things. And then we tell them like, hey, you can do absolutely anything in the world. You can go change the world. But I often reflect back on like, when's the last time as an adult? that I thought that about myself at the age of 33. And. I feel like philanthropy generosity. Is the way you can still dream? is the way you can still have a greater purpose within your job, outside of your job. And. That's how it's really shaped my conversations like raising money. I look at it as. Hey, let's pull out a whiteboard. Let's talk about what you want to do with your generosity. That could be financially, not financially. And. Give you an opportunity as an adult to dream. Like dream what you want to do as a couple. Dream what you want to do as a business leader. Dream what you want to do as an individual. Because not a lot of us take that time to dream what you want to move forward what you're bent, what you're drawn to, what you're triggered by. And I often say this a lot in meetings is like don't just be inspired don't just be aware but actually activate. RJ Caswell: Action! Zach Barnett: We can Don't be inspired by. Don't be inspired just by like wanting people to have clean water. Don't just be aware that. Clean water needs to exist. But actually do something about it. Like that's the difference between someone who is inspired inspired lasts for about 30 seconds but an action of generosity could last for 12 years, like it did for me. And so. That's really my passion around even raising money. RJ Caswell: Well, so we're going to... come to a little bit of present day going. That's... seeing how that shapes your view of, honestly, people and relationships makes so much sense. And even how we got connected initially and from an initiative that you've you've started, Generous Humans, and we'll drop. Some of that in the in the show notes. And it's no surprise knowing you now how you even landed on that generosity theme. And you just said it, right? Generosity for you and how you're looking at it and expressing it personally, but also teaching it to others and walking with others. It's much more than money and I And I do think when people hear generosity, they think. Money. And it does include that how did What were those things that you go, you know, generosity is much more than that. And you've already given those descriptors, right? and My guess is it's working with people that have money. To actually help them see. They have more than just that from a generosity perspective. Zach Barnett: Yeah, I think it's... I think it's what I call like the generosity wheel. I've done a study for about 18 months around generosity. Around like. Today, we've commercialized generosity in so many different areas. I mean, we also we all probably can't go to a gas station or a grocery store. Without being asked to give like two or three dollars to something. Which is not bad. I'm not I'm not saying that's bad. But. The phrase I like to say is... You are worth more or you have more to give than you've even been asked to give. And like majority of the time is that we're being asked to give of our finances. And there's only so much of that to go around. For absolutely everyone. But. If we've exercised the ability to give our skill. Like, I have great I have a friend who's a woodworker. I have nothing to do with woods or with woodworking and tools like you asked me to go in a wood shop I would have no idea where to start You ask me to connect you with people. Like. I have a network of people who I love connecting people with and making introductions but like I don't have a skill where I could go repair something in somebody's house or I have a I have also a friend of mine who's like a wealth advisor. And. I'm not a wealth advisor. I work with people like that. But like he has the skill of managing finances. Okay, well, how can you leverage that for people who don't? Who might not can afford it. Who? Can you can you know maybe I asked him I was like he lives in Nashville I was like, hey, could you go into inner city Nashville? and teach high school kids on how to manage $100? Like. That. And it could be for free. Like that's the cool part about it is like most of the things that matter and most of the things that are most impactful to people are the thing that is free. RJ Caswell: And you don't think of that when you think generosity, right? You're it's at all. I like that Zach Barnett: And so. So we walk through. The money part, which is important, like everybody has that no matter how much it is we don't really ever talk about how much we just talk about like where you're allocating it Because I say this all the time, if you're... If you always look at... how much you have to give, most of us will never start. Because is that enough syndrome out there? Of like oh do I have enough in my retirement do I have enough for my kids college? Do I have enough in the high yield savings account? Do I have enough in the stock market? all of those things that you just run this audit of like oh do I have enough like we're just humans at the end of the day like we're Trying to grab like our flesh nature is trying to grab so we try so we walk through all the different things that come with money. Which is a big part of it. But then we also walk through like your values... Like what do you value as a human being? What do you value as a couple? And we actually ask the couple, husband and wife, to do this separately where You come with your five values. She comes with their five values if you're if you're together. And we actually talk about them together. Number one and number two are majority of the time the same. Number three, four, five gets a little different. But so it's a conversation starter about like, what do we value? In our home when it comes to our generosity. So we walk through that. We walk through like season of life, which is. Vastly different for a lot of people. Cause everybody's in a different season and seasons last for. Six months, three years, 10 years. All those different things. So that even matters. And then we talk about like causes which is really interesting. I give this, I give this example a lot. Like when I worked in higher education, people were like, Oh, I'm very passionate about higher ed. And or I'm very passionate about education, they would use that like broadly. And. And I said, OK, well, tell me specifically what you're passionate about. They're like, well, I'm just passionate about education. I was like are you passionate about educating. A freshman college student who's a first year first-generation college student who's never been to college before. Or are you passionate about? A inner city youth Who doesn't have a home who might be in foster care who needs to be educated on like all fronts. Both education, two vastly different things. RJ Caswell: Very different. Zach Barnett: So we narrow it down and a lot of that actually is pulled from people's stories. So like people will dig into their backgrounds. Don't really figure out, oh, man, I was given this over time or I was given that over time. Oh, now I understand why I care about this so much. So, yeah, we walk through all of that stuff with Generous Humans. RJ Caswell: Well, people need to know about that because I think... You actually help people uncover. Generosity that one might already be happening or what it could look like, helping them see a preferred future that in my mind, and I believe this, I think you would as well, is life-giving. Right It's a very different posture and perspective on what we have and how we can use it. I think it might have been for the show, before I even hit record, you were talking about what we have in our hands, and not necessarily physically, but like... Could be physically, but like what we have, how we're made, how God's wired us, how do we use that? for others. Zach Barnett: Yeah, I use this garage example. I actually took a picture of my garage the other day. It was maybe embarrassingly. Disorganized, as most of us might say. Depending upon what type of person we are. And I use this example. Is that. I don't I think it's I think it's a I would say not the quite right perspective to think we do all of the spokes all the time. I think when you look at your garage, like we all have, some of us might have lawnmowers. Some of us might have freezers some of us might have exercise equipment some of us have Christmas decorations or Thanksgiving like We're big into that, like decorating at our house. But like. Some of those things you use once a week. Some of those things you use once a year. Some of those things, like me, I ask myself all the time, why do I still have this? Sitting in my garage but I've used it once every three years. But it's knowing when to pull out like the lawnmower and go cut your grass. It's knowing when to pull out the Christmas decorations because it's that time of the year. Like I look at exercising moving towards people and connecting with people that way is like, you're not going to use everything every day. But you also have to know what you have at the same time And a lot of us, I don't think people have this like desire to not be Moving towards people. I think it's the A lot of the times we don't do and take inventory of what we have been given. And then therefore we don't know how to use it when the opportunity is right in front of us. RJ Caswell: Well said. Well said. Zach Barnett: I tell people to. Like take a picture of your garage. That should give you a good example of like how you can look at the wheel. RJ Caswell: Well, so that's actually a very awkward segue for me to start landing the plane here as we come to a close. But I am going to use it. I'm going to use a segue here about taking inventory. Zach Barnett: Do it. RJ Caswell: Because we're going to imagine. Zach, for a second that you have a... random night at home by yourself, which is probably very rare for you. Zach Barnett: It's very rare RJ Caswell: Very rare. Right. And so you're taking inventory in your kitchen and you realize there is absolutely no food at all So I know you live in Greenville, South Carolina, a great place to live and grow a family. And so you go to the grocery store. I grew up in that area, not in Greenville, but in the upstate of South Carolina. It used to be BI-LO, and BI-LO doesn't exist anymore. So you're probably heading to Ingles. Or maybe Publix... A few of those. Zach Barnett: Publix is right around the corner. I go there often. RJ Caswell: Publix. All right, so there you go. You're heading to Publix because you have a rare night at home. You've taken inventory and there's nothing there other than milk. So you know you got milk at home. So you go to Publix. And you head to the cereal aisle because you want something quick and easy. You don't want to have to cook anything and you're by yourself. What cereal? This is an important question. What cereal? Are you picking? for dinner. Zach Barnett: For me... You're going to hate this answer because it's very. Very, very just plain. I actually really like Raisin Bran, but... And I know that's like very old school cereal. Raisin Bran but it has to have like some kind of fruit in it has to have like strawberries or bananas or something like that and it cannot just be plain with milk I would not eat it that way. But that is my, I would say, cereal of choice. I just I just for some reason love that cereal. RJ Caswell: There you go. That's the first Raisin Bran. I almost said I was going to agree with you. The only reason I hesitated is I thought you were going to say Raisin Bran Crunch because Raisin Bran Crunch is on my top five list, actually. Zach Barnett: It's actually really good. I agree with that. RJ Caswell: Yes. So there you have it. So Raisin Bran with fruit. Cereal for Dinner. That's Zach's choice. Zach, man, thanks for being on the show I really appreciate it Zach Barnett: Awesome. Thank you, RJ. Appreciate it. Appreciate being on the show. And this was awesome.