Struggling with dyslexia and watching his parents divorce, Gary Grant is no stranger to adversity. From a young age, he grew up with very little in worldly terms. And it drove him to work hard and make as much money as he could. That is until God stepped in and captivated his heart. Today, Gary is the CEO of The Entertainer, a massive toy company in the UK. He and his business are dedicated to living generously and impacting the lives of the community around them. To date, they have donated more than $10 million to charity, provided millions of meals to kids in need, and much more.

Watch these Teaching Moments from Gary Grant

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I'm Rusty our guest today is Gary Grant. Gary is the CEO of the Entertainer, a massive chain of toy shops in the United Kingdom. Gary Storey is a beautiful picture of how the gospel changes everything. Having grown up with very little in worldly terms, overcoming dyslexia and his parents divorce, Gary is no stranger to adversity. From a young age, he was committed to working hard entrepreneurially to make as much money as he could. That is until God stepped in, or as he says he bumped into Jesus and captivated his heart. Today, Gary and his businesses are dedicated to living generously and impacting the lives of the communities around them. To date, they've given over $10 million to charity, help provide over six million meals to kids in need and so much more. William and I had a blast talking to Gary, and we hope you enjoy it, too. Welcome back, everybody, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, William, we're missing somebody today, I can't replace who it is, but we're missing somebody today.

William Norvell: It's it's someone that loves lacrosse. I don't know who it is, but that person loves the cross a lot.

Rusty Rueff: He does love the cross. He does all the cross. He loves the cross. So much that as we're recording this right now, he is out with faith driven entrepreneurs on the other side of where we are in the United States. I saw something on Facebook, he said. He is in Transylvania,

William Norvell: he's in Transylvania trip to Romania. I think he's heading to Switzerland at the end of this trip. But Henry is doing an amazing Faith Driven Entrepreneur tour, trying to spread the message after the conference here, right to some of the watch parties that people attended and get to see a live version of the show a little bit.

Rusty Rueff: Well, we're going to do our best today to carry on without him, but our prayers of safe travel and mercies are with our brother, Henry, as he's out on the road today. We are very, very fortunate to have Gary Grant in the house with us today. When I first saw it, I said, Is it Cary Grant? No, it's Gary Grant. Gary Grant is in the house with us today. And you know, we've had a lot of different retailers on the podcast. But William, I think this is the first time we've had somebody who retails toys.

William Norvell: Hundred percent. And that means it's the most exciting retailer for people that are still acting like their child like myself.

Rusty Rueff: Exactly. I mean, what else brings more joy than to watch a child open up toys and play with toys? I can't wait to have Gary just, you know, take us down that path.

William Norvell: I've got that coming up tonight, actually. Funny enough, I have a three year old and a one year old, and my brother lives in Alabama, which I'm in California. So what he loves doing every now and then is sending them something from him, and then I face time him and he gets to watch them open up a gift from their uncle. And it is the best time. It is the best time he has to see their pure joy and excitement and in ways of gifts. They've been talking about that maybe my wife and I didn't want to give them because they've got too many, but an uncle can always give. And it's amazing.

Rusty Rueff: That's right. That's right. Well, let's welcome in, Gary. Gary, thanks for being on the podcast with us today. We are excited to hear your story and the stories of how God is leading you. And you know, we know that our listeners, they jump in here and they just hear a name and a voice. But what they really love is to hear the journey of our guests and where our guests have come from, where they are right now in their life and where they see God is placing them in the future. So welcome to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast and we would love to hear your story of your journey.

Gary Grant: Thank you. It's been great to join you today. So the years are taking bye and I'm 63 and I became a Christian when I was 31, and I couldn't understand when I heard this preacher. I got invited to a men's breakfast. My wife bought me a ticket for her local church men's breakfast, and I sat there at 31 and I listen to this preacher and I thought, Why didn't anybody tell me? And what I meant by that was I did three religious studies at school, and it was a bit like a history lesson. I learned the stories. This guy, Jesus turning water into wine and hearing the lepers and feeding the 5000. But they weren't a reality. They were a distance. They were just stories that we had to learn because we had to do our Ian and I did geography, and I learned that I did history and I learned that. But this guy talked about relationship and I thought, Well, what do we mean about relationship? You know, this guy died on the cross and God's still up there in heaven somewhere. And he explained that actually, God knew me by name, personally, by name, and he cared about every aspect of my life. And it was living in untrue and real today, and that was by the Holy Spirit. And when I was at school, we didn't have Holy Spirit. We had Holy Ghost. And I just, well, what is this Holy Spirit thing and and how will I know if all this is true? And I left that breakfast deeply challenged, but it was a Saturday morning and I'm a toy retailer in the UK and I needed to get back to work to take more money because money was my goal. And I pondered about this preacher all day. I'm known by name unloved and got interest in every aspect of my life. So I made a decision the following day on the Sunday that I've gone. Find this preacher and I'm based in a place called Amish. I'm about forty five minutes drive from London. And he came from a place called Chorley Wood, nearly 45 minutes from London, six miles away. So I felt I'm going to go and find him. I drove to Chorley Red in the evening and parked up in the church car park and bowed in. And it's got a very long story short, because we've limited for time, but I just sat at the back of this church and I couldn't understand why the church was full of young people. I thought churches were full of old people, weak people and good people, and I wasn't old, good or weak. And I've been used to church at school and stuff that was freezing cold in a clunky organ that played music at the front. There's nothing wrong with an organ, but it just never resonated with me. And this character had a band on the guitarist and all the words were up on the screen and there was an element of joyful ness about this. And that's what I think it dawned on me. There was a difference between singing hymns and worshiping, and a lady jumps up the front a church just before the set was about to start. She said We've got three pictures now. As you can appreciate, as a non-Christian, I'm sitting, I'm in church and the lady is talking about the cinema. I have no idea what she was talking about, but the first one was of a smooth sailing boat on the high seas with no engine and could only go in the direction that the wind and the tide will take it. And the second picture was of a big adjustable monkey wrench and nuts and bolts and springs, and something wanting to be released on the third picture was a whole row of railway arches completely blacked out and somebody inside too frightened to come out.

Rusty Rueff: Gary, when you say pictures, are you saying she had a vision?

Gary Grant: Yeah. So they had prayed about the service before the service started, and these were three pictures that are dropped into their minds, like three visions. OK, now when I first went to church, I found a seat away from everybody else at the back. Unfortunately, between that time of arriving and this stuff is starting now, the church is full up. I've got people in front of me, behind me, not behind me, but next to me. And he said, those three pictures I sweet visions not just burst out crying. And I spent two hours in church crying. And I've got no idea of what it was all about, but I experienced a peace beyond anything I'd ever experienced. It was like if that service had gone on to five o'clock in the morning, it would not have mattered. It was just a wonderful place to be. And I left the church that night, just one in one Earth. That happened, but I knew God was real. I absolutely knew God had hit me that night and it was true. And that's the beginning of the story, really. And it's impacted most aspects of my life, whether it be family, whether it be business, my relationship with my wife, children, grandchildren. It's been a remarkable 30 odd years.

Rusty Rueff: Hmm. Thank you for sharing that. There was a Gary before that moment, right in you were you were retailing at that point and actually give our listeners an understanding of your toy retailer and the size and scope and how you kind of got it to where it is.

Gary Grant: You're absolutely right. There was a Gary before and the Gary before was all about Gary and was all about making money. And there weren't very many boundaries to making money. It didn't matter how I earn as long as I earned it. I'm at that stage. I've been in business for 10 years and I was just in the process of opening a third shop today. So this is 30 years later. The business has one hundred and seventy five shops in the UK. We sell about 10 per cent of all the toys sold in the UK. We have active websites, whether it be the entertainer, whether it be the Toy Shop dot com, whether it be Early Learning Center, which is the brand that we purchased. We have 35 shops in Spain. We have about 250 international franchise partners. The trade is the only learning center, all the entertainer around the world. So quite remarkable things have happened from a guy who left school with one eye level, which was I happened to be in math so we can have a mass test if you like. I don't need a calculator, but don't bet your house on it. And also, I think the other thing that was a real challenge for me is that I'm dyslexic, not with numbers. Numbers make absolute sense. I can see patterns in numbers. But as for trying to work out the sounds of letters and put letters in a row, that is a real challenge. So even my spell check can't spell my checking because honestly, I might start words with complete the wrong letter. And it was only just a few years ago that I found on my iPad, though I've got a little microphone along the bottom, and if I speak into it spells words for me. So I don't have to ring my wife and have to spell a word when I'm trying to send an email.

Rusty Rueff: That's great. So the toy business, was this something you stumbled into or did you know you were going to be in the toy business?

Gary Grant: No, it was just one of those things. I left school at 16 with my 100 level. I went to work in Amersham and that bicycle shop that I'd worked out as a junior when I was at school with part time. I worked through the first skateboard boom in the UK. When Tony Hawk boards first arrived in the UK in the mid-seventies and this business was phenomenal business, they queued up day and night to buy skateboards, starting with an American coyote skateboard in the back in 74 75, five fifteen pounds and that similar skateboard today is ten pounds, so there's been no inflation in skateboards. But, you know, they were buying their Tony Hawk, their flexi board decks, their ISIS trucks, their gullwing trucks, the tractor trucks, the Krypton. It wheels all the best components for American components. And back in nineteen seventy five, if Kitty sat down, chose their wheels, bearings, truck sticks, grip tape and all the bits and bobs, they were spending 125 pounds on a complete skateboard. It's staggering to think that nearly 40 years ago, the people have that much money to spend on the skateboard. It was just, but it wasn't the odd person. There was the queue of people choosing what they want is so you could put them together for them. That craze finished in Christmas 1978 in the UK. It literally just collapsed. The market just disappeared. I spent about a year or so buying and selling skateboards on the side from my full time job at the bike shop because I knew the industry, I knew the people that resulted in eventually me being fired from my job because conflict of interest really, you know, I was getting phone calls at work because listeners might not realize. But back in the late seventies, there was one thing called a telephone and it had to be plugged in the wall. Or there was something called a letter. You wrote it by hand, or there was something called a telegram, but it was the only way of communicating. But to think, now we've got instant tanks, we've got mobile phones. So if people wanted to contact me, then, particularly during the working day, they rang me at work. And in the end, my boss got fed up with that and I lost my job.

Rusty Rueff: So the bicycle shop got tired of, Hey, can I talk to the skateboard guy?

Gary Grant: Exactly. So the little bit of money that I've made on buying and selling these skateboards over the year or so, we invested that money in buying a small rundown toy shop in Amersham, in Buckinghamshire, in the UK. The year before we bought the store, it took £30000, which that's what about 50000 US dollars back in 1981, the first year we have it £100000 $140000. And today, to put into context, we turn over about 250 million pounds, which in dollars is about 350 million US dollars. So we're not a big multinational company by any means. But on the other hand, the guy with the one 000 level and an awful lot of fantastic people around him have managed to achieve the impossible. And of course, God's had a big hand in that as

Rusty Rueff: well and still selling skateboards. I assume skateboards. Absolutely. And so be honest with us now. Did you ever track there in the Olympics this year? Yeah, they were. They were. It was pretty fun to watch. Did you ever try to ride them?

Gary Grant: My oldest son. He's got the bruises on his arms and the gouges on his arm to prove it. And his six year old son, my grandson, he's pretty nifty on a skateboard, too.

Rusty Rueff: It's great. So a couple of times you've mentioned that your job was to make money and you had to get back to making money and you had to make money. Where did that come from in you? Where was that set?

Gary Grant: Well, it was. I think it came back to a case of survival, really. My parents were divorced when I was three and my mum moved to this place in Buckinghamshire. We used to live in Wembley and outskirts of London. You probably know it for the football stadium and started a new life and we had absolutely no money. Now I was only three, but we had no money when I was five or six or seven or eight. And therefore, if you wanted to buy something, you had to go and earn it or steal it. So I remember I was coming up to there was a Christmas just after I was seven and I used to come by the bread from the bread shop on a Saturday for my mum in the village, and I saw this box of biscuits in the bread shop and it was 10 shillings in you. Wow, this is 50 English pence, about half a pound. And I thought, how? How can I buy that box of biscuits for my mum? So I walked down the road in our area. There are roads with small houses and there were roads with big houses. So even at seven, I I don't know why, but I thought maybe the roads with big houses had more money to pay me than the road with small houses and I. I knocked on this farm door and said, You know, have you got the jobs? I can do it. I want to earn ten shillings and basically over the period of a month, I went there every Saturday morning for about an hour and I just swept up leaves. I collected some eggs from the chicken. The lady just gave me, I think, just random jobs do just to keep me busy. But when I finished that after an hour or so, I used to go in the kitchen and there on the kitchen table was a cake, a glass of something to drink on the half a crown and a half a crown was two and six. And in modern world that's twelve and a half pound. Eight of those made a pound. So I had to work for four weeks to earn ten shillings. And actually, it wasn't ten shillings. I want the tin of biscuits was ten shillings and sixpence, so tensioning wasn't quite enough. So that's when I went into the shop and said, Look, I really want to buy that box of biscuits, but I've only got 10 shillings and they gave me a six p discount. And that's when I realized everything in life was up for negotiation. So that's when I realized, actually, if you worked hard, you could earn money because it wasn't as what I did wasn't skillful, but it was just hard work. And then, as I grew up, as a kid, I had an evening paper, round of morning paper round. I worked on a milk float. I was in the scouts locally, so I my arquilla from cubs. She had a sweet shop. I worked in there and in those days, even beer bottles in the UK there was like a deposit on them. So you used when you bought them, you paid something to encourage you to take them back, to get your money back on the bottle. So I used to go round collecting old beer bottles and taken the back to the off license. I just found ways of making money because that was my only way of surviving because if I wanted to a bicycle, if I wanted some money for my holiday, that was my only way of getting it. So that's I guess, I grew up from the need of having to own something because there was no other way of getting it.

William Norvell: That's really good. And, you know, just probably things that a lot of our entrepreneurs. So that's how, you know, you end up getting started and then you, you know, you grow and then you do this and you do that and then you see this and then you're comfortable, right? You're comfortable taking something from nothing, which a lot of people aren't right. They haven't done that before. And I want to shift gears a little bit and kind of go to. I know you've thought deeply about how your business can impact culture and specifically in the toy business and kind of what you sell and how you sell it and what you market and what you don't market. And all of those things. But maybe broadly, how you think about business can impact culture and then maybe narrowly how you think your business can impact culture.

Gary Grant: So back to the entrepreneur bid and what makes an entrepreneur because I've often thought about that, and I think it's the way somebody can look at an opportunity, evaluate it in their mind. And then I think an entrepreneur has got a slightly higher risk threshold to step out and do something. And successful entrepreneurs, I think, have that high risk threshold. But when they're evaluating that risk, somehow they can get more right than wrong. But back to the question that you actually asked, it was that we came back in the early May 1991 after my experience of bumping into Jesus, and six weeks later, I I had lunch with a local Christian accountant and my opening words were, I don't think I can carry on being in business and be a Christian. They don't fit together. And over lunch, David explained to me, that may be the way that I was running my business and being a Christian didn't fit together. And in his words, I need to smarten up my act. And this has transpired in three ways. Firstly, in the area of honesty, because when you've lived with, I don't care how I make money, it's all about making money. Corners are cut. Honesty is compromised because the end goal is just more so. In 1981, the business didn't have a computer because I didn't know whether I'd be clever enough to fiddle it, and I realized that I just had to run this business in a transparent, honest way. And what I would say today, and most of your listeners, I'm sure they don't need to be told this because they just know this is in them. But that's the honesty pays. We need to do things in an honest way. And certainly from a witness perspective, and I am my head is up as a Christian. I'm known for my Christian values. It's really important to what I do. I do well and I do honestly all of the time. The next challenge was around the products that I sell, and I just need to tell you quickly about a lady who came into my toy shop in October of 1990. So this is six months before I become a Christian, and she asked for me and I go out and I thought, I know what is happening. I know what she's about to say. And she did. She said, Gary, I've come to talk to you about your window. And my response to it was, Do you normally write to me? About my window, because every year somebody wrote to me about my window in October. Now this notion I've never written to you, but I really want to talk to you about your window. Well, what's the problem with it? She said. We've got a witch in the window. You've got devils, folks, than when you've got Mars. You've got blood, you've got hairy hands, she said. You're encouraging children to play with darkness. And I said, I don't get it. It's just good fun. What on earth are you talking about? And I took her through the concept of being in business, buying things and selling things and making a profit. And she then sold BAM is something that, you know, this lady had such confidence. She said to me, Gary, if you stop selling Halloween, the Lord will replace your lost business in other ways. And I laughed at her. I thought she was completely bonkers, but I remember what she said. Six months later, I'm a Christian, and I thought, Gary, what are you doing about Halloween? Why would you want to be encouraging children to play with darkness? And I then spoke to a preacher and the evangelist that many of you might know a guy called John. And I said, John, how will I know if something is really evil that I shouldn't stop it? And he gave me a verse that I can't remember where it is, but the verse said, avoid that the evil appears to be evil so we can debate whether something is evil. But if on the face of it, it appears to be evil. We are advised to avoid it. So I made a decision that day that I was going to stop selling Halloween, but I had no idea what the outcome might be. And October 1991, the first October of me being a Christian and not stocking Halloween, our increase in turnover was the biggest monthly increase with ever experience with our three shops. Since our business had started, it was exponential and that's when I realized actually, I can trust God with even the money. Even the money doesn't just know me by name. He doesn't love me unconditionally, not for what I could be. He just loves me as I am, but wants me to be different in some cases. But I can even trust him with the cash. And for me, that was a complete turning point. And John actually gave me I don't know whether we're being videoed, but here is a plot where John actually sent me a verse for me to remember, which has been my guiding verse. And it's one Samuel 230 those who honor me. I will honor and I can testify that this is absolutely true. Provided your motive is right, because if I do what I do, because I want God to do something for me, it falls on its face. If I do what I do because a relationship with Jesus, those are on me, I will honor absolutely works. So the question you asked is How can we change society? I don't know that I've necessarily gone out with a purpose to change society. I've gone out to develop a business that I can be proud of. That is financially sound. And I remember when I didn't stock a certain toy. One of my senior members of staff times said, Gary, we're going to lose sales. And another senior member of staff said we've got to work within the guidelines that Gary is setting and actually forget the guidelines that Gary is setting. I'm trying to work within the guidelines. The Lord is challenging me to work within, and maybe that might be changing society. Maybe it isn't, but I think an awful lot of people know what I do. Do I know what I don't do?

William Norvell: Well, that's really good. That's really good. And I want to dove into the nuance of that a little bit because we were talking about this right before we started the podcast and make sure we get to this because Halloween is one thing. But I think you also decided not to stock Harry Potter, which hurts me. But I want to discuss that because and I don't want to talk about the theology of Harry Potter because that's probably a 10 part podcast and somebody has probably already done that. But I find just incredible things in that series, and I see Jesus sort of shining through it. However, I know other people don't. Right? And it sounds like you made a decision not to carry that. And I would imagine in the U.K., it's probably a bigger deal than the U.S. at some level. I'd love to hear a couple of things. One, how you made that decision into how you would counsel other people thinking about similar gray area decisions? Or maybe you don't think it is great. Let me answer first, but I had a from one time tell me that, you know, a lot of people want to think that Jesus laid out how to live in the black and the light. But if you actually read the scripture carefully, it's an instruction on how to live in the gray. And I've thought through that over time. But. I don't know how you respond to any of that, but a lot the questions

Gary Grant: so will use the concept of Harry Potter, but it's the concept of everything that I have over the years chosen not to stock. I think we need as Christians to be open to what the Holy Spirit is saying. You can read up on all sorts of things, but I am not a theologian. I couldn't debate the rights or wrongs of Harry Potter from a Christian perspective. That is absolutely missing the point. The point is, Harry Potter was about to be launched in toy form. The book have been released. I'm dyslexic, so I don't race. I've never read the book, but I'd heard of things like levitating other bits and bobs, and that just challenged my spirit. So I remember when. Well, it's just probably 25 years ago, when the first book was released, the toys came out by Mattel, probably the second or largest biggest toy company in the world. They ran me a cigaret. Can we bring the Harry Potter toys for you to look at like a sort of a preview? And I said yes, by all means. And I thought, But what if this is me? Think I'm speaking it out now? But I thought. But what if I don't know what? It doesn't tell me goodbye? Well, I mean, so I made this appointment for relatively early in the morning months. My wife could sign up having taken our children to school. So I'm sitting in my office and this guy's getting the things out the bag. And I actually got them out of the bag. I just looked at the boxes and I just knew in my spirit, I knew. I knew. I knew I didn't need a second opinion. I just knew that I shouldn't be stuck in Harry Potter. Now, that decision was a personal response from me to the Lord. The Holy Spirit had challenged me about Harry Potter. Now what God has never told me to do is to be a campaigner for the things that I think God has said to me. So I chose not to stop Harry Potter because that's what I thought the Lord was saying to me. My job was not to stand on a soapbox and tell you or any of your friends you shouldn't be reading the books. You should burn the books. You shouldn't be buying the toys. It's parental guidance that's required whatever you buy for your children, for your grandchildren. And whereas you probably can't understand why I didn't stop them, I didn't stop them because that's what I thought, the Lord said. And therefore, one day God might send me Gary. I don't know why you didn't stop Harry Potter. You misunderstood me. I did not say that to you. But you know you have been honorable. I know your motive. You stopped it because that's what your spirit said to you. Now I'm hoping I heard him right because I've ditched many, many tens of millions of dollars worth of sales backyard and can those that me, I will honor. So that was Harry Potter. Then there was another one. Not the current trolls. It's the backdrop. The original trolls were creatures of funny faces, the multicolored hair, not the latest fun trolls movie the children are watching. And the guy brought these trolls into my office and put them up on my desk. My spirit said, no trolls. And I said, Gee, I'm really sorry, but no, I'm not going to stop trolls. Then I did the worst thing I could do. I asked around the church, What do you think about trolls? Because God had spoken to me. He hadn't spoken to all these other people. So I got even my pastor, said, Gary, there's nothing wrong with trolls. And then somebody else said, I wouldn't stop them. So I left that day thinking, Well, maybe I didn't get it right. So I got the guy back. He drove 50 miles back that next week. He put the trolls back on my desk and gave me an A4 sheet of paper with rows and rows and rows of all the pictures of all the different trolls. And they came from Denmark. So there wasn't a lot of English on this sheet, and I turned over the page more rows and rows and rows and rows of trolls, and the words in the middle of the page said creatures with mystical, magical powers of good luck. Also, I know you've come back. I know I've invited you back. I'm really sorry. I'm still not going to stop trolls. In other words. I felt I knew what the Lord wants you to start with. I asked for a second opinion and were always come to test things, and I get all of that. But actually, it wasn't about whether trolls were right or wrong. It was about faithfulness. If God was saying to me, Don't stop them, they don't stop them, it's not for me to get to get a second opinion on it. So I'm the. Those on me, I will honor it's a back alley quickly back to Harry Potter, because if any of your listeners think that God is a big headmaster with a big stick in the corner, I just want to tell you he's got a sense of humor because the year that Harry Potter was launched, it was Toy of the Year and I happened to be a chairman of the Toy Retailers Association that year. So the Big Big Picture, posh dinner in London, 200 people there. I'm giving out the awards. The Toy of the year was for Harry Potter. Lego bless them. Built a life-size Harry. So all of the photographs of the awards presentation of that particular year were Harry and Gary giving out certificates on the stage. The industry thought it was hilarious, and actually, I thought, Yeah, Lord, you're having a bit of a smile. But you know, I felt right in myself. I didn't feel that I've made the wrong decision that I need to change course.

Rusty Rueff: It's an A. It's an amazing story, isn't it, William? I mean, it is like, you know, because this conversation is and I think William and I were texting as you were talking because this is just it is a crucial conversation for entrepreneurs right to trust in your own, you know, listening and speaking of the Holy Spirit. And then listen. And I think you know, what you said is fantastic because we must surround ourselves with wise advisors and wise counsel. But at the end of the day, God speaks to us, right? And he speaks to us. And that's the personal relationship that we have. He speaks to us and God speaks to you differently than he does William. Then to me, and does it make one right and one wrong? It only means it's what God wanted for you or for us. So I think it's awesome

William Norvell: and I love the faith like, that's our culture, right? Is faithfulness and what I hear when I hear you talk, you know, and at some level, I don't know if you would say this or not, but what I hear is you may not know what it was for. Right, right. Like, God spoke that to you. And maybe it actually may or may not have been about the theology of Harry. It may have been about some other toy getting space that change some child's life. But all you know is you were called to something and you needed to be faithful to that calling. Right? And what I don't hear you say is like, Oh, and therefore I know Harry Potter's terrible and nobody should ever watch it, and no Christian should watch it. And I think that's missed in the evangelical conversation so often, and I'll I'll speak for western U.S. evangelical. If I heard it from God, then everybody else should have heard the exact same thing, and I need to go on the rooftop and tell everyone they're wrong because I heard this thing and I hear that a lot, and I recently was told something from someone as I was looking at a project, and he said the most winsome thing to me I've ever heard, you know, he said, Look, William, that's not the way I would do it. I don't think that's actually the right way to do it. However, it's not my assignment, it's you. And if you decide to do it that way, I will do everything I can to support you. Yeah. And I never heard that from someone who disagreed with me vehemently before. And I just heard that essence of what you're talking about. And it's just it's just beautiful, and it's how we come together as a body in unity and not separate apart.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, it's great. So I want to segue to another part of your life that we know is important, and that's generosity and philanthropy. And we know you're extraordinarily generous. And I would like you to talk a little bit about that, how you kind of came to that and then maybe stay on this same thread about, you know, how does God speak to you about where to be generous and where maybe sometimes not to?

Gary Grant: Okay. So like most decisions in life, if you're married, it's probably your wife that puts you on course. So I've been a Christian for about three or six months, and I remember saying to me, Gary, when are we going to start tithing? And I said, What is it? He said it's we need to give 10 percent of our income to the church and to charities. And I didn't even really think about it. I just said, You've got to be joking. We aren't too much to do that. And then, like most things, when you get a prompt, you end up doing it. So a couple of weeks later, we get tithing, and I have to say, God doesn't want your money. I think a lot of non-Christians think the old the church wants is our money. Actually, God doesn't want that money at all. If you don't want to give you money to the Lord, just don't give you money. Still, but I still believe in Jesus. Just go to church, just get saved. But at the end of the day, I think that if you use the Christian faith as a bit of thinking makes, you actually don't get out of it the full effect of being a Christian. And the reason I say that is the minute we started tithing, we found actually it was really exciting. We just got involved with so many different things. And I would say, there's no I can't give God. The more you give away, the more you get. I mean, it's the most ridiculous thing. This isn't the prosperity gospel. I'm not saying that I don't give to get. Because again, it comes back to motive, but we just started giving and giving and giving. And honestly, we've just gotten what we ended up. Some very early on found with a UK charity called The Toybox, Typekit was working with street children in Guatemala. And the thing is with money, I'm not sure any of us want on that grave. We built the biggest business, died with the biggest bank account because guess what? En route, you could go skint absolutely fast and lose everything. But what I do know is that when you change the child's life and bearing in mind as a dad, as a grandfather working in the toy trade, if I support most things, they don't predominantly family and children focused. If you change a child's life, you can't take it back off them. That life is changed. And I remember one kid in Guatemala, he grew up on the streets. He got a foot infection and he has like an elephant's foot. I think that's what they might have called. I don't think I'm speaking the wrong language on this and that loud the group worked with, work with, worked with. He got to know Jesus. And in playing football on the streets, he fell under a bus and died. Now it doesn't matter how much money we put into Guatemala. You can't take that slave life of that child. And I think that's the same the world over and move it on to generosity. Generosity can be expressed in many ways, and I've learned a lot from the generous journey, folks and from down on the team, and they provoked men. Challenge me on all of those great things. But generosity, if I said to many people, I want you to be generous. Tell me what just popped into your mind. They would say, you want my money, and I would say that's a part of the story, but you've just retired. What did you do for a living? Oh, I was an accountant. I was a lawyer. I was a schoolteacher. So you've got skills and talents in you. Who are you going to pass the baton on to? Would you give a kidney? You know, whatever age or even a young person that's starting to rebel? Would you give them an hour of your time a week, two hours a month? That's generosity with your time and your skills and your talents. And we've got a business, have got lorries and warehouses and done other things. Those of us have different assets, which we can use to be generous with. It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to cost us physical money. It's a will to do it. So just a couple of examples are will to do it. We tie 10 per cent of our company profits. I want my staff to be generous and therefore we offer a payroll giving scheme, a monthly payroll giving scheme and to encourage them, bribe them if you want. It doesn't really matter. Encourage them wherever they give every month to a charity of their choice. We will match nearly 50 per cent of my staff give monthly to a charity of their choice through that pay, so the company gives the staff gifts. And then there was a new concept came out about eight years ago called pennies. And you have a similar thing in the US where when you go into a shop, you buy what you wanted to buy and say comes a £9 75. You have the ability to round up to the nearest pound and you ran up to the nearest dollar. And this was a willingness to say yes, cost me nothing but using our infrastructure as it was to do good to encourage and inspire generosity. And at an average of about 40 pence per donation, we raised a million pounds a year in what's called micro donations. It's small amounts of money, but where if you stop somebody outside the shop said, Did you give two pennies? And they say yes, and you then say, how much was it? They say, I don't know because it just rounded up to the pound, but they just said yes, million pounds a year. It's cost me virtually nothing, but it was a willingness to use what I have to make a difference. And then one last story on that. So during the UK, we had our big lock down last year, may through to June. All our shops were closed. We were facing into the biggest financial crisis, the busiest that we've ever faced in 40 years. I actually thought by the end of May we were going to go bust. I thought, This is it. We're going to run out of money. We've got no income apart from the web income. We've got wages to pay. 2000 people are being paid every month. And luckily, the government in the UK stepped in with something called furlough money, which they basically gave us the money to give to our employees. And they gave us some reduction in our local taxes called rates. And that got us through. And we're back on our feet and nobody lost their jobs. And but it was a nightmare to live through. And in the midst of all of that, one of the biggest food banks in the UK is the Christian food bank called the Trussell Trust, and the lady rang me. Gary, we've got a major problem, the demand on the food banks is off the clock. We don't have infrastructure. We're being offered big volumes of food by key food retailer, but we just can't get it to where it's going to be. And for 10 weeks, we converted our warehouse into receiving throw politics of stock of food a week. We reebok's it into food bank size volumes and put it on. Our lorries took it out the hubs and we handled nearly eight 10 million meals worth of food in 10 weeks. Now, the actual cost was zero because in the end, somebody else stepped in and covered the cost of the labor and the diesel in our lorries. But that wasn't what was happening to start with, but it felt like we're in the midst of literally in meltdown. But there were people that had no food. I couldn't do nothing. So it was an almost an irresponsible step to have taken. And in the end, no, it wasn't God given the fleece to me. But in the end, somebody stepped in and finance what actually I couldn't afford to finance. But we still had all of our structure, all of our people, all the all the things to do it. So that's how I think I would describe generosity is, yes, please be generous with your money. You know, if God's made you successful as entrepreneurs, we are the wealth creators. You know, whatever percentage you think God is saying do something with notbeen perspective, but you can meet the Bible and it gives you a really good stop. In the end, it's what your heart wants to do. Give your money away, research properly first and give it to what you know is, well, invested money. So if you want to give to a charity who has got 12 months worth of reserves in the bank, then that probably isn't going to make very much of a difference very quickly in people's lives. So research what you're giving to also go with your spirit, how you see something. Use your skills and talents to pass the baton on to somebody else or to the younger generation to give them the opportunity in life, to thrive and and to succeed. And if you've got any facilities that you think you can use to benefit somebody else, then use those as well. Three different areas, but they're all an expression of generosity.

William Norvell: I what an amazing overview and a great place to leave our entrepreneurs. And unfortunately, we have to come to the close of this episode on that. But what a better place to close. I can't think of one on generosity and trying to figure out what that means to each of us, because I think the one thing we probably agree on is God calls us to be generous, right? And I heard a great quote from Tim Keller one time, he said. I think it's in one of the generous giving videos. He said, You know, I've been a pastor for 35 years and I've never had someone come to me and say, You know what, Pastor Tim, I'm really struggling with the sin of greed. I'd like to talk to you about that. I'm really struggling with it. Is that 35 years never happened. It's just crazy. It's like, but if you read the Bible, right? Is this second jokes? If you read the Bible, you should probably assume we're all starting at greedy. Your natural disposition should be I'm a greedy person, because that's why Jesus talked about being generous so much, because that's our natural disposition. And I just think it's so good and so thoughtful that, you know, we are called to be generous. And so with that, the way we love to close our show, Gary, and you've mentioned a couple of scripture verses that have worked on your life and we'd be happy for you to talk about one of those. But we really love to point back to God's word in some way and say, you know, is there something God's and bring it to you recently could be? This morning could be a season, or it could be reflecting even deeper on something he's told you throughout your life, but just really want to hear how God's word is alive and working in your life.

Gary Grant: Okay. So first, I want to say that I have told you my story and my story isn't your story. And what I do is what I think God is calling me, and what I've done isn't necessarily what I think God is saying to you. And so I am not your perfect, iconic Christian. I fail all the time and therefore please don't think that that I know the answers I'm on a journey is a lifelong journey. I'm on a journey. What I would say is, don't worry about what I've done. Be faithful to what you think God is saying to you, which could be completely the opposite to me. And that's absolutely fine. Please be faithful to what God is saying to you. Back to the verses because I'm not a good reader. You could get me to read a whole chapter and say, Go quickly. Just summarize that and I'll say, You know what? It hasn't made a lot of sense to me because I can't piece the whole thing together, and I think that's the issue with dyslexia. So I'm really drawn back ultimately to the the verses which have been pivotal in helping me do the things that I've done, which is firstly, avoid that. That even appears to be evil. It just helps you. Either way, you end up with two, three four verses and there's loads of other verses, which from time to time might make sense. But there will be for each one of us, a couple of verses, which are foundational verses from which. Everything we do is evaluated, and it's likely to influence. Okay, so that's the first thing. Secondly is none of us at all, but actually just the statement you cannot give God, that has been my experience. And for me, as an entrepreneur, it's important that in our budget for the year, we put down this little thing called donations. It's just a different word from labor, from rent, from tax, from other expenses. It is just the cost of being in business. It's more difficult to retrospectively apply something than start with it. So if you're a new entrepreneur, when you're putting your first budget together, whatever percentage you think is the right percentage to be generous with, built it in as a cost to your business because you haven't got it now. You won't have it then, but you're going to be really encouraged what you do with it because it's great fun giving it away. I can tell you that. And if you are an entrepreneur and you haven't got that little expense in your line, I don't know about it. See what God's saying, but I want to encourage you because I absolutely think you're going to have fun giving it away. You know, you might think I'm giving away my money. Well, probably you are. But guess what? You know, God keeps giving back to those that give. And then I'm drawn back ultimately to the one thing that site. This has been my guiding light. Those that honor me, I will honor, and that is absolutely critical. So with the right heart, the right motive? Do what you think God is saying to you, regardless of the cost. And some people, you know the widow's might. She gave away all. She had not decide whether it was one percent, five percent, 10 percent, 90 percent. She gave all she had. She honored the Lord and the Lord honor her. And that is the word. I think for me, that will be my guiding light for as long as I'm running this business are actually alive because you don't have to have a business to be led like this. Just being a Christian and being led like this is really important. Thank you. Hey, man.

Rusty Rueff: Hey, man, hey. Thank you so much, Carrie. It's been fun. I thought playing with toys was fun. Actually, it's more fun to do a podcast with the toy retailer. I mean, this has been so much fun for me. So really, thank you so much. And may God continue to bless you and your family and your business and all that's going forward. So thanks a lot.

Gary Grant: Thank you.