Episode 382 - Why Every Entrepreneur Gets Generosity Wrong | John Cortines

**John Cortines** (0:00)
If you look biblically, there's this amazing contrast between King Nebuchadnezzar and King David. But there's this classic line from Nebuchadnezzar, look at this, Babylon the Great, the city that I have built by my hand. And that's right before God humbled him and he went crazy. And then you've got King David where he's giving the hugely generous gift and he's in front of all the people and they're going to build the temple. And he's like, but who am I? And he says this awesome line, he's like, all things come from you.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
Bold visionaries, faithful disruptors, some call them crazy, but they are called to create under his power for his glory. The Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast.
Retiring at 40 seems like a common goal for many entrepreneurs. John Cortines shares his transformation and insight on how generosity brings freedom more than the pursuit of wealth.

**Justin Forman** (0:52)
So John, we love to start off every podcast. Behind the scenes, who is John Cortines? What are some things that when people read the books, they hear you talk, but they don't know?

**John Cortines** (1:02)
Yeah. Well, it really all comes back to family. That's my greatest passion. So love being married to my wife Megan, and we are blessed with six children. That keeps us very busy.

**Justin Forman** (1:13)
Yeah.

**John Cortines** (1:15)
We were living in Florida. We're actually recording this sitting here in Florida. When I told my wife we had to move to Tennessee, she said, that's fine, I'll go, but you have to buy me a farm.
So we're on 12 acres now, and homeschooling, homesteading, doing kind of the East Tennessee big family thing.

**Justin Forman** (1:32)
Wow. So there was a key word there, homeschooling. A lot of people hear that, but you said this word homesteading.
Define what is homesteading for all of America?

**John Cortines** (1:42)
Oh, that's a great question.
Put me on the spot on that one. Now we try to really use the land we live on to generate food. It's a lot of fun. We got a garden, we do meat chickens, we've got egg-laying hens, we're going to raise a batch of turkeys this year. If you want a Thanksgiving turkey, let me know.

**Justin Forman** (2:01)
We get Darryl with some whiskey, and then we got the turkey. We got it all taken care of.

**John Cortines** (2:04)
That's right.
No, it's just a lot of fun to especially involve the kids in that. They're eating stuff out of the freezer that they helped grow and process. We love that.

**Justin Forman** (2:13)
What's that been like? Did you grow up with that? Did your wife grow up with this idea of the farm, that kind of side of things?

**John Cortines** (2:19)
My wife grew up on a little land in the Texas Hill Country. I did not. I'm like a Dallas city boy.

**Justin Forman** (2:25)
What part of Dallas?

**John Cortines** (2:26)
North Dallas, McKinney.

**Justin Forman** (2:27)
Okay. McKinney has changed a lot.

**John Cortines** (2:30)
Yes, it has. Yes, it has.
No, but we had a little cul-de-sac home in Florida and had some backyard chickens and my wife got the bug, and we've gone up from there.

**Justin Forman** (2:40)
So, okay. So, I mean, what percentage of what you guys eat in a week? Is there some stat, is there like I were, I mean, we're big, obviously, it sounds like chickens, like eggs, I presume. Like, I mean, what percentage of the farm to table is provided by the kids?

**John Cortines** (2:57)
That's a great question. I don't know, man. Maybe I'm ballparking here. Maybe 20 percent comes directly from us, but then we buy a lot from other friends who are locally growing and stuff. So, maybe 70, 80 percent is all local stuff.

**Justin Forman** (3:10)
That's awesome. Well, we take for granted this word generosity. We think about this word today, and maybe we've both been blessed in this place where we've heard it, we've thought it, we've seen it, we've seen it modeled by us.
But years ago, this wasn't the same conversation. It was a different conversation. It was a new conversation. You stepped into that and said, hey, there's some things that we feel like we're learning. Just take us on that journey of encountering generosity in this message and what God had to say about it.

**John Cortines** (3:42)
Yeah. So, I was really blessed to start my career with Chevron. I was in oil and gas.
So, I came out of undergrad in 2010, did a grad degree 2011, and then I was making six figures. And I like to tell this little thing that I've changed the password since then, but my online banking password was retire at symbol 40, exclamation point. And so, literally when I logged in to check my balance, I was like, this is where I'm going. And I had the privilege of going to Harvard Business School to chase that dream.