RADIONovember 29, 2022

Hobby Lobby Founder: THIS is the BEST WAY to run a business

Hobby Lobby CEO and Founder David Green recently joined Glenn in-studio to discuss his new book, ‘Leadership Not By The Book.’ During their discussion, Green details to Glenn the ‘direction book’ his family decided to follow while building their business. He explains why it’s the ‘best way’ to run a business, and he dives into several, important leadership lessons he’s learned along the way…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN:So there's a new book out, it is called Leadership Not by the Book by David green and bill high from Hobby Lobby. Welcome, David, how are you sir?

DAVID: Thank you. It's good to be here.

GLENN: It's good to see you again. First of all, I did a special last night about how the FBI and the federal agencies and the media are weaponizing against Christians as individuals and as business. You were, your fine was how much?

DAVID: Well, they were going to fine me $1.3 millions a day.

GLENN: A day.

DAVID: If I didn't follow their instructions. We got that number by the number of employees we had. It's like a thousand dollars a day per employee. That was a lot of money. 1.3 was what we were looking at.

GLENN: And all you had to do was just offer birth control or abortion; right?

DAVID: They were for pills and prescriptions that we could not provide because we knew it was after the fact that we were taking life and we knew we just could not do that. We had to have that when we signed our next insurance policy and so this was what the government was asking us to.We knew we couldn't do it. As you said earlier there are some things you just can't do. You can't go against your conscious.They were asking us to go against our conscious.

GLENN: You won that case.

DAVID: We did win that case.

GLENN: Thank God you won that case.

DAVID: Right.

GLENN: And that changed the course I think the first real big win for America as we have known it then past.

DAVID: It sure helped us.

GLENN: It did.

DAVID: We didn't know what we were going to do. People would ask me, what are you going to do if you lose this case? I said I don't know what we are going to do, but I do know we're not going to pi for someone's abortive pill. That is what we had decided as a family. In fact we came together as a family. We call ourselves gen 1 and our kids gen 2 and we had all of them in a meeting do you see this any different gen 3, the younger people in our family, and all of us stood the ground and said we're not going to take life for the sake of making profit at Hobby Lobby stores.

GLENN: Let's talk about, by the way I think what you went through and I'd love to hear your opinion on this, it almost seems like the good old days compared to what we're facing now.

DAVID: Things have gone pretty much south on a daily basis here. I can't even imagine what the government's asking us to do and how they're coming against us if you want to be a Christian. So some how or another today we're seen as the haters and yet we have the greatest story in the world about Christ who died for us while we're yet sins. So we're not the haters. We're the ones that got the best and the greatest love story in the world.

GLENN: I have to tell you. I've met so many Christians that will come up to me and say what are we going to do? And I'm like there there's only one thing left to do and it's what everybody dismisses but if we don't turn to God and ask him for forgiveness and help we're not going to survive. He's the only answer at this point. People are like yeah, yeah, yeah, but what are we going to really do? I'm like do you not believe? Do you not believe that the guy who rose from dead, harder trick than fixing our country is not -- people of faith, I'm not sure that a lot of them really truly have faith that when it comes down to it, yeah. Whatever happens it's in his hands.

DAVID: Yeah, but I think there's something we have to do. I think you'll see us, our family, with a lot of other families coming on the program. You're going to see it at the Super Bowl, he gets us. We're wanting to say "we" being a lot of different people that he gets us. He understands all of us. He hates who, he loves who we hate so I think we have to let the public know and create a movement, really.

GLENN: That a different movement. I agree with you on that. There's lot we have to do. But that's one of the most important movements I've heard, if that what the movement you're doing. He loves those who hate us.

DAVID: Right.

GLENN: We have to find a way to love -- it doesn't mean don't stand against it.

DAVID: Right.

GLENN: You've got to be firm and clear on your stance and I'm not moving but I can't hate them.

DAVID: That's right. We have to present the only answer to this, and it's not politics. you've already said it's him, Jesus who died for us, loves us, and until we accept him and know him and his scriptures and his book that he's given us we can settle the problems we have.

GLENN: So you have written a book leadership not by the book. You're the founder of Hobby Lobby which started out, I love the way you began. You started out making frames with your family in the garage.

DAVID: Exact.My boys made seven cents a piece. Today we do 8 billion-dollars so we've come a long ways.

GLENN: I think so, from seven cents.

DAVID: Yeah.

GLENN: You have 12 principles in here and I've highlight ad foo of them, but I want you to just kind of give the overview of the book.

DAVID: Okay. I think people ask me why I write the book and I thing one of the greatest reasons I wrote it is for us to understand we don't own what we have not because I say so, but because the scriptures and the old testament as well as the new testament says that God owns everything. I think as we see what we have is owned by him we're nothing but servants. When I say nothing but, I would rather be to serve and to be, to take care of what God has given us. Wealth is a curse and how do you handle the curse. That is to be someone that takes what god has given us and know how to handle it.

GLENN: I think we used to understand that concept a lot more. We were country that had great welt. We helped, we helped each other, wear always the first on the scene. And now, I mean, it's, that's kind of like government does that. We just have this, we're just not the same people.

DAVID: The government's done too much and that why sometimes we've backed off where we should not have backed off. We want to make sure what we do with our profits really make as difference.

GLENN: Let's go through some of the principles that I'd like to talk to you about.Build for the next 150 years, not just the next generation. I don't think there's people, I think there's lots of people that are just building for tomorrow, not even the next generation. This is more Chinese in your thinking, explain.

DAVID: I think it's also thinking about what we're doing in our lifetime. What are we doing that doesn't matter a hundred years from now. If you get to thinking and drilling down on that you want your life to be something that eternal and not just temporal. That's what we're doing there. We're making sure that our children come along and serve the Lord and also have the same priorities you do. That is to have Hobby Lobby going on forever if possible and being ministry to those that are in need.

GLENN: How do you go from a framing place to everything you sell with that? I think there's a lot of people, they separate I want to talk about family too because you talk about this separation. They separate God and their faith from their business. They'll come up with all kinds of excuses that, you know, I gotta do what I gotta do. We gotta do business.

DAVID: Right. I don't know had you do it without trying to find the book. This book is called Leadership Not by the Book, but hopefully is by The Book. I really don't know how you do it without following The Book. Because it gives us so much -- our creator has given us a book that really will help us.

GLENN: What are some of the business decisions that you had to make that, you know, on the surface were nuts that regular business people go now but you just had assurance, I know this is what He want me to do and it will work out?

DAVID: I think one of those things is how we treat our employees. I sense the Lord just gave me a; the holy spirit, you're in Changer of these people. I'm putting you in charge of these people. Now you're saying what does that look like? It looks like they need to go to church on Sunday you gotta close on Sunday. It looks like you gotta open 66 hours a week maybe your minimum wage at to be 18-dollars an hour. Maybe you ought to have 7 different chaplains to help the people in need that have different problems. I think it looks like that lin of these things by the way are biblical but it's also good for business. We are very, very profitable, we have no debt --

GLENN: People would say, because I know you write about it in the book, people say how can we get to, you know, 16-dollars an how and you're like we're getting up to 18.50 an hour, what are you talking about? And everybody will say, as I know, I've been around business my whole life, people will make the argument you can't overpay. You can't, you can't make your hourly wage that high because you won't be able to afford it. It will jack prices up.

DAVID: When we first started we just tried to survive so you need to understand that. It was just surviving. As we tried to follow The Book, which there is what ebb other book do you want to guide your life by, there's only one book that of God, the rest of them are man, there's only one and he's given us a book, a direction book. When you follow it I can't tell you a better way to run a business than following the book and following things I think would be pleasing to our Lord.

GLENN: Tell me how, faith is one thing, but talk to somebody who doesn't necessarily have the faith just about how the principle of paying your employees, doing all of the things that you do, how do they convince somebody who doesn't necessarily may have faith but not your kind of faith.

DAVID: Yeah, my kind of faith believes that God's word is where we're going to be best in our life and everything we do. He's given us a direction. Our creator gave us a direction book. If you don't have faith, why doesn't it look good to take care of your people and they take care of yours if you don't have faith at all? How does that not look good? How is what we're being told in God's book, how does it look wrong? He seems to make common sense and that to care for people if you really want them to care for you. So people know by the way who Hobby Lobby is before they knock on the door for an application and because of that I think we get the very; very best people that are out there. People that have a work ethic, people that have integrity. I think that one of the secret sauces is just to have great, great people.

GLENN: It is, it's weird too, as somebody who is a conservative and a religious person, that I was, I can't remember what city I was in but I think there was a Michael's and I didn't know there was a Hobby Lobby. We go into the Michael's, it was just not good. We were like we gotta find Hobby Lobby. It was like this little island respite like I know things are safe here. I know things are the people are going to be nice, nobody's judging, I don't have to have any kind of stupid societal rules. It's nice. It's nice.

DAVID: You know who you are when you're in our stores. You hear beautiful Christian music, every department has something that glorifies our Lord. If you come in, in front of the store and there's Bibles and good Christian books. We have a miniature Christian bookstore in the front of out stores.

GLENN: You are breaking every rule of business.

DAVID: Right, right.

GLENN: You know?

DAVID: It's okay.

GLENN: No. I know. If you were just a business person I think you would us a booking and in say you're going to be a nice niche store you'll never be Hobby Lobby. And it's just amazing.

DAVID: Yeah. We're proud of what God has given us. By the way, I give the glory to a lot of great, great people. We have just a lot of great people. Our officers, by the way, average over 25 years. We have people that stay with us, they love it, they love it because they know they're doing something other than just doing something to make the owners rich because that's not what they're doing.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Is the EU Plotting to “SABOTAGE” Trump? Heritage Foundation President Sounds Warning

Are European Union elites working to “sabotage” President Trump’s plans for the West? Glenn speaks with Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who makes the case that Trump is trying to reset the West and stop the “managed decline” of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. But many European leaders are so embedded into that old system that they won’t go down without a fight. Glenn and Kevin also discuss Trump’s negotiations with Mexico and Canada, whether former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was right to call Britain a “failed state,” and why Kevin believes Trump’s cabinet, JD Vance, and one other thing are Trump’s biggest wins.

Tim Kennedy Unveils Grim Truth: World Instability and Christian Killings Surge

Former U.S. Army Special Forces Sniper Tim Kennedy joins Glenn to warn that “real instability” is coming across many parts of the world, including the Middle East, Haiti, Congo, and other parts of Africa. And one of the main signs of this is “the killing of Christians” at high levels in those regions. With a civil war brewing in Afghanistan, “genocide” level attacks in regions of Africa, and more trouble on the horizon, predictive models have found that things could very likely boil over soon. But Kennedy details how the Trump administration, especially Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and Pam Bondi, are working overtime to “get ahead of what we know is coming” and keep Americans safe.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: We're talking to Tim Kennedy. Talking to the president about the border, and what's going on with the border this week. And I said, you know, if I were, you know, a Mexican citizen. And knowing that my government was in bed with the cartels. I would be hoping that some special forces just showed up in the middle of the night. And started killing people. In these cartels. And I said, well, that would be news breaking if I said that was a good idea.

You know, I hope it doesn't come to that. It was clear, that that is on the table. I mean, that really has to happen. Does it not?

I mean, that is a collapsed narco state in Mexico. Isn't it?

MATT: Yeah, we -- the rules of war that we'll be experiencing for the next five to ten years are not the traditional maneuver warfare that people remember from Korea and from Vietnam, and from even -- you know, we know who our enemy is. These are going to be businesses.

These are syndicated criminal organizations, that do not fight fair, and the cartel owns both the businesses, the corporations, and the criminal networks that are involved in that.

So, yes. It's absolutely on the table. And a group of people that are sitting on like the go button, are absolute savages, Mr. Beck.

GLENN: They are. I know some of them. I know some of them.

And they're just like -- and they're just -- they're just champing at the bit to go, I know. I know.

TIM: That's the truth.

We're in conversation with the cartels right now. And the cartels are saying, hey, we don't want to die. We don't want to be wiped off the face of the planet, which we know is not going to happen. So, you know, are there other options. Hey, what if we stopped human trafficking?

What if we stopped fentanyl production entirely?

What if -- what if all of that just goes away. What if we stop and seal the border on the south side. What are you -- will we maybe be allowed to transport some cocaine and some marijuana?

I'm totally fine with this. If we stop fentanyl. Human trafficking. Gun smuggling. And we stop the invasion of our border, I'll -- and we don't have to do a while bunch of killing.

You know, whatever.

But they know they're on the brink of --

GLENN: I hope they do.

TIM: Of existence.

GLENN: I hope they do.

You know, when you look at what's happening here.

And what they're bringing over here.

I mean, it has to stop, dead in its tracks.

It has to stop.

And it has to stop soon. The president is dealing with these courts. Which I just think is judicial insurrection as Mike Lee puts it. And it has to stop.

The president has to protect our borders, and has to protect our cities. This is -- you know, this is the opium wars, done to China by the English.

You know, 200 years ago. 150 years ago. And now they're doing it to us.

That's what -- that's what is happening.

TIM: Yeah.

GLENN: Tell me about the Christians and genocide, that you believe is on the horizon.

TIM: Just yesterday.

Back at the White House yesterday.

Listening to some brief about -- there's some brilliant companies that are able to do predictive modeling.

Using literally every public and classified source of information.

And there's these events that are pretty predictable.

You know, they predicted what would happen in Afghanistan. Predicted what would happen in Ukraine.

They see regionally that on the very near horizon, as soon as like late summer.

We are going to see real instability throughout CENTCOM and the Endo-Pacific region.
And some of those things -- some of the catalysts that are -- the data points are what are the killing of Christians.

And it's happening all over CENTCOM.

And --

GLENN: Explain CENTCOM. Explain CENTCOM for anybody who doesn't what CENTCOM means. Explain that.

TIM: Just imagine the Middle East starting kind of in north Africa.

And western Asia. And everything that has lots of deserts. And lots of Muslim countries -- just -- by coincidence, there's also Israel. That's in CENTCOM.

One of the few non-Muslim democracies, in that whole entire region.

Ask, you know, the Houthis and Hamas. And Hezbollah.

And then in former countries, like in Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan, those places, it's just a massacre of Christians, right now.

GLENN: So let me take a one-minute break.

Come back, because I want to talk to you more about that. Because you've been involved. We've been with you with Mercury One, and trying to help. And I know what we're gearing up for.

And I want to see if there's anything that you need and you would recommend, besides told prayers for Christians.

And I want to go deeper into what this predictive model is showing in just a second.

First, let me tell you about Preborn.

You know, if you were in the room with a woman who was thinking about giving up her baby.

What would you say?

If a scared young woman looked you in the eye and said, I don't think I could do this.

I'm alone. I don't know if it's really a baby yet.

What would you do?

Would you yell at her? Would you say, you can't do that! You'll go to hell.

Or would you tell her, you're strong enough. You are. Show her pictures of your kids maybe. Talk about miracles?

Talk about God? Talk about anything?

Anything. We're here for you. Would you just wait.

None of us would show her pictures of an aborted baby. None of us would yell at her.

Okay? The truth is, we'll never be in that room. Most of us. But Preborn will not be in that room. They don't argue or shame.

They do something really simple. It turns out, it's very persuasive. Just offer her a free ultrasound. And when she hears that tiny heartbeat. When she sees the image on the screen, everything changes. More than half the time the mom chooses life, the rest of the time, she's like, I -- I just -- I'm alone. I can't afford.

And that's where they come in, after that. They take care of mom. This saves two lives. This saves the life of torture for that woman, and the baby's life.

Please, donate your best gift today.

Go to #250. Say the key word baby for Preborn. It's #250. Key word baby. You know, just a few bucks pays for an ultrasound, and it just changes lives. Saves lives. Preborn.com/Beck. Sponsored by he Preborn. Preborn.com/Beck. Ten-second station ID.
(music)

GLENN: So, Tim, maybe we'll have you on -- we're doing a big benefit for the Nazarene Fund.

This fall.

I don't even have details on it. I just heard about it yesterday.

What that is, we go and rescue Christians. Or we pay and help people like you, go rescue Christians.

We just empower people like you, to help.

I would love to invite to that. When we get closer, I will.

Tell me about this predictive model. Why is it saying that it's going to get so bad? What's coming our way?

TIM: Yeah.

The Nazarene Fund, and Mercury One, just for -- love you guys.

I don't -- you know, we publicly can't say a lot of the things that we do at save our allies.

But none of it is possible without you, quite frankly.

Like if you look at me, and our team in Afghanistan. Or in Ukraine. Providing humanitarian aid. And pulling people out of the war zones.

Although to the Far East, as far as I possibly can get in far Russia.

Every place that we have been, has been because of you, quite frankly. Mr. Beck.

GLENN: Please. Stop calling me Mr. Beck.

Give credit. This audience is so gracious. They are so gracious.

TIM: Yeah. They just have an understanding.

Samaritan purse. Mercury One. Nazarene Fund.

We see you guys every single place, in the worst, most dire condition. So, you know, Glenn, thank you so much.

To your question, you know, we are -- if you just look in the past month, you know, you can look to Syria. You can look to the -- next to our bill.

You can look to the Congo.

Where you see thousands of Christians being killed.

You see Muslim converts, that were being specifically targeted. Down in Congo just last week.
Another 29 Christians were killed. In 2025, in like the region in Syria. There was like this region of violence. Another thousand were killed.

And so if you take -- if we're going to look for similar areas in the region, and try to predict the instability of a particular administration or government.

There's a whole bunch of -- and we can take historical data from the past 50 years. And start looking at, okay.

Economically, what is happening for instability?

What is happening culturally?

What is happening on -- in the markets?

What's happening in like -- really clear data points. And we have this bell curve of what's normal. And then you have these outliers that are -- that then keep occurring, every time there's a coup. Or every time there's genocide.

Or every time -- and there's enough data now, where we -- especially with AI. And we can scrape all of history.

We can then very accurately start, you know -- all the special operations side. I'm trying to find somebody in space and time.

It's -- that's -- used to be a difficult thing, to predict where a human is going to be.

So I could maybe bring them to justice, and if we look at the first 95 days of the president in office, and our intelligence community specifically, that told them they're going to work. With, you know, Kash Patel, enabling them. Pam Bondi.
45 Americans that have been illegally detained abroad brought home.

You know, we're knocking on the door of 100 radical terrorists, want to do harm to Americans. Dead.

And we are trying to get ahead of what we know is coming. Which is, complete near Civil War in Afghanistan.

Trying to get stability in Congo -- obviously, we see what's happening in Haiti.

And every time one of these places starts becoming less secure and stable, that is the breeding ground for radical adversarial groups, that are funded by our adversaries, like and mine Iran.

To then conduct attacks on Americans.

But they're not doing it direct.

It's like via proxy.

But Haiti, if we don't pay attention to it, China will use it.

Congo will --

GLENN: Yeah, I know.

TIM: And it just keeps happening.

GLENN: Tim, I can't thank you enough for what you do. You're really a remarkable man. It was such an honor to see you at the White House.

And as usual, see you at the White House and you're serving. Serving veterans.

So thank you for everything, Tim.

God bless you.

TIM: Yeah, you're amazing. Always in your corner. Let me know what you need.

GLENN: You've got it. Thank you, Tim Kennedy. US Army Special Forces. He's a sniper. Former UFC fighter, and really a servant to our vets.

Next year, it's going to be a tough year. All the way around us the world.

It's going to be very tough. What he's saying, is coming.

I -- you know, people say, I think Donald Trump will say for a reason, to save the republic. I'm not sure, that we understand God's mind.

It may have just been to postpone and give us more time to prepare. I'm not sure.

I hope we save the republic. But it might be time to prepare. Because things are very, very dicey in the world, and we just need to be prayerful.

Thoughtful. Jesus-like people.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Will Violent Activists Go to Jail? DOJ’s Harmeet Dhillon UNLEASHED | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 255

Is there really a “bloodbath” in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice? Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, joins Glenn to discuss firebombing at Christian churches, “violence” against free speech, and the fate of the innocent people persecuted under the Biden administration. Harmeet reveals how the FACE Act doesn’t just protect abortion centers but pro-life pregnancy centers as well, says it’s time for violent activists to be prosecuted, and explains why “you don’t have to sue everybody.” Then, she and Glenn break down anti-Semitism on college campuses, her focus on the Second Amendment, and her advice to Congress to prevent a repeat of COVID-19 government tyranny.