coming to an understanding of financial security and what that means in your own life and your family's life and what are your responsibilities to make sure that happens evolves over time. I think when I was younger it stems also from your background. I came from a background growing up where my family wasn't that uh wealthy and I needed grants to go to college and I had to work to to pay the you know to pay the bills gather the the finances to make it through college and that build in me a certain sense of lack of security like I was always worried do I have enough I got to save more my older brother would say yeah you were very tight John with your your money because of you know this uncertainty in life that caused that whether it was the unemployment of my stepfather or whatever.
So you have everyone has that built in to a different degree. You know mine is that. So I'm I I I have have had to overcome a natural tendency not to um give too much because the uncertainty of the future you know but what happened over time is that when we you know the first year we contributed a certain amount to the EOC and we did set goals like first year you know we were able to scrape together $250 that was not profit but actually what we what we would have taken if we had uh needed that money, but we gave it to the EOC.
The next year we wanted to double it. So we doubled it. 500, next year double,000. Next year 2,000, next year 4,000, next year 8,000. We we we tried to set goals not knowing if we could achieve them, but with the mentality that that's the purpose of this, and if we can work hard to do that, we'll we'll we'll do that. At the same time, I had children who haven't gone to college yet in the United States.
And there was all those future concerns and I thought, is this going to be a little crazy? Am I not going to have enough money? But what has what happened is I began to see these little minor miracles I would say, you know, where um where something would happen where I didn't expect a financial return and it came unexpectedly. Whether it's providence, what we call providence, or whether it was from some something because I'm living this lifestyle, it's not about individualism.
It's about unity, you know, having someone allow us to use their car to go on a trip, someone providing some kind of other financial support because they knew they could. And so I be we began having these little experiences where there always seemed to be enough. uh they're always we just were able to make it despite giving money away. It you know there's a there's a line uh from the gospel give and gifts will be given to you packed down and overflowing.
And I remember that line of the gospel coming in one month reading that going wow that's that's a very specific thing. Gifts give and gifts will be given to you packed down and overflowing. Not just not just barely making it sometimes what we would call the hundfold, right? That the the the explosion of just providence. So So you begin to see the little hints of this in small ways. I did this. I gave I paid for someone's lunch and then next week someone paid for four of my lunches. you know, just recognizing that financial exchanging going on and gaining the confidence that if you live in this way, life is going to work out.
It's somehow going to work out. And so, this didn't remove my own requirement to um to set aside money for college, a certain amount to do the planning I need to do. But uh but the difference was is that for example when we started the company I went from a salary of six figures and the next year I took a salary of $29,000. Well how did you survive? You know you were getting over $100,000 a year and then the next year you took a salary from the company of $29,000.
Well, we had been le living in such a way that we could meet our obligations and we knew early on that that's the only thing we have to do is meet our obligations and then let this thing move ahead and build. It was over time with the experience of seeing providence and seeing this lifestyle generate unexpected wealth in some ways that we couldn't have predicted that gave us the confidence that we were on to something that we we began I began to not even think about uh the financial impacts of some of our our sharing.
It sounds crazy but that's true. I mean it I would just say we're doing this. it's going to cost us $15,000 and just move on and keep keep going ahead. That seems like a you know if I were an accountant that I would probably felt less less concern or or more concerned because but as a entrepreneur I felt like this was part of this this journey.
