Video Transcript: Vision - Henry Reyenga Interviews Marty Ozinga

Henry - With me today is Marty Ozinga, chairman of Ozinga Brothers, a company that has over 2000 employees. And he has built that company over the last four decades. And we're going  to talk today about vision. Because if you're going to take a company that the Lord gave you,  when when he was 23. A hundred and some employees and now 2000 employees, there's no  question. There's an issue of vision that operates. So how would you define vision?  

Marty - Well, it seems to mean that the vision that that God puts in one's mind is a  combination of the work of the Holy Spirit in someone's heart, as well as the engagement of  the life's experiences and the education that that one has benefited from. And it starts with a  sense of, I would say, optimism, in the sense of you know the old story about the glass of  water is half full or half empty.  

Henry - Right, right.  

Marty - And vision that's optimistic is, is the guy that sees the glass is half full, it's not half  empty, it's half full, we're halfway, we're halfway there. And we can fill it the rest of the way.  Okay. So an optimistic spirit and an optimistic view, then, that combines with opportunity and  skills that God has created and blessed you with. And the whole sense that, with God's help,  you can expect to pursue goals, to be somewhat of an entrepreneur, whether you were  talking in the context of business or education, or church or even family. I can't say for sure, I  had a vision of having six sons. But I did have a vision always of, the more the merrier. I  mean, as long as my wife can keep up with it, and handle it, she has the harder job. And but  I've always had this sense of optimism, we have these opportunities, we have these skills.  And we have this time, and this place. And let's see how far we can go, and what God has got  in mind for us, and let's just go for it. And, and I think that's something that gets instilled in us through a combination of all the experiences in education we've had, but it's mainly a  condition also of the heart, the spirit, and the understanding that God is with us. And most  people who are entrepreneurs, who understand these things, would say that they approach  life with, with an expectant attitude. They actually think what they pursue is going to happen.  They, they, they think that they have the knowledge or the skills or the energy, or the  whatever it takes to go for it, and then it's going to happen. And then God shows up. And it  does happen. Because even when it happens, this idea that well it happened because I'm so  smart, or because I'm so talented, or I worked so hard. You realize, as you grow and mature  and become wiser. That this happened because God wanted it to happen. And God's in control in the end, and ultimately, and it goes the way he wants it to go. And when it goes well, it's  because he wanted it to go well. And I refer to most of these successes in my life. And most of the opportunities that have been realized as this is this is a demonstration of God's love and  literally miracles taking place. Which we maybe don't see it at the moment in time and  sometimes we like to give ourselves the credit, but we know better and the reality is it only  happened because God showed up.  

Henry - So we're talking about the concept of vision and one is that optimistic, God has a plan, and  I'm just going to be part of it. That also is the expectancy, that somewhere somehow in  providence, God showed up in a miracle that that seed planted in your heart is going to have  a result he wants. It might be a yes, no, or maybe. How do you deal with it when it's a no?  

Marty - Well, what's interesting is, you know, there's there's certain characteristics, and I think they're, they're, they're a blessing and a gift from God. You remember the story of Joshua, and going into the promised land and looking around, and it was a whole group of intelligent  leaders that were selected to go do that. And the vast majority of them came back and said,  Forget it. Forget it. We saw what we saw there is overwhelming. We can't handle it. It's not  going to happen. And then Joshua, who's in this small minority, young Josh with Caleb says,  friend, we can do this, we don't have we can do this. You know why? Because God's on our  side. And this is going to be ours. And it's been promised to us and we have to trust. Now. Not everything in life, in business or in other aspects of life always goes the way we thought it 

would go. And sometimes it's disappointing. And sometimes it's very hard. Sometimes it  hurts. In my case, I've lost almost as much money as I've made. Thankfully, I'm a little ahead  of the scorecard, and still able to come and go and do what I like. But it's not all been a bed of roses and success after success after success. But the optimistic person gets knocked down.  And there's a Bible verse for this. I think it's in II Corinthians, but it says, You're knocked down, but you're not defeated.  

Henry - Right, that's right.  

Marty - And an optimistic person says, Okay, you knocked me down. I've learned some  lessons from all of this. But then you brush yourself off, you get back up, and you say, and  now we're going to do it again. We're going to be smarter this time, but we're going to go for  it again. And you go through your whole life doing that kind of stuff. I've known Henry. I know  Henry, since he was a kid. And he's the same way. I mean, there's, there's all kinds of Bible  verses, there's all kinds of old sayings like if at first you don't succeed, try, try try again. And  you don't have to be a scholar to, to learn those or memorize those, but those are truisms.  And they come from people who've experienced life. And to be an entrepreneur to be  successful. It takes vision, but it takes but it takes an optimistic person who understands that  God is behind the whole thing. And that was the first point of any effort or energy expended,  is about honoring and glorifying God. And if that's your motive, then go for it.  

Henry - So, so then resiliency, so it was almost like a vision resiliency. So it's like, you know,  you're, you're, you see the opportunities, because this is God's beautiful creation, whether it's a ministry, whether it's practice services, whatever you trust, that the Lord has a plan in this  province, and do for his glory, a few few side, you know, things happen, you know, some  detours, but you're always moving forward, resilient, you know, if you need to forgive  someone, do it no sense, carrying a bitter grave, you know, things happen, right? A  relationship falls apart, you know, when things are but you don't like dwell on that. How do  you get out of the woods, when that happened to many people, and I know many of you have  written about this that a failure in your life, and you hold a bitterness. And now that bitterness is holding you back. How do you get over to bitterness?  

Marty - Well, I think, I think, again, it's a spiritual matter and it's a condition of the heart, I  think God's pretty clear about the fact that first of all, he loves us. Secondly, he loves us in  spite of our failures and screw ups. And he forgives us for that. He's also very clear about,  

how do you expect me God to forgive you if you won't forgive those who have sinned against  you, or, or hurt you. And he says that, not because he's mad or wants to hold a grudge  against you, he says that, because that's his plan that's his design for successful living. He's  saying, don't hold grudges. Don't dwell on the past, and Don't wallow in your in your  difficulties, but rather, rather forgive people who, who harmed you or hurt you. And allow me  to fix the problem and correct the problem. Because if you don't, you'll be consumed by  bitterness, and anger. And that will tend to distract your thinking and your ability, maybe  even harm your health, physically, and emotionally, and get you sidetracked from from  pursuing valuable and worthy things. And, you know, as human beings, we should be smart  enough to learn these lessons. We should also be smart enough when God says this is how it  works, to listen to him. But we think we're smarter than he is. So we keep making mistakes,  but this is God's plan for success. Right? Forgive those people and look to God for the next  opportunity and for his blessing.  

Henry - Well, if he doesn't back and back the vision, the topics on vision today and talking  about how, like a negative can take away the vision and often the negative is grounded in  people. So bitterness is like a clear vision killer. He said something distracts you, takes the  bandwidth away from like, the positive. And and I have seen and we both have seen many  

people who once had a beautiful vision, and it died in bitterness. So really forgive and move  on. So now we're moving on, we have this vision, and so forth. And what is the biggest 

temptation that comes with success then? So we actually are moving we're seeing it we're not holding grudges, we're being resilient. We're actually successful. So what could happen to us? 

Marty - Well, it's extremely common because it happens a lot. Again, in our humanness. We  have this inclination to sort of stray away from God's plan and follow our own. And it's called  pride and it's called a time when we start to think we're so smart. In fact, we're so smart that  we're just as smart as God is, or we're maybe even smarter than God is. And the pride of  success starts to make us say and do things that are really pretty stupid sometimes, I mean,  we think we can say whatever we want, and get away with it. Or we think we can do whatever we want. And get away with it. You know, no one would be so stupid to put a gun to their  head, fully loaded and pull the trigger and think they can survive, right? But in a proverbial  sense. There are very successful people that do exactly that. They go and they, they they  start engaging in very destructive behavior. Only because they think they're so successful and so special that they unlike everybody else, they can get away with it. I can drink and I can  take drugs and I can do all sorts of things. And then they almost act surprised when when  they get sick or they lose their their their relationships, and their respect gets lost and  everything else and and you say, the guy. For a smart guy, he sure did some stupid things,  right?  

Henry - And we know, we know, a long list of successful people who had a vision for that it got lost in simple stupidity, over things, that if you look at the one thing, they lost it all on in  comparison to everything they've done is so small.  

Marty - And it's rooted in pride typically, typically it's because they you know what it really is,  they don't think they need God anymore, right? I, I am in charge of my life, and I don't need  God.  

Henry - I'm in charge of my life. I'm in charge of my business. I'm in charge of my future. I  don't need God. So think about this, a great vision you think positive you're resilient, you  don't have bitterness. And right there, the devil comes and says, You don't need God. Ew, is  that like, is that like the Garden of Eden? Like, Did God really say, if you eat this? You know  don't you want to be like God?, you know I have that whole, like place so really, too, there's a  spiritual aspect of vision that comes very personal and very close to home. Do you find Marty  that? If you looked over the years, that that sense of vision can become a corporate reality?  Do you feel that changing topics, or subjects, it's on vision? But is there a way to get vision to  even be in for an organization where it's not just the vision of the founder of the businessman, leaders, but I can actually, in some meaningful way, start coming into the culture of a  company? Like what do you guys do? When new employees come or whatever. How did that  work?  

Marty - It is ingrained in the culture of the business and the culture of the business. In a lot of  ways, starts to take on a life of its own, it's not dependent on the leader or the founder into  whatever. And now this is over time. And in our case, we actually have culture, culture  training, or Culture, Education in our  

Henry - you mean posing a Culture, Education.  

Marty - Yes, we have a, we have a education crew, that meets with all the new employees on  a regular basis, and talks about our core beliefs, our history, where we come from,  

Henry - Do you even bring up the spiritual in there?  

Marty - and we very much bring up the spiritual part of it, because it's so rooted in our in our  concept of serving God and serving others. And part of serving others is serving each other  and providing products and services for our customers and for the community. And as we do 

that, and we achieve a measure of success, and people discover that the workplace is a much more pleasant place to work, when people care about each other, when people serve each  other people's motives are interested in helping the person next to them, as well as helping  the company overall. They develop a sense of loyalty, without even being able to articulate it, they take on the beliefs and the culture that not so much that they hear, but that they see  demonstrated in the day to day workplace, right. And and that pleases them and it benefits  them and they want it to continue right. And so, we find that at this point in time that the  momentum that was sort of started by me who the leader right gets communicated in a  number of different ways and supported by success. But it starts to become a way of thinking  for many people in the organization. And the result is there are good ideas and solutions to  problems and new methods and new ways of doing things that are better than ever before  being brought forth by many, many people, not just one person or two people. And it has a  compounding effect, because anybody that contributes to the success of the business takes  healthy pride in their accomplishments. And they want to experience it again, right. So they  go back to the drawing boards of their mind and think of other ways that they can be  contributing to the success with the business and it compounds and compounds and  compounds. And before you know it, now we have a couple thousand people, and many,  many of them are they go home at night, not just thinking about football, or fishing or  whatever else they like to do. But how they can contribute to the health and well being as a  company.  

Henry - Wow. So it comes like the individual vision, then that usually is grounded in the Lord,  the call is calling in the business is grounded in forgiveness, it's grounded in, like, realizing the company belongs to God. And then it begins to spread. So that in a sense, the corporate  group of people now they have an optimistic view of the world. And they start thinking about  problems to be solved Kingdom or you know like mountains to be climbed new products and  services.  

Marty - If you look at the opposite, my philosophy and vision was as I expressed it to my co  workers, I said, I own this company. And everything that happens here is for my benefit, right? I get all the money, right? I get all the glory, I get all the praise. So do a good job. So I get all  this stuff. Right, right. Most people are gonna go, alright, you pay me to work till four o'clock,  and then I'm going fishing, you know, it's like, have fun with your life. But I got, I got my own  life to live. That's exactly the opposite of what we do. And it's like, you know, this isn't about  me or what I get out of it. And it's not even about you or what you get out of it. Right? It's how we are glorify God, and then we're all blessed, by doing our best. So it's a big, huge  difference. And it's all spiritual. Henry- Yeah. Do you hear that everybody, that what are you  doing here at CLI is not about learning some skills and go out there in the business world or in the ministry world. At the very core it is ministry. It is spiritual. It is about your relationship  with God. It is about your credit as an image bearer. It is about why are you on this earth. It's  all grounded in all that grounding means that you get to have others be grounded that way  too. So vision is not a concept on a whiteboard. What's the vision around here it is a  connection to the creator of heavens and the earth. Wow, absolutely.  

Marty - It's pretty. It's pretty amazing. And then when the when you when you hear it, and you realize it and you expect it to happen. And then when it does, you're blown away. You really  are.  

Henry - Thank you, Marty. Another amazing segment in enterprise and ministry in this one on  vision