An ownership stake

“Skin in the game” is an aphorism popularized by Warren Buffett referring to the real benefit of executives using their own money to buy stock in the company they’re running. It’s to have a personal risk, or stake in the outcome of the business.

t’s an idea that was also important to Lauren and me over the years. Although our children are now grown and married, even when they were young we were big proponents of them having “skin in the game” in things that were important to them, rather than simply providing it for them…even when we could easily afford it.

Because it’s a simple fact of human nature that we take something more seriously when we have an ownership stake.

n the same vein, in this week’s Gospel Jesus describes himself as “The Good Shepherd”—not just a shepherd, but the good shepherd of Psalm 23. Not a hired hand who abandons the sheep at the first sign of danger, but the owner of the sheep who willingly gives himself for them.