Change Your Brain Every Day - Culture at Work: The Importance of Cultivating What You Want with Winn Claybaugh

Episode Date: July 9, 2019

People need a reason for what they do. They need a “why?” that drives them towards their purpose. So what actions can you take to give a “why?” to yourself and those around you? In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen are again joined by author and Paul Mitchell School founder Winn Claybaugh to discuss how philanthropy transforms relationships, and why modeling behavior can be key to effective parenting.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are here with our good friend, Wynn Klava. And he is such, he's just, you're so wonderful. Everything you do with the Paul Mitchell Schools,

you're a co-owner of the Paul Mitchell Schools. But one thing I love is your philanthropy work. So you've brought philanthropy into work. And in our last episode, we talked about all the amazing things you do, your book, Be Nice or Else. I mean, all of that's amazing. But what I really want to talk about in this episode is why. Why did you find it so important to bring philanthropy into work? And we were at your event and the event is spectacular. It's amazing. Thank you. And yeah, the event is important, but leading up to that event was three months of fundraising, which by the way, we do every single year. So it's not just one weekend of a walkathon and how we raise money and create that awareness for the charities and the organizations that we support. It's ongoing. So it's a culture. Absolutely. It has to be,

it's the perfect word for it because culture is what you stand for. And anytime two or more people come together, there's a culture. Either you decide what that culture looks like and feels like, or it's going to be decided for you. We made the decision that that culture had to be about giving back for a couple of reasons. Number one, that's how I was raised. So- Interesting. Yeah. I am, I get emotional. I am my mother's son. So that's how I was raised. Interesting. Yeah. I get emotional. I am my mother's son.

Aw. So that's how we were taught. Eight kids in the family. You couldn't think only about yourself because there was people everywhere. And you have to take care of the lady down the street. And you have to take care of the neighbor who's sick. And you have to reach out to your community. That's how we were raised.

So special. And the good news is I started my company that way 35 years ago. So back when we did not have the money to write out a $5 check to make a donation, we knew that we had energy. We knew that we had time and some people are really good at writing out checks and some people are really good at just showing up and volunteering with their skills and whatever it is that they have. But we could go to the statistic side of this, that statistically, businesses who do give back, where they're just as interested as putting money and good works out into the community as they are with

putting money into their own pocket, of course, customers are more loyal to that. I can choose to do business with this pizza parlor or that pizza parlor. Why am I going to choose one over the other? It's not just on price. It's not just based on quality. It's the culture. And is it a culture that gives back? Meaning, do they take care of their people? And when you find out that employees are mistreated in an organization or that they're not supporting whatever's happening in the local community, meaning that all they care about is profit, you're not attracted to that type of a business. And so just if somebody does not have that kind heart

or that giving heart the way I was raised, just for business reasons only, you absolutely need to have a component of philanthropy and giving back. I love that. Plus, how does it change the way people feel about what they do? Give them a sense of ownership and pride. Well, we try to break it down and make it real simple that for people to feel connected, engaged, because when they're not engaged, they don't show up. But when people do feel engaged, to make it real simple, they need to feel that they are loved.

They need to feel that they are safe. They need to feel that they belong. They need to feel that they are safe. They need to feel that they belong. They need to feel that they have a purpose, that they're making a difference. You could have two janitors working for the same elementary school, same salary, same hours, same responsibility. One janitor looks at his job like, well, these brats make a mess and I have to clean it up. And the other janitor says, I create a clean educational experience for the next generation. Right. So one has a job with a paycheck and the other one has a mission.

Right. We want to create a mission, a purpose for people. It doesn't matter what they're doing. It doesn't matter what they're selling. People need to have a mission. They need to have a purpose. It starts with why. They're why.

Yeah. We leave a legacy. And also where you bring your attention determines how you feel. So just the examples of the janitors, where they bring their focus determines how they feel. Talk about some of the organizations that the Paul Mitchell Fundraiser supports. Okay. As you mentioned, today we've raised $21 million, and I'm proud to say that we have given away $21 million,

and that's always important because some people raise the money and then they have high overhead in how they – and that's just not us. So we've given away $21 million. We have zero overhead in how we raise the money. But we support Food for Africa. We've given them over a million dollars and provided 26 million meals in the last 10 years. So every single day we're feeding, clothing, and educating 10,000 orphans every single day. In Africa, we have partnered with Gary Sinise

and his foundation to build smart homes for triple and quadruple amputees, true war heroes. We are supporting Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, which supports 170 hospitals around the country. We've given them $1.4 million. That's awesome. We support, oh my gosh, No Limits, Kathy Buckley's organization that provides education and support for low-income families who have deaf and hard of hearing children. So it just goes on and on. Yeah, some of the stories. Can I tell you, it's very grassroots though, because raising $21 million, people think that we're getting

these thousand dollar donations and we're not. Our average donation is $10. Wow. Yeah, we're not getting the big donations. So you have a lot of people helping. A lot of people. Well, again, it's so every single day during that three month campaign, every one of my schools is doing some type of a fundraising event. So they're doing a bake sale that will raise $50 that day because they stayed home and made cookies the night before, or they're doing a car wash in the parking lot, or they're doing a cut-a-thon or they're doing a fashion show and charging tickets for it. But again, the average donation is $10. Can I just tell you, they're very creative. So our school in Orlando held a topless car wash. So they advertised this topless car wash. So everybody showed up. But what it meant was they didn't wash the top of your car.

If you wanted the top wash, you had to pay extra for that. And they raised $1,500 in a day. That's hilarious. That is so great. Now you can imagine how engaged those people were. Oh my gosh. My students, my team members are so engaged. You know, I'm going to work today and what am I doing? I'm doing a car wash today to raise money for something that I'm passionate about. But they sound funny and fun and like they totally took ownership of that. That's fun. Yeah, that's awesome. So in my book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last,

there's a section about purpose and pleasure. And we have pleasure centers deep in our brain. And it gets dinged when the phone buzzes if you're watching things you shouldn't be watching for things like cocaine and but are you going to stimulate your pleasure centers in a way that wears them out or in a way that makes it last. And that's feel better fast and make it last. And my sense is the stories of giving never get old for you. That they always give you that sense of joy. And at the fundraiser, there's just nonstop joy with the stories.

And what I loved was some of the people who were on the receiving end of that. And it was just so great to see some of these stories and how these people went on to themselves have very purposeful, meaningful lives that made a huge difference in the world. It was so cool. Well, and although our students and our team members raise a ton of money, for the most part, they're not going to meet the people that benefited from that. They're not going to meet these 10,000 orphans. They're not going to meet the people who had a smart home built for them. But it's important to tell those stories because I believe the best teachers, leaders, mentors are storytellers. And the more we can tell stories, that engages people to bring them in.

Yeah, but you had some pretty powerful testimonials there. It was really cool. Thank you. So what I'm learning is that your mom modeled giving and as a leader, you model giving and you actually have a seven-year-old daughter, and she has been part of philanthropy. Why is that important to you? Again, I want to raise a beautiful daughter that is focused on the right thing. And nowadays, little girls, young adults, grown adults can be focused on absolutely the wrong thing. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I have a daughter, too. I know focused on absolutely the wrong thing.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I have a daughter too. I know that. It scares me. Oh, it's just things like we, we have made a decision that she will not have an iPhone until she's 18 years old. And I know that that's going to be a struggle. And I have all of the facts in this, the write-ups of why this is a good thing and I'm committing with other parents. You're committed to that too too because if my daughter doesn't have one but your 10-year-old daughter does,

we're going to have a problem with that. Yeah, so there's so many other things, what gets blasted at people. I never watch negative reality shows. Yeah, me either. I hate them. I have to stay away from that. I divorce myself from that

because I know what I'm capable of in a negative way. Like Fox News and CNN. See, I can't go there because I'm very, very energy sensitive. Me too. I have to stay away from it. He saw me screaming at the TV one day and I'm like, all right, I have to stop watching the news because it just – Oh, you can't. You can't.

I get so angry. So that's why I want my daughter to focus on other things. And so I love it that she wakes up and says, Daddy, let's go pick up trash. Can we have breakfast first? That's amazing. Can we please have breakfast first? You know, but the whole- So you're modeling.

I mean, this is so important for you and your children. You are modeling health and you're modeling philanthropy or giving or you're modeling being self-centered. And when you focus on just yourself, that's when people get sad, they get mad, they get depressed. And teenage depression in girls has skyrocketed in the last 30 years. Did you know cancer has actually declined 27% since 1999? Suicide has gone up 33%. And so we're making all these great technological medical advances, but we're not doing it for psychiatry because one, we ignore the brain, which is why we do this podcast. But two is we're just focused on the wrong thing. So what you're doing with

Sophia is just so special. Yeah. I want to add one quick thing to that. So I have a teenage daughter and she's really, she's just so special and she's so cute, but she's at a tough age because in our society, just like you said, she's very involved in church and all that really helps. She gets involved. But the thing that made the biggest difference was she's at this point now where initially it starts because kids have to get involved in community service for, you know, they got to get their community service hours, but she decided, well, I at least want to do something that's going to be meaningful to me. So she got involved in Girls Inc. And which is a great organization that helps empower young girls who are at a disadvantage basically. And she fell so much in love with it. and it really helped her attitude so much

that actually she's now getting involved at a different level, not because of school. But it's such an important thing, to your point, to take your focus off of yourself, especially in this society. Well, you exposed her to that. So I want to expose my seven-year-old daughter to that, but I also want to expose, as a good leader, I want to expose my team members. I want to expose my customers to that because some of them did not come with

that element. Some of them were not trained by mom and dad that, hey, you have to give back and raise money for causes that are important to us. Well, some of them are trying to survive themselves. Let's face it. Oh, absolutely. Especially in the world of arts, which is what I'm in. So when we come back, we're going to talk about how to use your brain to build a better business and a better life. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe. So you'll always know when there's a new episode and while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast.

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